Run for your Life

Run for your Life was a serial that ran in DC Thomson's Wizard title in early 1973. It told the improbable story of a team of British athletes whose plane crashed in the Guatemalan jungle and who were captured by a lost tribe of Mayans whose evil high priest ordered them to compete in trials against a team of his warriors, the losers to be put to death! Why he wanted to do this is anybody's guess, but the Brits, by virtue of being white, civilized and, well, British, were eventually able to discredit the priest and break his power by destroying the stone idol which the Mayans had worshipped as a god for centuries, crushing the high priest under it in the process. Naturally, the simple savages were suitably grateful to the white guys for destroying their religious symbol, killing their leader and basically turning their entire social system upside down, and duly guided them out of the jungle to safety in return for a solemn promise that the Brits wouldn't tell anyone about them.

I gather McDonalds set up a restaurant there a few weeks later...