This will be great reading! Sure to put hair on you where hair don't grow and make ur beard grow strong enough to shoot your guns and rifles for you! I too 1st found Truman in a few DC backups in the war books and was blown away and bought the Grimjack promo poster from my LCS. Followed him from there on and love his stuff so much to even double dip for some 4winds series in TPB's. Truman's art is pure Sergio Leone Italian westerns in comic book form. Everything he does is harsh, gritty, dirty and sweats blood and bullets with one helluva story!

I'm gonna get going on this, since I am on vacation, even though I was going to wait until I finished Master of Kung Fu. I'm close enough for government work. So, without further ado, we set the wayback machine to 1985 and a new comic from Eclipse, featuring the artist of the fan-favorite comic, Grimjack....

Scout #1



First impressions....So, we have an Indian Lone Ranger, some big monster, and an Apache gunship. Well, this looks different! Wonder what the heck Fashion In Action is...

Creative Team: Tim Truman-story & art, Tim Harkins-letters, Steve Oliff-colors, cat yronwode-editor (well, not really, as Truman edited his own material)

Fasion In Action-John K Snyder III-Story & art, Chris Fauver-co-writer, cat yronwode-editor

Synopsis:Scout-

We open with a bit of background material, from the journal of Rosana Winter, from the far off future of 1999....



The US has suffered major ecological and economic disaster. IOt is no longer a world power, while the Soviet Union is allied with most of Africa and South America. In Arizona, a motorcycles comes riding out of the desert and stops at a gas station. Some of the locals aren't very friendly, though the owner is just happy for the business...



The biker helps himself to gas and the owner tells him he has to pay in advance. The biker ignores him and the redneck decides to make the point with a wrench. The biker turns around his masked face and makes like Clint Eastwood...



He fires at the building, but not at the men. A bear comes crashing through the screen door, dead. The biker rides off and we are told this is Scout. We are left to wonder how the bear got in there.

Scout continues into the desert and comes to a spot where a skeleton has been propped up in the sun. It is just as he has seen in his dreams. He begins a ritual of fasting and takes peyote. On the 4th night, he is visited by the Gahn, a spirit animal...



The Gahn is hungry and sarcastic, which seems a bit odd for a spirit guide; but, everyone has their bad days. He helps himself to tortillas, while telling Scout he has experienced Diya siniya, "power calls to you." So he's got that going for him.

The Gahn tells Scout that Usen thinks Scout has got the right stuff, like that old guy....used to yawn a lot....

Scout replies with the name Geronimo, the leader of the Apache Revolt, in the late 1800s, as played by a very white Chuck Connors and far better by the more appropriate (and skilled) Wes Studi. Scout is a little ticked off at having his dreams disturbed and didn't asked to be picked and he starts telling off the Gahm, who responds in kind...



Scout says he saw that he would kill a man in his dreams. the Gahn tells him it is much bigger. Apache legend told of 4 monsters who roamed the earth and committed great evil. They were defeated, but not wholly destroyed by Child of Water, a great warrior. now they have been summoned back by Grail, a name Scout recognizes, but means nothing to us, yet.

Meanwhile, at a hacienda, a fat slimeball is on the phone, talking about pornos. He ends the call and is thanked by some athlete for his "entertainment," while the scuzzball introduces Missy, one of his many "entertainers." he sends her off to get dolled up, as a grenade arcs over a hedge...



Fat boy whines while Missy and the rest abandon him. In walks Scout, with the Gahn on his shoulder...



Scout sees the pornographer for what he truly is, the Owl-Man Giant, the first of the 4 monsters. Legend says he loved a human woman, but was too large and she died. In anger, he cut off the part that killed the woman and began killing women, instead of loving them. Then, White Painted Woman gave birth to a son, Child of Water, who slew the monster and the women sang songs. Those songs are still sung at puberty rites for young apache girls.
Scout aims his M-16, but it jams and he is struck down. The Gahn scampers. Scout tries to kick it in the goolies, but it has none. He grabs it by the horns and snaps its neck. Scout then torched the hacienda and buildings and sat and watched, until Missy found him. The Gahn feeds his hungry belly...



A Corvette turns up with "Chippy" Waltz, ex-comedian and fast food king, and Secretary of Agriculture. Scout sees him as he truly is...



