BILLY STEELE: KID RANGER, IRON HORSE VS. IRON GIANTS

His body was broken, after his Lightning Warrior super self became beaten by the killer robots and Dr. Satana’s wielding of the lost mine’s power.

White Eagle knew that white man’s medicine would not cure his student. Billy had an impregnable glow surrounding him, as if some maniacal force doomed him to die. Perhaps it was the same magic that reverted the Lightning Warrior to Billy on its own? Or the curse both Billy and White Eagle dreaded had been unlocked? As the glow became more searing, White Eagle knew he must use all his Native American magic to save the boy from this unknown, life-draining force.

White Eagle readied the powders and charms necessary to exorcize the demon possessing his white son. He was interrupted by the cock of a trigger of a US cavalry pistol.

"Let go of my son," Col. Tim Holt demanded, "I’ll get the best army sawbones to take care of him. I don’t want your heathen magic to touch my boy."

"There is nothing in your world that can save our son," White Eagle insisted grimly. "He will surely perish if you move him. Together we can discover a greater force to return him to the living."

White Eagle knew Billy was journeying through the realm of the dead, a world of ominously, shadowy trails. Spirits and souls without bodies traveled a twilight zone to the unknown through a path of tombstones and dead flowers, as the thick fog and stench of death embalmed each journeyman.

Suddenly, the image of the Knox family—Billy’s beloved birth family—startled the boy. "Maw…Paw, you’ve come back to me," a tearful Billy declared. Billy’s heart raced faster and faster as he ran towards what appeared to be his deceased parents, his arms open ready to hug them. But he only was able to hug dead air as the Knox family disappeared in a lifeless blur, leaving the kid ranger’s spirit as numb as his body.

As Billy’s soul suffered a nightmare, his earthly body changed before the Indian wizard’s eyes. White Eagle saw that Billy’s blonde hair turned rodent brown; his pallor turned tombstone- like, his body was as limp as a lone weed imperiled by merciless gusts of wind on no man’s land. Billy had made this way before—at the Alamo when, he was shot down by The Dark Skull’s guns. But only by White Eagle making his self-sacrifice was the boy supremely resurrected. Billy’s soul was traveling with the young braves who died trying to stop the railroad; the souls White Eagle guided to their reward, but Billy had a destiny to fulfill, for the West’s survival depends on Billy’s survival. Can the master of Native American magic perform another miracle?

"Get out of my way, savage," the Col. ordered. "I will get the finest doctors to save my boy." But White Eagle silently spread every magical formula over the mystical glow captivating the boy’s bruised body. Suddenly, a fearful moaning vibrated throughout the medicine man’s cave. Sparks and flames began to flash above the military man’s head. The face of a demonic creature with red, fiery eyes, pitch forked tongue and dagger fangs rose above Billy’s body.

Col. Tim fired his gun several times at the vision. Bullets passed through it. And the swift blade of Col. Tim’s saber was knocked from his hand by the monstrous visage.

Weaponless, the Col. watched with awe as the Indian wizard continued to use his 10,000 years of Native American magic to break the vampire like glow and revive Billy Steele.

As White Eagle chanted, prayed, and spread his sacred powders, more unearthly visions flew above the boy’s body.