Texas Chainsaw Massacre (TPB)

"Americarnivore" is the story title to a trade paperback collection that includes all six issues of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre comic book limited series by DC Comics and WildStorm Productions. The series was written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with artwork by Wes Craig. This volume shipped to retailers in September, 2007 and carries a $14.99 cover price per copy (US).

Issues

 * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Volume 1 #1 - "Americarnivore (Part I)"
 * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Volume 1 #2 - "Americarnivore (Part II)"
 * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Volume 1 #3 - "Americarnivore (Part III)"
 * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Volume 1 #4 - "Americarnivore (Part IV)"
 * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Volume 1 #5 - "Americarnivore (Part V)"
 * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Volume 1 #6 - "Americarnivore (Part VI)"

Part I
June 13th, 1974

Travis County sheriffs are in pursuit of a runaway Blair Meat Co. truck. They shoot out the tire and apprehend the crazed driver. When they open up the back of the truck, they find a dead young man hanging like a fish on a hook from the roof. Suddenly, Leatherface appears on the top of the truck with his chainsaw at the ready. The driver, sitting in the back of the squad car laughs with glee as Leatherface dives into the sheriffs.

June 21st, 1974

F.B.I. agents Baines and Hooper are assigned by the agency's cold cases division to do a follow-up account on the unsolved "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Driving through town, they receive very little cooperation from the locals. They meet with Officer Christie of the Travis County Patrol who gives them access to all of their files relating to the case.

Five miles away, Kim Burns of WTX News and her camera crew stop at a trailer home off Route 17. The owner of the trailer is a corpulent woman who offers them tea. Kim asks her for directions to the town of Fuller. From within the trailer, a mysterious person intently watches the conversation.

Agent Baines and Hooper set up a small command center at the Fuller Gas Stop. They review old footage relating to the case, including the recovered video shot by Texas State police officers on the night of the failed raid of the Hewitt Farmhouse. They find a private office once occupied by the Hewitt family patriarch, the late Sheriff Hoyt. The office is filled with dozens of strange items and memorabilia, and the agents cannot understand why none of this stuff was accounted for during the original investigation. F.B.I. profile agent Henkle suspects that someone in Travis County law enforcement went to a lot of trouble to make sure the entire 1973 investigation was swept completely under the rug.

That evening, Agent Henkle inspects a small cabin located on the Hewitt property. He finds a secret passageway that leads down into a well. He believes this might have been the place where Sheriff Hoyt kept all of the people he arrested. He falls through a weakened floorboard and lands on a pile of rotting bodies.

Part II
June 21st, 1974 F.B.I. agent Henkle has fallen through a weak floorboard into a deep cistern beneath a cabin on the Hewitt estate. He is horrified to discover a massive pile of rotting corpses. Agents Hooper and Bond try to maintain radio contact with him from above, but Henkle assures them that he is fine. Agent Baines, acting against protocol, leaps down into the well after Henkle. He remarks that some of the bodies found down here are fresh. Shining his flashlight, he sees that the cistern leads into a long, dark tunnel. The agents begin moving forward to see how far it stretches.

One mile away, WTX news reporter Kim Burns, cameraman Marcus and her assistant Karla pull up to the Blair Meat Co. packing plant. Kim records a brief narrative before Marcus and she enter the abattoir. Karla remains behind in the news van. As she sits bored inside the back of the van, she sees something odd through the rear window – a small boy.

While Henkle and Baines continue exploring the underground tunnels leading out from the well, agents Hooper and Bond maintain radio contact. They return to the principle crime scene in the upstairs quarters of the Hewitt house. Before long, they find Agents Baines and Henkle who have followed the tunnel into a cellar that leads into the main house. Baines tells the others that they discovered dozens of bodies and that there must be multiple perpetrators. Hooper decides to call in for back-up.

Meanwhile, Kim Burns and Marcus begin exploring the Blair Meat plant. They encounter a man named Hank carrying a chainsaw. Hank introduces himself as the head "slaughterman" and offers to give them a tour of the facility. Contrary to popular belief, the Blair Meat plant is up and running again with a full crew. Hank goes into explicit detail of the methods his men and he employ when it comes to slaughtering livestock.

