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 Having
escaped the Time Wastes of Termight, Deadlock has led The ABC Warriors
through the Fringe Worlds for many months, until finally they reach
Hekate, planet of the Night Maras. There, Deadlock will make them
into true Warriors of Khaos, and destroy the Terran Empire for good.
Shortly after arriving, they meet the Froyds, a strange
alien species, scattered across a field. During the day, they are
awake, but their bodies are inert. At night, however, while they're
asleep, they act out their dreams with violence and passion. As
The Warriors voice their confusion, two vehicles come tearing through
the field; Sigmo, the Froyd they were talking to, says it's the
One Percenters. One of the cars runs over Sigmo, then they both
head toward a family of Froyds, but one of them veers off to go
for The Warriors instead. The car hits Mongrol full in the face,
and as the two passengers laugh it over, the metal ape decides it's
smushing time again; he rips the car, and it's occupants, apart.
Joe takes out the other car, and captures one of them alive. The
One Percenter begs Deadlock for mercy, but the wizard explains they
need a sacrifice to celebrate their planetfall. Once that's over
with, he takes out his heart and buries it. And so begins Deadlock's
quest to make The Warriors into a force for Khaos.
It becomes necessary to recruit a seventh Warrior
(as initiates of Khaos know, five is the ideal number, but
the truly astute will realise that's why Deadlock chose seven),
so interviews are set up at The Piston Broke bar, where a number
of robots come through. The bar owner, Gagg (a Phooka), comes over
to see if everything's okay, and offers Hammerstein a Phooka greeting
on behalf of the bar guild: he vomits all over him. Hammerstein
attempts to kill Gagg, but Joe stops him and explains why he did
it. Ro-Jaws tells them that Phookas do things the other way around
to humans; they take in food through their nether regions and eject
it through their mouths. They think eating is a private thing to
do in cubicles. While this is going on, Blackblood kicks back with
a can of oil and admires the Froyds ability to act out their most
violent desires without being troubled by their conscious minds.
While the interviews carry on, two robots get into
a dispute in the queue. They're stopped by a waitress droid, who
tells them to take it into the public bar; one of the steel squaddies
try to hit on her, so she blows him away with a cannon hidden behind
her face plate. The other, understandably, backs off. Meanwhile,
Deadlock finally arrives, and tells the others to forget the interviews,
as he's already made his choice. He points out the waitress, and
tells them to meet Morrigun, the seventh Warrior.
Deadlock's plan to initiate The Warriors requires
them to collect seven heads for Hekate. They start with the Chief
Tax Collector of The Imperial Revenue Guild.
At The Piston Broke, Gagg and his wife, Chunda, are
clearing up after the night before. After a quick retch, they decide
to go to bed, only to be interrupted by the Chief Tax Collector
and his two robot baliffs at the door, telling them they haven't
paid their Air Tax. The Phookas inform him they have no intention
of paying for the air they breathe, but the Empire is adamant. Without
payment, the Tax Collector will have no choice but to restrict their
supply. As one of the baliffs proceeds to make good on that offer,
The ABC Warriors choose their moment to step in. They destroy the
baliffs and bring the Chief Tax Collector to Deadlock.
He orders Blackblood to stake him down, then Ro-Jaws
to dig a circular trench around him. Deadlock proceeds to bleed
him to death - a fitting punishment for someone who has bled the
planet dry. Once the body is completely drained, and the trench
full, Deadlock removes the head and offers it as the First Head
for Hekate.
On a small farm, a young girl, Selene, awakes from
a strange dream. Her mother sees her pillow is soaked through with
sweat. The girl tells her mother she had dreamt she was called by
the Maras, and she knew them as sisters. They took her on the wildhunt,
and all night she rode through the great forest of Menark on their
backs. The girls ears are still ringing from the screams of their
helpless prey. And the worst of it is, she liked it. She finally
knows what she's meant for. Her mother comforts her, but finds a
piece of grass in her hair. Quickly, the mother runs outside to
inform her husband, Strugg, of her discovery. They try to work out
how the Maras got to her, when they took all the necessary precautions,
but Selene is their seventh daughter, and all the Maras have to
do is call her.
Suddenly three Terran ships appear, the lead one bearing
Reverend Septimus, the local missionary. He informs Strugg that
his daughter was seen in the woods the night before - the same night
that their neighbour lost two of his sons. Their blood cries for
justice. Septimus orders the farmer to take him to his daughter,
and they find her still in bed, and ready to unload abuse on to
the missionary. Strugg tries to explain it away because of her age,
but Septimus pulls back the blankets, revealing that Selene's foot
is turning into a hoof.
