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The Snake Plissken Chronicles
"Escape from Siberia"
Escape from New York #8 (BOOM Studios)
Writer: Christopher Sebela
Artist: Diego Barreto
Colorist: Marissa Louise
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Cover A: Mike Henderson
July 2015 |
Snake does what he does best.
Story Summary
Snake and
Bulgarov undergo a symbolic death at the hands of the Tunguska
cult and then Snake causes some actual chaos, allowing he and
the scientist to escape the doomsday cult's clutches. They then
steal a dog sled and head for the Bering Strait.
Near the strait, the pair are intercepted
by the 81st Battalion and Major King sets them free before
moving on to the war against the Russians, but Snake is forced
by Hauk into a showdown. Snake kills his adversary.
Snake sets
Bulgarov, who plans to rejoin the Tunguska cult and lead them,
possibly to their desired end of the world, free. Snake dives
into the waters of the Bering Strait, headed for Alaska. He is
eventually intercepted by a native Alaskan rowboat and
recuperates at a native home on the Alaska shoreline. He
arranges to trade a weapon he took from Bulgarov for a
motorcycle and makes his way southeast across the North American
continent to New York.
CONTINUED IN ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
#9
Didja Know?
The issues of this series do not have published individual
titles assigned to them. I assigned the title
"Escape from Siberia" from the title of the four-issue
story arc implied at the end of
Escape from New York #4.
Characters appearing in this
issue
Snake Plissken
Anton Bulgarov
Hauk (dies in this issue)
Ryan
Major King
Hixson
President Harker (mentioned only)
President Sutter
(mentioned only)
Didja Notice?
On page 4, Bulgarov tells Snake he's negotiated with Kremlin
officials before, so he knows who to speak to crazy people.
The Kremlin is the official home of the
Russian President.
On page 8, Snake pulls out the ever-present pack of Marlboro
cigarettes.
On page 9 there appears to be an aurora borealis (northern
lights) occurring in the sky over Tunguska.
The jet fighters flying overhead on page 14, panel 5 appears to
have swept back, variable position wings. They may be U.S. F-14
or F-15 fighters.
On page 15, Hauk reveals that President Harker is still in
charge, despite the alleged impeachment (reported in
"Freedom Isn't Free"),
telling the new President, Sutter, what to do.
This issue seems to suggest that Snake wants the world to end.
Near the end of the issue, he lets the brilliant Russian
scientist Bulgarov, who does want to destroy the world with his
fusion bombs, go back to the Tunguska doomsday cult; and earlier
in the issue he even answers Bulgarov's question about whether
he wants to blow the ship (the world) up, "Sometimes I
don't. Sometimes I do. Right now I don't. I want a bed. A beer.
Then you can blow it up."
This issue suggests that Snake and Bulgarov can escape the cult
in the Tunguska region and arrive via dog sled at the far
eastern Russian shore along the Bering Strait in a matter of
hours. But Tunguska is about 2,000 miles from the Bering Strait!
Snake dives into the waters of the Bering Strait with nothing
but his usual clothing on. Although the amount of time is not
stated directly, it's implied he spends a fairly long amount of
time swimming past U.S. and Soviet ships and floating on his
back for rest before finally encountering a rowboat of native
Alaskans who pull him aboard. Presumably, Snake's plan was to
swim the 50 miles of the strait to the U.S. shores of Alaska,
but the waters in the Bering Strait are in the range of 31-41˚
Fahrenheit...heat loss occurs much more rapidly in water than in
air, so he would have frozen to death in less than hour
probably.
On page 21, the native Alaskan who has taken care of Snake in
his home for the past two days remarks that Alaska is about the
only sane part of America now that Hawaii is gone. It has not
been revealed what happened to Hawaii.
Unanswered Questions
Though Bulgarov tells the monks of
Tunguska that he is able to see the map of Heaven on the
meteor, he soon admits to Snake that he doesn't, he just
knows how to speak to crazy people. But the meteor does
appear to have some maze-like etchings on the top of it. How
did they get there? Did someone from the cult etch them? Did
the meteor arrive that way?
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Snake Plissken Chronicles Episode Studies
