Free Comic Inside> Swordquest: Fireworld

We return to the world of Swordquest. If you want to know the full history of this game I summarized it in my review of the first minicomic in this series, Earthworld, or I found this article covering the game and the prizes. The highlights are thus: Atari came up with a quartet of games for the Atari 2600 where the players could win actual prizes based on the treasures in the game. However, only three of the games came out, what happened to the prizes are rumor, and all we have are three comics. Fireworld is the second game and comic we’ll be looking at.

The story thus far: two twins, Torr and Tarra, are deposed royalty living as thieves. In the first issue they gained their first prize while squaring off with the Western Zodiac. Torr wants revenge on the tyrant Tyrannus…oh, I should warn you that even though two big name comic writers are working on this as part of Atari’s partnership with DC Comics, the names are lame as heck! So get used to that. Anyway, Tarra has to remind her brother that revenge is not a good plan for a thief, and I’m guessing we won’t see that story arc resolved anytime soon. When we last saw our protagonists, they and their new thief friend Herminus were taking a portal to another world as Tyrannus’ wizard Konjuro was all concerned. Why? Will we find out this story? Can the names get any worse? Let’s find out!

At least they’re smart enough to run away from the file. Unless they’re trying to attack it with their swords.

Swordquest #2

DC Comics/Atari (1982)

“Fireworld”

CREATORS/WRITERS: Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway

VISUAL CONCEPTS/ART: George Perez & Dick Giordano

DESIGN: Neal Pozner

COLORIST: Adrienne Roy

LETTERER: Adam Kubert

EDITOR: Dick Giordano

[Read along at Atari Age]

When last we saw our heroes, the magical sword Torr and Tarra sought broke open the ground and dropped into the fiery inferno, giving cheap knockoffs of itself to the twins. They’re plan: jump right into the fire after it. Not my first move. Watching all this is Konjuro, wizard to Tyrannus. He then decides to give his king exposition into more of the twins’ history, and how the villains seemed to be going out of their way to make the prophecy of the twins slaying Tyrannus come true. To quell rebellion, Tyrannus had Konjuro send two demons to run around at night through the city, but they could only be seen as a mist. Why they didn’t just go with the mist I couldn’t tell you.

Even after learning their origins the twins stuck to their normal lives, hiding the color of their hair because apparently blondes are a rarity, until one day they see Malavol, the captain of the guard, killed their foster parents for not getting out of his way fast enough. This is the kind of stupid minion that breeds rebellion just to kill him. Proving the man doesn’t know when to stop fawning over his own ego, he orders the bodies burned so they won’t be in the way the next time he comes through…right in front of the young adult twins. Even Konjuro calls out what a moron this moron is, as shown when Torr throws a rock at him, the twins end up fighting the guards, and Torr trips Malavol’s horse, causing him to break his neck and die, while the twins will now become harder to find and becoming thieves, leading up to current events. I’m pretty sure the Evil Overlord List covers not having your army led by egotistical twits like this, but he’s dead so who cares? Malavol. A rework of “malevolent” I guess. Should have been named Stooped.

Tyrannus, through Konjuro, speaks to the twins telepathically as they fall through the fire portal. “Oh, I totally gave up being evil, so come back and I’ll share all that power with you. Not surprisingly given the previous flashback and remembering events of the previous issue, they tell him to pound sand before falling out of reach of Konjuro’s magic. It’s the first time the siblings agreed on anything straight out. They land in Fireworld, which not surprisingly is like being inside a volcano with a bunch of other volcanoes all over the place. It’s basically Satan’s winter home.

Of course the two have another argument as to which way to go, Tarra just being sick of Torr giving orders all the time, and runs off in her own direction. Herminus observes this, and wanting the Sword Of Ultimate Sorcery for himself uses a coin flip to decide which one to follow. Finding his way is not to his benefit, Torr summons the spirit of Mentor, while his counterpart Mentarra will be aiding Tarra. He can’t help find the Sword or his sister, but does show him the Chalice Of Light, the actual prize from this game. Drinking from it will quell their thirst and protect them from the fire, but they have to find it first. Having used up the one call per world, the twins are now on their own.

Tarra finds a treasure chamber in a cave, with new armor and a unicorn statue she’s compelled to climb on. It comes to life and tries to buck her off while Torr finds an altar with its own armor to change into. He grabs a sword, declaring the arrows to be for sissies…until attacking fire demons melt the sword. The icy arrows freeze one of the demons in place and the others flee. Torr kind of apologizes for freezing the one demon before departing while it’s still frozen. Meanwhile, Tarra manages to tame the flying unicorn and comes upon a sleeping man so handsome she can’t stop herself from wanting to kiss him…only to learn it’s a trap. The “man” is actually a tentacle monster…I didn’t even realize hentai had reached the US by 1982…and Hermanus decides to let her die rather and steal the unicorn because he’s a jerk. Tarra manages to defeat the monster but at the cost of her new sword and shield, so she returns to the treasure chamber to retrieve her old sword.

“How do you have fried chicken that’s still raw?”

Torr finds more demons but after they plead with him to spare them, that they were only defending their land, he takes pity on them and they go all “we’re not worthy”. He then finds a large fountain of cooling water, and is taunted by Hermanus about his own quest for the Sword. Why did he bother? Good question. I don’t have an answer. Torr sees a scroll at the bottom of the fountain and removes his armor to dive in, and gets attacked by a monster under the water. Meanwhile, Tarra has a new set of armor, and chose for sturdiness rather than how pretty it is, but she comes across an armor similar to her brother’s crucified to a tree. Realizing it might be another trick she doesn’t take the bait, but does get attacked by a phoenix…which she manages to tame just like the unicorn. It takes her to the fountain, where Torr’s new friends wave for help, and she does rescue him. Then he uses his shield to deflect the monster’s fire attack, thus the twins are reunited, safe, and with fancy new armor like you see on the cover.

Their individual experiences giving them insight into how this world works, both are able to walk through another flame portal, where they find the Chalice Of Light…until Hermanus destroys it, revealing he’s got the real Chalice and just wasted all our times telling us what we already know and could find out without him. In the Chalice’s water they see a picture of a crown, the next prize in the next world. Hermanus is off on his stolen unicorn. Had he stayed he might have learned that the Chalice itself was the portal to the next world, a water world. Terminus sees this and he’s not happy, but Konjuro assures him they won’t make it past the next one.

This is actually an interesting installment. Our hero thieves are growing and learning. Torr learns that he doesn’t have to work alone (though it would have been nice to see the fire demons do more than wave for help after joining Torr’s side) while Tarra learns how to avoid the traps of this world. These are skills I’m assuming will serve them in the next world. Hermanus is more of a distraction than anything else, while Tyrannus and Konjuro are just here for exposition, but it does tell us more about the history of the Twins and how dumb these villains really are. Hubris does not help bad karma, kids. Remember that. The art is really good in this one. For a free comic meant to promote an unfinished video game contest there’s quite a bit of effort put into this. This is what happens when you care about what you’re working on, even if it’s just a tie-in promo comic.

We’ll catch up with Torr and Tarra in Waterworld and make the obvious jokes another time. In our next installment it’s back to Cybertron and an overdue visit to the Transformers: Energon minicomics.