Warlord Wednesday: Terminator

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Terminator"

Warlord (vol. 1) #21 (May 1979)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Despite their best efforts, Tara, Machiste and Mariah have been unable to find their way into Deimos’s fortress. They realize their hopes for the rescue of Tara’s son Joshua depend solely on his father, Travis Morgan. And the three have more to worry about as they're set upon by demons.

Meanwhile, inside the fortress, Morgan looks on in disbelief at Deimos’s champion--apparently his own son grown at accelerated rate to adulthood by Atlantean science. In actuality, Deimos has spirited the real Joshua away and replaced him with a clone. Despite the clone's adult form, his mind is still like that of an infant, not a warrior. Deimos uses his power to fill that mind, and change him into an instrument of vengeance.

Outside, our other three heroes (and Tara’s dog Shadow) battle the demons. They spot a cave entrance and run inside. With the demons close behind, Machiste causes a cave in to close the entrance. They might have been lost in darkness, but for the illumination of the hellfire gem Tara carries. Mariah asks why she Tara didn’t use the gem before, to help Morgan. Tara tells her the gem seems to be getting weaker with each use, and she and Morgan had agreed to hold its strange power in reserve for one purpose--to save their son.  Using the light, they search for a way into the castle.

Meanwhile, Morgan refuses to fight his son, but the clone-Joshua has no such qualms and attacks at Deimos’s command. Blow after blow lands rains down, and Morgan’s shield is whittled away and his helm knocked from his head. Finally, self-preservation leads Morgan to fight back, if half-heartedly.

A half-hearted defense proves not to be enough. Morgan takes a blow to his shoulder and drops his own blade. He falls to floor, clutching at his bleeding wound. Deimos laughs with the pleasure of vengeance close at hand. He gleefully orders clone-Joshua to kill Morgan.

Morgan says, “For God’s sake, Josh...I’m your father.” Deimos’s influence over the clone is too strong. He raises his blade to strike...

And Morgan shoots him.

Morgan cradles the body of his dying “son.” Deimos laughs with triumph. He taunts Morgan that he has destroyed him, as surely as if his champion had killed him. Seething with hate, Morgan snatches up his sword and stalks toward Deimos. Fearful, Deimos warns Morgan away as he begins to work some magic.

Machiste, Tara, Mariah, and Shadow burst into the room to find Morgan combating a winged, serpentine dragon, the transformed Deimos. Tara sees the fallen Joshua-clone, and recognizes her son. In her grief, Mariah has to remind her to use the hellfire gem to save Morgan. When the two halves are put together, a green light shoots out an strikes Deimos, transforming him back into a human form. Deimos begins to utter some new threat against Morgan, when Shadow lunges at him--the loyal hunting dog taking down his mistress’s quarry. The two tumble from a balcony to their apparent deaths.

Morgan tells Tara that he was forced to kill their son. He wants to use Deimos’s mask of life to restore him. Tara has heard of the curse of the mask--of how those resurrected by it continue to decay. She shows him the goblet from which Deimos has been drinking blood, to sustain his unnatural existence. She asks if Morgan would condemn their son to that. Morgan is unsure, but Tara isn’t, and she destroys the mask with her sword.

Morgan rails against his fate, complaining that he only wanted a little freedom, a little adventure--he never wanted to be a savior for this world. Mariah reminds him that that’s what he made himself, whether he intended to or not.

Morgan says he needs to go somewhere to get away, to think. He asks if any of the others want to go. Numbed, and saddened, the others refuse, so Morgan rides out alone, haunted by Deimos’s mocking laughter.

A thousand leagues to the south, Ashiya delivers the real baby Joshua into the hands of a farm family and makes them promise to keep the child’s existence a secret. A child, with a wrist-watch worn around his upper arm.

Things to Notice:

• Faithful Shadow makes her last appearance.

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue ("Terminator") references the land of shadow Deimos's Fortress occupies, but more thematically again reaches back to the Latin root terminus to evoke endings.  This is the end of Morgan and Tara's quest, and the end of the "third book" or story arc of the series, but also the end of Morgan as leader of men and inspiration (at least for a while).

Joshua becomes the archetypical "hidden monarch" found in so much fantasy fiction.  The revelation of his identity, and his reconciliation with his family, is the ulimtate ending that would seem to be need in the Warlord's tale--and ending that doesn't come in this series, at least.

Bootleg Alchemicals

Though alcohol is legal across the New World continent, smuggling still exists to avoid taxation. The largest illicit smuggling of intoxicants, however, involves alchemical substances of various sorts made illegal, over decade ago, in most of the member states of the Union (including the City, the Steel League, and Lake City) thanks to the efforts of church-driven abstinence movements.

