Warlord Wednesday: Growing Pains

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...

"Growing Pains"

Warlord #131 (September 1988) Bonus Book 6

Written by Steve Wilson; Pencils Rob Liefeld; Inks Jeff Albrecht

Synopsis: Jennifer sees an urchin on the streets of Shamballah steal a coin from the body of a dead man and decides to take him under her wing. She brings him back to the palace.

Masaq, palace soldier, believes she's wrong for trusting him. This makes Jennifer recall a stray kitten she took in as a girl. Her mother didn't want her to keep the cat, either. Jennifer tried to find the cat's owner, and she tries to find the boy's family, but only manages to tunr up and angry merchant that says the boy has been stealing from him. Jennifer defends the boy.

The cat tore up the furniture; the boy, Valdesar, steals a knife and disappears. Using her magic, Jennifer sees the past of the coin and sees that Valdesar had actually killed the man. Guessing what he might do next, she hurries to the merchant's dwelling.

The merchant's dead. Valdesar claims it was self-defense, but Jennifer doesn't believe him. The boy runs away just like the cat did. The cat run out in front of a car and the boy runs out in front of a team of horses. Both were killed.

Jennifer was sad as a girl and is sad now. Her father is gone, her mother is gone, and Tara is gone--and she's all alone.

Things to Notice:

• Valdesar looks an awful lot like Tinder, but nobody ever comments on that.
• This story makes the error of allowing DC's sliding timeline to seep into Warlord (which has previously been without it). Jennifer and a friend are shown watching a Mel Gibson film as preteen/early teen girls. According, to the established Warlord timeline, Jennifer was in her late teens/early twenties by the time Gibson was in feature films.

Where It Comes From:
DC's Bonus Books were a series of 16-page stories inserted in various comics that showcased new talent. A list of the various bonus books and their feature characters can be found here.