Amazing Adventures (1970 series) #27

March 2019: Killraven and his Freemen are zooming across Lake Michigan on an ice catamaran when they are attacked by giant sea lampreys. One of them attaches its sucker to Grok’s back and starts drawing blood while the others fight off the menace. Carmilla tries to claw the lamprey from Grok’s back but her efforts are in vain. Hawk pulls her away but she slugs him and goes back to her suffering pet. Killraven hurls a silver star and it explodes, killing the creature attached to Grok. Carmilla tends to him while the others watch in silence….

At the Martian citadel called Death-Birth in Chicago, human couples are held captive to breed offspring to be eaten by Martians. One couple, Adam and Eve 3,031, cling to one another for comfort, praying there is some way for their child to avoid its fate. And then the Fear Master arrives….

The High Overlord summons Skar to report on the incident at the Indianapolis 500 and learns that Killraven was behind it. High Overlord mentions having told Killraven that his brother might still live to torment him by creating false hopes in him. He tells Skar that Killraven is obviously heading toward Yellowstone Park and demands he bring back Killraven dead or alive. Skar meditates on both options and then he departs in his tripod….

At the ice-covered Municipal Pier in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Carmilla broods over what has happened to Grok and M’Shulla sympathizes. Killraven wonders if M’Shulla has lost his vision for the cause of revolution against the Martians; Hawk wonders if it could be that he has lost his friend altogether. Then they become aware of someone pointing a weapon at them and Hawk fires first before the unseen foe fires incendiary spears that go over Killraven’s head. Hawk intends to bury their assailant alive in the cave but Killraven stops him. He calls for their enemy to stop forward and they meet Volcana Ash, the “human equivalent of a holocaust,” a cheeky woman with red hair that seems alive. Hawk wants to kill her but Killraven says no; Hawk ponders…then relents. Volcana takes Hawk by the wrist, burning him while she chats with Killraven, noting that had she recognized them as belonging to Death-Birth she would have killed them. She flirts with KR and tells him about Death-Birth via a mind-tap, the pictures forming in Killraven’s head of the breeding pens and Atalon the Fear Master tormenting Eve and Adam 3,031, forcing Adam to lick the mud from his boots and he handles Eve with vile familiarity, interrupted by his master…. The mind-tap is broken but the appearance of a tripod sends them running into the city. They seek refuge in a brewery but the monster crashes through the wall, releasing Death Breeders, human lackeys dressed in skeleton garb, ordered to capture the woman and liquidate the men. A Death Breeder pursues Killraven to the roof and after a brief struggle the bad guy plunges into a long-abandoned vat of beer. Killraven drops explosive stars into the vat and it bursts the walls and the sudden flood of beer topples the tripod. KR and his men wonder if this was what Sabre called ale and give it a taste but leave disappointed. Killraven assures Volcana that he intends to storm the fortress of Death-Birth….

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Story #2

The Strangers

Writer: Unknown.
Penciler/Inker: Herb Familton.

Synopsis

An alien spaceship with a human-like crew approaches a military base on Earth then fires its weapons and takes off. The alien ship then sends down robots who explain that it was a test to learn what Earth’s weapons are like so they would know if they could land safely. The visitors then explain that the creatures who look like machines are the masters and the ones that look human are the robots!