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Comic Reviews, Jurassic Park

JURASSiC PARK #16: FACiNG EXTiNCTiON

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There’s no mention of it on the cover along with Michael Golden‘s image, nor in the editorial. In fact they’re still offering subscriptions to the comic, and there are just two little ‘The End’ captions attached to the final panels of each strip. But this is the last issue of Jurassic Park. As discussed last time, new publisher Manga Publishing knew this was going to be the end, so it’s rather misleading of editor Dick Hanson not to edit out the subscriptions!

We finish what was originally Dark Horse International’s series with another 40-page issue, although the inner 32 pages are of pretty poor stock compared to previous issues. The back up is the second half of last month’s Xenozoic Tales, but first we’ve the final part of the four-issue American mini-series ‘Raptors Attack’, which is the name referred on the cover. As mentioned before, this meant nothing to us UK readers because we didn’t know how the comic series was broken up into mini-series over there, so this just confused us.

The first chapter of the mini-series was called Rush! but the following three had much more imaginative titles that changed to match the evolving storyline. Back in #14 we had Animals/Men, then Animals/Gods and this issue’s final story is Gods/Men as the now wild Velociraptors once more become the stars of the strip. Written by Steve Englehart who has been responsible for every chapter since the adaptation ended, it’s again pencilled by Chaz Truog and inked by Paul Fricke, letters are by new addition Brad K. Joyce (Marvel What The..?!, The Ren & Stimpy Show, The Sensational She-Hulk) and Renée Witterstaetter colours and story edits.

For a final chapter there’s more background character information than actual plot. There are quite a few pages given over to the history between Robert Muldoon and the late George Lawala, how even though they were rivals Lawala saved his life so Robert will avenge George’s. I don’t see the point in this at this late stage and it’s all rather predictable. Much better are the pages given over to developing our dinosaur characters Alf, Betty and Celia, mainly through a lengthy dream sequence as they finally sleep in peace away from us apes.

Clearly we’re getting a translated version of the information their mother passed on to them, correctly identifying the humans behind Jurassic Park as apes. The resting ‘raptors (only three of them left now) continue to dream about being captured and losing their family, reminding them that humans are their enemy. We get more chances to see them acting as regular wild animals too, drinking, playing and basically living and enjoying life. Then we find out one of the tribal men from last issue has survived and finds his gods, who are tempted to kill him as they did the rest, although he’s making such strange hand movements they begin to feel uneasy and take off instead.

“They’re so alien, so different from us — maybe they are gods — because it’s sure that we’re only men…!”

Dr Alan Grant

He was trying to warn the ‘raptors of the humans nearby, our main characters, and how they were in the area to hunt his gods. Drs Ellie Satler, Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm have joined Muldoon as he hunts, the three of them making it very clear they are not there to kill. There are local villagers tagging along to help and Muldoon comes across as a bit of a racist, although thankfully called out on it by Alan. I really don’t like this version of the game warden character from the film and novel. Much more entertaining, as always, is Ian.

Still flirting with Ellie, despite Alan being right there, it’s clear it’s meant in good jest and his continual talking annoys Muldoon which is a bonus. Yes I still have a bee in my bonnet over the return of Muldoon and I’ve already gone into the ridiculousness of his survival. Here, it’s also explained that the reason the ‘raptors already had a family of adolescents was because they were able to escape their cage in Jurassic Park, find a secluded spot to lay their eggs away from the humans and then… went back inside their cage?!

Clearly this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It could easily have been avoided by having a larger gap between the end of the movie and the beginning of the comic’s continuation instead of picking things up only three days later (back in #6). The whole series hinges on these animals so it’s annoying to read this so-called explanation, it kind of ruins the whole set up. It’s ill-conceived and reads as a lazy way of getting the action going. Add in Muldoon’s survival and this official sequel is contradicting the movie it’s based on more and more.

Shoving these inconsistencies to the back of my mind, the race towards this particular story’s climax is exciting. They track the Velociraptors to a part of the jungle separated from the humans by a long rope bridge. Muldoon is stopped from sniping them from afar by the locals, which attracts their attention. The ‘raptors sprint across the bridge to attack, coming face to face with an unarmed Ellie first of all.

Due to Ellie and Alan’s capture alongside the dinosaurs in previous issues and being forced to tend to Celia’s wounds, they’ve formed some form of cautious bond with these creatures. Indeed, we’ve seen Celia stop her siblings from killing them. But it looks like Alf and Betty no longer care about this. They’ve suffered enough at the hands of the apes. In the first of the two pages below I particularly like the ‘raptor on the bottom left, it’s a classic pose from the films and really gets across their ferocity.

Then the unthinkable happens. 

This genuinely shocked me. I half expected Muldoon to fire at this point despite currently being attacked and restrained by the villagers and it was still sad to see one of them fall, despite the fact they were about to attack. However, who actually fired was the shocking part! This went against everything Alan stands for, everything he was trying to achieve. But he had no choice, it was either Betty or Ellie.

This was always the dilemma in the Jurassic franchise, the danger of these wild animals against the need to preserve them, to understand they’re just acting naturally, to nurture their instincts and let them be themselves. But of course, a little bit of Chaos Theory always got in the way and made it more exciting for us. In the end Muldoon is subdued by the villagers and the ‘raptors are poised to attack again, no longer in any mood to discern friendly human from foe. But the villagers and their strange movements jump in front of them and kneel before their gods.

With the death of their sister, the confusion over friend and foe and now these strange people Celia and Alf decide to take off. There are only two of them now. They know they’re the only ones but the world is a big place, so they run across the bridge, chew at its ropes to collapse it and head off in search of more of their kind. The last word is left to Alan Grant.

In America readers got another mini-series and an annual before a short-lived ongoing monthly, altogether another 14 stories which we never got here. In fact, it wasn’t until I was researching the comic’s origins for the blog that I discovered there had been any more after this. Back in the 90s it was a couple of months before I realised the comic had officially finished, what with it having taken a lengthy break before between #10 and #11 and of course the Christmas season kept me busy after this issue.

When I eventually realised the next issue was overdue I went back and checked and of course there was no date for its release, but as discussed above there wasn’t really any finality either. But I have to say I ended up really liking this ending, with the three ‘raptors out in the wild they could pop up anywhere in the world. Who knew what chaos could be sowed from having extinct creatures back in the world. In fact, 24 years later this was how Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ended.

Before this comic series is over there’s the small matter of what caused the future cataclysm in Mark Shultz’s Xenozoic Tales: History Lesson, written and drawn by him and coloured by Christine Courtier. It was renamed Cadillacs and Dinosaurs for these final issues (although a story has been chosen without dinosaurs) because the cartoon based on Mark’s comics had begun in the UK, but these are the original comic strips, so the blurb on the cover is somewhat misleading. So, do we get our answers as promised last month? Annoyingly, no.

My annoyance isn’t Mark’s fault though. This was an early story of his, meant to drop hints, not offer an answer. It was this comic’s editor who decided to use it as a finale and hype it up for Jurassic Park readers last time. As a result of this I’m feeling rather short changed.

Hannah discovers a shell of an atomic bomb in the secret library within the catacombs and we’re led to believe this is what caused the world to basically end. This is also what some of those present believe. However, researching the books it then transpires the world was on the cusp of nuclear war when the cataclysm happened and stopped it, so it was a separate event (thus no straight answer). Then the library descends into chaos in a way that’s scarily prophetic of where we find ourselves in the world right now.

Hannah and most of those present know the bomb is just a shell. It’s been dismantled and emptied, they know it didn’t cause the cataclysm because of facts in the books. However, there are a band of people who don’t care about facts and instead believe the bomb itself is ‘evil’ and should be destroyed, even if that means taking the library and the entirety of human history with it, along with everything they could learn about their history, the actual cataclysm and how they can overcome it.

In other stories in this enjoyable back up it hinted that the cataclysm was caused by climate change, not least thanks to Hannah’s disgust at Jack’s garage of old cars. These mechanical relics may have been converted by Jack to run on dino doo-doo but they were referred to as being partly responsible for the destruction in the first place.

The Jurassic Park comic was a big deal to me as a teen and I’ve really enjoyed reliving it 28 years later

Back to this issue and Hannah’s frustration is palpable and I can imagine how this would’ve read in the early days of the original comic, so that’s how I’m reviewing it, instead of the disappointing climax it was never intended to be. She pulls a gun on one of the workers and demands to be taken to the sluice gate where she’s able to stop the flood and save about half the books from being completely destroyed, almost losing her life in the process.

Read in the correct order this would’ve solidified Jack and Hannah’s friendship (and perhaps more) for Mark’s original readers, with Jack’s concern for Hannah written as being something of a surprise to him. Then, as you can see on this final page he doesn’t understand the importance of the books, putting the two characters back to being at odds with one another as their relationship developed. Unfortunately we never got to enjoy this aspect of Xenozoic Tales because all our chapters were out of order.

So that’s it for the UK’s version of Jurassic Park. Back in the 90s the movie’s comic sequel was left hanging yet at the same time it felt like the perfect end. Taking these characters and dinosaurs so far outside of the confines of the movies had enthralled me and they’ve held up really well. Yes, I didn’t like the contradictions to the original film and so sadly by the end the strip simply can’t fit in with the movie sequels anymore.

Steve Englehart had been given free rein to do whatever he wanted, which is surprising given the high profile nature of the new franchise and the fact Amblin knew Michael Crichton was writing The Lost World novel. Clearly, having two sequels being written at the same time was never going to work. The Jurassic Park comic was a big deal to me as a teen and I’ve really enjoyed reliving it 28 years later.

The last back page finally announced the release of the movie on VHS to buy, which I’d very gratefully receive for Christmas in a special fossil box (you can see an image of it in the original introductory post) and let’s not forget you could also buy it on Laserdisc! How very 90s.

As I close this final issue it’s reassuring to know that I’m not done yet with Jurassic Park on the blog. This isn’t the end, only a bit of a pause.

There was another, short-run UK Jurassic Park comic a few years later that I only recently discovered, so watch out for that in 2023 and while I can’t see me being able to collect the rest of Xenozoic Tales, thankfully the same isn’t true of the main strip. IDW reprinted the series in graphic novel form over a decade ago and I’ve finally been able to collect the ones I needed to finish the story. I haven’t read them yet, I will when I’m ready to write about them but I’m sure they’ll make an excellent addition to the blog. They’d better, given what they cost!

“Spared no expense.”