Septimus informs Strugg there can only be one course
of action, and as Chaplain Commander of the Imperial Guardians of
The Holy Tachyon, he must to do his duty. Strugg has already lost
twenty years in eternity for spawning such an obscenity; he still
asks how much of his eternal life it will cost to buy her absolution,
but when informed the total would be five hundred years, he tells
his wife to unhinge the door.
Outside, Selene is staked down, while Septimus informs
all the local villagers that there is ten bonus years for everyone
who lends a hand in purging the girls evil. Her bedroom door is
placed over her, and each goodman of the community must lay a rock
representing their guilt and lay it on the door, until her sin is
crushed out of her. As promised, Septimus gives each villager their
bonus ten years of eternal life, but under the door, the Night Mara
that lives in Selene attempts to escape. Septimus guns it down while
its still in the larval stage, and sends the villagers back to their
farms. Just then, however, Blackblood steps forward to make Septimus
an offer, and sell out The ABC Warriors.
Blackblood leads Septimus and his men to Zallin's
tomb ship, explaining his reasons for betraying his comrades along
the way; he's programmed for treachery, and the planet seems to
have brought it out. Septimus, having learned the layout of the
ship at his fathers knee, leads his men through the corridors, blissfully
unaware that The Warriors are lying in wait. He notices two of his
brothers have gone, but before he can question it further, the disembodied
voice of Zallin himself echoes through the ship, telling Septimus
that his men have been deemed unworthy to visit his sepulchre. Overjoyed
to hear the voice of their master, the remaining Terrans hurry through
the ship to witness the second coming of Zallin, only to lose another
to Mongrol along the way. Fearful for their lives, the remaining
humans are set upon by Mek-Quake and Morrigun, but only Septimus
is allowed into the mausoleum.
After some bizarre and humiliating commands from Zallin,
the emporer finally makes himself seen to his minion. When the coffin
opens, however, it's Deadlock who steps out. Ro-Jaws points out
that they've bunged Zallin in the freezer, and he's busy turning
the cream sour. Angered by these acts of blasphemy, Septimus shoots
at Deadlock, but the Wizard leaps over him, and impales him on his
Ace of Swords, making the Reverend the second offering to Khaos...
The Forest of Menark (source of the Blood Sap, the
wonderous aphrodisiac and healing balm) is being torn apart by Luna
Tek industries. The forest itself has taken to creating creatures
from it's own vegetation in a bid to stop the company machines from
destroying any more, but each one is cut down by the rampaging machines.
Not only would the person responsible for all the devestation make
a perfect third head for Hekate, it was also the perfect opportunity
to 'field test' Morrigun.
After taking care of the latest machine, Morrigun
makes her way to the Luna Tek compound, and into the office of the
director, who proves to be unimpressed with the 'drinks droid.'
Morrigun applies some lipstick and kisses the director - unknown
to him, however, is that the lipstick is poisoned. As the director
dies, his entire body sprouts leaves, and Morrigun simply collects
his head...
The next icon of Order on the Warriors hit-list is
science. The Terran scientists on Hekate had been warped by the
powers of Khaos, and had taken to performing pointless experiments
on the local inhabitants, without feeling the need to justify their
actions.
The Warriors lay seige to the research complex in
their own inimitable style, only to have the head scientist, Flandru,
catch them unawares with an electro-impulse scrambler, and shut
them down. Only Deadlock remains unharmed, and makes a strategic
withdrawl, leaving his comrades at the mercy of the Terrans. The
disabled bodies of The Warriors are put to good use in the firing
range, as targets. Their perception centres are brought back on-line,
so the scientists can record the distress and pain they suffer before
they expire. Or at least that's what's going into their reports...
As the captured Warriors are pointlessly shot, Deadlock
makes a reappearance, and sabotages the final test with the plasma
cannon. The Warriors, freed by the cannon blast, take their revenge
on the scientists and soldiers. Deadlock stops Hammerstein from
killing Flandru, and has him prepared as a 'human growbag.' The
wizard drops some Dragon Bush seeds (known as Dragon's Teeth) at
the feet of the good doctor, hung from the ceiling by his hands.
Blood sap from the forest of Menark drives the seeds wild, so much
so, they'll do anything to get more, as Deadlock shows Flandru,
when he pours some over the seeds and his feet. The resulting growth
from the seeds punctures Flandru's body, draining him dry. All that
remains is for Deadlock to collect the fourth head for Hekate.