He gives him a message to give to Grail. Missy goes off with Scout and the Gahn.

Fashion in Action-

On New Years Eave, 2086, the countdown starts and a group of revelers ring in the new year. The giant ball drops, then opens up and out come men with guns. They soon find rather stylish opposition...



It's Francis Knight and the FIA. They defeat the terrorists and save Johnny Mars, the MC. Johnny's agent, isn't happy, but Frances tells him it never would have happened if her people handled the props. Outside, Inspector CrCrough wants the prisoner, but Knight invokes the 48 hour questioning rule, to Crough's ire. Inside, Johnny Mars knows he isn't out of danger and looks for liquid courage. he is snatched away by a robot ape and we learn the terrorists were the Gargoyle Gang.

Wait, didn't Johnny Sokko defeat them?



Frances returns to HQ, at the Statue of Liberty and is told she is needed with the prisoner. The mysterious enemy launches a drone. The prisoner spouts jibberish and his brain fries. Then, Frances gets word of Johnny's abduction. She spots the drone and shoots it down with her Mauser. We see the man behind it, Dr Cruel, with his psychotic assistant, Roxanne...



Thoughts: tremendous debut for Scout. Truman establishes the dystopian world on page one and gives us just enough to let our imagination fill in the blanks. Tne, he introduces his hero, borrowing a bit from Sergio Leone. The mask seems to be a bit of a sacrifice to the Gods of Superhero Comics, to help attract readers to something markedly different. Scout is pure badass, with plenty of guns and a cool demeanor.

Truman also established a rather dark sense of humor, with the Gahn. First, he manifests as a talking katydid, who is hungry and a little flighty. Then, he transforms into some scary humanoid appearance and reveals the story of the 4 Monsters. We learn that Scout has been plagued by nightmares of killing someone and we see him do just that, a fat pornographer and sex trafficker, who Scout sees as the Owl-Man Giant, one of the 4 Monsters. The first thing you have to ask is it all real or just in Scout's delusional mind? I mean, the guy went out into the desert, fasted for 4 days and took peyote, which is a hallucinogenic. He's probably seeing all kinds of things. We'd probably think he is a total psycho, if it weren't for the fact that the man he kills has it coming to him, as we hear him talk of peddling underaged girls to powerful men.

Why does that sound familiar? Hmmmmm, sex trafficking ring, friends in the highest echelons of government, a nation in chaos.............

This was 1985, remember? It wasn't a big jump to Truman's image of 1999. We knew the planet was in trouble, with deforestation and the depletion of the Ozone Layer. This is pre-Glasnost and the Soviets still seemed like powerful bogeymen. Nicaragua had a Marxist government, large chunks of Asia had Communist regimes, and Africa was the playground of Soviet and Western factions. Not much extrapolation.

Scout is an intriguing character. We don't know much about him, other than he is a smart-ass, has visions, and is a deadly killer and ex-soldier. The Gahn says he was taken away by the Whites and still has much of them about him. The red band across his face is the mark of a scout, but the red signifies those who rode with the US Army and hunted their brethren.

Truman has done his research and is using actual Apache mythology in the story. There really is a legend of the 4 Monsters, who were defeated by the warrior, Child of Water. he also has done his research on the landscape, which he captures in its stark beauty. He also gets the weapons right, though he gets a bit wonky, from time to time. Scout's Uzi is a little too big for a holster, though the Mini-Uzi version could fit into a typical power drill holster, on a tool belt. Scout's other weapon is the .44 Automag, as seen in the Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact. That thing is a cannon, in pistol form and was the favored weapon of Mack Bolan, the Executioner, in the men's adventure pulp novel series that inspired The Punisher.

Truman's art is spectacular, as we had come to know in Starslayer and Grimjack, if you tore yourself away from DC and Marvel, in the early-mid 80s. Truman had a realism to his work that made the fantastic believable. We can buy that the 4 Monsters are real and Scout is the one who can see through the delusions we see. At the same time, he plays it cagey and we can easily believe that Scout is delusional, but has picked deserved men as targets.

This is something of note and it did much to elevate Eclipse in the eyes of the critics and caught the attention of the discerning comic book reader. Eclipse had some minor success, but, with the reprints of Miracleman and Scout, it had bona fide hits.

