BILLY STEELE: KID RANGER--THE DARK SKULL'S REVENGE

The landscape radiated a harmonious glow for Billy had saved his homeland from an undefeatable evil and upheld his unit’s code of the rangers.

But as night blackened, the barren patch of badland where Lucy Fur’s saloon once stood saw an ominous metamorphosis.

Once again, Lucy Fur’s sinister saloon from her dreadful dimension was erected in all its hideous splendor. It stood once again as if no majestic hand of justice ever touched it. Inside its main hall, the devilishly desirable Lucy Fur and her demonic outlaws gathered around a poker table where the satanic saloon girl cut the cards from her doom deck.

"I know your secret Billy Steele," she laughed to her fiendish followers, "I know the super power you possess and of your journey to claim the lost mine for yourself. But each card I draw unleashes my new disciples, they exist only to terminate you Billy Steele and capture the mine’s awesome contents for the pleasure of Lucy Fur."

She swiftly laid each card of her doom deck upon the gambling table. Even her most grotesque "owl hoots" gasped in awe as each card creature was revealed.

Lucy Fur unveiled from her doom deck a satanic set of cards: each of which depicted one of her deadly disciples ready to destroy Billy Steele. Each card was a lethal symbol that came to life. Each was more deadly than the next.

First came a card featuring the crazed magician Mephisto and his Aztec fire gods and monsters. A race of fiendish frog people came next. A giant Samurai and his dragon creature of dread, an army of man eating dinosaurs and their insane master, a gigantic iron robot, a monstrous worm (the tremor of terror), Dr. Satana (Lucy Fur’s mad scientist sister), a rampaging giant bear, the jester of doom and his carnival of carnage, were the next cards revealed.

Other doom deck disciples included a plundering prairie pirate, a race of menacing mole people determined to lower Fort Yuma to the center of the earth, snarling werewolves, blood sucking vampires, flesh eating zombies and ghosts from Nightmare Canyon, a long buried army of Spanish Conquistadors, a murderous mummy, snake warriors brandishing the venom of vengeance, flying vicious vulture men, insect creatures led by a mutant Queen Bee and a Black Widow, medieval terrors of gruesome gargoyles and headless knights, an Eskimo who has harnessed the power of extreme cold, the evilest of genies and its despicable master, and a mystery invader who has stolen Billy’s ceremonial mask to become any monster the thief can imagine.

And if these were not enough, Lucy Fur unveiled a doom deck card depicting Billy’s classmates. What evil would they be endowed with? Next a card with Holt’s Rangers appeared. Would they become Lucy Fur’s henchmen? A card detailing The White Whip was revealed. This beautiful, ghostly rider would capture Billy’s heart while trying to destroy his Lightning Warrior alter ego. But perhaps the most dangerous card from the doom deck depicted The Manitou-White Eagle’s super heroic self from the past, now resurrected as a killing machine to battle his successor, Billy. Would the teacher turn deadly upon his student?

Lucy Fur revealed from her doom deck The Lightning Warrior card. Would Billy’s superhero alter ego become his executioner?

The following day, Billy rode to White Eagle’s cave to help put the stone solitude in order. When he arrived, the ancient Indian noticed something strange about his chosen one. Billy had a shimmering tattoo of the black arrowhead on the back of his hand.