Paneled Goods: The Kindred

After revisiting Divine Right I hopped into some Backlash, the badass, mutagen enhanced soldier turned Stormwatch combat instructor. Before receiving his own monthly series, The Lash was teamed up with fellow resident masked deadly smartass Grifter from WildCATS for miniseries The Kindred. You see both Backlash aka Marc Slayton and Grifter aka Cole Cash were part of Team 7, a covert ops action squad that were exposed to the Gen Factor, a crazy, pink, radioactive type dealy that gave them all powers. Backlash is able to turn into mist and utilizes psionic whips to take fools out or swing over stuff while Grifter got the short thrift as his powers of telekinesis waned but he ages slowly and heals fast. But he's a deadly sharpshooter and was trained by an alien warrior so it all works out. Exposure to the Gen Factor gave Team 7 powers but also made some of them mad and commit suicide. Tapping into "The Rush" accelerated the mental and physical deterioration.

Hitting stores in 1994, four part The Kindred follows former teammates turned bitter acquaintances Backlash and Grifter as they attempt to rescue their former leader John Lynch and his assistant Alicia Turner. They've been kidnapped by a villain called Bloodmoon and taken to Caballito island. Lynch and Turner are put on trial as we learn that Bloodmoon is actually Robert Diaz, a thought dead member of Team 7. Injured and left to die, Diaz washed up on Caballito island where he was taken in by The Kindred, human/animal hybrids resulting from secret experimentation done by Lynch's contemporaries at International Operations. Basically The Kindred are the results of an early version of the Gen Factor so it's Lynch's and I.O.'s fault times two. It's action and one liners galore as Backlash goes in with the troops, Grifter turns up, they're captured, they escape, they rescue their comrades and shocked to learn that Diaz is still alive. Grifter tries to help his former friend but after so much pain and the mental derangement of the Gen Factor, Diaz is hearing none of it. After lots of bloody battle and explosions, Grifter has the chance to save Diaz after a bridge collapses but Backlash can't hold up the two of them and forces Grifter to let go, essentially killing Diaz a second time. While Backlash and Grifter begrudgingly team up for the series, by the end Grifter is back to thinking that Lash is a self centered @$$hole only looking out for himself.

As if you didn't know, I love 90's comics. The supersized bodies, egos and action all make for some fun and intense reading. With a globe spanning security force, secret mission backstory, genetic experiments gone wrong, hostile buddy dynamic and exotic locales, you really got a lot of bang for your buck. Sure it's overblown with the action, one liners, muscles, hot babes and all but that's the point, it was the action decade! You get Grifter talking about someone suffering from lead poisoning after shooting them, quoting John McClane as he swings in shooting, scantily clad, uber buff men and shapely women and oh so many masks with exposed hair. The layered and intricate backstory adds history and heart to the goings on but never gets too confusing between I.O., Team 7 and whatnot. Jim Lee and Brandon Choi provide story details while Brett Booth gives it all a kinetic and violent edge with lots of destruction, physical dust ups, fire and more destruction. This is also the series that sees Backlash jump kicking a man-bear as the Island of Dr. Moreau influence is used to excellent effect. Next time we dig into Backlash's ongoing series!

Paneled Goods: Divine Right

Oh man the 90's, the most action packed decade in comic books! I grew up during the Image Comics boom, reading and collecting the science fiction tinged and kinetically violent WildC.A.T.S., Brigade and Backlash and later thanks to .25 bins picking up runs of Prophet, Youngblood, Cyber Force, Savage Dragon and more. I'm not sure when I grabbed Jim Lee's Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Farady but at a recent show picked up the first several issues in a collected edition for a few bucks. I have the entire run sitting in storage halfway across the country which was not going to help me after getting hooked again. For any comic book fan, Jim Lee is one of the luminaries; his crisp, exciting art coupled with his nice guy attitude has served him well from being a young upstart at Marvel to laying claim to the highest selling comic book issue of all time to creating imprint Wildstorm at Image, selling that to DC and now running the shop as Co-Publisher. DC has recently re-released Divine Right in a graphic novel and included several tie-in issues along with some sketches from the man himself. It's on Amazon but if you're reading this from the west side of Los Angeles, check out Pulp Fiction on Sepulveda where most graphic novels are 30-50% off.

