It Came From Darkmoor...

Moonlighting...

2011-09-12T17:23:00.002+01:00

Quick Plug Time...

I've been a little busy this past week (Hence no update on here) but I was very kindly asked to do a few mini reviews for the Forbidden Planet International Blog . Not for anything Marvel related, but actually for titles from the Distinguished Competition, and their New 52 relaunch.

Yes. I do actually read books outside of Marvel. I'm very sorry if this shocks some of you... :)

So, if you're in any way interested to hear my thoughts on the relaunches of Stormwatch, Action Comics or Justice League International then you could do a lot worse than hopping over to their site right now.

Thanks very much.

Mark

(Sword)

Panel Beatings: What's in a Name?

2011-09-04T15:52:00.001+01:00

From: Dark Guard #1 (Oct 1993)

Words: Dan Abnett
Art: Carlos Pacheco

A 'Commonwealth of Heroes' - From Fan Expo Canada...

2011-08-28T13:49:00.002+01:00

Yeah, not exactly a BIG story this one, but something which was spotted scrolling through Newsarama's coverage of Fan Expo Canada this weekend. More specifically the Fear Itself panel.

Anybody who follows me on Twitter will probably already know about my very mixed feelings over Fear Itself as an Event (And its vague claim to be a World Wide Event, almost exclusively localised to North America), but it's often the fallout period from Marvel's big summer Events which the company uses as a launchpad to try new things, and launch new properties. So, it's always worth a look in to see if an obscure character or two might be getting an outing.

It had already been announced at Fan Expo Canada (And frankly what more logical place) that the recent Fred van Lente, Greg Pak, and Dale Eaglesham Alpha Flight limited series was going to be made into an ongoing series. According to Newsarama, at the Fear Itself panel:

Alpha Flight’s Fred Van Lente appeared as well, to great applause from the Toronto audience, and said that the team will next have to deal with being a group of renegades of sorts. He also mentioned their involvement in the Commonwealth of Heroes — it seems Canada isn’t the only non-American team that Marvel wants to talk about. Expect Captain Britain, Taskmaster, and Wolverine to appear in the book's pages soon.

A Commonwealth of Heroes? Okay. Colour me interested. It's hardly a new Excalibur or MI13 series, but any use of Captain Britain in Marvel's greater shared universe is a good thing in my book. Just to remind people they're still out there...

And of course, Marvel acknowledging that the Avengers aren't the ONLY superhero team in their Universe is a bonus, also. :)

Exactly what this 'Commonwealth' will mean (Tongue in cheek or deadly serious) we'll have to wait and see. Keep an eye out for this one. I know I will.

UPDATE: Wait! There's more! Courtesy of Comic Book Resources, an interview with Pak and Van Lente provides us with the following:

What about heroes from other continents? Will they become involved? It seems like another major government-sponsored superteam, England's MI-13, would be especially interested by what's going on in Canada.

Van Lente: Captain Britain and MI-13 will play a role in this series. There's a little organization that's existed for years in the Marvel Universe, but no one has really paid that much attention to it. It's called the Commonwealth Heroes. We're going to be introducing them in future issues of "Alpha Flight." We'll see how Alpha Flight reacts to being a member of a "super" superteam formed from the superhero teams of all these different countries, and the insanity will get ratcheted up even further.

So yes, that would certainly suggest that we're talking about an actual organisation of Superheroes from across sections of the Globe, coordinating efforts, or at least sharing common information and goals. I like this idea. It'll be interesting to see where they go with it...

Panel Beatings: Killpower meets The Hulk...

2011-08-27T21:27:00.000+01:00

From: The Incredible Hulk (vol 1) #409 (September 1993)

Words: Peter David
Art: Gary Frank

Panel Beatings: Not a Wizened Monk, that's for sure...

2011-08-21T16:04:00.000+01:00

From: Battletide #1 (Dec 1992)

Words: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art: Geoff Senior

Captain Britain to be part of an Avengers team. No. Really, this time.

2011-08-19T20:48:00.000+01:00

Yes. I know that we've been here before. With Steve Rogers even offering Brian a place on the Avengers, and his accepting...

Yeah.

I know.

But this time the promise has come from none other than Tom Brevoort. I promise I'm not stalking Tom (No. Genuinely not. Honest). But following on from questions asked on Mr Brevoort's Formspring last week, others have been a bit more direct in trying to pin down info on where we'll be seeing Captain Britain next.

Well... that may be a one word answer. But potentially a rather good one word answer. With Brian's Avengers status having been left hanging for so long it seems that we might finally be getting an answer. Which Avengers title, and under what circumstances? Well, we'll have to wait and see.

I've long since protested that Captain Britain is a sound choice for Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Near limitless strength, an ability to see magical hexes as physical manipulatable objects, and a practical scientific knowledge of interdimensional travel and how to achieve it. And of course he makes any such Avengers team a bit more International. Which can only be a good thing.

Not sure when "SOON" will be, obviously. But I will say it's great to see quite so many people asking Mr Brevoort about Brian. Last year that would probably have just been me. :)

Marvel's a bit clogged up news wise right now, with Fear Itself, its aftermath, the new X-Men line-ups. But I'm sure we'll find out where Brian fits sooner or later.

I'll keep 'em peeled...

Panel Beatings: Show Yourself!

2011-08-16T20:08:00.005+01:00

From: Originally printed in The Daredevils #1 (January 1983). This coloured version from X-Men Archives: Captain Britain #2 (August 1995)

Words: Alan Moore
Art: Alan Davis

We WILL be seeing Captain Britain again shortly, and Clan Destine next year.

2011-08-12T23:49:00.000+01:00

It's been quite a while since we last saw Captain Britain in current continuity. I mean Steve Rogers even offered him membership of The Avengers last year, but nothing really came of that.

We have been very lucky recently that Rob Williams has been incorporating him in his mini event The Iron Age, in which there is an excellent story revisiting Cap during the famous Jaspers Warp storyline by Alan Moore and Alan Davis (And a little bit from Dave Thorpe too). But that has been a retro appearance. I think many of us had been worrying that both he and MI13 had been forgotten.

Well, luckily that seems to be changing...

The following question recently was asked and answered on Tom Brevoort's Formspring account:

Well, that sounds promising. Any appearance would be great after all this time. However, I think a few people were a little concerned that Mr Brevoort's comment may be in reference to The Iron Age, which obviously is still in progress. So, another poster queried that recently:

So, there you have it. And if Tom Brevoort is willing to go on the record to say something really IS going to happen this time, it's going to happen.

The only questions are how, when and where. So keep an eye out for that.

There's also a bit of an update this week on a project I've actually been following 2008. Some longer standing reader will remember that a few years back Alan Davis announced that while Marvel would not be continuing with his ClanDestine series in a traditional form he was going to continue the story of the Destine family in the form of a series of Annuals. Well, after that last post I put up on this it all went a bit quiet again. Alan Davis was being given other projects at Marvel, and it seemed those annuals had to go on the back burner for a while.

Until now.

In this week's Comic Book Resources column with new Marvel Editor in Chief, Axel Alonso, the following little titbit pops up:

Finally, Colduo is looking for some news on a favorite Marvel creator. "I have just picked up the Killraven mini series that Alan Davis did a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it, great story. It reminded me of how much I enjoy his work and the fantastic talent he is. Are there any plans for Alan to have him write and draw another mini-series? Anything would be great especially anything with Captain Britain or Clandestine?"

Alonso: I'll turn this one over to the dulcet tones of Tom Brevoort. I've gotta get my hair done.

Tom Brevoort: It's a good time to be an Alan Davis fan, Colduo! Not only has Alan illustrated "X-Men: Schism" #4, the climactic issue of that mutant-dividing series, not only will he be joining Ed Brubaker for a storyline in "Captain America" in a few short months, but Alan has also written and illustrated a trio of connected Annuals that will be hitting the stands in January and February! They feature, respectively, the FF, Daredevil and Wolverine, and while each one can be read individually, they also connect to one another to form a larger mosaic. And Alan's ClanDestine characters play a major role in all three stories, which together serve to reveal one of the most long-wondered secrets in the Clan's recorded history: what became of Vincent?

That final snippet, once again, coming from Tom Brevoort. So January 2012 is the time. And you heard it, we're finally going to find out what happened with Vincent. I honestly cannot wait. It's been a long time coming.

From the X-Men Panel Liveblog at San Diego Comic Con...

2011-07-22T21:32:00.002+01:00

This...

So there you go. From Rick Remender himself. Uncanny X-Force will be going to Otherworld.

Needless to say I'll be keeping tabs on that....

Panel Beatings: Revenge Doesn't Pay The Bills...

2011-07-20T19:42:00.012+01:00

From: What If...? Vol 2 #54 (What If... Death's Head I had lived?)

Words: Simon Furman
Art: Geoff Senior

So it IS Ultimate Jamie Braddock.

2011-07-13T07:30:00.001+01:00

Further to the post I put up a couple of weeks back the nice people at Marvel had an Ultimate Universe Q and A session via their Twitter account (@Marvel) with Ultimate Line Editor Mark Paniccia.

Well, what better opportunity to test my pet theory that it is in fact JAMIE Braddock dressed up in the Captain Britain costume in that preview art from Jonathan Hickman's new Ultimates series. It certainly looked a fair bit like him. And as it happens...

A simple (and purely) one word answer, but there you have it!

Phew. Thought I was going to have another Secret Avengers fiasco on my hands for a moment there... :)

So, yes, we will get to see an Ultimate Universe debut for Brian's older brither. Great news.

In other vaguely British character news (Vaguely, because technically she was born on American soil) the following image has been popping up online over the past couple of days:

That would be Elsa Bloodstone, heading up a new Legion of Monsters series, spinning out I'm told (Because shamefully I did not pick it up) of last year's 'Franken-Castle' arc of The Punisher, by Rick Remender. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that Remender himself is writing it (Loving his Uncanny X-Force, at the moment) but I'll be keeping an eye out for this one.

A NEW 'Ultimate' Captain Britain?

2011-06-27T21:16:00.001+01:00

So there's this new artwork going around online tonight for the upcoming relaunch of The Ultimates (Marvel's Ultimate Universe version of The Avengers) which has got me a little interested as to what it might be leading to...

The new creative team for Ultimates is writer Jonathan Hickman (The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Fantastic Four) and artist Esad Ribic (Loki, X-Force, Silver Surfer Requiem). Which is exiting enough. I've enjoyed both their work, and Hickman's use of the Ultimate Universe's Professor James Braddock and Captain Britain in his Ultimate Thor series was definitely appreciated. It did actually leave me wondering whether Ultimate Brian Braddock might not figure in his run, having recently been revealed to have survived being part of the colossal bodycount of heroes from Jeph Loeb's Ultimatum event a couple of years back.

But then, I saw this...

Now that clearly IS a Captain Britain uniform. But it certainly doesn't appear to be Brian Braddock in it.

Is it just me, or could that actually be Brian's older brother Jamie in the threads?

And wouldn't THAT be something?

For those who aren't aware Jamie Braddock was the older brother of Captain Britain and the X-Men's Psylocke, who didn't originally show any evidence of having powers. He was race car driver, and international playboy.

Unfortunately, Jamie got in with the wrong kind of crowds. The money corrupted him, and he ended up involved with some very unsavoury characters, even being involved with slave trade by the end.

Brian left Jamie to be punished by Doctor Crocodile, during Jamie Delano's run writing Captain Britain. A tenure which resulted in Jamie being left completely detached from reality by the next time we saw him. These days he has very much became the black sheep of the family, who turns up every once in awhile to do something truly bonkers with his reality warping powers. He even ended up killing Alysande Stuart during Alan Davis' Excalibur run, when he was manipulated by Sat-yr-9.

Bad times.

But of course, in the Ultimate Universe none of that ever happened...

In the Ultimate Universe Sir James Braddock makes superheroes for use by National Governments. His son Brian has been Captain Britain via these very means.

But who is to say he was the ONLY son of Sir James to be enlisted in his superhuman projects? If Jamie never went down that darker path who knows what he could have achieved? And isn't the Ultimate Universe the perfect place to explore exactly THESE kind of ideas?

I know there's no guarantee, but I'm excited. I need to know more. :)

Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates #1 is out in August.

Thoughts on Disney calling time on Panini's UK originated Marvel material.

2011-05-19T16:58:00.002+01:00

Well, now that Blogger appears to be back up and running properly again, and I've got a chance to put this up...

I signed off the last Blog Post I put out by mentioning the rather excellent Death's Head and Hulk story by Simon Furman and Simon Williams, from the UK newsagent comic Marvel Heroes. I hope you all went and grabbed yourself a copy. Firstly because it as really good. But secondly, rather disappointingly, because it may well be one of your last opportunities to enjoy such a story for quite some time.

Last week Bleeding Cool put up the bad news, that Disney (Who are Marvel Comics' Parent Company, these days) had decided to call time on allowing Panini to produce new strips featuring Marvel characters for their younger reader focussed Sensational Spider-man and Marvel Heroes comics. It is something which I can't say comes as an absolute surprise. Last year I blogged about the announcement that Disney were to take over the full handling of Marvel's International licensing and what that might mean for the future of Panini's UK market Marvel books. Nevertheless, it is rather disappointing news.

When Marvel UK was wound up and broken down Panini acquired many of its former parts. In particular the Doctor Who Magazine and reprint rights for Marvel's American titles in the UK. Since the mid 90s they have been reprinting Marvel books in monthly 'Collectors Editions' comprising three standard US issues for the price of roughly one US book, along with fortnightly licensed titles from the Ultimate Comics line and in more recent years new material in the form of Sensational Spider-man and Marvel Heroes. Sensational Spider-man was the first to do that. It was originally a tie-in to the 90s Fox TV cartoon of Spider-man (Remember that?). But when they ran out of material attached to that series the book continued, with new strips originated by artists and writers here in the UK. The first since the closure of Marvel UK.

And you know what? They've actually been pretty darn good too - bringing in characters such as Captain Britain, the Black Knight, Union Jack and Spitfire, even Death's Head into these new stories - introducing younger readers to characters beyond the rosters of The Avengers or X-Men for the first time. And while these are non-canon stories, aimed at a younger readership, the art is always strong and well coloured and the stories themselves are pitched spot on for their intended audience.

In short, Panini have been doing a good solid job.

And that's why the news that this arrangement has come to an end is such disappointing news.

Now I can see why Disney might have decided to make this move. At least on paper. They own Marvel Comics - including all its properties and characters - and paid a lot of money to acquire that.

They don't own Panini. In fact over in mainland Europe Disney and Panini are even direct publishing competitors.

Disney's point of view is probably that they are unhappy to have a competitor producing new comics featuring characters owned by Disney.

And on paper, that's understandable.

But not the whole picture.

Because here in the UK at least, that's not really true.

Here in the UK Panini are not the competition.

They are pretty much the totality of Marvel Comics' company's presence in the magazine racks of Newsagents and Supermarkets across the UK. They're also the company's presence in a lot of bookstores, where Panini's version of many Marvel trade paperback collections are on the shelves ahead of their US published counterpart, and often include much better introductions, back matter and the like.

In the UK Panini effectively ARE Marvel Comics. It's the Marvel name on the covers of their comics, and the Marvel name on the spines of their paperback collections.

While Disney might see this as asserting themselves over a competitor, the UK comics market and that of the larger countries in mainland Europe are very different. Here in Britain the Newsagent still remains the primary outlet for comics. US market books are only sold in specialist Comic Book and Collectibles stores, of which there are still not that many in the UK and Ireland. Through Panini, Disney get the Marvel name on Newsagents shelves. Right now, without them they don't.

If Marvel Heroes and Sensational Spider-man were to disappear from UK shelves, as a result of this decision, it wouldn't be a blow dealt to the competition by Disney. It would be much more like cutting off their nose to spite their face. Because in reality all that it would actually achieve is the removal of two Marvel titles from the racks - reduction of coverage for Marvel Comics in the UK's primary sales outlets.

Does that really do them any favours?

I actually wouldn't have thought so.

Now I know that I come from a very different age of comics (Arguably a golden age in some respects) when Marvel owned a UK office, and new content was not only allowed to be originated here but also allowed to intermingle with licensed properties too. I know that was a bit of an ideal age. I know that Panini are not Marvel UK.

But this news does sadden me to hear, nonetheless. It irritates the heck out of me, if I'm honest.

Firstly, because that Disney's decision to stop Panini producing new material of this kind means that another avenue for British comic creators to get regular paid work has been closed. And there really aren't many of those left in the UK comics industry. Aside from 2000 AD and CLiNT it's almost exclusively a US reprint market these days. That's how things have ended up, sadly. And while the borders for working in American comics have come down a lot in the past 20 years, it's another blow for comics in this Country.

But secondly it once again raises an issue which I've been wondering about quite a bit over the past couple of years. It gets brought up again and again at UK cons - where are the next generation of comics readers? I'm a 31 tear old male. Marvel's current output is very much aimed at my kind of demographic, an audience which can embrace adult themes and content. But in terms of all-ages material, Marvel comics really has stopped publishing that.

You know, one of my favourite books of the past year was an all-ages friendly Marvel Book. That was Thor: The Mighty Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee. It wasn't Marvel cannon, but it was well-written, had great art, and actually got me interested in Thor - a character I'd mostly written off in mainstream comics, because of his cod use of Ye Olde Englishe, and the frankly poor grasp of mythology which many writers using him seemed to have.

I got into reading that title through an issue in which Thor and The Warriors Three ended up going on a Pub Crawl, getting hopelessly lost, and barging into Captain Britain. Fighting/Bonding ensued. I loved that issue. And it got me back issue hunting.

This book got the right balance. Suitable for all ages, but not patronising or too derivative to put off older readers. It really was a back to basics approach to the character, which fitted in well with the Movie which is now in cinemas. And it gained some pretty solid critical acclaim, too.

So what happened to it?

Marvel cancelled it.

Because sales were not high enough. Sales gauged, one might argue, at estimations for a top selling adult book.

But here again is the problem I have with Marvel. Since the 1990s they have moved further and further away from producing books which are younger reader appropriate, let alone friendly. There have been some attempts at producing titles for that kind of age range, but more often than not these have primarily been adaptations of say the Fox TV cartoons of X-Men or Spider-man. They've never really been very good, or had much scope.

In a title like Thor: The Mighty Avenger the balance was so right. But Marvel weren't willing to back that. Because they don;t seem to see younger readers as an important area into which they want to expand their business. It seems for that they would rather put cartoons on the Disney Channel, and hope that kids who watch those move on to reading actual Marvel comics when they're older.

I personally think tat this approach is more than a little naive. Especially given that here in the UK the number of homes which even have access to Satellite TV (The means by which you can access the Disney Channel in the Britain and Ireland) is pretty small.

Comics and TV are two very different mediums. Expecting kids to become long-term regular comics readers automatically in their mid-teens (Which is pretty much the earliest age at which the bulk of Marvel's current output becomes suitable), when they have read no comics earlier in their life, is a bit of big ask.

Especially given the high cost of US comics.

To me it's just not realistic.

The success which Panini has had with it's own UK generated Marvel strips is proof, in my opinion, that there clearly is a market for Marvel comics for younger readers here. A market which Marvel US clearly cannot cater towards. They just don't make enough books for that target audience that could even be reprinted in their place.

I could understand if Disney's decision was motivated by some new interest in producing new all ages material themselves, and syndicating it across other Countries. But I see no evidence of this. It just seems more like stamping their authority down. In the meantime a good run of material comes to an end, and a gap on the shelves is created.

And as Rich Johnston points out in that Bleeding Cool article if Titan have any sense they'll put out an all-ages DC superhero title or two of their own, to fill that gap.

Most disappointing. Through Disney this definitely is Marvel's loss.

Captain Britain to enter The Iron Age

2011-03-22T22:37:00.000Z

Just a quick one this. Thanks very much for all the well-wishing. I'm out of Hospital and mending at home, but I couldn't let this weekend go by without posting this up.

Late last week, as some of Marvel's June solicits started to trickle out into the public domain, a few people spotted the following publication title amongst the list:

"IRON AGE #1 (OF 3) CAPTAIN BRITAIN JUSKO VAR"

Captain Britain Variant? Oh, yes. But why? Well, at the time I had no clue what Iron Age even was. But this past weekend C2E2, the convention in Chicago, happened. And this image suddenly turned up:

Was this the Captain Britain variant? Well, no. That was for The Iron Age #1. This is a one-shot tie-in for this mini Event.

Iron Age is a mini-series starting in June written by Rob Williams and pencilled by Rebekah Isaacs. Some of you will know Rob from his work on 2000 AD, or from Cla$$war.

Or you may remember him from the Deadpool Team-Up issue featuring Captain Britain, last year.

Mr Williams describes the concept behind the story thusly:

“The initial thought on The Iron Age was one of those 'eureka' moments,” reports Williams. “I'm a huge NFL fan and was reading a magazine article on the success of the Throwbacks weekends, where teams wear their old uniforms. And then I figured, why don't we do that with a one-off super team? Put some of our favorite heroes from today together in their old outfits. Any old time Marvel fan would love to see Luke Cage in his headband, Johnny Storm in his red FF outfit [and] Captain Britain in his classic [Alan] Moore/[Alan] Davis 80’s uniform all fighting side-by-side. From there it was just working out the logistics of how we could pull this off and tell an emotionally engaging story, one that worked as a thrilling adventure and that had something to say about the longevity of these characters and why we love them so much. A story that occurs in today's Marvel Universe and actually matters to the main characters, rather than being a What If? type of deal."

...

“We needed someone with iconic moments we could go back and visit,” he explains. “Also, Stark's technical knowledge means that, if anyone could put one of Doctor Doom's time machine back together, he could. It'd be too easy for Reed Richards, but Stark? There'd be a challenge to his ego there. A time machine should be beyond him. But is it? Also, his arrogance meant that he has a long way to fall. We're really putting Tony Stark through the mill in Iron Age. Kicking him where it hurts and trying to give him one of his greatest challenges.

“Stark's mission? When a long forgotten figure from his past uses one of Doom's time machines to bring back Dark Phoenix, Tony watches in horror as the Marvel Earth is completely destroyed. This isn't a What If?; everyone on the Marvel Earth dies and Stark finds himself trapped in the past. From there he has to recreate one of Doom's machines and travel back to save the day. But he's going to need the help of some surprising Marvel figures to pull this off. And they'll meet some interesting old villains along the way, too.”

Now is it just me, or does anybody else think that this all sounds like a really quite clever and pretty bloody good idea? It's a three issue series, featuring a superteam of characters plucked from some of their strongest and most interesting points in their history. Read the interview in full over at Marvel.com

Oh, and that variant cover? Not sure. But this image by Ben Oliver has been slipped into all the press for the book so far....

And good GOD it is Awesome! :)

The two officially solicited titles so far are described as follows:

THE IRON AGE: ALPHA #1
Written by ROB WILLIAMS
Penciled by REBEKAH ISAACS
Cover by ARIEL OLIVETTI
Variant Cover by ED McGUINNESS
The one true Dark Phoenix returns to the Marvel U with a vengeance! As the earth is destroyed, Iron Man is swept into the time-stream where the only chance for survival is to gather the greatest heroes from across the
eras and change the course of history! The Avengers, Fantastic Four, the X-Men and more will join Iron Man for this trip through all the ages of Marvel! Rising stars Rob Williams (DARK WOLVERINE) and Rebekah Issacs (MS. MARVEL) team up for the century-spanning epic that takes you through the Marvel Universe’s greatest moments…and maybe to its last!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

THE IRON AGE #1
Written by CHRISTOS GAGE & ROB WILLIAMS
Pencils by LEE WEEKS & BEN OLIVER
Avengers Cover by LEE WEEKS
Captain Britain Cover by JOE JUSKO
Trapped in the past, Iron Man races the clock to save the future from annihilation. But his past self is in a drunken stupor, and Tony’s fellow Avengers, dismiss his story as an alcoholic delusion. The keys to saving Tony’s future? Hank Pym…exiled Avenger and one of the Avengers’ greatest enemies: Ultron! Christos Gage (AVENGERS ACADEMY) teams with comics legends LEE WEEKS and TOM PALMER – inker of more issues of Avengers than anyone else – to bring you an all-out epic in the mighty Marvel manner! THEN! Tony’s next stop is Captain Britain’s London, a totalitarian state bent on a new, ‘cleaner’ future. Rob Williams teams with Ben Oliver (Ms. Marvel) as Iron Man and Captain Britain fight for freedom!
48 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

So keep an eye out for those in a couple of months...

In other news, remember that Captain Britain Hardcover solicited for May? Well, guess what got solicited for June?

CAPTAIN BRITAIN VOL. 2:
SIEGE OF CAMELOT HC
Written by LARRY LIEBER,
JIM LAWRENCE & STEVE PARKHOUSE
Penciled by RON WILSON,
PABLO MARCOS, JOHN STOKES
& PAUL NEARY
Cover by HERB TRIMPE
The adventures of Marvel U.K.’s first all-original super hero continue! Captain Britain thought he had it rough facing foes like the alien Star-Creature, the shape-shifting Black Baron, the mad Doctor Claw and the vicious Slaymaster. But that’s nothing compared to what awaits him when travels to America and teams up with Spider-Man to battle the villainous Arcade, and then battles side-by-side with the Black Knight as they plunge into the heart of Otherworld — where they encounter the mystical Merlyn, the evil Modred and the ancient Nethergods…and must resurrect King Arthur himself! Collecting SUPER SPIDER-MAN AND CAPTAIN BRITAIN #233-247; MARVEL TEAM-UP (1972) #65-66; and material from HULK COMIC #1 and #3-46, and INCREDIBLE HULK WEEKLY #47-55 and #57-63.
376 PGS./Rated A …$39.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5753-3
Trim size: oversized

So... as I see it, that's all the material Panini have been printing here in the UK, reproduced oversized in two hardback volumes for the US market. And released to coincide with Captain Britain's appearances in The Iron Age maybe? Either way, while I have them in paperback, I shall be buying the hardcovers too.

