Tag Archive: Dynamite Comics


A look at Dynamite Comics’ new Army of Darkness series

Filed under: Comics & Books, Fantasy, Movies, Pop Culture, TV — Leave a comment
April 25, 2012

By C.J. Bunce

No matter how an artist draws Ashley J. Williams–Ash–from the low-budget horror/dark comedy/zombie Evil Dead series, the character is impossible to see as anyone other than Bruce Campbell.  Publishers like Dark Horse and Dynamite Comics have released prior series featuring Ash, but if you missed those and are after a new ongoing series you might check out the new Army of Darkness from Dynamite.  With Issue #3 released at comic book stores today, you can still easily track down Issues #1 and 2 or, even quicker, download the back issues from comixology.com for a lot less than the print price.

If you don’t know Ash, he’s the character made famous by cult favorite actor Bruce Campbell in The Evil Dead (1981), The Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1991), as well as three video games: Evil Dead: Hail to the King (2000), Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick (2003) and Evil Dead: Regeneration (2005).  ASh is both funny and wise-cracking, a mirror image of the character Bruce Campbell seems to personify wherever he shows up.  The shows were directed by Campbell’s long-time creative partner Sam Raimi, known for everything from Hercules to Xena: Warrior Princess to Legend of the Seeker, all great fantasy TV series filmed in New Zealand, land of Middle Earth before it was Middle Earth.  And he also directed the first three Spider-man movies.  Bruce Campbell can be seen weekly in the successful spy series Burn Notice as cool-with-his-mojito, ex-spy in Miami, Sam Axe.

Fans of Campbell will pretty much tell you there is no one out there cooler than this guy.  And fans of Evil Dead may be interested that Raimi is in production right now of a remake of the original Evil Dead, with a new young cast, and instead of the tongue in cheek humor of the original comedy horror series, the new film will be a more serious supernatural thriller–probably not what a lot of diehard fans will be after.

But if you want more of the original Ash, then the place to look is this new comic book effort.  But there’s a twist with the new series.  You may find yourself puzzled throughout Issue #1 of the new Army of Darkness, as the “voice”–comments and word choice–of the character is all Bruce Campbell, yet the new Ash is a woman.   And Ash is a man.  And Ash is a woman.  It will all make sense, trust me.  The hero of Issue #1 turns out not to be Ashley J. Williams but new heroine Ashley K. Williams, Ash of a parallel universe that happens to be a butt-kicking woman with the personality and schtick of Bruce Campbell.

And we get the back story of Ash and her/his abilities not through yet another Ash origin story but through this parallel Ash.  And it works well.  The story itself is peppered with both pop culture references everyone should get and, for the diehard fans, references back to the original series only serious fans will likely get.

Ashley K. meets up with some well-timed aliens that prompt her to arrive at a nexus point, that just so happens to be where Ashley J. Williams also turns up.  On first read readers may get the feeling like I did with the New 52 Issue #1 of Green Lantern, hoping for Hal Jordan but getting Sinestro instead.  But what this story sets up is the opportunity for twice the Ash–if one Ash is good, two must be double the fun.  And Ashley J. turns up in full force for Issue #2.

Army of Darkness is written by Elliott R. Serrano with pencils by Marat Mychaels and inks by Chris Ivy.  Some of the best writers and artists today are creating for Dynamite Comics, so if you’re looking for something off the mainstream Marvel Comics and DC Comics, Dynamite has a lot of choices, along with this title there is Bionic Man, Bionic Woman, Green Hornet, Kato, Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon, all discussed here at borg.com previously, and lots more to check out.

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Dynamite Comics releases new Bionic Woman series

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Sci Fi, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
April 12, 2012

By C.J. Bunce

Dynamite Comics writer Paul Tobin promised readers “baguettes, bullets, and bionic badass” with his new Bionic Woman comic book series and Issue #1 delivers on the “bionic badass”.  Although it feels more like a prologue to the series, because it spends the issue with backstory and tells more than it shows, it’s a good enough start to keep readers coming back for more.

Jaime Sommers has been completely updated from the 1970s cyborg superhero played by Lindsay Wagner, who spun off her own show from the original Six Million Dollar Man TV series that starred Lee Majors as Bionic Man Steve Austin.  In the new Bionic Canon we have only seen Jaime in the origin story of Kevin Smith and Phil Hester’s rebooted Bionic Man series.  There we learned she was Steve Austin’s girlfriend, but after Steve crashed and was turned into a cybernetic weapon of the Office of Scientific Intelligence or OSI, she was told Steve was dead and we know now she has moved on.  We learn that they got back together once Steve recovered, and shortly thereafter Jaime plunged to the ground in a parachuting accident.  Steve convinces Oscar Goldman & Company to rebuild her as they rebuilt him, and this occurs.  Then they have a falling out.  We don’t get a lot of information comparing Steve and Jaime’s bionics, but we do learn Jaime is “smoother” and ”faster” than Steve.

So we now have Jaime Sommers, cybernetic human, a former teacher, who has lost most of her pre-surgery memories, on the run in Paris from the people who rebuilt her.  Unlike the original Jaime, this new Bionic Woman has amped up abilities–if Lindsay Wagner was Bionic Woman 1.0, think of her as a Bionic Woman 8.0.  In one scene we see that her bionics are smooth and form fitting with her arms and legs, a bit like the Terminator.  But like the Terminatrix from Terminator 3, she can do many new, cool things, like camouflage herself by morphing her face to change her appearance.  She can also download anything and everything from the Web into her brain… enormous amounts of information that she is yet to fully be able to control.  And she knows kung-fu.