Starting in 1997, Divine Right introduces us to Max Faraday, a part time pizza delivery guy and college student with a hot older sister and thinks he's cool but really isn't best friend. Always on the internet, Max has struck up an online relationship with Susanna Chaste but never met her in person. Remember chat rooms from the 90's? Phew, flashbacks! One night, Max randomly downloads the Creation Equation, a mystical formula that goes way back and from beyond our universe. Basically, Max has downloaded the powers of God but doesn't know it. Soon enough he's being chased by aliens and rescued by members of The Fallen: Brande, Tobruk and Exotica; wizard, warrior and babe types who know all about the Creation Equation. International Operations, Wildstorm's version of S.H.I.E.L.D., gets involved so we get universe familiar faces John Lynch and Caitlin Fairchild along with the members of Gen 13, along with former agent resurrected from the dead Christy Blaze helping to guide and protect Max. It's only a matter of tick tocks before members of The Rath catch up as of course they have their own nefarious plans for using the power of God.

Reading Divine Right again after all these years was at once familiar and nostalgic while at the same time exciting, fun and surprising. You get 1997 style chat interfaces, computer windows and comic book-ness, you know, all dudes are super buff and chiseled, all women are super hot, big action scenes and one liners. There's a lot of juvenile humor and male fantasy turned on it's head while providing several strong female characters. What surprised me was how deep the story goes into the Wildstorm universe and in watching Max change as a character. He starts off innocent and kind then when corrupted by power and threatened by evil, he suddenly feels he knows what's best for the entire planet, becoming an "evil" force himself. I also didn't remember it drawing in so many characters from the Wildstorm U like Gen 13 and Lee's awesome super powered team WildC.A.T.S. but it all fits tightly together since the CATS were always fighting alien warlords and whatnot.

Lee writes and pencils here with assists from the likes of Scott Lobdell, Carlos D'Anda, Albert Deschesne, Rachelle Brissenden, Richard Starkings and Scott Williams to create a big, exciting and vibrant tale of huge adventure, faith, love and action that takes us from a crappy apartment to an alternate version of Heaven and back again. There's character and ideas layered deep throughout as each issue starts with a passage from the bible as well as one from Max's personal slacker manifesto, recurring bits like Whak! cola are a nice touch as are the fantasy sequences that turn out to be horrible nightmares. The detail and scope in Lee's work is always impressive as each panel is filled to the brim with characters in ornate costumes, giant vistas and of course, action. This is what I feel comic books were made to be, larger than life, epic adventures that explore life's themes with manly men and womanly women. It's a fantasy, it's a break from reality so let's really revel in it and go for it. Next up, rereading some WildC.A.T.S. and Backlash!

Paneled Goods: Backlash

Where were you in 1992?!  I was a precocious youth in the Middle-East of America, talking trash and reading comic books.  Marvel titles like Captain America, X-Men and The Punisher were favorites during the age of the rising superstar artist a la Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Ron Lim and the like.  In that fabled year, a group of 7 artists and storytellers had enough of being exploited by The Man and not seeing any kickback from the myriad of merchandise hitting shelves adorned with their artwork and original characters.  Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, Marc Silvestri, Rob Liefeld and Whilce Portactio went off to set up Image Comics, a creator owned venture that would house each of their signature banners.  Titles like Liefeld's Youngblood, Larsen's The Savage Dragon, McFarlane's Spawn and Lee's WildC.A.T.s sold 100's of thousands of copies instantly making their creators rich and powerful in the process.  Image horned in on mainstay Marvel and DC's business while branching out into video games, toys, cartoons and even a live action movie (Michael Jai White as Spawn!). 