And one final bit before I disappear back to a comfy chair with some painkillers, remember Simon Williams' Death's Head vs Hulk strip, which I mentioned a while back?

Well, this week #33 of Marvel Heroes comes out in newsagents across the UK. And it's promises something a little bit special. A Hulk story written by Transformers legend Simon Furman and pencilled by Simon Williams.

And it only bloody features Death's Head!

Click for a larger view.

So, yes. This one comes out on Thursday (March 24th). While I was in hospital Simon did an interview with iFanboy about the upcoming issue. You could do a lot worse than check that out.

Well and go out and buy a copy, obviously! ;)

That's going to have to be it, for now.

Speak soon

Mark

Radio Silence on the Site for a while.

2011-02-28T16:53:00.000Z

I've been kind of trying to put this one off for a few days. At least until I knew a little bit more of what was going to happen over the coming weeks. But with people now asking which Conventions I'll be attending this year, I figured this was the time to explain why I was being a little hesitant in reply.

You've probably noticed that the updates on It Came From Darkmoor... have become a lot more infrequent of late. The truth is that I've not been very well, for a while. And while I've still been Tweeting over on my Twitter feed, I've not been able to keep up with the Blog quite so easily.

Back at the start of January I started down a process of GP visits, Tests and Hospital visits to determine what was wrong with me. Initially it had been thought that I was having liver problems, but tests came back clear. Then it was suspected that it might be a problem with my gallbladder, most likely gallstones.

Unfortunately, after an ultrasound scan was performed it became clear very quickly that the root of the problem was a bit more serious than that.

The Doctors discovered that the root of my abdomen and back pain over the last while was actually pressure being applied by the presence of a tumour. A quite large tumour which had grown out slowly from one of my kidneys. Probably over a number of years. And while the Doctors won't know for certain until they remove it, and do proper tests, given the size of it (We're talking that of a junior rugby ball) I have been told that at this point it would be unrealistic to hope that it is not Cancer.

It's all come as a bit of a shock. To all of us. But the positive news is that, as far as the scans can tell, the tumour hasn't spread. It's just continued to grow larger in the same place. And that means that, while there are no 100% guarantees, it should be relatively easily removed by surgery and the likelihood of future complications should be relatively small.

For that I am grateful.

I am losing a kidney, granted. But in reality they tell me that I've been functioning with only one of those for a quite a long time, anyway. It's a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

Obviously this is going to take me out of action for a while. I'll be heading into Hospital for surgery on Wednesday, and will be staying in for a week. Afterwards I'll be out of action for a couple of months, recuperating. Needless to say I won't be online for most of that time, and the Blog won't be getting updated. These things happen. My health has to be my only priority for a while. But once I'm back up and around it will continue. This site is a real labour of love for me, and I'm not going to quit with it. :)

It's going to be a tricky few weeks. My wonderfully understanding other half will be putting up occasional updates about my progress, via Twitter, in the coming weeks. And I'm sure she would appreciate the support herself, also. You can follow her, over there, as @need_a_username . Click the link to find her page.

In the meantime I appreciate your patience, and you'll have to spread the good word about Marvel UK on your own for a little while. But I'm sure that will all go just fine. :)

All my best.

Mark Roberts

A bumper Captain Britain round-up

2011-02-28T15:38:00.000Z

Hey, everybody.

Not been around a lot recently, but I'll be posting about that later.

In the meantime, during my absence, there have been a few Captain Britain based news tidbits which I've not had a chance to post up. So let me begin...

Last month was the annual Toy Fair at London Olympia. This is an annual show, where all the larger toy manufacturers get to show off their ranges for the coming year. A lot going on this year, including the first glimpses of things like Cartoon Network's remake of Thundercats (If you haven't seen the trailer for that yet, you should probably make friends with Google after reading this article), but much of the interest was focused on a year where Marvel have two Movies coming out (Thor and Captain America) and the inevitable range of Action Figures to support them.

Why should that interest us, you may ask? Well, no Marvel movie figure line tends to ever stick to purely to characters from the movie. They get a little creative... So, for example, a figure for Captain America successor USAgent turns up in this range.

Oh, and somebody else quite familiar, too...

Yes. That is Captain Britain. A slight turn up for the books, I know.

Now granted he is dressed in the far from popular New Excalibur costume. And he does appear to have an arm mounted rocket launcher.

Yes. That's quite a dumbfounding decision.

But fear not. Because firstly there's all sorts of odd weapons in this range. One Captain America variant appears to have a shield with mounted Razor Blades...

And secondly, that's the publicity shot. The figure on display was actually holding a sword. A much better match, I'm sure you'll agree. Here's a couple of images from the display case:

Images come courtesy of the excellent people at Toyark.com

But much to my eternal surprise this was not the only Captain Britain toy announcement at the show. As many of you may be aware, of recent times there have been a few Hasbro Marvel Twin-Packs put out. Two figures, specific pairings, complete with a reprint comic of their appearance together. And much to my amazement alongside a Luke Cage and Iron Fist double pack the following was also announced:

Classic Marvel Team-Up Spider-man and Captain Britain. How excellent is that? As far as I am aware this the first action figure they've made in the original Captain Britain costume, and much as though many consider this storyline to be around the peak of 70s Marvel Team-Up I never thought for even five minutes that we'd get it acknowledged in action figure form. So cheers, Hasbro! Good call.

One last piece of action figure news which I spotted on Twitter recently. Not sure how long these have been about, but there is apparently a set of four 'Classic Excalibur' Mini-Mates out there:

So, that's Cap, Meggan, Nightcrawler and The Juggernaut? Hmmm. Not so sure about the 'Classic' tag. I mean, granted, Juggernaut was an enemy the other 3 faced in the first few issues of Excalibur. But it wasn't until 'NEW' Excalibur that Cain was a member of the team itself. Still, while the other figures have appeared before, I'm told the Meggan figure is new and exclusive to this set. Worth a punt? Just maybe.

Now another interesting Item turned up recently in Marvel's May solicits. Many of you are by now aware that Panini have been collecting the early Captain Britain stories in trade collections. They're actually up to reprinting the Alan Moore material, now. Before the Captain Britain Omnibus came out we had been wondering if some of that would be included. But it was not to be. Which was a little frustrating for some, Stateside. Those early Claremont, Trimpe and Friedrich stories had still not ever been published for readers in the States and Canada.

Well, until now:

CAPTAIN BRITAIN VOL. 1: BIRTH OF A LEGEND HC

Written by CHRIS CLAREMONT, GARY GRIEDRICH, LARRY LIEBER, BOB BUDIANSKY, LEN WEIN & JIM LAWRENCE

Penciled by HERB TRIMPE, JOHN BUSCEMA, RON WILSON & BOB BUDIANSKY

Marvel U.K.’s first original super hero made his explosive debut in 1976. Now, on his 35th anniversary, Captain Britain’s earliest adventures are collected in the United States for the first time! Witness the legend’s beginning as British student Brian Braddock makes a fateful choice between might and right, and becomes Merlin’s champion! Experience Captain Britain’s first battles as he faces fearsome foes like the Reaver, Hurricane, Dr. Synne, the Mastermind computer, Lord Hawk, Nykonn and the Manipulator. And thrill to his dynamic team-up with U.S. counterpart Captain America as they join forces to battle the Red Skull! Plus: the debut of Brian’s sister, Betsy Braddock — better known today as the X-Men’s Psylocke! Never before seen on our shores, these early tales of Marvel U.K.’s original hero are classic British action, presented in the Mighty Marvel Manner! Collecting CAPTAIN BRITAIN (1976) #1-39 and SUPER SPIDER-MAN AND CAPTAIN BRITAIN #231-232.

376 PGS./Rated A …$39.99

ISBN: 978-0-7851-5728-1

Trim size: oversized

No fanfare. No agenda that we know of (Although, if there is about to be a revival you know that I won't complain). But a nice big, oversized (Well, for US comics anyway), hardcover volume, which at least suggests that Marvel intend to reprint more volumes. So, you never know. America may yet get those gaps filled in! Good call, Marvel. I may have the Panini volumes on my shelf, but I will certainly be picking this up.

Brian will also be turning up in current continuity next month, alongside sister Psylocke, in Uncanny X-Force #6, by Rick Remender and Esad Ribic.

There's an unworded preview at Comic Book Resources , which doesn't really give us any context for the scene. But in recent interviews Remender has said that he will at least be acknowledging Psylocke's Otherworld roots in upcoming issues, so if you're not already picking this one up then it might be worth doing so. I've been enjoying the book a lot (Well, when it actually turns up on the shelves at my local FP. Always seems to be sold out by the time I get there.) so far. I can definitely recommend it. Do not be put off by 'X-Force' in the title.

And one final bit of Captain Britain news. Now I spotted this one late last year, on Dez Skinn's own website, but didn't get a chance to Blog it. In the past 48 hours Bleeding Cool have linked to it, and I received an email from It Came From Darkmoor reader Daniel Abel about this, too.

Basically, before taking the concept over to Marvel UK, there was a Captain Britain being worked upon at IPC. A very different character, granted, but sharing a common name.

The series was intended to rival Marvel UK's weekly Superhero comics, by IPC creating a Superhero of their own. It never saw print, but there's quite a fair bit of info over on Dez' own site under the Projects tab, which has remained unseen outside of those involved for the better part of four decades.

Really, go and check it out.

And that's it for now. I'm going to be offline for a while. But I shall post about that seperately.

The Death's Head which Almost Was - an interview with David Leach.

2010-11-28T19:34:00.000Z

The lot of a Marvel UK fan is not an easy one. It’s been over 15 years since we could proudly say that we had our own imprint of comics for the American market, our own home-grown creators doing UK-originated comics work and a reliable monthly output of material which we could be proud of. It was a great time for British comics (to work in and to read) which sadly came to a rather abrupt ending, as Marvel US decided to close the offices down as part of cost-cutting exercises, in those dark days of the 1990s comics industry crash.

But Marvel UK’s rather sudden departure from the world of comics was not clean one. I’ve spoken before on this Blog about projects such as Wild Angels, Europa, and Loose Cannons, which eventually did find outlets to be read, online or through Marvel’s publishing arms in other Countries. A good number of other projects sadly did not see the light of day, and for the hardcore Marvel UK faithful it’s glimpses into those ‘could have been’ projects which become like the holy grail of comics:

Finally getting to know what should have happened next.

Back in 2005, around the time of Marvel’s launch of the often fan-derided Death’s Head 3.0, I started hearing a rumour of another Death’s Head series, from the 1990s, which had been green lit but never quite made it into production at Marvel UK. A rumour that it was intended to be part of another multi-book relaunch for the Marvel UK brand, planned shortly before that axe finally fell. But sadly, back then, I could not find anybody to quantify that claim. And so I had kind of written it off as another great comic book urban legend, which was perhaps a little bit too good to be true.

That was, at least, until a couple of months ago when, quite out of the blue, I received an email from David Leach. For those of you unaware David was working for Marvel UK right up until those dark end days, and very kindly agreed to do an interview with me, about his time there and a couple of projects which I think that regular readers will be most interested to hear about.

So, without further ado, here it is:

Mark Roberts: Well David, firstly thank you for agreeing to do this interview, and welcome to the Blog. Can we begin by my asking you just to remind longer term readers of what projects you worked on at Marvel UK?

David Leach: I started off as an assistant editor working on Knights of Pendragon, Death’s Head, Incomplete Death’s Head, Warheads, and G-Force. To those got added: Death Metal, Death cubed, Death Wreck, Dark Guard and any of the other Death’s Head related spin offs. Incidentally, a fellow editor and I once found a list of proposed character names, all of which started had the word ‘Death’ as a prefix.

During this time I was still doing colouring jobs on Warheads, the fill-in strip for Incomplete Death’s Head, Gun-Runner and assorted covers. As a full editor I moved over to editing Marvel UK’s humour related titles starting with reprint titles Beavis and Butt-head and Ren & Stimpy, and then onto the fully originated Glam Metal Detectives special and the fortnightly Rugrats comic, which I ended up writing for too.

I was also the writer and editor of the Spider-Man and Ren & Stimpy newspaper strips.

MR: You mentioned in one of our earlier conversations that you had been an assistant editor on Liam Sharp's Death's Head Gold. That series, unfortunately, was never to be completed. Can you recall any of where that book was heading after its initial issue?

DL: Afraid not. My job on that consisted of transcribing Liam’s hand written dialogue script into a Quark document, and then drawing out the subsequent balloon placements. Liam hand wrote the whole thing in pencil in an old A4 page-a-day diary, and his scrawl wasn’t the easiest thing to decipher or read. The script was filled with crossings out and notes.

All I remember is that Liam had a vast galactic vision for DH!

MR: And of course it’s your connection with Death's Head brings us forward to your own chance to write the character – ‘Death's Head Quorum’. Am I right in thinking this was a series intended to follow on from where DH Gold had left off?

DL: No, not at all. Paul Neary, Marvel UK’s Editor in Chief, wanted to do a brand new Death’s Head title, with no connection to the cancelled Marvel UK series written by Dan Abnett or to DH Gold. It was to be a completely new start, a reboot, the only connection to the past was that it featured Death’s Head II. The ‘Death’s Head Quorum’ title was my suggestion.

MR: Did you have an artist lined up for the series?

DL: Not me, but Paul was very keen on Simon Coleby. Who was subsequently primed and ready to go.

MR: And what did you have planned for the series? Where were you going to take DH, and what was the story you wanted to tell?

DL: It started as a jokey comment. Paul told me that Marvel UK was going to relaunch Death’s Head II, and I said why bother, the character wasn’t working any more and had become boring. I joked that we should completely overhaul him, reduce his power, lose the time travel aspect and set it in present day England.

To my surprise, Paul liked the idea and asked me to work it up as a pitch. I felt that I shouldn’t try and ape the American books but try instead to make the book quintessentially British, injecting aspects of British culture into it as well as adding a strong vein of humour.

In a nutshell, the 4 book mini series started with DHII being beaten to within an inch of his life by a being known as the Time Keeper. He was a new character, who lived in a tower at the edge of time, called the Watch Tower, and monitored the time line for wear and tear which he then repaired. Over the eons he became bored with his job and in recent centuries had started organising illicit hunting tournaments using great warriors and fighters snatched from history as prey for the rich hunters here on Earth.

Anyway, the Time Keeper rips out DH’s time disc, destroys his weapon arm so that it could only morph into a knife mode, punctures his power source, dramatically reducing his power source and finally ruptures his memory storage capacities which causes all but 5 of DH’s stolen personalities to bleed away. His face mask is also severely damaged and left hanging on by just a bolt. But before the Time Keeper can finish off neutering DH, Tuck attacks him. She is severely injured in the ensuing fight, knocked unconscious and thrown through a time doorway, where she lands in our world in the present.

DH, decides to run away, dives through the door as it closes, crash lands in an alleyway somewhere in London and promptly shuts down. The two of them are separated. Tuck is found, clutching one last time disc, and taken to a nearby hospital. Suffering from Amnesia, Tuck would over the course of the series struggle to regain her memory and in the process form a romantic relationship with a doctor.

The DH consciousness is summoned to a meeting deep within his own subconscious with the other five surviving assimilated personalities, who inform him that freed from the containment field they have formed a ‘Quorum’. They are in control of DH’s basic operating platform and unless he follows their rules and advice they’ll shut him down. Disgusted, and over a barrel, DH reluctantly agrees. During this discussion a girl’s voice - whom DH mistakenly believes is Tuck’s - is heard, which drags DH back to the waking world, and despite being seriously underpowered he rescues a young woman from being attacked by a street gang. During the fight he is stabbed and collapses again, but the gang flee before they can kill DH, terrified by his shattered visage, which we don’t see.

The girl lives deep beneath the city of London, in an underground city, that dates back to the ancient times, and which has become home to a sub culture of society who have all chosen to reject the modern world above. The girl, born there, is curious about the world above and makes frequent excursions the top side. She drags DH back to her underground home and wires him up to the mains to recharge him.

The underground city is also a hunting ground for a cabal of the mega rich, who pay high stakes to the Time Keeper to hunt and kill humans. The hunt is organised by the Time Keeper and his human agent - a sinister little old man who operates out of a nondescript shop front property in the Aldwych. The old man might have been an alien in disguise, I can’t remember.

Book one ends with DH waking up in the girl’s dwelling, bandaged, weary and down to 15 % power. He limps over to a bowl of water, splashes water in his face then looks up and into a mirror that hangs above the bowl to see a human face staring back at him. His true human face, beneath the mask. The book ends with him growling to the girl, who has sat by his bed whilst he slept:

“I’ve looked better. Yes?”

The series played out with DH slowly regaining his strength. But only up to 25% and doing battle with both the Quorum, the Time Keeper and the hunters, while also becoming an urban legend. Meanwhile, Tuck struggles to regain her memory and to build a new life for herself, but suffers flashes of her previous life. Later on Tuck tracks DH down. The series continued with DHII fighting alongside the underworld dwellers, against a gang of alien and human hunters, which all built to a climatic fight when DH gets back to the Watch Tower, and he beats the living shit out of the Time Keeper.

However, the series ends with DH choosing not to carry on time travelling with Tuck, but instead staying on Earth with the underworld dwellers. For the time being at least. He keeps the time disc, should he ever want to return to the future.

It was an action packed script, that barrelled along at a frenzied pace. I wrote it a long time ago, so I don’t know how the series would have panned out. But writing it up again for you now, I realise how much story there was to squeeze into four issues!

MR: Great stuff. So, how far did this one get, before Marvel UK was wound up? How much was written/drawn?

DL: Book one was fully written. I write full scripts, not Marvel scripts, so it came in at I think 40 odd pages in length. The series was loosely plotted and book two was in note form. Simon Coleby was hired as the artist, but never got a chance to drawn a single panel. Alas all that remains are a couple of notebooks.

MR: Am I right in thinking that Death's Head Quorum was intended to be part of a proposed 4 title relaunch of Marvel UK? Can you recall what the other titles involved were intended to be?

DL: Paul Neary wanted to do a Marvel UK relaunch with a range of four titles: Death’s Head, Captain Britain, Nocturne (a new character drawn by Pino Rinaldi) and a fourth which I don’t remember.

I also developed another book for Marvel, called Warhide – the world’s first skinned communist super-hero. A man covered in liquid diamond so you can see all his muscles. That was plotted, books 1 – 3 written, book 1 was drawn and inked, and book 2 was pencilled, before it was canned. It was also advanced solicited, and the first cover was artworked. It appeared in Previews back in the early 90s and on the cover of a Marvel UK promo booklet.

I also developed another book called S.T.O.M.P. , which was about a teenager in a nano-tech power suit. But that only got as far as being green lit as a character, before it was canned.

Oh, and there was an attempt - on the instructions of Tom Defalco - to develop an all British super hero to be called Red Squirrel Man.

MR: Interesting! Some great ideas there. You know, I do recall Warhide being mentioned elsewhere. A great shame that one never made it to print, in the end.

Do you have fond memories of working for Marvel UK? Any anecdotes or musings you'd care to share?

DL: There was a fantastic atmosphere at Marvel UK, and there’s still an annual drink up at our old drinking haunt once a year. But that’s usually only attended by the editors and designers. There was this great camaraderie between us all and despite the fact I’ve worked for other creative companies since I’ve never found that same sense of friendliness. Also so many of us ex-marvel-ites are still working in comics in one way or another. It was a great breeding ground for talent.

MR: So, what other projects and companies have you been involved with since Marvel UK? As fate would have it I understand we've both found ourselves working for Codemasters, anything else of proud note? :)

DL: Yep, I escaped from Codemasters back in 2005. I’d been working there as an animator on LMA Football Manager and Club Football. Trouble was I hated football. I was there for four years. Apart from that, I managed to spend my entire professional life working either in comics, publishing, games or animation in a variety of roles so I’ve been very lucky.

MR: And finally, are there any projects you're involved with now, which you'd like to talk about?

DL: Currently I’m the editor of the SpongeBob SquarePants comic, which is great fun. I’m also one of the writers on the Wallace and Gromit newspaper strip, appearing daily in the Sun, and I’m also very proud of my children, Lydia and Baxter who rank as the best projects I’ve ever been involved in.

Sorry if that’s a cliché but it’s true.

MR: Nothing wrong with that. Definitely something to be proud of. Thanks for talking with us, David. Some really interesting stuff there. And I wish you all the best with your current projects.

So there you have it folks. The Death’s Head that almost was, and a little more besides. It’s interesting to think what a different path DH could have gone down. And, of course, with all his many timelines and universe hops I myself like to think that, in some fashion, somewhere out there in Marvel’s Multiverse, it may even already have happened.

Because that’s the great thing about Death’s Head. Pretty much anything IS possible.

And for me, that’s why I miss him the most.

2010-10-31T17:10:00.001Z

So today is Halloween. That British festival, which British people seem to like claiming is an American commercial plot, as opposed to the actual part of their heritage it really is... :)

I'm partaking in the gratuitous watching of horror movies and the carving of oversized pumpkins.

In the meantime, here's a little Halloween contribution from Blog follower Chris Holmes, which I hope you enjoy. Ever wondered what a zombie Death's Head might look like?

Well, wonder no further...

Also available here:

http://commdesign.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/grindhouse-deaths-head/

Enjoy!

Now go off and scare somebody...

Mark.

Issue-by-Issue: The Knights of Pendragon, Volume One - A Prologue.

2010-10-13T23:55:00.003+01:00

Welcome to this, the First part in a series of issue by issue summaries of Marvel UK titles. In this first article I shall be discussing some of the background to the series, and the aesthetic choices which were made for this series.

I've actually been wanting to do this for a while, but with commitments elsewhere online I never quite found the time. Knowing that I now had more of a window available to me I decided to Poll regular readers of this site, back in April, for the series which they might want to see as the starting point to this feature. With a 34% state of the vote, ahead by a fair margin, was Knights of Pendragon.

And if I had been choosing the title myself, well that's probably where I would have started too. The launch of Knights of Pendragon in July 1990 was very much a watershed moment for Marvel UK. Marvel UK had tried doing US format books before Knights of Pendragon. In 1988 we had the first Death's Head series and also Dragon's Claws. But both of these books were primarily self-contained in future timelines, separate from the rest of Marvel US's output. They weren't the easiest sell to the US market, and were also not taken up well by British newsagents, who complained about these tiny US sized books not fitting anywhere on their shelves.

Knights of Pendragon in some ways followed on spiritually from what the final issues of Death's Head had been doing; trying to prove that it was possible for the UK Office to produce a monthly title which could be set within the continuity of the mainstream Marvel Universe, telling stories with established characters as a part of that Universe, but without treading on anybody's toes as they did. Knights of Pendragon proved that was possible, and it gained a fair bit of acclaim in the process. What started off its life as a planned short run series of six issues actually made it far beyond that remit, to an unplanned eighteen.

That's not to say that it was plain sailing though... I do understand, that there were some close calls during its run. It has to be said that the US office did monitor the use of certain British characters, which they did after all consider to be theirs, very closely. There were certain scenes and character actions which made Marvel US a little nervous. The rather graphic cliffhanger at the end of #5 for example.

But we'll get to that later.

Back in 1990, I can remember there being a really strong vibe of something significant coming, attached to this title's launch. Remember that at the time Marvel UK's output was principally based around Licensed properties (Transformers, Action Force, Thundercats). So when adverts for this new title started turning up in those weekly books they really did stand out, as being very different.

This is the cover to issue one (Artwork by the brilliant Alan Davis) and in middle of 1990 this image seemed to be everywhere. From forming full-page adverts in Marvel UK books, to big posters in UK Comic Book stores. I actually still own one of those posters, myself.

The cover worked at grabbing attention on several levels. Firstly it's a piece of Alan Davis art, and at this point in time that alone was a big deal. And secondly, it grabbed the attention of readers of the late, cancelled, Captain Britain series, through the recognition of Cap and of Dai Thomas of Scotland Yard. But it also brought in recognition from readers of the newer Excalibur series. Alistair and Alysande Stuart had made their débuts in Excalibur, and they were recognisable supporting characters.

So, basically, a winning combination, taking several fronts into account.

The house style of the book itself also certainly marked out a statement of intent. Right from the choice of type font - not only used as the Header for the book's title, but carried on throughout the book.

This was somewhat of a departure from the two previous US format titles. Both Dragon's Claws and Death's Head's Title Logos had very much been hand drawn for the cover, and the choice of internal type font used was effectively the same as had been used throughout Marvel UK's licensed products at the time, in particular on Transformers. While that brought a certain familiarity, with it for long-standing readers of those licensed titles, it didn't really give the titles a great amount of individuality. In using a very deliberate type font, which echoed the concepts of Knights and Legend, to both Title the book and follow through into the overall house style, it did make a very individual statement. A style very much of its own.

The book itself wasn't the only part of the publicity machine for this one. As advertised in the back of the very first issue there was also a well publicised Signing Tour.

(Pictured above Writers Dan Abnett and John Tomlinson,

Penciller Gary Erskine, Inker Andy Lanning,

Colourist Helen Stone and Editor Steve White.)

As a guy buying into the whole experience of Knights of Pendragon it all seemed incredibly well-crafted and thought through. But perhaps one of the most impressive details of this series actually falls down to artist Gary Erskine. The art in Knights of Pendragon is really very strong. But amazingly this book was Gary's first paid work. I kid you not. Up until this point Gary Erskine had been working in a branch of Forbidden Planet, and putting together examples of his work in his own time.

Marvel UK just so happened to have been arranged a Sleeze Brothers signing with Andy Lanning, John Carnell, and (I believe) Dan Abnett, at the store one week, and Gary persuaded his manager to let him show them some of his artwork. And the rest is history...

But that was the way things were back then. It's hard to imagine now. In the modern Comics Industry trying get your Artist's Portfolio reviewed at a convention, or heaven forbid EVER trying to get somebody from the Big Two to look at script for prospective work as a writer, without having been already published in several other places or mediums is virtually impossible.

