Farewell to 2011... and Blogspot.

As we close out 2010, Take the Helm fades to black. Yes, I am closing down this blog (though it will remain as an archive). Don’t worry though, because...

the Super-Powered Fiction Files are far from over! All the articles you know and love will continue along with new content on our new full-fledged website: www.superpoweredfiction.com!

So please follow us over to the new, fully functional site, and thanks for following Take the Helm for all these years!

Super-Powered Prose: Virals by Kathy Reichs

Super-powered fiction in prose form has come along way from Weird Heroes and Wild Cards first made the idea work in the seventies and eighties. Many writers have tried their hands at characters with super powers since, but it took even me by surprise when one of those names was Kathy Reichs.

If you do not recognize the name, you’ve probably not read too many forensic mysteries. Ms. Reichs has a successful series of books focused around the character of Temperance Brennan. Tempe sometimes goes by the nickname of Bones, or in the case of the successful television show based on the series, always goes by the name Bones. I have never really been a fan of the series in either form, but when I heard the concept for her new young adult book I knew I needed to give it a read.

Virals is the story of Brennan’s grand niece (she’s older in the books by a bit) Tory, a young girl living on a small island off the coast of Reichs’s home city of Charlotte. Tory only recently moved to the city following her mother’s death, but quickly finds herself embroiled in a mystery.

The story takes two interconnected paths as she finds a dog tag on the island where her father works for a scientific facility. It is while she investigates the tags that she discovers and rescues a captured dog in a remote lab of the facility. That rescue will alter Tory and her three friends Hi, Shelton, and Ben forever.

The dog has been infected with a lab-created parvovirus, designed to infect not just dogs but humans as well. The virus has unintended consquences for the four teenagers, as they all suddenly end up with powers closely linked to the animal they rescued.

While they all suffer through the transformation their new power brings to them, the dog tags lead them in to a murder mystery with huge ramifications for them and their city. In the end, only their powers will allow them the freedom and skill needed to uncover the secrets of the crime.

Ms. Reichs uses her background in forensic science to help shape the continuing story, but unlike the Bones novels never lets it overwhelm the tale. While I could nitpick about a few sudden (if minor) leaps in logic or the skills of the four teenagers being just a bit much to believe, none of that really matters in the end. Ms. Reichs crafts a quick, easy to read story that just flashes by page after page. The tale flows extremely well and makes the entire book hard to put down. I actually read the last two hundred pages in one sitting, an odd occurence for someone so used to reading different things at once. But Tory and friends’ tale is just compelling enough to keep you turning that page.

This book seems clearly set to be the beginning of a series (and maybe a set up for another TV pilot as I could definitely see it easily turned in to a overly-pretty-cast mix of Gossip Girl and Veronica Mars. Still on its own, Virals is an enjoyable read and that’s why it is Recommended.

Super-Powered Prose: Nobody Gets the Girl by James Maxey

I am wholly unfamiliar with the works of James Maxey. Apparently, he’s the official Dragon Age novelist, but I would never know he existed if it wasn’t for the recommended reading page on Amazon. It’s from there that I discovered his first novel Nobody Gets the Girl. Behind a lackluster cover penciled by famed inker Bob Wiacek, we get a decidedly super-powered novel.

Jim Shooter, strangely called James here for one of the few times I remember, provides a highly unnecessary introduction to talk about Maxey’s work here before we get to the meat of the story.

The alliteratively named Richard Rogers is just a normal guy albeit one with dreams of being a stand up comic. He’s in an unhappy marriage, doesn’t like where his life is going, and seems to be sinking in to a wave of depression.

And that’s before everyone in the world suddenly stops being able to see him.

That basic premise pulls him in to a world altered by a handful of superheroes and supervillains, all with their own plans for making the world a better place. Doctor Knowbokov, super genius, explains the nature of Richard’s new powers. He is superhuman in his own right, as are his two daughters Amelia (Rail Blade) and Sarah (The Thrill). They are on a quest to fufill Knowbokov’s vision of a better future. Their ability to see Richard is enough to quickly draw him in to their super-powered world.

Richard’s own actions bring the mess of violence between Knowbokov and his archrival Rex Monday to a head, and ultimately lead to plenty of death. More than that would drop far too many spoilers along the way.

