ISSUE
FOUR: WHEELS OF DEATH
Colored
by Glynis Wein.
The story of Marak continues as he drives
his growing hoards toward Jalessas kingdom.
No one in this stone age is able to stand against Maraks bronze might.
As word of these conquests reaches Jalessa, she consults her own
monolith, which tells her to join forces with this marauder to make each other
more socially, politically and militarily powerful than any other force on
earth. The stone wheels of
Maraks war machine moves on as in the year 2001, the wheels of space in the
form of a meteor storm pummels space station Liberty I.
Its leader, Herb Marik, gets his people
out, but decides that now is a good time for this weary leader to end his days.
He sits on the command deck, watching the oncoming hoard of meteors on
the view screen when a monolith appears outside the station.
Marik goes out to investigate, is absorbed into the stone, flung untold
light years as he witnesses unbelievable sights, and lands safely in a world of
the monoliths making based on the romantic dreams of the old general.
But Marik doesnt age as previous absorptions have, and doesnt
become a New Seed. Marik, it turns
out, is one of those rare failures of the monoliths, which dont seem to mind
at all. The stone leaves Marik to
live out his days in his idyllic dream as the monolith begins a new search for
someone in the human race to join it in immortality.
Although the series breaks from its
tradition with issues three and four, it is a welcome change from something that
could have become very derivative very quickly.
The two-part story harkens back to an earlier time in comic book history
when stories of barbarians, pirates, air aces, detectives and the versatile old
cowboy outweighed the superhero, and the revelation that the monoliths, or at
least the powers that control them, could, in fact, make mistakes may tarnish
the magic a bit for the purists, but it does offer a poignant contrast to the
cold, calculating powers we were used to. The
Marak two-parter was one of the last times Kirby would seem to have a handle on
his material, because his next two issues would begin a downward slide with a
story that begins as a contradiction to the series very title.