Back in the days of Marvel UK you could still apply to the offices in London, or show them your work at a convention, and if they liked it they'd actually run with it. I think that the biggest loss from Marvel UK's closure was that it really was an incredible training ground for talent, with a level of opportunities which no other publisher has really offered since.

But what of Knights of Pendragon itself?

What Knights of Pendragon achieved was actually very clever. Here we have a book which was very much set in the Marvel Universe, with familiar places, familiar characters and conventions, and which definitely dealt with special, otherworldly, 'super' powers.

But for the larger part it actually avoided using capes and costumes, and the other sillier elements of traditional superhero comics.

Obviously, it couldn't always. When Captain Britain appears he is very much in costume. And likewise Union Jack and Black Panther, later into the run. But through using established characters like Dai Thomas and the Stuart Twins (None of whom are 'costumed' per se) and through the use of new characters like Kate McClellen, Ben Gallagher and Adam Crown, characters who joined the story AS civilians it allowed the title to tell some quite complex 'super' stories, but without them descending into the standard superhero fare. It struck a rather unique balance in that regard, able to be familiar to the long term Marvel reader when necessary, but ultimately able to tell its own story and to be it's own animal.

The central story of Knights of Pendragon, whilst still grounded in an age old battle between Good and Evil, was also far less two-dimensional than the average superhero yarn. The story establishes a rather clever concept that, throughout history, at times of great threat to the Land, an age old force creates 'Champions'; exceptional men and women which it empowers to fight, on its behalf, for the common good. Be that Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, a costumed Hero in the trenches of World War One, or even a seventeen-year-old Car Wash attendant from East London. The Green Knight, avatar for this force sees the potential in individuals to do great things, that they themselves may not be aware of. It provides them with 'powers' to compliment their own natural instincts and abilities. And that was a deliberate distinction in this first incarnation. These weren't characters who were being given ridiculous, solve-all, God-like powers; as is the trapping of so many traditional Superhero tales. At their roots these were still just ordinary people, thrust into incredibly difficult situations, acting primarily on their own instincts. The power given to them was less of what defined them, and more of an assist in their ongoing calling as protectors of the Land.

I guess, in a certain mindset, you could think of the the whole Pendragon concept as being a little bit like some ancient, mystical, early warning system for the Planet, which detects a threat and applies a solution. But a natural one. Knights of Pendragon presents us with a tales where the bad guy is often Mankind, shepherded by the hand of an age old enemy. It was set in the present, but had very strong themes of returning to simpler times, to a more natural order, and with a strong sense of renewal. It's easy to see why so many people picked up on its more environmental themes. Because there certainly are a good many eco/environmental elements within some of these stories, and quite intentionally so.

Heck, the comic itself was even printed on SCANGLOSS paper, which the inside cover told us used 'half as many trees as normal paper and a minimum amount of chlorine bleach'. A gimmick some might have claimed, and certainly a very 'eco-friendly' concept for 1990. But, as a side note, if I'm honest it's not the gesture itself which impressed me about using that paper stock. It more the fact that coming back to these issues 20 years later, I'm actually very impressed with just how well the SCANGLOSS pages have stood the test of time. A few yellowed edges on the pages of my old copies, but the actual colours on page have remained pretty bold. And certainly far richer than the US market books in my collection, from this period. Call it a gimmick if you like, but maybe it wouldn't have harmed a few other titles to have followed their example?

So anyway, there you have it. Knights of Pendragon. Or as Dan Abnett described the book, on his own Blog, the "eco-superhero-Arthurian comic".

In the next article I shall be starting with issue #1 of the first Volume "Brands and Ashes" discussing the story in more detail.

Should you also wish to read along yourself, I am informed that the long delayed Panini collection of Knights of Pendragon, or at least the first volume thereof, will finally be released shortly. I have heard from others who have now received preview copies, so this time around it actually looks quite promising. Keep an eye out for it in Comic Book stores abd Booksellers here in the UK.

Until the next time.

Mark

Missed Marvel UK creators at Cons this year? This may help.

2010-10-13T16:25:00.000+01:00

Two things that I have regretted this year, whilst moving house and working ridiculous hours, is that I haven't been able to get out to as many Cons as I'd initially planned. Especially this year, when I knew that in at least two instances there was going to be appearances made by certain Marvel UK creators whom I have not yet had a chance to meet. Firstly, I'd seen fliers stating that Captain Britain creator Chris Claremont was going to be at Bristol Comics Expo. Now even in this day and age, that was a pretty big deal. How often does he come to the UK, these days? I had to make that. It was in May. I could do that...

Yeah. I failed to make Bristol...

I'd also been hearing really good things about Sci-Fi London. I'd been hearing names like Gary Erskine (Artist on Knights of Pendragon and Warheads), Dez Skinn (Former Head Editor of Marvel UK, in the 70s), John Freeman (Former Group Editor of Marvel UK, editor on Doctor Who Weekly, and writer on the Real Ghostbusters comic), Simon Furman (Creator of Death's Head and UK Transformers legend), and Dan Abnett (Death's Head II and Knights of Pendragon). There was word of a proper Marvel UK Panel! How could I miss that?

Yeah. That was in May, too. Didn't make that either...

Luckily for me (And if you missed them, for you also) there is some consolation here. Alex Fitch presents a weekly radio show about comics, on London's Resonance 104.4 FM, by the name of Panel Borders. Not being a London resident I can't pick it up live, but Alex does also put out his shows as Podcasts. And in recent times there have actually been several of those which will probably be of quite a bit of interest to regular readers.

For one, Alex managed to get an interview with Chris Claremont at Bristol. You can find that one HERE.
It's quite an interesting interview. A little guarded from Claremont, but it does touch on his British roots, Captain Britain, and also his continuing want to work with Alan Davis. Well worth a listen. Many of you might have read interviews with Claremont before, but hearing him actually speaking, certainly for me, adds a different dimension to some of his past interview comments. Take a listen.

Alex also chaired the Marvel UK panel at Sci-Fi London! And therefore the whole panel has been recorded, split into two Podcasts, available HERE and HERE. It's a really good panel, which discusses Marvel UK right across the three decades of its existence. One very interesting dimension discussed here though, and which I don't tend to cover as much on this Blog, is Marvel UK's licensed titles from the 1980s. I don't tend to cover those as much, because their characters are not so transferable into the present, and aren't strictly speaking the property of Marvel UK. But it cannot be denied that titles like Transformers, Thundercats and even The Real Ghostbusters, were huge sellers. Certainly larger sellers than the vast majority of titles in the modern American market, that's for sure. I cannot recommend listening to this panel enough.

Other Podcasts available from the Archive, which you might be interested in from a Marvel UK standpoint, include, a great spotlight on Captain Britain, from last year, which includes interviews with both Paul Cornell and Alan Davis, interviews with David Lloyd (Artist on V for Vendetta, ad Night Raven), Mark Buckingham (Mortigan Goth: Immortalis, Marvelman and Fables) and another interview with Paul Cornell and David Hine which technicaly is rooted in their work for DC, but is also worth a listen.

So, that's three days and four Blogs. I'm getting there guys, but please bear with me... :)

Death's head, Death's head, and... a bit more Death's Head.

2010-10-12T22:28:00.000+01:00

That's right. Death's Head. The biggest character created at Marvel UK in the 1980s.

During my absence from posting I've still been hearing a lot of love out there for the original 'Freelance Peacekeeping Agent' in several different forms, and during this catching up period I thought I would share some of them with you.

Earlier in the year, whilst browsing through DeviantART, I came across the page belonging to Simon Williams . It's certainly not the first time I've heard of Simon, by any long stretch. He's a comic artist probably best known for his work on Panini Comics' Marvel Heroes and also their Spectacular Spider-man title. Neither of which I give enough of a plug to. They may not be in Marvel continuity, but these two titles have been putting out the first British originated Marvel content since Marvel UK folded. Death's head has had cameos over there, Captain Britain has appeared, heck... they even used The Fury.

What caught my eye in Mr William's gallery though, was several pages of what appeared to be a punch up between The Incredible hulk and Death's Head.

All pages were in shaded Black and White, with a really bold retro fee... I was impressed. I was wondering where this had actually come from. As it turns out they were a private project for Simon, who had really been trying to persuade the guys at Panini to let him do a Death's Head Team-Up for a while. This story was completed for Soulman Inc: the artwork of Simon Williams, a sketchbook sold as an exclusive at Auto Assembly, the big annual British Transformers convention.

A great shame I've never been to that one.

But further to that story, a couple of months back, Simon actually write quite a large Death's Head article up on his Blog. It goes into quite some details about his feelings towards the character, and his own contact with DH, trying to sneak him into Panini panels.

It's a really good read. Definitely check it out. Simon Williams on Death's Head

And also take a gander at his artwork, over on DeviantART. The man does good work... Simon Williams on DeviantART

Secondly, while I was away I also stumbled a great little strip courtesy of Indie Pop and Hip Hop guy Akira The Don. I'm sure that for a good many fans of Death's Head this one will strike a pretty definite chord.

Originally found at http://www.akirathedon.com/2010/02/the-akira-the-don-guide-to-deaths-head/ . I'd very much recommend that you check out his site. At time of typing it's been down for an overhaul, but he does do some great stuff.

I'm particularly fond of his tribute to late music journalist Steven Wells, which I discovered through Kieron Gillen's Blog late last year. If you're inclined you can watch the video for that Here.

You know, I was actually quite bowled over by the number of people who contacted me after my article on the cancellation of S.W.O.R.D. to tell me that they had heard nothing about the series. That if they'd known Death's Head had been in it they'd have picked it up. Long after the final issue hit stands I was still hearing from people, some saddened by the cancellation, other who STILL hadn't been aware of it.

It certainly strikes me that maybe if Marvel had thought to publicise that angle earlier, well... it might have performed a little better.

And one final item for your attention...

Quite a while back I told regular readers of the Blog that if they had any fan art, figure conversion projects, or other Marvel UK inspired art to let me know, and I'll put it up on the site. That still stands, by the way. I know I've not done much in the way of that for a while, but I'm always on the lookout in my own travels around the internet.

And that's how I came across this Marvel Universe custom figure by Jin Saotome:

Now this one is a real work of art! A real labour of love too. Some parts of this custom figure, such as the Jacked and Shin Panels, have been sculpted with Apoxie putty, but several standard figures contributed to the overall model:

"...Death's Head was made from an assortment of parts. His main body was that of the Wolverine Origins Collossus, Marvel Legends Hand Ninja forearms, Trigate Creations custom cast head, Serpentor's skirt, Spidey Animated Green Goblin's lower legs, Marvel Universe Hobgoblin Cape, GI Joe Montezuma's loincloth piece, and Deep Dive Iron Man 2 hip covers for his kneepads. Whew!"

The attention to detail is truly amazing on this one. Just look at that face, and weapons array. Exceptional time and effort has been paid to this one.

Okay, so I'm sure the die-hard DH fans will be asking 'But where's the Shield?' but the array of weapons even clips into his Weapon Arm. This is a serious custom figure job.

But of course, if you think you can do better then why not drop me a line? I'll be more than willing to showcase them. Emails to the usual address theswordisdrawn@googlemail.com

Fred Van Lente considers using Night Raven?

2010-10-11T18:01:00.000+01:00

Okay, this one's a little bit random. I picked this one up in September, from a link on Fred Van Lente's Twitter account. Probably best known for his work with Greg Pak on Incredible Hercules and two volumes of Marvel Zombies, Fred Van Lente is real up and coming writer at Marvel right now. He's also writing Dead Avengers, for Marvel's Chaos War Mini-Event.

Back in September I checked out a link to his Formspring account, which led to the following question:

A bit of a random, out of the blue, question, I'm sure you'll agree. And certainly not one from me - which made it all the more random!

The link is to The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe site, and their profile of Night Raven.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/nhtraven.htm

For the unacquainted Night Raven was an vigilante come detective, created my Steve Parkhouse and David Lloyd. He's not been seen properly in a Marvel book since Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty, in 1995. He was, however, pictured with other Allied Heroes in the first issue of J. Michael Staczynski and Chris Weston's The Twelve, liberating Berlin in WW2. Although in continuity terms that should not have been possible.

Exactly what pulp(-ish) title Van Lente has in mind, we can only speculate. He has previously done X-Men: Noir, for Marvel's series of Noir reinventions of characters, but as to whether there might be more of that on the horizon I cannot say. What I can is that Night Raven certainly would a perfect fit for any story with a Noir or Pulp-ish feel to it.

And that the character certainly seems to be on Van Lente's radar.

You never know...

Are you going to BICS 2010?

2010-10-11T17:08:00.000+01:00

As I have been explaining over on the Twitter feed this morning (And you've probably noticed yourself), It Came From Darkmoor... has undergone a little bit of a make-under today, and a general clean up. The previous site make-over, back in the summer, was not one I was ever entirely happy with. Coupled with the difficulty a few people had been having replying to posts, things had to change. I hope that the new layout makes things a little cleaner and clearer for folks to read. Posts have returned to the much more traditional layout Blogger offers, so hopefully fewer problems should arise.

May I also apologise for the clear lack of updates since the summer. Life and work have made updating the site regularly a little difficult. I've still been responding to emails, Tweets, and in replies to posts on this site, but posting up full articles has been tougher. I do actually have a backlog of stuff to put up, including Issue Summaries, at least one Interview, more cameos from Marvel UK characters, and other stuff which up until this point I've just not had a chance to sit down and put together into an article. This week, however, I'm taking some hard earned leave, and my intention is to get as much of the backlog onto the site as I can before BICS at the weekend. So keep an eye out for new stuff coming.

And on the subject of BICS, yes it's that time of year again! And crikey it's come around fast...

This year's British International Comics Show will once again be taking place at Millennium Point in Birmingham, and it will be taking place this weekend the 16th & 17th of October. As most of you know this is the nearest I have to a Home Con, here in Britain, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Highlights for this year's Show include Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards (By Videocall) talking about their series Turf from Image Comics, British comics Legend Bryan Hitch who will be taking part in a live Podcast with Geek Syndicate, Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard who will be talking about the upcoming TV Series with exclusive backstage footage and the official Trailer on view, Nicola Scott (Teen Titans) and Mahmud A. Asrar (The Atom) talking about there work for the new DC Comics, and Action Comics and former Captain Britain & MI13 writer Paul Cornell will be talking about his writing career in multiple media, accompanied by artists Yanick Paquette and Jimmy Broxton who will doing covers and interiors respectively on his new Knight & Squire limited series.

(And as a side note, all fans of CB&MI13 and of British Superhero Comics in general should pick up Knight & Squire. It's out this week. And I have a feeling it will be right up your street.)

And of course there will be a fair few Marvel UK veterans on hand at the show, as well. Once again Alan Davis and Mark Farmer will be attending, hopefully doing sketches again. Former Marvel UK Editor John Freeman will also be in attendance, at the Print Media Productions stand. John is now the Editor of PMP's Strip Magazine, which is a new comic magazine, due to come out monthly. For more information check out their Blog.

This year, as last, one of the best ways to follow the Event is via Twitter, using the #BICS hashtag. I shall be, and for those unaware of my handle on Twitter it's @theswordisdrawn . The organisers of the show also have an account @TweeterBICS , which has been tweeting out updates about the show over the last six months.

Oh, if you happen to spot me at the Con, feel free to come over and say 'Hi'. It was great to meet a few of you last year, and I promise that I'm perfectly approachable. This year however, to aid people in finding me (And to avoid the awkwardness of folks having to ask random strangers if they ARE me) I will put up a photo of myself, on Twitter, on the day. Possibly on here too if I get a chance...

BICS is probably the largest true Comics show in the UK, now, and it's always a lot of fun. A good mix of Guests, creators from different genres, a chance to actually meet them, and great opportunities for Small Press guys to exhibit their work. Tickets are still available - £12 a day for adults and £6 for children. Or you can have a pass for both days, at a price of £20 per adult and £10 per child. There are also discounts for family groups.

For more information visit the BICS website www.thecomicsshow.co.uk

I might see you there...

Tom Brevoort toying with possibility of pairing CB&MI13 in a 2-in-1 Book?

2010-07-20T22:51:00.001+01:00

You guys know who Tom Brevoort is, right? VP Executive Editor at Marvel?

Well, a week ago I mentioned how he answered a question about Captain Britain's Avengers début over at the T&A column at CBR.

A helpful reader drew my attention to his Formspring account earlier today. Formspring, for those unaware, is a site which allows the kind of interaction of Twitter, but in a framework allowing larger questions to be asked.

Amongst the many recent questions there was this one, from two days back:

Okay, so this doesn't actually spell out that CB&MI13 might make the cut, so to speak, but it certainly sounds like Mr Brevoort is thinking about the idea of a split book.

And with 4 titles out of Marvel's stable in the last year to have been axed by #5, for not reaching Marvel's thresholds for continuation, it certainly seems like a novel way of keeping smaller properties going.

And compared to some Captain Britain & MI13's run now looks like a huge success in comparison.

If it were to share a book with a recently culled Marvel property who would folks like to see it be?

Atlas? S.W.O.R.D.? Runaways?

There's a fair number of options, worryingly...

Immortal return on the cards?

2010-07-20T22:35:00.000+01:00

So... recently I was reading an article over at CBR about this new ongoing Wolverine title, which launches soon, courtesy of favoured Moon knight writer Charlie Huston.

I know what some of you are probably thinking... ANOTHER Wolverine ongoing title? Really!?

But reading the article I actually found myself agreeing with a lot of what Huston was saying about Wolverine...

"Part of the reason I told the story I wanted to tell was because the character has become so superhuman. There's almost nothing you can do to hurt Wolverine. When I was a kid, I was really into the character. The thing that was originally cool about Wolverine was that he was a social misfit within the X-Men. He was the bad guy that was trying to redeem himself. He could be killed. You could actually kill Wolverine at one point. So the character was vulnerable. He was actually mortal. He didn't just off the cuff kill thousands of people," Huston explained. "The whole struggle for Wolverine was to live and work within the X-Men's structure and not be a killer. That was cool, and having him be kind of vulgar and low brow was interesting, especially when you found out he's got this honorable Japanese warrior side. But all of a sudden, it turned out that he knew everything about everyone at all times. He was like some weird combination of the Watcher, Batman, Daredevil and Superman. He was everything to everybody."

I totally agree with this, and to be honest it's probably the key reason I got turned off Wolverine in the last decade. I loved reading his solo book growing up. I loved reading him within the X-Men. But the more that was revealed of his past tying in with almost EVERY character in the Marvel universe, across the decades... I dunno. It got silly. And to be honest, the more we knew of his actual past , the more of the mystique the character held was whittled away too.

But it certainly was the ridiculousness of Wolverine's healing factor which has made things so dull for me. in Civil War he had every inch of skin, every piece of muscle, burnt off his body. And he still regenerated...

So how do you fix that? How do you pose him a threat?

Huston's new villain would come to be called Contagion, and Huston has created him to be as different from Wolverine as possible. " I wanted someone who was tall, physically beautiful and elegant, highly educated, incredibly self aware and erudite. Also, someone who had no physical prowess whatsoever and was incredibly fragile physically. He's someone that you can't have Wolverine fight, because there really would be no fight. If it ever came to blows, Wolverine would just kill this character," the writer revealed. "He would be someone who could dominate Logan intellectually but also pose a perverse kind of physical threat."

And the threat Contagion poses is a major one. The character himself may be fragile, but he could kill millions with just a few drops of his blood. This twist has allowed Huston to inject a sense of drama and danger into Logan's life that the writer feels has been lacking due to Wolverine's healing ability becoming more and more powerful over the years.

Excellent. The kind of blood in this guys body could kill millions, could perhaps even kill Wolverine! One thing's for sure, Logan is going to need to be clever here. No just stabbing the guy to death with his Claws! Thank GOD!

But I suppose you are wondering just what this might have to do with Marvel UK? Well...

In order to bring Wolverine's power level down, in a sense, Huston and Ryp will introduce Contagion's band of defenders, a team called The Unkillables. "I wanted to avoid giving the character minions, but then at a certain point I realized that I needed them. It wasn't so much as the character needed them, but there was another aspect of the plot that I needed to fulfill, and in fulfilling that area I brought all these weird, obscure characters into this story. They became minions because it was so surreal and over the top at that point that it stopped seeming like a cop-out and started seeming like fun," Huston explained. "Since the villain of this series is named Contagion, there are obviously disease and genetics aspects to [the title], so it won't take quite a bit of imagination to see why a character with those interests might be interested in Wolverine as well. And just to fill in the background and have some interesting references, I was looking for obscure Marvel characters that might have healing factors without being gods, or have some aspect of their powers that was related to diseases...

Again, a clever thought. And could build up some very interesting battles.

"In the process of culling the research that the nice people at Marvel did for me, some of these characters, rather than being footnotes, became really central to the story and a lot of fun to play with," Huston continued. "It's fun to take characters that don't have a whole lot of continuity, especially some characters who have literally never appeared in more than one issue of a comic before or completely predate even Golden Age continuity, and drag them into this universe. Then I was like, 'Yeah - lets do a lot of that,' actually."

Bringing obscure characters from Marvel continuity out for a showcasing? Now doesn't that just sound like my own personal cup of tea...?

The Unkillables' roster is comprised of several characters drawn from Marvel Comics' seventy years of history, with Huston only able to hint at and reveal the identities of a few of the team members. "This will give you an idea of how obscure and fringy we're getting here. Of the Unkillables, I think the best known character is going to be Madcap and the least known one is going to be a character named Harry Sykes, who is just not going to show up anywhere [Laughs]," Huston revealed. "Someone is going to have to be very dedicated to have any info on him. There's also a character from the mystical part of the Marvel Universe named Immortalis."

And there you have it.

Immortalis, for those who are drawing a blank, is the name which Mephisto gave to a man who tricked him into giving him eternal life.

A man named Mortigan Goth.

Long standing readers will remember that I have a soft spot for Mortigan. I even tracked down his original artist, Mark Buckingham, to get him to do me a sketch of him a couple of years back at BICS.

Last we heard of Mortigan, was in a reference in Captain britain & MI13, mentioning how Mortigan had honoured the final wish of Winston Churchill, on his death bed, by bringing him the sword Excalibur - just so he could see it. just once, before he died.

Mortigan has largely appeared as a good guy in the past. But not a true, out and out, good guy. His soul, after all, was stolen by Mephisto. It will be interesting to see how he figures here, that's for sure.

Well done Mr Huston. You've just persuaded me to pick up a Wolverine book for the first time in some years. That alone is quite a feat!

More British Marvel's out there, you may not be so aware ARE still out there... or British.

2010-07-20T07:30:00.001+01:00

As I hope I've made clearer in recent times this Blog does not focus purely on the characters who were created by Marvel UK in the 70s, 80 and 90s. It's the larger part of what I do here, granted. But beyond that I do also like to explore the lives of British characters who were created by Marvel in the US, and remain part of the Marvel Universe as a whole.

And there's a few more of those than you might actually realise.

Blade would be the first example. When he started showing up in Captain Britain & MI13 I think it surprised a few people who largely thought of the character to be synonymous with Wesley Snipes to have actually been born in Britain. Eric Brooks is a perfectly British sounding name, of course.

Since the end of Captain Britain & MI13 we haven't really seen Blade. He will be appearing in the upcoming Spitfire One-shot as well as in X-Men: Curse of the Mutants - Blade #1.

Catchy title, huh? It's part of this new Vampire event by Victor Gischler. I've not really drawn much mention to it, because it effectively began by ignoring parts of the brilliant Vampire State storyline from last year. Gischler revived Dracula, with a radically different and somewhat alien appearance, only to kill him again in the course of a few pages.

Apparently this is a new Vampire Status Quo... But a fair number of Tomb of Dracula fans on CBR's forums have been pointing out that a number of details in this story just don't tally with past continuity. A great shame, for them. I know several long term Marvel Vampires fans who were really looking forward to this event, but have been left feeling quite disappointed so far. So, on current form, I wouldn't expect any acknowledgement of where Blade has been residing for the past year, or any other MI13 guest appearances in that one-shot.

Though I'd love to be proven wrong, of course. And at least they appear to be keeping his costume and tattoos.

Another example most people miss is Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman, current Avenger and Agent of S.W.O.R.D.

Jessica was born in London, to two British parents. They did then move to Wundagore, where Jessica grew up, and I guess we don't tend to think of her as being British so much because we rarely see her in that context. Although she did start her recently cancelled ongoing series in London, where she was contacted by SWORD's Agent Brand.

Jessica has been a pretty much ever present face in Marvel over recent years. A favourite of Avengers supremo Brian Michael Bendis she was part of his New Avengers launch roster. It was revealed in Secret Invasion however, that the Jessica we saw there was, in fact, a Skrull. The Skrull Queen to be precise. Which has confused matters somewhat.

She remained with New Avengers until the recent reboot, and can now be found on the main Avengers team, penned by Bendis and pencilled by John Romita Jr.

Another closet Brit you might not know is X-Men character Fantomex.

Fantomex was created by Grant Morrison, for his New X-Men run, as a French accented bio-mechanical agent come adventurer type. Only the French accent was something which Fantomex would later make clear was a fake.

He too is technically British.

Fantomex was created in 'The World' a secret, self-contained, lab environment. Which just happened to be on British soil. So while Fanntomex tends to go where he
pleases (And I very much doubt he owns a proper Passport) ignoring International borders, he is technically a British National.

Fantomex recently returned from obscurity as one of the endless cameo appearances from X-Men characters past and present, in the pages of Matt Fraction's Uncanny X-Men.

Unlike many of those cameos though, it was unveiled last week that this was not going to be an isolated appearance of quite so little significance. At the end of X-Men: Second Coming #2 it was shown that Fantomex is going to be part of the regular cast of Rick Remender's up coming Uncanny X-Force, which will be arriving shortly, alongside Archangel, Deadpool, Wolverine and Captain Britain's twin sister Psylocke.

You see. More than you might think.