Elsewhere, Kara suddenly awakens. She is dizzy, but quickly realizes that she is no longer in the back of the news van. Looking up, she finds herself in an underground alcove with the Hewitt family leering over top of her.

Part III
Kara is bound and gagged, tied to a chair inside a small enclosing in the Travis County sewer system. The members of the Hewitt family mill about, conducting business as if nothing was amiss. Old Monty Hewitt helps Tommy "Leatherface" Hewitt with his prosthetic arm, Zeke Hewitt jumps around, making loud noises, and Shiloh Hewitt inspects Kara with great interest. Luda May admonishes young Jedidiah for "playing with the food". Unable to deal with the horror, Kara loses consciousness again.

Meanwhile, Kim and Marcus walk outside the Blair Meat plant. Kim is disgusted over the tour that slaughterman Hank recently provided them and stomps off towards the news van. They soon discover that Kim is missing. Reluctantly, they return to the plant, believing that she may have gone inside. While exploring one of the walk-in refrigeration units, they are stunned when Hank leaps out and attacks Marcus with a cattle prod. Kim begins running in terror, but Hank quickly catches up to her.

At the Fuller Gas Stop, the F.B.I. agents make preparations for the next leg of their investigation. Baines wants to hunt the killers down and take them out with extreme prejudice, but Agent Hooper insists that the team should wait for back-up. Baines reveals that his niece Pepper was one of the five youths slain in the '73 massacre, and that he will do everything in his power to bring her killers to justice. He is not waiting for back-up.

Back at the meat plant, Hank ties Kim to a meat hook and forces her to watch as he slaughters Marcus. He executes him using the exact same methods that he uses when slaughtering livestock. He slits his throat, bleeds him out then tosses him (still alive) into a huge vat of boiling water. As Hank gets to the rendering stage of his process, Kim manages to free herself and begins running.

Meanwhile, Agent Baines returns to the tunnels and continues his hunt. Agent Hooper follows him, hoping to calm his colleague down, but Baines is committed. They find one of the family members, Zeke Hewitt, and open fire. Zeke flees deeper into the tunnel.

Part IV
June 21st, 1974

Agent Baines and Agent Hooper pursue Zeke Hewitt throughout the sewer tunnels running beneath Travis County. As Zeke turns a corner, he hides behind Leatherface, who uses his chainsaw to cut away at a support beam. A large section of the tunnel collapses between Baines and Hooper, cutting them off from one another. Baines tries to contact Hooper on his radio, and tells him that he needs to find another way out of the tunnel.

Baines finds a stairwell that takes him to the front of the Blair Meat Co. plant. Inside the building, Kim Burns frantically runs away from the chainsaw-wielding psychopath, Hank. She leaps through a window, out onto the pavement in front of Agent Baines. Baines catches sight of Hank and begins firing at him. He enters through the broken window and narrowly evades being gutted by Hank's chainsaw. Racing into a freezer, Baines finds a second chainsaw and engages Hank in a bizarre duel.

Meanwhile, back at the Fuller Gas Stop, Agent Bond gathers the bodies recovered from the hidden cistern and places them in the back. Agent Henkle begins conducting an analysis of the cadavers and posits his own theories regarding the behavioral tropes of the Hewitt family. A loud noise startles both men, and Agent Henkle goes out the front door of the gas stop while Agent Bond checks out the back. What he doesn't yet realize though, is that one of the body bags in the back room contains the still-living Zeke Hewitt. Zeke gets the drop on Agent Bond and stabs him through the head with a hunting knife, killing him. Out front, Agent Henkle encounters Henrietta and her fat tea-drinking friend. Henrietta batters Henkle across the face with a hot tea kettle.

Agent Hooper finally finds an alternate route through the sewer tunnels and discovers the secret alcove of the Hewitt family. He draws their weapon on them and tells them that they are all under arrest.

Back at the Blair Meat plant, Baines and Hank continue their chainsaw fight, but Baines ultimately wins by first cutting off Hank's leg, then stabbing him through the back with the saw. Injured and bleeding, Baines limps out the front of the plant only to find an angry Leatherface waiting for him.

