What'll It Be?

For a little brand name flash, here are some alcoholic beverages consumed by denizens of the City:

Spirits:

Albecoeurl: A moderately expensive brand of gin imported from Grand Lludd.  It's bottle is decorated with the image a panther.

Brown Jenkin: A whiskey brand from New Lludd.
Caballero: A tequilla imported from Zingaro.
Dyer Corbie: A brand of light overproof rum.
Gentleman Loser: A sour mash whiskey emblazoned with the image of a smiling "gentleman of the road." The brand is nearly a hundred years old, but was marketed in its native South as a "medicinal" for much of its history.
Storisende: A Poitêmien brandy. Expensive.

Beer:
Cold Iron: A light lager brewed in Yronburg.
Eschenbach: Another prominent beer from the Steel League.
Green Griffon Ale: Sometimes just called "Griffon."  It's symbol is (appropriately) a green griffon rampant.

Mushrooms, Pigs, and Cold Light

The thaumaturgic forces unleashed by the Great War have left much of Ealderde strange. For an example of just how weird this transformation can be, one need look no farther than Lumière,the former capital of Neustrie and the Gallian Alliance. Once Lumière’s lights were emblematic of a city that never slept, a place of art and culture. Today, Lumière is a bombed out ruin, and the amber luminescence that crawls or flows through its streets and buildings is something of another world.

The thing is alive; almost everyone agrees on that, but little they agree on little else. Is it matter? Some gelatinous substance similar to the strange denizens of the underground? Or is it pure energy, somehow thickened and held? If it’s the latter, it’s light with no heat.

In the day, it seems to hide in the skeletons of buildings, perhaps fearing the sun. At night it pours forth and spreads out over whole blocks. Rats and vermin flee it. Living things it touches develop strange tumors or growths. When it first rose, victims caught in its path were left rooted to the spot, transformed into masses of cancer.

The glowing touch of the thing seems to have created at least one mutant species. The wild swine that moved into the city to root and scavenge after the devastation of the war have been changed. They've grown large, and bloated and pale as grubs, with eyes that glow with a paler yellow that the thing. Though they can’t speak, they seem to have evolved an evil intelligence. They roam the streets in herds, seeming to take pleasure in spoiling what remains of the works of man, and looking (though they're hardly picky eaters) for their primary form of sustenance: fungal spores.

The Mushrooms, the swines' unrelenting foes, resent their progency being consumed by the swine with a displeasure that's more cold practicality than horror. These fungal sapients likely lived beneath the city even in previous times (certain legends hint at their presence) but when the humans fled they saw an opportunity. From their inhuman alchemical laboratories they create structures from fungal stock and weaponize molds to strike at the swine and keep humans away.

Looters and treasure seekers make forays into the ruin of Lumière, but it's a dangerous undertaking. Even if the poured-honey creeping of the luminescent thing can be avoided, there are the packs of hungry swine to be outwitted, and the silent and dispassionate Mushroom scientists to be dealt with.

Warlord Wednesday: Hail to the Chief

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...

"Hail to the Chief"

Warlord #84 (August 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Dick Giordano.

Synopsis: Having just been told he’s been made president of what’s left of the U.S. in a post-apocalyptic 2303, Travis Morgan responses with the appropriate level of incredulity. The representative of Congress explains that Secretary Dubrow had every other official in line for the office killed. With the president’s suicide, Morgan (as leader of the revolution) is basically the only person everybody trusts.

Morgan doesn’t want the job. He’s a leader of men in battle, not in politicals. Shakira suggests he’s the only one who can do this job, otherwise the fighting will continue. Morgan reluctantly agrees.  He's sworn in in front of cheering crowds.

As soon as that’s done, Morgan goes to his office and he’s set upon by people wanting him to make decisions of various sorts. He quickly gets feed up with it and starts brandishing his sword to clear the room.

In Skartaris, Jennifer Morgan, Ashir, Faaldren, and Tinder are still walking toward Shamballah. They’re attack by a pack of bear-dog things. Since Jennifer hasn’t rested enough to use much magic, they’re forced to hide in a cave. Tinder notices a pair of eyes in the darkness. Soon, a strange stench chases the bear-thing from the opening of the cave—and our heroes out of it! But Tinder isn’t among them.

