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"Trapped"
Jurassic Park: Raptors Hijack #4 (Topps Comics)
Written by Steve Englehart
Pencils by Neil Vokes
Inks by Rich Rankin
Cover by
Michael Golden |
Biosyn
pens in the raptors.
Story Summary
As the issue opens, the raptor eggs hatch and Celia and Alf are
the proud parents of six baby Sleestak, uh, raptors. But Alf
soon notices that he and his new family have been penned in by
Biosyn's walls, flown in by helicopters and secured by a
construction crew.
Meanwhile, Muldoon and Grant have survived their jump into the
river, but now find themselves stranded on a small island of
dirt in the middle of it.
Simultaneously, Malcolm has recovered from his fever and he and
Ellie share an impulsive kiss
but then Ellie says Alan is still the man for her; Malcolm
respects her devotion and agrees to leave her alone. The two of
them set out to find Muldoon and Grant, who have now been gone
from the village for 3 days. They eventually stumble upon the
raptor enclosure built by Biosyn. They are discovered by Dr.
Fischer and his men. But, just then, Alf and Celia emerge from
the ground, having dug a tunnel under the imprisoning walls.
They immediately attack the Biosyn personnel who tried to
confine them, killing them all, even killing Dr. Belvedere.
The dinosaurs then turn to Malcolm and Ellie, but seem to
remember still the help given to Celia by Ellie and, leaving the
two humans alone, disappear into the jungle with their six
hatchlings.
Soon an InGen copter flies over and Malcolm and Ellie are
rescued. Instead of pursuing the raptors, Ellie demands they
find Grant and Muldoon first.
Two days later, Grant, Ellie, Malcolm, and Muldoon are all
together in Caracas, Venezuela celebrating their survival.
Muldoon is bitter that the raptors made their getaway; they'll
never be found now in 10,000 square miles of jungle.
THE END
Didja Notice?
The cover is rather misleading seeing as how it proclaims in
bold letters "You'll believe a raptor can die!" but none of them
even come close to dying in this issue.
As this issue opens, the raptor eggs, laid at the end of the
previous issue, are already hatching! I simply can't believe
that a raptor baby's gestation period is so incredibly short.
It's really just an example of Hollywood-movie-style scripting,
where everything happens in incredibly short time spans in order
to fit it into the story.
On page 4, Dr. Fischer says, "Versteh?" This is German for
"Understand?"
In the previous issue, "Fever", Dr.
Fischer made a big deal about the walls being built out of sight
from the raptor nest so as not to provoke them. But here on page
5, one of the walls of the enclosure appears to be just a short
distance away.
Page 7 reveals that Alf was the raptor who picked the lock on
their cage after seeing Grant attempt it on his and Ellie's in
"Dark Cargo".
Page 9 mentions that Muldoon and Grant had jumped into the Rio
Negro river. This is a real river and a tributary of the Amazon
River.
When Malcolm awakens from his fever on page 10, he and Ellie
share an impulsive kiss, but then Ellie says Alan is still the
man for her. Later, Malcolm apologizes for all his come-ons to
her and says he respects the true love she shows for Grant. "It
was the kiss that did it. Showed you were an adult who knew her
own mind, which proves you're not 'Mrs. Malcolm' material."
On page 14, the Indian man tells the InGen man that Muldoon and
Grant left the village 3 days ago.
On page 20, the two adult raptors appear to be overturning the
two Biosyn Jeeps with the force of their ramming bodies. It
doesn't seem to me that their relatively modest size and
strength would be enough to do that.
As the story ends, Grant, Ellie, Malcolm, and Muldoon are in
Caracas, Venezuela two days later. Caracas (officially known as
Santiago de Leon de Caracas) is the capital of Venezuela.
The last line of dialog in the story is Malcolm saying, "And God
bless us, every one!" This is borrowed from the last line (and
earlier line of dialog by Tiny Tim) of Charles Dickens' A
Christmas Carol.
The last page of the story ends with "The End! (for now...)",
implying that Englehart may have intended to pick up the raptor
thread later on. However, after the nine issues of Return to
Jurassic Park that were published after
Jurassic Park: Raptors Hijack, Topps Comics folded,
leaving a few loose ends in their interpretation of the
Jurassic Park saga.
The 10-issue saga of the raptors ends here, with Alf and Celia
and their six babies still living and roaming free in the Amazon
rainforest. Muldoon laments that they'll never be tracked in
10,000 square miles of jungle. They or their descendents may
still be there today...
Notes from Raptor Renderings
In the Raptor Renderings column of
Return to Jurassic Park #2, the editors reveal that
there were plans to catch up with the two loose raptors Celia and Alf
in future issues. But Topps' JP comics series ended with issue
#9 of
Return to Jurassic Park without getting around to this
story.
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