Fashion in Action both compliments and contrasts with Scout, making it a perfect back-up strip. It;s more gonzo that Truman's straight-ahead delivery and Snyder's line is a bit more abstract. His characters are bizarre and wild, which contrasts with Scouts more normal looking humans and even his more realistic monsters. At the same tie, there is a similar attitude and level of competence, while at odds with authority. This first installment throws a lot at you, which makes it hard to assess. there are intriguing parts and parts that make you go, "WTF?"

Snyder is a relatively unknown quantity, at this point, though he would carve out his own niche in the indie comic world, before (eventually) publishing his Dr Mid-Nite mini-series, which introduced the newer version, later seen in the JSA (as opposed to Roy Thomas' female Dr Mid-Nite, in the pages of Infinity, Inc). I met him at a convention, in 1991, with Matt Wagner, with whom he worked on Grendel. Both were doing these amazing sketches, using colored sheets of paper as background and paint markers for the figures. I wished then and there I had budgeted more money and could have commissioned a sketch of Captain Marvel (the real one), but I had at least gotten such a sketch from Joe Staton. Snyder was a heck of a talent and largely overlooked by the comic book audience, though he has a body of work that includes more recent stuff, at IDW. he will also appear here, when I get to The Prowler.

So, on the whole, an outstanding first issue that makes you sit up and take notice. FIA is the weaker of the two, mainly because it throws a lot at you, in a small space, leaving you overwhelmed. Scout gives it to you head on, with both barrels, but you can see the buckshot coming at you.

This comic carries the notation that it is a 4 Winds Production, but, Eclipse didn't use a special branding for those books, other than noting them as such in the indicia and in cat yronwode's Penumbra editorial and marketing column. Eventually, 4 Winds would have its own segment of the Penumbra, is they were producing the bulk of Eclipse's top sellers, apart from Miracleman.

I got the run of Scout on PDF when I backed Truman's Kickstarter for his new Scout story. I'll have to see if I can find time to do a re-read as you're going along. At least this way I don't have to dig out my issues.

Scout #2



Truman continues the association between Scout, an Apache, and the AH-64 Apache gunship. I notice his Uzi is missing the shoulder stock (fixed wooden or folding metal versions). Scale is way closer 9though still a bit large) than Frank Miller, in Dark Knight, where they were drawn the size of rifles!

Creative Team: Tim Truman-story & art, Tim Harkins-letters, Steve Oliff-colors, cat yronwode-editor.

Fashion In Action: John K Snyder III-story & art, Chris Fauver-co-writer, cat-editor.

On the stands, at the same time, from Eclipse: Miracleman #3, New DNAgents #3, Teen Titans Index #4, Seduction of the Innocent #1 & 2 (pre-Code reprints). cat talks about various Eclipse fans on the interior editorial page, leaving the letters page to Truman, after providing the into in issue #1.

Synopsis: Scout-

When we last left Scout, he met his gahn and had a vision of the 4 Monsters, an Apache legend of 4 powerful monsters who devastated the lands, until Child of Water defeated them. He faces the first monster, The Owl-Head Monster, who was a pornographer and pimp, named Al. He rescued a prostitute named Missy and gave a message to Chippy Waltz, Sec. of Agriculture and another of the monsters, that he was coming for Grail. Now, Scout is on the run, hiding in the canyons of the Arizona desert, as the Army searches for him with AH-64 Apache gunships. The gahn is there to advise...



A helo makes a sweep of a canyon wall and spots Scout, but he raises a shoulder-fired rocket launcher and sends a rocket into the cockpit, destroying the aircraft.



Missy comes out of her hiding hole. Scout says the gahn tells him to leave her behind and she is stunned that he is listening to a chipmunk. He tells her sho can head to Tuscon or Houston, which are equidistant, her choice. She admits that she is wanted in Tuscon, which is how she fell in with Al. She sticks with Scout and they get on his motorcycle and head for Houston.

Meanwhile, in Houston, at the Astor-Dome, we meet Jerry Grail, the President of the United States. Houston is the western capital and he receives a briefing from his advisor, Bill Loeb, an African-American televangelist. They have a positive ID on Scout and have called in some specialists. Grail is introduced to US Army Ranger sergeants Rosana Winter and Ray Vaughn. Vaughn briefs the president. Scout is Emanuel Santana, an Apache from the White Mountain Reservation, in Arizona. He was forcibly removed and put into a school, where he was trained as a soldier, alongside Winter and Vaughn, the Army's "Schoolboys" program. He was a top recruit during their first year; but a loner and didn't mix with a team. In the second year of the program, he suffered headaches and acted bizarrely. He eventually went AWOL. They hunted for him, but he escaped.

