LONER (1988-1991) – ENGLAND’S ANSWER TO SABRE

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at the British character Loner.

LONER – In 1988 the U.K. comic book Wildcat introduced a sci-fi character called Loner. This figure was, shall we say, reminiscent of America’s post-apocalypse rebel Sabre (lower right), who debuted in 1978 and made his last appearance in 1985. I’m not accusing anybody of anything. We all know that comic books recycle and borrow ideas all the time. And at least they didn’t spell it “Lonre.”

While Sabre’s adventures were about a heroic rebel fighting the dictatorship that had arisen in the wake of a global epidemic, famine and nuclear disasters, Loner’s adventures were set far away from the planet Earth. 

In the year 2492 a huge spaceship called Wildcat searches the universe for a planet fit for the human race to settle on as Earth faces destruction from a meteor storm. Loner was the world’s highest-paid mercenary warrior and bought his way onto the Wildcat by chipping in twenty million in financing.

Armed with his custom-made, multi-projectile firearm “Babe,” Loner goes forth to explore potential new worlds for the human race to colonize. Naturally, he faces a variety of science fiction menaces while carrying out that mission of exploration.

NOTE: Like Sabre’s “flintlock” laser pistol, Loner’s gun may look like an antique pistol but is really a high-tech weapon in a deceptive vintage casing.

WILDCAT #1 (October 22nd, 1988)

Title: Underground World

Synopsis: While other teams from the Wildcat explore the alien world, Loner lives up to his name by exploring solo. Our hero lands his shuttlecraft Wildcat Four and sets out on foot. Trace radiation on the planet’s surface prevents him and the other explorers from being able to contact the Wildcat.

Loner pursues vaguely glimpsed entities which try to kill him with a rockslide. While chasing them he falls through a thin part of the planetary surface and into an underground world which resembles a huge canyon.

For the cliffhanger ending, Loner shoots dead a furry little creature which delivered an electric shock to him, only to suddenly find himself surrounded by dozens of them.

WILDCAT #2 (November 5th, 1988)

Title: Big Shocks

Synopsis: Loner fights his way through the army of electrically charged creatures but is driven into a muddy stream. It turns out the stream contains underwater versions of the electrical beings, and when he abandons the stream he is attacked by flying versions of the creatures.

The creatures have been herding him toward the entity that controls them telepathically – a huge lizard like beast who has enslaved them and now wants to enslave Loner. The lizard-beast has the electrical creatures pile on our hero, knocking him out.

WILDCAT #3 (November 19th, 1988)

Title: Defeated?

Synopsis: When Loner regains consciousness, the lizard-like humanoid (in clothing) telepathically informs him that he belongs to a race called the Bellari. They move from world to world using their mental powers to enslave entire populations before moving on to new worlds to repeat the process.

This Bellari crash-landed on this planet long ago and enslaved the electric-animals but his spaceship is too damaged for him to leave. Because Loner is more intelligent than the furries AND has weapons, the Bellari wants him to kill the only creature on this planet that he cannot control – a large predator whose intelligence is too low to be affected by telepathy.

Loner is reluctant to do the Bellari’s bidding, but it uses its mind-powers to create illusions of three criminals from the planet Galubra. He took them in back when he was a bounty hunter and they try to kill him now, but our hero is unsure if they are real. 

WILDCAT #4 (Dec 3rd, 1988)

Title: Is It Real?

Synopsis: Loner survives the attack from his old enemies, then faces multiple lizard-wolves but they too are mere illusions. Finally, the Bellari uses the illusion of a wall of flame to end his lesson to our hero about how powerful he is.

Chastened, Loner agrees to kill the creature that the Bellari wants dead. A quintet of the furries leads our main character lower and lower into the cave system, toward the lair of the monster.

When down far enough that the Bellari can no longer “listen in” telepathically, the furries lead Loner to a cache of high-tech weapons left over from the war that destroyed all the higher life forms on this planet.

The furries tell Loner that the weapons are his only hope against the monster, but as a mere human, our hero is not advanced enough for the combined physical and psychic control needed to wield the weapons. A separate device starts to transform Loner to give him the power to use the weaponry.

WILDCAT #5 (December 17th, 1988)

Title: All Change

Synopsis: The “all change” device gives Loner a temporarily enlarged cranium so that his mind will be able to wield the advanced weapons. After a practice period for him to get used to the firearms the furries resume leading him to the lair of the predatory monster.

Loner and his guides reach that lair and are attacked by the creature, which turns out to be an enormous, reptilian, tentacled monstrosity with a huge mouth and teeth bigger than Loner’s entire body.

WILDCAT #6 (December 31st, 1988)

Title: Survival

Synopsis: The weapons that Loner wields injure the beast and drive it deeper into the caves but don’t kill it. He carefully pursues it through caves and down staircases made long ago by the extinct higher life-forms on the planet.

The entire path our hero must follow is littered with literally millions of bones from the creature’s countless victims over the course of its multi-millennia lifespan. The monster has three smaller beasts attack Loner, who kills them all, but is then taken by surprise by the main creature. 

WILDCAT #7 (January 14th, 1989)

Title: Hell-Beast

Synopsis: After a brutal, drawn-out running battle, Loner succeeds in slaying the creature. Next, the furries lead our main character back to the Bellari’s lair, where the high-tech headband that Loner now wears (from among the cache of weapons) prevents the Bellari from reading his thoughts.

That slave-driving alien is blown away by Loner, following which the furries lead him back to the all change device and return his head to normal. The headband adjusts to his cranium’s new size and the furries tell him to keep it because it will protect him from psychic attacks and translate all alien languages for him.

Loner returns to the planet’s surface, wondering what new adventures lie ahead.

*** Loner had plenty of additional adventures. Wildcat was canceled with issue #12, but Loner moved to Great Britain’s revered Eagle comics (as in Eagle Awards). This hero’s final appearance came in the first Eagle Annual in January of 1991. 

FOR MY LOOK AT HOMBRE, SPAIN’S GRITTY POST-APOCALYPSE COMIC BOOK HERO, CLICK HERE.