At points, the author seems far too obsessed with explaining the nature of super powers in his world as if thsi work needs to be taken seriously as a work of hard science fiction. It doesn’t always work, but he does use his own ideas to bring the story full circle. Still the most important part of a novel is basic character interactions and in this Maxey both excels and fails. He does an excellent job of giving us a normal man’s view of a super-powered world. He sets up exactly how uncomfortable it would be for a normal jabroni to suddenly fall in to a world of heroes. He also gets in to the head of the heroes quite well and looks hard at a mixed up world of justice and fame.

When the action comes though, Maxey sometimes falls apart. I can detect that he visualizes action scenes quite well, but often it feels like he is so focused on getting the action on the page that he forgets to lay it out in a way that remains gripping for the reader. His superhero battles come off like sex scenes written by Tom WOlfe. They don’t keep you engaged and just make you feel uncomfortable by scenes end. Okay, they aren’t as bad as Wolfe’s sex scenes, because very little in fiction can be that painful.

Despite its rough patches, Nobody Gets the Girl remains a rather engaging novel though at times just feels like it has been overly trimmed at only 242 pages. Still it shows his love of the superhero genre, if not quite the ability required to translate it perfectly to the printed page. I know from experience it isn’t always an easy translation. Superheroes often scream for a visual medium. Sometimes you can’t express your super-story quite the right way with just words. (My own Mean Streets, which died an early death, comes to mind.) Even with its few flaws, Nobody Gets the Girl remains an entertaining read for any lover of superheroes. And that’s why it comes Recommended.

Official Handbook to the Quadrant Universe: The Sword

The second man to take the name of the Sword is Lance Larter, the sidekick to the former hero. He first popped up at the beginning of Living Legends, but he only made his second appearance as we flashback to his story in the last chapter of the same story. As Living Legends goes on hiatus, he moves in to these pages on a new quest to save his friends.

SWORD II

Real Name: Lance Larter

Aliases: The Lance, The Lancer

Identity: Secret

Citizenship: United States of America

Place of Birth: Lakeville, Minnesota

Known Relatives: none

Group Affiliation: former partner of the Sword I

Education: High school graduate

First Appearance: Super Mystery Comics vol.3 #4, (modern) Living Legends: The Return (chapter one)

HISTORY:

In his early teens, Lance Larter discovered that his friend Arthur Lake secretly held the legendary sword Excalibur. Arthur used the blade to battle local criminals as The Sword (see Sword I). When Sword ran in to trouble, Lance was granted the power to become the Lancer, a similar attired sidekick to his friend. With his magic lance, he assisted his friend in battling numerous supernatural threats to Lakeville.

Lance and Arthur would eventually join the Mystery Army (see Mystery Army) to battle the forces of Nazi Germany in Europe. Among the contingent of mystery men on the team, secret identities were a nonissue. His name shortened to Lance among the Mystery Army, a name that stuck upon their return to America.

In 1947, Sword and Lance joined a contingent of mystery men to travel to Brazil and attack a Nazi stronghold. During the attack, the mystery men were transported seventy years in to the future. Upon arrival in the modern day, Sword instantly grew sick. With the aid of a reborn Merlin, Lance took Sword to Avalon (see Avalon) to meet the Lady of the Lake.

He learned that his friend and the one true King Arthur were both poisoned by the magic of long-time foe Faye Morgana (see Morgana, Faye). The Lady of the Lake granted him Excalibur’s sister blade Caliburn and sent him out in to the world to find a cure.

Height: 6’              Weight: 181 lbs.

Eyes: Blue             Hair: Blonde

POWERS, ABILITIES, & EQUIPMENT:

Sword possesses the mystical blade Caliburn, sister of King Arthur’s Excalibur. He can summon the blade with just a thought, and upon its appearance he is covered in silver and blue chainmail. Both the blade and armor are nearly impenetrable, though blunt force trauma can still cause the Sword much distress.

Much like Excalibur, Caliburn is reputed to have numerous secret abilities. The Sword has yet to unlock these powers however, and their nature remains to be seen.

Official Handbook to the Quadrant Universe: Libertad

Libertad is the weakest character art-wise from this upcoming project, as Fabrica De Herois. But she is one of the character’s I am most looking forward to writing. While Annabelle Montalvo was a major player throughout Freedom Patton, this will be the first time I am writing her as a full-fledged superhero. I get to develop the hero / sidekick relationship between her and Freedom as well. It should be fun.

