Random Happenstance

"Morgan's Quest" continues, sidequest by sidequest, in today's book: from 1986, Warlord #111, "Terror of the Inland Sea" Written by Michael Fleisher, art by Ron Randall.

An off-note from the start: Morgan calls Shakira "youngster" in conversation, which is weird and off-putting: white hair notwithstanding, Morgan wasn't necessarily old, and Shakira was mysterious as hell and may very well have been far older than him. It's also just a weird thing to call someone, right? Still, Morgan and Shakira are on the verge of making some headway this issue: they got flying jet-belts the previous month, and were gaining back some ground. The belts immediately go out, and they're dumped into the water, presumably the inland sea mentioned, where Shakira is immediately grabbed by fish-dudes. Morgan is unable to save her or fight his way to the surface, and blacks out. He wakes up in the underwater city of Arscana, which had been founded by escaped Atlantean slaves, was protected by a force-field that might've shorted out their jet-belts, and is a completely different underwater city than the one Shakira was taken to, Balskrak. Morgan has to fight his way out, since the Arscanans thought he might have Atlantean ties and rat them out; which could be a subtle continuity nod: his helmet was old-school Atlantean.

Meanwhile, Shakira is going to be sacrificed to the Balskraks' monster, Kraarg; but escapes...to the harem, where she is scheduled to be turned into a water-breather. Travis steals an underwater sled, but is immediately captured when he gets there, and he's going to be the sacrifice. Still, as a man he had least had the opportunity to defend himself against the giant crabby thing, which he does, killing it in two-and-a-half pages. Shakira helps him escape, and although they have to share their single mini-aqualung thing, they get out of there fairly easily. I know they would be sidetracked again soon enough, since the quest ran until #116, but #112 had a Mike Grell cover that didn't hint at what specifically was next.

There is some movement on another front, though: Machiste and Mariah finally finish their quest, as Machiste kills the hell out of the attempted usurper to his throne. (Brutal gutpunch from his mace hand, then Machiste throws the guy out a pretty high window.) In the panel above, he mentions being "sick and tired of hearing about how much you miss Morgan, Mariah!" and I can't tell if that was a hint that their relationship was going south, or a nod to the somewhat repetitive situations they found themselves stuck in. Mariah was from the surface world as well, though; she probably should've had a sidearm like Morgan...Anyway, I'm writing this on a very hot day in 2018, so I hope we're all around when this posts!