In the future, Morgan is getting feed up with being President:

He figures his only way out of this is to go back and time and make sure the war never occurs! (Now he thinks of that!) Luckly, he’s got a temporal scientist with him. Reno tells him it's theoretically possible to shift this timeline to an even more remote probability.

Reno reveals that despite his previous statements, there are already completed timeships. They’re kept in an ancient cavern miles beneath Reno’s complex in a military base that has no doubt been in the same sort of time-stasis. Leaving V.P. Duncan in charge, Morgan and Reno fly back to Utah.

After talking with the base's commanders, Morgan and Reno go below. Reno summons the elevator with a key card that looks eerily familiar---like the card that operated the timeship. When they arrive in the cavern, Morgan isn’t surprised to see that it’s the weapons cache he entered from the cave tunnel to New Atlantis!

After hearing Reno’s and Morgan’s story, the commander calls his men together for President Morgan to address them. Morgan’s plan is simple:

Things to Notice:

• Ashir and Jennifer saved by a bad smell.  That's heroic.
• The first concern of Morgan's staff after he's elected president is getting him some more clothes.

Where It Comes From:

This issue finally gives the origin of the mysterious weapons cache and hints at the reason there was a card with Morgan's name on it.  The bear creatures that menace Jennifer Morgan and friends are explicitly said to be giant varieties of Ursavus elmensis, a dog-like bear ancestor native to Europe during the Miocene. The "giant" part is important here, as U. elmensis is thought to have only been the size of a small dog.

Presidents That Would Never Get a Day

I'm off today for (U.S.) Presidents' Day, and I thought it was a good time to recognize a few U.S. Presidents who will never have a day to commemorate them.  Not so much because they're forgettable or non-noteworthy, but mainly because they're fictional--and in some cases evil.

Nelson Rockefeller was a real guy, though on our Earth he never became president.  In the Alternate Earth of Marvel's Squadron Supreme, he becomes an evil president.  Power corrupted Rockefeller--the power of the Serpent Crown, an artifact from ancient Lemuria.

Also on the world of the Squadron Supreme, a former superhero named Kyle Richmond also became president.  Richmond's crimefighting identity was Nighthawk; he was essentially the Batman of his world (I think I'd vote for Batman for president).  Anyway, he eventually got controlled by an alien called Overmind, so his administration couldn't be called a complete success.

In the regular Marvel Universe in the 70s, Captain America uncovered a veritable cancer on the presidency: a president who was also secretly the leader of a criminal organization planning a takeover of the U.S. government.  This president's identity is never revealed in the issue, but his suicide after a confrontation with Captain America leads to his replacement with a double so the public wouldn't know.  Suspiciously, this was all around the time of the Watergate scandal.

The president in the somewhat dystopian future (or was it present?) of Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns looks a lot like Ronald Reagan.  This President wraps himself (literally) in the flag and is unfailingly optimistic while invading Central American nations and ultimately leading the country into nuclear war.

So next time you're tempted to complain about the job a president is doing.  Just think of how bad it could have been.  They can't all be Kyle Richmond or Travis Morgan. Or Prez.

Stories from the South Seas

The South Seas is a vaguely defined area of the Tranquil Ocean extending from Pyronesia east and north to unnumbered islands extending south from Southeast Eura and south to the mysterious south polar continent of Australis. The area is a crossroads of trade and a meeting place of exotic cultures that has captured the popular culture imagination of people in the City.

Many of of the islands in the South Seas are inhabited by people called loosely grouped as Oceanians who are believed to be the descendants of ancient Mu. Though this continent long ago disappeared beneath the waves, mysterious ruins attributed to it are sometimes found on isolated isles.

Most Oceanians are friendly--but not all. There are still rumors of strange rites and even cannibalism. Exaggerated sailors’ tales, perhaps.

There are dangers other than humans in the South Seas. Utilizing primitive smoke-belching steamships, the Demon Islanders have claimed a territory in the wake of the Great War. Here it’s hoped they can be contained, but they remain a menace to the region. Also, the Crab-men, ancestral enemies of the Oceanians, still attack settlements and even unwary ships.