Libertad

LIBERTAD

Real Name: Annabelle Montalvo

Aliases: None

Identity: Secret

Citizenship: United States of America

Place of Birth: Marshalltown, Iowa

Known Relatives: Jeannie Cruz (mother, deceased), Aurelio Montalvo (father)

Group Affiliation: partner of Freedom Patton

Education: High school dropout

First Appearance: Freedom Patton: A Dangerous Place to Live (chapter one)

HISTORY:

Born to a high school dropout and an illegal immigrant, Annabelle Montalvo’s life started out on rocky footing. Her mom developed a drug habit when Annabelle was a small child. After her father left the family to return to Mexico, Annabelle ended up with social services. Her mother would wind up in jail on drug charges just a few months later.

Annabelle grew up in a variety of foster homes across the state of Iowa. By the time she became a teenager, Annabelle’s mother had served her sentence and got clean. But despite her mother’s best efforts, Annabelle remained in foster care in the small town of Tudor.

Her foster parents were good, but uncaring people. She started a relationship with Richie Williams, the town bad-boy. She helped Richie stay straight in school, even though both found themselves on the outs in the insular community.

The two teenagers stumbled upon a meeting of the World’s local faction with the group’s leader, Atlas (see Atlas). Richie showed up late for their liaison and was captured by the twisted super-patriot Liberator (see Liberator). She could only watch from her hiding place as Richie’s father, the town’s mayor, murdered his son in cold blood. She ran away from the city shortly after.

Agents of the World pursued her across southern Iowa. She would eventually be captured by Liberator and subjected to experiments based on his steroid-enhanced blood. Though all previous test subjects died as a result, Annabelle somehow survived. In the process she gained increased strength and endurance to match Liberator’s own.

She would soon be rescued by Freedom Patton and his allies (see Patton, Freedom). She used her new powers to aid them in defeating the World’s plans to take control of the state of Iowa. In the aftermath of the battle, she decided to join Freedom as he continued to travel across the country, in the hopes of learning more about using her new powers for good.

Height: 5’ 4”         Weight: 142 lbs.

Eyes: Brown         Hair: Black

POWERS, ABILITIES, & EQUIPMENT:

Libertad’s muscle mass is far denser than a normal human. This grants her increased endurance. She suffers only surface burns from most small arms fire. Her strength is also greatly increased. She can bench approximately 1.5 tons though continued exertion will result in muscle fatigue and exhaustion.

She has received limited hand-to-hand combat training from Freedom Patton, though she seems to be a natural brawler.

What's going on with Take the Helm and Metahuman Press

Many of my regular readers may have noticed my sudden silence last month. I only managed to get three posts up for the month of May, and for any of my regular review readers, I apologize. But I did have good reason for my sudden silence. I have been working on a top secret project that debuts later this month at Metahuman Press! It is the culmination of a project I have been plotting for over a year.

Entitled Long Hot Summer, I will be unveiling more information about it over the next couple weeks. For now, I will just promise that it will take characters from pretty much every story I have produced at the MHP. As to who those characters are... well, that you will just have to wait and see.

This does mean that last month’s Living Legends and this month’s Out For Vengeance will bring each series to a close temporarily. Both will be back some time in the next year: Out For Vengeance sometime in late 2010 and Living Legends early next year. But in the mean time, check out Long Hot Summer and what comes in its wake.

Pulp-Powered Prose: Tales of the Shadowmen volume one

Created by J.-M. & Randy Lofficier to revive classic French pulp heroes, Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 1: The Modern Babylon is an English language pulp anthology. Strange it seems at first, until you realize it is meant as a tie in to their two books Shadowmen, which give the history of these characters in details. But I digress, this is about Tales, so let’s focus on it.

The first thing you see is an excellent cover by Mike Manley featuring Judex, something of a French version of the Shadow (though he appeared years before the American character), and Frankenstein's Monster. The illustration clearly comes from Matthew Baugh’s opening tale “Mask of the Monster”. The story gets the anthology off to an exciting, action-packed start while introducing me (and I am sure many others) to some new classic characters.

Bill Cunningham continues the excitement with his story of an obscure pulp figure of France, Fascinax, in “Cadavres Exquis”. The story is another Shadow-esque riff, but it takes the character and puts him through hell as he faces his arch-foe Numa Pergyll.

The next high light is Wold Newton grandmaster Win Scott Eckert’s “The Vanishing Devil”. It takes French pulp character Francis Ardan and makes his similarities to Doc Savage more than just similarities. He is clearly Clark Savage, although Win always slides just a step away from saying it out right (probably do to copyright issues). He goes on a rip-roaring French adventure that puts him up against Yellow Peril villian Doctor Natas, a character Eckert makes clear is actually Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu. And this still isn’t the craziest bit of crossover storytelling this book has!

