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

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.

Clan Destine - a brief Update

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.

Crikey! Is it really mid-December?

Apparently so...

Hello, again. Remember me? I'm almost not sure I do, but then again I have been out of my mind with raging flu for the better part of a fortnight...

My greatest of apologies for the break in service. It certainly wasn't planned, and I'm hard pressed to believe that my last blog entry was in October. But I guess that the date stamps don't lie. Flu aside, I'm afraid that work commitments have made the last month a real hell-for-leather, nose-to-the-grindstone, affair. You see there's this thing coming up shortly ('Christmas' or something...)and as many of you may already be aware I work for a UK Videogames Publisher. And as this time of year arrives there's a high demand for Videogames, as gifts or as some6thing to do over the holidays (For those of us not old enough to do the Drink part of 'Eat, Drink and be Merry'.

We make games. (Hoorah!) But in order to get those games out of the machines in our offices and onto the shelves of your local Videogame store a lot of things have to be done. Mostly making sure that they work as designed, don't randomly stop working mid-game, and that the nice people at Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are happy that they comply with all their own guidelines.

And that's actually a very time consuming process.

As a result the end of October through to start of December I pretty much worked myself into the ground with extra hours and weekend shifts, all for the greater good. And simply because of that this Blog had to go onto the back burner for a while. I've started a number of articles to post up, but haven't had the time to complete them. Hopefully, over the coming weeks I'll get all of that up on site. I've certainly got a fair few morsels prepped for the run up to Christmas, as well as something a bit special lined up for New Year. So watch this space...

So, I've been ill. If you live in the UK the chances are you have been too, as the annual December Flu Bug spreads itself out through the workforces of every company in Great Britain. I actually started this blog post two weeks ago, after my return from a few days in London seeing Coheed & Cambria (second night cancellation... Power cut... mumble) but staring at the screen was just a bit too taxing in my zombified state last week. So I sketched down the things I actually wanted to mention and decided to leave it until now.

Whilst down in London, in an unexpected turn of events, I bumped into Paul Cornell (Very nearly literally) in the Forbidden Planet Megastore, on Shaftesbury Avenue. I was buying myself a copy of Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (Which along with Warren Ellis and D'Israeli's Lazarus Churchyard became my with-flu reading material) and he was just back from the States. Paul has been a very busy man recently (Convention appearances, writing, meetings) but he was very happy to admit that it was the 'Good kind of busy'. And he's even managed to get on top of things enough to deliver his annual 12 Blogs of Christmas. Go and take a look: http://paulcornell.blogspot.com/

On the subjects of Paul Cornell and Forbidden Planet, the man himself will also be signing copies of the British (Panini) trade paperback of the first four issues of Captain Britain & MI13, in the London Megastore (That's 179 Shaftesbury Avenue) on Thursday January 15th, between 6 and 7 pm. So any British readers who have been trade waiting? This is your chance. And if you're stateside, you can pre-order through Amazon and other sellers (Pre-order at Amazon).

Now's a good time to try and get into the book. #8 came out on Wednesday (Thursday in the UK) and was a particularly tight issue. The team are currently battling a self-proclaimed Prince of Hell who is slowly taking over Britain, from a Tower Block in Birmingham - gaining followers by offering them their 'Heart's Desire'. And sure MI13 may be the good guys, but even Superheroes are only human deep down. Even they have weak-spots. There's some preview art to sway you, over at Marvel.com: Captain Britain & MI13 #8

Both Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk have been doing a splendid job on this series. It just has such a great mix of characters, interacting so well together, and even if I didn't need to read it for a Blog like this I'd STILL recommend it.

In other news, you may remember a little while ago I mentioned that former Marvel UK artist (And Death's Head II co-creator) Liam Sharp had signed an Exclusive Contract with DC Comics. Well, Liam's first project for them has been their Gears of War series, for DC's Wildstorm Imprint. And it's performing particularly well. It sold out twice in the UK.

Obviously from being inside the Videogames industry I already have a certain amount of interest in Gears, but this series (Written by Joshua Ortega) is actually a very enjoyable read. It fits in perfectly well within Gears' continuity, and Liam's art (He both pencils and inks this one) look really great. I'm sure you'll agree.




More examples can be found at Liam Sharp's DeviantART page: http://liamsharp.deviantart.com/gallery/

Stray thought back to my last Blog (The one about Death's Head connections in Nova #17) and I'm still thinking I'm on the right track. Like I said there had to be some way of Dr Evelyn Necker getting hold of the raw information on all of the Galaxy's greatest warriors and most important scientists through history. Since #17 we've found that she's not just had the opportunity for a short time in contact with the Nova Corps' 'Worldmind' - it's decided to make her offices and labs its new home!

