I don’t really get Mutants Down Under (1988), like on the level of “Why does this exist?” I am happy it does, because it is probably my favorite in the line, but I don’t understand the series of creative and editorial decisions that made this the third book in the After the Bomb line. This is true of a lot of Palladium publications, though.

I like Australian animals and I think it is hilarious to make them anthropomorphic and give them guns. I am never not gonna be tickled by that. Anyway, in the post-apocalypse, Australian humans and animals live together peacefully, thanks to the Dreamtime (for what its worth, the portrayal of Aboriginal culture in the game is a mix of admiring and exotifying, which doesn’t seem great but could be a whole lot worse. I don’t have the knowledge to evaluate it beyond this. Feel free to educate me). Trouble comes from the north, where militarized humans and water buffalo mutants from Jakarta are launching an invasion.

The Jakartans have weird bio-weapons. There are also lots of airships (like, with balloons) in the book, with a lengthy section on air combat.

But mainly, for me, its about the koalas with guns. Kevin Eastman’s cover it pretty good, but it is James Lawson’s often comically stocky interiors that really sell the whole marsupial warrior thing for me.

Vaguely related: I’ll probably never have another chance to bring this up, but do any of y’all remember the cartoon film Dot and the Kangaroo? It was weirdly inescapable for a moment of my childhood, surprisingly melancholy in my memory of it (though I’ve not seen it in decades) and the bit about the Bunyip spooked the hell out of me.