The editors write “Journey to the Center of Chaos”, a story combining H.P. Lovecraft created characters with an entire band of obscure characters, including the rather strange Sar Dubnotal. And of course a Cthulhu Mythos horror manages to pop up its evil head.

Two tales of Edgar Allen Poe’s original detective (and Frenchman) C. Augustine Dupin follow. Samuel T. Payne’s “Lacunal Visions” is somewhat disappointing. John Peel’s “The Kind-Hearted Torturer” is a much more entertaining and well written affair as the detective teams up with none other than the Count of Monte Cristo.

Chris Roberson does give us the story even stranger than Eckert’s with “Penumbra”. Framed around a French silent film from 1915 called Les Vampires, it stars the same director’s Judex. As he seeks to uncover the origins of the vampires, he encounters one Kent Allard, later the similarly attired Shadow. He also meets a young couple named the Waynes, Thomas and Martha. In the process you get a secret of a certain caped crusader’s origin that is only possible in a Wold Newton book such as this.

The book closes with Brian Stableford’s “The Titan Unwrecked”, a story starring Allan Quatermain, Ayesha, Dracula, and numerous literary and business figures of the turn of the century. Bad things start happening and things get almost as crazy as “Penumbra”.

A few more lesser stories round out the book, but even these so-so tales at least feature some truly unique figures. The writers really do cover the spectrum of pulp figures from obscure to quite common.

All in all, this book is a fun and exciting bit of pulp fiction. Though it’s a little pricy for a trade paperback at $22.95, I would say it was definitely worth it. Strongly Recommended.

Super-Powered Comics: X-Men Misfits

A couple years ago, Marvel teamed up with Del Rey Manga to bring its X-Men franchise to manga. The results were the abysmal Wolverine: Prodigal Son, a dismal attempt to tell a Wolverine story without all the concepts and ideas that make him Wolverine. I don’t care how much you like Wolverine, do not read it. It is an act of utter terribleness.

On the other hand, X-Men: Misfits is a much cleaner, more focused product. The concept is simple, young student Kitty Pryde learns she is a mutant. It causes her life to become miserable in her ordinary school, until the staff of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters invites her to come to their special academy. The kicker, though, is she doesn’t realize until she arrives that she is the school’s only female student.

She quickly ends up as an object of desire for both the super cool Hellfire Club and the more stable forces of the X-Men, but she faces the terrors of pre-pressure in the process.

What makes Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman’s story work so much better than Wolverine: Prodigal Son is that they understand that they need to alter the X-men story without losing the themes of the book. Much like the animated series X-Men: Evolution, their focus on a high school setting helps fit the idea perfectly, even as we redesign the characters in a shojo-style.






That’s the Beast. And yes, I am pretty sure he is supposed to bear an uncanny resemblance to Totoro. But he is still Hank McCoy with all the personality traits of the character we know. It makes it easy for us to continue in to the story while chuckling at the redesign of the character.

It’s fun and it carries some of the silliness of true manga, but it never loses sight of its story and the X-Men. It does pull a regular manga move and ends on a cliffhanger, but the plot is just thick enough to carry the reader through. It is by no means perfect. Artist Raizu sometimes makes the art just too damn busy. But it still features just enough fun to keep things interesting.

Need more?






Storm has a mohawk again.

I rest my case. Recommended.

Super-Powered Comics: Avengers the Initiative: Secret Invasion

I have meant for a couple of years to share my opinions about the Marvel crossover Secret Invasion. It is the only one of the big two comic publishers’ crossovers I have bought in the last decade. I never got around to it for a variety of reasons, though it is still floating around my stacks of comics I want to review.

But my local library did have the trade of the Avengers: The Initiative issues that tied in to Secret Invasion. So after reading it, I decided it was worth a review. Maybe it will get me off my butt to review the actual core limited. That being said, I think this work may actually be much better done.

One of Marvel crossovers events’ weaknesses are their need to try to cover the over-arcing storyline only. Character pieces are left by the wayside as they become plot driven pieces of boredom. Avengers: The Initiative: Secret Invasion provves to be the exact opposite. It tells the complete tale of the invasion, while putting its focus on three leads, all regulars in the series.

The 3-D Man (the former Triathlon) is the true star of these six issues as he gets the goggles of the original 3-D man. With them, he learns about the skrull forces just before the invasion begins. The skruls have infiltrated the teams of the Fifty States Initiative, a project designed by Iron Man and Yellowjacket (secretly a Skrull himself) to put super-teams in every state. 3-D Man sets out to stop them all.

