Amazing Adventures (1970 series) #25

2019: A running man is hunted down and killed by a huge red Martian tripod; Killraven leaps from his Dyna-Glider to attack its operator, a yellow-skinned cyborg with a hole in the center of his face where his eyes and nose should be. The operator, Skar, is delighted because his quarry usually does not fight back. Killraven tries to batter his way through the Plexiglas covering but Skar increases the heat on it until Killraven is forced to let go and plunge to the ground. Skar directs his Devil's Marauder away, leaving Killraven for dead. The hero then has a moment of clairsentience and sees the base where the huge tripod was created and where it is returning to. M’Shulla jumps out of the Dyna-Glider to make sure KR is okay….

Later, Killraven addresses his Freemen in camp; he mentions their trip to Yellowstone Park, directed by Carmilla Frost, will pause while they seek to avenge the man KR saw killed that day. Carmilla ridicules Killraven for being driven only by the desire for vengeance but no higher ideals; Killraven replies that as a pet of the Martians, she had time to indulge in ideology but the gladiators were not so lucky. She mocks him for playing martyr, suggesting he will never be more than an irritant to the Martian enemy until he learns to question his own actions. KR threatens Carmilla and M’Shulla comes to her aid and slugs his leader, offering to leave with her if KR so desires. Killraven bristles but guardedly asks them to stay….

The next day, the Freemen check out the Indianapolis 500 Speedway, now a testing ground for tripods and other Martian machines. Killraven heads down to infiltrate the facility, asking M’Shulla to stand guard above because he has faith in his comrade. M’Shulla knows that’s only so KR can blame him if something goes wrong….

Inside the compound, a slave trichanic named Hobie is kicked in the head by Skar. Killraven overpowers a sentanoid guard, strangling him with a chain. Hobie spots the dead guard then encounters Killraven, recognizing him from the failed execution broadcast (issue #23). He expresses his admiration for the hero but KR merely asks him to help hide the guard’s body. Hobie also reveals that the testing ground is mainly for tripods that exert some kind of mind control over humans. So Killraven hijacks a tripod to put an end to Skar’s career; Hobie asks KR to take him along with them when they depart….

So later, Skar in his Devil’s Marauder races two other tripods, easily downing one of them but the other is piloted by Killraven. The hero, brandishing a chain, leaps onto the villain’s craft and uses his weapon to smash through the Plexiglas covering. Killraven and Skar struggle, the tripod goes out of control, crashing into a building and falling to the ground. Killraven escapes but, looking for Hobie, he finds the trichanic buried under the rubble. Recalling Carmilla’s word about letting vengeance overwhelm his cause, he returns to his Freemen….

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Story #2

Are You Ready For the... Impossible

Writer: .
Penciler/Inker: Bill Everett.

Synopsis

The Minister of Enlightenment relates the strange story of how his landlocked nation, far from the sea, was receiving maritime distress signals. A search by direction finder pointed to the Minister’s own home as the source. A search uncovered a model ship in a bottle which had fallen into a basin of water. When removed, the SOS stopped. The Minister concludes his story by saying that they did not open the bottle because it would be absurd to find life within…and we see his nation is itself located within a bottle!