Samurai #17 Aircel, 1987, b&w.
1 Samurai #17 cover Pencils: Blair
Inks: Dale Keown, Patrick MeEown
SYNOPSIS
THE BEGINNING
Toshiro goes to Kerr's Hardware which has issues of WARLOCK 5, ELFLORD, MAELSTROM, and SAMURAI. Two punk geared punks try to beat up and rob Richard King who is saved by Toshiro who appears to slip money into King's groceries. Father Tucker at the street clinic mission is given the two punks (who thought King was Rat Packer) to clean up by Toshiro. The two punks, Bill Ruby and Mitch Miller, come to live with Toshiro at the firehall, which he has just bought to fix up. Mitch used to come to the firehall as a kid. Toshiro, at night, saves a little girl from a mutantóman with a wolf like face. Toshiro beheads him and swords into others who attack him from out of the drain systems. Using his sword, Toshiro is also able to make one of the mutant men hit himself with his own nunchakus. He also chucks a grenade down the sewers. Marianne tells Toshiro there are many missing kids and winos. Toshiro goes to Velvet Black and Prof. Stringfellow. He explains that going it alone didn't work. This is the first time that they find out he is alive (as shown by Homer's reaction). Others come to help the firehall rebuilding. Bodonie also appears.
  Backup story: "Splinters part 2"

DEATH RIDES A SKATEBOARD
written and illustrated by Marty Pahls
Agincourt School is where Prof. Stringfellow enrolled Simon, Alex, Lee, and Yue. Yue dreamt about shredding the Parliament Buildings. Cuffy mentions Bjorn and Guppy and invited the foursome to eat breakfast with them. Alex's ESP feels the school is creepy. Alex reads a "Decision Your Own Adventure" book. Alex always wins. A Bunny Run of the first year kids goes from gym to the showers. The guys go skateboarding (and mention the new ELFLORD) and run into Corley's gang. Corley tries to skate and crashñfalls. At night, DRAGONRING is being read. Cuffy Cuffington insists on real ghost stories: bloodstains on stairs, hairless things, bottomless pits, secret panels, monsters, bats, murderers, torture chambers, and stolen boys. Vokra watches them on a SpyCam. A boy wearing a Big Rig shirt tells them Cuffy wets the bed every night he tells ghost stories. Yue seems to say Alex is not his best friend anymore. Yue tells Alex that he, Simon, Lee, Bjorn, Guppy, and Jareth are sneaking out to go skating but he doesn't ask Alex. Yue tells the others that Alex didn't want to come. Vokra moves a floor out from under Simon as the boys skate under the school. Simon falls down a hole into fog.
REVIEW
Toshiro continues his behind the scenes crime-fighting efforts, which include rescuing a girl from some mysterious rat-like tunnel dwellers who live in the sewers of Ottawa. He also acquires a girl friend named Marianne who helps him refurbish a building. He finally relents and reveals his continued existence to his old friends at Splinter, but decides against rejoining them as they are too closely allied to the Government.

The back-up story Splinters continues. The four "Splinters"-- Simon, Alex, Lee and Yué-- are beginning to fit in to Agincourt school and learn the usual school stories. Such as: there are labyrinths beneath the school, and screams in the night, secret panels, monsters, and they steal boys! Just the usual boarding school stories. Or so it seems until they go skateboarding in the school cellar, enter some weird tunnels, and Simon falls into some sort of pit and disappears! Same bare-legged art style as before.

The new art style for Samurai is pencils by Barry, inked by Dale Keown There are also a lot of pencils by McEown. The appearance of the artwork is returning to what it was before the Keown interlude. Splinters continues as comic relief.