Meanwhile at the Initiative’s home, Camp Hammond, two Robert Kirkman creations, the Crusader and the “Irredeemable” Ant-Man, both become embroiled in the invasion as well. Crusader is a Skrull himself, but with no link to the invasion and a love of Earth. When he realizes that Yellowjacket is a Skrull, he is left to question what action to take. He loses his choice when the invasion begins. He travels to New York with the base’s other heroes to join in the massive battle between Earth’s heroes and the Skrulls.

Ant-Man cowardly avoids going in to battle, only to be at Camp Hammond when the Skrull armada arrives to take control of the base. He helps his allies in the Shadow Initiative fight the base’s invaders. They fail, but Ant-Man escapes to give 3-D Man’s forces information on a Skrull secret weapon based in the Fifty States Initiative’s bases. My only real gripe comes with the writer’s scripting of Ant-Man’s personality. While his actions mirror his behavior in his own series, his dialogue often proves way more crass. But Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester created a unique character with their Ant-Man. His voice is almost certainly hard to nail.

The story spans dozens of characters (even reintroducing the Skrull Kill Krew), but never loses focuses of a narrative driven by its main three heroes. It works wonderfully at continuing the story’s forward momentum.

What doesn’t work as well is the art. Marvel has become much like the later years of the otherwise solid Ultraverse of late, with each issue seemingly by a different art team. “Regular series artist” Stefano Caselli provides art only for the first and third issue in the trade. Harvey Tolibao (whose art does resemble Secret Invasion artist Leinil Yu’s work) does the second and fourth. The fifth is by Steve Kurth and the sixth is by both Tolibao and Bong Dazo. So no two issues look the same. It is truly a credit to writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage that the art doesn’t completely derail the rest of the project.

Despite its flaws, Avengers: The Initiative: Secret Invasion shines past what a usual crossover tie-in would give us. It is truly a story in its own right while still dovetailing perfectly with the book it spins off from. Even without reading Secret Invasion, I think readers could find a lot to love with this book. Recommended.

Now Available: The Collected Metahuman Press Volume One

It's been long in the works, but now it is finally here! The Collected Metahuman Press Volume One is now available through Lulu! This beautiful trade paperback is nearly 250 pages for the low, low price of only $13.95!

I want to encourage all our blog readers, all our site’s supporters, and all lovers of good fiction to pick up a copy!

Super-Powered Prose: Iron Man Femmes Fatales

When Iron Man heated up the box office two years ago, I expected a flood of mass market tie-ins over the next year or so. I got... a little. Lots of t-shirts, a few strange collectibles, and all the collections Marvel could figure out to produce.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that we finally got the first original Iron Man novel in over a decade. The author, Robert Greenberger, is probably familiar to long time comic fans as an editor at DC, most notably on their line of Star Trek comics. Since those days he has wrote several Star Trek novels, and that apparently made Del Rey and Marvel pick him as the best bet to write Iron Man: Femmes Fatales.

The first thing I want to say is I don’t really no the plural to femme fatale, but even if it is femmes fatales, that seems rather awkward. I would choose Femme Fatales and let those who know better nitpick while the rest of us don’t have to look at what seems like a very strange title.

That aside, Iron Man: Femmes Fatales, takes an interesting ploy to its production. It is cleary an attempt to tell an “untold tale” of the Marvel Comics Iron Man from very early in his career. He is helping SHIELD through its formation and armament which includes meeting the likes of Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, and Gabe Jones for the first time. This fits in to silver age continuity, albeit a bit awkwardly, as when SHIELD first appeared, Tony Stark was their weapons provider. But if feels very strange to establish Iron Man and the Avengers in a world where SHIELD hasn’t yet formed. Perhaps it’s the movie or Ultimates continuity twisting things around, but it seems like SHIELD should come first, but I digress.

Tony’s involvement with SHIELD brings Stark Industries under attack by two separate threats, both lead by a beautiful young woman in disguise. One is the woman known as Madame Hydra, a.k.a. the future Viper. She has taken control of a faction of Hydra in Strucker’s absence and is bent on bringing it as much power as she can muster. Meanwhile, Madame Masque uses her mastery of disguise to sneak in to Stark Industries and steal technological secrets for her father Count Nefaria and his Maggia.

