Episode V: “Papa Por-ka, Part III”
First print date: June 10 1978
Prog appearance: Starlord Issue 5
Writer(s): John Wagner
Artist(s): Carlos Ezquerra
Total episodes: 3
As Johnny and Wulf burst into the bridge of the starliner, the pirates' weapons are neutralised by the Beam Polariser, as Alpha had mentioned they would. Por-ka grabs the captain of the
Sondheim, holding a knife to his throat and demanding the bounty hunters drop their weapons. It would appear though that the Beam Polariser is not user-specific, and the mutant's weapon is also useless, till Wulf smashes the polariser and Alpha can now fire. He fine-tunes his shot to pass through the hostage and enter the pirate's shoulder, shocking Papa Por-ka, who lets the captain go as he reels backwards in pain.
Aware that the game is up, the pirate leader agrees to send any of the crew and passengers who have not yet been murdered back to the astroliner from where they have been held on the pirate vessel. With all survivors back on board and Alpha in control of the starliner, he reaches an unusual agreement with Por-ka: in return for the pirate's promise to allow them leave he will return them to their own ship, rather than take them in. Surprised, Papa Por-ka agrees, but it's obvious that he has no intention of holding to the arrangement. As the captain looks on in horror and berates Alpha for letting the pirate go, Por-ka appears on the monitor, smirking that he is coming back to finish the job.
But Johnny, of course, is no fool. He expected this treachery, and has planted a tiny nuclear device in the pirate's pocket. One push of the trigger and the pirate ship is vapourised. The day has been saved, but for the Gronk it has all been too much. The excitement he has gone through, even though he spent most of the fight locked away in his box, has burst his heart and he is dying. As Wulf and Johnny look on, grief-stricken but powerless, the Gronk tells them of his people's custom, that if someone close to them wears their skin after death, it is a great honour. Aghast at such a tradition, but being a viking himself and understanding the significance of such rituals, Wulf agrees that when the Gronk dies he will skin him, and wear him as a jerkin. The little body is ejected into space with full honours. It has not been a good day, despite their survival.
QUOTES
Papa Por-ka: “We may be de scum of de universe, boys, but we am de richest scum!”
Captain: “You're crazy, Alpha! You can't trust the word of a creature like that!”
Johnny: “No choice. As soon as those scum realised Por-ka wasn't coming back they'd have chosen a new leader and attacked us again!”
Wulf: “Dying? But there must be something ve can do...”
Gronk: “Nothing can keep a Gronk alive once he has started to die. But there is one thing you can do.. skin me!”
Wulf: “Skin you? But...”
Gronk: “You see, we Gronks believe that if someone dear to us wears our skin, a little bit of us lives on. You have been kind to me, Sir. I'd like you to wear me as a jerkin.”
Johnny: “He's gone. Poor little fellow.”
Wulf: “Your customs are strange, little Gronk, but ja! Wulf will wear you.”
Captain: “We owe our lives to you, Mr. Alpha. I'm ashamed of how we treated you. If there's anything I can do...”
Johnny: “Just remember that mutants are still human beings, Captain. Treat them like humans, not animals.”
Tools of the trade
Beam Polariser: As intimated in the previous chapter, this draws all the energy from weapons to itself and makes them useless. The drawback with this appears to be that it also renders the user's weapons useless, so it's a bit of a EMP sort of thing, an electromagnetic pulse that knocks everything out and, I guess, levels the playing field. It's probably for this reason that Strontium Dogs don't employ them very often.
Electronux: As expected, this is basically a device worn on the knuckles which emits an electric shock of twenty thousand volts to the unfortunate recipient. The disadvantage here, I guess, is you have to be in striking distance of a target for it to work, as it only operates on contact. (I'm sure it didn't escape the notice of the makers of vacuum cleaners Electrolux how close this is to the name of their product!)
Blaster: The mainstay of the Strontium Dog's arsenal, it seems to be specially calibrated to allow it to determine depth and adjust its fire accordingly. It must though be a projectile weapon rather than a laser, as no matter where you planned for a laser beam to end up it would cut down everything in its path. This obviously uses some sort of bullet or shell, rather like Dredd's Lawgiver. As I learn (or relearn) more about it I will let you know.
Mini-nuke: Seems to do what it says on the tin. A nuclear device so small it can be slipped into a pocket, but which packs enough punch to take a cruiser down. Handy thing to have. Can be detonated by remote control.
Show no mercy?
Well that does sort of apply here. Whether Johnny is prepared to allow the pirates to escape should they stick to the agreement not to attack the astroliner or not, is unclear. It seems unlikely though: Papa Por-ka and his crew have already killed many of the crew and passengers of the
Sondheim, and you would have to think they would be expected to pay for that. In the event, even though he's an alien Por-ka turns out to be as human as any of us, and with safety in his grasp prepares to renege on the deal, whereupon Alpha has no problem detonating the device. When he needs to be, Johnny Alpha can kill almost without thinking, and certainly without any remorse.
