Pitched Battles, Avalanches & Styracosaurs: Tragg and the Sky Gods #7

cover art by Jesse Santos

Tragg and the Sky Gods #7 (November 1976)  is the next to last issue (not counting a delayed 9th issue that reprinted Tragg #1), but it can be counted as a satisfying Grand Finale, as it wraps up the main story arc after a multi-front battle between the alien invaders and cavemen riding styracosaurs. Writer Donald Glut and artist Dan Spiegle continue to tell an excellent story as they bring it to a violent conclusion.

Remember that Tragg and Lorn had befriended a tribe of men who have tamed the above mentioned styracosaurs. This essentially gives Tragg armored support as he and the dino-riders return to Fire Mountain to have it out with Zorek and the aliens.

Zorek, in the meantime, is enraged by Keera's escape in the last issue. Knowing that she turned against him because she likes Tragg, Zorek goes over the deep end and orders a final attack on the cavemen they aren't already enslaving. The aliens haven't done this yet because of their concerns about their power supply, but Zorek is now pretty obviously living in Crazy Town and no longer cares.

Ferenk, who secretly helped Keera escape, tries to reason with his boss. But this just eventually gets Ferenk shot and dropped into a bottomless abyss. Zorek is not a very nice boss.

What follows is a battle that shifts its action between several fronts. The aliens attack Tragg's people and trap them in a cave by using their ray guns to start an avalanche. But there's a small opening in the back of the cave that lets the tribe getaway.

When the dino-riders approach, Tragg and Lorn break off to sneak into the alien base to free the enslaved tribes-people there. But they get caught in a sonic booby-trap and are captured.

I like this part, by the way. Tragg and Lorn are smart and now have some experience going up against advanced technology, but there's no way they can know enough to be aware of all the possibilities. That they are quickly captured because of a hidden electronic booby-trap is completely believable.

Anyway, the aliens attack the dino-riders, but the thick bone structure of the styracosaurs make this an even fight. Eventually, the action moves into the aliens' base. Tragg and Lorn are able to fight free when their tribesmen arrive and Tragg eventually uses a styracosaurus to start shoving alien equipment into the lava.

This disagrees with the equipment in a very violent matter. The battle ends when everyone runs for it before the volcano blows up.

It's an exciting and expertly choreographed battle that reaches pretty epic proportions. There are twists and turns to the action and deaths of both Red Shirts and named characters on both sides.

Zorek and some other surviving aliens fly away, but are now nearly out of power and greatly reduced in number. This brings the main story arc to an end, but leaves things open-ended enough to greatly increase the storytelling potential of the world Donald Glut so expertly created. In addition to Zorek's escape, we have Keera still exiled from her people, the ape men that Tragg encountered in issue #5 and the vague possibility that Ferenk is still alive (in adventure fiction--no body means no guarantee of death), as well as the rest of the world around the valley as yet unexplored. All of this was high-quality fodder for future adventure tales. Sadly, we'll only have one more Tragg story, so that potential will never be fulfilled.

We will take a look at the last Tragg story in a few weeks. Next week, though, we'll watch Superman enounter Peg-Leg Portia and her Cosmic Hounds.