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The Snake Plissken Chronicles
"A-Number-One"
Escape from New York #10 (BOOM Studios)
Writer: Christopher Sebela
Artist: Maxim Šimić
Colorist: Marissa Louise
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Cover A: Jason Copland
September 2015 |
Snake learns the new Duke of New York is
the former President of the United States.
Story Summary
Snake learns the new Duke
of New York is the former President of the United States and
that he has been having guns, construction equipment, and other
supplies dropped into the island prison for a personal takeover.
Snake tries to shoot him during a speech at a rally in Times
Square, but the stage is protected by a shield of safety glass.
The Duke makes a prison-wide announcement of a reward for the
head of Snake Plissken delivered to him. Snake is chased by a
bloodthirsty mob across the island and he is finally forced to
take refuge inside the World Trade Center, where he meets up
with the Lenape tribe.
The tribe's chief has his own plans for
liberating the prison and wants the Duke out of the way, so he
makes a deal with Snake to let him go free in exchange for the
rocket car he used to get over the wall. The chief then sends
him in the direction of the Duke to take him down.
Snake finds that the Duke has cleaned up a
portion of New York and even brought in electricity for his
followers. Snake is immediately spotted as an outsider and the
Duke's men drop him with some cattle prods.
Snake awakens to find himself trussed up in
rope and hanging upside-down as a target dummy for the Duke's
pistol. As the Duke gleefully unrolls a bundle of torture
devices, he orders a U.S. bomber plane to bring down the Statue
of Liberty, visible out the nearby window, to prove he's A-Number
One.
CONTINUED IN ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
#11
Didja Know?
The issues of this series do not have published individual
titles assigned to them. I assigned the title
"A-Number-One" due to the repeated use of the veneration
to describe the Duke of New York (former President) in this
issue.
Characters appearing in this
issue
The Duke of New York (former President Harker)
Soto
Joe
Snake Plissken
Lappawinsoe (aka
Johnny)
Didja Notice?
On page 2, the Duke tells his assembled crowd at the Times
Square rally that Florida's blown itself free and Siberia has
fallen. These are references to events in
"Don't Let a Snake into the House"
and "Escape from Siberia"
respectively.
Most of the Duke's men appear to be carrying M-16 rifles.
On page 3, the Duke says they're going to use Central Park for
growing food crops.
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan and
one of the largest urban parks in the world.
On page 4, the Duke says, "Plissken. I thought you were dead."
On page 9, Snake runs into the World Trade Center to evade the
mob chasing him. The WTC was, of course, an important site in
Escape from New York.
On page 10, the American Indian tribe occupying the WTC is
identified as the Lenape. The Lenape (also known as the
Delaware) have traditionally lived in the lower New York and
Delaware area.
On page 11, the Lenape agree to let Snake go in exchange for the
car he jumped the wall with. This occurred in
"Escape to New York"
when Snake stole a rocket car belonging to daredevil performer
Suicide Gorchnik on the mainland and jumped over the river to
Manhattan.
The leader of the Lenape identifies himself as Lappawinsoe,
after the old Lenape chief who got suckered out of his people's
land by a walking treaty. Lappawinsoe was a real Lenape chief in
the 18th Century who was tricked into agreeing to the Walking
Purchase of 1737 by Thomas Penn.
On page 13, Snake learns that the Lenape recovered and rebuilt
his Gulffire glider, last seen being pitched off the side of the
WTC near the end of
Escape from New York.
Lappawinsoe explains that he and many of
his men worked pit crews on the circuit before it was disbanded
and had four cousins who worked assembly lines building aircraft
for the Leningrad invasion. "Circuit" is a reference to Formula
One race car circuits, a pit crew being the mechanics that work
on a car for a driver. The Leningrad invasion was part of
Snake's past in the U.S. Army.
Lappawinsoe tells Snake that the Duke and
his men have let all the animals out of the zoo to roam in
Central Park and he even saw a tiger eat a man in there. He must
be referring to the
Central
Park Zoo, though it seems unlikely any animals there would
have survived long after Manhattan become a prison in the first
place!
Lappawinsoe says that Central Park has
become a regular Garden of Eden...and every Eden needs a snake.
The Garden of Eden, of course, is the land of paradise created
by God for Adam and Eve at the beginning of mankind as described
in the holy texts of the Abrahamic religions. The snake in Eden
was Satan, who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the
forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
On page 19, what appear to be a pair of male lions chase Snake
through Central Park.
On page 20, panel 5, the Duke's men use what appear to be cattle
prods to stun Snake.
The
Statue of Liberty is destroyed in this issue.
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Snake Plissken Chronicles Episode Studies
