TRUE SPIES

TRUE LIES (1994)
dir: James Cameron

UN-TRUE SPIES
MAD #333, January 1995
w: Stan Hart
a: Tomas Bunk

In True Lies, Harry Trasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a spy for Omega Sector but as a cover he tells his his wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) that he's a computer salesman. He comes home late from another mission as usual.

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As part of Harry's mission, he is to steal the code of a billionaire at a party in Switzerland, who's funding a terrorist cause called the Crimson Jihad. His partners “Gib” Gibson (Tom Arnold) and Faisil (Grant Heslov) are waiting for him in a van outside. At the party he is seduced by another spy, Juno Skinner (Tia Carrere), posing as an art dealer, At home, when Gib comes to pick Harry up for the day presumably as a computer salesman, he secretly shows a gadget that's a pack of cigarettes with a camera inside connected to a pair of sunglasses. Harry puts them on and sees his daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku) stealing from his wallet but he can't do anything because he'll blow his cover.

Harry and Gib are given intel by their boss (Charlton Heston) for their latest mission. That night he chases Crimson Jihad leader Salim Aziz (Art Malik) through a hotel bathroom and throughout the hotel on a police horse while Salim rides a motorcycle, chasing him off a rooftop.

Harry comes home late again and tries to make up for it by visiting Helen at her job, but doesn't get past her cubicle when he overhears her talking to a guy named Simon. Putting two and two together, he realizes she's having an affair. He goes back to Gib moping about it, Gib agrees to track them down at their secret rendezvous. Simon (Bill Paxton) tells her that he's a spy, when he's really just a car salesman. He takes he to his trailer, they find her and kidnap her, and bring her to secret quarters with a double mirror and interrogate her with voice modulators. Harry and Gib, behind the mirror, tell her they'll grant her immunity if she'll agree to become a spy. Her mission is to dress as a prostitute and place a microphone in a suspect's hotel room, the endgame is for Harry to reveal himself to “teach her a lesson”. At the hotel, Helen makes herself look trashier before going to what she thinks is the suspect's room.

Helen beats Harry and almost runs away before he can reveal himself, but before either can leave they're both captured by the Crimson Jihad, and Harry has to confess who he really is before being injected by a truth serum. They're tied up and chased by the terrorists, Helen tries to shoot them, but panics and drops the machine gun, which falls down stairs setting off bullets which end up shooting them all. Helen is kidnapped by Juno and saved by Harry in a helicopter before the limo where she's being held hostage falls off a bridge.

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Harry steals a plane to save Dana, who is being held hostage. The movie never explains how the terrorists knew who she was. The nuclear bomb the Crimson Jihad was going to use to blow up the coast of Florida is presumably dumped into the ocean. They don't explain that either. The movie ends a year later where both Harry and Helen are spies and tango like the Addamses.

TRUE SPIES
Cracked #295, December 1994
a: Walter Brogan

Ford Pintos were recalled in the late 70s and early 80s because they exploded on impact. David Koresh was a cult leader who holed up in his compound in Waco before being found by the FBI