Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Deep World

I finally broke down and ordered the Don Lawrence Storm hardcovers I had been eyeing for some times, so it seems like a good time to start a  retrospective of the long-running science fantasy series:

Storm: The Deep World (1978)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Saul Dunn

From a satellite in orbit around the planet Jupiter, a manned-mission to closely observe the Great Red Spot is about to be launched. The UN emissaries bid the astronaut Storm (that's the only name we're given) good luck before he enters his ship: the aptly named "Storm Probe."

Storm's ship gets a bit to close to the Spot and is drawn in by its hurricane winds. Storm blacks out from the G forces. Mission control is unable to save him. In fact, his ship seems to disappear into the Spot. Storm is lost.

When Storm wakes up, his ship is still in Jupiter's atmosphere, but there is no Great Spot--and no satellite! Believing they gave him up for dead, he sets a course for earth and puts himself in suspended animation. The trip takes a year, and when he arrive the Earth has changed.

When, Storm comes out of suspended animation, he finds the Florida he thought he landed in to be frozen and airless. He dons his spacesuit and goes outside to investigate. He finds a house mostly covered by snow and at where he believes the coast should be, a cliff edge:

Storm climbs down into the valley. He finds the air is better there, but he gets an unfriendly welcome from sword-wielding warriors. He manages to kill one of them, but ultimately the other knock him out and steal his spacesuit.

The warriors take the loot to their king, Ghast. Ghast realizes the clothes are dwarfed in value by the strange man who wore them. The man who could tell him what these things mean and how they work. He orders him minions to go back out and get him! They do so, taking an iguana--one of the city's giant guardians:

They find Storm, now dressed and outfitted with the stuff from the man he killed, and capture him, thanks to the iguana beast's tongue. They take Storm into their ancient-seeming city to a prison where he see's a face looking out from him from a cell in passing:

TO BE CONTINUED