Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Last Fighter (part 3)

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Last Fighter (1979) (part 3)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Martin Lodewijk

Now in the control room of the Palace of Death (really an alien spacecraft) Storm sits down to see if he can figure out the controls--over the objections of the superstitious Guardian who decrees his actions as blasphemy. Soon, he discovers how to restore power. With safety and all the synthesized food they can eat, the other champions feel like they're in heaven. Storm has conquered the Guardian's god.

He finds them a way out, too. A shuttlecraft:

They survivors fly back to Soamandrakisal. The city folk come to greet them and celebrate Storm's victory for Soamandrakisal, but he brushes them aside. His only concern is freeing Ember.

The vengeful Guardian has other ideas:

Storm hears Ember's cries within the god-thing's maw and realizes she's still alive. While Asverze goes after the treacherous Guardian, Storm impetuously dives in after Ember. He slides down the god's esophagus until:

At first, they think they can wait for those above to throw down a rope, but they've irritated the monster's stomach lining, and its acid production increases. They've got to get out; if they can't go up, they'll have to go downward. Things get sort of weird:

When finally they come to rest, they're in a cave with me trace of He-Who-Must-Be-Fed. They exit the cave and find themselves in the valley surrounding the Palace of Death. Ember wonders what happened, Storm has a kind of farfetched sounding theory:

Before they can hash that out further, the shuttlecraft comes flying over head. The Guardian is at the controls, but Asverze has got him by the throat, trying to kill him for betraying Storm. They crash right into the Palace of Death and it all goes up in a huge explosion. The surrounding mountains are shaken. Storm and Ember get out of the valley just in time before a rockslide closes off the entrance.

Ember sees a heard of dagger-horned deer creatures ahead, and our heroes are pretty much back where they started.