Who knows, we might get Death's Head II turning up any year now. Never say never.

And finally, a bit of not so great (And apologetically belated) news.

The 3 & 4th of October this year was Mid-Ohio-Con, in Columbus, Ohio. A big deal for all Excalibur fans this year, as the Con re-united the respected Grandfather of all things Marvel UK, Chris Claremont, and long time collaborator Alan Davis. At Mid-Ohio Davis announced that The ClanDestine would be appearing as supporting characters in three annuals he would be doing for 2009 - One Fantastic Four, one Daredevil and one Wolverine annual. He also added that the Thor: Truth of History One Shot (Which came out at the end of October, but which I have not yet acquired) would "sort of leak" into those other stories.

More ClanDestine - Always good.

However, I discovered t the start of November that part of the reason for this appears to be, in Alan's own words (from a post he made to his own forum):

"The series didn’t sell well enough to justify a regular, or semi-regular, ClanDestine title. However, I’m currently working on three annuals for next year, FF, DD and Wolverine-- and though I can’t go into detail-- ClanDestine fans will not be disappointed (I hope)."

That is an incredible shame, and I for one am gutted that the book didn't pick up the numbers I would have expected it to.

Why that was the case is questionable, but I think part of the problem was that (in some ways) the series itself pretty much picked up directly from where Davis left off, in the 90s. You can quite easily join his final issue with the original series to the first issue of the limited - which creates a great story for those reading it as a whole (Especially those who picked up the hardcover released earlier in the year) but for those who'd never read the characters before I could see how they may have felt like they were missing something.

Davis did assure people at Mid-Ohio that:

"All of the ClanDestine stuff I've ever done has been to the same plan. All of the appearances go to that same long story".

Which is something which Davis has always maintained. Granted, it is a great shame that the story itself is now unlikely to be told in their own book, but as long as Alan gets the opportunity TO tell it I will most definitely be along for the ride.

I shall be trying to acquire me a copy of Thor One-Shot off eBay, and will report what I find when i do. In the meantime I'll be keeping an eye out for those Annuals as 2009 runs on. You can be sure that I'll post information up when the time comes.

Well, that's about it for now. It's late, I'm tired and a little post-viral blue. Hope you are all well. There will be another update by the middle of the week.

Oh, and if any of you are on Twitter I finally got around to signing up for that. You can bother me at: https://twitter.com/theswordisdrawn

Bye for now!

Mark (Sword)

A few new bits and pieces

Well, I'm sure it won't have escaped your notice that the Blog has been a little sparse of late. For this I am truly sorry. My time on-line these past couple of weeks has been a little limited. I'm in the process of moving over to wireless broadband, and it's not been going 100% to plan. I hope you'll all humour me while I try to get this sorted.

So, I've not got a full entry to put up, right now. But I do have a few tidbits of info that might interest you. First up, a few people have mailed me recently asking me why I'm not hyping Alan Davis' new Clan Destine limited series? Funny, I thought, because I've actually blogged about this series three times, now. But as this week saw the release of #3, I thought what better time to give it a bit of a plug. Here's the cover, so you know to look for it:




And yes, that is Excalibur, as we've mentioned before. But no clones or copies, the REAL original Excalibur. How is this possible? Well, during #2 Newton Destine took Dominic back to his dimension of residence, after and attack on the family home resulted in Dom's enhanced senses short-circuiting. However, once there, a ruck kicked off between Newton, and the seeming ruler of that dimension - who blasted Dominic into an open dimensional gateway. The way that time flows differently in so many of Marvel's alternate universes (As anybody who used to read Excalibur or read Judd Winnick's eXiles, will know)Dominic has found himself suddenly crashing into the middle of Excalibur's 'Cross-time Caper' from the late 1980s.

Yes, accidentally falling into one of Davis' past stories, on another book! Ingenious.

This series has been solidly good, so far, and I would implore more people to pick it up. Clan Destine was one of last books to be planned for Marvel UK, and eventually saw print through Marvel US. However, political reasons led to Davis leaving the book, despite having planned around two years' worth of storyline. You can now pick up the original series in hardback format for around £20 (ISBN-10: 0785127429, ISBN-13: 978-0785127420). I'd very much recommend that. It Davis doing some of his best work.

If sales go well, we've been promised more, so this should be an incentive. Support British heroes, wherever you can.

