Shako was set in the present and concerned a killer polar bear who had swallowed a top secret capsule that it had found while investigating the remains of a USAF jet that had crashed on the Arctic ice. The story followed the government's attempts to track and kill the bear to recover the capsule, and the bear's fight for survival.
Synopsis[]
Part One[]
A USAF jet carrying a top-secret capsule crashes in the Arctic. Shako investigates, finds the capsule and swallowed it. The ejected pilot tries to shoot the bear, but his bullet only grazes it. Shako kills him, and his co-pilot.
The mission controller, Jake Falmuth, gives orders for the bear to be shot so the capsule can be recovered, but when another group of men from a nearby ice station are also killed, Falmuth decides to go up to the Arctic to do the job himself. He takes a CIA ecologist, a half-Eskimo named Buck Dollar, along to help him[1].
Part Two[]
Falmuth and Dollar arrived in the Arctic and boarded a weather ship to go after Shako. They managed to ensnare Shako with a chain, but the captain, Jimbo Johnson, was a drunk and failed to set the chain up correctly. Shako broke free, grabbed the captain, and dragged him away to a nearby ice floe to kill him[2].
Part Three[]
Shako killed a couple of hunters chasing the $500 bounty on the bear's head. Falmuth revealed to Dollar that the capsule Shako had swallowed contained a lethal biological virus. Shako attacked them, but Dollar managed to hit Shako with a tranquiliser dart [3].
Part Four[]
The men took the unconscious bear back to Ice Station Delta where they set up for an operation to remove the capsule. The tranquiliser wore off, however, before the operation could begin and Shako broke free. He attacked Falmuth and severed his right arm before escaping[4].
Part Five[]
A team of paratroopers were flown in to take out the bear while Falmuth directed the operation from his hospital bed. Two of the soldiers, Marx and Spencer, found Shako's mate and cubs, and killed them. When Shako found their bodies he went after the paratroopers looking for revenge. He killed Spencer, then ripped off Marx's clothes before burying him in the snow[5].
Part Six: The Night of the White Bear[]
Shako returned to Ice Station Delta. He killed police deputy Chester Perry, then Sheriff Barney Cox and his wife. Falmuth saw Shako from his window and tried to go after him, but the nurse put it down to delirium and sedated him[6].
Part Seven[]
In the settlement, Shako was found by a small boy, Unk Sumak, who befriended him and hid him in a storeroom at the schoolhouse. However, he was surprised by the boy's schoolteacher, and he killed her. Unk then hid him underneath the hospital building. Meanwhile, Falmuth tried to escape the hospital building to go after the bear, but Nurse Hatchett knocked him out and took him back inside[7].
Part Eight[]
Shako entered the hospital building where he killed the receptionist and a male orderly, before throwing an elderly patient out of a window. He then found Nurse Hatchett in the electro-therapy room. She tried to electrocute him but pulled too hard on the paddles, disconnecting them from the power supply. Shako killed her[8].
Part Nine[]
Men used sharp poles to corner Shako in the hospital, but Unk broke a window so Shako could escape. The bear left the compound, coming across two oilmen working on a pipeline and killed them both[9].
Part Ten[]
Falmuth, Dobie & Dollar tracked Shako using dogs. The dogs attacked Shako and managed to get him pinned to one spot so Falmuth could get a shot at him. Before he could, though, some Russian snow troops arrived[10].
Part Eleven[]
The Russians captured Shako and took him on board a Russian whaling ship. On board the ship, a drunk Russian named Sergei, convinced he could best the bear in unarmed combat, released him from his cage. Shako killed him and his friend, Popov[11].
Part Twelve[]
The Russian sailors cornered the bear, and Danovich shot it. Then the Americans arrived in helicopters and reclaimed the bear for themselves. As they were leaving, however, the Russians shot down the helicopter carrying Shako with an explosive harpoon, and it crashed into the sea. It sank, dragging the bear down with it[12].
Part Thirteen[]
Shako managed to bite through the ropes tying him to the helicopter and escape. with both the Russians and the Americans thinking him dead he managed to float away on an ice floe. After resting, he came across a party of men clubbing seal cubs and he killed them all[13].
