#after all whats more alien than giant living machines fighting a millennium long war

[yama-does-art]

That one time, Starscream fights a human…

In the Transformers Skybound there is a scene where Starscream faces down human pilot. Well in a spin off series called Duke, there is the same scene from the human's perspective. Spoilers and analysis below the cut.

I love how both comics portray the same event from two different perspectives.

Top Row: Duke Issue #1 Bottom Row: Transformers Skybound Issue #2

In Duke, a story about a soldier who recounts a harrowing tale with an alien life form, you can feel the dread when the pilots make contact. When Starscream is shadowed out with only his maniacal smile, you get the sense of how overwhelming Cybertronians are compared to humans. The color palette sets the tone of a deeply traumatized man trying to make sense of what has happened.

Compared to the Transformers comic, everything is so bright and vivid. From the lush forest, to the blue sky, even the bots themselves. Then you see Starscream up against humans. Look at him, throwing planes around, having such a good time. Its all fun and games until the visceral "SPLAT" of a dead pilot. This scene does a few things. One, it's fun. Who doesn't want to see everyone's favorite trash bird tear things up. More importantly , it further showcases Starscreams' wanton cruelty and disregard for life. Two, it touches on the comics commentary on war and violence. The blood and gore in contrast to the scenic backdrop of Earth is suppose to be jarring.

Finally, notice how each comic deals with the death of the human. In Duke, the panels are framed on the the sole survivor. That makes sense. This comic is about Duke and his reaction to facing a metal Goliath. Where as the Transformers comic, audience views the act from the perspective of the surviving pilot, as if to say, this is only the beginning. As the action is pulled back, the tone gets light, more hopeful. The nameless human lands a good shot and Starscream gets his comeuppance. In spite of everything, humanity survives.

If I wasn't clear, Duke is the sole survivor. While I'm not a big fan of G.I.Joe (which the miniseries is based on) I would recommend for this this scene alone. All in all, great read and an interesting exercise of how different POVs can change a story.

[majingojira]

Some Fun for 1001 Followers: The Pre-Runaways Runaways

Just for fun, I thought I’d do a bit of an overview of the other Runaway superheroes out there that aren’t THE Runaways.  Their Ancestors. At least from what I have read.  We’re going to cover Marvel, DC, Milestone, and . . .  Malibu.

This might hurt.

Marvel is the one with the oldest “Runaway Teen Hero” stories I know of, if only because they were the first to have a teen hero be something other than a sidekick.  These were Cloak and Dagger and an old adversary of Power Pack.  Both of these had a pretty high level of success, and really deserve unique posts dedicated to them that I simply do not have the knowledge base to provide. While Cloak and Dagger were definitely more on the street and suffering for their abandonment, Power Pack . . . ran into those in other kids.  Mostly a super powered gang called simply Trash. 

Yes, really. 

Trash is one of those groups that you look at and just cringe.  Agents of a criminal known as ‘The Garbage Man’, who eventually rebelled thanks to Power Pack’s interference with the Garbage Man’s drug ring.  They then became . . . supers for hire and battled Luke Cage once before being shoved into obscurity forever.  Because they were terrible stereotypes. 

I mean, LOOK AT THEM!

When I tell you their names are Brute, Blasting Cap, Crazy Legs, Razor Cut, and Airhead, you can instantly tell who is who and then feel dirty about just how terrible their names are!

Sure, it has two black guys. One is a mentally challenged strong man, the other is a basketball player with super long legs. 

The others are just as bad off: the Irish Kid has explosive powers (they first appeared in 1987 (as a reminder, this was during ‘The Troubles’), the Asian kid has “Karate Chop Action,” and the one girl . . . yeah. The One Girl. 

They later had a “Thor Kid” who I have yet to read up on, but he is apparently just a crazy person who looks like Thor.

Yeah.

What a way to start this off, eh? 

After that, Marvel tried with a spin off their popular New Mutants. 

This team had Sunspot, Siryn, Warlock, and a rogue dupe of Madrox as runaway kids on the street also becoming hitched to an adult (Vanisher) who wanted to use them for protection/thieving.  They were later joined by Devil Dinosaur & Moon Boy.  Because everyone loved Devil, but no one is quite sure how to use him so he gets re-introduced again and again. 

Thank goodness for Moon Girl. 

