Secret Origins (1986) 16 (1)

Secret Origins (1986) 16

Jul 1987

Exiles

by Michael Fleisher, Adam Kubert, Jerry Serpe, Robert Greenberger

This is ostensibly the origin story for Travis Morgan, aka the Warlord, but it is told from the perspective of another character, Dan Maddox, who has known Travis Morgan since at least junior high school. The story opens with Maddox in a gulag, a Russian prison camp, in Siberia. Maddox recounts how he was a bully in junior high but Travis Morgan put him in his place.

Maddox and Morgan were in school together until they graduated from high school. They both joined the Air Force but Maddox was kicked out of the USAF for striking an officer. He joined the US Army and wound up going to Vietnam where he became a real wheeler and dealer. He bought and sold goods and information and wasn’t very discriminating when it came to his clients, some of whom were Russians and Vietcong.

Morgan and Maddox crossed paths once again, in Vietnam. Maddox feared that Morgan would jeopardize his operations and so he made a deal with the Russians. He fed Morgan a story that led him into a trap. Maddox, piloting a Russian jet fighter, almost blew Morgan out of the sky. That incident led to Morgan crashing in Skartaris where he would become known as Warlord.

Thoughts

Dan Maddox, according to my research, first appeared in Warlord 91 (Mar 1985). The cover to Warlord 91 advertises it as a retelling of Travis Morgan’s origin story. All of the subsequent appearances of Maddox were in a story that ran in Warlord 127 (Mar 1988) to 131 (Sep 1988). That story, but not the one in Warlord 91, was written by Michael Fleisher.

This is an interesting take on an origin story. I like it better than most of the previous origin stories in this series even though it isn’t really the origin story for Travis Morgan but for Dan Maddox.