CLIFFHANGOUT

CLIFFHANGER (1993)
dir: Renny Harlin

CLIFFHANGOUT
Cracked #285, November 1993
w: Rich Kreigel (Lou Silverstone)
a: John Severin

As the credits roll, Gabe (Sylvester Stallone) is a member of the rescue team sent to save his friends, mountain climbers Sarah (Michelle Joyner) and Hal (Michael Rooker), but fails to save Sarah and she falls to her death. A year later, a plane delivering newly minted money is hijacked by Travers (Rex Linn), a Treasury agent gone rogue.

The “Twin Peaks Rescue Team” gag is a mistake. The artist has confused Twin Peaks with an imitation called Northern Exposure, which starred actress Janine Turner, who is flying the helicopter.


Travers' plan was to rappel onto another plane flown by another thief, Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), but the suitcases of money that were supposed to slide down the cable with him fell down the mountainside. The thieves go to the mountains looking for the money. Hal and Gabe, having come to rescue the thieves, end up being held hostage by them since they're the only ones who can guide them through the mountains to find the money.

They locate the first suitcase at the top of one mountain and order Gabe to climb up and get it. When he does, he opens it and dumps all the money down to the ground, so they shoot at him, creating an avalanche. (The onlookers are two daredevils that just hang out at the mountains. This is the only panel where they're used. In this parody Gabe crashes into the rescue shelter but in the movie Jessie (Janine Turner) comes looking for him. Jessie and Gabe hide in a cave that turns out to be full of bats. A member of the thieves' entourage demands the rest of the money (in the movie they burn the second suitcase to stay warm) and after some fighting ends up being impaled on a stalactite.

The rescue squad comes for Gabe, Hal, and Jessie, but Qualen shoots them and takes their helicopter. Meanwhile, Gabe is thought to have drowned but pops out of the ice and kills Travers. The movie ends with federal agents coming to get the three good guys, who are the last to survive. Cracked ends it instead with a misogynistic quid pro quo. There is an animosity between Hal and Gabe all throughout the movie where Hal holds Gabe responsible for the death of Sarah, so in the parody, he kills of Jessie so they can be even.

And for those who want the porn version, there's this.