filed under Comics
This Week in the Multiverse, #18
9:18PM ON
02/02/2008
BY
Will Emmons
So, indie comics. They’re hard to find out about, harder to follow, and have only eensiest fanbase because comics fans are loyal to properties, not creators. With all the big properties belonging to the big two (DC and Marvel) and the big two having a better [funded] publicity system set up, it’s hard for the little guy to compete.
However, this week fans of Kingdom Come’s Alex Ross were given a unique opportunity to break into a new indie comic on the ground-level. This week brought to stands surprisingly large piles of Dynamite Entertainment’s Project Superpowers #0 (above) at the special introductory low price of $1.00. The creative team headed by DC Comics superstars Jim Kreuger and Alex Ross and the fact that large distributors like New York’s Midtown Comics purchased many more copies than they would of most indie books gives the series a distinct possibility of a prominent future.
The book also has the advantage of being on well-tested terrain in the superhero genre. The book’s premise is to revamp and reintroduce classic superheroes from the 1930’s Golden Age. Readers of the book will be treated to the precense of superheroes they’ve only read about in history texts like the Fighting Yank, Green Lama, the Black Terror, and original Daredevil. This is the sort of thing that DC has been cashing in on for decades with their Golden Age greats the Justice Society of America. Marvel also does this sort of thing in the Invaders and the Twelve. With the established fan base of Ross and Kreuger, the established fan base for revivalist comics, and support from the comics distributors Project Superpowers might just make it.
The story opens in the contemporary moment with an aging Fighting Yank being haunted by a ghost draped in an American flag claiming that that his death will come soon. It is revealed to the reade, that the Fighting Yank’s ancestor who is the source of his powers made the Fighting Yank believe that evil of the Nazis came to pass because they had reopened Pandora’s Box. While the Nazis were the evil, the mystery men, as they called superheroes back then, who emerged to challenge the greatest evil the world had ever known were the hope that also escaped. The Fighting Yank came to understand that the only way he could save the world was by trapping his comrades in Pandora’s Box so that all the evil would also return. The Ghost reveals to the Fighting Yank that this was a false premise and the reader is shown images of a bleak and authoritarian present. The Fighting Yank is thus tasked with releasing his comrades to save the world once more and told that he will soon become part of the ghost that is in fact a manifestation of all patriots who died for their country.
Alex Ross is a closet or maybe not-so-closet leftist, so in the coming be prepared for some good old fashion American heroes breaking the totalitarian grip of Fascism. I know I can’t wait. So basically, my task for you is to run to your nearest comic book store. They’ll probably still be like 12 copies there. I demand that you buy 5 of them. We need to make sure this series gets off the ground.
I’ll catch you all next week. Peace.
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