Grail assigns them to track Scout down. Loeb briefs him about Al's guests, which included Senator Oby. Grail orders him to keep him incommunicado and to announce a hunt for a terrorist and describe the attack on the mansion as terrorist bombings. The party is to be kept quiet and the reward to be paid when Scout goes to trial. he then tells Loeb to make sure he never makes it to trial, then tells him to withhold all info from Vice-President Carver.

Scout and Missy are in New Mexico and come across a sight, near one of the last farms in the country....



Scout tells Missy to stay by the bike and take off is he doesn't return. He leaves his pack with food and tells her to avoid eating the field corn, unless she wants the "squirts" and not to drink any water from ditches, as it will be filled with chemical run-off. Chippy Waltz is busing ordering his men to avoid safety precautions and get hay harvested for a fodder order.

Two sentries go down to cross-bolts and the alarm is raised. The gahn whines about Scout leaving Missy the food and questions a crossbow against automatic weapons. He heads into a farmhouse and the guards throw in a grenade, then go iside. Scout pops out of a feedbox and mows them down. Suckers!



Waltz gets the drop on Scout, who tells him he can see him, and we get a glimpse of the same bison head. He is the Buffalo Monster. Scout ducks Waltz's shot and hits him with a round from his AutoMag. It seems too easy and he is still edgy. he walks off with the gahn and the Buffalo Monster comes crashing out after him. He charges into Scout and has him down, powerful hands at his throat. In desperation, Scout grabs a trowel and stabs him in the neck and kicks him over his head and off a cliff. He lands in front of one of the auto-pickers and ends up as several separate bails of hay...



Scout returns to the bike and leaves with Missy. He is observed though the scope of an M-21 Sniper Rifle...



...by Vaughn, but he is too far away for an effective shot. He remarks that Rosanna slept with Scout and she says she slept with lots of people, as did Vaughn, as they head out to track Santana.

Fashion In Action: We pick up with a pirate tv transmission by Roxanne, as she shows her hostage, Johnny mars and threatens to kill him, but demands no ransom...



Frances gives the ladies of the FIA their marching orders and Ursula, a psychic, tries to pick up intel. Dr Cruel and Roxanne chat with Johnny, who owes a successful career revival to Dr Cruel getting him the part in My Monkey, Mitzi.

The captured goon is turned over to Inspector Crough, while Ursula gets an image of Roxanne, nearby, in a dirigible...



Roxanne launches smaller aircraft from the airship's hanger, including one with Johnny Mars and a pilot. Meanwhile, the captured goon name drops Dr Cruel and the Inspector recognizes that name from old pulp novels. Then, Roxanne comes in range and begins her attack run on the Statue of Liberty, HQ for the FIA.



Thoughts: A second great issue, with plenty of action and some more exposition about Scout and this world of the (then) near future. The US has depleated its soil, through pollution and over-farming and exploited Latin America, until revolutions kicked them out, with Soviet backing. Waltz ran Agcorp, the largest food producer, a parallel to the United Fruit Company, which held large areas of land in Latin America and who were responsible for pushing the US government into military incursions to replace unfriendly governments with more compliant ones, as in Nicaragua, when the Samosa regime was put in power, which would backfire int he 1970s, as the Sandanistas overthrew the Samosa dictatorship and replaced it with a marxist, anti-US government, leading to the secret CIA backing of the Contras (ex-Samosistas) and the Iran-Contra Scandal. He also throws in Dep[ression history, as bank foreclosures take farms away from the owners and turns them into company labor, under repressive bosses. Not often that comics meet The Grapes of Wrath.

Truman's art is breathtaking. He has the raw grit in his action scenes and they feel "real." Meanwhile, he plays with perceptions so that you still question whether the monsters are real creatures of just Santana's delusion, though his targets have earned his wrath. The page where he drops the Buffalo Monster in front of the picking machines shows how Truman mixed good storytelling layouts with artistic expression, as he has a symbolic image of Santana and the gahn, between the panel sequences of Waltz falling from the cliff and the picker moving towards his naked body.