Anyway, it wasn’t just old characters brought into this.   First and foremost is Ariel, who became a reoccurring mutant supporting character for years afterwards.  Not so successful was Gomi.  Gomi had cybernetic enhancements granting him very blunt use of Telekinesis. He also had two cybernetically enhanced Lobsters named Bill and Don who could survive on land and had human level intelligence and enhanced strength.  For lobsters.  Don dies over the course of the series. He is not, sadly, eaten. 

Finally, there’s Chance.  Chance, I think, needs a revamp and return.  Chance had the power to enhance or nullify powers.  Mutant or not, she could enhance or negate them, but had little control over them.  Small, Korean, and trained in Boxing and Knife Fighting, chance was tough and wore it.  Mostly because Chance was battling a religious cult (“The Glorification Church”) that Chance’s family had been sucked into and that Chance had escaped from. 

Also, Chance . . . is trans. At least from a modern perspective, which is why I am referring to Chance by name each time.  Chance is referred to as “She” officially, but she dresses as a man, identifies as man, and does not like to be referred to or made to dress as a woman.

So yeah, Chance is a trans-man. 

Period. 

Which is why HE should come back.

So yeah, those were Marvel’s attempts.

DC didn’t really have a book of Runaway hero types.  The Nu52 version of the“Bloodpack” currently fit the bill somewhat, but . . . the 2016 Bloodlines series is just as 90s as the original one.  Survivors of an alien infestation that have super-powers + a timer until the infestation kills them and . . . only a few characters are visually interesting, but not that emotionally engaging in the long term.  It suffers the same sort of needlessly brutal troubles that plagues J.T. Krul’ Titan’s run as well.  I’m not against bad things happening, but this went into needlessly cruelty.

Or it pulls the Nu52 thing and darkly revamps characters that really hurt from that sort of thing (such as what happens with Anima – she can just not catch a break in the new millennium).

There’s also “Superboy and the Ravers” which is a really lame Party book.  It has some interesting characters, but they don’t really do anything.

Okay, one more hurt train before we get to the good stuff. Malibu Comics “Freex”.

Ah, Malibu comics. Trying to have a lived in superhero world by giving the reader almost no time to acclimate to it, and diving in head first. God it was hard to get through.  Not helped by the sheer amount of 90s in that company design wise. 

Anyway, Freex is one of their lesser titles.  How lesser is it?  Well, they had a lead in to the series in one of their anthology series (“Ultraverse Permier #9”) which introduced characters pretty well so they could show up in the main series (#15 was included in the back of that issue), and . . . Freex was ended at #18.  Yeah. Anyway, it’s the story of a group of kids who have super powers and run away from home because of them, since they seem to be ‘naturally developed’ “Ultras” and thus outcast. 

Is it any wonder Marvel bought the company? Anyway. 

The metaplot had them meeting up, bonding over having powers, and banding together against overly EXTREME threats (a group of bounty hunting dog people called “Bloodhounds” anyone?) that ran rampant in comics at the time, while they were pretty tame all things considered. 

In the initial run, we had: Sweet Face, who was a self-conscious girl with tentacles growing out of her arms and torso irregularly; Pressure, a former popular girl with a temper, and energized gas/generic blast-y powers that went along with her anger issues (and yes, the blasts were green); A J, who could turn himself into electricity to travel through “Cyber Space” and control machines (as well as animate them); Boom Boy, a slow-witted stone boy obsessed with Huck Finn; and Anything, who was elastic to the point of being liquid.  Later, Boom Boy left and his role as “Big Guy” taken by a kid calling himself Cayman, a big strong reptile man. 

When the series was canceled, and when Marvel bought them and rebooted the Ultraverse, he was the only character to ever show up again. 

With no explanation or reference otherwise. 

As they ran and fought these threats, it was learned they were tied to the character Contrary, who is best described as “What if Emma Frost was in a world without Professor X?”

Her codename comes from the fact that she does horrible things for the greater good. In this instance, she feels the world needs supers for reasons, so she travels through several infant wards as a nurse and infects them with “Wetware” (biotechnology) which will give them powers on a random spinner.  Giving her the nickname of “Wetware Mary”. 

So that’s the team’s origin.

They never learn this, though they do reject her offer to be a part of her Academy of Tomorrow New Elite before weird time travel stuff happens.  All in all, not the WORST thing from the 90s, but not particularly laudable either.

Now, we get to Milestone.