And of course there is one more upcoming British Marvel appearance I should probably mention. As this one I am sure the majority of folks will miss. And it occurs... here:

That's the cover to Frankencastle #21, again by Rick Remender and art by Dan Brereton.

Very Hammer Horror, no? Old school monster movie. Which fits the odd tone of the Frankencastle series very well. Which for those of you unfamiliar with the concept (And frankly it IS somewhat unbelievable when you first encounter it) you might want to take a look here.

And when you've finished asking 'What the Hell?' understand that the reason we are interested in this stems from the object which the League of Monsters are using to restore Frank Castle. A piece of 'Bloodstone'.

Where does that ring a bell from?

Well, possibly from here:

Ulysses Bloodstone, monster hunter and adventurer.

But sadly Ulysees is dead.

We're more interested in his heir. For Ulysees had a daughter.

Elsa Bloodstone.

You may know her from the 2001 limited series by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.

Or more recently from Warren Ellis' NextWave.

And, yes. She's British. Born over here. And inherited her Father's Bloodstone, along with a house full of Hammer style eccentricities, upon his death.

I don't think we've seen Elsa since NextWave. She's a character whom I had hoped might have been used by MI13 at some point, had it continued. Although she did appear to go through a rather unexplained progression, from insecure teen to adult, between here own series and NextWave. It still works, mind. As funny as all hell in places, too.

So keep an eye out for all four of these. They may only be titbits in the grand scheme of things, sure. But they are still flying the flag for the UK in their own little ways. So don't forget 'em!

(UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that Jessica Drew's origin has been amended slightly, in recent times. In the 2005 Spider-Woman: Origin limited series, by Bendis, Reed and the Luna brothers, the sequence of events is changed somewhat.

In her previous origin Jessica was a child when the family moved from London to Wundagore. In Spider-Woman: Origin the Drews move to Wundagore while Jessica's mother is still pregnant, and her powers come as a result of her Mother being accidentally struck by a beam from her Father's experiment, while she was still in the womb. Which would mean that while she was concieved on British soil she would technically be a National of the Eastern European nation of Transia, in which Mount Wundagore is found....

Whether that origin will stand the test of time, I guess we'll have to wait and see. The fact that Jessica returned to London in her own mini would certainly tie a part of her to Britain.)

Captain Britain/Avengers Update and more Marvel UK Cameos...

2010-07-11T19:05:00.001+01:00

So... As a Comics Reader of over a quarter of a Century (Man, has it really been that long?) I have learnt long ago to know the difference between the 'Hope' for a storyline (based on logical plausibility, and other stories in other titles) and what we actually receive in print.

Back when Captain Britain accepted Avengers membership in Age of Heroes #1, this just so happened to coincide with a story in the new 'Avengers #1' relaunch, which was based very much on the need for a character to be brought in with an intimate knowledge of Time Travel, Inter-dimensional Travel, and the technology required to achieve either or both. I speculated in a blog post back in May over the logical inclusion of the newly invited Captain Britain being that final Avengers member. A logical inclusion because Captain Britain is probably the most expert individual in the Marvel Universe in each of these fields...

But, as all us long term readers of comics genre know, you don't always get what you want...

When Avengers #2 went on sale a couple of weeks back it turned out that the final member, the guy who the Avengers decided to go to, was in fact Noh-Var. Better know to many as Marvel Boy...

To be fair, some of you probably don't know who he is (He is a little obscure). So for the unaware amongst you, read up Here.

Put basically he's an alien warrior from another dimension, who got marooned in the Marvel Universe, in a limited series written by Grant Morrison in 2000. He was also, briefly, a Dark Avenger.

So yes, he does come from another dimension, and his long dead crew did once have the technology required to jump dimensions. The slight flaw in his inclusion in this story, however, is that the entire point of Noh-Var is that he is trapped in the Marvel Universe. He doesn't have the technology (or knowledge of it) required to jump dimensions. Otherwise he would have gone home, back to his native dimension.

He hasn't done this to date. Because he can't.

So a slight flaw in this story, that all of a sudden he is able to offer both tech and knowledge to the Avengers, at a moment's notice. Don't you think?

Anyway, a few people have mailed me about this. And I'm not really that narked. Slightly disappointed, in as much as this was the perfect story for Captain Britain to make his Avengers début. But I am actually a bit of a Noh-Var fan. So seeing him as an Avenger is still kinda cool. If a little bit nonsensical, sure. But I'll try to overlook that.

And the blow was somewhat softened, also, by another Marvel UK cameo in that very same issue.

Basically, and I think we're past Spoiler territory by now, in Avengers #2 Noh-Var constructs a machine which allows the Avengers to take a glimpse into the Futures. That's right. Futures. Plural. Because at this point in time things could go a number of different ways. No one path is the certain future.

But what was really great was to see so many possible future timelines from Marvel's back catalogue, all on show in the same place. Not forgotten.

( Click to Enlarge Further)

In amongst there I can see Marvel 2099, the MC2 universe from the late 90s, the original Guardians of the Galaxy, Days of Future Past and The Age of Apocalypse from the X-Men franchise, and several more too.

But perhaps the one figure to interest me the most is there on the right hand page.

Spotted him yet?

Hello, Minion!

That's right, none other than Death's Head II. An unexpected, and pleasant surprise.

After all, the timeline in which he was created (and absorbed the original Death's Head) has not exactly come to pass yet. We've seen hints threaded in Abnett and Lanning's Nova, in more recent times, but still...

Good to see that he is at least on the Radar. Be that Bendis' or JR Jr's.

For those more pedantic amongst you, of course, you may recall that this is NOT the first time John Romita Jr has drawn Death's Head II. Where was that, you may ask? Well, on none other than the cover for Marvel UK's Black Axe #1, which has formally been a Cover of the Week on this very site.

Not bad, eh?

Of course there's no guarantee that this means we'll see more of DH2 in Avengers, and I certainly won't get my hopes up. But I'd certainly welcome the idea.

Now, this actually wasn't the only British Marvel cameo of recent times. I wonder how many of you picked up this week's Steve Rogers: Super Soldier #1 by Ed Brubaker and Dale Eaglesham?

And frankly, if you didn't, why not? If there were ever two creators out there I would pick up a book because of...

If you had then you would have been treated to a much larger (and much more an important part of the story) cameo:

(Click to Enlarge)

Yes, indeed. That is Steve Rogers talking espionage, over a coffee, with none other than Pete Wisdom himself. Now, granted this exchange may only take up 6 pages of the issue, but it's the six pages which set up the entire limited series. An exchange of intel which Wisdom appears to have gone over the heads of the JIC to pass to Rogers. Steve even refers to Wisdom as the 'British Spy Master,' which is pretty much what he is these days.

I also really like the way Eaglesham draws Wisdom, in this issue. The front on pose below being a prime example:

Definite nods to Leonard kirk's styling in Captain Britain & MI13, but very much with his own style in place, to. Great work! I hope we see him again in this story.

But perhaps more importantly, again, is that this shows that Wisdom is on Brubaker's radar. Too often, with regards to these characters (And Captain Britain in particular) I hear people saying 'Yeah, but the big guys at Marvel haven't even heard of these characters'.

Well, here we have Death's Head II spotted in what is arguably Marvel Comics' flagship title, and Pete Wisdom being deliberately chosen by Ed Brubaker. Ed, of course, also writes Secret Avengers. You never know. Maybe it's still possible we might see Captain Britain turn up there. Who knows? But the idea that these characters are simply not known about is a claim which I would definitely refute.

That said of course, we still have no indication of when, or if, Captain Britain WILL be making his Avengers début. Well, let it never be said that I leave any stone unturned. And so a couple of weeks ago I decided to try bother Joe Quesada himself, through Comic Book Resources' Cup O' Joe column (where readers can ask questions to the man himself). Backed up by a few CB&MI13 reading CBR regular posters we finally got our question posed last week.

Although not to Joe Q, himself. But to Marvel's Vice President Executive Editors Tom Brevoort and Axel Alonso - which, to be frank (though not wishing to be disrespectful to Joe Quesada) is every bit as good in my book.

CBR: The Sword Is Drawn was one of a few people asking after Captain Britain's future status, saying "When can we expect to see Brian Braddock's Avengers début? And any idea which book it might occur in?"

Brevoort: Paul Cornell – one of the last few jobs he did before signing his exclusive with DC – was a little two-page "Captain Britain and MI-13" story that ran in "Age of Heroes" in which Steve Rogers extended the invitation to Captain Britain to become part of an Avengers team, massaging the difficulty that might have caused with Pete Wisdom and MI-13. I would think that it's an almost absolute certainty that that's an element that will be followed up on in some tangible way very soon. But again, I don't want to tell you too much.

So, there you go. Not exactly the answer I was after, but it at least seems that there is the intention to take this further, one way or another. Somewhere soon on the horizon, by the sound of it. So don't give up hope, Cap Fans. Keep your eyes peeled.

Who knows? I mean if what I've been reading from Fred Van Lente, on Twitter, is true he's going to be getting an Avengers book soon. I tried quizzing him, but he's not giving away any finite details, yet. There's been rumours flying around the Internet though - everything from a Gods and Magic Avengers, to Cosmic heroes, to a European or even just more International Avengers team. It'll be interesting to see if that one gets revealed at San Diego Comic Con.

Maybe Cap will turn up there? Let's be honest, there is no shortage of Avengers titles for him appear in.

Either way, Tom Brevoort's word is enough for me, for now...

So keep the faith. We've had MI13 turn up in Deadpool Team up, Spitfire is getting a one-shot, Blade is showing up in X-Men, Wisdom in Steve Rogers: Super Soldier. It's all good exposure. These guys certainly aren't being left to be forgotten...

Finally, my apologies for the lack of recent updates. I was struck down with glandular fever a couple of weeks back. It's taken a while to get fit enough to be up and about, let alone get back to blogging. I actually did put together some notes for Knights of Pendragon #1 whilst under the fever. I'm trying to decipher them...

Wish me luck.

Speak soon.

Mark
(Sword)

Notes from the Marvel UK Twitterverse - World Cup Exit Self-loathing Bumper Edition.

2010-06-28T18:00:00.006+01:00

A Bumper edition for you, collected up from over the past few days. All seems a little bit previous now, mind... :(

Before England's 1-0 Group C victory over Slovenia:

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And some time after said Victory...

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The Morning after, with the USA having pushed past England to top Group C by scoring a goal in the dying minutes of injury time, in their fixture...

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And finally, after yesterday's Record Defeat at a World Cup Final for England, at the hands of Germany... :(

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Don't you miss those 90s 'Website Under Maintenance' signs?

2010-06-26T10:54:00.002+01:00

Hi all. Anybody who has visited the site over the past couple of days has probably noticed som quite odd changes in layout and aesthetic going on. I have decided that the time had come to try and upgrade the look of this site. The one thing which frustrates me quite so much is just how cramped Blogger's default templates can be - squashing up text and images in that left hand pane.

This has proved to be a little more complicated than I had originally anticipated. At least to get something which I am happy with. So if I could please ask you to be a little patient with us, that would be great. I promise that the end result will be a little easier on the eye, when it comes to reading this Blog.

In the meantime, in the world of Marvel UK cameos, anybody who bought Avengers #2 this week - did you spot the Death's Head II glimpse in this issue? Go back and look again if you didn't.

Speak soon

Mark

- Posted on the move, from my pretentious phone...

Notes from the Marvel UK Twitterverse - The Budget: Part Two.

2010-06-23T07:30:00.008+01:00

In response to the unveiling of George Osborn - new British Chancellor of the Exchequer - 's new 'Emergency Budget'.

(Click to Enlarge)

Notes from the Marvel UK Twitterverse - The World Cup: Part One

2010-06-22T22:44:00.013+01:00

After Full Time: Portugal 7-0 North Korea...

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Quickie Post

2010-06-22T22:12:00.002+01:00

Very quick, in fact...

First Knights of Pendragon issue summary got delayed over the week and weekend via football, father's day and complications with my tech.

It's coming. Hopefully by the weekend.

In the meantime, as you may have spotted, hopefully there's a few other bits and bobs to keep you entertained...

Mark
(Sword)

Notes from the Marvel UK Twitterverse - The Budget: Part One.

2010-06-21T19:07:00.009+01:00

Click to Enlarge

What I was up to this weekend...

2010-05-31T21:45:00.019+01:00

If you live or work in London the chances are that you will have seen posters which look somewhat similar to this

as you've been negotiating the Tube.

Maybe you've even wondered what exactly it is?

Well, this past Saturday the kind people at Madame Tussauds invited me down to London to take a peak at this, their new 4D Marvel themed attraction.

So let me explain...

Marvel Super Heroes 4D is a mixture of what Tussauds does best (i.e. lifelike, to scale, wax models of characters and celebrities) and the current resurgence of 3D cinema. The theming is well done, part S.H.I.E.L.D. lab - part gallery of covers, mixing Classic Marvel characters in with their movie counterparts.

So, for example, you get Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury...

The entrance will (I say 'will' because the attraction is not yet open to the public - and we were let in through the back door) peel off directly from the rest of the Tussauds tour, leading you around The Hulk's gigantic legs and into a S.H.I.E.L.D. themed attraction area - complete with screens in the walls, rotating 'secret files' style bios of the characters in a given area.

Oh. And yes, like I say, the Hulk IS to scale...

He truly is HUGE! and incredibly (Pun probably intended) well sculpted. I've always felt that in other media to date the sheer size of The Hulk has been somewhat undersold, compared to his in-panel counterpart (Although the recent Hulk movies have pretty much gotten in right).

And, of course, it really wouldn't be Tussauds without the opportunity to take some daft photos...

Which I maybe enjoyed just a little TOO much...

Yeah. Maybe more than a little...

There's a number of props to aid you in you photographic tomfoolery - from Wolverine's claws or standing on ceiling with Spider-man, to a viewing glass designed to make you look like The Hulk and a stand up landscape which allows you to fake up flying around Westminster and Big Ben - as any ageing Captain Britain fan has surely ALWAYS wanted to do...

(Be proud of me. I resisted that one...)

But the main focus of all this is to lead you through to the 4D experience itself.

And I bet a few of you are asking exactly what makes it 4D, right now? Well, anybody who has experienced attractions like MuppetVision 3D at MGM Studios or Stitch's Great Escape! at Disneyworld in Florida will be in some way familiar with the principle. Marvel Super Heroes 4D has been built into the former site of the London Planetarium. Which means the screen itself is 360 dome above the auditorium - a perfect canvas for this kind of film. The 3D movie itself (Glasses supplied) is displayed principally to the front of the auditorium, but with extra images flashing up around the sides of the dome, at key points in the film. These take the form of bits of SHIELD technical data, and flashes of the targeting system from Iron Man's armour.

As you sit down in your seat, the SHIELD Mainframe instructs you to turn off your Mobile Phones lest you 'Make The Hulk ANGRY,' but what makes this show 4D is that IN that seat they've fitted with a few... extras.

Such as spray units to create the sensation of water splashing up at head height, and compressed air blasts around you legs to convey movement around you under faded lights. Pressure units mounted in the back of your chair poke your back at certain intervals, and the floor beneath you actively rumbles and shakes - all at specific points during the performance, to match up with what you're seeing on screen.

And it works pretty well, too. I've experienced a few of these kind of rides over the past few years, and I have to say that the combination of elements here strikes a really good balance. It was also, for fanboy sake, nice to hear several approved voices from Marvel's animated features and videogames providing voice talent here. It really helps to maintain a proper consistency.

I will be honest with you, though, I really didn't know what to expect from this, when I went along on Saturday. I tend to be a little bit sceptical when it compes to Marvel tie-ins in other media. But I'm happy to say that this is one attraction that really get things right. A balance of old and new, movie and animation.

We did spot a stray Jessica Alba, as Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four, who seemed a little out of place (The female character used in the movie sequence is actually Ms Marvel), but otherwise the effort made in getting the theming right is spot on, and has plenty potential for Tussauds to add to the exhibit as time goes on. Probably as more and more Marvel movies are rolled out. Maybe the addition of a Liv Tyler Betty Ross, a Scarlett Johanssen Black Widow, a Chris Evans Captain America, or a... whatsisname... Um... the guy from Home and Away (EDIT: It's Chris Hemsworth) THOR!

I also appreciated the very deliberate decision to set the 4D sequence itself in London, which I was lucky enough to get a chance to discuss with some of the Tussauds guys after the Q & A session. Rather than simply port over an out of place American setting. They told me it was a very deliberate choice, and one they fought hard for. I can tell you that there is a narrative reason for it, and it it really grounds it as a part of a British attraction and as part of Tussauds itself pretty seamlessly. Great work.

I'd always recommend Madame Tussauds as a place in London you should visit at least once anyway, regardless of your age, but put simply if you've got a kid who's into Marvel then they will love this! As an adult you'll be able to appreciate the 4D show's mechanics and (Of course) the daft photos opps are a must. But for the insane fanboys, who might be reluctant, one very interesting point did come up in the Q & A session on Saturday, which might be of interest to you...

A question was raised as to whether, during the development of creating the 4D movie, the creators had been given any access to designs for upcoming Marvel Movies, which might currently be in production.

The answer was a little diplomatic, as you might expect. We were told that the primary focus was always intended to be on the 'Classic Marvel' characters for the 4D movie. But, that said, there might be some possible similarities between the intended look of a certain floating vessel and its likeness seen towards the end of the 4D movie...

So, you never know... :D

For those of you interested in seeing this experience I believe that tickets for Marvel Super Heroes 4D were intended to go on sale on Sunday 30th May. But you can find more details HERE.

You can also find the attraction's microsite HERE.

There's also this trailer, showing (Obviously in this case 2D) clips from the movie sequence.

And if you do go and see it look out for the obligatory Stan Lee cameo. Can you spot it? :D

A big Thanks to Richard Orr, Joshua Wexler, Paula Barrett and the other guys at Tussauds for inviting us along, and also for giving me permission to post the photos above.

It was great fun, and I wish you all the best for when the doors open to the public.

A Theory about Captain Britain and The Avengers (Spoilers for this week's books - Be Warned).

2010-05-25T12:02:00.030+01:00

If you haven't yet read Age of heroes #1 and Avengers #1, which came out this week, (And if you intend to) then please hold on a second. If you don't want to get spoiled then please back up, drive away, and come back later when you've read those.

Because in some of what follows there are going to be some pretty hefty spoilers for both these titles, which are sadly unavoidable.

This is your only warning.

Done that?

Okay.

It's quite sad actually. It's been such a while since I've actually had to avoid spoilers for a recently released book, on this site. But as you're probably aware by now something's afoot. We appear to be entering into a whole new chapter in the life of Captain Britain, and it would be wrong not to discuss that on this site, of all places.

Before I begin, yes I will be inserting panels and pages from Avengers #1, and other sources (Including Captain America Reborn, if you are still to read that) in this post. Blogger automatically resizes these images to fit them into the boundaries of this page. So in order to see them properly you'll need to open them in another Tab or Window. May I recommend that you hover over each image, and press in the click wheel of your mouse, in each case. It'll make your reading of this article a heck of a lot easier for you.

Thanks.

Now, all of this basically stems from this...

The moment where Captain Britain accepts that offer from Steve Rogers - the former Captain America - to become an Avenger, in the pages of Age of Heroes #1. A big moment for any Cap fan. And something many older readers have been wanting to see since both 'Captains' fought alongside each other against the Red Skull, all those years ago...

But it does now raise a damn good question.

So he's an Avenger - but where is he going to appear?

You see, these days, the Avengers are far from being limited to ONE book. No, no , no. There are all sorts of varieties.

You've got the flagship - Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jnr's Avengers.

You've got the more street level title - New Avengers, by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen.

You've the youth book - Avengers Academy, by Christos Gage and Mike McKone.

And you've Steve Rogers' more covert team - Secret Avengers by Ed Brubaker and Mike Deodato.

There's a lot of choice out there - and we also know that Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung will be back soon with more Young Avengers...

So where exactly within this new status quo will Captain Britain be fitting? It's really kinda hard to call.

I've been thinking this over quite a bit. Somehow, I think that New Avengers is unlikely. That's a New York based street level hero book, mostly. It's not that Cap couldn't go there (Although spending serious time ONLY in America would seem a little odd...). But it's probably not that likely.

He could well turn up as a tutor on Avengers Academy. Although the tutors there have mostly already been shown, in publicity material glimpsed so far.

So what about Secret Avengers? Well, I'll admit it, I called that wrong when we were seeing those silhouette teaser adverts. It was Nova. Odd though that might be to comprehend Richard Rider appearing on a 'Secret' team. But I wouldn't necessarily write off Brian turning up here.

Secret Avengers is Steve Rogers' own personal team. He's left Maria Hill in charge of running the Main Avengers, while he runs this one. So, given that Steve asked Brian to join, it might makes sense that it was an invitation to join THIS team. Brian has been working with British Military Intelligence. He's used to the kind of operations which we assume the Secret Avengers may be dealing with. And obviously, Steve and Brian go a fair way back.

The thoughts against this though, largely stem from his not having been used in any pre-publicity. And and also the more recent revelation that while there were other members joining who did NOT appear in the pre-publicity, these have now been revealed to be Black Widow and Ant-Man...

However, Ed Brubaker did hint that this might not be the final roster, and also if you're going to hype that Captain Britain MIGHT become an Avenger in Age of Heroes #1, then you're not going to use him in pre-publicity for any other title he may appear in, are you? Not if you still want to SELL copies of Age of Heroes, anyway...

The fact that Cap appeared alone on the variant cover for Age of Heroes #1, alone, would also certainly SEEM like an intentional move designed to hint that he would soon be playing a greater role somewhere...

But there is one tie which I'm thinking that some folks MAY have forgotten about. And that's actually relating to fallout from Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch's Captain America Reborn series, a few months back. Some of you may remember that after returning to our time Steve Rogers was haunted by visions of things which he saw while trapped in the timestream. Not just the past, but also a pretty nasty vision of a future yet to come.

I'd say it's pretty likely that this will be followed up on in this new series.

But why should that be a big deal for Captain Britain fans? Well, do you remember what Steve saw in his vision of the future?

Pretty heavy, huh? But does that look familliar to you? Maybe it should...

Those certainly appear to be the Martian invasion vessels from Roy Thomas' Killraven stories, last seen breaking into Marvel's 616 dimension in the pages of Paul Cornell's Wisdom series. Captain Britain aided the earlier incarnation of MI13 in beating back the invasion, and of course, if Cap is on your team MI13 are also at your disposal.

If, as this suggests, the Martians are coming, to stage an invasion from their home dimension into Marvel's, wouldn't it make sense to have a guy who not only knows a thing or two about alternate dimensions, but also about besting a Martian invasion fleet, on your team...?

I would.

This is, of course, not the only option though.

And this is the point where I spoil last week's comics...

Avengers #1 launched last week. And as you can imagine, as with all good team book #1's, focussed on the coming together of a new team, and the assembling of a roster.

In this case, and with the new status quo, Steve Rogers finds himself appointed by the President to take over as the top cop of the Marvel Universe. And so it is that we see him contacting members of the Avengers past and present, all of whom (Bar Dr Strange) have been announced on the roster of one of the new range of Avengers brand titles.

Oh, and Wonder Man.

Who says 'No'.

So... Steve Rogers announces and (to coin the phrase) 'Assembles' the new core Avengers team, in the now Sentry-less Avengers Tower. A core team of Thor, Spider-man, Hawkeye (The real Hawkeye), Wolverine, Captain America (Bucky, by the way), Spider-woman and Iron man - All under the guidance of former SHIELD director Maria Hill.

Quite a hard hitting team. But not a complete team. One character who Steve had counted on being here, has not yet arrived...

From the earlier refusal, and Steve leaving the offer open to him, it's pretty clear that Bendis intends the reader to believe that final member is Wonder Man.

Me? I'm not so sure. Because what follows tends to suggest otherwise.

We don't actually get to find out, here, because of the arrival of Kang the Conqueror.

And this is why I think that this final member might be a little less obvious.

The conundrum is this... There is no love lost between Kang and The Avengers. For good reason. But out of desperation Kang has returned from the future to seek his old adversaries' help. He tells them that in the future he has come from, after an apocalypse caused by Ultron, they (the Avengers) are all dead. But their children are not. The problem is that nobody ever trained those kids. Nobody has ever taught them any kind of moral values.

And so, it seems, these kids are running wild with their inherited powers, with no sense of responsibility for using them or the damage it could cause.

In this case UNIVERSE ENDING damage.

Kang has tried to stop them.

And Failed.

20 Times.

Which is why he claims to be coming to them for help. But it's not that straight forward. The Avengers have no means of travelling to the future. They have no time machine. They have a Tony Stark - but even Tony admits that he hasn't got a clue how to actually build one.

And this is why I don't think their final member can be Wonder Man...

Let's look back at that criteria. Whoever this final member is, they have to complete a puzzle. A puzzle requiring three very distinctly shaped pieces. This member must ideally have:

1) An ability to somehow see into the future - or at least the ability to predict the future from an incredibly informed knowledge of Time.

2) A knowledge of Time Travel and how to avoid making changes which might damage the Timestream (And, you know, probably every other thing in existence in the process).

and

3) A full and detailed knowledge of Interdimensional travel and the technology required for doing it.

Now I may be reading between the lines here, but that's a pretty specific set of requests. You're not going to find many guys out there who can fit that bill. We already know Reed Richards is unavailable. So who else could possibly cater to such very specific needs.

Well... there is this guy you just made an Avenger?

Oh, yes.

Captain Britain.

I AM serious. I know some might see it as a bit of step up for the character, but I seriously cannot believe that it is pure coincidence that the same week they announce that Brian is joining the ranks of the Avengers they appear to be having a problem that is just so incredibly tailor made to suit him.

Let me explain.

If it's a knowledge of time travel, and the timestream, Brian has certainly been THERE. Much as though the story irritated me at the time (Largely because it was an off-panel plot which was established between published issues), and even gave rise to Brian's terrible 'Britannic' persona, Brian spent the time between Excalibur #68 and #75 lost in the timestream - after he was unexpectedly separated from the rest of the team as they travelled back from an adventure set in another future. During this time he made several attempt to try and return, using fellow team-mate Rachel Summers as an anchor, and eventually swapping himself out of the timestream for her.