Jerry Grail seems an odd duck, but this world is a mess. We will eventually learn that he is a former pro wrestler-turned politician. If this sounds a bit ridiculous, consider the current reality tv star in the White House. Also, at this time, we had a former B-movie actor as president. It wasn't that much of a stretch. As it is, a few years later, Japan would have a top pro wrestling star (Antonio Inoki) elected to its upper legislative house and would elect another (Hiroshi Hase), then a masked wrestler as the third (Great Sasuke), to a regional legislative position. Ric Flair was courted to run for office in North Carolina, in the late 90s, and Linda McMahon, wife of WWE owner and promoter Vince McMahon, ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate, in Connecticut and her husband's $5 million donation to trump's "charity" bought her a seat in his cabinet, as head of the Small Business Administration (since resigned). Truman is a scary-good guesser, as the depiction of depleted farmland has parallels to the heavy use of chemicals and genetically modified crops that are being grown on US soil and accusations of chemical run off poisoning water supplies in same areas.

Bill Loeb is Truman's swipe at the Moral Majority and people like Jerry Falwell, who were exerting political pressure, at this time, before being undone in a series of scandals. The Sec of Ag is a former comedian who ran a fast food company. I don't know which is scarier, this or the credentials of the modern equivalent positions. Also, the camp where Santana was indoctrinated was Falwell Camp, in Carlisle, PA.

I didn't remark on it last time, as Scout is not named in the issue, only in cat yrondowe's introduction; but the additions of Ray Vaughn and Rosana Winter gives the perfect opportunity. Tim Truman is a major Blues fan and it permeates his work, at Eclipse, especially Scout. Scout, Emanuel Santana, is named for Carlos Santana. Ray Vaughn is both named after and modeled on Stevie Ray Vaughan.





I have never seen Truman confirm this; but, I believe Rosana Winter's surname is a nod to Johnny and Edgar Winter, who would also be homaged in Jonah Hex, leading to a lawsuit where DC kind of threw Truman and Lansdale to the wolves, though the Winter Brothers lost. Later, we will meet Guitar Man, who was a nod to Miami Steve Van Zandt, with a bit of Jimmi Hendrix. We will also have several issu titles that wil be either titles or lyrics from Blues songs. This would culminate in a Battle of the Bands, in issue #19, with a flexi-disc record included in the comic, with a soundtrack for the band fight, recorded by Truman and his band, The Dixie Pistols. He would them do a whole album, which included a mini-comic, featuring Scout's marriage, which would lead into the second phase of the epic, Scout: War Shaman.

Truman includes a personal bio, talking about growing up in West Virginia, and playing music and studying and practicing art.

FIA continues to be gonzo fun, as we learn that Dr Cruel was a pulp novel character and he and Roxanne have a dirigible base. Ursula is a psychic, while the other ladies all have their specialties. This is very much a modern pulp novel, though a bit more obscure in the storytelling and more over-the-top, in method. That was one of the key elements of the 4 Winds books; they all had great pulp sensibilities, whether is was the pulps of the 20s and 30s or the more modern men's adventure pulps of the 70s and 80s, or pulp takeoffs, like Jack Kerouac's Doctor Sax, or Stephen King's Dark Tower series or things involving The Shop. It's still a nice contrast and compliment to Scout; but, Snyder's storytelling isn't quite as engaging. he doesn't have many pages and he throws a ton at you and still hasn't explained much, making it hard to follow. FIA would be a bit controversial on the letters pages, as many Scout fans didn't care for it, but both Truman and yronwode championed it. It would later get a pair of specials. One of the fun elements of it, as it progressed, was the inclusion of paper doll cutouts for the characters, something Trina Robbins also did in some of her books and were a staple of Archie's Katy Keene series. Dover Press used to publish recreations of paper doll books and we sold quite a few of them, in my 20 years at B&N.

At that time, he was editing the other stuff, putting together the Dixie Pistols album and prepping Scout War Shaman.  He needed a breather.  I would agree that Ben Dunn's artwork wasn't quite up to the same standard, even disregarding his manga influences.  I also kind of felt the characters were still a bit thin on personality.  New America had Rosana to propel it and is definitely the better written and the art is more consistent with the rest of Scout.