The Warriors head back to The Piston Broke, to find
Ro-Jaws working behind the bar. He informs them that the Terrans
know they're on the planet, and have sent their elite shock troops
to find and destroy them - The Imperial Rottweilers...
As the total eclipse known as the Night of the Blood
Moon approaches, more and more illegal Moon Raves are held across
Hekate, only to be broken up by the Terran armies on the word of
Rhodes Kurd, planetary governer. The Warriors identify him as their
next target, and proceed to intercept him on his way home through
the Forest of Menark. They easily take care of his escort, but all
attempts to get Kurd himself end in failure, as the team discover
how well protected his car actually is.
Unfortuneately, The Imperial Rottweilers choose this
moment to appear and take down The Warriors with surprising ease.
Kurd, now safe in the hands of his men, leaves the car, only to
discover that the entire fight between The Warriors and Rottweilers
was nothing more than a psychic illusion conjoured up by Deadlock.
They sieze Kurd and proceed to wrap him in the shedded
skin of a Night Mara Joe and Blackblood found earlier. As the morning
sun hits the skin, it will contract to a hundredth of its size.
The skin literally crushes Kurd's body, leaving the head intact
for The Warriors to collect.
As they head back to the Tombship to prepare for the
next head, Joe suddenly has a breakdown as the Khaotic effects of
the planet finally takes its toll. They withstrain him and take
him back to the ship, where Deadlock performs an unnecessary operation
on Joe's brain. The Wizard points out a particularly nasty hang
up buried in Joe's circuits, and then proceeds to insert the Formula
of Khaos, an expression of permanent and ever evolving change that
never repeats itself. It breaks down the solid shape of the hang
up, removing the guilt, and forcing Joe to see things through ever
shifting perspectives. He'll now be as sane as Deadlock. The real
Imperial Rottweilers have finally caught up with The Warriors, and
begin bombarding the Tombship with deuterium bullets, the radiation
from which seems to revive the mummified corpse of Emperor Zallin...
The bombardment of the ship continues, until Mek-Quake
suggests that they surrender to the Terrans, a plan which Deadlock
agrees with wholeheartedly. The Wizard, waving the white flag, heads
out to meet the Terrans, and immediately decapitates the Colonel,
collecting the sixth head for Hekate. Deadlock flees back to the
ship, only to discover that Zallin has joined his men outside, meaning
The Warriors have lost their ace. With no more use for the Tombship,
Zallin orders the Rottweilers to operate their molecular shredder
and vapourise the ship.
Inside, Joe steps out of the shadows, dressed in his
'imperial robe,' and takes out the molecular shredder. The Warriors
take the opportunity to make their escape and head to the Temple
of the Night Maras. Zallin, meanwhile, has an encounter with a Phooka
couple, after which he's informed of Operation Jove, a plan to destroy
the middle moon and restore Order to the planet. The Emperor changes
the plan, so all three moons will be destroyed on his command.
The Warriors reach the Temple of the Night Maras with
the Terrans in close pursuit. The team sneak through the temple,
careful not to wake the sleeping creatures. Once every nine hundred
years, the Maras leave their equine form and become alien women,
priestesses of Hekate to herald her coming, and tonight is the night
in question. The Terrans, on the other hand, tear their way through
the temple, destroying any creatures they find. The Warriors flee
up to the eyrie in time to see the Maras waking, and ready for the
kill. Deadlock talks fast, and has his comrades avert their eyes
from the creatures, except Morrigun, who they accept as a female.
Deadlock sets the Maras against the Rottweilers. The
aliens butcher the Terrans, until they reach Zallin, but Deadlock
stops them from killing the Emperor. Zallin, however, has ordered
that Operation Jove commence, and three missles are heading to Hekates
moons. The Maras quickly perform a ceremony that sees one of their
statues come to life and destroy the missles before they can reach
their targets, leaving Zallin to the wrath of The Warriors.
One short discussion between the Wizard and the Emperor
later, and Hammerstein is ordered by Zallin to take Deadlocks sword
and kill him. Deadlock willingly hands it over, and Hammerstein
is left with the choice. However, the Mk III snaps as Zallin yells
at him. and he decapitates the Terran, providing the seventh head
for Hekate. With the eclipse moments away, Deadlock and his comrades
begin the ritual that will spread Khaos through the galaxy...
A month long party follows, with The Warriors and
residents of Hekate celebrating their victory. The morning after
sees Morrigun and Mongrol off to join the Maras, and Deadlock's
attempts to round up the remaining Warriors fail - it seems they've
decided to mutiny. The Wizard, however, is overjoyed: his comrades
have passed the final test.