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Comic Reviews, Jurassic Park

JURASSiC PARK #15: ANiMAL iNSTiNTS

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Another exciting cover from Michael Golden, right? Shame it has absolutely nothing to do with what’s inside. In fact, Drs Ellie Satler and Alan Grant don’t even see the Velociraptors, none of our regular human characters do, so this is a somewhat misleading choice by editor Dick Hansom to pull readers in. That’s not to say the strip isn’t entertaining, it’s just not Ellie-holding-on-for-dear-life entertaining.

After last issue’s ‘Animals/Men’ story comes Animals/Gods!, as ever written by official sequel scribe Steve Englehart with the same art team as last time I’m very happy to say. Chaz Truog is on pencils, Paul Fricke is inking, letters are by John Costanza with Renée Witterstaetter bringing it all to colourful life as well as being story editor.

We have two completely separate stories happening here, our people becoming reunited while the ‘raptors enjoy life as wild animals. Things kick off with the dinosaurs hunting down a cheetah. Naturally the big, powerful cat comes off the worst against these new-old predators but it’s still a thrilling chase. We get four pages of Alf, Betty and Celia living free, ending with them relaxing as they finish off their meal, having a roll about in the sun and simply enjoying time together as a family unit without us humans ruining everything.

They really are the stars this issue, but then Alf starts to become ill, sneezes and collapses. During the human half of the story we find out there’s been a severe flu virus going around and both Alan and Robert Muldoon have come down with it. As Ian Malcom suggests, the Velociraptors aren’t predictable, they aren’t simple free animals (despite the animals thinking this themselves). Interacting with humans, something dinosaurs were never meant to do, will change them.

Ian’s scenes are the most interesting in the other half of the story. I still take issue with Muldoon having survived and his explanation just doesn’t make any sense, completely contradicting what we saw with our own eyes in the film. It’s also rather insulting for the reader to see him up and about perfectly fine, yet have Ian tells us he was laid up in hospital for months on end with his injuries, and he didn’t have a raptor’s jaw squeeze his skull! Anyway, we have to live with this for now and we find out Muldoon knew big game hunter George Lawala, the man whose work started this whole mess back in #7.

What I do enjoy though is any chance Ian Malcolm gets to talk Chaos Theory. If you haven’t read Michael Crichton’s original novel I highly recommend it for the pages and pages of monologues we get from Ian describing the intricacies of Chaos and his predictions for the park. It’s fascinating stuff. The movie did a great job of distilling these into short little scenes to get the essence across and here we get something of a cross between the two extremes. It’s clear Steve has gone back to the original source material when writing this.

That’s basically the entirety of the human story this time, to give some context to the story of the ‘raptors who take up a whopping 19 of the 27 pages of Jurassic Park strip. As I said, they really are the stars this time. We catch up with them as a local indigenous tribe watches these unknown animals succumb to their illness from a safe distance, believing them to be their gods taken animal form. Celia realises they’re being watched and attacks but despite the anger in her eyes she’s too weak to take them all on, reminding us that she may have shown a kindness towards Ellie last time but she’s still very much the same animal.

She finds a dead, sacrificed animal and tries to drag it to her siblings but struggles to do so and collapses. We get a few pages of the tribe gathering around their gods, feeding them elixirs, bringing idols of worship, generally looking after them and taking part in religious chants to impart strength. A long time passes and slowly they return to full strength. The tribe gather tentatively but it doesn’t quite go as they’d thought.

Everyone is slaughtered, but not eaten. These human creatures are now the enemy after all they’ve done to them. It’s as simple as that. The chapter concludes with the Velociraptors disappearing off into the jungle once more, one simple caption underneath: ‘It’s good to be free and wild again…’

While I do enjoy seeing the ‘raptors portrayed in this way I have to say this is probably the weakest of the strips so far because not enough happens. The main bulk of the story could’ve been told in a fraction of the pages without losing any of its impact and the human half is simply a (albeit good) speech by Ian and that’s about it. It feels like a stop-gap, like the comic was taking a beat while it puts the pieces into place for the next story. Transformers would sometimes do this for example and you’d know what it was up to. But with the gift of hindsight there’s one key difference here: the next issue is the last.

At the end of the strip is the line, ‘Next: The Thrilling Climax!’. As a teen I just thought it meant the end of this particular story before the next one kicked off, so this issue’s breather felt like it was gearing up for an awesome finale with the Veliciraptors before leading on to further adventures with the human characters. I now know this meant the end of the comic. Only for UK readers though, which I’ll get into next time.

It’s sad to think this real time read through is almost over

While not designed as the penultimate story it was for us and in this regard it’s lacking. Previous back up strip Age of Reptiles told a better story in a fraction of the pages in any one issue, which is a hard thing for me to say because I’ve been such a fan of the main strip up until the moment they brought back Muldoon, and now it feels like it’s padding itself out, treading water. Maybe it’ll make sense next month and read better as a result, but as it stands this was a fun strip but not worth the 26 pages it took to tell it and would’ve worked much better as a shorter, additional back up.

Moving on and after an advert for the soon-to-be-relaunched Manga Mania (now that the new publisher had gotten their hands into it properly) we move on to Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, or Xenozoic Tales by another name. History Lesson is one of those rare things, a quite lengthy story by creator Mark Shultz (coloured by Christine Courtier), lengthy enough for it to be split into two parts over these final two issues. Taken from #4 of Mark’s original comic it takes place before some of the strips featured already in Jurassic Park.

In fact this picks up directly from the story in #7 and didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time. It made it seem like they’d had all these other adventures before realising Gorgostamos was missing. I now know better but in the days before having the internet to research it just felt off. Obviously it wasn’t Mark’s fault. What is also not his fault is the fact nothing much of consequence happens here either. Perhaps when both halves are read altogether the story will be much more interesting, but it’s cut off before it gets going.

After finding Gorgostamos’ remains Tenrec and Hannah debate whether the Grith killed him in order to save them, and Hannah once again wants to know more (remember, this happened long before last month’s story). Tenrec tells her of catacombs underneath the city where a library has been found, guarded by keepers of knowledge who don’t want outsiders let in. They fear that with knowledge of how to rebuild humans will just cause another cataclysm. Hannah insists on seeing it and these ten pages are about Tenrec meeting with allies to get them inside. Then, just as they do get in the story frustratingly stops for now.

The only really exciting part is the caption beneath the final panel! As a teen I looked forward to finding out the mystery once and for all but now, knowing the previous strips were actually later chapters in the story and the mystery wasn’t solved in them, I don’t think we’re going to get as many answers as this suggests, which actually makes me all the more intrigued as to what the caption means. If it gives at least a hint of what happened (or maybe the answer without the characters knowing) then at least that would explain why it was used as the final story for this comic.

I may have been none the wiser but it’s clear the new Manga Publishing knew the end was nigh, even if they were still offering subscriptions on the contents page. It’s sad to think this real time read through is almost over. This is the first issue I’ve been disappointed with as a whole, but after 15 of them that’s not a bad track record. It feels like no time since I was reviewing the very first issue and thinking back the comic has changed a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Let’s hope for a spectacular send off. Well, a send off for the time being anyway. I’ll elaborate in #16’s review on Thursday 3rd November 2022.

iSSUE 14 < > iSSUE 16

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JURASSiC PARK #14: CARTOON CARNiVORES

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It’s all change this issue as Dark Horse International has now become Manga Publishing. The UK arm of Dark Horse had gone out of business but the success of its Manga Mania comic and the rapidly growing interest in the UK for the art form saw a purchase of the titles and a rebranding across them all. (The company changing hands could account for the delay between #10 and #11.) I’d assumed all their comics were cancelled by the end of 1994 but Manga Mania (at #15) would carry on all the way through to #39. Jurassic Park wouldn’t be so lucky.

But at least this temporary reprieve enabled our comic to reach a decent ending point in #16 instead of just stopping on a cliffhanger (I’m looking at you, Havoc!). Michael Golden’s cover would’ve been better suited to last month’s issue but it’s still a striking image, even if it’s somewhat disappointing to lose that distinctive border on the left. You’ll notice ‘Cadillacs and Dinosaurs’ is mentioned, is this a new back up strip? Not quite, as you’ll see below. Finally, the mysterious free gift mentioned last issue ended up being temporary tattoos, long lost to the mists of time.

The contents page retains its atmospheric design and still offers up subscriptions so the plan must’ve been (initially at least) to carry the comic on for some time to come. In reality, the boast of “Now With Extra Pages” on the cover meant we were up to 40 pages which, while a good increase over the previous three, is only four more than we had in the first ten issues. It does mean we now get a full chapter of the American story per issue though, with the aforementioned back up bringing up the rear.

There’s now a whopping 26 pages of Jurassic Park to enjoy but it’s still listed using the name of the US mini-series comic it was taken from, rather than the name of the story itself. This was confusing because we were unaware of the mini-series’ name, so to the uniformed (like me) it looked like laziness on the part of UK editor Dick Hansom, like he didn’t check what the strip he was printing was called. As you’ll see over the course of this and the next two issues, Animals/Men was the beginning of a trilogy of stories, the title of each a variation on this theme.

It feels very much like the Jurassic Park movie had been given a cartoon makeover in the same way Ghostbusters had with The Real Ghostbusters

As you can see the art team has changed. Steve Englehart is still the writer of this official sequel, John Costanza is still letterer and Renée Witterstaetter remains as colourist and story editor. However, joining them are penciller Chaz ‘Atlas’ Truog (Green Lantern Corps, Animal Man, Coyote) and inker Paul Fricke (The Fly, El Diablo, Secret Origins). At the time I was a little disappointed in the change from the more scratchy, hard-edged artwork but nowadays I absolutely love this.

Even Renée’s colouring appears to have changed to suit the new style, boldly coloured backgrounds highlighting each frame. The cartoonier style put me off initially as a teenager but it did grow on me. Today, it feels very much like the Jurassic Park movie had been given a cartoon makeover in the same way Ghostbusters had with The Real Ghostbusters. It’s great. It’s a lot more animated and dynamic, and as you can see having better defined facial features means our characters now actually look like cartoon versions of the actors.

Drs Ellie and Alan Grant attempt to escape from Rafael’s compound deep in the Columbian jungle but accidentally set off a hidden alarm, in response to which Rafael immediately unleashes his supposedly trained Velociraptors. Trying to escape their reach up a tree, a vine Alan clings to is grabbed by one of the ‘raptors and suddenly he finds himself flat on his back, exposed and an easy target. That is, until Rafael catches up.