One of my favorite books from the time was Lee's WildC.A.T.s which concerned alien races fighting each other through the centuries and galaxy before ending up on Earth.  The Kherubims were immortal-esque and possessed various mental and physical powers while maintaining a human appearance.  Their foes the Daemonites were gnarly creatures who could control the human mind and take over their bodies to use as a camouflaged host.  From here, Lee co-created StormWatch, a covert crisis-intervention squad composed of super beings who operate from a space station.  The team's combat instructor?  One Marc Slayton aka Backlash!  Introduced in 1993's StormWatch # 3, Backlash became an instant fan favorite due to his Spider-Man verbal quips meet Wolverine gruffy badass mystique.  Proficient in hand to hand combat, Backlash was also able to conjure up "psi-whips", energy projections that are used to grab an opponent, give them a shock or as a regular ol' rope and grappling hook.  Later we find out that Marc had been part of Team-7, a black ops outfit that was exposed to the Gen-Factor, a mutagenic chemical that unleashes latent powers.  Even later we find out that our pal Slayton is Kherubim!  See how this stuff all fits together?

In 1994, Backlash was given his own series that ran for 32 issues.  Whereas StormWatch saw him training new recruits and beating up loudmouths, his own series saw him on the run.  For love.  See, his ladyfriend Diane is taken over by a Daemonite called S'ryn and when Marc exorcises the foul beast, Diane goes into a coma.  On the hunt, Backlash needs some help infiltrating the Cabal, a Daemonite syndicate that experiments on humans, giving them powers and bio-metallic suits.  This leads him to Amanda Reed, a former prostitute turned Cabal member now locked up in Purgatory Max, a facility for super beings.  Backlash breaks Taboo out and the two hunt down S'ryn while getting cozy with one another, know what I'm saying?  After all is said and done and Diana recovers, she dumps Marc for taking the vigilante route!  Heartbroken and alone, ol'Lash receives a panicked call from Amanda who is now being hunted down by a posse of super cops and needs some help.

Like all Image comics, Backlash is big, colorful, loud and action packed.  All the men are hyper muscular while the women are 90's hot hot hot!  Super powered heroics meets alien invading horror?  What?!  A shadowy covert ops military past and thought dead comrades coming back to haunt you?  Serious?!  90's style hard ass one liners (a ticket to dream land is a fist in the face!).  Check.  Near overly complicated shared universe, secret big brother watching organizations and 3,000 year old aliens?  Check yes!  Backlash's smart mouth and alien/mutant powered enhanced stinging fists are a nice combo and the story's on the go kinetic style makes it pretty fast and fun reading.  Artist and co-creator Brett Booth's art takes a page from the Jim Lee book of epic, sweeping, detailed and exciting pencils and splash pages.  As Lee said, everyone in the 90's looked like they were flying even when they didn't' possess the power of flight which gives the character an exhilarating, "leaping into action" feel versus the talking heads standard that took over comic books in the early 2000's after the X-Men movie and 9/11 turned everything serious and booooooring.

Weird(cool) Panels: Bear Kick!

Don't know how or why but I'm currently reading a 1987 run of Marvel's Captain America comics simultaneously with Image Comics' 1994's solo series Backlash.  I'll dig into each later but basically starting in Captain America # 332, the government tries to impart stricter regulations on Steve Rogers aka Cap's activities and want to make him more of a political tool.  Steve refuses and gives up the moniker, costume and shield then disappears to find himself.  Months later in issue # 336, sporting a sweet beard, Steve comes across super powered eco-terrorist Brother Nature who sic's a bear after him.  How does ol' Stevie defend himself?  By karate kicking that Ursus humongous in the mouth! 


Oss!  Bear kick!

Meanwhile, in the good ol' 90's where everything is splash pages, hot dudes, hot chicks, action on every page, straps and pouches on every costume and everybody looks like they're flying even when they can't fly, is mother fudging Backlash.  There's a lot to go through with his background but just know he's got mean fists, a smart mouth and some nifty powers that include turning into mist and psychic energy whips that come out of his wrists.  Was randomly searching the internet and found this awesome image of him after witnessing Cap kick that bear earlier in the evening.


Kiai!  Jump bear kick!

Coincidence?  Maybe.  Destiny?  More likely.