Truman does take a break with the end of The 4 Monsters and Tom Yeates fills in for the issue covering Santana's time at Falwell Camp.

Scout #4



Tremendous painted cover from Truman.

Creative Team: Tim Truman-story & art, Tim Harkins-letters, Sam Parsons-colors, cat yronwode-editor

FIA: John K Snyder III-story & art, Chris Fauver-co-writer, cat yronwode-editor.

Also out from Eclipse: Alien Encounters #5, Doom Patrol Index 1 & 2, Mr Monster #5, Twisted Tales of Bruce Jones 1 &2, Masked Man #8, Seduction of the Innocent #4, New DNAgents #6, Miracleman #6. Alien Encounters and Twisted Tales are both Bruce Jones material, Mr Monster continues its awesomeness, and Seduction of the Innocent was pre-Code horror. Masked Man was a Spirit-esque series, from BC Boyer, which was quite fun. Eclipse did severl indexes of DC comics, including Teen Titans and JLA.

cat introduces some fans and also gives some personal history, in answer to reader questions. The interior page also features a recap box of last issue.

Synopsis: Scout-"I Ain't Superstitious." Sgt Rosana Winter reports to Bill Loper, as Vaughn is treated for injuries. Loper rips her a new one and assigns her to safeguarding Vice President Laura Carver, the heroin junkie.



Vaughn needles Rosa, who says Scout was just a one-night stand, at the camp, which was common practice. Vaughn hints that she might enjoy the Vice President, whatever that means...

Rev Deluxe talks to Scout and relays Doody's backhistory...



Scout preps his FN/FAL rifle....



which leads us to wonder what happened to the M-16 he had and where he got this; but, I digress. Doody was brain damaged by anesthesia and used as a slave, before being rescued. he babbles about monsters. Deluxe calls Scout crazy, who then retorts with comparisons to stories of waters receeding to allow the passage of Hebrew slaves and then enveloping Pharoah's army or Joanh swallowed by a sea beast, or prophets calling down a rain of fire on the priests of Baal. The comparative religion discussion moves on, though. Scout says he has the Eagle Monster and the Antelope Monster yet to kill, then Slayer of Enemies, Pres. Jerry Grail, himself. Missy flips out and tells off Santana. Scout says he had to make a bargain to gain power to do what is needed and someone will die as a sacrifice, though he won't say who. Deluxe tells him to vamoose...



On the dirigible, Rosa finds Laura Carver puking her guts into a toilet and helps her out. The Presidents tv broadcast, promoting his New America agenda, begins, with the introduction of Energy Secretary, Vince Eagre. He was Jerry Grail's sponsor, on the pro wrestling circuit and he speaks of New America, as stockpiled oil reserves will be unleashed to get America back on the move. The rally is one big propaganda show.....

sounds familiar.....

As Eagre touts the oil reserves below the airship, a storage tank explodes. Scout has struck...



Scout is being assisted by the New Disciples of Soul and they hit some National Guardsmen. Vaughn alerts Rosa to get the Veep out and they move. Scout blasts some Knights of America volunteers, at a helo pad. The Kof A are the modern offspring of the KKK. Gee, white supremacists aiding a right wing demagogue.....

Eagre turns up in a P-40M Kittyhawk and Scout see the Eagle Monster...



Gahn gives running commentary about the armament of the Kittyhawk as Santana tries to evade it on his Harley. Doody fires his rifle and sends a couple of rounds through the cockpit, causing Eagre to veer off. Scout gets elevation and launches his bike into the plane, causing them to collide and explode. The plane veers into the dirigible and ignites the hydrogen....



The dirigible crashes down onto the storage tanks below and sets them ablaze, as Guitar Man plays an accompanying riff....



Scout catches up to Deluxe and Missy, but Doody is missing. he turns up, with Ray Vaughn holding an Uzi to his head. He tells Santana to come up there, but he won't. Vaughn retreats with Doody as hostage. Deluxe cries out in despair and anger.

FIA- Ursula drams of Frances and cold, plus some yetis...



Kelly and the Inspector exchange info. Johnn Mars says he was blindfolded and didn't see much that could help. Dr Cruel's goon is dead and Mars' agent has fired FIA and replaced them. In Westchester, Syd introduces Johnny Mars to his new bodyguards, led by Alexander Maxim...



who looks a lot like Napoleon Solo.

