The Rumbling Jungle
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| The Rumbling Jungle | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | World International Publishing Limited | ||||||||||||
| First published | Autumn 1985 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | 1986 | ||||||||||||
| Writer | Uncredited | ||||||||||||
| Artist | Uncredited | ||||||||||||
The discovery of a new sorium deposited poses a terrible threat to the planet.
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
Driving through desert hills Professor James Hobby, a leading mineral expert laments events of the past several weeks. A NASA satellite had located a sorium deposit in the Amazon, however when they had surveyed the area they had found something terrible that could destroy the world…. Engrossed by these thoughts the Professor doesn’t notice a car following him. The car’s engine roars at him snapping him back to reality and then it suddenly rams him off the road. The car falls of the ravine and Hobby is knocked unconscious as he is thrown away from the wreckage.
Crasher transforms and begins to absorb the Professors knowledge of the deposit into her brain with her GoBotic sensors. Completing that she begins to stomp the Professor, when Leader-1 swoops down from the sky, shoots her, transforms and lands on the opposite side of the ravine. Crasher angrily destroys the remains of the car and speeds away down the highway. Leader-1 takes the injured man back to the Command Center and then attempts to find Crasher only to realist she’s long gone.
Outside the hospital Matt meets up with Nick, Scooter and Rest-Q. Matt muses that it was a good thing Nick and Scooter overheard the Renegades ambush, but it won’t do much good considering what the professor told them about the sorium deposit. The deposit a volcano, is home to a previously undiscovered subterranean race of mutant man-eating Magma Worms. Millions of years ago the Worms had been trapped beneath a lava flow, over time increasing in size and numbers. The Worms spend their lives underground and then turn into cocoons that never hatch. If the cocoons are exposed to sunlight they may hatch and whatever emerges, could devour a continents vegetation in mere weeks.
At the Command Center Leader-1 commands Turbo, Dozer and Dumper to set a course for the Amazon after receiving reports of a large UFO being sighted there. Arriving in the jungle A.J. looks out and sees the Thruster standing in a burnt out clearing as the Renegades emerge from the ship. They fire their laser beams into the cliff side, which causes hundreds of large winged insects to crawl out into the sunlight.
As the Command Center lands in the Amazon. As the worms begin to devour to local wildlife,A.J. wonders what will happen if they reached a city. Leader-1 announces that Scooter has calculated a way to trap the worms underground. Dozer and Dumper will excavate the volcano’s inner chamber, then Leader-1 will blast a power beam into it, which will cause a chain reaction in the magma chamber triggering an eruption.
On the volcano Cy-Kill gloats that the insect army will be unstoppable but is cut short when Leader-1 flies over and makes the shot. The Renegades retreat to Thruster as the ground shakes and lava begins to pour down the mountain consuming the insects. Soot covered Dozer and Dumper climb back aboard the Command Center and inform everyone that the entire mountain will explode in the next minute. The Guardians hyperjump away, and Scooter cheerfully states that it would take billions of years for any surviving worms to get back to the surface.
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Guardians | Renegades | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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Notes[edit | edit source]
- Doctor Braxis is mentioned but not featured in the story.
Errors[edit | edit source]
- The text says that Hobby drives through desert hills, but the first illustration doesn’t convey this, instead showing green hills.
- An illustration shows a human emerging from Thruster but the text states that only the Renegade trio disembarked from the ship.