The planet in good hands, Deadlock takes his leave
to continue spreading Khaos through the rest of the galaxy with
a true master of Khaos: Ro-Jaws.
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COMMENTS:
Khronicles of Khaos was Mills' answer to the Thatcher years
and, in particular, the demonisation of rave and youth culture in
the late 1980s and early 1990s. It marks the beginning of Mills'
largely disappointing 'new age' period which, unlike alcohol, does
not mature with age: Khronicles is the last great ABC Warriors saga
and everything since has accumulated disappointment and wasted opportunities.
Khronicles itself is a satire-sweaty monkey
dance of a rave, and the The Warriors themselves feel like someone's
parents gatecrashing the party to deal dope. By the end of the story,
one half expects them to be living in a squat passing the bhong
around and moaning lazily about too much sunlight coming through
the tie-dye drapes - and that could have been a lot of fun. Khronicles
is Mills' mischievousness at its best; it marked a radical departure
from everything that had been done with war robots before and some
fans were understandably aghast at the transformation.
Mills was suffering from boredom not unlike
Pineapples' predicament in Black
Hole, where he longs for new experiences. Khronicles is that
new experience for Mills. His concentration on Deadlock - the paragon
of mischief and fun in the team - and his merciless bullying of
Hammerstein - the staid hero - indicate a renewed love of the ABCs.
New scenarios and characters also feature, and some are classics
in themselves: the Phookas, for example, are a neat device stay
thankfully under-used, while the collection of the seven heads and
the hallucinogenic trip Kurd is sent on by the shaft of moonlight
penetrating his armoured car (along with the Deadlock's wonderful
line, "Now you know why the kids like to 'moon light'")
are sheer delights, and inventively gory. The Imperial Rottweilers
are enemies who, for once, put up something approaching a fight;
and the dialogue is gleefully tongue in cheek ("I'm that other
Custard... cowardy cowardy custard.", "Abracadabra! Shazam!
TFFN!") - all the signs of a writer enjoying himself, a situation
I would rather have any day of the week compared to the drab do-I-have-to
rote of Return to Mars.
Mills' writing is not just fun. He dwells
on serious issues (most notably the harm in dogmatic obedience,
demonstrated when the villagers pile in to crush Selene to death
rather than lose years off their eternal lives - and the way the
father looks away as his daughter almost haemorhages with terror
is heart-rendingly historically accurate), and weaves an admirable
and intelligent natural justice throughout the strip (the killing
of the One Percenter joyriding over Froyds signposts this, the strangling
of Kurd "...just as he stranged the life out of the people"
continues it). Having Hammerstein snap and decapitate Zallinn as
Zallinn shouted him down like a teacher to a schoolchild was perfectly
fitting with Hammerstein's character history and was a moment all
of us could relate to. That is Khronicles' understated (and
under-recognised) strength: it has all the emotional power of Black
Hole but with none of the po-faced mental masturbation. It has
an eloquence of morality and of fun - so perfectly interspersed
- and is probably Mills' and the ABCs' finest hour.
Walker's art matures throughout the story,
and Mills weaves an exciting quest of a tale for the seven heads
for Hekate. (Reverence of planets has now become a Mills staple
and was wheeled out again for the risible Return to Mars.) The character
shifts begun in Black Hole are nurtured and made more explicit
(in the case of Pineapples, literally so), and a welcome sense of
leisure and playful amusement pervades the piece (Mills' earth magick
philosophising is central to the plot but is more accessible and
appropriate here than in later stories.)
Khronicles is not about an outcome - it is
about a journey and the obstacles on that quest. It is The ABC Warriors
in garish, hammy, middle age - the final party scene says it all
and tops off a satisfying sideways take on the galaxy's most unwarlike
war robots. A triumph in experimentation, and one that should have
been followed far more professionally than it was.
 Okay,
let's get this out of the way right now: Khronicles of Khaos
is nowhere near as good as Black
Hole; it was an impossible act to follow and Khronicles
falls well short of the target.
That said, reading it now after
such a long time, it actually holds up fairly well. Walker's fully
painted artwork is stunning throughout and is definitely the best
recommendation for reading both this and Hellbringer.
Like the latter, his art is loaded with references to Bisley's run
(culminating in Ro-Jaws' 'Simon Bisley Fan Club' badge). However,
it's the scripts where this falls down.
