Heroes,inc.

You don’t have to read Wonder Woman to know who she is. You might not know her origin story, her abilities or even her real name, but you more than likely know what she looks like.

She was created in the 1940′s and her original costume is pretty much a generic super heroine costume from that age. The thing is unlike most other superheroes (men AND woman) of that age that have put on more sensible costumes, she hasn’t. There’s been a few attempts as you can see above, but they’ve always returned to a version of the original. I’ve never really read Wonder Woman, but even as a kid in the 70′s I thought her costume was silly.

Some of you might know about this already. It’s been all over the internet the last week or so.  J. Michael Strazinski (Babylon 5) is giving Wonder Woman a new origin story. I’m not 100% with all the details , but the main idea for the new origin seems to be that Wonder Woman grew up in the western world and didn’t find out who she really is until adulthood. So they now  have a fairly young Wonder Woman who is just finding her powers etc. JMS wanted the new costume to be less pole dancer and more down to earth. Something that can at least almost pass for street clothes. In comes artist extraordanaire Jim Lee… and pretty much hit a wall, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I think Jim Lee is one of the best comic book artists around. He’s not so much my favorite as when I was a teen, but still…

Anyways… This is what he came up with. Unfortunately someone forgot to tell Mr Lee that it’s now 2010. It seems he’s still living in the late 80′s. That leather jacket with the rolled up sleeves, those ugly boots… tacky 80′s.

So here’s mine:

It has the familiar color scheme.  The short skirt over her pants, the gold trimming and the style of her shoes are all throwbacks to the familiar original.   She can move around in it, fight in it, but it could still (at least in a comic book world) pass for street clothes.  And…HER HAIR IS TIED UP! I know that HUGE wavy hair is cool on super women, but it’s not practical in a fight. You either get it pulled or end up whipping yourself with it.

So far most readers haven’t been too happy with Jim Lee’s design. Most want the orginal “stripper” costume back. That’s comic geeks for you. Some have been happy with my “low-key” , practical version. Will they change her costume? More than likely. Will it go back to the original underwear version? Maybe. Will they change it to something along the lines that I’ve done? Who knows, but REMEMBER… you saw it here first!

What do you think?

-Scott-

Writer Jim Krueger and artist Alex Ross have teamed up to bring this amazing story of the DC Universe. Disasters of apocalyptic scale torment the Earth. The heroes of the Justice league of america are helpless. Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Martian Man-Hunter… none of them are capable of saving those around them. Cities crumble, the oceans boil, superheroes are falling left and right. Superman witnesses the explosion of our planet from space.

Quite a beginning for a book.

This is a dream that various super villains of the DC universe are having. Night after night they see the end of the world play out in their sleep. It has such a strong effect on them that Lex Luthor leads an operation to change the world. they start by creating a huge mountain of ice in the Sahara desert. The issue ends with Aquaman (my favorite character when done by Ross) being captured by The Black Manta who is then recruited by Luthor for what apparently appears to be a new League.

The first issue is basically the hook of the series. You see all this disaster eye-candy created by Krueger and Ross and then the villains who seem to be turning a new page in their lives. Your left wondering are the villains truely turning good and why are the heroes incapable of saving the world.

I’m off to start issue #2

-Scott-

Since the characters of Heroes,inc. are  public domain (well, all except my own original creations) I have to do quite a bit of research. How can you learn about these Golden Age characters? Not just their origin story, powers and some statistics, but learn about actual events in their life. Buying the magazines is NOT a cheap solution. Some of these magazines go for more than I make in a month.

I’ve mentioned the Public Domain Super Hero wiki many times in my posts. The people over there have been a HUGE help in gathering info on these characters. Their character list just keeps growing and it’s all I can do to control myself from adding more and more characters into the Heroes,inc. universe.

But another GREAT resource that I’ve really used a lot lately is Golden Age Comics. They have tons (literally) of old comis in downloadable format. Want to know where Bob Benton (The Black Terror for you newbies ) spent his vacation and what happened there? What to learn when Daredevil changed his costume or suddenly wasn’t mute anymore? Or maybe you just want to read about the irritating Blyntzyns… Well, more than likely you can find a downloadable version of the issue at Golden Age Comics! By the way, they’re ALL public domain titles so nothing illegal going on.

Check them out! Very cool stuff.

-Scott-

I have some plans to do sketch cards or maybe postcards and  I was rummaging around in the attic looking for some suitable paper for Copic Markers.  Among all the books and comics I found this ancient treasure.   It’s not my first comic, but one of the first.

The Blue Beatle. (that’s right Beatle not Beetle. I was 10 years old…)  He was Peter Parker’s brother .  I was a  HUGE Spider-man fan and really wanted to do something similar.  I liked the gadgets and costume of Blue Beetle so as you can see, he’s basically a blue Spider-man.

At the time Spider’s big arch enemy was Sandman so… my Blue Beatle had an arch enemy called Puddyman.  Another big theme was when the Green Goblin knew Peter Parker’s  identity so…

I’ve left it as is  so the text is kind of unreadable on the computer, but here’s the “script”:

PANEL01  Beetle (oops I mean BEATLE ): WHEW If I didn’t catch onto this pole it would have been goodbye Beatle. HEY Parker you’d better watch yourself, Puddyman is no kiddy.

PANEL02 Puddyman: FLEE while you can you stinking Beatle because NO-ONE can escape ME

PANEL03 Beatle: have to throw myself back fast.

Puddyman: Why BOTHER Parker? You know you haven’t a chance!

PANEL04 Beatle: PARKER! He knows my identity. NOW I HAVE to stop him.

Beatle:  O.K. “Puddy” no more playing around.

PAGE02

PANEL01 Puddyman:  You might as well give up PARKER!

Panel02 Beatle: I’m tired of listening to you so SHUTUP.

Then the rest is just in pencil of Beatle throwing a smoke bomb gadget.

And… ever see a beetle that shoots spider webs? Great stuff!! Marvel doesn’t know what they missed.

This was almost thirty years ago and I actually remember doing these pages.  I also remember doing some closeups of Parker which were drawn fromJohn Romita Sr. Spidey stuff.

From then to Heroes, inc. who would have guessed, huh?

-Scott-