The Retroverse: Zal the Unthinkable

Name : Zal
Title : The Unthinkable
Type : Mutant desert lizard

Date of first appearance : March 5^th, 1956

Size:
Height - 150 feet
Weight - 50,000 tons

Powers:
Armored Hide - WITNESS claws, teeth, tank shells, and missile BOUNCE OFF the thick hide of the UNTHINKABLE ZAL! Zal is IMPERVIOUS to man and his machines and hard pressed to be harmed by even his TITANIC kin! His skin is TOUGH as stone and his scales HARD as diamonds!

Thunderhead Breath - WATCH as Zal scorches living and bountiful earth dry and dead with his TERRIBLE THUNDERHEAD BREATH! The UNTHINKABLE ZAL can channel the power of nature through his jaws to scour both man and beast with churning, lightning-speared clouds of boiling water vapor! This BLAST of BILLOWING BLACK DEATH scalds and electrifies anything it touches! Egad!

Biography:
THE NUCLEAR AGE! A time where man recklessly flung himself among gods with the power of the atom! In 1955, ten years after the original Trinity detonation, a new bomb- codename “Eternity!”- is created. A smaller blast, but even greater power! On the eve of the year, it is moved to the isolated deserts of Nevada for testing.

BUT DISASTER STRIKES!

A FREAK THUNDERSTORM! A random- or perhaps defiant!- act of God!

AN EXPLOSION! Eternity is set off early!

No human lives are lost, but the wild, angry, uncalculated winds scatter radiation in all directions! The desert is irradiated! A new nuclear wasteland is formed! And, unknown to all, a gluttonous lizard fat from a feast of sleeping beetles and infant kangaroo mice is bombarded as it lazes nearby...

Four months later, atomic scientist Dr. Richard Schwartz is based in a nuclear safe house studying the damage done to the environment. Dr. Schwartz has been finding and documenting landscapes rendered dead by the radiation for many weeks, but then a startling discovery! A ruined landscape with no sign of radiation to be found! Plants scorched dead and dry and earth furrowed as if by the weapon of a giant! But what could have caused such a thing?

At the same time, police lieutenant Franklin Gunn of nearby Caliente is swamped by reports of lethal car wrecks and huge, mysterious sounds disrupting the sleep of citizens! Though frightened, Lt. Gunn is eventual pressured by the townsfolk and sheriff to investigate!

Meanwhile, reporter Lin Beauregard shadows him. She had been investigating the recent rise in fatal desert car accidents for some time, and she wanted answers! The lieutenant spots and confronts her though! While the two debate, a massive shadows falls over the road...

A BEAST OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS HAS APPEARED!

Enraged by the lights and engine of Gunn's squad car, the creature lashed out! The car is destroyed and Lt. Gunn and Ms. Lin must retreat on foot! Luckily, the beast seems more concerned with the mangled wreckage of the police vehicle than them, so they manage to slip away...

Only to realize they are now lost in the desert!

Fortune continues to favor them though, for they are found by a strange figure clad in white. A hood is peeled away, a protective make removed, and Dr. Schwartz is revealed! The good doctor assures them they are in a low risk section of the desert and takes them to his safe house. There, they attempt to describe what they witnessed on the roadside, but the doctor refuses to believe them!

BUT HOW CAN HE REFUTE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE?

Ms. Lin claims that in her panic she managed to get pictures of the creature! While even the lieutenant cannot believe it is possible, she hold fast! She demands that the photographs be developed to prove their story! Schwartz complies and the three are left to wait for answers...

But in the desert, something large and angry stirs!

The sounds and lights of mankind make it seethe with wrath! It had directed its anger only at cars and trucks before now, but the escape of Lt. Gunn and Ms. Lin has left behind the scent of human beings!

And it recognizes this smell! It knows it from every vehicle it has driven off the road and crushed!

Now it senses a great wind of the scent! From the town of Caliente!

In the final moments before the pictures are ready, Dr. Schwartz admits that he has seen oddities in the desert. Sectors A, L, and Z all show signs of massive damage and great death, but no radiation. Lt. Gunn asserts that the creature must be responsible, but the doctor rightfully questions.. how?

The moment of truth arrives! The pictures have developed!

Ms. Lin Beauregard frantically flips through blurry pictures or aimless shots of the sky, her frustration growing with each useless photo. Lt. Gunn hangs his head while Dr. Schwartz scolds her for claiming proof where there is none.

BUT, AT LAST, A CLEAR PICTURE! A PICTURE OF WHAT ONLY BE DESCRIBED AS A, “MONSTER!”

