Paul Gulacy, Slash Maraud and Team Head for Paris

If the movie They Live and the original television miniseries V had a child, and that child did a lot of cocaine, you’d have Slash Maraud. Aliens have taken over Earth and most humans are ok with it. They either openly collaborate with the aliens’ debauchery, genetic experiments and terraforming in the cities, or decimate other humans in the wild. The new atmosphere that the aliens are creating will make the planet uninhabitable for people in five years, but humanity already has given up; it’s not only indifferent to its coming end, but hastens it with bacchanalian abandon. Not ones to follow a trend, Slash and his gang intend to stop the genocide by putting the antidote into the main terraforming chemical plant in Paris, which will halt the planetary changes.

On this page, as Slash holds the rope ladder steady, the survivors make a dizzying climb to their arranged transport to Europe. They reunite with scientist and mercenary Race Castigliano, who will personally sabotage the aliens’ terraforming machine.

Gulacy started his career working with Jim Steranko and Dan Adkins. I think I see Steranko’s influence in the first panel, with its wild spiral ladder design, and the blocky motion of its figures. The Adkins influence seems to show in the figures in the later panels, particularly in their stances and the ink spotting. The page is a huge 15 X 20. Slash Maraud # 5, page 27 (1987).