These two incidents cause repeated problems for both Tony Stark and his alter ego of Iron Man, but one of this novel’s biggest flaws is that the threats never seem big enough. Iron Man has been established as immensely powerful, but he rarely fights anything past skilled soldiers and terrorists in this book, A more powerful or technological threat would have done wonders.

The other flaw is the huge continuity hole Greenberger acknowledges in his afterword. Despite being a clear attempt at insertion in to regular Marvel Comic, Greenberger decided to drop Tony’s secret identity, much like the film did at its completion. In the comics, Tony would not reveal his identity for several more years (or decades in real world time). It comes off as very disconcerting for any long time comic reader.

Iron Man: Femmes Fatales is a mixed bag. The storytelling is good and Greenberger can write spy intrigue quite well. But the meat of the plot and character progression feels hollow at best. The story’s tendency to wander between characters at random occasionally causes problems as well.

All in all, Femmes Fatales isn’t a bad novel, but it never really strives to achieve any level of greatness. If you’re a true blue, dyed red and gold, Iron Man fan I would say go get this one. Otherwise go pick up one of the new Wild Cards novels instead. Not Recommended (unless you’re an Iron Man fan).

Out For Vengeance 9 Notes

This chapter starts the build-up to our first year bang-up with issue twelve that will in turn set up the big bad to finally reveal himself later in the year. I think this one came together quite nicely with a few good character points.

Gasman, sadly enough, took more time to name than a lot of characters so far. I wanted a character with a gas gun, but it took me hours before the mildly painful name came to me.

Having only recently revived Rulah, Jungle Goddess in the pages of Timeline, I have brought back another jungle girl in this chapter with Rima. Rima is a rather unique South American jungle character. In the public domain for some years, she first appeared in W.H. Hudson’s 1904 novel Green Mansions. (Read it here.) DC Comics gave her a book in the seventies and will soon revive their version in the pages of First Wave, but I thought my more mystic take would be fun for this chapter of Out For Vengeance.

After writing this, I really wanted my own combat spider monkey. Anyone else?

Super-Powered Comics: Dark Avengers Assemble

Thanks once again to the fine folks at my local library, I have had the chance to check out the beginning of Marvel’s “Dark Reign” from its focal point, Dark Avengers. Specifically the trade of the first six issues, titled “Assembled”.

The first issue is spent just assembling the new team. In case you haven’t heard, the Dark Avengers are sort of a reverse Thunderbolts, a bunch of criminals dressed up as heroes but still distinctly evil. Two members of Iron Man’s Mighty Avengers hold over, the war god Ares and the Sentry, a character too messed up in the head to go anywhere else. In addition, we have Spider-Man (really the Venom symbiote wearing Mac Gargan), Hawkeye (the assassin Bullseye), Ms. Marvel (former Thunderbolt Moonstone), Captain Marvel (Noh-Varr, the former Marvel Boy), and Wolverine (Logan’s son Daken). Led by new head of HAMMER Norman Osborn in his guise as the Iron Patriot, they are the new generation of Avengers.

Never do we really get an explanation of why Norman decided to go this route. He may have had to work for it, but other Marvel books clearly show that he could have formed a team of less famous but more stable (and manageable) actual heroes. He could probably still keep Moonstone and Daken around with little or no trouble and avoid the high probability of Venom or Bullseye going crazy. But clearly the concept is more important than the reasoning, as we quickly move on to the team’s first (secret) mission: to save Doctor Doom from a crazed Morgan Le Fey.

Now as far as I know the last time we saw Morgan was in the first few issues of Kurt Busiek’s Avengers relaunch in the late nineties. That story gave us a near pitch perfect story starring every Avenger on the roster facing an epic time-warping threat. Here we get some demons and an unkillable woman hellbent on Doom’s destruction. She does a lot of damage, the Avengers kill her repeatedly, and a few issues are wasted on what is basically an extended fight with the team’s own idiocy. I suppose this is supposed to show the team’s inability to work together, but all it shows me is that anyone who bought this wasted $12 for these three issues.

Issue five is straight forward Bendis at work. Norman goes on television for an interview about his history as the Green Goblin and the identity of his Avengers. The other team members interact, mostly like twelve year old schoolboys, with the exception of Noh-Varr and Moonstone, who retreat to her bedroom. Noh-Varr learns that the other “heroes” are really villains and leaves.

Issue six closes the trade with the Sentry murdering an entire legion of Atlantean dissidents. We get another brief meeting of Osborn’s Cabal and hints that Osborn’s Green Goblin persona is pushing for control once again.

