Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Warlord Wednesday: The Castle

Here's another installment of my examination of  the adventures DC Comics' Travis Morgan--The Warlord.  The earlier installments can be found here...

"Saga Part 5: The Castle"
Warlord (vol. 4) #5 (October 2009) Written by Mike Grell; Penciled by Chad Hardin; Inked by Wayne Faucher

Synopsis: Machiste climbs to a craggy peak and slaps a hungry pteranodon in the jaw with his mace hand so he can raise Jennifer's signal jewel high.

Jennifer's twin jewel begins to glow. She and Tara urge their horses to a gallop, and the army of Shamballah they lead does the same. Jennifer has had a troubling premonition: an image of ravens.

Morgan and McBane go though the portal to Tibet. Morgan is less impressed by the cold than seeing stars again after so long. The two make their way to a Chinese base. They break in an raid the places for all the weapons they can find.


They don't make it back through the portal before the Chinese army catches up. Morgan's convinced that McBane's just a voyeuristic journalist, not a man of action, but McBane saves his life, then sets an explosive trap for the Chinese. The two head back to Skartaris with the weapons.

Meanwhile, Ned "Golden God" Hawkins is showing off his new toys (what appear to be various war robots) he has found. Mariah warns him:


Hawkins isn't having any of it. Kate basically tells Mariah to stay away from her man. She doesn't need to worry.

While they're talking, Shakira has been eavesdropping while snacking on a mouse.


She heads out to warn the others and interrupts a moment between Tinder and Alysha. They're in the village where Tinder had been trying to rouse the townsfolk to action with his oratory, but it's unclear anyone's interest was stirred but Alysha's. Shakira draws their attention toward the fortress, from which an Atlantean war airship is rising!

Hawkins uses the ship to fire a blast of energy. It hits a mountain near the Shamballan army, sending an avalanche down upon them--seemingly burying them all include Tara, Jennifer, and Machiste!


Things to Notice:
  • McBane never answers Morgan's question about what side he was on in the sectarian violence in Belfast.
  • Morgan again points out he's been in Skartaris since 1969.
Where it comes from: 
Morgan worries about his enjoyment of combat, and quotes the lines he "read off a barracks wall in Saigon." Both his ambivalence about his love of combat and the lines he quotes first showed up in issue #3 of the original run. See my commentary there. 

4 comments:

Timothy S. Brannan said...

huh,

You know I thought I had missed out on this era of Warlord but this plot sounds very familiar to me. Maybe drawn from a similar source.

Trey said...

Well, it is made of a lot of stock plot elements for this sort of fiction, so that may be what's tickling your memory.

The Angry Lurker said...

Mention of the troubles as well?

Trey said...

Yes, just a couple of lines of dialogue.