FOR PART ONE OF BALLADEER’S BLOG’S EXAMINATION OF THIS OLD, OLD MARVEL STORYLINE CLICK HERE The revisions I would make are scattered throughout the synopsis below.
AMAZING ADVENTURES Vol 2 # 21 (November 1973)
Title: THE MUTANT SLAYERS (Revised Title: DEATHLOK, THE DEMOLISHER)
Synopsis: Another issue means ANOTHER change in creative team for this promising but star-crossed series. This fourth change in four issues gives us Don McGregor as the writer and Herb Trimpe as the artist.
McGregor will stay and will handily develop the flowery prose that also characterized his run on the 13-part Black Panther story Panther’s Rage, previously reviewed here at Balladeer’s Blog. Unfortunately, Don’s writing in this issue is as hopelessly lame and “comic bookish” as Herb Trimpe’s artwork.
We are told that the Martians had their human quislings – in this case led by a human cyborg called the Warlord – transport Killraven and his Freemen, who were ambushed and captured last issue amid the ruins of LaGuardia Airport, to this new underground base. The base’s location is undisclosed for now.
REVISION: Given Riker’s Island’s proximity to LaGuardia Airport I would have made THAT the location that the captive Freemen were transported to. And given the island’s use as a prison before the alien conquest of Earth it would be ideal for my revised storyline.
I would make the Warlord be specifically Warlord RYKER as in Simon Ryker (no relation to the island’s namesake). Simon Ryker was, of course, the main villain in Deathlok (sic) the Demolisher, another of Marvel’s promising but short-lived sci-fi comic books of the 1970s.
I’m combining Deathlok’s story with Killraven’s in a sort of Ultimate Killraven way, since Marvel in recent years had KR, Deathlok and other figures from their canceled post-apocalypse titles get thrown together as a team due to time anomalies, etc ANYWAY.
Warlord Ryker would still hate Killraven for causing the loss and cybernetic replacement of his (Ryker’s) arm and eye during his escape from the gladiatorial pens a few years earlier.
Back to the real story, the Warlord and his fellow quisling Carmilla Frost (in her first-ever appearance) are watching several waves of guards struggling to shepherd Killraven along to join his Freemen in their new prison cells. Expository dialogue makes it clear that Keeper Frost is a molecular biologist and, like all the other Keepers, she is a scientist who sold out her fellow Earth people in exchange for privileges. Mostly, access to the Martians’ advanced science to continue their work.
The Warlord rants a great deal about how he warned the Martians to execute Killraven years ago, but he was such a good fighter in their gladiatorial games that they kept him alive for sport. Eventually the Warlord knocks out KR from behind.
REVISION: As always, I’d have jettisoned the tenuous War of the Worlds connection by getting rid of the ridiculous Martians and just made it regular aliens – say from the Zeta Reticuli area of space – who had conquered Earth.
Instead of watching Killraven struggle against guards I would have Warlord Ryker and Carmilla Frost watching and taking notes as other Keepers subject the rebel leader to various tests – many of them painful, of course – to determine the nature and origin of his paranormal abilities called simply The Power in the first two issues. (This was 4 years BEFORE Star Wars, so The Power is NOT a ripoff of The Force.) Continue reading
THE BATTLE CRY OF FLASHMAN – Time Period: 1862-1863. How Flashman – for entirely selfish reasons while being blackmailed by President Abraham Lincoln and Alan Pinkerton – secretly prevented Great Britain from recognizing the Confederate States of America. CLICK 
FLASHMAN OF ARABIA – Time Period: 1852-1854. Harry’s exotic adventures after getting separated from Richard Burton, the famous explorer, during Burton’s covert journey to Mecca and Medina while disguised as a Muslim pilgrim. CLICK 
NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) 
NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) DIVISION TWO
THANK YOU once again to all of you readers for making Balladeer’s Blog so enjoyable to write. As I always say the weird and controversial items I churn out here mean that readers have to be very secure in their own beliefs not to just take offense and leave.
JOE MAGARAC: FORGOTTEN AMERICAN FOLK HERO – The steel mill equivalent of Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and John Henry. CLICK 
Democrats, the party of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and the Dred Scott Decision, notoriously HATE independent-minded African-Americans who defy those Democrats. The privileged white-bread leadership of the Democrats continues to act like it owns people of color like they did on their plantations in the south long ago. (No Republicans owned plantations, or I’d be happy to say so since Balladeer’s Blog criticizes both political parties.) 
Burgess Owens pointed out what many have long stated: that the Democrat Party is the only wildly pro-slavery institution left with continuity all the way back to the slavery era. Therefore the Democrat Party organization should pay reparations. Or, as I point out, at least SHOW THE DECENCY TO CHANGE THEIR PARTY’S NAME since they push to eliminate all reminders of the Confederacy and the earlier years of their party’s beloved slavery. 
Coleman Hughes, who reminded booing racist Democrats that he is himself a Democrat, also defied the Democrat Party on reparations. He also debunked the Democrats’ frequently-stated lie that the U.S. government never apologized for slavery and Jim Crow, noting that both the House and the Senate have previously issued those apologies. 
Others weighed in on social media, like Larry Elder with this:
During the two years that Kid Russell worked for Lucky Boy, he learned all about trapping and hunting, though he never fully warmed up to either trade, however, since he preferred painting wildlife to blood-sports. He took much more enthusiastically to learning the survival lore that went hand-in-hand with them. 
NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) 
“My students are ‘woke’ and are overwhelmingly against illegal immigration after taking my class.” 
Journalist and strong female role model Kelli Ballard courageously continues to compile as comprehensive as possible a breakdown of the additional crimes committed by people in the country illegally. 
AMAZING ADVENTURES Vol 2 #20 (September 1973)
Of course, since this issue doesn’t mention EITHER Keeper Whitman OR “The Power” (a pre-Star Wars variation of The Force) it’s also possible Marv Wolfman was planning to write out those aspects. The way this issue is written it COULD be that the quislings have orders to take Killraven alive just so he can be taken before the Warlord, whom we learn has a vendetta against our main character. 
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