Writer Brian Michale Bendis likes his decompression, but I have to say that I would feel gypped if I spent $4 an issue for this at their LCS. Even with my library grab, I feel like I am not getting as much story as this trade should have. The story here seems pointless and far from the flagship of an entire line of titles. If this was my only view of Dark Reign, I would say “:No thanks”. Even though Mike Deodato produces art far and away better than anything he has done before, this book still falls flat on its face. Not Recommended.

Living Legends 24 Notes

Not going to say much this time around, as most of this chapter is build for the explosive conclusion to our first book.

This is the one and only chance in this book to really get a good feeling for the young heroes in action. But the Newgen will get some more face time in book two (and possibly a spin-off). Manowar is the golden age Man of War, a Centaur character revived once before by Malibu for their Protectors series. I am going back to the original concept of a figure literally created to serve war with this incarnation, but his origins are a little more complicated than they first appeared back in the early forties.

I do love the idea that Fire-Eater can turn his spit into napalm. Honestly, I am surprise how much fun a fire-breathing character can prove to be.

The heroes finally start to come together again this chapter. Expect more to arrive in a couple weeks.

Timeline 20: The Rise of Rulah Notes

I am going to be straight up with everyone here. I love Tarzan. It doesn’t even matter how many terrible reinventions or terrible actors play him, I love him. The entire concept of the jungle hero is something I truly love. And it’s not just Tarzan. I absolutely love the new Sheena material from Devil’s Due. I still miss Bruce Jones, Mark Waid, and Priest on Ka-Zar. I go to newspaper websites well out of my area just to read Phantom strips online. Heck, I love Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire for its jungle hero Atlanteans. So it should come as no surprise after I say all that, that I wanted my own jungle hero. Generally, I try to use literary characters wherever I can to avoid pastiches. I didn’t want Torzo, Jungle King, or anything equally preposterous.

So, what should I see, while cruising Toonepedia. for info on more golden age heroes for Tales of the Living Legends, but Rulah, Jungle Goddess. A quick surf of my favorite public domain download site quickly found her first and subsequent appearances. All with art by the amazing Golden Age artist Matt Baker!


So my jungle hero choice was made clear, Rulah was the one for me.

My plans are to continue irregularly writing new Rulah stories for the foreseeable future, but I will cover more on that at another time. Before I could really start making original stories, I thought it would be best to adapt her origin story from the horrendously title Zoot Comics #7. I updated a few bits and tried to clean up the dialogue. I also took the time to explain why all these African tribemen spoke perfect English. And finally I inserted Tembo, a character that will play an important role in my stories for the next few years.

As to the means for Rulah’s new stories to appear. I will just say that an old sister site, dating all the way back to MHP’s days as a subsite, will be making its return in a big way come 2010.

The Rise of the Fan Pages

Just a quick note to say that yesterday’s Shadowdragon post was the three hundredth blog entry on Take the Helm presents!

Today, we are going to take a moment to introduce you to the two awesome new fan pages for Take the Helm’s sister sites Metahuman Press and Arc the Comic. Both have exclusive content: The MHP Fan page has information on our new series The Wicked. The Arc Fan Page has never before seen development art from Arc! Click on the links on the fan page badges below to join!

Nick Ahlhelm is a fan of

Metahuman Press Fan Page

Create your Fan Badge

Nick Ahlhelm is a fan of

Arc Fan Page

Create your Fan Badge

And once you have joined both awesome groups, you can create your own fan badges for all your websites and the like by visiting the Facebook fan badge maker. And thanks for supporting our sites!

Living Legends 21 Notes

The contest from last chapter is still going by the way. If you can figure it out, I will have that fancy piece of clothing shipped right out. Spoilers ahead, so go read the chapter first!

Chapter 21 is a big one. This serves as a major set up to actually move towards the finish of the Dominique storyline. We open with Ace and Fear Lass on Airlab. Airlab, like New Salem, will be making an appearance in upcoming chapters of Out For Vengeance but for now it is a mighty fine place for a battle between our heroes and a new team of super-villains. Unlike just about every other character that popped up in previous chapters, no legacy comes attached to the criminals. I just needed four thug villains. Usually I’ll plum the piles of old story plots I have dating back to my high school years, but I took a different tack with these ones. I pulled out my old copy of the classic TSR Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game and randomly generated all four. After that, I designed personalities around their classes, powers, and talents, and voila, I had more than enough for a team of criminals. Sometimes one dimensional characters can stay one dimensional, and these four, much like the Lady Foulplays in chapters past, probably will. At least for now.

