The Warlord #6 (DC Comics, 1977)

After riding the mysterious subway system discovered inside a mountain by Travis Morgan and Tara in The Warlord #5, Morgan gets off at the last stop. He finds himself outside on the surface of the Earth, far away from his maybe-girlfriend, Tara, who remains in Skartaris.

DC's The Warlord issue #6 opens up high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, in Machu Picchu, the fortress stronghold of the ancient Inca Empire. Morgan stumbles about in the darkness and finds himself drawn to a campfire and the alluring silhouetted form of a woman stretching in her tent. He bursts into her tent and finds her half-disrobed and very surprised.

She pulls a gun on him, and Travis Morgan, weary from eight years of traveling in Skartaris, collapses to the floor. When he awakes, he finds himself surrounded by four people, including George Lakely, a Harvard professor, Richard Belding of Oxford, Tor Olafson from the University of Stockholm, and the beautiful redhead whom he burst in on earlier, Mariah Romanova of Moscow University. The professors are all archaeologists working on a U.N. grant to investigate the Inca civilization.

Later, Morgan tries to apologize for interrupting Romanova's half-naked midnight yoga session, but she accuses him of being a capitalist warmonger (and a general, all-around creep.)

The professors show Morgan what they've discovered, a hieroglyphics-filled chamber that they think proves that the Incas were descendants of the Atlanteans. Morgan, who can obviously read some of the hieroglyphics because, of course, he can, points out that this chamber is not a temple, but rather a tomb called The Tomb of Tikal, a cat-demon and servant of the Sun God.

Using dynamite, they blow up the door to a tomb, revealing a giant, humanoid cat statue. What could possibly go wrong?

At that very moment, a military helicopter arrives and deploys soldiers because earlier, the professors called the Air Force after reading Morgan's dog tags. Morgan claims that they're actually from an outfit called "The Company". They draw guns on Morgan and the professors, but Morgan decides to fight them anyway. In the chaos, nobody notices the rays of the sun that land on the statue and wake it from its suspended animation. The giant cat statue comes alive and attacks the humans!

Before the statue swings its deadly claws at Mariah, Morgan grabs its face and blinds its eyes with the sun, then knocks it to the floor, shattering it into pieces.

After the fight, Morgan says he can't stay and invites Mariah to return to Skartaris with him (it's odd that he didn't invite any of the male professors, though...) She agrees and jumps at the chance to see his bullshit story for herself. Incredibly, his story isn't actually bullshit, and they ride off on the sunway together back into the center of the Earth. They seal the entrance behind them.

The epilogue shows Morgan and Mariah exit the subway after an 800-mile trip, only to discover that Tara is gone, and far more time has passed than anyone could have guessed... in Skartaris, a mysterious land of wonders!!!