Johnny shows Syd a blemish on his hand and smiles, as he says it is nothing.

Meanwhile, Dr Cruel fills in Frances...



Johnny Mars has been replaced by a robot, with a medical pad in his hand which secretes a serum that turns those who come in contact, into gorillas. There will be a lot of important people at the wedding that is being prepared, in Westchester.

Roxanne reveals that Frances is there at her request. Frances warns her to stay away or be hurt.

Inspector Crough calls Sydman and his assistant discovers that he has turned into a gorilla. He still gets 10% but takes it in bananas!

Letters pages (Lock N Load) has a critique from Eclipse letter hack John Egan, which prompts a response from Truman about a friend, working at a major company, who called the writer for info on the upcoming 3rd issue plot, to prepare, only to find said writer hadn't even plotted the third issue, even though it was a "limited series" (which suggests this was Marvel, as that was their term). Beau Smith praises Ray Vaughn and mentions Truman's guitar work. Smith had a radio show, Comicast, before going to work at 4 Winds and Eclipse. Beau La Duke will be introduced as an homage to him. Uncle Elvis Orten sends a missive and Truman introduces Sam Parsons as colorist, as Steve Oliff is taking time away from comics to explore new computer coloring systems. Oliff would soon start Olyoptics, which provided freelance computer color work, which would be used by the Image crew and other major works in the early-mid 90s. They were the best colorists around, in that technology.

FIA paper doll...



Thoughts: Eagre was a bit of a giveaway, since it is Spanish for eagle. It is scary how many parallels there are in Scout to modern America; but, that is the sign of good speculative fiction. Truman examines the world of the 80s and projects forward a couple of decades and recognizes how serious issues are likely to devolve and who might take advantage of it. Still, celebrity president, crooked cronies in positions of power, right wing extremist "volunteers," armed response to protests, propaganda rallies.......Brrrrrrrrrrrr! Science fiction is a refection of the time it was written and Scout was written with an actor-turned president, secret wars in Latin America (and not-so-secret ones, as we had advisors in El Salvador, training death squads and troops in Honduras to prop up a repressive government and keep Nicaraguan forces from chasing the Contras across the border into Honduras, where the CIA were equipping and training them, as was revealed in several major news articles and the Iran-Contra hearings). Televangelists had great political clout, survivalists were prepping fr doomsday, and the Cold War was still in full force. Nothing too far fetched, depending on how you view the Monsters, as just Scout's headtrip or real monsters.

The issues title is yet another Howlin' Wolf song. Sam Parsons contributes a phony ad for Bombs Away cereal, sponsor of the New America rally. New America will be the program that permeates Scout through the end of its first incarnation, followed by a mini-series of the same name, focusing on Rosanna Winter and a team of MOSSAD agents.

Truman's art continues to be staggering and some of the most original and breathtaking on the stands.

FIA continues to build the intrigue, with touches of dark humor. Last issue brought me around on it, as I pretty much skipped those stories, originally (I only had the trade of The Four Monsters, until a few years later, when I found the early issues at a decent price.) Comparisons to Howard Chaykin, in tone, if not art, are quite fitting, as it has a similar smart-ass style, though with less self-loathing. Alexander Maxim is modeled on Robert Vaughn and even has the triangular UNCLE badge on his lapel. No Ilya Kuryakin in sight. Maybe next issue.

For a bit of perspective on Scout and Rev Deluxe's discussion of Biblical stories and Scout's talk of Apache legend, Truman's father, among other things, was a Baptist minister. No idea about Truman's personal beliefs, as he doesn't illustrate them in his issue 2 intro; but, he is well steeped in Native American research and the 4 Monsters legend is a real thing, as are the rites and ceremonies that Santana uses. Truman is respectful to those traditions and beliefs and I think respectful to Christian theology, if not to those who say one thing and do quite another, as in the case of Bill Loper and some of the others. Rev Deluxe was a tv star, but found his true calling in actually ministering to people in need, which shows that he found a real use to his faith, to serve others, rather than self-glorification. So, on the whole, I'd call it pretty balanced.

One more monster, then Jerry Grail. Doody is in deep doo-doo. Is he the sacrifice Scout spoke of? Let me put it this way; Tim Truman wasn't an obvious writer.