The Alien Legion – Part III
This is part 3 of a series of posts looking back at the Marvel/Epic Comics title “The Alien Legion.”
The early issues of volume one would see Potts and Zelenetz experimenting a bit with the story-telling, tacking on an epilogue to the main story which would add further detail to a particular plot point seen in the issue. Oftentimes these epilogues would serve as methods by which we would learn more about a particular character, as seen here where Sarigar is seen apparently deep in thought about something…
This scene would be left behind, with most readers (like myself) probably thinking that Sarigar was tense about the situation his squadron faced. Come to find out, he was actually thinking about his sister and her betrayal of his trust…
These extra tales would end by issue six, probably because by this point readers were familiar with the main characters and the pages could then be used to advance the main plot.
Force Nomad would see a variety of adventures in this first run, and they really started hitting a stride by issue 7, where Nomad finds itself escorting a pair of magistrates back to the judiciary, though several members hold grudges against a figure they view as nosy and unappreciative of their efforts to recover a bomb from the Harkilons. And probably not a coincidence, it’s issue 7 where the until now little seen Jugger Grimrod really starts to take center stage. And it’s not because of his winning personality…
Jugger would probably be recognized as the Wolverine of this team: a violent loner who doesn’t have much use for authority figures, though unlike Wolverine Grimrod has no real moral code except to look out for himself. This arc would really bring Grimrod into the limelight as a force to be reckoned with in Nomad, and he would continue to be a central character throughout the series, and particularly in the second volume a couple years later.
After the magistrate’s introduction to some of Nomad, the ship ends up being attacked by the Harkilons, and after both ships suffer damage, both Nomad and the Harkilons end up crashlanding on a nearby planet. Jugger comes close to killing the magistrate who could identify him as an escaped murderer, but the Harkilons end up capturing and torturing him for information about the location of the Legionnaire’s ship, as their craft is beyond repair. Jugger refuses to talk, but the crafty Harkilons allow him to believe he escapes after having secretly implanted a bug on his person, very similar to when the Imperials traced the Millenium Falcon back to the Rebel Base in the first Star Wars.
One of Grimrod’s character defining moments comes in the middle of a Harkilon ambush, where just before he and another legionnaire named Mescad come across the heavily wounded Bospor. Jugger attempts to convince Mescad to cut and run, leaving the Bospor behind to die, while Mescad struggles with the idea:
Mescad eventually decides that Jugger is right, though it weighs on his conscience. As for the Bospor, well, the Bospor doesn’t make it…
This storyline would eventually see Nomad Squadron join forces with the Harkilons to fight a more dangerous indigenous life form on the planet. This decision would have repercussions that would reverberate throughout the rest of the volume one, as we’ll see next week.
Next Thursday: the end of Volume One…