The writing seems watered down,
and at times very flat. Mills' normally subtle pieces of social
commentary come down like a sledgehammer, and the characterisation
never really develops beyond what's been laid down before. All the
secrets and tensions were resolved with Black Hole, and there's
no attempt to create any new ones here. Like it's predecessor, though,
Khronicles takes your perception of The ABC Warriors and
turns it on it's head, but the results are a mixed bag.
There's a few curious moments
in the story, too. Such as Septimus freely giving the villagers
extra years of life, but in Black Hole, Emperor Thano says
that eternal life shouldn't be given to regular people. And why
does the re-born Zallin immediately take control of the Terrans
without asking any questions (like "Where the bloody hell am
I?!"). Come to think of it, why do the Terrans immediately
accept he's Zallin?
The whole thing with Joe's dress
habits does raise a smile, though (Joe: "I feel like Ginger
Rogers." Blackblood: "Surely you mean Fred Astaire."
Joe: "I know who I mean."). Ro-Jaws is unfairly shunted
to the sidelines early on, while Morrigun is never given a chance
to develop as a character, and just feels like she's there to fill
the roster in place of Terri. Taking away Mongrol's powers of speech
remove his more tragic elements, but it does, oddly, feel like a
natural progression for the character - is there really much more
to do or say with him by this point?
Not bad, but not great either.
 Well,
here's a weird dichotomy. Some of the best comic artwork ever -
not just in 2000AD, but in any publication
- is allied to a script that doesn't just fall short in every possible
way of its predecessor, but also winds up as an ill-conceived masterpiece
of disjointed New Age self-indulgence.
Khronicles Of Khaos is where the ABCs
went truly off the rails. Pat Mills' New Age guff was annoying enough
in the likes of Slaine, but since that was a series I never
had any interest in (barbarians in loincloths just ain't my thing)
it didn't bother me that much. But having it not just worm its way
into the ABCs, but actually usurp all that had gone before, was
just too much.
Admittedly, 2000AD as a whole
was struggling under a burden of politically correct bull in general
at the time. The two worst offenders were Inspector Raam
(subtext: "If you eat meat you're a Nazi!") and Trash
(subtext: "If you use any product of industry you're a Nazi!"),
with Mills' own Finn (subtext: "If you're not an anarcho-pagan
you're a Nazi - and deserve to die horribly!") close behind
in the eye-rolling annoyance stakes, but these were all (thankfully)
short-lived, of-the-moment affairs. However, the ABC Warriors was
a long-standing series about futuristic war robots. Strapping trendy
anti-establishment 'satire' (about on the level you'd expect from
a newly politicised fourth-former) onto it was like running a Ferrari
on horseshit. Even when it eventually gets moving, it's not going
to go nearly as well as it should - and it kinda stinks.
Khronicles is not so much a story
as a collection of straw men (well, leaf-men, in one case). Collect
'em all and you have an ending! There certainly is much to
criticise about Mills' targets, but doing it in such an on-the-nose
way makes the whole story feel more like skits from Spitting Image.
There isn't really a plot, just a series of vaguely-connected climaxes
illustrated by Walker's exquisite brushwork. It's porno for paint
fans.
But the disjointed nature of the story is
something that could be levelled at the early ABC stories as well.
The difference here is that the readers - and 2000AD itself - had
grown up. Black Hole
showed what could be done, when Mills was interested in the
characters. Here, though, he's only interested in one character
- Deadlock - and even then doesn't care about developing him, but
rather just taking his Khaos schtick to the logical extreme.
The ongoing conflict between the values of
Hammerstein and Deadlock, which had been present ever since Deadlock's
first appearance and given its most literal representation in the
closing chapters of Black Hole, was jettisoned so that Khronicles
is completely supportive of Deadlock. Hammerstein is reduced to
a joke figure, a buffoon there only to be mocked for his squareness.
He's not even portrayed consistently: one moment he's proclaiming
that the ABC Warriors never surrender, then three pages (!) later
he's complaining that surrender is no longer an option because of
Deadlock's actions. Strangely, the good values that Hammerstein
represents - courage, honesty, integrity, fair play, protecting
the weak from the rapacious strong - are also openly mocked in a
way Mills never has before, the story dismissing them in favour
of the belief that the only thing that counts in life is getting
your own way and winning at any cost. How very... Thatcherite.
As Deadlock said in Black Hole, "Anarchy
rules!" It's certainly true here; traditional concepts of plot
and characterisation have gone out of the window. The whole thing
is just an excuse for Mills to trot out his dreary polemic about
how terrible modern society is and how much better things would
be if all those awful oppressive systems of order were overthrown.
But I bet Mills wouldn't be nearly as supportive of anarchy if it
spread to the finance department that signs his cheques...
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