During the attack we find out Alan and Ellie have named the dinosaurs. The alpha is called Alf, the beta is Betty and the injured ‘raptor who is still within her cage is Celia. If this rings a bell you’re not alone. Much later in Jurassic World, released 21 years after this comic, Owen Grady named his four Velociraptors after the second to fifth letters of the alphabet too (Blue, Charlie, Delta, Echo, with Owen as the ‘alpha’). Was the movie inspired by this comic, or was it just a coincidence? Either option is likely.

Having game warden Robert Muldoon alive and well is just stupid

Ellie and Alan are ordered to return and look after the injured Celia, who continues to let Ellie do so, knowing she saved her life. But our doctors think if she wasn’t restrained they’d be on the menu. They’re very aware of how they’ve romanticised the dinosaurs’ place in nature, but they’re still killers. This leads on to a dark scene in which one of Rafael’s men suggests they take it in turns raping Ellie to relieve their boredom and he’s immediately shot and killed by his boss, telling his men to feed him to one of the ‘raptors, so he clearly wants his creatures to maintain their taste for human flesh. But why?

Then, after all the action, tension and interesting story developments the strip unfortunately takes a turn for the absurd.

Even as a teenage reader I didn’t find this to be the thrill it was hyped as on the cover and my opinion hasn’t changed since. Having game warden Robert Muldoon alive and well is just stupid. Remember that “clever girl” scene in the movie? He looks awfully healthy after that, doesn’t he? What elaborate explanation is given for him surviving a Velociraptor jumping on top of him and apparently eating his head? He raised them. I hate this. Not only is it ridiculous to think he survived but if he did it completely ruins that whole scene in the movie.

According to #10 Ian Malcolm had to spend months in a hospital after his injuries but Muldoon gets the kind of return we’d expect from a superhero comic that finds some trick to retcon a character’s demise. I remember feeling let down by this but thankfully it isn’t dwelled upon beyond this one page (for this issue anyway) so we can get back to the meat of the story which is much, much better.

“It seems ‘raptors can remember a kindness”

Celia’s training commences but she isn’t cooperating. She responds to commands but doesn’t go for the head of the human-like hay dummies like the others, instead biting an arm or leg, never going for the kill. The ever-paranoid Rafael thinks it’s a trick but we’ll find out the real reason soon enough. Meanwhile the government’s leader is planning to announce new indictments against him in the murder of dozens of law enforcement officials, and the next day as the judges leave the courthouse a van pulls up and out of the doors rush Alf and Betty!

During the attack an electrical cable is damaged which zaps one of them. As the two animals looks quizzically at the electrical sparks they come to realise something and they run off. Rafael’s men can’t take control, somehow the ‘raptors realised the collars were no longer being controlled, the broken power lines causing interference. Free of their painful, torturous shocks they immediately run back to free Celia, taking out with relish the men who previously had all that power over them.

They kick in the large metal doors holding their sister and in no time at all everything has changed. Rafael had thought he was in control, but during the execution of his own plan something unpredictable happened and within minutes all three of the dinosaurs are free to roam and hunt, killing Rafael and the remainder of his men as they unsuccessfully try to shock them into submission once more.  Another perfect example for Ian Malcolm’s Chaos Theory.

We see Celia wince from the shocks, but the others’ collars no longer work well enough to stop them. When Alan and Ellie come out to see what’s happening and make their own escape they’re cornered by the three ‘raptors. Alf and Betty prepare to pounce, after all these two humans are just another part of all this, but in a surprising moment Celia steps up to stop her sisters, even though she isn’t the alpha herself.

I remember this aspect of the story. Celia stopping her sisters from attacking Alan and Ellie would resurface and emphasised (once again) how the Jurassic franchise treats its dinosaurs as real animals rather than simple movie monsters. Was this also why she wouldn’t ‘kill’ the hay dummies? Does she no longer see all humans in general as prey? Either way, it’s clear the ‘raptors saw Rafael as a means to an end, to get out of the compound to freedom. The sly looks at each other and the development of their own characters over previous issues now clear with hindsight.

This was even before the Tyrannosaurus rex got off Isla Nublar to run amok through San Diego looking for his baby

The story ends on a superb cliffhanger as they take off into the jungle; three Velociraptor out in the wild, on the loose! Of course, this is now the conclusion to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and the starting point for the final film in the series, Dominion, but this was published in 1994. As a teenager this was even before the Tyrannosaurus rex got off Isla Nublar to run amok through San Diego looking for his baby in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, so I can’t emphasis enough how excited I was for the next issue back then.

Despite the unnecessary return of Muldoon this was a hugely enjoyable adventure strip for Jurassic Park and one of the best so far, reading like the proper sequel to the original film it was intended as. It’s certainly a worthy follow up, continuing to build upon its story month after month and now, with the new art style bringing a freshness, a larger sense of excitement and better representations of the characters, I’m looking forward to seeing where it all leads.

After a huge chunk of dino action the issue is rounded off with Foundling, our nine-page back up Cadillacs and Dinosaurs strip. A quick glance at the first page will show regular blog readers this is actually Xenozoic Tales (second back up in six issues from #4) under a new name. The Cadillacs and Dinosaurs cartoon series was based on creator/writer/artist Mark Shultz’s cult comic and had just started broadcasting on the Cartoon Network in the UK, so while the strips were still the same, the cover and contents page changed the name to try to entice fans of the cartoon.

Christine Courtier is back on colouring duties and, while I miss Steve White’s colours, in an episode told mainly in flashback Christine’s darker, more atmospheric palette perfectly suits the story. Again Jurassic Park is selective about which stories from the original comic series to reproduce (page count could be a major reason) and in this case we jump forward to #6 of Xenozoic Tales, missing out a handful of tales from the last time we saw Tenrec and Hannah.

“I could feel his hot breath on my neck, then he galloped past me as if I wasn’t even there.”

Hannah Dundee

At points the story is actually a flashback within a flashback. Hannah is telling Tenrec about Maia Abrelatas, a lady whose son went missing years before when he was only three-years-old. She’d begged the governors to renew the search but they’d refused and Tenrec apparently just looked on as they did so. Within this flashback we flash back again to the time when the boy went missing out the back of her home. Later they’d found hyena tracks and blood and concluded he’d been dragged inland, where it was too dangerous for humans in this future world populated by dinosaurs.

Back to the original flashback and Hannah went out to track him after Maia saw him at her window. The governors dismissed this claim but Hannah found a child’s footprints and tracked them. She was almost about to turn back after a day when she eventually found him. Unable to speak, the boy instead drew words using stones, each letter inside a square. This instantly reminded Hannah (and me) of the Grith using Scrabble tiles to communicate with Tenrec. Just like them the young lad can understand her but can’t speak.

Above, the dinosaur that charged her was just a distraction (she does comment how this was strange for that animal) because she then lost the boy in the think forest, spotting him latter with the Grith far off in the distance. Continuing to track them to the entrance of a cave the scene below is terrifically designed by Mark, full of atmosphere and thrills. The story ends with Hannah confronting Tenrec, his association with the Grith and apparent nonchalant attitude earlier leading her to the conclusion he knew about the boy all along.

It turns out the Grith saved the boy after he was mauled by the hyenas and raised him, but now they can’t let him return home because he knows too much about them, even thinks like them. However, he’s at that age where his curiosity is putting him in a dangerous position as he tries to find out more about his origins, so the only solution is for them to take him far away from his mother and for Tenrec to continue the lie. What started out as another adventure strip ends on this heartbreaking reveal, which is a complete surprise.

Then, so it doesn’t end on too much of a downer the last two panels reveal all that horror faced by Hannah was actually the Grith trying to make sure she found her way back home, all finished off with Tenrec being his usual, casual self and asking about food. I’m sure any child buying the comic after watching the cartoon would’ve got a bit of a shock at the tone and the mature storytelling. As a Jurassic Park comic reader this is a great return to the unique and original Xenozoic Tales, no matter what name the editor gives it.

The last three pages are all advertisements, beginning with the latest issue of Manga Mania which I mentioned earlier and the first issue of a new comic based on the Street Fighter II videogame which was all the rage. I saw this and thought that couldn’t have lasted long but I was wrong, Manga Publishing in the UK released 16 issues altogether, the same as Jurassic Park in the end. I know which one I thought deserved to run longer though.

Finally for this month there was big news for fans of the movie on the back page.

I love the way the Velociraptor‘s eye is made to look like the amber that was so important to the film’s plot. Even though I visited our local rental store every single Saturday (because it was closed on Sundays you had the tape for twice as long for the same price) I never rented Jurassic Park. The reason was simple, I knew I was getting it for Christmas to own so I wanted to wait for my own copy before seeing it again for the first time since the cinema. So I waited (im)patiently instead.

While getting a much lengthier main strip was exciting I still prefer the comic’s three-strip format. To this day my favourite issues belong in that first handful after the sequel began in #6. But with hindsight, knowing we’ve only two issues left I’m very glad it changed so we could get three more full stories before the rug was pulled. The next of those stories will be reviewed inside Jurassic Park #15 on the blog on Thursday 6th October 2022.

iSSUE 13 < > iSSUE 15

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JURASSiC PARK #9: SPARED NO EXPENSE

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This review was due on 22nd February, click here to find out about the delay. More catch-ups to come this week.

The cover for issue nine of Dark Horse International‘s Jurassic Park is a strange beast, showing what appears to be Dr Alan Grant killing a Tyrannosaurus rex! Drawn by Gil Kane it’s completely uncharacteristic not only of Alan but for the comic too, which so far has stayed true to the book and movie. Seeing one of our heroes with a massive gun taking down one of the animals like a clichéd action hero, while a second T-rex comes up behind has nothing to do with Jurassic Park!

The cover is taken from the US comic series’ preview issue which contained two small prequel strips. It had two different covers, neither of which reflected in any way to anything that happened within the stories (a pet peeve of mine). They were also seemingly drawn long before the artists even knew what the script for the movie contained. A bizarre thing to begin with then, even more so to choose it for the UK comic when so many other more suitable ones were available in the US series by now. But the real news was those prequel strips had arrived.

In fact there are no less than four strips this month, but with no extra pages some of our regulars have a little less room to breathe. Things kick off with the eight-page prequel story Genesis which shows us the moment ill-fated lawyer Donald Gennaro is shown the secret heartbeat (as John Hammond describes it here) behind the island, which up to this moment Donald thought was simply a luxurious tropical adventure park. Much of the movie adaptation team are back including writer Walter Simonson, Gil is pencilling, Renée Witterstaetter is on colours, John Workman‘s speech balloons are back and they’re joined by new-to-JP inker Mike de Carlo (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Legion of Super Heroes, Animaniacs).

