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by Dave Scrimgeour & Kevin McCluskey   C'mon now, hold still. You said just a little off the (flat) top. Cover date- March 1989 Price- 55p Writer- Simon Furman Artist- Geoff Senior Letterer- Gordon Robson Colourist- Steve White Editor- Richard Starkings Managing Editor- Jenny O’Connor Published by- Marvel Comics LTD synopsisThe final showdown between Dragon's Claws and N.U.R.S.E. takes an unexpected twist with an unlikely alliance. Also, a showdown of personal demons forces those involved into another kind of battle, with revelatory outcomes. (D) Dave So what're your thoughts on issue 9? Kev It's one of my favourites. It's the culmination of the majority of the storylines, plots and sub-plots. In many ways, it's the end, unfortunately. Dave It's the final two-parter. It's also one of my favourites as well. Again, it's action packed and it brings the story to a fiery conclusion. Plus, it gives still more background on the history of the Evil Dead's Slaughterhouse, as well as the history between Steel and Death Nell, showing us that they worked with each other and had a trust, which she broke by joining the Evil Dead. Kev I think that the theme of this issue was fear. And Steel is definitely fearful of trusting Nell here. "Once long ago I would have believed you, trusted you. But when you joined the Evil Dead, you changed." Plus, when Matron has Dragon and Slaughterhouse hooked up to the Excavator, it shows her their deepest fears. Also, in keeping with this theme we get see Deller's vertigo when he tries to escape the burning N.U.R.S.E. building. Dave Yeah, Deller, again, shows fear under extreme pressure. He's still not up to Claws material for a team member let alone leader. Kev Although, Dragon does say he "did good" in rescuing Golding, which I think is the first time Dragon compliments Deller on anything. Dave Yeah, it's certainly about conquering fears for Dragon, Slaughterhouse and Deller and of course the trust issue between Steel and Death Nell. Kev It's also interesting that it's referenced both in FastFax and by Matron that Deller is a police chief. Has he also "sold-out" by becoming a private police agent for N.U.R.S.E. at some point to fit in with his lofty career ambitions? Dave This issue shows how powerful and large a figure Matron actually is, with the frame of her and Dragon and Slaughterhouse all sitting in the mind/hallucination machine. Another great image that showcases Geoff Senior's talents.  Paging Dr. Freud. Will Dr. Freud please make his way to the N.U.R.S.E.'s office. Kev Definitely. There's no denying Matron's physical size and power. Or Senior's talents. Dave Fastfax is a great example of how the media can manipulate the readers/viewers perspective, whereas we know the actual situation in this story. It's a smart way of showing how we are told only what is deemed suitable to be told to us by the media. Kev Definitely. Fastfax has been a fantastic world building tool in this series. I like the use of the Excavator as a device to bring the characters' fears to the fore. Dave Matron has that demonic face. It’s interesting we are given a backstory on Slaughterhouse at this late stage in the series, revealing that he was a government experiment guinea pig to reduce his prison sentence. Kev The backstory to Slaughterhouse is one of my favourite parts of this issue. It humanises him. Losing his mother at birth, blamed for this and subsequently physically abused by his father, falling in with a wrong crowd, imprisoned, used as a lab rat for experiments etc. etc. It's hard not to feel at least a little sympathy for him at this point. Is he purely a product of the society of the 82nd century?  Batter up! Dave Yeah, it elevates him to one of the more central characters in this series. This could have been an intro for an Evil Dead spin-off, as I suggested before. That would work. Kev That had the potential to be a great companion series. I thought that the chemical experimentation was a fantastic explanation for Slaughterhouses' skin-tone. Dave Yeah, I like the whole skin tone explanation. As you say, it shows he was just “human” in the first place. I think the Claws and Dead have gotten to the stage, as age old nemesis, that they have this mutual need for each other. Which is why, at the end of the issue, Dragon points out, "I didn’t stop the Evil Dead from leaving.” It shows that they need to have that endless conflict, on a subconscious level. Kev Exactly. It's the flip-sides of the coin thing that you pointed-out before. It’s even explicitly stated in this issue. The relationship between them, and Dragon and Slaughterhouse in particular, is summed up in the Excavator when Slaughterhouse states, "Rivals always. Professionals first and foremost." Dave Dragon and Slaughterhouse are equal matches. They’re just from different walks of life and they have a different moral code. Had Slaughterhouse not turned “evil,” he could have been like Dragon and likewise, Dragon like Slaughterhouse. They need each other as competition, still. Even after the Game. Steel sharpens steel, as they say. Kev I totally agree. It's interesting how they're both