The Last Ranger #9: The Damned Disciples by Craig Sargent

The Last Ranger #9: The Damned Disciples (1988) by Craig Sargent (Jan Stacy)

Jan Stacy was a post-apocalyptic series juggernaut, penning not only all 10 volumes of The Last Ranger series but also co-creating and co-authoring many of The Doomsday Warrior series with Ryder Syvertsen under the pen name of Ryder Stacy. 

The Last Ranger centers on Martin Stone, a young man whose father had the foresight to build an impregnable underground mountain fortress prior to an obliterating nuclear attack by the Soviets. It’s from this high-tech compound that he trains young Martin in survival, martial arts, and weaponry so he can emerge after the old man’s death to search for his kidnaped sister—a quest that stretches across the series. He is always accompanied by his faithful pit-bull, Excalibur. 

In The Damned Disciples, Stone is summoned to the village of La Junta where he’s told his sister, April, is being held. La Junta is home to a mad cult that is drugging people for slave labor and indoctrinating them into the Cult of the Perfect Aura. Stone is captured and spends a major chunk of the slim book working in the plant where the drugs are mixed to create the Golden Nectar, a drug that keeps everyone in a state of zombie-like addiction, including Stone himself. 

There is no real plot to speak of, only a series of increasingly preposterous set-pieces with zero logic but lots of explosions. Ever wanted to see a battle between an elephant and a pit-bull? You’re in luck! Why elephants? Who knows, it’s never explained. All that said, there’s a profane casual flippancy to the narrative style that I found oddly endearing, even though the end result was a complete mess.

Review by Steve Carroll