This was a pretty traumatic experience for all concerned, but the effect left on Brian was a fairly lasting one. Whilst trapped in the timestream he got to watch the entire of human history, and multiple alternate offshoots thereof, happening all around him. And it mucked him up a bit. Seeing the futility of war across the whole of time led Brian to temporarily abandon being a costumed hero, and take up a life of peace. He become Excalibur's non-combatant hero and engineer, resulting in a few teething troubles...

Such as redesigning the team's plane... but forgetting to tell them he wouldn't be putting any weapon systems in it.

But far more interestingly, perhaps, was that after returning to the present Brian also began to experience a number of 'flashforwards' - glimpses of futures, or alternate futures, which he had seen whilst in the timestream. Flashes which his overloaded brain began firing out like a bad flashback to a acid trip from the 60s...

This first occurred in Excalibur #86, but they would soon become a semi-regular occurrence. In fact the whole of #94 (a story set in the future and called 'Days of Future Tense) was even revealed to be one BIG flashforward at the end of the issue.

These flashes stopped after Black Air were taken care of in Excalibur #100, but did give the team a very clear insight into what would happen if the team did not intervene against their adversaries, the recurring shady government department, Black Air.

Gone, but not necessarily without the possibility of a return. Future visions and flashforwards are darn useful devices to have, and given Brian's prolonged immersion in the timestream it is far from unbelievable that these might not return given the correct circumstance - fulfilling Kang's promise.

The same prolonged exposure could also, given Brian's intensely logical and scientific mind, allow Brian to use the trends and flowing lines of the history he experiences first hand as a way of calculating just what effect The Avengers actions might have on the overall timeline. So that they could avoid doing the really heavy damage.

Now THAT really would be useful.

But time travel is not the only reason why I feel that Brian fits the bill here.

IN Avengers #1 Tony Stark is very adamant that they need somebody with an intimate knowledge of multiple dimensions and how to traverse them.

Well, in Marvel comics, there really aren't many people with a stronger knowledge of all things multiversal than Brian Braddock. Certainly not whom are active superheroes, that's for sure.

You see, it's not just that he's travelled to so many alternate universes as Captain Britain, or negotiated Cross-time in a modified steam locomotive with the rest of Excalibur. It goes far beyond than that. Brian was brought into this world with only one purpose in mind. Well, the minds of his father and the God-Wizard Merlyn, anyway... Brian spent five years our time as Guardian of Marvel's multiverse - a position we are told he was always intended to inherit. After 2000's Excalibur mini series Brian was effectively left with the powers and knowledge of a God. He had access to the entire hub of all universes in Marvel's multiverse - he ran the whole show! He travelled the universes creating new Captain Britains to protect new worlds, and watched over countless dimensions himself.

Put simply there is no other active hero with that level of knowledge available to them in the Marvel Universe. In terms of knowledge in that area he even has the edge over the likes of Reed Richards. He more than fits the bill there.

Probably more importantly though, is that when it comes to knowledge of Interdimensional travel Brian's not just got the Otherworld equivalent of Frequent Flier Miles, he's also got one of these...

A fully functioning dimensional gateway. Presumably still sitting in the Darkmoor Research Centre, in the Cheviot Hills, since Excalibur vol 2. Stark wouldn't need Richards. He wouldn't need Doom. Because he'd have Brian. He pretty much is THE authority on this kind of tech. There is nobody better.

So ask yourself - Could Wonder Man offer this? No.

Could Noh-Var? Well... no.

Despite what some might think upon who may well turn out to be the final Avenger on the roster, whichever way you look at it, all logical signs still seem to be pointing in Brian's direction.

And do you know what? While he doesn't realise it himself, he even has a past with Kang the Conqueror.

What past is that? WEll for that we need to go back to 2000 again, and to Excalibur vol 2. That story largely centred around the sentient computer from Braddock Manor, all those years ago, going rogue, declaring itself to be the true heir to Brian's father and trying to take over Otherworld - the hub of all the alternate universes.

This ultimately resulted in 'The Mastermind' being defeated and Brian taking up the role of Multiversal Guardian.

But, as it turned out, this might not have so much been the fruits bared of a long built up plan of Merlyn's... but possibly just the machinations of another individual entirely...

Another Time. Another Place. Another attempt to get time sprawling out as he intended. But the suggestion is pretty clear. For some reason Kang manoeuvred Brian into that position, to suit his own agenda.

As we now know, that chapter of Brian's life ended with very little in the way of explanation. He did not get the chance to live up to the ideal he had been intended for. But who knows, maybe all of this was part of Kang's plan. Maybe all of this, and what is about to happen, and the man really pulling Kang's strings - maybe it's ALL tied together?

Either way, whoever the final member of Bendis' Avengers turns out to be, Wolverine says...

And Logan's met Captain Britain a few more times than the other names being banded around, right now.

Just saying...

There's just so many signs pointing off in this specific direction right now that while we CAN only speculate one thing IS for certain. If it turns out it's NOT Captain Britain that's one hell of a wasted opportunity to tie an awful lot of things neatly and logically together.

That's for sure. So here's hoping. Because that really would be a story worth reading!

Eagle Awards - Voting Now Open

2010-05-24T20:50:00.000+01:00

Just a quick Blog tonight. Though there should be a much larger one coming your way tomorrow. In part this is to try out blogging from my phone, something which is entirely new to me. But more importantly it's to make you all aware of something quite important.

Some of you may remember that a while back I posted up a link for you to make nominations for this year's Eagle Awards...

Well... Those nominations were counted, and today actual voting began.

For some of you, especially those who I speak to semi-regularly through Comic Book Resources, you might be a little disapointed that some of the nominations you wanted did not make the final cut. However, there are three categories which may be of interest to you.

The category of Favourite Editor, in which Nick Lowe has been nominated.

The category of Favourite American Colour Comic Book, in which Captain Britain and MI13 has been nominated.

And the category of Favourite Reprint Compilation, in which the Captain Britain Omnibus is nominated.

Now, I'm not saying that you MUST go and vote for these, but should you feel so inclined... :)

But most importantly, please do go and vote. The Eagle Awards are a British tradition which I for one would like to see taken seriously.

So if you're interested, you'll need to go here:

http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/vote.aspx

So there you. Speak soon.

Mark
(Sword)

- Posted on the move, from my pretentious phone...

Guess who's been made an Avenger!

2010-05-23T15:54:00.005+01:00

Ha Ha! Made you look!

Yes somebody HAS. But not the person you were probably expecting...

Don't let the beard fool you (Yeah the photo is a couple of years old now...) but that IS me, in the bottom of that double page spread in this week's Avengers #1, reboot. I applied, as with countless others, on Marvel's I Am An Avenger site, in their contest to get your mugshot into that issue.

I didn't think that I'd actually get printed. To be honest I'd probably have picked a better photo if I had... :D

Somewhere back in time 10-year-old Me is feeling truly made up.

Now if they'd just bring Excalibur back, I could get a letter printed, and he'd think I was a LEGEND!

Age of Heroes #1 Discussion Blog - Spoilers in Comments Section

2010-05-20T17:54:00.003+01:00

As many of you will be aware, yesterday in the USA and today in the UK Age of Heroes #1 came out, including a 2-page Captain Britain & Mi13 story by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk.

I have just finished reading said issue, and I can tell you that its advent will have a fair bit of impact on the cast of that book.

But here's the thing... I don't want to spoil it for those who will be picking it up this week.

So, if you've not read it yet, in short, go away! :D

Go away, buy a copy and read it. Then come back here when you have. I'm going to be posting up discussion on what happens in this issue in the comments field for this Blog Post. So if you come to the front page of the site, and you haven't read it, you won't be spoiled.

If you click on the individual post though you will be able to see the comments. You have been warned.

So, click on 'Comments' to come join the discussion when you're ready.

Enjoy.

And the Winner Is...

2010-05-18T07:30:00.001+01:00

Well, the Poll ended last Knight. Er... night. With 34% of the vote our first Issue-by-Issue series for summary will be:

Knights of Pendragon.

That, by the way, is Garey Erskine's cover for the upcoming Panini trade collection of Knights of Pendragon. For more information on that, from the man himself, and a few process sketches of how the cover got there you might want to take a look over HERE.

I'm actually very happy that this title won. In terms of significance to Marvel UK as a whole Knights of Pendragon represented a huge step towards the imprint years. It proved to Marvel US, and to comic readers around the world, that there really was plenty of British talent working at Marvel UK who deserved to be seen on a larger stage.

It also happens to be a pretty bloody good book, so i look forward to covering it. I shall get cracking on my first summary, and will try to have this one out within the next week, now that the house move chaos has died down and I'm a bit more settled.

In other news, following on from last week's appearance in Deadpool Team-Up this week is yet another CAP WEDNESDAY - as the team make that much hyped appearance in Age of Heroes #1...

I know what the unlettered pages seemed to suggest. But let's not get too carried away. Will Brian become an Avenger?

Well, I honestly don't dare to get my hopes up at this point.

However, Comic Book Resources have a lettered preview for one of the other stories in this anthology book HERE, which bears the Variant 'Heroic Age' Cover for this issue (Art by Mike Perkins). And it's pretty clear that only one guy is appearing on that cover...

And the solicit does say:

Eisner-winner & fan-favorite KURT BUSIEK RETURNS TO MARVEL! THE HEROIC AGE IS HERE! The Heroes are restored to their rightful place in this new era, and the world is safer for them. They defeated Osborn & his Siege on Asgard, now they have one last foe to face: the Mayor of New York -- J. Jonah Jameson!

Also, MI13 come to the US, but one of them isn't leaving--they are defecting to the AVENGERS?!

Plus Dr. Voodoo's Sorcerer Supreme duties infringe on “date night” and how much trouble can Spider-Man get into in one day? The answer: A LOT!

Just sayin'...

In other Marvel UK related news, it has also been revealed in Marvel's August solicits that Marvel UK's First Lady, Lady Jacqueline Falsworth, will be getting a Spitfire one-shot.

And it's Paul Cornell writing it.

Here's the solicit:

SPITFIRE #1

Written by PAUL CORNELL
Penciled by ELENA CASAGRANDE
Cover by JENNY FRISON

The British Invasion hits New York! While her MI13 compatriots make nice with the Yankee super sorts, Lady Jacqueline Falsworth is on the hunt for an old acquaintance...with bloody consequences for the Big Apple. With bad boy Blade at her side, the immortal speedstress must conquer her past in order to save her future!
32 PGS./One-Shot/Rated T+ ...$3.99

So i guess this was what Paul Cornell meant when he said Spitfire and Blade were going to be busy elsewhere during Age of Heroes #1...?

Anyway, that's it for now. Hopefully the schedule should be getting back to normal very soon, so keep on checking back, or checking the Twitter feed.

Speak soon

Mark
(Sword)

It's CAP WEDNESDAY - Wha-!? Huh?

2010-05-11T21:51:00.006+01:00

No. You're not reading this incorrectly. Captain Britain & MI13 IS still cancelled. More's the pity, but we can't have everything.

However, tomorrow (Wednesday the 12th of May) is being declared a token 'CAP WEDNESDAY' by fans of the series, due to the team's guest appearance in Deadpool Team-Up #893.

It's written by fellow Brit, 2000 AD and Cla$$war writer Rob Williams, and while I'm sure that the thought of Deadpool may turn some people off seriously, put that to one side for a minute.

Rob knows what he's doing. He's a fan of 80s Captain Britain and he's not afraid to reference it! This story focusses on a weapon tech haul, recently turned up in Britain, which once belonged to Cap's one time nemesis Slaymaster. And it seems quite a few people are rather interested in seizing ownership...

Including a guy who just happens to be employing Deadpool. :)

The story shows real promise, and if you're interested in taking a prospective glance at it you can find a preview HERE!

It's always worth supporting a British creator, but this one genuinely does look a lot of fun. Plus, it's the first REAL example of of MI13 guesting outside of what was their own title. If you are a fan, if you were gutted that Marvel canned it, or even if you just love reading quirky stories set in Marvel's Britain, you MUST pick this up!

And needless to say, it all helps to remind Marvel that there is still a fanbase for this team. If those issue were to sell slightly higher than the Team-Up issues around it... well that could only be a good thing ;)

Deadpool Team-Up #893 is out on Wednesday the 12th in the USA and Thursday 13th in the UK.

Is this the moment Captain Britain is asked to become an Avenger?

2010-04-27T23:07:00.007+01:00

Remember that Age of Heroes solicit from a couple of months back?

Well, yes, I fully accept that the Secret Avengers silhouette I posted up my blog post about it turned out to be that of Nova - and not Brian. But despite the silhouettes now having been revealed Ed Brubaker has still said that there are more members joining Steve Rogers' band of Secret Avengers than just the members now revealed.

Remember how the solicit for Age of Heroes #1 said how a member of Mi13 might be leaving for the States? Well, Newsarama have a few unworded preview pages up here. And while we do not have the dialogue we do have this preview page here:

Click to enlarge.

Now we don't know what Steve Rogers has just asked Brian at the bottom there, but Wisdom doesn't look happy about it...

Could it just be that the ex-Captain America has just offered Brian the chance to join his Avengers?

Are we wrong to even hope it?

Seriously, Secret Avengers is made up primarily of characters with definite fan bases, but whom have struggled to maintain ongoing books in the current climate. Nova. Beast (From S.W.O.R.D.). Moon Knight. War Machine.

Surely Brian fits that niche, too? And he'd be a true asset to this secretive team. A guy with near limitless strength, who can see magic hexes as solid things he can tear apart with his hands? He has been doing this kind of work for a while now...

Come on Marvel! Please prove me right on this one... :)

In other news, last week Panini's fourth Captain Britain trade came out:

With comics unable to ship from America (While that sodding volcano in Iceland made the skies un-flyable around Europe) at least we got SOMETHING new to read last week. And what a run, too. Many folks will be reading thiose Black Knight team-up issues for the first time!

For anybody who loved the cover to that volume Staz Johnson is now selling the original art for it on eBay. So if you fancy owning it then click HERE and check it out. Damn. If only I didn't have to buy furniture for this new house...

I'm glad to see that (At time of blogging) 84 of you have now voted in in the Issue-by-Issue Poll, above. Knights of Pendragon is currently leading, but there's still plenty time for that to change. So if you haven't voted yet, now's the time. :)

And finally, it may only be a small thing, but over at Comic Book Resources the Captain Britain and MI13 Appreciation thread, which I was coerced into starting after the book's cancellation last year, has now totalled up to 100 Pages! Dear God, I've created a monster.

But it just goes to show that there ARE still people interested in these characters - from the main cast to Motormouth and Killpower. The interest hasn't disappeared.

And that's pretty positive really.

Bye for now.

Mark
(Sword)

New Poll! Marvel UK Issue-by-Issue - Which title would you like to see Covered?

2010-04-16T10:07:00.004+01:00

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, next month I want to start covering a Marvel UK related series in-depth, as a regular It Came From Darkmoor feature. Covering said series Issue by Issue. Right now I'm trying to work which book I should cover, and I've drawn up a shortlist of books readily to hand after the house move.

So this is where you come in, reader. Which book would you like to see covered?

I've added a poll of the contenders to the top of this page. That's permanently tagged, so if you want to think about it before voting feel free. It won't disappear. :)

Voting will end at this point next month. So get thinking!

Mark
(Sword)

What's the deal between Marvel and Panini, now?

2010-04-15T13:21:00.006+01:00

A good question? There has been a fair bit of discussion raised by articles online at Bleeding Cool and Down The tubes over what the future may hold for Panini's licensing deal with Marvel Comics, in light of Disney's takeover last year.

For those in the USA who are not aware, Panini are an Italian based company who specialise in publishing comics and magazines in the UK and across Europe, as well as a line of collectible sticker albums a trading cards for all sorts of brands, from toy and cartoon lines to sports licenses.

When Marvel UK was wound up and broken down Panini acquired many of its parts. In particular the Doctor Who Magazine and reprint rights for Marvel's American titles in the UK. Since the mid 90s they have been reprinting Marvel books in monthly 'Collectors Editions' comprising three standard US issues for the price of roughly one US book, along with fortnightly licensed titles from the Ultimate Comics line and new material in the form a Sensational Spider-man - which began its life as a ttie in to the 90s Fox TV Spider-man cartoon but grew into new material later.

They also do their own trade collections of US story arcs, and anthologies of stories by specific writers and artists. Perhaps more importantly to this site they collect Marvel UK material in trade, in the form of the Captain Britain: Birth of a Legend series, as well as collections of Dragon's Claws, Death's Head and Knights of Pendragon. Each of which is something Marvel US have never been willing to do.

A couple of months back Panini acquired the international distribution rights to Italian company Bonelli Comics. Perhaps not that odd. But this got a few people wondering if this acquisition wasn't some kind of preparing for a coming storm, after the announcement that Disney had bought Marvel. Because there is a certain amount of competitive history between Disney and Panini in Europe. In Italy, in particular.

Bleeding Cool reported yesterday that Disney are now taking over Marvel's International Licensing. Now while Panini do still have a deal running with Marvel to reprint their material in the UK an Europe, there is speculation that in light of this things might change.

I personally praise Panini for the job they have done over the last 15 odd years. Were it not for them Marvel really wouldn't have a huge presence here in the UK. Sure, they would within specialist comic book stores. But here in the UK the majority of comic sales DO still come from the newsagents. Thanks to Panini there is a high number of Marvel reprint titles on the shelves of every WH Smith and smaller local newspaper shop across the UK. That IS significant. It's helped build recognition in a way that, say DC have not been able to.

I personally feel that if Disney chose to pull the licensing deal with Panini they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. Taking away that presence would almost certainly leave a big Marvel-shaped gap in the shelves. I'm not saying they haven't done their homework (Apparently they've even brought Ryman Boss and Dragon of BBC TV's Dragon's Den, Theo Paphitis to add to there International Advisory Board at Marvel) but the comics market in the UK is a very different animal to America.

There is of course the other possibility. Disney might try to distribute in Europe themselves. Maybe even open up a British Marvel office, again. That would open up all sorts of possibilities, for editorial staff and even possibly opportunities for British creators to do new work. But it would cost a lot. And I don't think that is necessarily likely.

I'm going to keep my ear to the ground about this one. I have a lot of respect for the people at Panini. They do good work. And I'd hate to see those Marvel UK collections stopped.

In other business, a big thanks to Staz Johnson, who popped by in the comments field of the last post and actually answered one of the ongoing questions we've had over Panini's Captain Britain trades. Staz has done the cover for the most recent volume. Which you can see here:

http://stazjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/03/captain-britain-cover.html

Which shows Captain Britain and Black Knight fighting in Otherworld, with Jaspers and The Fury in the background. So, yes. It looks like these collections will (Providing they continue) overlap into the material also collected in Marvel US's Captain Britain Omnibus.

Seriously, go and take a look at that page. Staz shows several steps taken to build up that cover, and his inspiration for it. Anybody who has an interest in the artistic process should check it out. Nice work.

And finally, for those who have been asking for a chance to read this stuff for years, this week sees the release of

Excalibur Visionaries: Warren Ellis Volume 1 .

For those who have ever wanted to see the first Marvel appearance Pete Wisdom, and the beginning of the Pete Wisdon/Kitty Pryde pairing, this is where you will find them. And trust me, they're good.

I don't know if that is actually the final cover. It's what Amazon currently have up, but they often have placeholder covers for pre-order books.

If it is, it seems a bit of an odd choice. That cover shows Pete Wisdom and Kitty Pryde from the Dream Nails storyline. Odd, because it's kind of an art error. You can see that on that cover Pete Wisdom appears to have some kind of electricity buzzing from his eyes.

Why?

Well, some of you probably might not know that Pete Wisdom was not originally intended to be a Marvel Comics character. He was created by Warren Ellis and Ben Dilworth as part of a pitch for a title called 'Electric Angel' for British based Trident Comics. Wisdom was still and angry young man from Essex, but a man who had command over electricity - not hot plasma knives.

Unfortunately Trident went out of business, and that never saw the light of day. Pete Wisdom was later reworked by Ellis, and introduced early into his run on Excalibur. This is the Pete Wisdom we know now. But so I am told, at some point before his powers were changed to the 'Hot-Knives' that cover was put together, featuring his originally intended power set.

Ellis did of course go back to part of the abandoned power set, later, with another British character, in the form of the brilliant Jenny Sparks from Stormwatch and later The Authority.

Weird how these things work out, eh? Or so the Urban Legend goes.

UPDATE: You know, I've heard that explanation given for the electric eyes of Wisdom several times, and from several different sources. But since posting this one up I've heard from Warren Ellis himself, via Twitter.

warrenellis: @theswordisdrawn You assume a little too much: Marvel never knew of the previous iteration of that character. That's just a crazy artist.

So there you have it. He should really know. Crazy artist indeed.

Anyway, Excalibur Visionaries: Warren Ellis Volume 1 should be out this week. Seriously, Ellis run on Excalibur was a real highlight amongst the stale tone of mid 90s comics. Keep an eye out for this in your store.

Okay, that's all for now. I'm currently having a kitchen fitted downstairs and they may need the power off in a minute.

So until next time...

Mark
(Sword)

Marvel congratulates Captain Britain & Mi13 team on Hugo nomination - And read two issues for FREE!

2010-04-08T22:05:00.003+01:00

As posted at the start of the week 'Vampire State' the final arc of Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk's excellent Captain Britain and MI13 has been nominated for Hugo Award.

To celebrate this nomination Marvel have put the first two issues of Vampire State up online, to view for free, through Marvel Digital Comics unlimited. So, for all of those of you who didn't read the book when it came out (And shame on you!), for those of you who have always been curious about the book but never took the plunge, click HERE to see just what you've been missing. You don't have to sign up for anything - they're free to read. All you need is to be connected to the internet.

So, if you love reading British comic book characters (And let's be honest, that probably is how you came to be reading this site), if you love Vampires, or just if you love good sci-fi then go over to Marvel's site and give it a go.

And of course if you happen to be eligible to vote in the Hugo Awards this year please give Vampire State some very serious consideration. :D

Eagle Awards nomination time and Captain Britain nominated for a Hugo.

2010-04-05T22:18:00.005+01:00

Hi folks,

I'm sorry for the absence recently. Those of you following my Twitter feed will probably know I'm still living between two houses right now - moving out of the old and into the new. And obviously this has kind of meant It Came From Darkmoor hasn't been as readily updated as it should. I'll be changing ISP this week also, as we move the phone line over. Rest assured though, we'll be back properly by the start of May. I've recovered that Marvel UK A to Z list from a packing crate and I'm raring to go, just as soon as we've got things sorted.

You know... things like a kitchen fitted. And working plumbing.

But in the meantime I could not let a couple of really important things slide. First of all I discovered this weekend that nomination for the 2010 Eagle Awards have just opened. For the uninitiated The Eagle Awards are THE big UK Comics awards, which first started back in 1977, out of Eagle magazine - the book which used to be the home of British Comic Book icon Dan Dare.

Now some regular readers might be thinking 'Hold on! Didn't we do some nominating for the Eagle Awards in the Autumn?'

Well, yeah. But you see, through a bit of a falling out, and lack of a venue, the 2009 Eagle Awards ended up being cancelled. Historically the awards have been delivered at the Bristol Comics Expo each year. That did not happen in 2009. Nominations happened, but the awards themselves never did.

This weekend the panel line-up for (as it is called this year) Bristol International Comic & Small Press Expo was announced over at Geek Syndicate, with The Eagle Awards scheduled for first thing on the Sunday morning.

And the Awards being in place obviously means that nominations are needed. And needed quickly! So if you want to have your voice counted you'll want to go here : Nominate!

Nominations are valid for any book, creator or project which was published during 2009.

Now obviously I'm not telling you who to vote for!

But during 2009 I think it's fair to say that Captain Britain & MI13 WAS being published. Vampire State WAS the big arc of that book, during 2009. Paul Cornell was writing it, Leonard Kirk was pencilling it, and Nick Lowe was doing a bloody good job editing it...

And of course there are categories such as Favourite Artist, Favourite Artist: Pencils, Favourite Editor, Favourite American Colour Comic Book, Favourite Continued Story Published during 2009, and Favourite Cover Published during 2009, which need filling out on that form.

It's up to you which you might want to nominate. But just some food for thought... :)

Not sure when nominations close, right now. But as the Awards are in May I'd get my skates on.

So the URL you need is www.eagleawards.co.uk/nomination.aspx

Nominate away!

In other news nominations were announced this weekend for the prestigious Hugo Awards this year.

Congratulations to Paul Cornell for being nominated for a Best Graphic Story Award for the Vampire State arc of Captain Britain & MI13.

After the cafuffle of last year's nominations I'd imagine that's doubly pleasing for many to see. I'm sure that regular readers will all join me in wishing Mr Cornell all the best of luck. It's up against some good competitors, but I think we all have our fingers firmly crossed for it.

More importantly it's great to see that the title has not been forgotten. Maybe Marvel aught to have think about the Hugos? The only Marvel book which got a nomination and it got cancelled in 2009. Maybe they aught to consider giving it another go...?

That's going to have to be it for now. In all likelihood I won't get a chance to update the site for a few weeks, but while I'm away I'd like you guys to have a think about something for me. As part of my return to more regular Blogging I'd like to do a re-reading of a Marvel UK ongoing title, to highlight that book and give it's tales some internet coverage again.

But which book?

Do you have a personal favourite? A title you'd like to read again along with me? Or just to hear about?

Then let me know. Post your ideas in the comments section of this post and I'll aim to go with the majority decision.

