High Park, Toronto: Gen and Toshiro talk (Gen mentions Toshiro's Zen thing). Marduk orders Max to send a clone party lead by an MCA leader to stop Hotachi. The clones sent to kill Toshiro have had their life readings stopped. Marduk demands slavery to him: which he claims brings true freedom and the perfection of humanity's evolution. He tells his clones to destroy the sinners of the globe. Velvet and Stringfellow and the other captives have devices encircling their hands...devices set to explode if anyone messes with them. One of the captives rests her head on a male captive's lap. A spy in Marduk's ranks told Black about Hotachi's escape. Hotachi and Simon land in a chubby woman's garden. Clones land and break her broom. Then a battle suit grabs her. Fighting with the clones using a gun, Hotachi along with Simon find themselves in a garbage dumpster...with Archie Bodonie (who may have been in the Korean War). Archie holds them off. The battle suit throws the woman in the dumpster. Simon and Hotachi run through a cemetery but hail a taxi who thinks they are going to a science fiction convention. When the driver thinks he is a punker, Hotachi reveals he does not like punk rockers...he thinks they are decadent. The clones and the battle suit stop a pick up truck driver. The battle suit throws him out and they take the truck. They shoot at the cab which crashes near two lovers making out. Hotachi takes out another clone and then takes the gas pump out of a smoking man's hands and eliminates the battle suit with it and the fleeing man's cigarette. Hotachi moves big men away from Simon and they run. This leaves the big men in a foul mood...when the gun toting clones arrive. A poster on the wall near the Tube Station talks about Wee Willie Winkie among other posters. Simon and Hotachi get to Toshiro and the later asks him to obey the call of duty.
by Gordon Derry
Art by Craig A. Tallillefer.
A cowboy riding through the woods from a farm goes past a no trespassing sign. He loses his horse and finds some kind of box near a swamp. He gets a log cabin as a storm continues. In the box is a diary over 200 years oldó1668 April 1. It is in French. The man returns to the farm and learns a boy joined a cult when he off at school. When his folks died, he let a cult stay at his home. A cult that calls for a Great Old One to return. Atmospheric and moody western story with some real creeps to it. An HP Lovecraft tribute.
The Naganata has been taken over by forces loyal to Marduk, a messianic would-be dictator. Commander Black and professor Stringfellow have been taken prisoner and are locked up with their hands cuffed behind their backs in explosive fetters. Hotachi has escaped with Simon and is heading for Toronto to inform Samurai. Much of the book is taken up by a rather humourous chase episode as Hotachi and Simon stay one jump ahead of the pursuit from the Naganata.
Barry drew (penciled and inked) the fourteen page chase sequence and three other pages. These are in the new simplified style. The cover is rather nice: it shows Hotachi and Simon, wearing blue jump suits, slinking through the back alleys of Toronto.