Ground is being broken for Jurassic Park and Gennaro is there for the first of his many visits. Set several years before the movie there’s obviously going to be a distinct lack of dinosaurs for the most part, but this is all about the background to the story, which already had such a solid grounding thanks to Michael Crichton‘s original novel, from which writer Walter is choosing individual scenes. There’s also a baby T-rex and some lovely foreboding imagery, such as the use of an excavator’s clamp digging a deep trench beside the dirt road. It’s clear what this represents to the reader. A nice touch.

Hammond takes Gennaro to a small cabin and shows him some old monster movies, full of stop-motion dinosaurs and the like (a simple trick to get them into the comic), and gets really excited as he explains how these thrilled audiences and the advances in technology have made them more realistic and thus more exciting, a nod to the revolutionary CGI of the film. Gennaro doesn’t care and soon the two men are on their way to the famous hatchery where Dr Henry Wu has summoned them to see the birth of InGen‘s very first dinosaur. It’s a tiny T.rex but Gennaro is still unimpressed.

He’s a numbers man, he wants to see the final product, the things that are going to get people spending money on over-priced tickets to get there. While that much is in keeping with the movie character, I still feel he would’ve had some form of awe towards the first living, breathing dinosaur baby in millions of years! The fact he’s actually disgusted by it is a bit much. For me there are also too many instances of movie dialogue being used. It’s meant to come across as clever foreshadowing, but with the amount that’s used it just feels forced and unoriginal.

Because of the overuse of this dialogue for all three characters these final scenes come off as plain silly. Gennaro saying he wouldn’t walk out of a men’s room to see the T.rex is an oddly specific thing for someone to say, and of course it’s only written here because of how he’d memorably meet his fate in the film. Perhaps without all the other movie dialogue (and especially without Hammond’s retort!) it would’ve been a funny touch to end on. All-in-all, it’s a strange little strip. It adds nothing to the Jurassic Park story and actually does a bit of a disservice to the characters involved.

The war is on

Much better is the next chapter of Age of Reptiles. The ongoing Jurassic Park sequel is still in here but 11 pages of Ricardo Delgado‘s incredible creation is next up, breaking the comic up a little. After the cliffhanger last issue there are no prizes for guessing the pack of Deinonycuses are down another member. After one of their friends has his head bitten off and his body dragged back into the water we get a funny moment of the fish (which distracted him in the first place) wriggling its way across the rocks and plopping safely back into the lake.

The two remaining members of the group, leader Dark Eye and Quetzal are spending their day stalking a giant T.rex called Long Jaw, the same one we got acquainted with last time. What are they hoping to find out? That’s for another episode. This issue, they witness from afar the ‘rex challenging the leader of a herd of Triceratops, each one beautifully and individually coloured by James Sinclair. The leader of the herd isn’t backing down and roars at the ‘rex, the giant predator remaining silent, the small bird on his nose responding instead.

However, as you can see from the second photo above, after many cries from his mate the male Triceratops takes a look at the Tyrannosaur‘s slowly opening mouth and decides to heed her warnings, leaving a miffed T.rex behind in a moment that did make me laugh. It was a fight for the sake of a fight, it was never about predator and prey, but that panel with the little squiggly line above Long Jaw’s head depicting his annoyance is a great comedy moment after a few pages of tense build up.

We rejoin our two smaller dinosaurs as they return to their nest only to find that while they’ve been following one of the Tyrannosaurs, Blue Back (who they originally ran into back in #6 when all this began) took advantage of their absence and has killed everyone else in their pack in revenge for the theft of his family’s eggs in #7. Once he sees the shocked look on their faces he simply drops the final body and leaps across the chasm in an echo of their escape from him, disappearing into the jungle. The war is on.

Once again Ricardo’s pacing is superb and his art gorgeous, with James’ colours the perfect accompaniment. There’s action, an interesting story, individual characters and some genuinely funny humour. It was always a highlight of each issue and was the first strip I’d read every month. While it was originally released as a book I prefer getting little chunks of it at a time. It highlights the tension and obviously makes it last longer.

Every creature here is so full of character but where did I get those wonderful names from if there are no written words in the strip? Well, included in this issue is a bonus Cast of Characters page from the book. It would’ve been good to have had this alongside the first chapter but it’s better late than never. Also, there appear to be some interesting new characters to come. I can’t remember them so I’m excited to see where they fit in with everything. More exciting times ahead.

Our regular Jurassic Park strip has been cut down to only six pages but we can’t really complain when we’ve already had an additional prequel, totalling 14 pages for our title strip. Our regular sequel team return for the first (little) chunk of Dark Cargo; writer Steve Englehart, penciller Armando Gil, inker Dell Barras, letterer John Costanza and colourist/story editor Renée Witterstaetter. Confusingly, the story is called ‘Raptor – Part Four’ on the contents page because Dark Cargo was the second issue in the original American Topps Comics ‘Raptor’ mini-series, and the first (‘Aftershocks‘) was split across the three previous UK issues. This confusing decision to list the strip after the US comic’s individual series rather than the actual strips would continue all the way to the final issue.

Doctors Ellie Satler and Alan Grant awake locked in a cage on a cargo boat with big game hunter George Lawala in charge. The juvenile Velociraptors have been locked up separately right next to them, already wide awake and alert to everything going on around them. This is key (no pun intended for what I’m about to describe), as we see the ‘raptors in the background of nearly every panel of the humans talking, watching what they’re doing. Alan realises his belt is the one with the buckle he’s used as a substitute knife before on digs and perfect to pick the lock, before Ellie notices something happening in the other cage.

We also see the dinosaurs hissing and clicking at each other, Alan deducing they’re discussing them and how to escape. I can remember pieces of what’s to come and it’s definitely a story centred around the intelligence and learning capabilities of these juveniles, and their instincts and observations of the various humans around them. I’m looking forward to reading it again after so long with a fresh set of eyes, especially after enjoying the four movie sequels (so far) which have really delved deep into this.

There’s a funny moment when Alan comments how these are adolescents, the equivalent of human teenagers and says, “Not quite fully grown but wanting to take on the world! The absolute worst group to let loose!” But before they can warn Lawala of the lock picking he sprays them and the ‘raptors with a sleeping agent and off they all nod until next month. Before they pass out Lawala shows us he’s the atypical Jurassic Park villain (before there was such a thing); he’s never encountered a dinosaur before, but he’s a human, and a man, and thus is more intelligent and can control them just like any other animal he’s hunted. We just know that’s going to work out well, don’t we?

“The necessary sacrifices were made.”

Fessenden

It may be just one small scene on board the boat, but it’s atmospheric stuff and has plenty for readers to get their teeth into, building excitement for the chapters to come. I’m actually surprised at just how much of this could’ve been the basis for some of the main stories in the sequels, especially Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World which both did a superb job of building on the themes presented here. It also doesn’t feel like we’re being short-changed with only six pages this month because it’s a perfect little strip in its own right and acts as a prelude to the disaster to come.

Mark Schultz‘s Xenozoic Tales rounds off the issue, once more beautifully coloured by one of my favourite Transformers colourists Steve White (whose current dinosaur artwork needs to be seen) but we only get a measly four pages this time. Obviously, editor Dick Hansom would’ve had this all worked out in advance to give us as much as possible every issue, knowing we’d have extra content this month. As such, there were only four pages left of this particular story to tell. But what four pages they are.

It not only solves the mysteries of that cliffhanger but also grosses us out a little on the way to its conclusion

So Tenrec returns to Fessenden after the shock cliffhanger and demands a full explanation. The swamp had taken over body, mind and soul of his entire research team, everyone driven to the edge of nervous collapse. But Fessenden was getting incredible results from his experiments; he could solve the food shortage crisis. As you can see above he started performing autopsies on the local dinosaurs and experimenting on his own people, deliberately cutting them off from the outside world so they’d have no choice but to take part. Soon they were thriving in the swamp and even communicating with the animals. But then the physical changes began.

He doesn’t delve deeper, instead making a sudden run for the swamp. For the final page of the story and the comic we’re presented with this below. It not only solves the mysteries of that cliffhanger but also grosses us out a little on the way to its conclusion.

At its centre it’s a typical tale of humans messing with nature and suffering the consequences, so it’s quite appropriate for a Jurassic Park comic. However, it’s told in a very engaging way, is beautifully drawn and I’m so glad Steve was brought on to colour it, he takes it to a whole other level. Any fans of Mark’s comic really need to hunt this down because this particular coloured version is exclusive to Jurassic Park.

Despite the rather average headline prequel story this month, this is still one of the best issues yet thanks to just how enjoyable the three ongoing serials have been. It bodes well for next month, that’s for sure. The next issue’s review will be here from Tuesday 29th March 2022.

iSSUE EiGHT < > iSSUE TEN

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JURASSiC PARK #8: PURE ESCAPiSM

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A simple cover of an iconic movie scene by Dave Cockrum welcomes us to #8 of Dark Horse International‘s Jurassic Park. The cover is from the first issue of the American movie adaptation so really shouldn’t make sense here, after all the Velociraptors are no longer caged up, but it reminded us of the danger from the film that was now running loose. Inside we’ve less adverts and more comics, making for a very satisfying read this month and the title strip no longer has the least amount of pages.

The well chosen cliffhanger last month saw the original US strip cut out at the point Dr Alan Grant and Dr Ellie Satler‘s theories were proven terrifyingly correct. Now they and new character, big game hunter George Lawala are faced with a fully grown mother raptor and her juvenile offspring and she isn’t happy. Grant pushes some boulders, causing a chain reaction, giving them just enough time to make their escape, but it isn’t long until she’s out and chasing Lawala.

Here we get a few action pages of a chase on the beach, ending with the raptor being shot. Lawala muses over the fact the injured animal isn’t what his employer wanted so he shoots it again to kill it. Surprised there are actual dinosaurs here, that it wasn’t some case of mistaken identity he lets his concentration slip, not realising she isn’t quite dead yet and with her dying breath she snaps her jaws around his ankles. He’s able to squeeze himself free and limps off in search of the others.

It’s hard to believe this is the same artistic team (penciller Armando Gil, inker Dell Barras and colourist Renée Witterstaetter) as those thrilling first few pages back in #6. This feels rushed by comparison and overly simplistic. To be fair this is only a problem for a few pages, but they’re the ones involving what should be the highlight of any chapter in a Jurassic Park comic strip, a dinosaur attack! It all feels rather muted as a result.