shown to be from broken homes. Dragon as an orphan in the system and Slaughterhouse from an abusive, single parent environment. Dave It’s like the two of them are looking in a reverse mirror, both hating what they see. Kev Or scared that they'd turn into the other as well. Dave Yeah, true. The hate stems from that fear, that denial. Kev Dragon fears losing to Slaughterhouse and Slaughterhouse hates losing to Dragon, yet he respects him for being able to best him. The Excavator also throws up Dragon's fear of his ageing. His doubts about whether or not he is past his prime, of being put out to pasture, (which I suppose being a middle-aged farmer with a wife and adopted son probably would've been to him) his insecurities over his leadership abilities and his inability to move on from The Game and the Claws. Like the rest of the Claws were completely unable to do.  "The Jewel Runners. Top tag-team for two summers." Dave A strange bond, yet similar to the Batman /Joker conflict. Kev It is very similar to the Batman/Joker conflict, isn't it? Dave Yeah, Dragon’s fears were abundant. His self assuredness was cracking under the pressure. It's funny how Dragon is actually worried that Deller could usurp him as leader of Claws, when Deller has been shown to be more or less incompetent. This also ties into his fear of losing his band of brothers. It's his fear of abandonment manifesting itself, what with him being an orphan. It's a sense of loss that stems from childhood. Kev Ah, good point. It's family, isn't it? He's terrified of losing his family units. The Claws, Tanya and Michael. The family units he never had as a child. That’s a good catch, Sir. Dave The family units he has worked so hard to obtain, yet these can still be taken away. His attachments are his fears too. Kev Certainly his fear of losing them, yep. Dave The Game is a real addiction for Dragon. Even a stable family life cannot tame that. I think addiction is where the problems, psychologically, for Dragon begin. He will always be at odds with both lifestyles and he cannot have his cake and eat it. Kev He's an adrenaline junkie, isn't he? That's true. He wants both. Neither on their own will make him happy. Yet he can't have one without giving up the other. Dave I like the battle between Claws and Dead in the tower block at N.U.R.S.E. It’s funny when you see Scratch biting Hack on the leg while fighting with Mercy.  The N.U.R.S.E. Christmas party of 8162 got a little bit out of hand, didn't it?  The Claws have bitten Baron Corbyn's entrance. Kev I love that panel. It just goes to show that Scratch is a bonafide part of the team now. He's even in Dragon's nightmare in the Excavator, when the Claws all turn their backs on him to side with Deller. Dave That’s an interesting panel in Dragon’s nightmare, as The Claws are furthest away from him in a spotlight, all distant and cold, Deller is lit up in the middle, blocking him from reaching the Claws, while his wife and son, the two closest people to him (or who are supposed to be) are lying dead next to him and yet he is still more concerned about the Claws. That shows us a lot about Dragon’s subconscious mind. Which is what the Excavator is digging into, of course. Kev Good point about the composition of the panel. I suppose it's a stark, visual representation of how Dragon essentially chose the Claws over his family and how it was Deller who ultimately facilitated that choice as the go-between, as well as being the one who was charged with executing his family. I'm a big fan of the black, shadow of the Excavotor's dreamworld. It's very striking. Furman uses this scenario a lot. He employed it on more than one occasion in Transformers too. Dave Also, Rend never seems to have a scene without a smoke in his mouth. His trademark sign. Kev Rend's a chain smoker all right. He's super-cool with it though. Total badass.  N.U.R.S.E. HQ defenestration. Dave I love the panel where we see an ode to the New York skyscrapers, the view of the N.U.R.S.E. building when Deller kicks what looks like a sofa out the window which we are seeing from the ground view upwards. Kev That whole scene with Deller really does sell his vertigo. Dave Then, in contrast, when Deller is suffering from his John McClane Die Hard vertigo moment (1988 too) we see a birds eye view of how high up he is. Great, simple but effective storytelling. Kev Ah, I wonder if that's a bit of Die Hard creeping in here. I also love that panel with the Claws and the Evil Dead on the staircase. The look of utter disdain between Digit and Slash is priceless. Dave Yeah, Slash is right in Digit’s face, the simpleton and the robotic logic man. It’s like they are both trying to make sense of each other. It's as if Slash thinks Digit is just a weird looking guy. They're both complete and utter polar opposites of each other. Yeah, there's a lot of tension conveyed in that one panel. Kev Yes, a lot of tension and mistrust indeed. Dave And supercool Hex at the back, smoking another tab. Haha! Kev Just gettin' high on pain. Ha, ha!  "Where do these stairs go?" "They go up." Dave At least Slash gets put to good use ramming the door down. Kev It's almost as if Nell thinks, ‘I’ll just get the dense one to put the door in with his head.’ Dave Yeah, I never noticed that panel with Slash crashing headfirst. The final battle with Matron, Dragon and Slaughterhouse shows her force and how two of the best combatants in The Game need to team up to beat her. That’s why she was the head of all affairs for N.U.R.S.E. She's just too powerful for one person alone to defeat. Kev Yep. She’s definitely a physical as well as a mental threat. She had the might to back-up her grand plans. Although, she does fall victim to that classic comic book villain overconfidence by explaining her master plan and therefore giving Dragon and Slaughterhouse time to draw her into her own web and ultimately defeat her. Dave And again, this bond with Slaughterhouse and Dragon is typified by Slaughterhouse's words "And more to the point…..this time we're fighting together." It’s the two best warriors taking down the head of the state. Only the Claws and Dead, working together, could do this. Kev That's a good metaphor there, two dirt-poor kids from the slums, working together to take down a literal corporate giant. Dave Interestingly enough, that fight is still fought within a dream state. It’s psychological. We never actually got to see how they would do for real. Pity. Kev I love the mirroring between Matron's death within the Excavator world and outside in the real world, with Slaughterhouse and Nell slitting her throat respectively. That's a nice touch. Dave Yeah, good ol’ Death Nell, no hesitation. Kev Nope. Not at all. Not one bit. She's become more and more of a mirror for Mercy too. In this arc in particular. Even visually.
Dave It just occurred to me, Digits outfit, with his equipment pack on his back and all-in-one suit, is it a bit of a nod to Ghostbusters? Kev It could be, yeh. It's very Proton Pack and overall-like. Very much like the Ghostbusters look. Good catch, once again, sir. Dave Hex is like the Clint Eastwood character in the spaghetti western ‘The Man With No Name’ series. Or in his case, ‘The Man With No Face.’ Kev I was thinking that too. He's got to have been based on that character, hasn't he? Dave Come to think of it, Slaughterhouse’s face when he has the drill in his hand, in the panel where he says to Dragon, "Lets's find out, shall we?" is very much reminiscent of The Joker, with the grin and features. Kev Good point. Pale skin. Big toothy grin. There're definite facial similarities. Dave Perhaps more of that American comic book influence we've discussed before. Kev Yeh, and judging by what Nell tells Steel, it would seem that the extortion racket N.U.R.S.E. have been running has been in effect for quite some time.  Only £19.99 from 'The Shopping Channel,' the official Evil Dead pizza cutter. Dave It certainly would seem that way. I really like this issue. It stood out for me as much as issue 8 ‘cause it’s a great two part story and rounds off all the loose ends. Cutting the head off the snake in no uncertain terms. I guess Furman preferred not to drag out his stories for too long and liked them all in two parts. Kev Yeh. Mini-arcs within a larger over-arcing narrative was probably his preferred way of doing this title. Although, I wonder if this had anything to do with the impending cancellation of the series, at this point. On that subject, the ending does feel a little rushed. That last, one page wrap-up in particular. Dragon goes from being despondent about his life of bloodshed and violence to being ready to carry on with it, all in the space of three panels. Dave Yeah, a lot of these issues feel a bit rushed. I wonder if they were trying to push the story further on to another stage, but with it being cancelled, never got the chance to explore that. As I’ve said before, there’s always a lot going on in each issue that could have been fleshed out further. Kev I think you're right. They were probably pushing the story further along at this point than they had originally intended to. And as far as things being fleshed-out further, I guess we'll just never know. Dave Yeah, this could have essentially been like the first part of the story, rounding off the past, reconciling it with the present and from here the Claws could’ve been about to enter new, unfamiliar territory outside of The Game and N.U.R.S.E. and even go deeper into the World Development Council. But as you say, we will never know. Kev Tanya's line regarding Dragon leaving his family, "For a life of violence. Leading a sorry bunch of misfits in a mindless dance of death with all the other lunatics," is one of the best lines in the entire series. It sums up Dragon, the Claws, the Evil Dead, The Game and the Earth of 8162 in general, perfectly. Dave Yeah, it’s bang-on, which is why Dragon has such a hard time dealing with those conflicting lifestyles. A family man can no longer lead a warriors life. Deep down he knows that, but can't accept it or let it go and it has consequences. Kev Yes. Consequences. It certainly has consequences. As we shall see next issue. The final issue. (D) & (K)  They do say a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's, so…..
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