Until next time

Mark (Sword0

Clan Destine - a brief Update

2010-02-21T23:10:00.004Z

Going back to Autumn 2008, some of you may remember that I ran a story on the future of Alan Davis' Clan Destine (This one, in fact) coming out of that years Mid Ohio Con, which Davis attended along with oft collaborator Chris Claremont. This was the news that unfortunately that year's Clan Destine mini had not pulled enough readers to justify Marvel giving it another go, and that Davis would therefore be trying to continue his story in a series of three Annuals (A Fantastic Four, a Daredevil and a Wolverine.

Well, now we're in 2010. 2009 went by without any news on the subject. I kept an eye out for ANY books which Davis worked on, in hope of a Destine family glimpse, but sadly no. To be honest, with the end of the year approaching it had started to pass out of hope and mind. I had the opportunity to ask Davis about the series in person, at BICS in October, and totally forgot until afterwards.

But quite by fluke the other week I got to talking on the subject of Clan Destine with one of the 'Vocal Minority' on Comic Book Resources - who asked me about that very article from 2008. So, I went looking...

Davis has continued to work for Marvel, where he has an exclusive contract for work, over the past year. Mostly covers and one shots for other writers. I loved his work on X-Men: The list, the rough sketches of which he had with him at BICS. But with the advent of Chris Claremont's X-Men Forever (A book picking up from where CC left the X-Men titles in the early 90s) and Louise Simonsen's X-Factor Forever (Very much the same concept, but with her and the original X-Factor series)over at Alan Davis' forum some people were questioning if an Excalibur Forever, could be that far behind, courtesy of Davis...

Unfortunately, for us hardcore Excalibur fans, Davis suggests there are no such plans from his point of view:

If there are any plans, I won’t be involved. I’ve decided the Wolverine Annual will be my last writing for the foreseeable future and I’ll go back to being ‘just’ a penciller!

Just' a penciller!? I think most of us would agree that Alan Davis is more than a cut above being JUST a penciller. The guy is a living legend.

But would that be the same Wolverine annual he mentioned back in 2008> Why certainly...

The annuals have been delayed because over the last eighteen months Marvel asked me to work on the other projects and covers which significantly slowed progress. I have completed the Fantastic Four and Daredevil Annuals—and hope to continue the Wolverine Annual during any downtime on the six part series I’ll start to pencil in January.

...

As I have said elsewhere, my first priority has always been family and one of the factors that determined which projects I took on has been how the deadlines will impact my family. In the last couple of years my work took a back seat because both my children got married in 2008, with all of the usual upheaval and celebration, and our first grandchild arrived in 2009. I’ve had a terrific couple of years. However, what I discovered was that, with the added distractions of one-offs and covers, it is difficult to build or maintain the necessary momentum to write and pencil a book. I realised I needed to make a choice.

Although I have had offers to write for other artists on balance I prefer to work as a penciller with a writer rather than seeing my story drawn by someone else.

I’m sure Marvel will announce the mini-series in due course.

Alan

And I can absolutely appreciate where he is coming from. That's a lot of big family stuff all coming in a relatively short space of time. And while I would still be more than willing to read an Alan Davis comic with artwork from another, I can quite understand why he would prefer not to do that.

So that's the state of play. Two out of three annuals are ready. One more still on the go. Keep your eyes peeled throughout 2010. I doubt that, in the current market, these are books which will be given a huge Marvel fanfare. But any fan of Clan Destine would be a mug to miss out on them.

I've been meaning to do a proper charting of the Destine family tree for the Blog here. Hopefully in the next couple of months I'll get a chance to do that, because I love that book. The Destine's were always such a unique family, and the way in which they could be inter-weaved into pretty much any period of Marvel history has always seemed to me like a very much untapped potential.

Second Captain Britain appearance of 2010 announced

2010-02-16T11:58:00.003Z

Yup, you saw that right. The team-up I'm sure you never saw coming - Captain Britain and Deadpool.

Deadpool Team-up is one of the seemingly never ending new Deadpool ongoing books. And in May this year the Merc with a Mouth will be visiting the UK.

Here's the solicit:

DEADPOOL TEAM-UP #893

Written by ROB WILLIAMS
Penciled by MATTEO SCALERA
Cover by HUMBERTO RAMOS
Heroic Age Variant by MATTEO SCALERA

TEAM-UP WITH CAPTAIN BRITAIN - Special Relationship

Cor Blimey guv'nor and, indeed, luv a duck. The fabled missing weapons haul of Captain Britain's old enemy Slaymaster has finally been discovered, which sends Deadpool, and every other mercenary with air miles to cash in, to jolly old England in pursuit of a VERY large payday. But Captain Britain isn't just going to let the deadly Slaymaster tech hit the open market. That just wouldn't be cricket.
32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$2.99

And I absolutely LOVE that Humberto Ramos cover (Although, yes, I know... Technically Deadpool is Canadian).

Many of you might be aware that I am a little scathing of explosion of Deadpool titles at the moment. But with this one I cannot complain. For those who are unaware of Slaymaster, he was one of Captain Britain's foes from back in his pre-Excalibur days. He was a killer. An Arab man who prided himself in the art of killing, and saw the near impervious Captain Britain as one hell of a challenge.

He was killed off in the 80s, during Jamie Delano's run on Captain Britain, where Brian ended up smashing his head in with a large rock, shortly after Slaymaster had blinded Psylocke (For those of you who always wondered why Psylocke had mechanical eyes when he first joined the X-Men - well, that's how that began).

In taking the time to acknowledge that little part of past continuity they have won me over. And as with Age of Heroes, all Captain Britain & MI13 fans you MUST pick up this book.

Sales clearly do talk to Marvel. And if the sales of those two issue leap purely through a connection to CB&MI13 it can only be a good thing.

Plus, I think it's safe to say, that this should be a lot of fun. A lot of quite silly, but genuine fun. And as long as you come into reading this one taking the tone from the cover, I'm sure it'll be worth your while.

Captain Britain & MI13 embrace the Age of Heroes

2010-02-12T20:55:00.008Z

Coming slightly late to the party blogging this, but on Wednesday night Marvel announced that as part of their new status quo, 'The Heroic Age' as it is being called, they will be publishing a mini series showcasing some characters readers haven't seen for a while. But how impressed was I when I saw the actual cover? Take a look:

Well, yes, the usual Marvel candidates... Captain America, Spider-man, Iron Man, Thor... wait! Isn't that Captain Britain!?

Too right it is. And most of the rest of MI13 with him! The Black Knight (Top Left), Excalibur - Faiza Hussain (Bottom Right), Gloriana - Meggan Braddock (To the right of Doctor Voodoo) and Pete Wisdom (In front of him).

The Captain Britain & MI13 team of Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk, are doing a few page short story for this issue. And what's it about? Cornell told Newsarama:

Cornell: Well, two of them are absent, off doing something else while the rest of the team is being honoured by Steve Rogers at a reception. A good excuse to get up to something covert in New York. Pete is a bit cynical about this whole new sweetness and light business. But there’s one big thing I wanted to do here which is proper and fitting, and I’m really grateful to Tom (Brevoort) for letting me do it.

Okay, now I really want to know what that is!

The absent two would seem to be Spitfire and Blade. A shame as she obviously has a past connection with Steve Rogers (Captain America). As does Brian of course(The two of them even once drove the Red Skull from kidnapping Prime Minister James Callaghan and invading Britain back in the 70s).

Although what has a lot of people talking is that Newsarama have seen the solicits and raised the following question:

Newsarama: It says in the solicits that a member of MI:13 might be defecting to the United States! Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Cornell: No!

Well, let's be honest, that would be a bit of a spoiler. It has concerned a few fans of the title though, who desperately want to see a new Captain Britain & MI13 series (Be that as a limited series or an ongoing). The thought that one member might depart? Well, that's not good news. Not at all.

But then again, MI13 HAS always had a rotational membership. All British heroes are members by default. And of course... even if a member were offered Avengers membership by Steve Rogers himself, they certainly don't have to take it.

Here's a link to the Age of Heroes interview on Marvel.com Click Me. And another to the one at Newsarama: And Me! for more information...

The other associated talking point this week, has been the teaser images for Ed Brubaker's new Secret Avengers title.

Ed Brubaker, of course, should know an awful lot about Steve Rogers. His Captain America run has become incredibly revered (Heck, I went out of my way to track down a copy of the first omnibus when I was in Florida the other year, and brought that back in my hand luggage). And given the way in which Marvel tends to use these 'Event' mini series titles to lead into other ongoing books they're launching, some people are wondering if there isn't a connection between the MI13 story in Age of Heroes - organised BY Steve Rogers - and the possible launch of Secret Avengers.

Because Steve is NOT the Captain America who will be appearing in Brian Michael Bendis' Avengers relaunch. That will be his former sidekick, Bucky Barnes. Which has led to a fair few people assuming that Rogers might, given Brubaker's past connection to the character, be masterminding this new Secret Avengers team.

The day after announcing that MI13 were going to be in Age of Heroes, and that one member might be considering defecting to an American team, the following image was put out:

Marvel have been putting out one silhouetted Secret Avenger team member a day, in this poster form. This was number 4 in the series.

And as a few people online have pointed out, that silhouette is kind of flying in a pretty Captain Britain-esque pose...

Looking at the head of the figure, sure, Brian left the helmet behind at the start of Captain Britain and MI13. But if he were to be wearing it again, and a costume more similar to his New Excalibur costume...

Well... they're not a million miles apart now, are they?

And while some people thought it might actually be War Machine, the teaser image today almost definitely IS War Machine. Click Me So, you never now...

Don't you just love Speculation Season, eh? :)

Yeah, it'll probably all turn out to be nothing. But it's a damned good discussion while it lasts... ;)

Help Save S.W.O.R.D. and a word on the state of Marvel Comics.

2010-01-17T16:17:00.010Z

Well... what an incredible shame it is that we find ourselves here again. It was so recently that I was singing the praises of Kieron Gillen and Steven Sanders' S.W.O.R.D. series from Marvel. #3 came out this week, to be rewarded with the news that #5 will now be the final issue.

Once again marvel have chosen to cancel another ongoing series before the 6 month mark.

This truly saddens me. I love S.W.O.R.D. I love it because it brought Death's Head back into comics, obviously, but also because it actually made me like Agent Abigail Brand. I hated her on Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. Couldn't get a handle on her.

Kieron Gillen managed to change my mind. This series has really helped find a hook for the character, and has been incredibly good fun to read. From a depressed Lockheed drinking his life away though the loss of Kitty Pryde to the unexplained danger of Unit, an entity helping S.W.O.R.D. but only through the containment of a prison cell.

ifanboy made #3 their Pick of the Week, this week: Click

I honestly do not understand this decision. I really don't.

Gregg Hyatt runs a Blog by the name of NerderyBlog.com, and he is certainly just as disappointed by this as I am. But he is mounting a mailing campaign to Marvel, asking them to reconsider. He's even doing that hard work for us fans of the book by knocking up two alternate pre-addressed .pdf files for you to pick, print out and stick in the mail.

(Boy do I wish I'D thought of that when they cancelled Captain Britain & MI13)

I would urge any of you who have loved this series, or even liked it,to go to his site HERE, follow the instructions, print off and sign a copy, and put them in the mail.

Gillen and Sanders have been doing such fantastic work on this title. I cannot believe this cancellation has come down so soon.

This whole situation with Marvel and cancellations right now deeply concerns me. I think it should probably go without saying that I LOVE marvel Comics. I genuinely do. If it wasn't FOR them I probably wouldn't be reading comics at all, and I have always had an incredible affinity for their characters and stories. My head is filled with so much continuity and concepts which they put there. And I love it!

But that said, this past year I cannot say that the direction things appear to be flowing in at Marvel is something I am entirely happy with, and I'd like to make it clear as to why.

During the first two thirds of the post-2000s (Yes I refuse to call them the 'Noughties') Marvel Comics was a buzz place to be and a great place to read comics. Joe Quesada's new reign as E-I-C brought a much needed revolution to Marvel, and you couldn't help but feel excited about things. They seemed to have a real gameplan, and had a real mission to enrich and build up their 'Universe'.

At this point 'Marvel Universe' titles were practically a brand in their own right, showcasing a number of diverse teams and individual character books, and the creative talent to write these books had been head-hunted from all corners of media to form a whole new generation of writers and artists.

They brought us Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Allan Heinberg, Brian Hitch, Brian K Vaughan and JMS. Big names, and GREAT output.

It brought us new takes on old older properties, such as Bendis' Daredevil and Grant Morrison's New X-Men, and brilliant new properties like BKV's Runaways and Heinberg's Young Avengers, and a there was a commitment, clear for all to see, for trying new things. Like Marvel Next and the Ultimate Marvel line of comics, which weren't just reboots of existing properties for new readers, but new creative outlets to play with them in ways you just couldn't DO with the mainstream Marvel Universe.

Properties like Ghost Rider, Blade and Daredevil all had movies made of them (With varying success). Marvel even got to build up enough creative clout to form their own Movie Studios, giving them far greater creative control over movies using theier characters.

Now though, that this generation is beginning to go its separate ways a little (as is inevitable in comics) Marvel have brought us a whole new generation of writers and artist they are trying to mould into the next big wave of talent.

Johnathan Hickman. Paul Cornell. Rick Remender. Kieron Gillen. Jeff Parker. Leonard Kirk. Steven Sanders. Kathryn Immonen.

I cannot stress enough how happy I am to see those names working for Marvel.

However, whereas in the first third of the 2000s it was practically a given that a new creator would be given a chance to write or draw a monthly ongoing book in the Marvel Universe stable, to help hone their craft and prepare them to take over something bigger some day, in the years 2008 through to 2010 it kind of saddens me to see that this is no longer really the case.

It saddens me that this diverse Marvel Universe, previously a brand within its own right, is no longer... really there. Because aside from Daredevil and Fantastic Four it's almost now entirely gone. The number of books cancelled from this area of Marvel's output in the last 3 years is frankly pretty frightening reading.

Runaways. eXiles. Agents of Atlas. Blade. Doctor Voodoo. Ghost Rider. New Invaders. Captain Britain and Mi13. She-Hulk. Ms Marvel. Arana. New Warriors. Heroes for Hire. Alpha/Omega Flight (Omega Flight got downgraded to a mini, despite the creative team having plans for a first year). Nextwave. Eternals. The Order. Immortal Iron Fist.

And now S.W.O.R.D.

That's just off the top of my head, of course. I'm sure there ARE others I have forgotten, but those are the ones which spring to mind. The meat and potatoes of Marvel's entire brand.

It's seems that now pretty much any book which does not fit directly into the X-Men, Spider-man, Hulk or Avengers brands seems to only get any real press attention, advertising or hype from Marvel once the book has already become a dead cert for cancellation. We saw it with Captain Britain & MI13, we've seen it with others since, also.

Sure, books like Agents of Atlas DID get some full-page advertising showing some truly beautifully painted covers, made into and advert for the book.

But I do have to ask... how much does a beautifully painted advert which shows a set of characters who (certainly for the vast majority of) readers of other titles have never even SEEN before really achieve?

Seriously. I would have thought that to actually be a bit of a wasted piece of advertising. Because it doesn't tell a prospective reader anything about the book. Or, indeed, why they should be reading it. There is no hook for the reader, just a pretty visual. And often that is not quite enough.

I would have thought that it was a very similar situation when the John Cassaday cover for SWORD #1 was used as an advert too. It looked fine enough. But it didn't really tell anybody anything about this ongoing series at all. And for a book quietly launched in the background of Marvel's Dark Reign event that was something which the book absolutely needed in order to grab people's attention.

Gone, in the last couple of years in particular, are the editorial pieces placed in each monthly book from Marvel, telling you WHY you should pick up other books. Remember those? We very rarely even see a Cup Of Joe piece, these days.

Editorial pieces, Bullpen Bulletins, and the marvel Checklist page were indispensable parts of any Marvel Comic. Because it was these which told prospective readers what was going on with these new titles, highlighting them, and spelling out why they CAN'T AFFORD TO MISS what's going on? Back in the 90s pretty much ALL of my new purchases were informed by the Checklist page. It's how I heard about what else was going on in the Marvel Universe. Without that I would have only stuck to the properties I knew, the Spider-man and X-Men books of this world - much as it seems most readers out there are doing today.

It might just be my own personal opinion, but I very much believe that Marvel should be forgetting about using covers as full page ads. Modern Marvel Comics rarely have covers which relate to the actual interior of the book as it is, so why anybody should think they'd make a good advertisement anyway is questionable. Instead, I believe they should be exchanging these for a full page feature, words and art clippings, telling prospective readers about the book they are pimping. Because you cannot sell a S.W.O.R.D., or an Agents of Atlas, or a Captain Britain & MI13 on a cover alone. They don't recognise these guys!

Instead they need a HOOK.

They need the premise of the book, it's setting and characters, explained concisely and in a visually appealing form. Nobody should ever expect a prospective reader to go out of their way to find out about a book online. Marvel may put an article up on their website, but I would genuinely wonder what percentage of monthly Marvel readers regularly check Marvel.com? 'Regularly' as in the every new story posted on a daily basis?

I wouldn't have thought it to be terribly high, to be honest. Because, and lets face it, us comic fans tend to be a bit lazy with things like that. ;D It's no crime, but it is the way things ARE. But when we're reading a book we're a captive audience. A one page feature, presented well, will grab our attention. It's really all we need.

And perhaps the the daftest thing is that this something which Marvel used to do very well.

Mavel has switched it's focus in the past few years towards a concentration on event books. I don't really have a problem with that, as I do actually quite enjoy events.
Event books, of curse, pretty much sell themselves. You put a banner on the cover and it will sell because the casual reader tends to feel that the banner means that book is 'important'. They feel they NEED to buy that book, or thy might be missing out. And while they still feel that need they probably will miss out on picking up a new series, with characters they are not so familiar with, in favour of whatever book currently shows the Big Guns fighting in it.

That's not a crime. It's common logic, really. But it is a shame. Because without people picking up these 'unknown quantity' titles they do not survive. In order to change that Marvel really DOES need to give them that reason. To make it plain that they consider them just as important to a reader AS the big books. That's the way it used to be done, but these days it almost seems as if some part of Marvel is happy enough to allow these titles to be seen as something less important. The façade has to be maintained, otherwise the sales CAN only drop.

But what really worries me the most about the current situation is that while the previous generation of new talent at Marvel were given time and space to hone their craft, to learn through doing on monthly ongoing books, for this current new generation it seems to be turning out to be a very different story.

Look back at that list of creators above. Apart from the brilliant Jonathan Hickman (If you're not buying his Secret Warriors book, you should be) how many are still on monthly ongoing books at Marvel? How many have had their books cancelled? How many in recent times before even reaching the six month mark? I mean seriously Jeff Parker has now had THREE ongoings cancelled. His eXiles run was also cancelled at the #3 mark.

Smaller titles like SWORD, Agents of Atlas, or Captain Britain & MI13 may review very well, may get critical acclaim, but they are NOT an easy sell to the average comics buyer. The characters are not so well-known, the writers and artists are not as well-known, and they take quite some time to establish a readership. You can't rush that, because you are starting from scratch. Even if you've had a mini series before it - because there's a world of difference between a reader committing to a mini series and a reader committing to buy a book EVERY month for the foreseeable future. A great amount of difference.

A new title needs TIME. It needs two to three arcs of story to establish itself. At least six months of reviews to pick up comments for adverts from. At least Six months of people talking about it online and in comic book stores. At least one trade paperback on the shelves, so that when that prospective new reader asks 'What's like? Do you think I'd like it?' fans or the store owners can hand them a copy and say 'Here! Buy this and see what you think.' It helps new readers catch up and helps generate a fan base which otherwise WILL NOT take shape. Because there isn't time FOR it to take shape. Nor could anybody expect it to.

I love SWORD. And I think that a lot of guys would also love it if they picked it up and took a look. Cancelling the book on #3 is ridiculous. There were people I know who only picked the book up for the first time this week, and added it to their pull list. Guys who don't normally read Marvel. Some guys who were still feeling burnt over Captain Britain & Mi13 (the first book which got them to try Marvel Comics again in over a decade) getting cancelled just when they'd started picking it up in its third arc.

Cancelling books just at the point where people start 'getting' it creates a really bad atmosphere. When a new reader finds a book they like only to find it gets axed they are far less likely to try another. If it happens again, and again, there really is a very genuine chance that it will cause them to swear off buying that publisher's books period. If I were working at Marvel right now it's certainly something I think that I would be quite concerned about. Because this isn't the odd title we're talking about her. The list of cancelled ongoing titles is getting rather large now, ad almost all of them are reviewing VERY well.

And I personally would also have to question quite how long this can continue before the very new writers and artists Marvel wants to attract are going to start being put off by what Marvel is doing. At the end of the day an ongoing book should BE ongoing. As a creator if that's what you signed up for, if that's what you were promised, how would you feel if that deal was reneged on after only 3 months? If it happens more than once would you really want to stay?

I had hoped that Marvel's takeover by Disney would have allowed the company to start giving creators more space to work. Maybe it yet will. But right now It seems not.

And that is very sad to see.

You know, I feel sure that a fair few people at Marvel feel just the same way as I do. I don't want to trash a company who have made me so very happy over the years, and I certainly won't stop buying Marvel in protest. But that, folks, is how I feel about it all.

Am I alone, here?

Four appearances for Captain Britain & MI13 in 2010?

2010-01-05T12:05:00.000Z

Spotted this morning on Paul Cornell's Twitter Feed:

Yes, I know... that's not much to go on, but that does at least sound promising. Four appearances is most definitely better than none.

This follows on from a question which Marvel's Tom Brevoort answered on Comic Book Resources Marvel Comics forum, last week:

Discuss. ;)

Where brooding darkness spreads its jealous wings...

2009-12-17T12:09:00.000Z

Just a quickie blog, today...

A couple of months ago I was doing a few Marvel UK searches online, and came across the work of Jonathan Wyke. He posts over at DeviantART as drdestiny. The image itself really grabbed my attention, and took me back to a much forgotten character I have thus far kind of neglected on this blog.

Night Raven.

I've not posted the image in full.

But You can find it Here.

I think that Jonathan has really captured the essence of the character.

Night Raven was created by Dez Skin, Richard Burton and David Lloyd, and went on to appear in many strips and later prose stories in a the pages of Marvel UK's Hulk Comic, The Daredevils and Savage Sword of Conan. Steve Parkhouse wrote the early stories, with David Lloyd and John Bolton on art. Later prose stories were written by Alan Moore and Jamie Delano.

Night Raven is really the unsung Pulp Hero of Marvel UK. Initially set in the 1930s the character's story went right to the other end of the 20th Century, via a stay in suspended animation. It was a pulp detective story of the very finest kind, and was even revived during the Imprint Years, through a Marvel UK graphic novel "Night Raven: House of Card" by Jamie Delano and David Lloyd.

Sadly we've not truly seen Night Raven in quite some time. He had a supporting role in a mini series in the mid 90s graphic novel Fury/Black Widdow: Death Duty, but since then his only glimpse in continuity has been in a splash page of Allied heroes invading Berlin, in JMS and Chris Weston's (Yet to be concluded) The Twelve (Click to Enlarge)

There on the left. An appearance which actually doesn't fit with continuity. Night Raven was supposed to be frozen in suspended animation that year...

Still, I suppose it's better than being forgotten.

There were two collections of Night Raven stories collected, both now out of print. Although the prose stories were not. I actually asked some of the guys from Panini about Night Raven. They had said they had considered trying to do a collection, but the issue of creator ownership was preventing it from happening at that point. A similar issue exists with The Special Executive's appearances in Doctor Who magazine. Alan Moore kinda owns them. While a fair number of Doctor Who strips have been collected in paperback form their appearances have not been collected in trade for that reason.

Although at least in Night Raven's case it does seem that new material is possible, if somebody wanted to use him. Who knows. Maybe some day.

Great work, Mr Wyke. I love what you've done there, and I'm glad to see that Night Raven has not been forgotten.

Another Marvel UK cameo of last week.

2009-12-16T12:05:00.009Z

Another day, another Blog. I'm going to keep this up for just as long as I can.

One Marvel UK related cameo last week, which I failed to mention the other day, came courtesy of the former creative team of Captain Britain & MI13 - Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk.

Both are currently writing a Dark X-Men limited series for Marvel, a spin-off from Matt Fraction's Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-Men crossover event this summer. The basic principle being that now Norman Osborn is running the replacement for SHIELD he wants his own X-Men team, as well as his own Avengers, to control the mutant population of Marvel's Earth.

The team has changed a little since the crossover, but I really like what Cornell and Kirk have been doing here. The team now consists of Mystique (The original unscrupulous shape-shifting mutant) , Dark Beast (Henry McCoy's twisted Dr Mengele-esque doppelgänger from the Age of Apocalypse universe), The Mimic (The silver age guy who absorbed and copied the original 5 X-Men's powers) and Omega (The guy who siphons and uses mutants' powers when he comes in contact with them. Although he's better know for killing the entire of Alpha Flight in Bendis' New Avengers ;D).

The main crux if the story is a PR exercise to make this team look good in front of the cameras. Which is great, because (While they are not wearing them in that cover image above) the team are decked out in costumes looking very similar to those the original five X-Men wore in the original incarnation of X-Factor.

With Mimic looking like The Angel (With those big feathered wings).

With Dark Beast... well looking like The Beast.

With Omega, head covered by a cowl, looking a bit like Cyclops from a distance.

And with Mystique having used her shape-changing abilities to take on the physical appearance of Jean Grey.

The PR exercise, I'm sure it will surprise you, turns out to be a bit more than they bargained for. Largely centred around the 'Mutant Shaman' Nate Grey, who hasn't been seen since he was forced to dissipate his body at the end of Warren Ellis' brilliant run on his title ('X-Man') in 2001.

Nate's powers are nearly god-like in level. And he's slowly piecing himself back together. He's also got a lot of catching up to do. It won't have escaped may people's attentions that there have been a lot of things going on in Marvel's shared Universe. Reality warps, Civil Wars, alien invasions... So what does he do? Use those high level telepathic powers to do a bit of psychic 'reading up' to fill in the blanks.

It's what I'D do.

And what do we see amongst the flashbacks...?

