The Ancestral Trail
A now-out-of-print fantasy series in 52 issues (split between two separate stories) created by author Frank Graves in the early Nineties, The Ancestral Trail narrates the story of The Chosen One Richard, a young heterochromic boy who suddently finds himself whisked off to another dimension called The Ancestral World, where he learns of the task that only he can accomplish - to free that world from the oppressive yoke of the Evil One's forces and recover the seven Life Force Pods which will restore balance. Aided by the veteran warrior Orkan and the old scribe Melek, Richard sets off to a perilous adventure, meeting new allies along the way and rescuing the Guardians of the Life Force...
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When he who is The Chosen One |
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After the first series' 26 issues, a second series follows, set in the desolate Cyber Dimension, where Richard is forced to confront even greater threats, until a climactic showdown with the Evil One himself...
This series provides examples of:
- Action Girl (Kika. Okay, she's a wasp-girl... but she's still the only prominent female character in the story on the side of good.)
- All of the Other Reindeer (As a kid, Richard was often made fun of because of his oddly-colored eyes. Subverted in that he never really took offense at that.)
- An Axe to Grind (Zard)
- Avenging the Villain (Continuuma did not take her cousin Holotron's defeat well...)
- Badass (Orkan, Merkat, Juroot, Zard... yeah, quite a few of them)
- Beam Spam (Zenon)
- Big Bad (The Evil One)
- Big Creepy Crawlies (Kika, Narkum, Cronid, Dragora's scorpions)
- Boring Invincible Hero (Averted, believe it or not. Being The Chosen One does not make things easier for Richard, and he's often forced to retreat in the face of superior enemies like Sumar or Hulkan.)
- Brainwashed (Most of the inhabitants of the Ancestral World)
- Brainwashed and Crazy (Orkan, under the influence of Dragora's amulet.)
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe (Holotron is not completely real - it's his victim's mind that allows him to exist. If the victim actually manages to disbelieve, he's toast.. Also, this explicitly allows Melek's rope to stretch.)
- Cliff Hanger (Every issue)
- Cloning Blues (Identico)
- Cool Mask (The Evil One)
- Deadpan Snarker (Kika has some traces of this. Later on, Richard picks this up a little.)
- Death World (The Cyber Dimension is not a nice place. Plasma storms, oceans of quicksilver, barren landscapes, you name it.)
- Dem Bones (Klaw)
- Dumb Muscle (Cragmar, Stridor. Spector, however, does manage to avert this.)
- Easter Egg (All over the place. The back of each issue challenged the reader to find them all)
- Ensemble Darkhorse (Juroot)
- Everythings Better With Dinosaurs (Robot dinosaurs show up in issue 42)
- Everything Is Worse With Bears (Most slaves in Enlil's Volcano were bear-men.)
- Everything Is Even Worse With Sharks (Time Queen Continuuma morphs into a shark when attempting to finish off Richard.)
- Everything Trying to Kill You (The Cyber Dimension in general, probably because anything that doesn't is dead already.)
- Exotic Weapon Supremacy (Kika sure likes her blowgun, doesn't she?)
- Genre Shift (The series goes from fantasy to science fiction exactly halfway through)
- Ghost Ship (There's on in the service of Nemis)
- Giant Spider (Baal. And a pretty damn smart one at that, too!)
- Gladiator Games (Malachit runs some)
- Gravity Sucks (Tengam)
- Hive Mind (The petromites and their leader Cronid.)
- I'm a Humanitarian (Zock and the corrupted dwarves.)
- Kangaroo Court (issue 51)
- Karma Houdini (Hulkan, the evil giant mole who attacked Richard, Orkan and Melek in issue 14, never gets his comeuppance.)
- Light Is Not Good (Zenon)
- Logic Bomb (In the Cyber Dimension saga, Richard defeats the Keeper in issue 33 by forcing it into one of these.)
- Man Eating Plant (issue 9)
- Mechanical Lifeform (Plenty of these in the Cyber Dimension)
- Mismatched Eyes (Richard has one green eye and one grey eye. The former sees the good, the latter the evil.)
- Mix and Match Critters (Kronis, and a fair chunk of the Mythical Beasts)
- The Mole (Robo)
- Monster of the Week
- Mooks (Cozards, Dark Robots)
- Mook Maker (Klaw, Hulkan)
- Mouthful of Pi (Richard uses this to defeat Mandelbiot.)
- Non Action Guy (Melek)
- Our Mermaids Are Different (Nemis is pretty hideous)
- Our Orcs Are Different (Cozards are rather more intelligent and disciplined than most orcs)
- Petting Zoo People (Humans are very rare in the Ancestral World, while anthropomorphic animals are very common.)
- The Power OF Frienship (Allows Robo to rewrite his own evil programming in issue 50)
- Plot Coupon (Pods and Guardians in the first half, Omni Pieces in the second)
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent (Both played straight and subverted: on the Evil One's side, there are giant snake Lotan, three-headed cobra Dragora and crocodile warrior Gator. On the side of good, there are the lizardmen, especially Zard and Fengal, the crocodiles - once freed from Gator's control - and the Reptile forces in general. And Elitper.)
- Ridiculously Cute Critter (Shoomi & Shoobi, Teeza and the Wigmat in the Cyber Dimension.)
- Robot Buddy (Robo in the Cyber Dimension saga)
- Sacrificial Lamb (Merkat)
- Sdrawkcab Name (Tengam and Elitper)
- She's a Man In Japan (The Italian translation has Kika as a male.)
- Silicon Based Life (Wigmats, probably. They can touch Omni pieces without dying)
- Too Cool to Live (Merkat)
- Tree of Life
- Turned to Stone (Mirra's speciality)
- Unholy Matrimony (Enlil and Erna)
- Voluntary Shapeshifting (Fenrar)
- War Is Hell (The illustrations, especially in issue 26, openly show how war is a horrible thing never to be glorified.)