“He’s got us and the raptors! He’s won!”

Dr. Ellie Satler

Things pick back up again as we rush towards the end of the first chapter to our sequel story. Our heroes are captured by Lawala who had waited near the cave, knowing they’d return to make sure the dinosaurs were okay. Just as with the movies, while the Velociraptors are dangerous, it’s also important to protect them from the dangers of humans. A fight ensues and of course Alan and Ellie are outmatched, although they do give a valiant effort. Alan tries in vain to convince Lawala he must realise the animals can’t be taken off the island, that what happened to the park could happen to the world. But Lawala readily admits he’s too greedy to care.

Beaten unconscious, Ellie and Alan eventually wake to find themselves in a somewhat impossible position, just right for an almighty cliffhanger with suitably dramatic lettering by John Costanza. Although, it does unintentionally raise a few chuckles because it reminds me of the ending to Finding Nemo, which of course came much later. This story by Steve Englehart reminds me very much of where the Jurassic World trilogy has been heading. I’m writing this before the third movie (sixth in the overall series) is released, the previous movie having ended with dinosaurs out in the world among us. I’m really excited for that film and I think that’s the same excitement I had when I first read this back in 1994.

“The world swarms with the living evidence of a billion years of evolution!” Thus begins the next chapter in the ongoing Xenozoic Tales saga, the first of our two dino-themed backup strips. The story here (as ever written and drawn by Mark Schultz) is the classic sci-fi scenario of losing contact with a research outpost and going in to find out what’s wrong. We know it’s clearly going to be bad news but that’s not the point of the story, it’s all about what has gone wrong and exploring a little more of this strange new world, its dangers and having some action and excitement along the way.

The first thing I noticed was the bold colouring, which is a lot more colourful than in previous issues. This is because we have a new contributor and it’s none other than Transformers colourist and Visionaries editor Steve White. In the earlier years of Transformers the colours were all beautifully hand-painted, before a new system was introduced that produced much flatter results initially. But in the right hands it could be stunning. Steve’s were one such pair of hands. His colours really pop, bringing depth and excitement to a story that’s already fun to read.

I asked Steve about his time working on Jurassic Park and he told me that while it was a work-for-hire gig he was a big fan of Mark’s and of Xenozoic Tales. He produced these beautiful results with markers on photocopies of the art, and he’d travel to North London to Dark Horse International’s little (according to Steve) office to pick up and return the pages.

Months previous, a great scientist by the name of Fessenden had asked Jack Tenrec to take him and his team out to a swamp for their research, explaining he’d discovered a secret to saving their crops. Now returning with a rescue team, Jack faces off against vicious, overgrown versions of dinosaurs that are usually tiny and docile. They start to show hunting skills they’re simply not meant to have, circling the team and attacking systematically. Eventually they make it to the station which is now a crumbling wreck and discover the shocking transformation of Fessenden.

His team are nowhere to be found, he isn’t doing any of the work he was there to accomplish and his head has become a strange elongated shape, covered in what looks like pulsating veins, like his brain is trying to push itself out through his skull. Jack sets out to find the missing researchers, only to literally stumble upon creepy blob-like creatures not dissimilar to his old friend’s head, then a mass grave in the final panel.

While so far there’s nothing particularly original here, these little blobs are intriguing and having read Mark’s other tales printed in this comic so far I know the payoff will be excellent. Its pacing is perfect and I can’t overemphasise how much Steve’s colouring adds to the rich atmosphere.

While this is listed as ‘Chapter Five’ on the contents page it’s actually the first strip in the series, originally published in Death Rattle magazine in the States in 1986. It acted as a kind of pilot, a testbed for a possible series. This explains why this particular chapter is simply called Xenozoic. It was clearly well received because Mark would go on to sporadically release more stories in his own comic. Jurassic Park editor Dick Hansom decided to print the few strips already coloured in a Marvel US reprinting first so we’re getting the story out of order. But it did mean we could enjoy this one coloured by Steve so I’m happy he waited.

Moving on to Ricardo Delgado‘s Age of Reptiles (coloured by James Sinclair) and it takes up less space this issue to make way for much more of the title strip, but it’s no less enthralling. We were left wondering what was going to happen next after the Deinonychuses stole the unhatched eggs from the Tyrannosaurus rex nest, but this issue the battle of the species takes a back seat, the pace slowing down and showing the dinosaurs going about their lives as dawn breaks. It begins with a pack of Parasaurolophuses lazily drinking by a waterfall, unaware they’re being watched.

I don’t think I picked up on this until a later issue when I was a teenager, but this is clearly a different T-rex than the one we’ve seen in previous issues. Only when both appeared together in a later chapter did I notice the completely different sets of markings, probably because I didn’t go back and read previous issues of comics before reading new issues back then, so when I saw this T.rex I incorrectly assumed I knew who it was. I love the little bird picking out a borrowing critter from its head and the dark shadows obscuring the hunter as he stalks his prey. The Parasaurolophuses are so delightfully drawn I can’t help but feel sorry for this one.

We see the predator begin to feast before cutting away to the silhouettes of the Deinonychuses making their way through the thick jungle. We’re not sure where they’re going yet and we don’t find out this issue, but what does happen here is highly entertaining and builds to a surprise cliffhanger. One of them gets distracted by a fish flopping about on the ground near a body of water and wants to stop to feed. You can see the distinct head markings of each character here, their leader not impressed with being slowed down and this little silent exchange did make me laugh.

That little red wiggle and that glare are comedy gold.

In the panel before it you’ll see some little bubbles appearing in the water beside them. Ignoring their leader (and not noticing there’s something in the water), the hungry dino picks up the fish and opens wide, presenting us with a full page of this action, panel-by-panel, the shadow of the mouth engulfing the fish, saliva dripping from its mouth, only for us to turn the page over and be confronted with this image below.

This was such a surprise ending. I’d forgotten all about it in the intervening years but seeing it now brings back the memory of having a feeling of real impatience and frustration at having to wait a month to see the next part. I think you’ll agree that’s understandable.

So this is where my monthly dive into this brilliant comic comes to an end once more. Three superb cliffhangers (even though only one was originally intended as such), interesting stories, plenty of action, loveable characters and the surprise addition of a favourite Marvel UK colourist. It’s been an absolute joy yet again. It will continue in this format for a little while yet, so there’s much to look forward to over the coming months and the next bit will be here on Tuesday 22nd February 2022.

iSSUE SEVEN < > iSSUE NiNE

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JURASSiC PARK #7: ON THE HUNT

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The Christmas festivities may still be upon us but you wouldn’t know it from the latest edition of Dark Horse International‘s Jurassic Park from 1993. Released just three days after Christmas Day itself there’s not a hint of snow or any festive wishes for its readers. The cover is really special though and the first by Michael Golden to feature on the UK title. I love its mix of the natural and technological (the computer circuits in the background), perfectly summing up the world of Jurassic Park in one gorgeous and eye-catching piece of art.

What it does have are the next chapters in its three fantastic strips and a competition that takes me right back to late nights in bed exploring Isla Nublar on a tiny little electronic screen. It’s another phone-in and states it’s been made particularly easy for all to enter, then goes and continues its tradition of misspelling the island name! But let’s not fuss, the screenshots here may not look like much compared to today’s games but this was such fun to play and kept me awake far past lights out on many a school night.

In the second part of the first official follow-up to the film, as InGen attempt to recapture all the dinosaurs they ignore Dr Alan Grant‘s warnings that there are more Velociraptors out in the wild, so Alan and Dr Ellie Satler decide to take things into their own hands. They head for the other side of the island, scientific reasoning given for every step they take in tracking the animals. They end up on a beach searching caves and in the background a little boat putt-putts along the coast in some scenic panels by penciller Armando Gill and inker Dell Barras (Samsona, Conan the Barbarian, Batman) who criminally wasn’t mentioned in the previous issue’s credits. This is a shame because his deep blacks and line work bring a real sense of action amid a gritty, realistic atmosphere.

There are some nice references to the other surviving characters from the film and where they are now, all of which track with the as yet unwritten sequels, before a new character literally pops up, having come from that small boat I mentioned. After The Lost World this new addition of big game hunter George Lawala may not seem that original, but remember this was published just a few months after the first film. Amongst the dark caves colourist (and story editor) Renée Witterstaetter gives his entrance a burst of surprising colour, matching the sudden change of pace.

He instantly recognises the duo as a threat to his income, resulting in a chase deeper into the cave. He picked this particular cave to land because of its cover, easy access and the fact it’s far from the humans on the island, unaware of what could be living within. Alan and Ellie are fully aware (in fact they’d already deduced this was the perfect spot) but have no choice but to run further inside. The chase is rather exciting, the deep colours and camera angels drawing us in until we turn the page and both us and the characters are confronted with the ‘raptors.

George will be key in developing the story further and, eventually, in getting us off the island for the first time in the franchise. For now though this is our cliffhanger for another month after a dramatic, beautifully drawn eight-page adventure. Again, the Jurassic Park strip has the least pages of the three stories but it doesn’t feel like that while reading, and where it’s been cut into parts by editor Dick Hansom we’ve ended up with two opening chapters that feel very different from each other (even though they were part of the same issue in the States), as if it was written for this format.

Mark Schultz‘s Xenozoic Tales is next up and it’s the second half of the story from last time. The mysterious lizard people that appeared to be kidnapping Hannah Dundee are revealed to be The Grith, a race of people who work with the Earth to grow both their own health and that of the planet. Despite correctly identifying humans as fighting against the Earth, Jack Tenrec was able to befriend them, communicating through a system of ancient tiles, the meaning of which have been lost to time. They might seem familiar to the reader though.

They appear to be a peaceful race but as you’ll see from the end of this chapter they’re quite capable of defending themselves, their friends and the Earth from any danger. The fact they can use the Scrabble tiles (a funny touch to the story) might be because they’re descended from ancient humans, or from other creatures that were around at that time, or maybe there’s some other, simpler reason behind how they can communicate this way. They’re also so in tune with the planet they’re able to predict an earthquake about to hit a cliffside farming community, so Jack and Hannah set off to save them.

Their journey takes them through deep caverns and past a huge, sleeping lizard monster. They must sneak past or be devoured! But the beast wakes up, sees our heroes and simply goes back to sleep, completely disinterested. I love these little moments in Xenozoic Tales that run contrary to our expectations. The stories are full of them. Funny moments also include The Grith making gestures with their bodies and Jack explaining how difficult it has been to communicate with them, priding himself on the use of the tiles. But of course, Hannah is able to decipher their body language easily, completely stealing Jack’s thunder.

