Nuclear Dragons

Book excerpt: In 2009 Phantacea Publications released “The War of the Apocalyptics”, the opening entry in the ‘Launch 1980’ story cycle. At its centre stood the same stirring saga of extraterrestrial Shining Ones and the doomed but unyielding Damnation Brigade as that related in “Phantacea Revisited 1: The Damnation Brigade”. That 2013 graphic novel gleaned material from the pages of Phantacea 1-5 (1977-1980) as well as Phantacea Phase One (mid-1980s). Its novelization’s until then untold Outer Earth sequences introduced or re-introduced a number of fascinating protagonists; ones who appeared or would have appeared in the comic book series had it continued. With a breathtaking cover by Ian Bateson, “Nuclear Dragons” turns the spotlight back on many of them. Given what’s coming, though, if they’re on Centauri Island days after the launching of the Cosmic Express, will any of them last long enough to return for a third entry in the ‘Launch 1980’ story cycle? No matter. Jim McPherson’s Phantacea Mythos is as full of incredible individuals as it is of astonishing challenges for them, and/or others, to survive.