Now, it wouldn't be fair to plug one British-based Marvel title and not the other. I came across something a couple of weeks ago, from a couple of guys who do a regular podcast under the name Geek Syndicate. A few weeks back they did a phone interview with Wisdom and Captain Britain and MI:13 writer Paul Cornell. It's quite an interesting interview, podcasted here in full, which covers a lot about Paul's TV work (And obviously Doctor Who figures heavily in that) but also has quite a bit on his writing Wisdom and the upcoming new Cap series.

It also has a rather cryptic clue as to who the final member of the new team will be...

Well worth a listen if you've got sometime spare. You can find a direct download on their site
(http://www.geeksyndicate.co.uk/ - It's Episode 72) or you can do a search for Geek Syndicate in iTunes.

And whilst still in podcasty mood, you could also go over and take a look at John Siuntres' Word Balloon podcast. A couple of weeks ago he did an interview with Comicraft founder and former Marvel UK editor and letterer Richard Starkings. He talks a fair bit about his Marvel UK days, the lessons learned and foundation of Comicraft, and his book Elephant Men, from Image comics. It's a strong interview, and the detail he goes into about what he feels about the importance of graphic design in comics is both speaks incredible common sense and is fascinating to hear.

You can find it here: http://wordballoon.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-03-27T01%3A13%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=3

Or you search iTunes for Word Balloon.

And finally, I was in Shrewsbury this weekend, visiting a friend from university. I'd just like to give a bit of shout out (Note: Who the hell do I think I am? Pete Tong, or something?) to Paul, Tracy and Shane from Infinity & Beyond (http://www.infinitybeyond.co.uk/) the comics and collectibles store, there. Running and maintaining a store of this kind in the UK is no easy task, but I&B has been doing this for 16 years, this year. They're a friendly bunch, with a good range of titles and recently moved to a larger store. They also have a very dedicated independent comics section, too - Something of a rarity these days, for sure. You can even get a coffee while you're reading your weekly books - How sound is that?
I've always been very much of the belief that 90% of the task for a local comic book store comes down to the banter. You will not sell comic books without generating a buzz yourself, talking to your customers, hyping current events and sharing viewpoints on writers, artists and editors. My local Comic Book store is a Forbidden Planet. I've been going there on an off for almost 2 decades now (Which freaks me out a little to think about it), and this is an area I have always maintained that has been somewhat lacking.
So thanks, guys. It was great to talk shop, so to speak. You're doing a great job.
If you happen to be in the Shrewsbury area, I'd definitely recommend dropping in. You'll find them near the bottom of Wyle Cop, near English Bridge.
That's all for now. There should be an update coming in the middle of the week though, Internet connection permitting. In the meantime feel free to comment on any of the existing threads, or drop me a line at the address on the right hand side of this page.
Bye, for now.

ICFD Cover of the Week.

I was having a messageboard discussion with a guy from The States a few days back, about this blog and about Marvel UK in general. He'd seen the link I'd put up to the Mark Harrison Loose Cannons series before Christmas, and had been quite impressed by it all. I'd mentioned that Harrison had also done some covers for Overkill, which were pretty good as well.

But he had no idea what I was talking about.

Not being native to the UK he'd never seen (and had never even heard of) Overkill Magazine. I tried to explain that it was an anthology title, in the style of 2000 AD, and that it printed many of the stories seen in the US format books only in shorter chunks, and fortnightly. (I then had to explain the term 'fortnightly,' but never-mind). He asked me if there was anywhere online that he could find some of the old cover art from Overkill, to see what he'd been missing.

And you know what? I couldn't really find any...

So, that got me thinking...

I've decided, that each week I'm going to dig out some of my old back issues, and scan in a cover to stick up on the blog. It won't always be Overkill, it might by some of the US format books, or an old Transformers comic. Maybe even an issue of Excalibur, who knows. But I hope that this might get a few people talking about it, and a few others reminiscing. There was a lot of good cover work done on Marvel UK comics, but I suppose because a lot of them were done for anthology titles, and for reprinting American material, they've kind of gone forgotten.

So, today I am going to start the ball rolling with an Overkill issue. This is the cover to Overkill #43:

And who better to go with but the poster child of Marvel UK in the 90s - a nice grim picture of Death's Head. This one's made up in oils, by the brilliant Carl Critchlow. It really gives the guy a three dimensional feel, with the texture of the bone and that big dead eye looking back at you.

Carl did some great cover work for Overkill, and I believe had been working on a filly-painted series for Marvel UK at the time it folded. I believe it had something to do with Dinosaurs. Maybe somebody else remembers more?

This was also the first monthly issue of Overkill, as you can see. Something I was a bit sad about at the time. I liked my fortnightly fix. How times have changed. Hell, I'd give anything for even a monthly fix nowadays... ;-)

Unrelated to this new feature, but worthy of note, I'd also like to take a moment to bring your attention to this week's release of Alan Davis' Clandestine #1 (of 5) from Marvel Comics.

