PKNA 10: Trauma

Traumais the 10th regular issue of PKNA. It was written by Tito Faraci and penciled by Lorenzo Pastrovicchio.

It features the first appearance of the Evronian Gorthan.

Plot Summary
Gorthan captains a crew to the prison planetoid "The Pit", where he is greeted by inspector Raknar. They discuss the planetoid's name, named such because "no one can get out on their own, but sometimes you can get pulled out if the empire has a job that's too dirty for them, or too dangerous". Gorthan and Raknar release a prisoner known as Trauma in exchange of getting rid of the Duck Avenger.

At Duckburg, Donald wakes up from a recurring nightmare he tends to get only blurry memories about. He decides to go on patrol as the Duck Avenger, and saves a peasant from being mugged by the warring gangs "the Rock 'N' Roll Kings" and "the Legion", but the following morning the peasant is interviewed by Angus Fangus and tells him that the Duck Avenger showed up to mug him too.

Meanwhile, at the Pit, after talking to Trauma about the deal to free him, Raknar notices Gorthan's familiarity with Trauma, to which Gorthan replies that he created Trauma: He was once the best Evronian general, who volunteered for Gorthan's experiments to create a super-soldier with increased phisical strenght. The general asked Gorthan to push him beyond every limit, and became Trauma, the first mutant general in the Evronian army. Besides his phisical strength, he got the psychic power to create an uncomfortable wave of fear. However, Trauma became uncontrollable, running unauthorized operations. The Evronian council sent three ships after Trauma and lost one, and he would have won if not for his own soldiers abandoning him.

When Trauma arrives to Earth, he faces the Duckburg police, lifting a car and being impervious to bullets. When the Duck Avenger finally arrives, Trauma smashes his Pi-Kar and playfully fights him before using his powers to cause the Avenger a nightmare of his old enemies mocking him. The Duck Avenger is only saved by Uno remote-contolling the Pi-Kar to take him away. Trauma decides to cause further destruction through Duckburg just for fun.

Back at Ducklair Tower, a depressed Duck Avenger watches a TV report by Lyla Lay and Angus Fangus about the destruction caused by Trauma. Uno tells the Duck Avenger he got just superficial wounds, but the Avenger tells him that he's more hurt on the inside as he was beaten by his most dangerous enemy: fear. The Duck Avenger decides he still cannot let Trauma destroy Duckburg, but Uno tells him the Pi-Kar needs a complete checkup, and besides he needs something to fight Trauma in equal footing (at least physically), so Uno gives the Duck Avenger an unfinished mecha that Everett Ducklair had been working on before selling Ducklair Tower.

The Duck Avenger finds Trauma in an old cathedral and round 2 begins. The mecha cockpit protects the Duck Avenger of Trauma's psychic power, until Trauma breaks the cockpit and makes the Avenger relive his recurring nightmare where he, as Donald back when he was a kid, gets bullied and his comicbooks are stolen by the bullies. However, the Duck Avenger snaps out of it and defeats Trauma, who begs mercy and is retrieved by the ship he arrived with. As the mecha is out to energy to return home, the Duck Avenger has to blow it up to avert it from falling on the wrong hands.

Uno explains that, when Trauma was faced with something his powers couldn't break, he lost control. The Duck Avenger replies that "something" is called courage, the ability to take your fear and turn it into strength, and you don't need to be a mutant to do that, not even a superhero; sometimes it's enough to be a fragile little duck.

Angus Tales: out of gas
(by Tito Faraci and Silvia Ziche)

Back when Angus Fangus was an investigative reporter, he had to get around in his rusty old car. One night, he had to drive the car away of a huge man due to taking an incriminating list, but he ended out of gas at the chinese quarter.

Angus entered a pub, not noticing the strange yellow eyes of everyone inside. He was knocked out and brought to the presence of Fang-Ho, an evil mastermind who created a small object to control minds if installed in the base of the neck. Angus guessed it was part of a plan to take over the world, so Fang-Ho suspected someone was leaking info. Before the object could have been installed in Angus' neck, the man who had been following him arrived, introduced himself as Sergeant Bob McCallang and defeated all of Fang-Ho henchmen. When Fang-Ho tried to run away, Angus himself made him trip.

McCallang still made Angus return the incriminating list: a dry cleaning list that was evidence of some important officers being fans of the kids' show "Baldo, the Happy Beaver" as it listed all the fluffy animal costumes sent to the dry cleaner after being used in fan parties. Angus gets forced to return the list, and McCallang invites him to one of the fan parties to have him disguised in a bunny costume, ensuring that he won't spread the "incriminating" evidence.

Trivia

 * The church where the Duck Avenger and Trauma fight seems to be Notre Duck, from a Carl Barks comic story.