Once in a while, a pivotal concept or teleplay will cross the desk of Sliders co-creators Tracy Tormé and Robert K. Weiss that’s quite simply too wild and too expensive to produce for the hit Fox TV series. Luckily for Sliders fans, there’s a comic series that’s ready, willing and more than able to pick it up and make it happen! “That’s the advantage that comics have over TV — no budget restraints!” says Tormé. “One of the things I encouraged the editors of the comics to do was to pull out all the stops. It’s been fantastic so far because I really feel that the writers and artists of the comics are giving Sliders fans stuff that they might not necessarily be able to get from the TV show.”
Sliders: The Lost Episode contains concepts that, had they been produced for the small screen, would surely have put the show way over budget. But, oh what an episode! The entire city of San Francisco re-designed as New Tenochitlan, and an epic cast of Aztec soldiers, warriors and noblemen, all get a second chance at life in the pages of “Blood and Splendor.”
Careening from one parallel Earth to the next, the Sliders find themselves on a worlds where Native Americans thwarted all of Western Europe’s attempts to colonize and conquer. It’s 1996, and the European white minority has been relegated to slavery. The United States of America never existed, and the country is one nation under Huizlopochtl, the merciless Aztec god of war!
One Aztec nobleman, Montezuma IV, has been given a vision from Huizlopochtl: that he is to be his god’s “right hand” on this world, conquering in his name. All Montezuma needs is a sign. Well, how about one of our heroes’ quantum tunnels? Will Quinn Mallory wind up on the sacrificial altar? And if that ain’t enough, there’s something new, very big and very hungry moving through the quantum tunnels — and it eats Sliders!
This special one-shot episode of Sliders: The Lost Episode hits the comics racks this September, and will be written by Jeof Vita and Jeff Somers, based on an unproduced script by Tracy Tormé. The 48-page epic will be penciled and inked by Acclaim Comics superstar Rags Morales!
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