Long standing M:UK fans will probably have already picked it up, but if you haven't then I really cannot recommend enough to you that you should give it a try. This first new issue does a brilliant job at both picking up where the last volume left off, and at being a refresher, for the uninitiated, as to who and what the Clan are.

It's a really strong issue, and so refreshing to see a proper balance between great art and non-compressed story-telling. That's something we don't often see in a lot of modern comics. Quite a lot of story is woven into this issue, but not at any point in a way which seems over-expositioned or clunky. It still flows smoothly. It's perhaps the kind of balance that only as an accomplished Artist and Writer as Davis, can truly achieve. It's certainly nice to see.

It's also great to see Davis being able to work comfortably in his own style, and with his own characters, here. I felt, personally, that Davis more recent work (Such as his last run on Uncanny X-Men) suffered a little due to Marvel's want for more realism and grittier colour schemes in their books. In my opinion, while Davis' work is never even close to bad, he does not play his strongest suit trying to fit into that. Here, he is in his element, and I'd even compare the quality and style to his Excalibur days - all be it with more modern colours.

Mark Farmer is responsible for the inks here. He too definitely deserves respect.

Story-wise, this issue sets up what appears to be three central stories for the run, incredibly well. By three I allude to 1) This Sect which appear to be discovering The Clan, 2) The family's struggle to stop the twins blowing their centuries old cover, and 3) What actually happened with the deceased (And never to be discussed son) Vincent.

I've always wondered about that, and we might get some answers here. Certainly watching as Walter 'hulks-up' (for want of a better term) in rage makes me wonder how much in common he and Vincent might actually have had.

It's a good issue. Good enough that I actually re-read it (This doesn't happen often in my current timescale). The synergy between family members is great to read. It reminds of the enthusiasm I had, as I learnt more about The Endless family, in Neil Gaiman's Sandman books. I really do look forward to the rest of this run. And I really hope it gets enough sales to get it continued.

Of course, the only thing that will make guarantee that happens is if people go out and buy it. So you know what to do ;-)

Original Excalibur to guest star in Clandestine #3

You heard that right. The original Excalibur, none of this NEW Excalibur malarkey.



The April Solicits are out, and with them the listing for Alan Davis' Clandestine #3. And just take a look at the cover:



A perfect pastiche of Davis' cover for Excalibur #1. Meggan - Still alive! Rachel Summers - Still as the Phoenix! But before people too excited of a proper Excalibur revival, there is reason we're seeing the original five together again:

Guest-starring the time-lost Excalibur! Anybody who loved Alan Davis’s classic
run on that series in the ‘90s will want to jump on board, because the
Cross-Time Express is making its way through the dimension Newton Destine calls
home, and it’s bringing with it a trainload of trouble along with it! Rated T+
…$2.99

So, basically this is the original incarnation of Excalibur, during the Cross-Time Caper storyline. And who would know better of how to write and draw that than Davis himself? Not many people.

Clandestine #3 comes out on April 2nd.

News Item: Alan Davis talks to Newsarama about The NEW Clan Destine

As many of you may know The Clan Destine, Alan Davis' mid-90s comic book series about a dysfunctional family of superbeings, was originally conceived as a project for the Marvel UK imprint. Sadly, due to Marvel UK’s closure, that did not cone to pass. It eventually saw print stateside, through Marvel US, but what was also originally planned as an ongoing series (which I understand Davis had already thought through some twenty issues of continuity to feature) eventually came to only an 8 issue series, and an X-Men crossover. A great shame.

Despite having remained a fondly remembered property for the select few, the book probably has been broadly forgotten by the many. If you’ve heard something rumbling under that name of late? It is probably because earlier this year, when Marvel Comics announced that Alan Davis had signed a new contract with them, a publicised part of that deal was the announcement of a new Clan Destine series. 

It's been a long time coming, but finally Clan Destine #1 has been solicited for February 2008, to be accompanied by a hardcover reprint of the original series. Now, that really is a bonus! Make a space on your bookshelf. 

But what can we expect from the series? What have the Clan been up to since we last saw them? Alan Davis has done an interview with the guys over at Newsarama, in which he gives people a bit more info.

By the sound of it, at least in part, it’s going to carry on right from where the first series left off. But also by the sound of it, we have a twist of the modern to add to the nostalgia. The Clan have always strived to keep itself hidden away from the world, and their centuries-long lives kept out of the public eye. But now? The world of today, and modern day technology, may no longer make that as possible as once it was.


For more info check out the full interview here:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=138731

I'm really looking forward to this one.