The Frozen People

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Episode 63 of The Trigan Empire

The Frozen People
aka De klauwen van het verleden (Dutch title)
The Claws of the Past (Dutch title, translated)

Written by Mike Butterworth
Illustrated by Oliver Frey

The Frozen People was originally published in 10 instalments in issues 782 (8 January 1977) to 791 (12 March 1977) of Look and Learn magazine.

It is reprinted in Volume 5 of The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire (Rebellion).

Plot summary

Trigo opens a large, new museum. He is given a tour and, together with Peric, sees a prehistoric Vorg artifact. It is a transparent block with the image of a god. At night, when the museum is deserted, the block breaks open and a man steps out with a beast on his back. He calls the beast Balgar and sends it out to kill the guards. Outside, they break into the state bank of Trigan City, and the man steals a great deal of money.

Later, the television program Superbrain airs. The man participates under the name Nov Sedda. He knows all the answers to all the questions and is super-intelligent. Sergeant Zimma from the police visits Peric and Janno to talk about the theft of the Vorg artifact from the museum. Peric also has a report from someone who saw a strange beast walking around. Peric makes the connection between the theft and the sighting of the beast, because the description matches a drawing from a prehistoric sun temple from the early Vorg period.

Peric also finds it strange that a super-intelligent man suddenly appears on a TV game show. The man did things that a human brain shouldn’t be capable of, and Peric wants to meet Sedda. He invites him to his laboratory. Sedda wants to take control of the planet and sees Peric as a threat to that goal. That night, he orders Balgar to kill Peric.

Just as Balgar arrives at Peric’s place, Sergeant Zimma also shows up. They get into a fight. Janno joins in too. Janno grabs a fire extinguisher from his auto and sprays the beast with it. The beast runs away in fright.

Zimma has discovered that the artifact from the museum was originally found by Professor Yunni. They decide to track down Yunni to ask exactly where he found it. Sedda is also searching for Yunni and kills him with the help of Balgar. When Zimma and Janno arrive at Yunni’s place, they find chaos—but they also find his diary.

Meanwhile, Sedda and Balgar kill the Minister of Finance. Trigo appoints Sedda as the new minister. Sedda plans to create chaos and thereby spark a revolution.

Yunni’s diary is written in code, but when Janno accidentally spills a cup of coffee on it, a second script becomes visible. It reveals where Yunni found the block with the apparition. He was planning to search for another block to prove that it was a prehistoric figure and not some kind of god.

Janno and Zimma go looking for the site where the block was found, and after some digging, they enter a cave where hundreds of blocks are stored. But they are followed by Balgar, who attacks them. They flee and split up. Zimma is picked up by a helicopter and warns Peric. Zimma also reports that they saw murals of Sedda in the cave.

Sedda is busy creating chaos at the Ministry of Finance when Balgar apathetically walks in. Janno follows him and sprays Sedda with his fire extinguisher. At that moment, Peric, Zimma, and soldiers enter as well. Janno has discovered that the cold from the fire extinguisher renders the two of them apathetic.

They return to the cave and find inscriptions. Peric deciphers them and discovers that the men in the blocks are a super race from another planet. Sedda is their leader. They came to Elekton, but when it veered off its orbit, the temperature dropped—and they couldn’t withstand the cold. As a solution, Sedda came up with the idea of freezing them in blocks of transparent material. They stored all the blocks in a giant freezer, where the race would remain safe forever.