We leave Mary Lee in place for the time being as we move in to the continuance of Atoman’s saga. More next chapter.

We know Robert “Lash Lightning” Morgan has ties to Dominique. Now one of our heroes gets the first hints of what is actually going on at the Chateau. What Isobel can do about it during a fragile pregnancy remains to be seen.

And, finally, our lost heroes return to reality, months after they disappeared, but only a few minutes for them. Doctor Frost’s own arrogance works against him, and this little band of heroes is suddenly without a leader. But they are far from through. Ghost Woman and Blackout both have places to go still.

And they will do it over our next two chapters. Over the next two weeks, we will hit both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as each of the characters celebrate (or at least survive) in a different way.

Living Legends 20 Notes (now with a contest!)

It’s hard to believe I am already up to the twentieth chapter.

For the first time in the book, I establish a group of potential spin-off characters. While the Next Gen will be appearing for the rest of the current story arc of Living Legends, I actually designed the team (in a slightly different form) as an entirely separate concept. As I fleshed out Dominique’s experiments and their results, I realized I could dove-tail the origins together quite nicely. A few name changes to tie them in with some really obscure Golden Age character names and voila! Yeah for syncronicity.

I didn’t forget about Purge. We will have more with the killer very soon.

We have an important moment in the progression of our first volume right here. The Atoman and Black Owl relationship is one I have built up over the last dozen chapters and I promise you that it is far from over yet.

Can you say team-up? I think you can. We will have a lot more with Fear-Lass and Ace the Amazing Boy in the first of three chapters next month! Yes, I did say three chapters! We have a special Christmas story coming up, and I am not going to delay that until after the holiday! So be ready for a triple dose of Living Legends next month.

Now for the contest of the day: can you tell me which nineties movie partially inspired the six young heroes that make up Buster’s Next Gen and their personalities? A first name or two may even have been lifted. I may just have a piece of Metahuman Press swag for whomever guesses correctly....

Out For Vengeance 7 Notes

Just a note: I am coming right along on Nanowrimo. I am at 8,400 words already, which puts me more than a day ahead so far! Wooo, me!

As for this chapter of Out For Vengeance, I think it came off really well. It does a great job of really building the mystery of who this Robert Benton may or may not be while also moving along his hunt for his identity.

Amanda will be popping up quite a bit in future chapters, as will several of the other support characters that have came and gone in the first few chapters. But Vengeance has a one track mind at this point, and we need to cover his quest before we can move on to the broader question of just what the hell is happening in New Salem.

Super-Powered Comics: All new superheroes!

I often realize that my focus on this site tends to stray far too often to past stories, simply because they are far easier to present in handy trade paperback formats. Today I am going to change that up by focusing on two all new books that you should check out.

Haunt combines the scripting talent of Kirkman, Spawn artist Greg Capullo on layouts, the penciling skills of Invincible artist Ryan Ottley, and McFarlane on digital inks as they create a new superhero I can best describe after one issue as a cross between Brother Voodoo and Venom. The story revolves around two brothers, one alive, one dead, and their ability to take on an ectoplasmic alter ego. While the first issue is a bit heavy on the story and light on the characters, it does offer an intriguing gateway in to what could be a truly great book for all involved.

While Kirkman has firmly entrenched himself as the modern voice of indy superheroics, Phil Hester seems out to match and maybe even one-up him. The former artist of books like Green Arrow and Swamp Thing (and with Kirkman, the canceled too soon Irredeemable Ant-Man) is now writing a plethora of books, most recently the Boom Studios release The Anchor.

The Anchor is a big lug of a man (think a similar build to the Goon) with a bald head and an awesome beard. The book’s tagline calls him God’s legbreaker. That seems to be an apt description as he levels demons both in modern Scandinavia and the gates of hell. Simultaneously. Artist Brian Churilla seems able to lift all the strong points of Mike Mignola’s art without being a copycat. A lot of the page designs do make me wonder if Hester is working layouts for the book though. Some panels look like they could have been lifted straight out of the classic Wretch books Hester wrote and drew. As a standalone book, The Anchor looks like it may very well be a great book to bridge standard superheroics with more mystical fare like Hellboy.

Both books are still a week or two away from their second issues, but I will say I am greatly intrigued by both. I would recommend rounding up seven bucks and giving both a try. Recommended.