From the pages of Starlord back in 1978 came another great sci-fi/time travel saga-Planet of the Damned!The story was based on events surrounding the disappearances of airplanes over the Bermuda Triangle.In this telling,people didn't disappear-they were sucked through a vortex and stranded on an alien planet.Two of the passengers are Lew Kerr,business tycoon and Stan Hackmann,well known science fiction writer.The two would become adversaries not long after.
After the plane has crashed on the alien world,the group begin exploring their weird surroundings.One of the first inhabitants they meet are the "Ab-Humans"-diabolical creatures who just happen to spit acid!
The group finally meet Bo'sun Flint,who has been here some time and become like a savage to survive.He agrees to be their leader and lead them to "Sanctuary"but warns them it may be too kind!Once there people get lazy and don't want to return home.Along the way,many of the band are killed,a lot of them women!Three "memorable" scenes include a woman eating some delicious fruit only to drown to death in it's juices;another whose face gets eaten off and finally a poor unfortunate who slides down a subterranean steam into a lake of acid!There's a lot of acid here,the Ab-Humans spit it,the lakes are full of it and it even rains acid!
Flint eventually leads them to Sanctuary after many amazing adventures including Hell's Angels fighting Germans in a mountain top stranded U-Boat!Once there the group are treated to pure luxury and soon forget about Earth.
However,Stan Hackmann learns of a Professor's plans to build a time-machine that can turn the Vortex back on itself and return everybody home.In a final showdown between the Abs and the Humans,the time machine feeds on the energy of the Abs(now lead by the previously thought dead Lew Kerr!)and opens a vortex and everybody is returned back to Earth.This brilliant series only lasted for 10 Issues.The last episode looked hurried and contrived as if it were being cleared for something else.Definitely a series that should have lasted far longer than it did and one of the best from the Starlord stable.
4 comments:
ah.. Planet of the Damned... I haven't read this for oh.. 20 ...25 years. I always liked it.
I don't really know why, there were better scripted strips in Star Lord, the art was inconsistent (though the chapters by Azpiri were great)
It just appealed for some odd reason. May be it was the juxtaposition of pretty high tech stuff with "barbarian" type swords and low tech.
Well Cap, that's Timequake plus Planet on the reading list (once I dig the issues out of various boxes)... this is playing havoc with my painting time never mind work !!! :)
Best,Graham.
Absolutely loved Planet of the Damned - don't know why it's not held in as much esteem as the others. In fact (aside from the 9/11 Ro-Busters spread), I'd probably rate this as the best story in the title.
StarLord is a real favourite of mine and the reason for the Star in my own comic (shall I plug it? shall I? ok starscapecomic.co.uk).
Yeah,Planet of the Damned was definitely a quite classic!It's a pity it ended so soon.Some really brilliant writing and artwork.May revisit it here on the blog in the near future,The blog works really well in that you can just share some thoughts without having to go into too much detail.Starlord itself was a brilliant comic and one of a kind.
Yeah, that was a nice strip. Art was very similar to the Sun's Axa wasn't it? Pages from this come up on the 'Bay from time to time via Silveracre but way out of my range.
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