Part V
Outside the Blair Meat packing plant, Agent Baines runs into Leatherface. Leatherface delivers a serious slice across the agent's chest with his chainsaw, but Baines is still armed with his own weapon. He fights back, but Leatherface disarms him, forcing Baines to run. Leatherface slices him across the Achilles tendon and Baines falls. Fortunately, reporter Kim Burns comes to the rescue and plows into Leatherface with her news van. Baines scrambles inside the passenger seat and the two drive off.

Meanwhile, Agent Henkle awakens only to find that he has been tied to a bed in the Tea Lady's trailer. The Tea Lady gives him some of her "special" tea and Henkle begins to hallucinate. The Tea Lady and Henrietta take turns sexually violating him.

Elsewhere, Agent Hooper finds the Hewitt family. He holds them off at gunpoint in their new home and inspects the scene. He finds the decapitated remains of Karla suspended from the ceiling of a makeshift meat freezer.

Baines and Kim meanwhile drive to the temporary FBI command center at the Fuller gas stop. Kim finds the butchered corpse of Agent Bond shoved inside a deli counter. Agent Baines tends to his injuries.

In the tunnels, Agent Hooper grows enraged over what he sees and points his gun at Luda May's head, exclaiming that he will see her "go to the chair". Luda May's young grandson Jedidiah defends his grandmother by stabbing Baines through the chest. At Luda May's urging, he then finishes him off by splitting his head with a meat cleaver.

Agent Baines meanwhile, knows that Hooper is in trouble and is determined to rescue him. He is no condition to move however, and Kim reluctantly takes it upon herself to find the missing FBI agent. She locates the tunnel entrance outside the gas stop and begins descending the steps. Before long, the Hewitts capture her, tie her up and bring her to their dinner table.

Part VI
The Hewitt Family sit down for a long dinner (which includes a stew pot containing Kara's head). Also seated at the table is the drugged Agent Henkle, and the corpse of Agent Hooper. At the foot of the table is Kim Burns who is tied to her chair. Suddenly, the wounded Agent Baines bursts into the underground grotto armed with a hand grenade. He isn't strong enough to take down the whole family, but he is determined to rescue Kim. He cuts her free and the two begin backing away towards the exit. Leatherface picks up a meat cleaver and hurls, severing Baines' arm. Unfortunately, this was the arm that was also holding the hand grenade. The simple-minded Shiloh Hewitt leaps over the table and grabs the grenade as if he were a child reaching for a toy. The weapon explodes and Shiloh is killed. Leatherface guns up his chainsaw and decapitates Agent Baines as Kim races for freedom. She manages to bring the insensate Agent Henkle along with her.

The two reach topside and continue running, but Henkle steps on a bear trap and falls to the ground. Moments later, Leatherface slices his way to the surface and drags Agent Henkle down underground. Kim meanwhile, continues running until she gets to town.

She frantically enters a bar and begins people for help. Nobody seems to have any interest in her plight however. These denizens know the Hewitt family well, and they don't want any trouble with them. Leatherface enters the bar and grabs Kim. The others clear him a path. Nobody raises a hand to help her. He drags Kim outside and throws her into the back of a meat truck. Zeke Hewitt begins driving away Kim alone in the back with Leatherface. Leatherface goes to attack her with his hook hand, but the crude prosthetic gets caught on one of the numerous meat hooks hanging from the ceiling. Kim takes advantage of the opportunity and pushes the giant killer out the back of the truck onto the road. She then picks up his discarded chainsaw and runs it through the rear of the cab, impaling Zeke Hewitt. The truck swerves off the side of the road and crashes, but Kim is still alive. Still carrying the chainsaw, she begins walking off into the sunset.

Vehicles

 * Truck

Notes & Trivia

 * Page count: 144 pages.

Recommended Reading

 * Texas Chainsaw Massacre Vol 1
 * Texas Chainsaw Massacre: About a Boy
 * Texas Chainsaw Massacre: By Himself
 * Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Cut!
 * Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Raising Cain