Letter of the Law
Here though I wonder if we shouldn't explore whether or not Johnny has exceeded his authority. Firstly, he is not on a job, or if he is it isn't this one. He has received no commission on Papa Por-ka, so has he the moral or even legal right to kill him? Admittedly, it's turned into a kill-or-be-killed situation, but is he allowed to do this? In the strictest sense of the law --- here on Earth anyway and you would assume throughout the galaxy --- the rule is innocent until proven guilty. Certainly, Por-ka and his crew have committed murder, piracy of course, taken hostages and detained a civilian craft with no cause. Any of these may very well carry a strict penalty, even the death penalty.
Or could it be that galactic law practices the same zero-tolerance policy with which pirates were treated in Elizabethan England and before, where the mere commission of an act of piracy was reason to hang a man? If so, out here on the fringes of space where there is no law enforcement presence, can it be too hard to imagine that “frontier law” applies: that if anyone engages in piracy then any registered law enforcement official --- including Search/Destroy Agents --- is within his legal right to terminate them, to execute swift and summary justice out here in the coldness of space?
And yet, what about the crew? Por-ka has already shown that he allows those who wish to join him to do so, and is it not reasonable to assume that his ship contained people who were captured and had no intention of being pirates but did not want to die, so were pressed into service? Is it fair for Johnny to assume everyone on board the pirate ship is a killer, or culpable in the killings? If he is in fact executing innocents along with the guilty, what does that say of him?
One other thing to take into account though: a nuclear blast will contaminate much of the surrounding space here. Is Alpha authorised to use such extreme measures, given the environmental implications of such action? Of course, this is just a comic and many of these questions will go unanswered, even unasked. But still, you do have to think about these things.
Return of the Nitpicker!
Yes I'm at it again. Given that he's in something of a state of shock and grief at the death of the little Gronk you could perhaps forgive Wulf for some words mispronounced, but in the course of one sentence he misses three: “Wulf will wear you” should surely be “Vulf vill vear you”? Yeah I know, I'm a bastard!
Personal Darkness
Just in case we all think it's always about shooting the bad guys, rescuing the hostages and living to fight another day, 2000AD is littered with reminders that there is often a heavy price to pay for victory, and Strontium Dog is no exception.
We see the first real tragedy unfold here, and it's quite unexpected as we've been getting used to, and probably liking the Gronk, so when he dies at the end of what is basically a victorious day, it takes the gloss of it. It's a stark reminder that in every battle, someone will fall and it may be your best friend. Wulf's agreement to wear the Gronk's skin in tribute to their friendship is touching, and appropriate for a warrior, though normally it would be the skins of their enemies they would be expected to wear. This turns that idea around very nicely, making it a mark of respect rather than of pride or conquest.
Aliens!
As Johnny's work takes he and Wulf all over the galaxy, they do of course run into, and sometimes down, alien races. Here I'll be talking about them, what they're like, what we get to know about them, any little idiosyncrasies and how much, if any, of a part they play in the overall story.
GRONK:
The first truly alien species we meet, Gronks come from the planet Blas, which we've been told is in the Gallego star system. They look sort of like muppets, with a teardrop-shaped head which tapers to the top in scruffy, scrubby tufts of hair, large yes which look quite mournful and a long elongated snout which reaches out from the middle of their faces, like a tube or an elephant's trunk. They are highly excitable, very nervous and almost everything scares them, which is why when they have to travel (something they usually avoid doing) they pass most or all of the trip in a purpose-built box or trunk.
Gronks tend to pluralise a lot of words that are not normally treated so, such as the word “heart”, which they call “heartses”. Whether or not Gronks have two hearts, or are just double-pluralising the word, I'm not sure. Other words like “excitement” have just the one “s” added, so the former may be the case. Gronks subsist on a diet of metal, and have powerful acids in their stomach which can dissolve the metal and break it down for digestion. They also keep their mouth low in their stomach, and they have four arms, (first one who says “forewarned is four-armed”, I swear...) which are are small and spindly, with three fingers on each hand, while their legs are squat and short, ending in flat, splayed feet split into two large toes. They are covered from head to toe in fur or hair, apart from their faces.
We learn from this episode that it is considered the highest honour in Gronk society for the skin of one to be worn by someone who has meant a lot to them, and that through this custom they believe that something of them lives on. Therefore, to be skinned and worn after death is the highest compliment a Gronk can be paid.
Note: I assume Papa Por-ka is an alien (he looks like a pig on legs) but I don't know his race, nor any of the others in his crew, a motley lot. He could even be a mutant I suppose, but I doubt it. I'll only therefore mention races here about whom I know enough to write something.