Dinosaur Hunter Diaries #028: Fear No Evil
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #5
Turok bids farewell to an old friend, and welcomes a new companion.
The FBI are picking up Turok and his anthropologist escort, Dr. Regan Howell, for a mission, and making a needless song and dance out of it, as government agents are wont to do. They rough up Andy, who’s apparently kept the kind of company that gets him on a government watch list — the American Indian Movement, to name one. Turok threatens to get really nasty if they take further action against the boy, and Andar is roused from bed at all the ruckus outside.
Turok and Andy help him back to his room, and Andar is adamant his grandson respect the man — this is not some stranger. This is Turok, the man he owes his life and teachings to. Andy’s not convinced. “Your old pal Turok died a long time ago. This dude’s too young.”
Turok affirms he is who he is, and how it warms his heart to see his old friend once more — and also lending lore to the subtitle of the olde comic. Andar, too, is delighted to see his old friend and mentor… but his time is at an end.
Andy’s pretty torn up by all this, naturally — his grandfather, his only living relative, has passed on, and now some stranger is trying to take him in as an apprentice. Turok has no interest in arguing. He insists Andy move on, setting the house ablaze to make his point, and threatens the agents with disembowelment if they hassle the boy again.
Andar is gone, and Andy is now Turok’s unwilling understudy. It’s tragic that the two were separated for so long, leaving Andar to endure such travesties with only strangers among his tribe as support. Hearing about the young upstart of Son of Stone undergoing such heartache is a heartbreaker, and to see him die of old age before even Turok… the boy doesn’t deserve a fate like that. It’s touching to see them reunite one last time, and it finally gives closure to Turok’s old life: his new journey has begun.
Meanwhile on the other side of the globe, some shithead is slaughtering rhinos en masse and making bank off their horns. This is is Israel Crockett, better known as Longhunter. If you played the Nintendo 64 game, you probably recognise this guy as one of the bosses, perhaps best known for his unforgettable dialogue:
“Hey.”
We’ll see him a fair bit, and our opinion of him won’t rise any higher than this first impression.
He’s been called out by one Mr. Noel, an eccentric (read: total creepazoid) collector of rare and exotic animals, preferably the most unique of their kind. But he’s not after a dinosaur, no sir: he wants Turok for his collection.
Out in Colorado, Turok examines what little remains of Steve, the poor munched rancher. From the looks of it, the culprit — an allosaurus — had a nest waiting to hatch, and has moved them somewhere safe. It might come back for food, but it might not… and considering there’s a town nearby, they have to act now. All he needs is a gun. A big gun.
That’s off the table, apparently: the agent demands they capture the beast, as it’s to be presented to the senator as a showpiece. No promises — Turok’s priority is to stop them from killing more civilians, whatever it takes. And for his dino-hunt, he’s taking Andy and Regan with him. Maybe the boy will learn a thing or two.
They spy the mama dino and its early-hatchers feasting on more slow, hefty cattle. While they’re distracted, they scout the area for the nest, eventually finding them at the foot of a small ravine.
Regan’s eager to save the eggs by some means, any way of having concrete evidence of their existence — but if they’re so close to civilisation, the mother’s hunting zone will only get bloodier once they hatch. This is no time to discuss the ethical rights of unborn life — mama’s home!
Before anyone can act, a smoke bomb erupts and distracts the beasts. Longhunter and his men have been tailing the three this whole time, and he’s got them right where he wants them. His crew open fire on the allosaurus family, slaughtering the lot of them, before snaring Turok and company in a net. They’ve caught their game!
New threats, new friends, and new arcs! Thus begins the start of the series-spanning companionship of Turok and Andy; not quite the playful adolescent his previous ward was, but an anti-establishment punk fighting wars that Turok barely saw the beginning of. He’s not the same constant tagalong as Andar — he’s got a life too, y’know — but it’s a fun twist on the teacher-pupil dynamic in a modern age, one we’ll see evolve as the series goes on… but not nearly as much as I’d like to see, sadly. Not to say it doesn’t deliver, I’m just a fussy so-and-so who always wants more.
