Prog 8 - MACH 1

Probe sets off to hand over the ransom. His contact arrives on a motorbike. Probe asks where the girl is and the contact tells him that he has only one thing for him and he pulls a gun. But Probe is quicker than his would-be assassin...
Probe asks again where the girl is. He tells Probe where they are keeping her. Probe knocks him out. (Although, it looks like he's breaking the guys neck in this panel...maybe they decided to censor it and have John just 'put him to sleep for a while' instead.)
MACH 1 then disguises himself as the bike rider and drives up to the villa passing a guard on the way. But not everything is going to work out the way he wants it. Two guards ahead of him flag him down. They want to know if he got the money. Probe doesn't stop and drives right past them. The guards now know he's an imposter and open fire.

Inside the Villa the rest of the kidnappers hear the shooting outside. Pilar, they're leader, has Maria by the hair and holds a knife up to her throat.

Probe is going to have to move fast...
and he does...
The bike crashes on top of the gunmen. Pilar is all that's left. Pilar tells Probe to back off or she'll cut up Maria's face so badly that she'd look beautiful in comparison. Probe is having none of it. He tells her to go ahead and while she's carving up Marias face to take note of what he can do to her when she's done. He lifts up the motorbike he crashed into the villa with and crushes it with his bare hands in front of her.
With Pilars surrender and Maria saved, Probes 'mission' is over.
Wow!

This episode was a tough one to leave any artwork out. John Coopers pages are so dynamic and action packed. He did a really fantastics job at making the story flow at a breakneck speed. His page layouts are fantastic for this five and a half pager.

It's a fairly straight forward MACH 1 story. Although, I wonder what happened to the guards that were chasing Probe before he reached the Villa. Seems like a loose end that didn't get tidied up.

No real advancement of Probes character here, it's not the first time that Probe has done a mission for 'personal' reasons, and it's a basic 'paint by numbers' plotline. It's Coopers artwork that really makes this average story shine.

Fantastic stuff.