A Reckoning in Rot: Mortarion vs. the Dreadnought
The Return of a Monster
This intense comic page from If Doom Slayer Joins the Imperium of Man opens with a thunderous moment of war. In the top left panel, Mortarion—the Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard—comes crashing down in a storm of smoke and rot, wings unfurled like tattered banners of death. The sheer force of his arrival sends debris flying, his grotesque form surrounded by plague-infused power. His armor is jagged and organic, decorated with Nurgle’s marks, and trails of filth swirl in his wake. Mortarion’s descent feels like the arrival of an ancient curse, a being who carries death as both weapon and gift. The chaos of the panel sets the tone: something terrible is about to unfold.
The Ancient War Machine
As the scene shifts, we are introduced to a massive Dreadnought stomping forward with mechanical fury. Steam bursts from its vents, and its armored frame rumbles like a walking cathedral of vengeance. In a close-up, its sarcophagus opens, revealing a fallen hero of the Imperium—once a mighty Astartes, now kept alive through cybernetics and willpower alone. His scarred, barely human body is plugged into life-support machinery, every inch a blend of flesh, steel, and pain. Yet despite the decay, his eyes burn with purpose as he prepares to face his old foe once more. His chilling words, “I have waited long for this day… Now, are you prepared to die a second time?” reveal that this isn’t just a battle—it’s a personal reckoning.
Mortarion, Twice Seen
The bottom right panel brings us back to Mortarion, now shown in grim detail. His rotting face, partially hidden beneath a cracked hood and rebreather mask, stares forward with cold malice. His eyes are sunken yet glowing, filled with cruel memory and disdain. The spiked halo on his back marks him not just as a warlord, but as a cursed demigod of plague and despair. He says nothing, but his expression says it all—this is not the first time he’s faced the warrior before him, and it won’t be a clean fight. With the air thick with rot and vengeance, Mortarion stands ready, the embodiment of a deathless disease facing down a revenant machine of Imperial wrath.