For some reason The Grith trust Hannah. They can foretell she’ll help them, so her protestations and claims she’ll report all of this to the council back in the city fall on Jack’s deaf ears; he knows once The Grith have decided to trust her, that’s it. It makes for more crackling dialogue between the pair. But just before things can be wrapped up with a neat bow and a happy ending, we get a glimpse into the darker side of these new additions to the story.

This feels like it’s building on the way the Velociraptors communicated in Jurassic Park

Gorgostamos, a man who had pretended to help Hannah find Jack last issue (as a trap to kill both her and Tenrec) comes face to face with at least one of them, and when we return to him all we see are these rather grisly final panels below. Was this to defend our heroes? Was there no other way? Or are The Grith more capable of violence than Jack thinks?

Jurassic Park would only print a selection of Mark’s strips because most were in black and white and this was a full-colour publication. (This story was reprinted by Marvel US in a colour edition around this time, coloured by Christine Couturier). Thankfully Dick brings in some local artists to colour some as the series continues. I do hope we don’t miss out on any of the answers this intriguing strip continues to raise every month.

Finally it’s time to return to the Cretaceous era and Ricardo Delgado‘s sublime Age of Reptiles. Last time a huge Tyrannosaurus rex stole the newly killed dinner of a pack of Deinonycuses, killing one of them in the process in what was actually a very funny moment. This issue kicks off with them returning to their nest and communicating via sound and body movements what had just happened. Even though it was created before the movie was released, this feels like it’s building on the way the Velociraptors communicated in Jurassic Park. It’s clear they’re now out for revenge.

But first we get a few pages of the T-rex simply making his way back home, through forests and across large expanses of water. The art here is gorgeous and I find myself taking more time to ‘read’ this strip than either of the others. I just want to take in all the details, not only in the characterisations on the faces and bodies of the animals (which really do tell the story) but in the backgrounds too. Just look at this page below and you’ll see what I mean. Taking up a full page with these two panels of him simply walking home could be seen as dragging out the scene if it weren’t for Ricardo’s art, which demands this kind of space.

As you drink in these pages it also deliberately slows down the story. Ricardo is a master of pacing. You simply can’t rush through this, and if you did you’d be losing out. Just because there’s not one single written word, no captions, no sound effects screaming off the page, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to this in terms of characterisation, drama and scene building, and it only gets more intense as the months go on.

It’s so unfortunate the comic wouldn’t keep to this format for very long but we’ll get to that next year

When he returns to his nest we see his family waiting. He lovingly rubs heads with the female looking after their eggs, while the other looks on a bit jealously, although we do find out she is the mother of the adolescent T.rex, who is currently learning to hunt by chasing a small creature about the rocks and trees. I felt transported back to this time and involved in the natural lives of dinosaurs like no prose story or documentary before it.

Subsequent Jurassic Park/World movies have built upon the original’s emphasis on dinosaurs just being animals, not the monsters of older films and books. Age of Reptiles does a great job of this too, and moments like the one below remind me of the Tyrannosaur family from The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

This instalment ends with the Deinonychuses sneaking into the nest at night and stealing all of those eggs, but the adolescent awakes and raises the alarm. Giving chase, our male closes in on them as they dart through the forest, but eventually the smaller, more agile dinos leap across a chasm and escape, the T.rex left roaring into the night. I remember roughly how this develops and it’s well worth sticking around for. Brilliant, beautiful stuff.

What a superb issue! The three strips come together to create a whole that’s hugely entertaining yet again. Yes, they may be cut down every month and as previously explained this wasn’t technically necessary, but with the three of them side-by-side like this they never felt like anything but three complete strips every issue. It’s so unfortunate that it wouldn’t keep to this format for very long but we’ll get to that next year. Before we go though, a quick look at the adverts within its pages, including news of a new magazine from Dark Horse which sounded awful to me as a kid.

I loved my computer games magazines (in particular Commodore Format and GamesMaster) but the idea of something like that with lots of comic strips in it felt like a gimmick. Although I wasn’t sure if the gimmick was comic strips in a gaming magazine, or gaming features in a comic; it sounded confused. Elsewhere, a chain of comic shops uses a painfully strenuous link to the comic to justify its advert, and a comics and sci-fi merchandise shop I’ve never heard of takes the inside back cover. It’s rather quaint seeing these now, what with comic shops being so much more prevalent today, but back then mail order was much more necessary.

So as far as Jurassic Park‘s stories go and where they’ve left us this month, it appears there’s a lot to look forward to in 2022. Or should I say 1994. The new year of dinosaur action kicks off on Tuesday 25th January.

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CHRiSTMAS 2021

Comic Reviews, Jurassic Park

JURASSiC PARK #6: THE LOST WORLDS

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By 1993 I’d moved on from comics into the world of computer games magazines, but when I saw that ‘Jurassic Park‘ title with that tagline peering over the other comics on the shelves I was quick to grab it! Previously put off by the movie adaptation, here was the first official continuation of the movie’s storyline. But there was more, beginning with that brill Walter Simonson cover! As I flicked through to get an idea of what it was about I noticed back up strips too. On first sight it felt like the Transformers comic I’d loved so much. I was sold and bought my first comic in over a year.

Of course this wasn’t to remain the official sequel for long. Just a few years later Michael Crichton would release his novel The Lost World and the subsequent film was based upon that. But the American Topps Comics was the first to do so and Dark Horse International published it here in a typical UK comic format, meaning they were chopped up into smaller parts and backed up with other strips following the central theme. To the uninitiated it might sound like this would drag a story out unnecessarily but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

UK readers were used to monthly stories from across the pond being split up in weekly or fortnightly comics out of necessity. This may have been a monthly but it still felt completely normal, it was just how things worked over here. Also, the Topps stories were split into mini-series with an unspecified gap between each so editor Dick Hansom‘s decision also made sense. If the comic had kept to this format a four-issue mini-series in the States could’ve lasted a full year over here. If the publishers themselves hadn’t gone bankrupt we could’ve had multiple years of Jurassic Park here.

The first thing this issue hits us with isn’t a comic strip but it still takes me right back. I may not have had a Sega Mega-CD (or any wish to own one) but I do remember the onslaught of new gaming consoles at the time, investing in the 3DO myself which I adored. My computer was the Commodore 64 but I loved reading up on the latest tech and the Jurassic Park game for the Mega-CD was completely different than all the others and looked like a proper adventure on the island. The constant hype for all these new machines was so exciting for me back then, like the future was arriving!

“That T-rex saved us from the ‘raptors! By the time we left Jurassic Park, I was almost — hell, I WAS in love with her!”

Dr. Alan Grant

So let’s get started with our three strips. While Dark Horse’s Aliens had various stories within that universe to pull from, joining the eight pages of Aftershocks (our main strip) here is the return of Xenozoic Tales (at ten pages) and new back up Age of Reptiles (at 12 pages). Yes, our main strip is shorter than the others but cliffhangers in all three had to be carefully chosen. With a unique dinosaur theme throughout – movie sequel set in the present, sci-fi action set in the far future and historical adventure set in the actual time of the dinosaurs – I never felt short changed and it never felt like anything other than a proper Jurassic Park title.

The first story begins with a narrative caption simply stating, “Three days later” above the body of a furious Tyrannosaurs rex. Writer Steve Englehart (The Avengers, Doctor Strange and creator of Star-Lord) was given free rein to develop the movie story as he saw fit, picking up the story with Dr Alan Grant and Dr Ellie Satler returning to Isla Nublar to supervise InGen‘s military-style cleanup operation. This already contradicts what came later (Hammond told us in The Lost World they’d been left alone) but let’s go with it as an alternative storyline.

We turn over to this great double-page spread above, narrated by Alan as he watches the ‘rex destroy jeeps, tanks and anything else thrown at her. She’s furious with her prey but Alan’s inner thoughts are ones of love, of being grateful that she saved all their lives. Her very existence in the modern world is a miracle and , just like in the novel and the film, even though he and Ellie are frightened they’re equally in awe of her.

InGen want to regain control, contain the animals and begin scientific experiments on them in an attempt to make back some of the money they’ve lost. They don’t want to reopen the park. A new character called Dr. Fischer is the face of the corporation. He believes Ian Malcolm‘s predictions were coincidence rather than proof of Chaos Theory and he makes it clear he stands for advancing the scientific community, rather than science itself, putting him at odds with Alan.

It’s a small slice of action but it’s a great start and thought provoking at the same time

There’s a hint in here too that the Velociraptors had managed to escape their enclosure earlier than we’d thought, because no eggs were found in there and we knew they were able to breed. This ties in with the book but not the film. In Michael Crichton‘s original story the ‘raptors were able to get in and out of their enclosure at will without the humans noticing. In fact, some had made it on to one of the boats for the mainland, which added more tension to Alan and the kids’ return to the Visitor Centre because they had to warn the boat before it docked. But in the film they clearly didn’t get out.

The art style is a world apart from what we had in the adaptation. Armando Gil (The ‘Nam, Savage Sword of Conan, The Punisher) brings a gritty, mature style to the art. His T-rex certainly looks the part, closely resembling the actual dinosaur and he really captures her size and power. (Also, an uncredited Dell Barras, see next issue’s review.) Alongside Armando comes letterer John Costanza (Green Lantern, Batman, Ronin) and colourist and story editor Renée Witterstaetter (Silver Surfer, The Sensational She-Hulk, Jason Vs. Leatherface) whose subdued colours suit the wonderfully scratchy artwork perfectly. It’s a small slice of action but it’s a great start and thought provoking at the same time. I like InGen’s desperation and the fact Dr. Fischer believes he’s right, that what he’s doing is for the greater good. I hope it develops these threads.

Carrying on the theme of not learning from past mistakes comes the first backup strip, Xenozoic Tales in which our hero Jack Tenrec finds himself at odds with the council and his new friend Hannah Dundee. Both his and Hannah’s tribes want to stop his campaigns against their poaching. But Jack is standing firm, knowing he’s baring witness to humans going back down the very same path that led to the cataclysm in the first place. Creator, writer and artist Mark Schultz has been very clear from the first chapter this is a story about the dangers humans pose to our world.