Part Fourteen[]
Shako was spotted by a plane while he was fighting a walrus. Falmuth heard the news and flew to the scene with Dobie and Dollar. He made Dobie stay hidden in the walrus' carcass to ambush Shako when he returned to it, while the others made camp a few miles away. However, when Shako did return later, Dobie was unable to shoot him due to his gun having iced up, so Shako killed him[14].
Part Fifteen[]
A blizzard started up, and, against Dollar's advice, Falmuth took a junior agent and went hunting for Shako in it. They tried to take shelter in a cave, but found the Shako was already sheltering there himself. They became trapped in the cave with Shako at the entrance and their gun outside. Shako killed the junior agent. Falmuth tried to get to the gun, but it had been covered by snow and he was killed by the bear[15].
Part Sixteen[]
Buck Dollar found Shako at an eskimo settlement and tried him the traditional eskimo way - with a hand-thrown harpoon. He wounded the bear badly but took serious wounds himself. Knowing he was dying anyway, Dollar told the eskimos to bury him in the Village Dump where he could wait with an RPG for Shako to return. When Shako did return, Dollar shot him with the RPG, but Shako's body fell on Dollar, killing him as well[16].
Characters[]
Jake K. Falmuth[]
- Falmuth, nicknamed 'Foul Mouth' is a CIA controller based in Alaska. He is in charge of recovering the capsule that Shako swallows[1].
Shako[]
- Shako is a giant polar bear. He swallows a secret capsule belonging to the CIA after the plane carrying it crashes on the ice[1].
Hank Wheatley[]
- Wheatley is the co-pilot of the crashed plane[1].
Buck Dollar[]
- Dollar is a half-eskimo who works for the CIA. Heis an expert on polar bears and acts as a tracker for Falmuth[1].
Dobie[]
- Dobie is Falmuth's assistant in the Alaska CIA station[1].
Jimbo Johnson[]
- Johnson is the captain of the weather ship that Falmuth uses to go after Shako[2].
- Elmo[3]
- Marx[5]
- Spencer[5]
- Chester Perry[6]
- Barney Cox[6]
- Martha Hatchett[5]
- Belle Cox[6]
- Unk Sumak[7]
- Miss Fuster[7]
- Ellie-Mae Bolger[8]
- Tony Lagonda[8]
- Henry[8]
- Frenchie Larouse[9]
- Dan Webster[9]
- Nicolai Bosnavich Danovich[11]
- Sergei[11]
- Popov[11]
- Uri[12]
- One Tusk[14]
- Packer
Locations[]
Organisations[]
Technology[]
Weaponry[]
Vehicles[]
- Enterprise[12] (mentioned)
Species[]
Food and Drink[]
Behind the Scenes[]
Shako was an early story in 2000AD. It ran during 1977, its first year of publication. It started in Prog 20, replacing Flesh Book One, the first of the original series to finish. It ran for for 16 episodes before finishing in Prog 35.
Publication History[]
After the original publication of the story, it has been reprinted several times. There was an abridged version in the 2000AD Annual 1986; the first two episodes were featured in The Best of 2000AD; 2000AD Extreme Edition 18 reprinted it in full; plus the first four and last seven episodes were split between Scavengers No. 18 and No. 19.[17]
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Shako Part 1, 2000AD Prog 20
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Shako Part 2, 2000AD Prog 21
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Shako Part 3, 2000AD Prog 22
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Shako Part 4, 2000AD Prog 23
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Shako Part 5, 2000AD Prog 24
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Shako Part 6, 2000AD Prog 25
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Shako Part 7, 2000AD Prog 26
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Shako Part 8, 2000AD Prog 27
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Shako Part 9, 2000AD Prog 28
- ↑ Shako Part 10, 2000AD Prog 29
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 Shako Part 11, 2000AD Prog 30
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Shako Part 12, 2000AD Prog 31
- ↑ Shako Part 13, 2000AD Prog 32
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Shako Part 14, 2000AD Prog 33
- ↑ Shako Part 15, 2000AD Prog 34
- ↑ Shako Part 16, 2000AD Prog 35
- ↑ Barney