Thursday, December 28, 2023

"The End" Week: Scavengers #14!

No Shako in this issue, but I don't like to let the year wind down without flipping through one of the Quality last issues: from 1989, Scavengers #14.
Two serials from the pages of 2000 AD end here: "Ant Wars," written by Gerry Finley Day, art by Jose Luis Ferrer; and "the Helltrekkers," written by Alan Grant and John Wagner, art by Horacio Lalia and Jose Ortiz. The latter was a Judge Dredd tie-in, as homesteaders and survivalists leave the (relative) safety of Mega-City One to find a new home in the Cursed Earth. The convoy has a pretty low survival rate; worse, since Dredd has run so long, it wouldn't surprise me if the characters were revisited years after their (relative) happy ending here. It's only a happy ending, if you know where to stop reading...
"Ant Wars" featured, as you might guess, giant ants, mutated by an experimental pesticide. An army captain and a native boy go out fighting but win in the end...although, the pesticide was going back into service, so it was probably open to a sequel. Also this issue: short horror number "Spiders Can't Scream" from, um, Scream #2, which I hadn't heard of before. (Written by John Agee, art by Ron Smith.)
Posted by googum at 3:00 PM
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2 comments:

Mr. Morbid said...

Why Marvel never thought to put out an Ant Wars event of their own I’ll never know.

Definitely like the Helltrekkers name tho.

4:59 PM
H said...

Ah, Scavengers 14, aka Scavengers 26 (for some reason)- a great showcase for an early 2000 AD formula. Surprisingly, it was Ant Wars that got revisited (and in the pages of Judge Dredd at that!). There have been several Helltreks in Dredd since this one, but I don’t think we’ve heard from this group since. They actually put out an anniversary reprint of Helltrekkers a few months ago, coincidentally.

I don’t know much about Scream either. It was apparently very popular, but got canceled quickly (officially) because of a printers’ strike- someone in editorial had it out for the title as well.

2:33 PM

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