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The Snake Plissken Chronicles
"The Tunguska Touch"
Escape from New York #7 (BOOM Studios)
Writer: Christopher Sebela
Artist: Diego Barreto
Colorist: Marissa Louise
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Cover A: Mike Henderson
June 2015 |
Snake learns the truth about the
battalion's mission at
Trakhanov Gulag.
Story Summary
Major King gives the 81st Battalion a
run-down of their mission to the Trakhanov Gulag, where they are
to free mistreated American prisoners of war. But it turns out
to be a lie; the site is actually a protected fort for the Soviet
Union's top scientists and weapons designers. The American brass
want to kidnap Anton
Bulgarov for his secrets of a cold fusion weapon. This pisses
Snake off. So he grabs Bulgarov himself and they escape the old
Gulag in a Soviet war contraption which finally breaks down in the
cold of the Tunguska region. They are found by a strange monk
who takes them to the underground Church of Tunguska where a
colony of monks worships the meteor that caused the Tunguska
event of 1908.
The monks believe Snake and
Bulgarov are there to help them bring about God's planned end of
the world.
CONTINUED IN ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
#8
Notes from the Snake Plissken chronology
An unknown amount of time has passed since
the end of the previous issue ("Snake on a Train"),
but probably not more than a day.
Didja Know?
The issues of this series do not have published individual
titles assigned to them. I assigned the title
"The Tunguska Touch" based on dialog by the lead monk of
the Church of Tunguska in this issue and his belief that God
touched Tunguska during the explosive event of 1908.
Characters appearing in this
issue
Major King
Snake Plissken
Hauk
Anton Bulgarov
Doris
Monks of the Church of Tunguska
Didja Notice?
Page 5 reveals a Soviet walker war machine not too far removed
from the Imperial walkers of the Star Wars films,
though smaller.
On page 10, Snake refers to Bulgarov as "Ivan".
"Ivan" is a name
occasionally used as a generic for a male Russian by
foreigners.
On page 11, Bulgarov tells Snake that he
has perfected cold fusion. Cold fusion is the theorized ability
to achieve a nuclear reaction at room temperatures instead of
the millions of degrees needed for currently accepted fusion
processes such as those in the sun. Cold fusion is generally
considered a fringe science by mainstream scientists.
On page 16, Bulgarov tells Snake they are
almost in Tunguska, where, 70 years ago, an explosion heard for
hundreds of miles downed all the trees for miles around. He says
the only ones who come out to this desolation are the aliens, to
which
Snake skeptically says, "Uh huh. Let me guess. They're
shapeshifters, they can look like anyone." The "70 years ago"
part of the story is referencing the real world Tunguska event
of 1908 which occurred pretty much as Bulgarov says, an immense
explosion believed to have been caused by the air burst of a
small asteroid or comet in the atmosphere a few miles above the
Tunguska region. The
"shapeshifting aliens" remark by Snake is an in-joke to the 1982
John Carpenter film
The Thing, also starring Kurt Russell, about an
antarctic research base that uncovers an alien in the ice that
is able to assume the form of any living thing it touches and
proceeds to kill them all.
On page 21, the monk in the Church of Tunguska comments on the
recent signs and portents from God, including parts of America
breaking off and drifting into the ocean and the American leader
being outcast. These are references to the severing of Florida
from the mainland in
"Don't Let a Snake into the House"
and the impeachment of President Harker in
"Freedom Isn't Free".
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Snake Plissken Chronicles Episode Studies
