Coóplotting and pencils: Blair
Inks by: Don Lanouette, Michael Pender, Barry Blair
Gen tries to talk Toshiro into not going to the Naganata, mentioning she thinks Hotachi is obnoxious. Forcefully, Toshiro tells Hotachi to be silent after Gen tries, threatening him in anger. Hotachi's shuttle is on a deserted rooftop and they destroy the other shuttle. The fat woman survived and is with Archie. They see the shuttle lift off. Homer has Simon and Lee hidden somewhere. The master access codes to the computer are known to Toshiro, Black, and Prof. Stringfellow. Toshiro and Hotachi land in Shuttle Bay 27. Toshiro starts the self destruct sequence and goes to rescue the others, fighting the clones (in impressive medley of fightsóóone with Toshiro's face a skeleton). Zilch seems to kill Max (or who I think is Max) or make him a zombie for the mines for Max having failed to cancel the self destruct. Toshiro uses a gas bomb, his feet, and a fire stick against the clones. Toshiro gets to Black who tells him (after kissing him) that if the secondary sequence isn't engaged, deadly radiation will enter Earth's atmosphere. It must be engaged through code Aó7. Toshiro uses his sword against clones in the elevator as well as the fire stick. A four framed fight sequence is most impressive and his sticking his sword into the stomach of a clone almost makes you feel sorry for the clone and feel his pain. Toshiro fights and defeats Max who was using a rocket launcher to attack him. For some silly reason, Max falls for Toshiro's "honor" bit and doesn't use the rocket launcher but uses his hands..and is downed...probably killed. A blast goes off and the spaceship is blown apart. Once more, Toshiro is believed dead by Black and Hotachi and the others.
The dog of the cowboy dies and he finds the cow of the farmer covered in goo, alive and some kind of monster. The farmer that was the cowboy's friend is really one of the cult and covered in black warts. A fire starts and the cowboy throws the box out the window which the monster in the swamp gets. The cowboy and farmer seem to die in the inferno.
Samurai and Hotachi fly up to the Naganata in Hotachi's shuttle. Due to Samurai's intimate knowledge of the ship they are able to get onboard and Samurai immediately initiates a self-destruct sequence. The Naganata must not be allowed to fall into the hands of Marduk! Marduk cancels the compute command and Samurai must fight through hundreds of clone warriors to throw the manual override command. Hotachi, Velvet and Prof. Stringfellow escape in the shuttle while Samurai stays behind when the Naganata blows up! This is the end of Samurai... or at least, the end of Toshiro.
Barry penciled issue 12 but only inked pages 8 and 9. This is a pity as there are some terrific fight scenes, which look very good but would have been just super if Barry had finished them. The two pages which Barry inked are beautiful
The cover gives away the ending by showing the Naganata blowing up. Rather reduces the surprise.