Atari Force, issues sixteen and seventeen.

ATARI FORCE #16.
COVER TITLE. Tazlings!
INSIDE TITLE. Siege.
COVER DATE. April, 1985
COVER PRICE. 75 ¢
COVER ARTIST. Paris Cullins & José Luis García López
NUMBER OF PAGES. 16 + 7 (Pakrat fill in story)
WRITER. Mike Baron
ARTIST. Ed Hannigan
LETTERER. Bob Lappan
COLORIST. Carl Gafford
EDITOR. Andy Helfer

This issue starts were we left Babe in issue fifteen, trying to fix the Scanner One and being surrounded by a plague of intelligent bugs. But Babe is big enough to pay any attention to this monsters and cleans the gunk off the thrusters plates.

Babe returns as a hero, but the Atari Force crew are unaware of the bugs that infiltrate into the ship. Dart visits Blackjak and discovers a tender fellow, perhaps not everything is lost.

Then, Tempest sends an astral image to Dart meaning New Earth still exists. There is a possibility to return home.

Meanwhile, Taz has given birth to a cradle of little critters that are obsessed with technology and are so good at it that they are the MacGyver of the galaxy. With a single piece of junk they can create a sophisticated tool.

Atari Force faces the monsters’ menace and are loosing. But the little Tazlings put them on run. The entire crew cheers them. More new members of the crew.

Tazling find Blackjak and anaesthesias him. What are they going to do to him?

TITLE. Rat Trap!
NUMBER OF PAGES. 7
WRITER. Andy Helfer
PENCILER. Mike Chen
INKS. Joe Delbeato
LETTERER. Bob Lappan
COLORS. Carl Gafford
EDITOR. Andy Helfer

Second chapter of the Pakrat story. A fight scene meaning Pakrat is being caught while attempting a robbery. He falls from the tower and he lands on a car driven by Ferra. So Star Wars. When he feels secure at Ferras’s, Rident, his brother arrest him. He is in terms with Ferra.



Helfer explains the guest artist in this issue and lets room for the Letter page. T.M. Maple (Weston, ONT) is amazed at the discovering that the Dark Destroyer is a Martin Champion look-alike and that all is a crazy vendetta. Ron Fortier (Somersworth, NH) misses García López. Mark Waldman (Northridge, CA) praises his replacement, Ed Barreto as a competent artist.

Donna Gregory (Morganville, NJ) suffers for the situation of Tempest. Gary Heise (Bergenfield, NJ) wants more of Taz (wish granted) and Jim Chapman (Ville Platte, LA) considers that a kilogram of antimatter is what destroys a kilogram of positive matter. So, how could the Dark Destroyer obliterate an entire universe.

ATARI FORCE #16.
INSIDE TITLE. “If Thine Eye Offend Thee…”
COVER DATE. May, 1985
COVER PRICE. 75 ¢
COVER ARTIST. Uncredited
NUMBER OF PAGES. 16 + 7 (Pakrat fill in story)
WRITER. Mike Baron
PENCILLER. Ed Barreto
INKER. Ricardo Villagran
LETTERER. Bob Lappan
COLORIST. Tom Ziuko
EDITOR. Andy Helfer

Blackjak awakes and finds that his camera-eye has being removed and a real eye has being implanted in the empty socket. And he can see!

Morphea finds that Blackjak is clean. Martin Champion differs from her opinion. Dart is having a premonition where she can see the Atari Force crew in a remote planet, waiting.

Tempest contacts Dart again and discovers that his friends are lost in space (love that phrase). Hunter wants to interrogate Tempest again.

The Tazling has discovered an organic implant in Blackjak’s camera. There, Martin finds part of the Dark Destroyer. Blackjak is clean now.

Morphea knows that cleaning Kragg would be harder than cleaning Blackjak. So she fights directly the Dark Destroyer in Kragg’s mind. And wons! Now Kragg is an intelligent being and another member of Atari Force.

TITLE. Rats Like Us.
NUMBER OF PAGES. 7
WRITER. Andy Helfer
PENCILER. Mike Chen
INKS. Joe Delbeato
LETTERER. Bob Lappan
COLORS. Carl Gafford
EDITOR. Andy Helfer

Pakrat is arrested. Then Ferra talks secretly to Pakrat and puts a bounty into Rident’s pockets. Now he is arrested while Pakrat and Ferra runs away and enjoy a pleasant evening. End of story.




Ted Owen wants an Atari Force movie. Ashby Gunter (Winter Park, FL) is puzzled by the relation between Kragg and the Dark Destroyer. Justin Gordon (Pittsburgh, PA) wonders what happened to Tempest if the universe were destroyed. Kevin T. Brown (Norridge, IL) is excited with the new writer.

Gerald Flaherty (Charleston, S.C.) asks several questions about incongruence, like Morphea pointing a gun, Tempest travelling the multiverse and coming back in the same image and the age of Martin changing a lot. St. Elvis (Dawson Springs, KY) found the ending of Atari Force #13 a cool one.

Rickie Fireline (Syracusse, IN) asks about Rident and Christopher Broadbent (Quebec, Canada) wants a backup story telling the beginning of Dart and Blackjak.