From issue (or "prog") 25 Massimo Belardinelli drew the concluding episodes of the first series and would be retained as its regular artist for the strip's reinvention as Inferno.
[2] Having made it through the preliminary round of the World Aeroball Championship, the Harlem Heroes' team bus crashes, killing all but four players.
Louis Mayer, his brain alone surviving the tragedy, convinces his three fellow survivors, 'Slim', 'Hairy', and team captain John 'Giant' Clay, that they can still win the championship title.
Set in the bloodthirsty arena of Inferno, an even more barbaric updating of Aeroball, with the addition of players on motorbikes (and gameplay similar to that featured in Rollerball), sportsmanship is gradually replaced by sensationalist violence and the desire for bloodshed and death on the field.
The scene of the Heroes' violent demise is a baroquely ruinous former casino called The Crystal Maze (a metaphor of the human mind, and a title later recycled), rendered in darkly gothic splendour by Massimo Belardinelli.