Feb
2021
Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #113: The Web of Danger
Turok: Son of Stone #59
Turok and Andar battle a spider that is categorically not a spider.
This story cuts right to the chase because it knows you saw the cover, it
doesn't want to waste your time. So Turok and Andar fall off this cliff, right?
Not to
their messy, splattery deaths, but onto a giant sticky web. Not the most
inexplicable hazard they've found in Lost Valley, but it's definitely up
there. What could possibly have made it?????
A spider, you idiot, a giant ass-fuck spider is what made it. Spiders
make webs so of course a giant spider's going to make a giant web. It's, like,
cause and effect or something.
I hardly need to draw attention to it, but boy, is that one hell of an artistic interpretation.
Six
legs, a ridged tail, a turtle-like body with a dimetrodon's sail fin, and an
inexplicably styracosaurus-like head. Points for creativity, because there's
maybe only one feature here that vaguely screams "spider", in the voice of
someone who thinks spiders have pincers and walk sideways. Could you
imagine if crabs made webs? Bloody hell. The beach would never be the same
again. There'd either be a lot less seagulls or outright turf warfare
between the two.
If you guessed I wrote this entry while incredibly sleep-deprived, you'd be right.
Whatever the case, the spider's gunning for its newly-caught prey, and although
they're able to fire an arrow with a bit of teamwork, it bounces right off its
armoured hide. Plan B: get a honker to do their dirty work! Clonking a passing allosaurus with a puny projectile, the territorial titan decides to
take umbrage with this animal that's clearly been drawn without reference
material.
Of course, the crawly bastard has the advantage and bodies it with its poison bite, turning its sights on his two captives again. Apparently honker meat isn't as good as human meat? I figured as much, personally -- not to sound like an advocate for cannibalism or anything. But buddy, they're already in your web, surely you can wait. It's not like they're going anywhere. You've just killed an entire KFC bargain bucket. Why ignore it for a couple of drumsticks?
Quickly running out of options, our heroes turn their eyes to the cliff they
fell from and resort to Plan C, a perpetual favourite: dropping a dirty great
pile of rocks on it. One arrow's enough to trigger a small rockslide, enough to
sever the web and crush the so-called spider in one flurry. As backwards as it
might be, they're thankful for the spider's attempt on their life -- its web was
responsible for them surviving the fall, after all!
While setting up camp near a river, Andar sees an unexpected reminder of home: a
fish! Not a ferocious piranha, not a shark, not a croc, not any of the other
inexplicable beasties they've encountered in the Lost Valley -- a regular old
fish! What's it doing in this neck of the woods?
Getting gobbled, that's what. It vanishes down a luminescent plesiosaur's gullet
before Turok can see it, leading him to believe Andar was merely seeing things.
It's only after a strangely-prolonged series of events involving the plesiosaur
attacking them a day later, getting slain by Andar's poison arrows, then
having the flesh stripped from its bones by a pack of roving pteranodons, that
they finally see the fish -- still intact! -- inside its skeletal remains. It only
took twenty panels, but they're finally on the same page now: how'd a fish like
this find its way into Lost Valley?
The two take a dive in hopes of finding a submerged tunnel that'll lead them
home... but instead they find themselves in a glowing cave, surely the same cave
the plesiosaur got its unnatural sheen from. There's only one way in that's big
enough for any beast, fish or plesiosaur... the only other opening is a small
current from a crack in the wall. Seeing the plesiosaur's eggs nearby, they come
to the conclusion the fish laid eggs outside the Valley, which got carried in by
the current. It's no exit, but it's an answer to their mystery. Those fish will
never see their mamas, though.
Speaking of mamas, plesiosaur eggs means there's a plesiosaur mother guarding
them! The beast is centuries ahead of its time in the field of game design,
knocking down stones that they then use to bonk it unconscious with, before
slinking out unnoticed. Perhaps not the most glamorous investigation they've
been involved in, but they got the job done, didn't they? As far from home as
they might appear, these rare sights are enough to give them the resolve to keep
looking. They'll get out one of these days...!