Feb
2021
Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #111: The Things From The Sky
Turok: Son of Stone #58
Despite appearances, Turok has not jumped the shark.
It's a lovely evening in the Lost Valley, and Turok and Andar are chased from
their camp by a horrible honker. Light fills the night sky, however, and the
beast is reduced to dust; if it were able, it'd be quoting Marvin the Martian
right about now ("Being disintegrated makes me very angry! Very angry indeed!").
Not even lightning is strong enough to straight-up evaporate things, surely...?
The next day the pair witness human and honker alike fleeing from an unknown
threat, said to be "things from the sky". Turok, in a rare moment of not leaving
well enough alone, goes in the opposite direction to see what could be so dang
unearthly.
Well, things not of this earth, surely! A flying saucer full of noodle-limbed
robots touches down on the plains and the out-of-towners come in peace, itching
for a chance to chat with anyone who doesn't run away at the sight of them.
They're rudely interrupted by a plesiosaur munching on one of the tin can trio,
but T & A are quick to put it down with their poison arrows before retrieving
their waterlogged guest; the aliens recharge their guns and disintegrate the
beast for good measure, proving themselves to be the uncanny force that saved
them the other night.
They'd taken a shine to our heroes before they even met
-- when they last visited Earth it was still a primordial wasteland of warring
elements... and now look at it! Lands of every ecosystem, creatures of every size,
and mankind in varying states of advancement... they're eager to see what biomes
and what peoples may reign supreme, and with Turok and Andar so advanced
compared to their peers, they know what horse to bet on.
While they're busy laying waste to another murderous herd of pteranodon (being the shiniest objects in Lost Valley
comes with its own hazards), a brachiosaur
happens by and crushes their spacecraft. They're forced to vaporise the big lug
before it does any more damage; were it a different time they could've just
swapped insurance details, but such is life.
Their UFO isn't a write-off just
yet, nothing the very scientific method of banging it into shape with rocks
can't solve... but they're intruded upon yet again by the cavemen who fled from
them earlier. They don't take a liking to their new neighbours, and kindly
suggest they sling their hook by means of hurling bloody great spears at them.
Turok and Andar aren't keen on killing dudes at the best of times, and while
the aliens don't state their moral stance on the matter, frying the honker
drained the last of the battery on their ray guns. Their guns still emit enough
of a lightshow to scare them off, and also to ignite the bed of kindling our
heroes gathered to scare off an incoming stampede. Did I mention the stampede?
There's a lot going on. Who knew alien activity would draw crowds like this?
At long stinking last, the group are able to bash their ship into shape,
stepping inside to recharge their tools and take a damage report. control
panels, viewports, buttons and levers, padded seats... it's unlike anything
Turok and Andar have ever witnessed before! The pair haven't even rode horses
before (ignoring that one time they rode a horse), and
here they are introduced to a whole new world of extraterrestrial automobiles.
They prep for a test flight to ensure it's stable enough to take them home, and
invite one of them along to see the sights. Andar is given the honours, and
becomes the first man in America to take to the skies.
They pass a variety of familiar sights -- the valley's great lakes, its
towering pteranodon roosts... and over the valley wall itself! Andar is
reacquainted with familiar sights of his homeland for the first time in
countless moons, and even passes over his tribe's camp! Beyond the realm of
dreams, it's the closest he's
gotten to home in an age!
As simple as it looks, this is a really endearing page. by no means the first
time our heroes have escaped the Lost Valley's boundaries, nor will it be the
last time... but it's the first time they've got to see their old home again,
and all the familiar faces associated with it. To know life has continued in their absence is reassuring -- time hasn't
stopped, their old life hasn't vanished without them, there's still a home worth
returning to. This isn't a Valiant Comics situation, where they can't go home
but they can't stay here. It'd be too much heartbreak for them to find their old
way of life gone.
The test flight
is a success, and they should be more than capable of taking everyone to their
rightful homes; our two heroes to the familiar plains, and their benefactors
back to outer space. What they don't account for is pteranodons swarming the
ship, clogging the intakes and otherwise taking umbrage with having to share
their airspace. Try as they might, they're not equipped to dozens of prehistoric
fowl jamming themselves in the engines, and the ship plummets from the air and
skims across the lake, crashing to a halt and ejecting Turok and Andar from the
open hatch. They make it out in one piece -- there's still hope for the aliens, right?
Oh. OH.