The Worlds of Leigh Brackett

Burroughs’s was there first, and C.L. Moore was there first with an anti-hero, but Leigh Brackett made Mars her own. I don’t know why it took me so long, but for my birthday, I treated myself to the second and third Haffner volumes collecting Brackett’s planetary fiction: Lorelei of the Mists: Planetary Romances and Shannach-The Last: Farewell to Mars (the first volume is titled Martian Quest: The Early Brackett in case you were wondering).

Brackett’s most famous creation is probably Eric John Stark--raised Tarzan-like among primitive nonhumans on Mercury.  As a man caught between two worlds, Stark gets caught up in various struggles on the Earth colony worlds of Mars and Venus. Often, like in Moore’s Northwest Smith stories, this involves ancient secrets. Unlike Smith (who just seems lucky to survive the weird horror he encounters), Stark is a more of man of heroic action.

The stories in these volumes take place in the same solar system, but feature protagonists generally less “larger than life” than Stark, though usual just as hard-boiled. Most have the tension of colonizers versus native cultures that underlie the Stark stories. Often the conflict changes both sides.

There's a lot of good game inspiration in Brackett's world-building. There are the colorfu.l gaseous seas of Venus that boats can sail, but in which humans can also breath.  The drug scourge of colonial Mars is shanga--radiation from certain jewels can cause a temporary atavistic transformation. A deep valley on Mercury holds the slowly pertrifiying last survivor of a psychic species.

That's just the beginning.  If you've never read Brackett or you only know her Stark novels and stories, you should check these out.

Art from original pulp magazine

Warlord Wednesday: All the President's Men...!

It's my birthday today--but it's still Wednesday and time for another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"All the President's Men...!"

Warlord #83 (July 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Dan Adkins.

Synopsis: Separated by hundreds of years, Travis Morgan and his wife Tara each lead men into battle. In 2303, Morgan and a group of escaped slaves prepare to seize an aircraft hangar. In the present of Skartaris, Shakira and her band prepare to retake their ship from the New Atlanteans.

Husband and wife both achieve victory with some clever tactics. Morgan breaks into the aircraft and turns its guns on the troops guarding it. Tara utilizes some grenades (“strange eggs”) she took from the ancient weapons cache to sink the New Atlantean vessel.

Morgan plans to find Reno and Shakira and free the slaves from the other compounds. Looking over the complex’s floorplan, Duncan discovers that the whole place is dependent on the solar power center. A small band could seize it and control the whole place.

In occupied Shamballah, the people suffer under the cruel boot of the New Atlanteans. In the wilderness outside of town, forces gather that plan on changing that. Ashir, King of Kaambuka and second best thief in Skataris, meets Jennifer Morgan and Tinder.

In 2303, Morgan and his men continue to fight toward the power center. Morgan almost gets shot in the back of the head but a black cat saves him. It’s, of course, Shakira. She been prowling around and found a secret passage. Morgan asks how she asked the imprisonment:

At the end of the passage, the rebels are surprised to find a futuristic oval office replica--and the President of the United States behind the desk. The President is confused and doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. Secretary Dubrow does, though—and he’s got a gun. In villainous fashion he lays things out for our heroes: The president had a mental breakdown over his guilt at triggering the war that killed millions. Dubrow has been running things ever since.

Morgan is mad as hell. He gives the President a “buck up” talk that seems to snap him back to reality a bit. Realizing what he’s done, the President makes an executive decision and whacks Dubrow with a big presidential seal. Morgan follows up with a punch to Dubrow’s jaw. He snatches the flag from Dubrow’s floundering grasp, and stands the pole upright.

The President gives a speech ending martial law and restoring the slaves to citizenship. Then he tells Morgan he wants some time alone in his office. Morgan hasn't gone far when he hears the gun blast. The President has committed suicide.

Later, Morgan is trying to repair his broken shoulder armor. Duncan and Shakira come to summon him to the Congressional Hall…

President Travis Morgan?!

Things to Notice:

• The President here looks a little bit like Bill Clinton to me--which is obviously coincendental since he wasn't elected until 1993.
• I guess in the post-Revolution U.S. of the future their a little loose with the Constitutional requirements for office--unless somewhere off-panel they checked Morgan's age and citizenship.

Where It Comes From:

The issue's title is a reference to the 1976 film All the President's Men based on the 1974 book of the same name about Woodward and Bernstein's investigation of the Watergate scandal.