Benefactor is the seventh story in the series but only our third, something I went into more detail on last time. This could be because only some of the tales had been published in colour by this time, done so here by Christine Courtier. It ends with a cliffhanger for the first time and I remember these strange creatures from later in the run. Hannah has been sent to look for Jack after he’s stormed off. Using her tracking skills, unaware the council man who accompanies her is intending to kill Jack, she catches a glimpse of his Cadillac shining in the hot afternoon sun but gets more than she bargained for as she approaches it. The back-stabbing and the politics, wrapped up in an adventure in a land populated by dinosaurs is unique and really fun to read.

When I scanned over this issue in the newsagent’s my eyes lit up when I saw the final strip. I know it’s a cliché and an exaggeration to say “it took my breath away” but you’ll get my point. Set in the Mesozoic period it follows a pack of Deinonycuses and a T-rex family as they do battle after one steals the meal of the other. Created and intricately drawn by Ricardo Delgado and beautifully coloured by James Sinclair it contains no narrative captions at all. Everything is told solidly in pictures only, without even any lettered sound effects.

Ricardo is an artist working in the movie and television industries, whose credits include everything from The Real Ghostbusters and WALL-E to Jurassic Park III, suitably enough. James’ credits have also included Legends of The Dark Knight, Hellblazer and The Mask comics. Age of Reptiles was Ricardo’s first book in a series and hadn’t been released here yet when it became serialised in the pages of Jurassic Park, where it’s an even better fit than Xenozoic Tales for obvious reasons.

It tells an absorbing story through great art and wonderfully designed characters. The Deinonycuses kick things off by taking down their dinner, a giant Brontosaurus. Originally I thought these were Velociraptors until I read the catch up on the contents page of the next issue, although to be fair they are a very closely related species. I love how each one has particular markings and by paying attention to such things we get to know each one over the next few months. How Ricardo imbued each one with individual personalities through facial expressions and movements is simply genius.

They begin to feast but are rudely interrupted when a giant T-rex jumps on top of their prize and roars at them to back off. But they aren’t giving up so easily and one leaps in to slice at the bigger beast. The strip was quite gruesome and violent for the time and, while there’s nothing to put off younger readers yet, it will build upon this as the story develops. But it also had its lighter comedic moments, one of my favourites coming up right now. After the smaller dinosaur leaps and slices we turn over to be met with the page on the right below.

This still makes me laugh to this day. As the story develops we’d see an ever-increasing battle of revenge between these characters which would include ferocious fights, some tender moments and one surprisingly heartbreaking scene. Don’t believe me? You’ll just have to wait and see. It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s a thrill to be reading Age of Reptiles again after so long. The collected books go for silly prices online these days so I’m happy to wait and play the slow game with this serialisation. It’s worth the price of admission alone.

To finish off here’s a look at the advertisement on the back cover for the Jurassic Park videogame which was being released on a variety of platforms. It’s the tagline I love the most here. This was around the time Street Fighter II was everywhere (it would even be a comic advertised in these pages soon enough!), making this a brilliant piece of competitive marketing for the time!

I remember playing the Nintendo Game Boy version. Even though it didn’t follow the plot of the film at all and had Alan Grant out in the park collecting all the eggs with a gun, firing tranquillisers at all the dinosaurs as if they were all out to eat him, it was still a really fun game to play. Especially at night when I was meant to be asleep for school the next day, having to play it using that heavy, cumbersome light attachment on the supposedly handheld console.

This was a brilliant start to my Jurassic Park comics journey. Surely here was a title that I could collect without fear of it being prematurely cancelled? How could a comic based on the hottest thing on the planet be anything other than a runaway success for years and years? Well, if the comic had kept to this format and continued until the end of the US strips, those 19 American issues would’ve spanned a whopping 57 British editions over nearly five years! The next one is #7 and its review will be up on the blog on Tuesday 28th December 2021.

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JURASSiC PARK #5: RUSHED ‘RAPTORS

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It’s time to bring the movie adaptation of Jurassic Park to a close with the last 12 pages of the final chapter, originally part of issue four of Topps Comics‘ mini-series in the States. For UK readers it was split in two, with new backup strip Xenozoic Tales bringing up the rear. However, due to the decision to keep the comic going the back up gets more pages this time around and there’s a simple explanation.

I’m going to assume last month’s issue was originally going to follow the same formula as the ones that came before, with a full chapter of Jurassic Park and a behind-the-scenes feature. In the US it had been decided new adventures would make up another mini-series, but there was going to be a small gap before it went on sale. To plug this in the UK this last chapter was split over two issues and the back up added to fill out the pages. This explains why there were only four parts to the behind-the-scenes series, with none this month (or ever again actually).

The opening chapter of Xenozoic Tales was quite short in length, so more of the Jurassic Park strip was included last time, but Mark Shultz‘s stories were of varying sizes, so working all of this out to spread over the two issues has resulted in 14 pages of the movie adaptation climax and 18 for Jack Tenrec and Hannah Dundee. It makes for a strange balance but that would all be corrected next month. More on this below.

The monthly competition page acts as a kind of editorial this month, hyping the conclusion and the new strips to come. A strange choice of prize though, a graphic novel collection of the strip readers have read in the comic. Elsewhere, the lovely gloss paper of the covers makes these adverts for Dark Horse International‘s other mature titles really pop, especially that Aliens one. The more I see these adverts the more I want to add them to my collection at some point, even though I know they too were cut short.

So on to the end of the comic book adaptation of one of the biggest movies ever made. This month it crams in Dr. Ellie Satler‘s escape from the maintenance shed, the survivors reuniting, the Velociraptors infiltrating the visitor centre, the kitchen scene with the kids, the control room scenes, their escape and the final shock ending.  That’s a lot for writer Walter Simonson and story editor Jim Salicrup to squeeze in and unfortunately just like last month it suffers as a result.

Case in point is the famous kitchen scene with Tim and Lex sneaking about and eventually getting one over on the ‘raptors. Tense in the movie, here it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense. For a start the shadow signalling danger is barely noticeable and the reflective surface of the kitchen appliances Lex used in her terrifying encounter in the movie seems to be floating in mid-air!

At least the kids get a few pages for their scene, the rest really are cut down to their bare bones. The idea behind each one is there and is solid, the main imagery is perfectly captured and the big scare moments are all present and correct. But with all the trims it rushes from one of these moments to the next every few panels, meaning their impact is diminished.

So ends the movie adaptation. But hang on, where’s Ray?

At least the dinosaurs themselves look good as you’ll see below, with penciller Gil Kane‘s and inker George Perez‘s Tyrannosaurus Rex and those ‘raptors looking suitably powerful in their final confrontation, which thankfully is given a bit more room to breathe. Not too sure about the green blood though. You’d have to ask colourist Tom Smith about that one. The random letter jumbles making up the noises of these animals are just plain bizarre, but at least John Workman‘s unique style of breaking the panels still looks the part.

This dramatic angle of the Tyrannosaurus rex is so good it’s used twice over the double-page spread, but they both look so good we’ll forgive the repeating. There’s a lot of powerful red, at least giving the impression of a gory fight to the death despite that sanitised blood colour. But still, somehow it works and it’s the powerful, dramatic scene that’s been missing from so much of these two issues. I particularly like the fact the iconic ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth’ banner from the film is worked in as a caption.

“And behind them, receding into the distance Jurassic Park and the past are swallowed up in the gathering dark. The End.” 

So ends the movie adaptation. But hang on, look at that final panel above. Where’s Ray? Yes, in the film he was killed in the maintenance shed off camera and Ellie discovered his severed arm when she went to reinstate the power grid. But last month Ellie volunteered first in a major change from the film. This meant Ray was still alive in the control room and yet here he’s nowhere to be seen. It seems the one black character has been completely forgotten about. It’s clear this final chapter was rushed with it’s art not being as detailed or polished and with huge chunks missing to get to the finish line in the page count, but still, just forgetting about a character is a massive oversight!

It’s such a shame it had to end this way because the first three chapters were so good that’s it’s more disappointment than anything else I’m feeling right now.

With no written feature to break up the strips this time we head straight from a natural island off the coast of Costa Rica to a manmade island group off the coast of North America for this month’s Xenozoic Tales: Mammoth Pitfall, written and drawn by Mark Schultz, coloured for a Marvel US reprint by Denise Prowell.

The story comes from the second issue of creator Mark Shultz‘s original series, but three stories which took place between last month’s introduction and this one have been skipped. That unfortunately means character development is going to be pretty spotty. For example, last month Jack and Hannah had just met, but here he’s trusting her in her attempts to capture a mammoth for domestication and she knows enough about him to know when he’s in trouble. It’s a shame we can’t appreciate their developing friendship properly but then again it’s only thanks to Jurassic Park we got to read them at all.

Jack knows nature has certain rules and understands a mammoth will always be a dangerous animal to humans. It should be respected and left alone. However, the reason the attempt fails is because of interference from another human who sabotages their attempt and sets Hannah up for a nasty death squish. After a very lucky escape she hides in the boot of Jack’s prized Cadillac. She later pops out and saves him from the man threatening to kill him if he doesn’t teach him the most prized skill of the time: how to drive!

Sometimes it seems nature bends the rules.

Mark Shultz, Xenozoic Tales

It’s all great fun and the wordplay between Jack and Hannah is natural and funny. Trapped inside his garage by the angry beast the action is put on hold and it’s testament to Mark’s writing how equally compelling these simple character scenes can be. The script is full of interesting contradictions too. The juxtaposition between the dinosaurs and the cars is effortlessly presented, Hannah seeks action while Jack wants the easy life, and Jack the environmentalist and animal lover has dedicated his life to restoring the very machines responsible for the great cataclysm. (Although he has converted them to run on dino guano.)

Curious to see what all the fuss is about with these ancient contraptions Hannah convinces Jack to take her for a ride, then to chase a storm back to the city. They discover the dead body of the mammoth she tried to capture, clearly the victim of a predator outside the garage. Jack is furious. “He should never have died here.” It’s great to see these characters learning about each other. Again, it pains me we’re not seeing it all.

The storm chase naturally ends in disaster. They crash, the Cadillac becoming a write-off in a sodden ditch. Tenrec carries an unconscious Hannah through the driving wind and rain until he bumps into a sheltered building of some sort that he wasn’t previously aware of. With no time to question its sudden existence he places Hannah inside and tries to wait out the storm. Flood waters rush them and by morning the storm has revealed the shelter that saved their lives.