When they come to, there's nary a trace of their alien encounter. The ship is
burnt to a cinder, with no evidence but their memories of the fateful day ever
occurring. Was it a dream? Or was it all too real, a cruel twist of fate taking
their lives and denying them a sure-fire ticket out of the accursed valley?
Under the beating rain, there are no answers to be found.
It needs to be said: FREAKIN' ALIENS????? We've experienced two years of the Valiant comics at this point, where Turok has gone to the future, interacted with robots, cyborgs, spider aliens and all manner of kooky affair, and we're not far from the Acclaim universe which really doubles down on the wild and wacky world he inhabits... but to see classic Son of Stone address this fare seems awfully out of character. I was dreading this issue to feel like a jumping the shark moment...!
Despite my fears, it's actually an entertaining change of pace. Turok and Andar are so
starved for comrades at this point, it's nice to see someone actively approached
them for communication, if just to state why they're here. While the aliens'
"ray blast" guns are a bit overpowered, seeing their properties amp up Turok's tricks is
a nice little combo.
With their ship out of commission, the two are put
on equal terms without either side appearing more capable than the other; this
isn't a contest, they just wanna get home! It
would've been nice to see them share something more involved than fending off
wave after wave of inexplicable incoming threats, but to see them hang out at
all is a treat.
Of course, it's also yet another tease at a potential escape. They
fly right over their homeland! Andar is even able to point out individuals from
his tribe! And yet, even these super-advanced space aliens can't contend with
the prehistoric equivalent of pigeons in the turbines.
The aliens seem like good
blokes; their talk of watching what lifeforms will dominate the earth is perhaps a
tad
spooky, as is their cavalier attitude to blasting things to smithereens, but
they seem on the level... which is all the more upsetting when they get done in
by pure happenstance. It doesn't matter how advanced you are, how many lightyears you're capable of traveling, you don't survive
an explosive car crash.
This story stands out as the one and only example of aliens in the
classic Son of Stone stories; as far-out as the tales may be at times, they
never again encounter life from other worlds. To do it again would perhaps be
pushing it, yet it helps make this issue stand out because of it. It's so out-of-left-field, unlike anything we've seen before, with
an ending that allows you to dismiss it as a 20-page dream sequence if you're so
inclined.
It's perhaps a bit divisive when you'd sooner see Turok interact with
dinosaurs and slightly more credible threads (... do i have to acknowledge that
some consider aliens more credible than dinosaurs), but it's a personal
favourite of mine. Partly for the novelty factor, but despite its interstellar stylings, it harkens home to the Turok ethos of aiding and befriending those in
need, putting your shared skills to good use.
While this story came too early to be reprinted south of the border in
Turok: El Guerrero De Piedra, it had more than its fair share of brand new
alien stories! Next to wildlife and funky cave tribes, bastards from space in
dinky little UFOs were probably among their most recurring encounters, ranging
from the docile to the malevolent, the hominid to the unidentifiable. Turok and Andar even acknowledged just how many times they'd
saved not just Lost Valley, but the
earth itself from potential doom.
It'll be a little ways away before the Mexican stories start lining up with the blog's chronology, but you can be gosh darned sure
I'm going to peep some
highlights into its most gonzo stories, the space stories especially.
Going back to the issue at hand, the unnamed dinosaur spotlight gives the
Iguanodon a chance to shine, calling particular attention to its giraffe-life
tongue, its vegetarian lifestyle, and its capacity to shank a bitch. While
the tongue thing has since been discredited, nobody's found a better fit for its
wicked pointy thumb; it wasn't venomous, it wasn't a horn... it's just a big
gnarly thumb.
Obviously the chance to ask an iguanodon what's up with that has
long since passed, so we're left to assume it really did stab dudes when given
the chance, or it was the only dinosaur equipped to give a thumbs-up. As sweet
as that image is, what a lonely existence it must have been, knowing no others
could return the gesture.
The first in a series of text features about strange archaeological finds, we
have the Diquis Spheres of Costa Rica. They're big freakin' stones! Darn near
perfectly round and big enough to squash a dude! Attributed to the indigenous Diquis of Costa Rica who are long since ancient history, there's not a great
deal known about them, and the text does little more than gush out loud about
how uncanny they are. It presents plenty of reasons why they're so strange, but
doesn't give us any harebrained theories about them.
They've since become common
attractions across the island, installed both in museums and in government
buildings, so it's good to know the findings are still with us, though it'd be
nice if the culture attached to it weren't such a mystery. C'est la vie.