Tuesday, December 26, 2017

"The End" Week: Shogun Warriors #20!


From 1980, Shogun Warriors #20, "The Circle's End" Written by Doug Moench, art by Herb Trimpe.

Based on the classic Mattel action figures, this issue only really has one of the titular robots in it: Combatra. I'm not sure where the other two robots are, but per that Wikipedia entry, all three robots would later be destroyed, off-panel, in an issue of Fantastic Four; probably since Marvel no longer had the license. And the FF does guest-star here, and do a fair amount of the heavy lifting, in a story with a lot more alien bureaucracy than I would've expected.

The villain, the Primal One, wants to go all the Day the Earth Stood Still on humanity, and destroy them before their violence spreads out into the universe. He also has allies in the alien "Charter," a mutual self-defense pact; although some of them have realized the Primal One may be full of it. Anyway, I only mention it since we see an alien that resembles future Sorcerer Supreme and possible movie Guardians of the Galaxy character Krugarr, which I thought was weird.

The whole issue is a bit more boring than you'd hope something with giant robots would be. On the letters page, it mentions the title wasn't profitable, and that Marvel could only publish so many books (ha!) and Doug Moench was busy with a little something called Moon Knight, so he did okay.

No comments: