TYRANT (1994; w+illo Stephen R Bissette)

Splash panel begins prehistory as cosmic joke (KNOCK KNOCK little Big Bang), dark planet enormous black egg (Earth’s origin in darkness + violence earliest, most basic element in genetic legacy [cf prehistoric nemesis of coincidentally named Bissette FURY], aborning focus of entire T3; img also of archetypal self-creation, w/illo Bissette calling comic/consciousness into being) eclipsing coming dawn (corona exterior sliver of light/goodness), turbulent ocean (groggy mind on waking/falling asleep) receding (earth’s "water" "breaking" to yield new life) to reveal land (submarine formations pre-conscious – archetypal – imgs arising to consc’ss) + winged dragons (dream-chimeras not rooted to ground/consc’ss) – one in particular ("she" primal/primeval oneness w/t birth mother) – in search of prey (carcasses: detritus of waking life to nourish unconscious) at forest edge (eco-evolutionary advancement mvmt into higher state of consc’ss); frightened off by "scream that explodes from the mist" (pteranodon psychic homing agent drawing consc’ss twd foggy presentiment: cry from future demanding realization), which she carries w/i "her reed-like bones" (à la instrument) skyward (as clarion).

"Monsters in the mist" (indeterminate subconscious forms awa inchoate future) "drawn to the morning stars" (evolution’s drive twd consciousness + self-revelation, guided still by nature w/ which they still one): styracosaurs come to feed (herbivores vs carrion, nourished by living/consc’ss), from which "nothing" can shift them (à la pterosaurs: that which shoos them "nothing" itself [cf FURY’s similarly vacuous Voidoid]) – + does (evolution away from violent void producing only increasing violence + meaninglessness) – as also nesting maiasaurs ("good-mother lizards," latest in long female line: consc’ss still connected to nurturing Earth/Mother) whose only other concern lurking oviraptors (male "eggsuckers" carnivorous anti-creative principle of sim’y eternal lineage; leaf-enshrouded vs out-in-open others darkside of nature + self-doubt threatening nascent endeavor); elder mother (who "will suffer no male’s advances," vs unseen other: resistance to growth/maturity) intuits danger to grounds (womb; recognition of antithetical force threatening embryonic un-consc’ss/maternalism/potential/mother-attachment ["this brood will have to mature quickly"]), "everything" (vs ominous "nothing") "shaken" by feared approach (characters set off by "EEEEE" primacy of fear, then as now).

Cries revealed as birth-pangs of title T-Rex (fear not so much of antagonistic force but of that force reduplicating) laying eggs (in iconic full-pg img reserved for opening 2 In-the-Beginning panels + final one, denoting primacy [on hilltop to boot]; panels proliferating thereafter – 2/pg, 3/pg, 4 – time restarted), when that morning "claimed only kill as her own" (possibility of violence transforming self; juxtaposition of statement w/ foregrounded eggs alternate implication that new life fed by carnage), on hill "since before dawn" (both brutality + life-principle predating time); recalls mating (only other time "driven by something other than hunger" [libido isn’t hunger?]: life principle trumping death-) while sniffing/licking eggs (transference of libido permitting birth of compassion beyond maternalism) – motherlove yielding also birth of…more annihilating tyrants.

Defiant last-panel "HERS" declaration of independence + agency also for w/illo B, himself T3 embryo awaiting rebirth under auspices of nurturing/terrible Great Mother aka Genius/Muse.