Love & War, Part 2: Bullets & Bracelets

Amadeus Cho has been kidnapped by the Amazons. As Hercules and Namora are trying to figure out where the warrior women have taken them, they are ambushed by Namor the Sub-Mariner. Hercules thinks that this is because of his romantic getaway with Namor’s cousin. However, the King of Atlantis could care less about that and demands to know what the Olympians want with his god. As it turns out, the Amazons have kidnapped Poseidon and Namor is willing to fight to the death to get him back. Although Hercules has nothing to do with the kidnapping, he isn’t one to turn down a fight.

However, their brawl is cut short by Namora who breaks the two apart. She points out that Hercules is on the same side as the Amazons have captured his sidekick, Amadeus Cho. Namor doesn’t understand why Hercules was wasting time with a pointless fight, but Herc is confident that his highly intelligent friend will be able to get himself out of trouble before they come to the rescue.

At that moment, Amadeus has been taken to the bedroom of Princess Artume, the leader of the Amazons by the reptilian Delphyne Gorgon. He has learned that Artume’s decision to mate with him comes with one hell of a caveat: After he has impregnated her she plans to kill him, as is Amazonian tradition. The reason why Delphyne has told him all of this is because she intends to save his life. However, Cho is too horned up to pass up on the opportunity of getting laid. When she calls him stupid, he tells her that he is the 7th most intelligent person on the planet. This makes her laugh and when she asks who told him that, he sheepishly admits that it was a soap contest.[1]

That’s when Artume enters the room and tells Delphyne to join the others Amazons to prepare for battle. Once they are alone, Artume shows Amadeus an ancient tablet that she took from the Atlanteans and asks him to translate it for her. Amadeus tells her that doing so will be a snap.

Meanwhile, Hercules, Namora, and Namor have found the Amazons have taken over an old Atlantean Triton Station. Hercules suggests he go in first to try and talk sense into the Amazons since he and their queen, Hippolyta, have a past together. While the Sub-Mariner is apprehensive about doing anything other than a full scale attack, Namora convinces him to go along with this plan.

As he heads over to the ship, Hercules thinks back to 1270 BC, when he first met Hippolyta. For his 9th labour he was supposed to steal Hippolyta’s girdle, a gift to her by her father, Ares. However, he was caught in the act but rather than stab Hercules the two fell in love and started going into the throws of passion right then and there. Spying on her step-son from Olympus, Hera could not allow the demigod to have any sort of joy so she used her magics to disguise herself as an Amazonian shield maiden. With this disguise, she convinced the other Amazons that their queen had been captured. Hercules was then forced to flee the scene in the nude and under a hail of arrows.

As he arrives at the base, he spies Amadeus and Artume through one of the windows. Amadeus has just figured out that the tablet is a set of coordinates to a location somewhere in the ocean. Spying Hercules out of the corner of his eye, he sees Herc giving him the thumbs up. Not wanting to be cock-blocked, Cho gives him an ugly grimace. Unable to read the room, Hercules goes to the entrance of the Atlantean warship where it appears that Hippolyta is standing there to greet him. However, when he opens the gates his is horrified to discover that the Amazons have decapitated her and put her head on a pike.[2] He is then ambushed by Delphyne who raises the alarm. While he breaks the tip of her spear, this opens him up to the snakes that make up Gorgon’s hair. Bitten in the face, the snake venom blurs his vision making him unable to see where his attackers are charging from.

The din of battle can be heard from Artume’s bedroom, but she manages to use her skills of seduction to get Amadeus to ignore it. Although he is pushing his intelligence to the limit and needs food to replenish his brain, he points out the coordinates from the tablet on an old sea map. Once Artume has gotten what she wants, she then knocks Amadeus out.

By this time, the blinded Hercules has been caught in a snare net. But, before the Amazons can kill him, Namora arrives to save his ass. As she is fighting off the warrior women, the Sub-Mariner and his soldiers are entering the Triton Station through a secret entrance tunnel. There they find the station’s occupants have all been murdered and dumped in a pile. One of the soldiers makes the mistake of disturbing one of the bodies, unaware that they had been rigged with explosives. While the soldiers are killed in the blast, Namor survives.

Enraged, he smashes his way to the upper level of the station into Artume’s bedroom. This is just as Hercules and Namora have entered as well. They discover that both Artume and Amadeus are long gone. However, Namor is uninterested in the fate of the boy and goes to the prisoner hold to rescue who he has come to free. Inside, they find that Poseidon has been chained up. Standing next to him is an Amazon pointing a gun to the sea god’s head. She warns them that if they take another step she will blow Poseidon’s brains out.

Recurring Characters

Hercules, Amadeus Cho, Namora, Sub-Mariner, Amazons (Artume, Delphyne Gorgon), Poseidon, Hippolyta (corpse), (in flashback) Hera

Continuity Notes

1. As told in Amazing Fantasy (vol. 2) #15, Amadeus Cho won an quiz show put on by the Excello Soap Company.

2. Hippolyta was murdered last issue. Her death will proved short lived as she will be resurrected by Hera in Fearless Defenders #2.

3. Delphyne calls Hercules a wife killer. Hercules has been married multiple times and most of the haven’t ended very well. His first wife, Megara was killed when he went into a berserker rage, as told in Hercules (vol. 3) #5 and Incredible Hercules #112.