Did you spot it? Top left!

Brian Braddock, wielding Excalibur (The sword obviously, not Faiza Hussain), kicking the crap out of that big Magic Skrull, in The Guns of Avalon!

It really does rightly deserve its place in the greater tapestry of Secret Invasion, obviously, but it's great to see the series creators getting a chance for a little cameo like this.

If you were a fan of the Captain Britain & MI13 team you really should be picking up this book. It's great to see the old team working together and this series is a lot of fun.

One more thing, at the point I had intended to post this Blog up I was going to mention that Paul Cornell was doing a 12 hour Q and A session on Twitter. However, unfortunately, I understand that he has had to cut this short. Because he's gone over the limit for the number of updates Twitter allows a user to post in a 24 hour period. Now THAT is dedication!

More info, and a selection of the questions he was asked/answered to day can be found here: Click Here.

That's it for today.

More tomorrow.

Sword.

What If... Steampunk Captain Britain?

2009-12-15T12:05:00.005Z

Well, I promised more...

A little while ago I received an email from a chap named Dave Jones, who pointed me in the direction of another DeviantART page. This time a page belonging to a Colin Smith who posts there as Colgreyis: colgreyis.deviantart.com.

Dave had seen the Chris Weston take on Captain Britain and Psylocke I highlighted back in September, and wondered if I'd seen this...

Yes! Steampunk Captain Britain!

I really like that look, actually. Definite nods to the original 70s Captain Britain costume, with the hair, mask and variation of the Star Sceptre. But with part of the rustic feel which the costume for Crusader X had, in the pages of Excalibur.

And, of course, the obligatory steampunk goggles.

Colin has also done a similar steampunk version of the woman who Brian Braddock chose to succeed him several years ago (And whom we pretty much forget, these days...) Kelsey 'Lionheart' Leigh!

I was always a bit of a fan of Kelsey, as several of you probably already know. I think she got a bit of a rough deal. The story Chuck Austen wrote, introducing her in the pages of Avengers, was a really respectful nod to the origins of Brian as Captain Britain. But with the newly Omniversal Guardian status Brian now playing the mentor role of Merlyn and Meggan playing the role of Roma. It showed real promise, and a way in which to introduce a whole new generation of readers to the Captain Britain mythos.

Sadly, however, the plot was kind of swept away a few months later during the big 'Disassembled' reboot of the whole Avengers line. Kelsey was kind of left in limbo after that until Chris Claremont picked her up during his New Excalibur, and even that didn't really give her a positive showcasing in the end.

I think the steampunk styling really suits her. It's not a million miles away from her actual costume, but I like the the way that the lines just give her a little more shape. And God knows I wish somebody would clear up the confusion last caused her in New Excalibur. There were certain things which occurred in that final issue which should have had very dire consequences to her family. But putting that aside ;D it's great to see that somebody else seems to hold enough affection towards the character.

But the one image that caught my eye the most was that Colin had done a tribute to the cover from Captain Britain & Mi13 #13, with Brian flying around Big Ben:

Isn't that great? It's like Captain Britain meets The Rocketeer. I love it!

Remember, not all Captains CAN fly unaided, of course. In his original guise Brian couldn't. He wasn't even able to float until his staff was exchanged for the sceptre.

The idea of a Captain Britain soaring around the skyline by jetpack, in some alternate Neo-Victorian Steampunk London is one which greatly entertains me. I'm sure there IS somewhere out there, ;D

For more examples of Colin Smith's work please checkout: colgreyis.deviantart.com.

On a related Captain Britain note Geek Syndicate is running a number of auctions at the moment, to raise money the family of podcaster Eric Martin (Comic Playground and DC Noise) who sadly died unexpectedly last month. For one of these auctions Paul Cornell has very generously given them his initial Marvel pitch for Captain Britain & MI13. As I type this, bidding for this item stands around the £70 mark. But If you are interested in owning a piece of never before seen Marvel history, or any of the other great auction pieces on offer, please consider a bid.

All proceeds will be greatly appreciated. You get a early Christmas present. And you help somebody else in the process. What a lovely idea.

Death's Head is BACK, yes? And possibly... for the FIRST time?!?

2009-12-14T12:02:00.001Z

Right, one of my greatest regrets in being out of contact during November was not plugging this one anywhere near as much as it very definitely deserved.

Some of you out there may have seen the launch last month of a new cosmic but X-Men tied book from Marvel, by the name of S.W.O.R.D., written by Kieron Gillen (Phonogram, Thor, Dark Avengers: Ares) and with art from Steve Sanders. The covers look something like this:

The series centres around the agency knows as S.W.O.R.D. (The Sentient World Observation and Response Department) and the Head of that group Special Agent Brand, both of which were created by Joss Whedon, during his run on Astonishing X-men.

S.W.O.R.D. are a space-borne counter-terrorism and intelligence agency, who hover over Earth taking care of extraterrestrial threats. They've featured a couple of times outside of the X-Men. Spider-woman now works for them, and most notably they were taken out in the first wave of attack during the Secret Invasion event last year.

Which led to Norman Osborne (For it is he who now runs the agency which replaced Nick Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D.) to insert old X-Men political foe Henry Peter Gyrich ahead of Agent Brand. That's him on the cover of issue two, with his agenda up in writing behind him. He wants Brand out and he wants every last damn alien on Earth sent back to their point of origin.

Marvel Boy, Karolina from The Runaways, Beta Rey Bill... The lot.

The supporting cast features the X-Men's Hank 'The Beast' McCoy (Who has been dating Agent Brand since Astonishing X-Men) and Kitty Pryde's former companion (And ex-Excalibur member, of course ;D ) Lockheed.

But it was actually a guest appearance which interested me the most, here. During the first issue Agent Brand is pulled away from her duties when her Half-brother contacts her. He's gotten himself into a spot of bother. As a result a Bounty has been put on his head.

And guess who's chasing him to collect it? ;D

OH, YES. Death's Head has returned to the Marvel Universe. The initial conversation with Agent Brand of a comms channel shows us a slightly restyled likeness of the original Death's Had. Complete with that mercenary style body warmer armour. And he has every bit the same amount of attitude as ever.

But that first glimpse really doesn't convey the SCALE of this appearance, as I'm sure you'll appreciate this page demonstrates more actively (Click to enlarge):

Look how HUGE he is!

He's the size of house!

He's the size of a... Transformer? ;D

Reading this appearance does seem to indicate that this incarnation of Death's Head is indeed from before his encounter with not only Doctor Who, but also with the Transformers appearances. For one he's not using the title of "Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent" yet.

The Beast actually suggests that term TO him.

He notes that he rather likes.

Then tries to kill him.

By my reckoning, for this reason, what we are seeing here could well actually be the earliest version of Death's Head ever seen in the Marvel Universe. Biographically, anyway. And that is worthy of note. Top marks, Mr Gillen!

Seriously, guys. All old school Marvel UK fans should be picking this up. But not just for the DH guest appearance. More because it's a damned good book. You know the rules - if you want to read a good book at Marvel, always aim for the smaller titles with a good writer, first.

This is a great new ongoing book. Issue 2 came out this week, issue 1 should still be available. So go to your store and pick it up. Seeing a broken Lockheed hitting the booze as he grieves for Kitty Pryde should be reason enough.

No. Really.

That's in there.

But I won't post it up. You'll have to go and BUY it yourself. ;D

You won't regret it.

Another great custom job... YES?

2009-12-14T08:18:00.000Z

Hello again.

Remember me?

Yeah. Sorry about that.

I'm still in the process of catching up with almost two months worth of emails and questions. I'll get there. Eventually.

For those unaware I spent November competing in National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org), which I am very happy to say I completed. I now have 50,000 words to sort into some semblance of sense at some point, but in the meantime have obviously not been online anywhere near as much as I usually am.

Hence the silence here.

I'm going to attempt to get a few quick Blogs out this week, to get this site back up and running. Starting with another custom job courtesy of a Mr Chris Holmes, who writes:

Hi Mark,

I've been a reader of your blog for quite a while now and as a fellow Marvel UK fan enjoy what you write. After reading your story about the Death's Head Stikfa by Fourth Heir I thought I'd take you up on sharing some fan product. I'm a huge Death's Head fan and really bemoan his lack of love at Marvel so I try to keep the flag flying by producing art work based around him occasionally. I've created a pair of custom trainers featuring a version of DH which you can see at the below link.

Well, 'Hi' Chris. And apologies. Because you sent me this towards the end of October. And I promised to get it up in the next post.

Which has turned out to be in December...

The link in question was this one. Leading to a rather excellent custom job on a Nike Trainer:

You know, that's actually pretty bloody good. Top marks Chris! Good work. And DH in the green body warmer style armour. I have to admit that I always preferred that getup to the later armour he was placed in during his first solo series. It looked more like mercenary gear, which (Let's be fair) is much more what Death's Head is.

Chris has his own blog, which can be found here : commdesign.wordpress.com

As well as a DeviantART page, where he posts as Yetixx: yetixx.deviantart.com

That page has a few other Death's Head fan art examples, including this rather brilliant concept for a LEGO figure.

You've GOT to love that.

As Chris pointed out in his email it certainly has felt that, certainly in recent years, Death's Head has not received quite the amount of love at Marvel that maybe he should.

However... Death's Head 2 did of course get a cameo in the final is of Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk's Captain Britain & MI13. And the original Death's Head has also made a return...

The ICFD BICS write-up - Part 2!

2009-10-10T21:10:00.015+01:00

Yes. Because frankly I couldn't fit it all into one blog. Not even close. For the first half Click Here.

So, where were we?

Oh, yes. So we've covered a few panels from Saturday. But the other side of the Con Experience is obviously the chance to actually meet creators. To get things signed, to get sketches done, and hopefully get a chance to actually talk to them. Some my attempts to do this did not go according to plan, this year. In 2008 it was far easier to find people, because we had a handy dealer hall diagram, numbering up who was where. Not so this year. Which meant that while I had things for Gary Erskine and Charlie Adlard to sign, I actually didn't find THEM until the Sunday. And at a point where I then discovered the stuff I had wanted them to sign... was in the back of the car.

Bugger.

But of all those creators present I was absolutely determined to meet Alan Davis and Mark Farmer. These guys, to me, were such a huge part of comics while I was growing up. Captain Britain and Excalibur were THE keystone books that brought me into reading comics, there was no way that I was going to miss out on getting a sketch off Alan and have Mark ink it.

Much was said last year about the organisation of the queueing at BICS. I'd have to say that by and large it wasn't so bad this year. That said it's pretty unavoidable really that if you want to get something sketched by a big name artist you will have to queue. 2 hours in fact. I'm not grumbling! Some of the best chatting that I get to do at Cons comes from queueing in this manner. And in fact, while queueing I actually finally got to meet Dave Williams.

Dave is involved with the "Waiting for the Trade" podcast, and was a fellow ardent supporter of Captain Britain & MI13. Whenever I know know I'm going to be at an event like this I like to encourage people to come and say. And so it was this morning that Dave and I had exchanged an odd set of Twitter posts:

ukdavew: For those at BICS who might want to say hi. Today I'm bedecked in my Nightwing tshirt and if I summon courage will be handing out wftt cards

theswordisdrawn: @ukdavew Sound. For all #BICS attendees I will be in a Thundercats T-Shirt with a striped shirt on top. This is all very covert, no?

ukdavew: @theswordisdrawn covert yes...as embarrassing as going up to the wrong guy and asking if his sword is drawn? No

The man has a point.

We've spoken to each other a few times online, but it's always great to actually put a face to the name, as well. The British comic convention going crowd are not actually as big as you might imagine. It's always great to go to one, recognise somebody you've spoken to before and exchange stories. This is all part of the Con experience.

Great to meet you Dave. And thanks to the other who did say 'Hi' but who didn't actually introduce themselves by name. It's always reassuring to meet people who are actually aware of the blog. I get a fair bit of positive feedback online, but actually speaking to people in the outside and real world is brilliant. I'm glad you enjoy it.

So, Davis and Farmer! I was determined to get a sketch done, as opposed to having them sign something. This was because you never know how a creator might want to do things. I've known some guys to say 'Sketch or Sign - one or the other, but not both'. And that really would have crushed me. and so, and partly due to the weight it would have added to my bag, I chose not to bring my Captain Britain Omnibus with me. Or indeed my ClanDestine hardcover - which I could not find on the day. This I regretted terribly.

Especially when the guy two ahead of me produced his Omnibus for Davis to sign. It certainly seemed from Alan's response that this might have been the first time he'd actually seen the finished article. He explained to that guy that the introduction of his at the front of the book was one which he originally wrote for the 2001 collected addition of his and Alan Moore's run (Also collected in this volume) which marvel rejected at the time. I didn't get to hear clearly why. So I'm not going to post up what I thought I heard in error. But it really was fantastic to see Davis looking over this volume - a collection which many people thought would never come out.

From left to right: Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and also Pasqual Ferry, visible at the far right of the table.

When Alan Davis asked me what I'd like him to sketch I think I kind of confused him a little. Here he was through most of the afternoon being asked to draw Thor, Wonder Woman and other mainstream big hitters of Marvel and DC.

And then I turn up.

And ask him to sketch The Fury.

To which he said just replied 'Sure' and got on with it. When he handed the sketch to Mark Farmer, Mark kind of queried "The Fury???". "It's what the gentleman asked for," Davis said. I think they were both a little confused by the choice. I really wish that I'd had time to explain the Blog to them, and give my usual spiel. But to be honest, by this point they'd both been doing this solidly for 2 hours, in the kind of heat which required the show guys to bring a fan in as Mark Farmer began inking the sketch. I didn't want to push my luck to be honest.

So, to add to my growing collection of obscure Marvel UK Con Sketch requests (I say collection - it's really only two sketches so far)I now have another. And frankly how could I not get Marvel UK's finest art duo to add to it? To me The Fury, in its original form, represents one of the most disturbing adversaries to have ever have appeared in comics. It's a part organic machine, with only one purpose. It kills superhumans. That's all it does - but it never fails in doing it. It doesn't stop, it isn't weak to superpowers, it heals wounds, it doesn't feel, it doesn't question, it doesn't let up. The universe it was born into was destroyed but somehow it managed to survive.

The Fury can't be reasoned with. It doesn't monologue its plans to a hero before it tries to kill them. It just stares on, through that odd looking optical display, and the snuffs out the life of it's target. I don't think you can even call it Evil, per se. It just does as it's programmed to. And that, for me, is what makes it such a damned special adversary. This thing killed Captain Britain, remember. That's not an easy thing to do.

And so here it is - the finished article (Click to Enlarge):

And I'm pretty bloody chuffed with it too.

Needless to say that actually took up most of the Saturday afternoon. But we did manage to get in for the judging of the Cosplay competition, hosted by Irma Page, and judged (And you had to think they knew what they were letting themselves in for) by Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood. (For anybody who has not heard the infamous drunken panel which they did at Bristol Comic Expo this year you can find it HERE. Surprisingly this one podcast cannot be found on iTunes). When asked what he had in his hip flask, early into the panel, Dan replied that "It ruins Mothers". Which should probably hint to you at the tone of the proceedings. :)

Click to enlarge.

This panel really was far more fun than it deserved to have been, and really was the perfect end to the first day. In this one panel we were introduced to the perviest Spider-man I have ever seen, a mute but determined Pink Ranger, a rather worry Tank BOY ('I'm taking Tank Girl back... for the... boys?') and a small child dressed as Anakin Skywalker who had the courage to shout down his own Dad during his questioning!

But the overall winner was the guy who had come dressed as the Smallville version of Green Arrow. He'd actually gone to some quite considerable lengths of contacting the guys who made the bow for the series, to get the design specs for it, and to get the costume design. A costume which was, he admitted, stitched together by his (Long-suffering?) other half in the audience. Complete with the comedy detachable codpiece - which I'm sure you can all appreciate created much mirth.

So that was Day One. Largely focussed around queueing. We were determined to spend as little of Day 2 doing that as possible, and to get to see the rest of the con (Which my wonderful other half had done on Saturday, whilst Fliss and I queued for Davis). So we drove back down the M6 to Warwickshire to plot out Sunday, returning the following morning.

I was wearing a striped shirt and Space Invaders T-Shirt should it please you to knows this...

Of course Day 2 of a con will always be a little different to Day 1. Day 1 you've got all the adrenaline flowing. You're ready to take on all that it throws at you. Until by the end of the day you're actually pretty knackered. It should be noted that this is the first photo we have of BICS this year, on Saturday morning.

Three friends, too enthused by the concept of a Weekend Pass wristband and a goody bag, to even thing just how corny an 'All-foe-one' style photograph might look when posted up on this blog.

But compare the level of boundless enthusiasm captured in that photo at the start of Day 1, to the following photo, taken by my better half, at the very start of Day 2.

Take a long hard look at this man. Look at his bemused expression. That is the look of a man who has been broken. A man who has not had time to shave in order to get here this morning. A man who's bag is already too heavy from books he wants signing. A man who's feet still have not forgiven him over the Davis queue scenario, and who only got a minimal amount of sleep last night. Look at him. Pity him.

That said Day 2 actually went very well. We began by sitting in on the Adapting the Classics panel, held by Steve Green, and with Ian Edginton, and some of they guys from Classical Comics and Self Made Hero (best know for their Manga Shakespeare). Quite an interesting panel. I do admire both of these companies, for what they do, although I've always felt slightly sorry for Classical Comics in a certain respect, because their output is kind of directed by what happens to be on the syllabus for British schools that year.

I mean I'm sure there are some guys working there who are really itching to do a fully bloody bloody adaptation of Titus Andronicus, with at least one death occurring every few pages just as they occur on stage. I bet they're relishing just how to show Tamora, queen of the Goths, being served her sons, backed in a pie!

But, no. 'They've asked for Romeo and Juliet'. :)

As some of you are probably aware I come from a theatre background. I used to be a paid actor, and I have a degree in Theatre. Coming from Warwickshire, birthplace of Shakespeare, those plays are in my blood. But I bloody HATE Romeo and Juliet. I think it's a terrible play, over-analysed by generations of terrible academics ensuring that it stays on every English syllabus in ever school. And I hate them just as much for doing that. While the mores grisly and complex plays don't get covered.

Actually, while it's almost ten years ago now, both H and I used to talk about doing graphic novels which told stories spilling out of the pages of a number of Shakespeare's plays. It was started in part, I think, because I was on a real Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead kick, but some of those ideas, especially H's were actually pretty good. We really aught to go back to those at some point.

We stayed (once again in those same bloody seats) for the Michuru Morikawa panel. Now I really did not know what to expect of this. I'm not really very versed in Manga. Some of the genre and sub-genres Manga has to offer intrigue me, others just confuse me. But I stuck around to see this and was very pleasantly surprised. Michuru Morikawa seems to primarily draw illustrations for younger readers, although her style is a real kind of, almost stream of consciousness, of childhood thought and games. It was quite inspiring to hear her talk actually. She came across as being incredibly down to earth, and even stated that she refused to spend more than a pound on any given item of art equipment. I think that H was quite inspired by finding out that she uses the same kind of gel pens she does.

But the real highlight of this panel came via Michuru Morikawa primarily being here to publicise the graphic novel she had recently finished drawing for Insomnia Publications called Buskers.

Buskers is written by Jeymes Samuel, and is unusual in as much as while this is the graphic novel of Buskers, it is also currently still in production as a movie(www.buskersthemovie.com).

Morikawa told the audience that while she was illustrating the graphic novel of Buskers she was not actually shown anything about the movie in progress. No casting information, or production photographs. She also pointed out that while she had been receiving scripts by email from Jeymes Samuel, she'd never actually met him.

Which was about the time where Samuel himself raised his hand in the audience to Morikawa's left, and introduced himself. I'm sure he'd planned that, but to her it was a total surprise. Samuel explained how he had picked Michuru Morikawa from a whole host of other artists shown to him. She was the one he thought was best suited to the job, and that he had wanted to Buskers as a graphic novel separate to the movie.

It was a little surreal, but a really nice moment for the Con. And it prompted me to go over to the Insomnia stand when I had a moment a get Michuru Morikawa to sign me a copy, as you can see from the cover scan above.

With two panels under our belt we figured it was long overdue time that we went around the dealer hall PROPERLY.

Something very interesting had happened at BICS this year. Several months before the con there had been rumblings from several small press companies and creators that while they would be attending BICS this year they would not be booking a stall. They weren't happy with a price rise this year. I had worried that the result of this would be a rather sparse looking dealer hall. And that would not be good.

Luckily that wasn't the case. While it is fair to say the number of stalls was a little less than last year, and a little disappointing that Panini UK in particular were nowhere to be seen this year, what this actually resulted in was that BICS 2009 really was the Year of the SMALL PRESS GUY. In previous years some small press guys have often found themselves only able to get a small plot in foyer. But with more space next door, this year, it meant that there was far more room to get them far better exposure. And they really rose to the occasion, with some truly ingenious ways of attracting buyers' attention and maximising their opportunity.

Take the numerous creators who had banded together to form The Manchester Comix Collective. More people, more capital to get a good stand. And they got a good location, too. Nice guys. I hope they did some good trade last weekend.

And I still have my (Now slightly crumpled through being in my pocket most of the weekend) Fetishman Pound:

Both sides of a Bank of Fetishman One Fetishman Pound note (Click to Enlarge - Pun probably intended).

A great way of publicising a book which isn't out yet, whilst drawing attention those which are for sale. Anybody whose sales pitch is 'It really is just one joke, pitched at lowest possible denominator' gets may backing. Because one gag it may really be, but it still makes me laugh. We bought all their back issues, actually ;)

If you're not easily offended really do check out their website: www.fetishman.co.uk

Other guys who parted me with my hard earned cash over the weekend included the guys at Accent UK, from whom I bought several of their titles including The Wolfmen, which I forgot to pick up last year. 1960s London underworld - with werewolves! How could I not?

I also made a trip to the Markosia stand, where I picked up Rich Johnston's The Flying Friar (Which I was looking for last year, but totally forgot about until it was too late) and H picked up a copy of Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood's Hope Falls. Both of which I would very seriously recommend. And I also wish I'd gone with my instincts and picked up Cancertown and Burke and Hare from the Insomnia stand, as I have been hearing quite a bit of positive talk about both since the con. Will have to look into acquiring those.

We also totally forgot to go back to the Handknit Heroes stall. We had to credit these guys with unique sales pitch. Get a comic... and a knitting pattern. We seriously wanted a pair of knitted goggles, for the kitsch value alone. But alas, as with so many things you look at during a con, there's always a few which you just don't remember about until after the event. That's why I like to add links to these reports and pick up as many business cards as possible.

Another example would be the guys from Robosteel. These guys make sculptures of sci-fi characters out of cog, pipes, ad other metal object hand-welded together. The Optimus Prime statue currently on their homepage was at BICS. It was HUGE, you could hardly miss it. They had some really nice smaller sculptures, of which intended to purchase one. Again, forgot, sadly.

But aside from the Dealer Hall there was one last thing I wanted to make sure we did before leaving. This would not be a complete BICS without me bothering Paul Cornell to sign something! Last year, you may remember, it was #1 of Captain Britain & MI13. This year I was going for something a little more ambitious. Paul's Wisdom trade, and also all three trade volumes of Captain Britain & MI13 (Still can't believe it's gone.) We had missed Paul the day before, as while he was doing signings we were stuck in the queue for Alan Davis. So we were determined to arrive in good time for the Sunday signing. However, much as though we arrived to join the queue in good time, there was a bit of a problem.

You see the tables in this part of the foyer seat 3 creators comfortably, with room for 3 queues. The session before was supposed to be Mark Buckingham, Howard Chaykin and Andy Diggle. Unfortunately, Andy Diggle had been delayed on the Sunday. He hadn't arrived, and was posting apologies for the delay on his Twitter feed. So at that point there had only been two people at the table. However, the queues for both Chaykin and Buckingham were HUGE. And both like to chat while they sketch, which is great while you're getting your sketch of course, but does slow up the line.

Add to this that due to the demand for Alan Davis and Mark Farmer the day before, they had agreed to turn up early and make sure more people got served today. They took the far right of the table, taking the number of creators at the table to four and starting an even BIGGER third queue.

Then, of course Andy Diggle DID arrive, full of apologies, but with very little time of his signing session remaining. The was no queue for him, now, and with four people at the table he had to find another chair, and tried to squeeze in where there should have been, but now wasn't, really space for him. By which point those who WANTED Diggle couldn't get to him anyway, due to space taken up by the other three queues.

We're now into the next signing session's allotted time. We're still standing to the left of these queues, waiting for that session to begin. We say 'Hi' to Paul Cornell as he arrives. But as he does arrive he's got nowhere to sit. Only Paul, Alan Davis and Mark Farmer are supposed to be here. But now there's FIVE creators ALREADY at the table. Howard Chaykin is effectively in his seat. Chaykin's clearly not intending leaving any time soon - and would YOU challenge Howard Chaykin. I bloody wouldn't! ;D

They may have closed queues for both Chaykin and Mark Buckingham, now, but with the number of people left to be served they're still going to be awhile.

Andy Diggle eventually gives up, and says his goodbyes to those around him. But while Diggle may have vacated a chair there's still not really room for Paul Cornell to get in at the table. There wasn't room for Diggle, in the first place.

But it's okay Chaykin's queue has now finished! So surely he's going to vacate his seat now? Yeah?

No. Apparently not yet...

So in the end Paul very kindly decided to throw caution to the wind and do some signing the other side of the table, instead.

Who needs Chaykin?

Which is why we still maintain that Paul Cornell is one of the nicest blokes in comics. Four trades signed, and a bit of chat about Captain Britain, and the man didn't even HAVE to sit down to do it! He's always very approachable, and a real asset to the panels he does.

Thanks Paul. We really DO appreciate it.

(And a request to the organisers: Next year would it be possible to have a permanent staff member marshalling the queues? Things got a bit hectic this year, and there wasn't really anybody official around, to ask what was going on.)