This has done little to stem the tide of these substances, which are available in speakeasies or drug dens throughout most major cities. “Bathtub alchemicals” are made in small laboratories within cities or rural areas. Larger scale operations (on some level, likely under the thumb of the Infernal gangsters of the Hell Syndicate) smuggle in alchemicals from foreign countries. Some may even come from other planes of existence, though the origins of such extra-terrene substances are murky.

Alchemical intoxicants come in many varieties, having effects similar to “mundane” drugs (like alcohol, cocaine, opiates, or cannabis) or mixtures thereof--there is an alchemical similar to cocaethylene, for instance. There are also “exotics” which produce magical effects similar to many potions in traditional fantasy worlds. Cheaply made alchemicals may be dangerous, in ways beyond the intended effects, and cheaply made exotics often strangely so.

Here are a couple of alchemicals not uncommon in the City and its world:

Absinthe: In the world we know, absinthe is just a liqueur flavored with essence of wormwood (usually with a high alcohol content), but in the world of the City, it literally harbors a green faerie. Technically, its an alchemical tincture of the larval stage of a spirit creature. These larvae appear to the imbiber as small, pale green, luminescent, and winged pixie-things, but are invisible to others not magically aided. It’s use enhances creativity, and may lead to clairvoyance or clairaudience in a chance which increases with dose (10-40% on first try, with chance increasing by 5% for every week of 4 or more days use. Similar intervals without use lower the chance). With long term use, it allows the user to perceive astral beings, but also causes hallucinations, so telling the two apart is nontrivial. This gives way to paranoia, and possible convulsions if use is heavy and prolonged.

Purpureal ether: Also called mauve enmanation, this alien substance is difficult to describe in earthly terms: it's purplish and has a slight glow, and can be “poured” or contained--something fog from dry ice, though it doesn’t dissipate like any fog, and is, in fact, a radiation from somewhere in the outer dark. It can be collected on moonless nights with little cloud cover on alchemically prepared cloth screens.  These are pressed or squeezed to yield the substance, which is then bottled in opaque receptacles--sunlight will degrade it within others. After 24 hours, it becomes more violatile, and is used by inhalation from bottles, or from cloths on which some of the substance has been pored.  It’s use deadens pain, increases strength (+1 with commiserate damage bonus) and heightens the mind (making the user immune to illusions and the like) for 1d4 hours. It also, however, reduces coordination (reducing anything reliant on dexterity by -1). Longterm use (daily use for a period of 1-4 months), causes degeneration first of the nerves (further dexterity loss, though this time permament), then of the flesh (charisma, and finally constitution loss).

Do We Want to be that Popular?

Back from Comic-Con finally, and I have to say I’m glad its over. Three days is more than enough. One more Comic-Con related note before returning to my regular programming, but this one bears more relevance to role-playing gaming.

At a panel I attended, I heard Michael Uslan hail the victory of comics. He’d attended the first comic convention ever (120 people), when it was an outsider hobby and fans didn’t know each even existed. He pointed out just how far we fans have come to day when comics properties are big business, and an the entertainment industry is paying attention. “We’ve won,” he said.

Whitney Matheson’s observations carried a counterargument, though. She pointed out how the comics and artists related booths at SDCC got squeezed into less and less acreage, and got pushed progressively into the hinterlands, while movie studio and video game pavilions grew and grew, and too the prime real estate.

I think this is an important observation and lover’s of any niche hobby like table-top rpgs might do well to remember: fringe hobbies/art forms “accepted” into the larger culture don’t triumph, they're subsumed. Wider interest means moneyed interests get into the driver’s seat.

Greater acceptance would mean the spirit of DIY that runs through most of the rpg-world would be driven out or marginalized. Some might say this already occurs, but its nothing like what would happen if the kaiju Global Media Conglomerate turned its radioactive gaze on helpless RPG City. Granted rpgs are perhaps not as “exploitable” as comics, in terms of IP, but I’m still pretty sure there’s a lot of bad that could come from it.

In that same panel Brad Meltzer pointed out the golden, ornate, Throne of Odin display (advertising, the upcoming movie) as the perfect metaphor for Comic-Con: “it’s big--takes up a lot of space, gaudy...and empty.”

Well, except for the occasional big photo-op:

Maybe in rpg-land our king’s not terribly photogenic, and his throne-room’s kinda shabby--but he rules at our sufferance, not that of some occupying army.