With this the story comes full circle. The mammoth that Hannah was so certain could help them rebuild their world has in the end saved their lives, by losing its own, because of her. It’s thought provoking and rather sad and I felt genuinely sorry for the mammoth in the end, and thought less of us as a species. Which I think was the whole point. It’s a very different strip, but it works perfectly as a back up in this comic. After all, both strips are about the interaction between dinosaurs and humans and what happens when we try to force our dominance on animals we were never meant to meet.

With this we reach the end of another issue and the back page has me very excited. Using a one-colour version of the cover to my very first issue, the announcement I’ve been waiting all these months for is finally here.

If I’d been collecting these issues in 1993 then I’m sure I’d have been hugely excited by this! Who wouldn’t have been? Even now I’m hyped. Discovering #6 on the shelves with the promise of new adventures inside was thrilling and this promo is bringing back all of those feelings again. The mention of the third strip and even the competition headline are bringing a big goofy smile to my face because I remember both so distinctly. It’s quite extraordinary.

As is normally the case with all of these real time read throughs I will have to practice will power, but this is going to be harder than most. I’ll do it though, I’ll wait for the correct date, no matter how impatiently. That date will be Tuesday 30th November 2021, so join me then as we embark once more to Isla Nublar for the original, forgotten sequel to Jurassic Park.

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JURASSiC PARK #4: BACK UP SYSTEMS

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With issue four the UK version of Jurassic Park was evolving. As mentioned last time the US comic was no longer going to finish after the adaptation, with further mini-series now being produced. In the UK, Dark Horse International decided to turn their four-issue, three-weekly mini-series into an ongoing monthly, not that any fanfare is made of this because the reader wouldn’t have been any the wiser it had originally been due to end this issue (and a few weeks ago). Indeed, the comics checklist last issue erroneously said #4 was the end.

This change produced the delay in the release of this issue as plans were made for the new format of the comic and acquiring more content for each issue. This begins with the first back up strip here, bringing Jurassic Park more in line with the company’s other comics such as Aliens. The front page recolours a panel from the strip inside (and I love the font they’ve used) instead of having a proper cover image. This final chapter of the adaptation is being split in two, so the original cover was being kept in reserve for the following month.

The sequence in the tree with Tim trapped in the Explorer has been completely excised!

Check out this month’s comics checklist and you might get an idea of the make up of the company’s titles. The issue at hand begins with a competition for the excellent The Making of Jurassic Park. I actually bought this book at the time and it was a heavy tome, full of details on the making of the film and stands up today as one of the very best of its kind for any movie. You’ll also see an advert for Manga Mania, which fed off the new craze to hit these shores. Ultimately it’d also be a very important title for Jurassic Park fans. But that’s a story for another time.

Our freshly chopped final chapter is still a lengthy 16 pages so regular readers wouldn’t have felt short changed, at least with the page count. Unfortunately, the actual strip itself is another thing. Yes, this is the first time in the comic’s young life when I’ve been left disappointed.

Last month the Tyrannosaurus rex attack was brilliantly handled with plenty of building tension and atmosphere so I was looking forward to seeing how the final act would begin. The opening is great, with Mrs Rex towering above Dr. Alan Grant and Lex, both trying to keep completely still.

It’s all going so well until those final couple of panels. The sequence in the tree with Tim trapped in the Explorer has been completely excised! So it plummets to the ground instead and then he’s just unbelievably pulled out and off they go. Alan even has a map at hand to make their trip back to the Visitor’s Centre quicker, which is a rather cheeky shortcut. In previous issues scenes had been moved about, moments edited, others added to, all in order to properly adapt the film to the comic page and I’ve been really positive about it. But all throughout this issue huge swathes of story are just missing or reduced to a shadow of their former selves.

Case in point is the fatal encounter between Denis Nedry and the Dilophosaurus. The movie scene included plenty of misdirection and humour, putting the audience at ease before the shock, and that wouldn’t have been easy to translate here but they could have tried. Instead this very famous scene only gets two pages. It’s a very basic sequence now; the dinosaur may as well be a lion. Denis gets attacked as soon as he steps out of the vehicle, he jumps back in and we actually see the Dilophosaurus jump in after him (ruining the final moments of the original) and… well, that’s it.

This truncating happens to basically every major moment, whether it’s the nighttime meeting with the Brachiosaurs, rescuing Dr. Ian Malcolm after the T-rex attack, even the electric fence scene (as you’ll see below) and Robert Muldoon‘s stalking of a Velociraptor. Each are reduced to fit on a page or two and basically follow a set pattern of only showing the first and last moments of the scene and erasing everything else, including almost all the humour.

“Think they’ll have that on the tour?”

Dr. Ian Malcolm

Right back at the beginning of this adaptation I stated how I didn’t usually like comic versions of films and this was the reason why. But up to this point Jurassic Park had been the exception to the rule, with a proper restructuring of the film to suit the format and it was working a treat as a comic in its own right. Maybe if they’d had five chapters instead of four (in the original US comic) it would’ve worked out differently, but then again maybe the pacing could’ve been plotted out better by writer Walter Simonson and story editor Jim Salicrup. Yes, having all the dino action in the final chapter would, in theory, make for a big climax but there’s just too much of it to fit in.

The result is a clichéd comics adaptation where it feels more like a way for people to reminisce about the movie they saw in the cinema months previous, rather than working as a good comic book. If I sound overly critical it’s only because the team had been doing such an amazing job so far, even adding in extra dialogue from either the original novel or earlier drafts of the script. So it’s more disappointment than simple negativity.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still things to enjoy here. It’s all on a lovely high quality gloss paper stock this month, some of the best lines from the film are still intact and the art in the first eight or so pages is top notch. However, in the second half even legendary artists Gil Kane‘s pencils and George Perez‘s inks start to feel a little rushed and Tom Smith‘s colours feel unfinished and flat, leading me to believe they were working very close to the deadline of getting the original US series out in time for the movie.

The chapter is cut off with a superb cliffhanger though. The view of a Velociraptor‘s feet as it chases Dr. Ellie Sattler is just as unnerving as it was in the film. It’s a shame then the terrifying Velociraptors, when viewed in full, are reduced to looking like miniature T-rexes. Below is this final scene with its positives and negatives, alongside that fence scene with the dramatic resuscitation of Tim also taken out.

I also noticed Ray didn’t volunteer to go to the maintenance shed as he did in the original story, where he met his grisly end. Instead Muldoon and Ellie head off while Ray looks on silently. This means he’s still alive, a big departure from the film. It’ll be interesting to see how that effects the rest of the story next month.

For now, the sun sets on the adaptation as we move on to something else entirely

With 16 pages to the main strip I assume there’ll be roughly 12 or 13 next month unless the final chapter was given a few more pages in the original American Topps Comics publication. Either way there’s a lot of the film left to cover in half a chapter. The kids and Alan are still out in the park which means their return, the kitchen scenes, the chaos of the Velociraptors in the Visitor’s Centre and the climax are all to come.

I’ll still hold out hope things can be turned around because so far it feels like spending 90 minutes being completely engrossed in a film only for its ending to let you down. Which of course is not what happened with Jurassic Park! For now, the sun sets on the adaptation as we move on to something else entirely.

In the early days of Marvel UK‘s Transformers its back up strips were in some way related to the robotic theme, such as Machine Man or Iron Man. It wasn’t long before it instead became a way of bringing some of Marvel’s other US characters to these shores for the first time, but Jurassic Park kept its strips dinosaur-themed, much to the delight of teenage me. The second back up would appear in my first issue (#6) but here readers were introduced to Mark Shultz‘s Xenozoic Tales.

Later adapted into a cartoon TV series called ‘Cadillacs & Dinosaurs‘ it was an independent, alternative title Mark wrote and drew himself, running for 14 issues irregularly released between 1987 and 1996. Most of the strips were printed in black and white but Jurassic Park brought in artists to colour them exclusively for UK readers, this first one coloured by Ray Fehrenbach. This complete story was the first one written by Mark and what an introduction to something brand new this first page was.

Set in the 26th century, global warming has resulted in sea levels across the globe forcing humans to initially build underground. After 600 years they’ve reemerged to find their cities flooded, technology virtually non-existent and strangest of all the world is populated by dinosaurs once more. Anyone capable of mechanical work is seen as invaluable and this is where Jack Tenrec comes in, a car mechanic with a penchant for Cadillacs. Thanks to these skills he acts as an unofficial head of security and advisor to his tribe’s leaders and lives on an outcrop (formerly high hills) not far across the water from An Archipelago of Stone, the home of the tribe and in reality the remains of New York City.

I love that first page, cleverly written from the point of view of a Pterodactyl. In the story a neighbouring tribe’s ambassador, Hannah Dundee arrives at the City in the Sea and a team of poachers who had previously stolen from her Wassoon Tribe want her dead before they’re found out. It’s up to Jack and his men to stop them. All the way through this strip, knowing he’s about to get in way over his head, Tenrec keeps telling his men to send someone called Hermes to help. Then, just as it seems he’s doomed a surprise arrival bursts in. That’s Hermes!

Well I certainly didn’t expect that. Hermes the Allosaurus disposes of the villain, munching on his head and throwing him out the window, before Tenrec thanks him, revealing who this is. That doesn’t mean he’s a pet of course and the usually cool and collected Jack knows it.

It’s brilliant stuff. Original, fun and surprising, introducing the main protagonists, the unique setting and the cast of regular and semi-regular guest characters, all in 12 pages while maintaining an interesting story and racking up tension is rather a phenomenal feat. No wonder Xenozoic Tales is so highly regarded even to this day. It may at first seem like a strange choice for Jurassic Park’s back up but it works perfectly and as a teen I remember being engrossed with the slowly developing back story that would become more apparent in later issues. (Sadly, Hermes never reappeared.)

In between the two strips is this month’s look into the making of the movie, covering the famous disaster that hit Hawaii and the relief efforts the producers helped coordinate, plus the building of sets and the end of principal photography. At the very end of the feature is the teeny tiny box with the date of the next issue including a little tease that things were afoot for the future of the comic.

Thankfully they didn’t say “great news for all readers” or we’d have got the wrong idea. With these couple of pages, a long main strip and a back up it really does feel more like the kinds of UK comics we were accustomed to at the time. I may have enjoyed the extras more than the adaptation this month but I know from memory that what’s to come from Jurassic Park made this one of my very favourite comics growing up. So stay tuned for some terrific stuff from Isla Nublar, as well as from the far future and soon the distant past too!

The fifth issue and the conclusion of the movie storyline will be stomping its way on to the blog in one month on Tuesday 26th October 2021.

iSSUE THREE < > iSSUE FiVE

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