Well that's about it on the subject of BICS 2009. Once again an incredibly enjoyable weekend. Great to see everyone. And I cannot impress enough on people how inspiring I found it to be, talking to all the small press guys. In the current comics climate, and in particular this last 12 months, where the big guns have almost shut up shop on smaller titles in favour of a drive towards Event only comics to see so many people being organised enough to produce such good Small Press product, and to see such incredible enthusiasm tied to their doing it, has just about reassured my faith in Comics.

Thank you, Guys. This was your year, and you bloody well deserved it.

I hope that BICS really does continue to grow, with the funding now helping them out. As I've said before this is the perfect location for this kind of event.

I'm glad that while I only managed to find him very late into the day, I DID finally get to meet Marvel UK back-up strip legend, Lew Stringer, who despite being on his way out of the Con was still willing to have a very quick chat. Lew tells me that while the editors at Marvel UK always told him that his Combat Colin strip was popular, he never saw any letters confirm the fact. That IS a shame. I know for certain that a younger version of myself wrote to the Transformers letters page quite specifically praising the strip. And from the emails I received after running the recent A to Z article I was not alone.

Thanks, Lew! We DID appreciate it.

Before I sign off though, there is one question I would pose to others who attended BICS this year. The programme for this year stated the following, in blurb for the final panel of the day:

"Including exclusive news about BICS 2010 and a prize ceremony for our 2009 competition winners".

I was at this panel. That did not happen, to my knowledge. Anybody else know differently?

Okay, that really IS it now. But as always feel free to discuss any of this report, and your own experiences, in the comments section below.

Thanks guys

Mark
(Sword)

The ICFD BICS write-up!

2009-10-10T12:01:00.020+01:00

(For last year's BICS write-up Click Here)

BICS! Yes, I said 'BICS'! The Birmingha-

Oh. No. I must correct myself. As of this year it is no longer the 'Birmingham' International Comics Show. Things have evolved a little. A proper funding grant, now, for a start. And so, as of 2009, it is now a far more inclusive BRITISH International Comics Show.

(And frankly what better place to hold a big British con. This was always my argument, in the early half of this decade, over the English National Football Stadium. Yes, eventually they opted for rebuilding London's Wembley stadium, but Birmingham always seemed like the much fairer venue, presenting most sections of England with only a couple of hours to drive to the National Stadium. And Birmingham is the Second City, after all.)

But how, I'm sure you're wondering, did this effect this year's BICS? Did this new found financial status spoil BICS, like a lottery winner who lets it all go to their head? Well... no. Change the name all you like - This was still BICS! And don't worry. I still bloody loved it.

Now I know that there's been a fair bit of negative discussion online about the launch party last Friday night. I'm not going to dwell on that. I'm sure that if you want to you can find reports elsewhere that cover that. I'm just going to talk about the show.

Once again Millennium Point in Birmingham was the venue, and as I've said before it really is a great venue. The Theatre space on Level 2 is given over to signings in the foyer, and all manner of talks and events occur in the theatre itself. And then upstairs (Providing you can get the two way escalators to work in your favour) the whole of Level 3 is given over to signings, stalls and a fairly large Dealer Hall.

Apologies for the shaky quality of this photo, which utterly fails to convey the size of the hall...

Moving in waves around the third floor, and outside to entertain the queue, far more hired cosplayers this year. (You could spot the hired guys - they had Show Security with them...).

He IS The Law. But The Law does need a minder occasionally...

Judges DREDD and "MINTY" patrol the Dealer Hall, keeping order...

There was even a booth to have your photo taken with certain characters at certain parts of both days. Although, I do have to wonder about a zombie nurse and a group of The Joker's Goons who we saw wandering about on the Sunday (Sadly I don't have photos of them). They didn't have Show Security with them when we saw them, but looked a bit well produced not to be professional. The thing was that they really freaked a few people out - especially kids. Can't help but wonder if they might have been a little bit of a mistake. I thought I might have been the only one to notice them, but then I spotted a few others mentioning the same, such as Matt Badham in his write up for Down The Tubes (Down The tubes round up. I wonder if they were hired or not?

Anyway, back to the show. The Saturday kicked off with a panel called Found in Translation led by Paul Gravett (You may remember him from last year, where he was showcasing his book "The Leather Nun & Other Incredibly Strange Comics" which is exactly what you'd imagine it is...) with a couple of other guys from Cinebook (www.cinebook.com) who specialise in translating comic books for printing and publishing into English. Mostly from Europe, but they did also concede from Canada. French speaking Canada, obviously. ;)

It's a shame really, that this panel being the first of the day inevitably started a little late, and therefore had to be rushed to conclusion. (In fact we were waiting outside the theatre with Paul Cornell, hoping that somebody would come and unlock the doors, for a few minutes before it began). I didn't grab any of there books at the con itself, but will inevitably be looking through their website. Titles such as The Chimpanzee Complex, XIII, I.R.$., and a perhaps more faithful Arthurian legend adaptation (Which I do now forget the name of) did pique my interest. Good work guys.

In what would now become our permanent seat for most of the day, we then stayed on for the Comic Artists Flip Out panel. This was a lot of fun last year, and unsurprisingly that didn't change. Having drawn my lucky ticked (191, if you're really wondering) I sat living in hope of getting a sketch from one of the artists flip chart pads this year. Returning this year were Staz Johnson and Mark Buckingham accompanied by British Comics legend Alan Davis. Unfortunately for Alan he had been given a flip chart bard whose legs did not seem to want to stay extended, and it took about ten minutes to get them gaffer taped into a working position. ;)

Click to Enlarge:
Left - Mark Bucking and his wife Irma Page.
Middle - Staz Johnson (left), Alan Davis (middle) and Mark Buckingham (right) prepare to start.
Right - All three at work (Notice Alan has swapped boards now) with Organiser James Hodgkins in between Alan and Staz.

As per usual this panel had its laughs. Most notably a request from the audience for Staz to draw JSA stalwart Wildcat, which Alan Davis rather humorously jumped in to complete because it didn't look right, and Staz' rather wonderful "Lobo/Gene Simmons/Staz' Neighbour," which got a fair few laughs also.

Mark Buckingham drew a really beautiful Snow White, which my better half really wanted, but sadly did not win (although this did result in her buying a hardback of Fables at BICS purely on the back of that, which can only be a good thing), and I had my fingers very firmly crossed for the sketch an audience member requested of Davis for Saturnyne. No joy. But them's the breaks. I was going to queue for Davis later, anyway.

This was followed up by the 70 years of Marvel Panel, done in association with David Monteith and Barry Nugent's Geek Syndicate Podcast (geeksyndicate.wordpress.com).

At this point H, Fliss and myself were musing that we hadn't moved from these seats for an hour and a half, and that we really aught to go and have a look around the rest of the show soon. Paul Cornell, who had been sitting in the row in front of us for the duration of the previous two panels turned to us, shrugged, and said 'I guess I'd better do my bit now'. And the panel was underway.

Representing Marvel for this panel was Paul Cornell (Dark Reign: Young Avengers, Wisdom, Captain Britain & MI13), Andy Diggle (Thunderbolts, Dardevil, and most notably DC's The Losers), Alan Davis (Excalibur, X-Men, The ClanDestine, Captain Britain), and Mark Farmer (Usually inking Alan's work. And he's exceptionally bloody good at it, too).

From Left to Right: Barry Nugent, Alan Davis, Mark Farmer, Paul Cornell, David Monteith, Andy Diggle and...

Oh. Yes. And one random audience member. Apparently somebody due to appear had not turned up, and so that lad on the right, Sam, was randomly picked from the audience to sit in for them. Although some of the audience may have wished he hadn't been.

'Precocious' would be the polite way of describing him...

That panel itself actually turned out to be very interesting as, completely unplanned, a kind of divide seemed to develop between Marvel Past and Marvel Present. Especially on issues such as the Disney takeover and the concept of Digital Comics.

Paul Cornell and and Diggle remained cautiously optimistic about the buyout, Cornell pointing out that DC have always been able to keep a low-selling title going for much longer with Time/Warner's 'money and might' behind them, and that now Marvel will be able to do the same, such as "...a low-selling title like Captain Britain" he joked.

He also pointed out that while some might worry that Disney might interfere in terms of content, that this is the same company who owns Miramax films, who made Pulp Fiction, and that he think all that it will really mean is that Marvel have 'Better distribution channels and more money behind them'.

And I'd have to agree with that. In all honesty can you say that Disney have ruined Pixar? Or the ABC network? The people at Disney are not idiots! If it's not broken they won't fix it. They'll help use it as a way of doing the things they can't do through the standard Disney name, more dynamic and adult orientated things. But they won't stuff it up.

And seriously, if they could find alternate distribution channels to Diamond alone that would be a Godsend!

Mark Farmer, in the other hand, believed that while it was early days yet, that there might be cutbacks from this. His concern would be that Marvel might start dropping titles as a result. Others on the panel couldn't quite see the logic on this, but Farmer overall tone seemed to be that anything could happen at this stage, and that it would be wiser to be prepared for both alternatives. Or at least that's what I took from it.

Audience member Sam suggested "How about a Deadpool vs the DC Universe?"

To which Andy Diggle replied "I'd happily write that, Alan would you draw it?"

Mr Davis did not seem quite so interested in that idea. :)

Just in case you'd forgotten which panel this was.

When the panel was asked a question on the subject of Digital Comics this too threw up some interesting points.

Andy Diggle described right now as the 'pivotal point' we'll be looking at in the years to come, where the transition from 'Dead-Tree Media' to 'Portable Digital Media' occurred. Not talking so much bout desktop PCs, though. He mentioned Apple developing a tablet PC screen, and Microsoft also, and he believes that when you can have a portable device, the size of a paperback book, where you could have access to Marvel's entire back catalogue, then comics will 'explode' onto that device. Because he believes that comics are perfect medium for such a device.

And I'd have to say that I 100% agree with that. I've been talking this up for several years, on forums and elsewhere. It was so incredibly encouraging to hear an actual creator sharing that opinion.

He also pointed out that "...the slightly more backward looking guys at some of these companies, will say that 'Oh, nobody will want to read comics on a screen,' completely blinkered to the fact that thousands of people already ARE reading comics on screens. You know, the wholesale piracy of all of our work... and we don't get a shred of royalties for any of it, because people are downloading it for free".

This genuinely is the situation, now, as I see it. Very much like the issues experienced with illegally downloaded MP3s back in the 90s. Only here there's no central site, like Napster, that the industry can get at. But if there is one thing that I think that should demonstrate to comic book publishers, it's that - illegal or not - there IS a market for digital downloads of comic books. If all the publishers could just get around the table, with somebody willing to produce an iTunes for Comics (Much like Rantz Hoseley has been trying to do with his Longbox application - longboxinc.com/) then not only could that piracy be actively turned into profit, but it would also help to lower the overheads for many titles which printing and distributing through Diamond is making very difficult these days. The reason so many titles are costing $3.99 is not purely down to greed, you know. Taking some smaller titles digital could actually make them a far more financially viable option.

Alan Davis took a slightly different viewpoint, though. He was concerned that once a whole back catalogue of comics were to join that of all cartoons and movies, there might be a real danger that the younger generation might stop entirely. He believes that many of the younger generation just don't really care, that they expect things to just be brought to them by the TV. He told the audience that a few years ago he was running a Scout troop, and had one week brought along a big box of comics (Mostly titles he'd worked on) which he told everyone that they should feel free to take. Apparently, while a few came over and looked at them, nobody actually took any of them - not a single comic went.

Andy Diggle pointed out that he couldn't give a lot of his comics away either, but he thinks that it's subject matter that doesn't appeal to kids. Davis seemed to agree with this. He remarked that when he first started to do conventions like these they were filled with kids. Not so any more. And he believes that this is because DC and Marvel have somewhat ignored them.

This point also ended up linking back into how Digital Distribution might be able to change that.

But, of course, it wouldn't be a Marvel panel if some idiot didn't bring up the subject of Marvel UK.

By 'Some Idiot' I really mean 'Me'.

I listed some guys like Salvador Larocca, Bryan Hitch, Alan Davis and Dan Abnett, pointing out that all of these guys had gone on to have great careers in the industry, but had been given an early break through Marvel UK. I asked the panel whether they thought it would be a good idea to once again have original British based Marvel material being created over here.

Andy Diggle replied first, saying that as a British creator he'd love to see Marvel UK back, but that he wasn't sure that there was enough of a market for it here alone, in a world were you really have to sell internationally. And that 'Once you're selling something internationally, then it almost doesn't really matter where it was originated'. He pointed out that he works for Marvel in New York, but he's based in England, and he artist could be based in Spain, Croatia or the Philippines. It's really kind of global, now.

Of course back in the 80s and 90s, during Marvel UK's heyday, it really wasn't.

Mark Farmer also pointed out though, that "Marvel UK was a kind of handy Training Ground, as well. I know it sounds like I'm demeaning their output, but it was a place you could learn - the same as 2000 AD - make mistakes, take the work into the Editor, have it pointed out to you what's wrong, hopefully correct it, and then start getting little bits of work. That's how I started, I'm sure many others did as well".

This was the kind of reason I wanted to raise the question. So often at British cons there is a habit to only mention 2000 AD as being significant in shaping the careers of British creators. History is, after all written by the winners. If 2000 AD had fallen in the early 90s, and Marvel UK had survived, I'm sure that we would be seeing a things almost entirely from their perspective also. But I personally, as I'm sure you've all realised by now, prefer not to let Marvel UK be forgotten.

Alan Davis went into far more detail on the subject of Marvel UK. He added that "... it wasn't just Marvel UK, because 'Marvel UK' was a company. Both times Marvel UK was producing new (Original) material, Paul Neary was at the helm. The first time, when I got to do Captain Britain in the 80s, Marvel UK didn't want any new originated (material), and Paul actually scrimped and scraped, stealing from other budgets, to make enough to do one five-page story a month. And it blossomed from there, because of the success.

"Then Paul came back again, when Marvel (UK) had it's last run, and got up to 26 titles. But Marvel UK was the first victim of the 'Comic Implosion'. Not because it was doing the most badly, but because Marvel had to trim some fat, and Marvel UK was an easy thing to trim off.

"But, in the same way when I think of 'working for a company' I don't think of 'working for the Corporation' as much as I do 'working with an Editor,' Marvel UK should be seen as Paul Neary. Because he was the person who uncovered all the the talent, the one who went to Spain and found people like Carlos Pacheco and Salvador Larocca. He went along to all the conventions looking for people. He certainly was the person who gave me my break. And I think you need someone like that, rather than a company".

You see folks, I know that I mention it - both here and on forums - but Marvel UK did give the industry a lot more than people often credit it for. Don't just take my word for it. Take Alan Davis'. Take Mark Farmer's. Back in the mid to late 1990s I remember Marvel editorials raving about how they'd uncovered the likes of Larocca, Pacheco, Sharp, Cheung and others. And I couldn't help but think, 'Hold on! No. You didn't do that'. I was hoping that asking this question might get Paul Neary brought up in discussion. I totally bought into what he told the readers he was trying to do in the early 90s. And to be honest, he WAS doing it. It was just a shame that at the point that Marvel UK's output was reaching its finest stage was also the very point at which Marvel US started cost cutting. Such an incredible shame.

Anyway, I think I've covered this panel in some pretty hefty detail now. If you want to listen to the panel in its entirety, and I promise I've only really touched the surface here, then you can download it as a podcast from the Geek Syndicate site HERE. Do it. It's well worth the effort.

But before I move on completely, I'd just like to mention that during this panel I was in for a bit of a shock when a certain slide popped up in the background:

Hold on a second. Haven't I seen that SOMEWHERE BEFORE?

Yes, that's right. That's my Captain Britain & MI13 Needs YOU! poster, which I knocked up before the book launched. It was created using the original cover to #1, with the John Lennon likeness which was eventually changed. I had a word with the Geek Syndicate guys afterwards. They were quite amused. Barry had put the slides together, and had no idea that it wasn't an official Marvel poster - which I take to be the finest of compliments!

Okay, folks. I'm actually going to break here. This report has become much larger than expected. So I'll return with Part 2 shortly. In which I bother Alan Davis for a sketch, get a broader sense of the con, and raise my metaphorical glass to the Small Press guys.

See you shortly...

Did you walk away with a piece of Overkill Artwork?

2009-09-30T21:23:00.006+01:00

Maybe some of you might remember that last year I showcased the cover to #19 of Marvel UK anthology title, Overkill, as one of our 'Covers of the Week'? (Here's a reminder). This was a great painted pop art cover, courtesy of Steve Sampson (www.sampsonart.com)who did a number of covers for Overkill in the early 90s, which stood out very well in the newsagent's rack. The cover was an image of mouthy Harley 'Motormouth' Davis, in full scream. It remains one of my favourite covers from that title. Sampson always did a great job on Overkill.

Earlier today I was very pleasantly surprised to find a blog article by John Freeman, formerly of Marvel UK and these days the man responsible for the brilliant and long running Down The Tubes (downthetubescomics.blogspot.com), posting up a link to an eBay auction.

An auction for the original, pre-title-overlay, cover artwork for Overkill #19!

Doesn't it look bloody brilliant!

The piece eventually went for just under £85. Not bad at all.

I was not the lucky winner sadly, and had to bail at the halfway point (What? I've got a Con to visit this weekend, I'm on a budget!) but somebody out there got a quality piece of Marvel UK history.

Were you the lucky winner? I envy you. ;)

Toys we want to see in production - The Death's Head STIKFA

2009-09-29T12:18:00.005+01:00

Some of you may have just read that title, and may be wondering what STIKFA is. Well, STIKFA make click together action figures, mostly based around Army Men, Ninjas and Knights. They were a semi-large cult toy craze of a few years back, of which I actually have a couple on my shelf of collectible crap, at home.

The basic model looks a bit like this:

Kinda cute, huh?

Well, the wonderful thing about action figures these days, is that every once in a while somebody comes up with custom version of a familiar figure which always makes you smile. Such us when I saw a particular custom job on DeviantART, by a chap named Steve Woodhouse (Or fourth-heir, to go by his username). Steve thought, rather ingeniously, that there should be a logical progression from this:

To This:

Striking conversion, YES?

This may well prove to be the nearest fans are likely to get to a Death's Head action figure. I for one would love to see that cleaned up and put into production.

I'd buy one!

Here's a few more shots:

I really love that he's even gone to the effort of getting that weapons rack right. Top work, Steve! And if any of you would like to view some of the other custom figures he's done check out his page here : fourth-heir.deviantart.com/

Got a Marvel UK inspired custom figure? Or a bit of Marvel UK inspired art work, you'd like showcased? Drop us a line at theswordisdrawn@googlemail.com

Been a while - Don't attempt to buy a house...

2009-09-27T23:45:00.000+01:00

So, it is now the end of September, and I've been away from the blog for quite some time. I'm sure that quite a few of you will now be wondering how the house move went, have I unpacked everything, and when the Blog will be back up and running again.

Well guys, the Blog will be returning to normal shortly. But as for the House Move? It didn't go so well. I don't want to dwell on it too much, because it isn't really the type of thing I set up this Blog to discuss. But as a few people have been asking I thought I'd tell you all in one go. Unfortunately, having packed up the whole house to move, and given notice to our landlord, the move fell through. Annoyingly not until very late in the day. I'd had a survey, and my solicitors had contracts ready to exchange with the guys who we were buying off. But at that stage an outstanding debt on the property, which they had not declared, came out of the woodwork. And two months worth of stalling us suddenly made sense.

As a result the vendor has now pulled the sale and the house will probably be repossessed in due course. Not much help to us right now, mind. And it doesn't get us back the better part of £1000 which has been spent in getting to that point, with solicitors and surveys. But am just glad that we have now got things sorted with our landlord. For a couple of weeks there it genuinely did look like we might be homeless, and have to put our stuff into storage for a while.

It was a close thing.

So... You may remember that before all this craziness began I was doing a Marvel UK A to Z. We were up to 'C' which stood for Lew Stringer's marvellous Combat Colin. Well, I do have the rest of the list thought through. The problem is that having spent bloody ages plotting the future entries in a little Black & Red notebook (Coincidentally the same notebook which had last Christmas' Marvel UK Cocktails in it) I allowed myself to pack it.

And can I remember which box I packed it in? No.

It's in here somewhere, and as we are now unpacking everything slowly it should reappear soon. If not in the next week then stuff it, I'll do it over again. I can remember a lot of the final list, anyway, and it might be kinda fun to go through it all again, too.

Now, while I have been cut off from my longboxes for a few months that doesn't mean I've allowed the spirit of Marvel UK to be evicted from my head any more than I nearly got evicted myself. Oh no. The Twitter feed has continued to flow (Although I will apologise to you all for my lengthy live review of "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus" with Debbie Gibson. Alcohol may have been involved...) and I've remained pretty active over at Comic Book Resources' forum, where I've been joining the ever faithful fans who have been keeping alive Britain Prevails - the Captain Britain & MI13 Appreciation thread, as well as being quite active in this long term Death's Head thread also.

I did wonder if that with the conclusion of Captain Britain & MI13 interest in Marvel UK properties, and the general number of questions I had been receiving about them, might begin to quieten. Not so. In fact I've actually been receiving more than usual - which is both a great thing and also a sad thing at the same time.

Great, because people are finding out about these characters and wanting to find more.

But Sad, because while they want to find out more it's not always so easy to point out where they should go next. Because collections wise while Panini have been doing a Stirling job here in the UK - collecting Captain Britain, Death's Head, Dragon's Claws and the upcoming Knights of Pendragon - a lot of the guys asking me for help are based in the USA. And Stateside Marvel have not collected these.

This really is a great shame. It certainly seems that from my experience there is a demand. It may not be the kind of demand that Marvel's big properties have, but it is a demand nevertheless. Hmmm. Maybe I aught to find out if there's somebody I could contact at Marvel about that?

In the meantime, while I cannot supply you with brand new content of my own I have been browsing around the internet for Marvel UK images and information.

Firstly, in case it slipped your attention, next weekend is this year's British International Comics Show, at Millennium Point in Birmingham.

Some of you will doubtless remember last years', and my bothering Mark Buckingham to do me a sketch of Mortigan Goth? Link

Well, we'll be there again this year, and I'll doubtless do a bit of a round up from the show, again. Former Marvel UK people who will be guests this year include:

Charlie Adlard, Mark Buckingham, Alan Davis, Gary Erskine, Gary Leach, David Lloyd, Liam Sharp, Lew Stringer, and others.

Captain Britain & MI13 writer Paul Cornell will be there, and other guests include Howard Chaykin, Andy Diggle, Pasqual Ferry, Tony Lee, Bryan Talbot, Hunt Emerson and Rufus Dayglo.

All in all a pretty bloody good line-up. And don't worry if you're a little confused by the name. BICS is now the 'British' International Comics Show, replacing 'Birmingham'. It's now Arts Council of Great Britain backed, and making a real effort to spread the word of comics to people here in the UK. I had a great time last year and would very much recommend it.

For more info visit www.thecomicsshow.co.uk . A one day pass for next weekend costs £12 for adults and £6 for kids, and a full weekend pass is £20 for adults and £10 for kids.

Now, here's something you might not have seen before...

A few days back Death's Head II artist Liam Sharp put up some pages on his DeviantART page, which had never been shown before - the original (rejected) fight between Minion and Death's Head from Death's Head II.

Lost original DH vs.DH II end by LiamSharp

The pages are a little faded by time, and Liam himself admits that he can't quite remember why they changed them, but it's quite interesting to see. The fight certainly seems a little more equal, this way.

For those who'd like to see more of Liam's work check out the rest of his DeviantART folder at liamsharp.deviantart.com

I've also been on a bit of search around the internet recently for Marvel UK related artwork, both fan created work and obscure commissions from professionals. I've been putting together a bit of a collection. Over the next few Blogs I'll be posting a few select examples up here on-site for you all, during the time I unpack my life.

Here's a great place to start.

Now, a little while ago I had a conversation with a guy over at Millarworld about Jim Cheung. Many people might not be aware but Jim is actually British born, and while I believe his work didn't get published before Marvel US pulled the plug he was also briefly on the books of Marvel UK. The guy I was speaking to (and I'm really sorry that I don't recall your username, mate) had no idea of this, and was wondering if Jim had ever drawn Captain Britain. At the time I told him that as far as I knew he'd only drawn Brian on the cover to Civil War: The Initiative - Where Cap's head appears amongst a myriad of other Marvel heroes.

Although technically he shouldn't really be there. He's a British Citizen. He wouldn't be eligible. But that's not the point. I figured Jim Cheung drew him as a tip of his hat to his Country of origin, or something similar. But like I say, as far as I knew this was the only time that Jim Cheung had drawn Captain Britain.

But then I found this:

This con sketch is owned by one Art Shotton, who put it up on Comicartfans.com. A larger image can be found here Link

And I happen to think it's pretty bloody brilliant! Captain Britain, Jaspers, Roma, Saturnye and The Fury. The classic Moore and Davis period of Captain Britain. I've been a huge fan of Jim Cheung since the mid-90s, when he was working on Maverick with Jorge Gonzales.

This is great work. I would love to see Jim drawing Brian in an actual issue or series some day. This one became my desktop wallpaper at work.

While still on a Cap tangent I also found this slightly unusual take on Brian and sister Psylocke courtesy of The Twelve's Chris Weston:

This one was posted up by Mamtor's John Bamber, and you're going to want to look at the full detail of a painted piece like this. It really is quite impressive - Captain Britain meets Western. Here's the link: Here

Time for one more?

Course you have.

This mocked up cover was found on DeviantART, by one Steven O'Brien, who goes by the username of Super-Nashwan.

Of all the epic battles you can possibly imagine, how about?

Oh, yes! Bounty Hunter vs Bo- Freelance Peace-keeping Agent - In a battle to the death.

Hell, back in the 80s it was a licensing concept which COULD have happened.

That's all for now folks. I'll be back in the week, with any luck.

Thanks for sticking with It Came From Darkmoor. As always, comments welcome.

Mark

(Sword).