The lieutenant cheers and the doctor cannot help but double over in disbelief. He has no time to debate with the authenticity of the photos however, for Lt. Gunn receives a call on his radio at that moment...
CALIENTE IS UNDER ATTACK!

The lieutenant, reporter, and scientist rush to the town! And they awed and horrified by what they see!

Caliente is being trampled underfoot! The beast roars and rages as it crushes cars, buildings, and even people under its titanic weight! The police are helpless to stop it! Their bullets may as well be darts!

Suddenly, the piercing rattle of metal against metal... a train rolls into view!

THE BEAST HOWLS! The sound of the train whistle echos in its ears as a surge of anger!

Its chest swells! Its throat bulges! Its jaws unlatch-!

AND A BLAST OF VAPOROUS BLACK DEATH RUSHES FROM ITS MOUTH!!

Breath like a thunderstorm blasts the train! Lightning skewers its roofs as the boiling steam melts the bolts that hold it together! With one last screech, the train is derailed and collapses burning and half melted!

Apparently satisfied with the destruction it has wrought, the creature storms away from the fiery ruins of Caliente and back into the desert. As it goes, Dr. Schwartz gives it a name drawn from the letters of the three sectors of irradiated desert that it scoured with its terrible breath and concludes that it must have been created, unthinkable as it is, by the Eternity bomb...

Thus was born ZAL! THE UNTHINKABLE!

The nation buzzes as new of the attack on Clientele spreads! The military is deployed! Zal is located and attacked in his deep desert home! Tanks thunder! Missiles spew! But Zal is unfazed! Instead, the thing of no reason and no weakness reacts with its awful THUNDERHEAD BREATH and the forces that oppose it are destroyed utterly! But the rage of Zal is not satiated with just that!

Hungering for more terror, for greater vengeance, the creature begins a new march...

TOWARDS LAS VEGAS! Drawn by the bustle and luminescence of the famed city!

Zal cuts through any and all defensive lines meant to stop him, but one final defense waits for him in the city- lead by the trio of Lt. Gunn, Ms. Lin, and Dr. Schwartz! Reasoning that Zal attacks with one sort of storm, Dr. Schwartz hopes to stop him with another type of storm...

As Zal begins carving his path of devastation into the heart of Vegas, a series of rockets launch! Not at Zal, but at the thick, heavy clouds above him! Silver iodine swirls into the heavens and begins freezing the water vapor they contain...

Before long, a heavy snow storm begins to fall!

Zal, angry and confused, tries to spear the sky with his deathly breath! But the cold makes it condense and weaken! Then Zal himself begins to tire! The giant, though freakish and mutated, is still a reptile! And like all reptiles, he is vulnerable to chills!

What hours of artillery failed to do, the right application of science accomplishes in minutes...

ZAL FALLS!

Not dead, but fallen into a deep slumber, the terror of Zal is over. A squadron of helicopters move his unconscious form to a ship, which then sets sail for the Arctic. Zal will be left to sleep for all of time encased in an iceberg, and the lieutenant, reporter, and scientist are hailed as heroes.

But, privately, the doctor admits fears that Zal is not the last of his kind.

If one monster can be made by a folly of man, can not others!?

THE END . . ?

Cinema History - Considered decently entertaining if disappointingly safe, 1956's Zal the Unthinkable! is criticized for a tendency to stick close to clichés and tropes as well as slightly sloppy suit effects, but is remembered fondly for its extensive miniature sets and enthusiastic performances from its three central actors. It did not do much to separate itself from the rest of its kin, but at least managed to secure four sequels of varying success through its better points, preventing it from remaining just another blip on the radar of 1950's monster movies.

Artist's Notes - For a joke monster, I actually REALLY REALLY love Zal's design. It was made very spontaneously, similar to Pouh's, though I did do a bit of refining since the last time he was seen. Moved him away from being amphibious to look more like a desert creature. I think my favorite new feature is the humped back. It brings to mind the stiff, arching backs of certain suit effect creatures as well as makes biological sense for a creature that lives in an arid climate without much water. His spots are neat too though. Though the original design was never colored, I always imagined the hair as starch white and the eyes as red. But then I realized that rings a bit too close to Quetzar, so I gave him black beetle eyes and fur of a color inspired by another desert dweller, the kangaroo mouse. Now, I know what you must be asking... Hayes, will ALL Retroverse bios be in this style? With gratuitous capitalization and exclamation points? Yes. Will it get old quick? Maybe. Will I stop? Never.