XENOZOIC TALES PART 3

"LOST LINK IN THE CHAIN" | "LORDS OF THE EARTH" | "PRIMEVAL"
"TWO CITIES" | "DANGEROUS GROUNDS" | "ANOTHER SWARM"
By Mark Schultz

Following from the previous chapter's journey into the spiritual realm, our next installment moves back to a more relatable realm, straight action/adventure with just a hint of intrigue. The main story is concerned with Jack, having just dealt with some poachers in the jungle, struggling to elude a very determined velociraptor. He survives in the end, of course, with the aid of a larger predator who pops up at just the right moment to devour the raptor -- but he realizes he wouldn't have found himself in this predicament in the first place were someone not trying to kill him.

This revelation has its seed in the prior chapter, when one of the Governors, Dahlgren, visited Jack to tell him that the other Governrors were beginning to question his usefulness and that he should watch his back. Now, Jack finds that his car and rifle were both sabotaged before he headed out on patrol, confirming Dahlgren's warning that someone may be trying to get rid of him.

The story ramps up big time in the next chapter, as Hannah and Jack's chief mechanic, Kirgo, pick up Jack in the jungle and return home with him. Along the way, we get some backstory on the Xenozoic world, namely that Jack is a direct descendant of the "Old Blood Mechanics", the people who kept Cataclysm regugees alive while they spent hundreds of years in shelter as the nuclear fallout subsided. During this time, the Old Bloods formed a doctrine called the Machinatio Vitae, the laws of balance between man and nature which people have lived by ever since emerging from shelter.

XENOZOIC TALES PART 2

"BENEFACTOR" | "HISTORY LESSON" | "EXCURSION"
"FOUNDLING" | "GREEN AIR" | "THE GROWING POOL" | "IN THE DREAMTIME"
By Mark Schultz

With several vignettes setting up the world and characters of the Xeonzoic era now behind him, Mark Schultz begins to craft a bit of a serial in this week's first chapter -- which is also the longest story we've looked at this far, clocking in at a brisk twenty pages. In this one, we learn Hannah's purpose in the City on the Sea -- she is to open trade relations between its tribes and those of her native Wassoon. The City's Governors' Council is on board with this, believing they need some of the Wassoons' fishing and farmind techniques in order to better survive.

But the offer is not without conditions, and it seems the Wassoon are concerned about the number of poachers that have recently appeared in their territory. It turns out this is the work of Jack, who, as was revealed in previous chapters, has no tolerance for such hunters and forces them out into the wilds to survive on their own when he catches them in the act. And it seems that some of these poachers actually have survived and made their way to Wassoon.

Jack refuses to go along with the deal and leaves in a huff, prompting a governor named Gorgostamos to enlist Hannah to go after him. But Gorostamos actually plans to kill Jack after Hannah helps track him down. Hannah, however, is separated from Gorgostamos and captured by a tribe of lizard-men called the Grith. The Grith are friends of Jack's, and no one knows of their existence except for him -- and now Hannah as well, because the Grith trust her and want her to work with them.

XENOZOIC TALES PART 1

"AN ARCHIPELAGO OF STONE" | "THE OPPORTUNISTS" | "LAW OF THE LAND"
"ROGUE" | "XENOZOIC!" | "MAMMOTH PITFALL!" | "THE RULES OF THE GAME"
By Mark Schultz

As I mentioned briefly last week, I picked up XENOZOIC BY MARK SCHULTZ a few years back, around the time I was jumping into newspaper adventure strips. But unlike a lot of the strips that I've read since then, XENOZOIC sat on my bookshelf until just recently. But as I read it, I'm kind of sorry I waited!

Set in the far-flung future of the thirtieth century, XENOZOIC is clearly influenced by old pulp stories, movie serials, and so forth. Our main characters are Jack "Cadillac" Tenrec, a rough-and-tumble mechanic/transporter/guide/anything else he needs to be, and Hannah Dundee, a beautiful ambassador from a far-off land. The setting is the City in the Sea -- what's left of Manhattan in this world where man has been decimated and dinosaurs once more walk the Earth. Hannah arrives in the first story, from her state of Wasoon, to open relations with the the City in the Sea, and soon decides to stick around for a while. This leads to her getting involved in Jack's frequent adventures.

The stories, at least early on, are all fairly short, running ten to fifteen pages or so for the most part. The very first ones present small snippets of life in this world. The first chapter sees Jack rescue Hannah from an assassination attempt before he's even met her. The second focuses on Hannah as she helps the Governor of the City in the Sea with a fishing problem.

XENOZOIC

So I've had this on my bookshelf for probably four or five years now, always intending to get to it, but never quite managing to crack it open. It was something I found when I was really getting into newspaper adventure strips. Though not a strip itself, it does have that "adventure strip feel", being drawn in a realistic style, and in black-and-white. From what I've gathered, XENOZOIC TALES was an independant comic that begin in 1987 and ran up until 1996, releasing a whopping fourteen issues in that timeframe. This seems to have been the thing for indies back then; at least I recall from my look at THE ROCKETEER a few years back that Dave Stevens released an even smaller amount of material over a longer period of time!

But in any case, it was the artwork of creator Mark Schultz that first attracted me to XENOZOIC TALES, then when I learned a bit about the premise, I was totally sold. The funny thing is, in restrospect I realize that I was tangentially familiar with this series going back many years. Back in 1993, CBS aired a Saturday morning cartoon called CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS, and Marvel published an adaptation of same -- and as it turns out, CADILLACS was itself an adaptation of Schultz's world (if not his exact stories) to small-screen animation!

Now, I admit that I never actually watched the series or read the comic, but I was at least aware of them. And now I plan to take a look at the source material! Over the next few weeks, we'll cover the entirety of XENOZOIC TALES, all collected in a nice, sturdy paperback volume by Flesk Publications a number of years ago . So be here next Friday as we journey to the post-apocalyptic thirtieth century for the adventures of Jack "Cadillac" Tenrec and Hannah Dundee as they make their way through the savage world of tomorrow!

(This is where I'd normally drop in an Amazon link for anyone interested in checking the book out, but unfortunately, it appears to be out of print and quite pricey at this point. However it looks like a new printing is forthcoming in March and is available for pre-order directly from the publisher, so if my upcoming posts tickle your fancy, you can at least pick it up afterward!)