Milestone is an oddity in that it’s a 90s comic company which have stories and characters that are progressive even by today’s standards.  God Bless Dwayne McDuffie.

Anyway, like early Marvel, their runaway kids on a super team were a true gang, with most things that implies.  This was the Blood Syndicate. 

Survivors of the “Big Bang” gang war that gave many heroes and villains in Dakota their powers, the Blood Syndicate was a team that became a family and had a diverse and engaging set of characters to it.  Initially gathered together by Holocaust (yes, that was his name though he tried to change it to Pyre, everyone still referred to him as Holocaust because he was such a jerk) as a power grab, it eventually came to truly protect its neighborhood more than offer “Protection” and run drugs (whcih they didn’t really toch, with one exception). 

Oh, before I go on, unless I say otherwise, assume the character is black.

Holocaust had intense pyrokinetic powers as well as super strength and durability.  A nasty combination in a gang leader. 

Tech-9 took over pretty early on, but he and Holocaust clashed a lot before Holocaust went off on his own.  Tech-9 had the ability to always generate ammunition in any firearm he held.  Which is such an awesomely 90s power that I can’t get over it.  Unfortunately, his powers destabilized and he died, leading to his dog, Dogg (who was granted human level intelligence and vocal chords in the Big Bang) taking an advisory role to the next leader, Wise Son.

Wise Son is invulnerable with decent Super Strength, but mostly Invulnerable.  Like complete. A Black Muslim, he tries to think things through, but is not as level headed as he’d like to be.  A really solid leader, especially during the “Long Hot Summer” crossover event.

Boggieman/Boggie was the team’s only white guy.  He wanted to be a part of black culture despite being a suburban kid, and his new rat-like monster form let him join the Blood Syndicate.  He also could communicate with Rats, of whom many were intelligent as a person thanks to the Big Bang.

Bickhouse and Third Rail were definitely the strong people of the team, and an adorable couple. Brickhouse, well, was a giant woman made of bricks.  Strongly built too, but with amnesia regarding who she was (it took her almost a year to remember her name as “Marta”).  Third Rail is a Korean-American who could absorb energy and grow in size from it. They eventually quit the gang and opened a restaurant together and I can’t stop gushing over how cute they were together. I mean, how rare is it for there to be a “Beauty and the Beast” story where the woman is the “beast”?  I mean, she’s not that terrible looking, but she had the self-consciousness of that archetype.  They even had an issue dedicated to trying to get her a new haircut.

Flashback is an interesting character because she had the ability to snap time back 3 seconds at a time. This worked in two ways.  One, she used it to have her friends hit someone multiple times for repeated damage.  The other, and more common use, was to save her friends lives.  She saved the whole team several times and watching them die, get injured, or having that happen to herself, took its toll on her and she eventually developed a crack habit. 

Other members include: Fade, a black man who was ghost-like unless he willed himself solid; Masquerade, a transgender male who had shapeshifting powers but was sadly ultimately villainous; Oro, a former cop who had your flying blaster package, and being a former riot cop, clashed a bit with the gang regularly; and Aquamaria, a Latina who was made of Water and could control it. There were two other members who were just plain WEIRD.  

First was DMZ, who at first is thought to be a crashed alien trying to get home, but the truth is far more complex.  It’s not finished in the series, so I don’t’ feel bad about spoiling.  He’s not an alien, but he fell in love with one and when she died, he took up her armor and weapons and tries to do what she did – help people.  And he also tries to signal her people so he can leave the earth. 

Pretty weird, right. 

That’s got NOTHING on Kwai.

A reincarnating Chinese spirit channeling herself through a little Chinese girl who is experiencing time in a non-linear cycle of rebirths, and has various magical powers to combat her evil demon-fox sister.  It’s really complex (and the Monkey King shows up, which is always a plus), but not only does it entertain, it works within the cast of gang members somehow!  I think that’s a testament to how good Blood Syndicate was. 

So, yeah, those were the “Runaway Kid” comic superheroes before Runaways.  As far as I am aware, we haven’t really gotten any other runaway hero teams since them because they left such a big impact.

But I’d love to see a few of them come back (GIVE ME MORE MILESTONE, DAMNIT!), or even in the Marvel cases, meet up with the Runaways.  I’d be up for it! Even the Trash might be fun to use as a “Dark Mirror” sort of situation.

But  that just leaves one question: WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT?

A post for another time, maybe.