Check Please

Previously:

Peter & Frank Do Dallas    - -    The X-Men Visit the State Fair

Tom Landry: The Comic Book  - -  Houston Heroes  - -  Spidey Visits Dallas

We've seen that Marvel Comics has never been shy about visiting the Lone Star state but you might have noticed a lack of visitors from their "Distinguished Competition."  Sadly DC Comics never put out the kind of geographically specific freebie issues like Marvel did but they did come around from time to time.  Here's proof:

Ok, so it's not Superman or Batman.  It's not even the Teen Titans but we'll just have to make due.  Checkmate was/is one of DC's team of spies that mixes it up with both superheroes and foreign agents.  Their organizational structure is that of a game of chess.  Ranks include Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knights, etc.

They go about the business of espionage all over the world but when a quartet of mobsters are found dead in Big D, it's time for one of their agents to head to the Lone Star State:

Checkmate dispatched one of their Knights (and former Texas Ranger) Jake Tyler.  After doing a little recon, he confirms his suspicions that local crime boss M.T. Cavanaugh is not only responsible but has much bigger plans in store.

After doing a little research on Cavanaugh at the offices of the "Dallas Express" (which I assume is the Dallas equivalent to the Metropolis Daily Planet in the DC Universe), he finds out the identity of one of Cavanaugh's top lieutenants: Stan Allen who just happen to have dinner plan's at the city's swankiest restaurant.

Where would that be, you ask?  Why at the top of Reunion Tower of course.  So Tyler suited up and invited himself to dinner.

To make a medium-sized story short, after a failed attempt to pose as a local shakedown enforcer, Tyler is abducted by Cavanaugh's men and brought out to where the dirty deeds are done.  On a completely unrelated case, a Checkmate Pawn is staking out this oddly designated building:

 

If you check out the signage you'll see that this place is referred to as:

• "Texas National Guard"
• "Dallas National Guard"
• "Texas State Guard"

The narration just calls it "A Dallas Armory..."  Maybe that's a real thing?  I don't know.  Regardless, this is where Cavanaugh's men are stealing weapons for him to sell.  The Checkmate Pawn hops on one of the trucks they're stealing and shows up to the party right as Cavanaugh is conveniently explaining his evil plan:

You'll notice that Tyler is tied down like he is on the  cover.  And if you think there's an airplane coming to squash him, just like on the cover, then you'd be right.

So the Pawn pops out of the truck he stowed away in, laments the fact that he doesn't get paid as much as a Knight, decides he's had just about enough of all of this, and then proceeds to open fire on ever everybody with one of the stolen weapons.

Pawny McGee also realizes that he is surrounded by stolen weapons and decides to be a bro by firing a rocket launcher at the approaching plane so his co-worker could avoid the impending squashing:

And as the plane goes off course, as you would expect, it heads right for the weapons cache and we get the big explosion that, let's face it, we all kind of needed.  And the only thing left to do was wink and quip: