Broken Frontier

Nowadays, it’s easy to forget that just a few short years ago, online shops and auction houses weren’t around to bail you out when you missed an issue of your favorite comic.  It happened to me more than once during my collecting heyday.  If the comic didn’t sell out before I got to the shop, the store owner (gasp!) didn’t even bother to order the very book I was searching for.  Such was the case in 1986, when I stumbled onto a book I absolutely loved, only to see the rest of the series vanish like a ship lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Aricel Publishing released several nifty comics during the black and white book wave of the 80s.  My personal favorite was Dragonring, a throwback to the pulp adventures of yesteryear.  But another of Aricel’s titles caught my eye—Warlock 5.  At first, I thought it might have been some sort of superhero team book featuring a group of five warlocks bound together to fight the forces of darkness.  I was pleasantly surprised, though, to find that the “heroes” in this book really only wanted to kill each other.  The comic tells the story of five guardians of five mystic portals.  If they were to work together, they could probably bring about great peace and prosperity.  If one guardian controlled all five gates, he or she would become something of a god.  Care to take a guess which way the plot unfurls?

The first issue was a compressed gem—short on dialogue, heavy on action, and just enough hints at what the future would hold to keep me interested enough to look for the next issue.

But I never found the next issue … or the next … or the next …

For months, the comic seemed to vanish, and none of the other collectors or dealers I spoke with seemed to know what I was talking about.  If not for the single issue I had in my possession, I might have thought I dreamed the whole thing up.  I was left wondering what happened after the cliffhanger last page of the first issue.

Maybe the mystery surrounding the following issues of Warlock 5 only helped to sweeten the memory of the book.  It’s always been one of my favorite single issues.  And it’s not like it was one of the most original books I’d ever read.

If the battle in the parking garage wasn’t tip-off enough … If the statement “no Guardian has ever died of natural causes” didn’t spell it out for us … the inspiration of a certain film about immortals is painfully clear with the following bit of dialogue:

“You know that war is inevitable, Savashtar.  In the end, only one of us can rule the Grid.”

Cough … Cough …

Okay, so maybe the influence of just about every 80s science fiction movie you could imagine was obvious, and the character names (Morbyd, Doomidor, Argon) were a little too close to those tossed around during a game of Dungeons & Dragons, but so what?  It was the portrait of a fun read.  Witches, dragons, cyborgs, and knights.  As wild as it sounded, the formula worked for me.  I mean, check out this cast of characters:

Tanith, a beautiful sorceress who hoped for peace between the warlocks, but knew she would never have it.

Doomidor, a warlord from medieval times.

Zania, a punk-rock necromancer.

Savashtar, who was evolved from the dragons of legend.

Argon, a Terminator-like robot who looked a bit like Max Headroom when in human guise. 

I figured I’d found the ultimate comic, especially when the knightly armies of Lord Doomidor battled the robotic forces of Argon.  Knights vs. robots!  What more could I have wanted?  When Tanith and Savashtar (the only two warlords who seemed able to put their squabbles aside) joined the fight, I also got magic and fire-breathing dragons, not to mention Tanith’s bodyguard, a barbarian armed with a magic sword and an M-60. 

And the snappy mid-battle parley appealed to my 16-year-old sense of drama:

“We are the masters of the future!” shouts Argon.  “Death to the wretched mortals!”

“At last—” Thorin thinks as he arms himself.  “—Thorin will slay again!”

“Cut them to pieces, my hot-blooded barbarian!” Tanith commands.

“This is a violent world we are visiting,” Savashtar muses.  “Fortunately, my kind is descended from the most blood-thirsty creatures of all time.”

“Aha!” Doomidor laughs.  “Sweet Tanith!  Shall I kill you swiftly—or would you rather submit to being my pleasure slave?”

There’s even a little room for tragedy crammed into the first chapter of this would-be epic.  As Doomidor kills Tanith’s bodyguard Thorin, tears stream down the witch’s lovely face.

“Oh, Thorin, she thinks.  “I’m so sorry I dragged you from your own time into this mad world … only to reward you with death.  Goodbye, my love …  Why?!  Why must they always die?  Why do I use them so heartlessly?”

That’s pathos, my friends.

So, let’s see … Portals to other worlds?  Check!  Immortals?  Check!  Bloody battles?  Check!  There’s only one thing this book’s missing—Road Warrior reject zombies!

But, wait, the issue’s cliffhanger doesn’t disappoint as Zania (who looks a little like Uncanny X-Men’s Callisto, only with a Mohawk and an M-16) makes her appearance.  Her ride’s been pimped with armor plating, machine gun turrets, rocket launchers, and chainsaws.  Chainsaws!  And her minions… you guessed it, zombies that look like they crawled out of a Z-movie Thunderdome.

As Zania orders her lackeys to open fire, the book promises, “To be continued … of course!”

But it wasn’t, not for me.  Try as I might, I couldn’t find another issue of my “all-new-favorite-of-all-time” comic anywhere.  I know the story continued, because a couple of years later I finally found an issue in the late teens.  But it wasn’t the same.  The artwork was different, the story arc was different, and—to make matters worse—the warlocks were different!

Theses days, readers don’t often feel that bittersweet longing for that title that just seemed to drop off the face of the planet.  You can find pretty much anything on the Internet.  But I urge anyone to take a step back in time the next time you find an obscure book you just love.  Instead of logging on to find the rest of the series, only look for it in back issue boxes.  The thrill of the chase can be just as rewarding as the book itself.

Aw, who am I kidding?  Before I was even done with this column I had logged onto eBay and placed a bid on a lot of Warlock 5.  

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Cullen Bunn's fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. His comic series The Damned will be published by Oni Press in late 2006.  You can find out more about his work by visiting www.cullenbunn.com.