ABC Warriors - Return to Mars - continuity

[mejustnow]

Mek-quake's recent appearance as Howard Quartz's bodyguard had really twisted my melon in the "Return to Mars" storyline, and much like the Meknificent 7 I'm adrift on the time streams.

I was pretty clear that Happy Shrapnel's current story is a flashback from the "now" of the story. Clint Langley's superb black & white art is the main cue. However, I've come unstuck...

Where are we now?

Here's how I understand it to the point of unravelling:

After the Volgan War the Warriors were formed and sent to tame Mars (The Meknificent Seven). Happy Shrapnel dies on Mars.
After they disbanded there was Ro-Busters.
Nemesis brings them back together and after some time tunnel shenanigans (the Black Hole) the Warriors do their Chronicle of Khaos and Hellbringer stuff in the far flung future (future from "now" – but not as far as the end of the world in the Black Hole)

Recently we learned that Deadlock received a signal from the past, from Happy Shrapnel after Medusa woke Mars (with him along for the ride)

The Warriors travel back in time and back to Mars. We have the Shadow Warriors and stuff like that, and Mek-quake is put in Broadband Asylum where a decommissioned Volkhan is. We've recently found out that Happy Shrapnel (now as Tubal Cain) was the one who decommissioned him.

We get The Volgan War flashbacks. In the "now" Volkhan escapes and currently Mek-quake and Blackblood are with him whilst the remaining Warriors look like they're going to try and recruit Tubal/Happy Shrapnel.

So.....(deep breath)...in Happy/Tubal's flashback currently in the prog, Howard Quartz tells us that Happy has *already* decommissioned Volkhan, but Mek-quake is with Quartz at the moment so how is he on Mars and not with the other Wariors doing their Khaos stuff?

Is this flashback occurring before Nemesis reforms the Warriors? Which is when, I think I'm right in remembering, he makes Mek-quake one of the Warriors?

Please help, my brain is melting (in a good way)

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

The First half of the Storyline was a flashback, after the short break, the story returned but set in the Present day!!!

[mejustnow]

So Mek-quake's left Volkhan and is with Quartz now and we're bang up to the rpesrent and anything can happen?
Nice.
Why's everything in black and white then? (I kid, I kid)

[Dark Jimbo]

You're making this far harder than it needs to be! Quite simply, Tubal's memoirs have just reached the point after the Volgan War series - so almost bang up-to-date.

In more detail: After abandoning Mek-Quake to his fate during the assualt on the Red House, Volkhan and Blackblood have buggered off to plot revenge on the Warriors; meanwhile Howard Quartz steps in and arranges an amnesty for Mek-Quake so that he's no longer a wanted felon. At this point the Warriors themselves are presumably more-or-less on their way to recruit Tubal, and Hammerstein is filling them in on his backstory on Earth. It's still black-and-white because this is still Tubal telling the others about his recent past.

[mejustnow]

Ah so, thank you!

I'd forgotten that Volkhan and Blackblood had abandoned Mek-quake. That little piece of the puzzle threw me for a complete curve when Mek-quake turned up last week

[TordelBack]

Jimbo does Big Jobs!

[ming]

I've heard that when he's tied up in complex plot and timeline knots, Pat Mills emails Jimbo...

[Dark Jimbo]

 

[IndigoPrime]

You're making this far harder than it needs to be!

Or Mills is, reintroducing the team every two series, and then adding flashbacks by the bucketload, and then no-one being sure whether mono is a stylistic choice or something to do with flashbacks...!

[Goaty]

Honestly, the last ABC Warriors story I really enjoyed was The Shadow Warriors!

[Frank]

Honestly, the last ABC Warriors story I really enjoyed was The Shadow Warriors!

Last year's Hammerstein flashback was a hoot. The first ABC Warriors story I read in the prog was The Black Hole, the next I read was the McMahon Mars stuff, and then Hammerstein's War Memoirs and their appearance in Nemesis: book four reprinted in an annual and Best of 2000ad Monthly, respectively.

I had absolutely no idea how those stories fitted together in terms of the internal chronology of the narrative, and even once I had caught up with their previous adventures and was reading each new tale as they appeared, not much of it made a great deal of sense. At first, I enjoyed those stories despite their lack of coherence and logic; nowadays the byzantine complexity and insanity of the narrative - and not having the slightest clue what's going on - is what I enjoy most.

They're always very funny too, which is a definite plus for me. I don't think I could take the emotional troubles and character conflicts of a bunch of robots entirely seriously, and Pat Mills doesn't ask me to do so.

[TordelBack]

I like to give out about Langley-era ABC Warriors, but both the current run and the previous one have been excellent.  Shadow Warriors was great too.

[Alski]

Quite simply: Pat Mills