Phoenix #2: Ground Zero
David Alexander
Leisure, 1987
ISBN: 0-8439-2517-5
MAGNUS TRENCH IS BACK! The Impossibly named lead character of this Post-Nuke Pulp is one of the ages, he’s built like Doc Savage, has more guns than Rambo and hair like Jay Leno. He’s the toughest, meanest, and sometimes dumbest hero of the Phoenix books.
The Post-Nuke Pulps had their moment in the 80s. The Cold War/Nuclear holocaust fear was high and Mad Max was cool. It was only natural that the sub-genre would find its way into the world of paperback Men’s Adventure fiction. In a lot of ways it's the perfect distillation of the manly ideas of the genre. Lone warriors against insurmountable odds with danger and women around every corner. It’s a lot of the same if its Mack Bolan in The Executioner #64 Dead Man Running or if its Roadblaster #1: Hell Ride by Paul Hofritcher or here in the tales of Magnus Trench aka Phoenix. They’re all pulp-hokum of the finest type, well maybe except for Roadblaster.
David Alexander is a full-tilt writer. He goes full-tilt with the action and he goes full-tilt with the blood and guts. His tongue is also a little in his cheek, I think when writing these paperbacks. They’re over-the-spectacles of blissful violence chock full of gore and blood and guts. He really understood the assignment, not bogging his action-adventure-apocalyptic books down with a lot of “feelings” or “making sense” or “deep thinking.” These books were made to pump up your adrenaline and keep you flipping pages until the end where you then go out to your favorite truck stop or pharmacy and buy the next installment of the series. Alexander also penned C.A.D.S. another post-nuke after Ryder Syvertson and Jan Stacy (as John Sievert) left the series. After that he tackled cyberpunk meets James Bond with the Nomad books. But both of them are much tamer than Phoenix.
Phoenix #2: Ground Zero finds ‘ol Magnus himself in Las Vegas on his way to the east coast to find his family. It takes a while to get across the mutant covered landscape of what is left of the U.S. after the dastardly Russians and toxic filled nukes went boom. The crazy televangelist Luthor Enoch is still in charge and both of those things piss Magnus Trench off. It doesn’t seem to be that long after the bombs fell but Vegas is already a full-blown post-apocalyptic stereotype, thank god. But Vegas still has some style and the Sheik of Vegas gets Magnus involved with “The Murder Marathon" which is some sort of Death Race 2000 meets a chariot race. Magnus has other troubles; Enoch has sent his personal army out to get him with a special team of badasses. Plus there’s the Earthbound, a bunch of wackos who live in a missile silo à la Beneath the Planet of the Apes. All of that and a massive amount of shooting, gun descriptions, ex-porn stars, amnesia, killing, and mutant mayhem. Magnus’s only character trait is “awesomeness” and he continually proves it, mostly by murder. But he’s a solid hero and an easy lead to follow, mostly due to Alexander's wry humor here and there.
This is one of the wildest, most extreme paperback series of the 80s, a decade known for excess, so it’s saying something. It's really a book that lives up to the expectations set by the covers which isn’t always the case. All that being said, it's a totally ridiculous book with some very out-dated ideas of the world. Beyond all that they are just incredibly wild rides that are chock full of tons of the best B-Movie tropes.
Roy Nugen is an award-winning writer, producer, property master, plus actor. He comes from a family of musicians, engineers, wildcatters, cops, lion tamers, and carpet salesmen. Evil Dead II changed his life and he once partied with Lloyd Kaufman.
He has written 15 short films including Bag Full of Trouble, Potboiler, Handle With Care, Death in Lavender, Hole in the Ground, and the feature film Arrive Alive, many of which have played across the country. He has been the property master on 17 short films and 2 feature films.
Roy is also a prolific book reviewer and collector of vintage pulp paperback books. You can read his reviews on his blog Bloody, Spicy Books and multiple magazines including Paperback Fanatic, Hot Lead and Sleazy Reader. He has also written afterwards for novels and for various websites. He lives in the only city that once arrested L. Ron Hubbard with his wife and cats.