Random Happenstance

Back in 2014, I wrote that I seem to be blogging "an issue or two of Warlord a year, so I could be done by 2089 at this rate." I have no intention of blogging every single issue, but I have done more than a few; and in 2017 I wrote up several and scheduled them years out! Which seems optimistic as all get out today, but maybe we'll see if my writing style has changed any since then...that also seems optimistic. Anyway, from 1981, Warlord #50, "...By Fire and Ice" Story and art by Mike Grell, inks by Bob Smith.

For the entire run of the series to date, Deimos had been the recurring big-bad; the Skeletor to Travis's He-Man, if He-Man tended to violently eviscerate Skeletor at the end of every episode. I've referred a few times to Deimos's recurring returns from the dead, and the letters column this issue has a helpful recap of the last 50 issues. Deimos was killed in Warlord #4, brought back by the witch Ashiya and the Mask of Life in #10, and he kidnapped Travis and Tara's newborn son Joshua in #15. In a bit of a shell-game, in #20 Deimos clones Joshua, then ages the clone to adulthood, and forces Travis to fight his "son" to the death; then Deimos falls to his death in #21. Except Deimos was undead and seemingly unkillable at that point, and would be seen in #26 recruiting new henchman Chakal. Travis wouldn't run into Deimos again until #36, where he hacks the undead wizard into pieces, and is a little dismayed at how much he enjoyed that. That still doesn't kill Deimos, who has been working behind the scenes the last few issues, partially because he's currently a head on a hand! (Shades of Re-Animator here, but predating that!) To raise the stakes, Travis's daughter Jennifer never made it back to the surface world after #38, but in #44 she was rescued by Faaldren, who had been carrying his master Deimos around in a box. Jennifer appears to lose her mind in #49 when she wakes up to Deimos creeping in her bed, but still makes for a good hostage.

As Travis and Shakira run across Tara and Aton on their way to Castle Deimos (and Tara greets her hubby with the traditional sock to the jaw...) we check in on ye olden days of "the age of the wizard kings," where supporting cast members Machiste and Mariah have been for some time with the wizard Mongo Ironhand. The Evil One is on the verge of rising, and they're hoping to shut him down before he gets full run of his powers. Meanwhile, several thousand years later in the present, Deimos summons the witch Ashiya, to help him summon the Evil One for a pact. Ashiya is a little put out that Deimos has claimed Jennifer as his new "consort," but he knows Ashiya's beauty is an illusion. Deimos suspects Ashiya knows something about what he thinks was Joshua's clone, but she won't say: Deimos had also tried to clone himself a new body, but as an undead thing there were no living cells for him to make a clone of!

Reaching through time, Deimos asks the Evil One--who was the villain in the first Warlord comic I ever read, #66!--for a boon, to be returned to life. The Evil One obliges, but is then attacked by Machiste, Mariah, and Mongo; since he wasn't at full steam yet (and also as a cruel joke) the Evil One opts to steal Deimos's powers, then splits. With Travis almost at his doorstep, Deimos panics and offers to make Ashiya his queen, but she laughs in his face, and rubs it in by telling him the real Joshua survived. Deimos isn't licked yet, since he still had Atlantean technology, like the laser-bazooka he ambushes Travis's party with, killing Aton! Moreover, when Travis has a shot, he finds his daughter being used as a human shield! Travis is forced to surrender, and step out into the open.

What Deimos couldn't have predicted, was that Faaldren would turn on him, to save his friend Jennifer. Actually, yeah, he probably could've seen that coming, I'm sure he was a terrible boss. With Jennifer clear, Travis shoots Deimos's bazooka, which explodes. After falling a good couple of stories, Deimos scrambles to a horse and flees. Travis takes a moment to mourn Aton, who he felt could have been better than him; then asks Shakira to stay with the wounded Tara and take care of Jennifer, while he goes after Deimos. The chase takes them far from the eternal sunlight of most of Skartaris, deeper into the more-arctic terminator region of perpetual twilight. Morgan rides his horse to death--he did not appear to always be great to his horses--then trudges on through the snow, finally finding Deimos near an old shipwreck, surrounded by wolves!

The last few pages of the issue are nearly wordless, as Travis saves Deimos from the wolves, then starts a fire and bundles up his foe. He waits until Deimos wakes up, and points his .44 Automag at him, but doesn't shoot him. Instead, he kicks snow on the fire, and leaves Deimos to the wolves without a backwards glance...! Would this be the end of Deimos? Just about! Later writers on the book seemed to content to leave him dead, although there would be a fake-out in Warlord Annual #3, when on the tail end of a time-travel storyline, Travis encounters Daamon, an ancestor of Deimos's that looked so much like him Travis nearly kills him at first sight! Mike Grell would bring Deimos back for the 1992 mini-series and again for the 2010 revival. Offhand, I can't recall if he was killed off again in that one, but both Travis and Deimos would return again in 2015's Convergence, for whatever that's worth. Maybe they'll have appeared again since I've written this...and they have, more than once I think!