We meet her in Issue #1 on the run with another runner, apparently a bit of a bounty hunter searching out information to broker to others, including information on the illusive Ms. Sommers.  Not knowing what she looks like, he reveals all that he knows–basically the backstory for readers–also letting Jaime in on what information he has on her.  It doesn’t amount to much.  She barely attempts to hide her identity, mainly because she is so confident in the outcome of the charade.  She doesn’t have to hide.  With a move of her arm she opens up a port releasing a nano-bug that temporarily incapacitates her comrade, and she is off to hide from watchers off the Grid.

But as she catches up with a friend in a restaurant a bullet pierces a nearby window en route to her head.  And we are left with the series first cliffhanger ending.  The villains are a new organization trying to steal cyborg parts from Bionic prototypes, predecessors to Jaime and Steve–presumably to use for others for a price.

Other than a quick peek at her cybernetics in her apartment, Jaime is not drawn as your typical female superhero.  She wears a pant suit of sorts as she speeds through town across the cityscape.  Leno Carvalho does not take the normal route here of skimpy outfits and emphasis on her feminity.  This creates visually a more promising heroine for us to keep an eye on.  She’s savvy, smart and sure-footed… a badass who can clear a room full of bad guys all by herself.

Issue #1 reveals big questions that writer Tobin will be taking us through in coming issues:  Who is after Jaime?  Why is she on the run?  Why did she leave Steve?  How did she end up in Paris?  How long can she stay hidden?  What other bionic tricks are up her sleeve (or accessible through her data ports)?

Issue #1 is available at all comic shops beginning this week and will be published monthly.

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Thousands attend Midwest’s annual “Planet Comicon” convention

Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Fantasy, Movies, Pop Culture, Sci Fi, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
March 27, 2012

By C.J. Bunce

One of the Midwest’s best pop culture and comic book conventions was this past weekend, Planet Comicon, which has been Kansas City’s largest fan convention for more than a dozen years.  The show seemed to be bursting from its seams this year with thousands of guests, and appears to be outgrowing its venue at the Overland Park International Trade Center.

The film and TV headliners for this year’s show included Edward James Olmos, best known to sci-fi fans for his role in Blade Runner and as Adama in the Battlestar Galactica reboot series.  He signed autographs and took photos with fans both days of the show.  Here he is with Erin Gray, who appeared with other actors from the 1979-1981 TV series Buck Rogers and the 25th Century: 

Gray also appeared on an episode of the Syfy Channel’s Hollywood Treasure last year.

The other featured major guest from film and TV was Billy Dee Williams, best known as Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but also as Harvey Dent alongside Michael Keaton in the 1989 Batman film.  His current work includes a stint on USA’s White Collar.

Billy Dee also appeared at the show both days.  (I offered a woman in line $5 to say “Billy Dee, Billy Dee, Billy Dee!” when she finally met him but didn’t take me up on it.  And it’s OK if you don’t get that reference).

Early Saturday morning legendary comic book artist Michael Golden is getting fueled up before embarking on a sketch of Green Arrow:

Green Arrow by Michael Golden. How cool is that?

Michael is known for his work on such titles like Marvel Comics series The ‘Nam, GI Joe Yearbook, Star Wars, and Micronauts.  He is also the co-creator of the X-Men character Rogue.

I’ve been a fan of the different styles Mike Norton uses in his art for quite a while.  Here he is signing one of his comic pages for the Green Arrow/Black Canary series, where he did the pencil work and comic book legend Bill Sienkiewicz provided the ink work:

Mike is working on a creator-owned project currently and has previously worked on Runaways, Gravity, the Young Justice animated series comic book.  He was actively sketching pages for fans at the show and produced probably a dozen at least over the weekend, including this great image for me:

Unfortunately Bernie Wrightson wasn’t sketching at this year’s convention, but he was signing plenty of shirts and books for his Frankenstein book.  Wrightson’s horror artwork goes back several decades, with his first published comic work with House of Mystery in 1969.  He co-created Swamp Thing in 1971.  His work has appeared in Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella, and Batman: The Cult.  Here Wrightson is at a signing table with Freddie Williams II and his wife Kiki:

Freddie is well known for his work on his Robin series, and is currently one of the DC Comics top artists.  We reviewed his and JT Krul’s Captain Atom series here at borg.com a few weeks ago.  Freddie was busy creating sketches for fans and speaking on panels at the show.

Currently working on projects for Dynamite Comics, Bionic Man writer Phil Hester and Lone Ranger writer Ande Parks had pages of original artwork as well as copies of their books new and old that they were signing for fans, including a lot of low-priced original art from their run on the DC Comics Green Arrow series:

It’s great that these guys have tackled both the writing and illustration sides of comic book creation.

I got to catch up again with a couple well known Kansas City authors.  Here, Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, two of the best known authors of Star Trek novels, talk with fans at the show.

The NBC TV series Heroes co-creator Tim Sale was signing books and art at his booth:

Sales’ past work includes art in Batman: Dark Victory, Batman: The Long Halloween, Daredevil: Yellow, Hulk: Grey, Spider-Man: Blue and Superman For All Seasons.  (What’s with these color titles, anyway?).  His unique stylized paintings on Heroes featured into the plot of the series.

I spent time chatting with Rob B. Davis, currently providing illustrations for a Sherlock Holmes series and past artist for Malibu’s Deep Space Nine comic book series, writer Jai Nitz, who was juggling signing copies of his Kato and Tron: Betrayal series while moderating different comic book panels at the show, borg.com writer Art Schmidt, local writer Justin Cline manning the front of the convention, and Todd Aaron Smith, who sketched this great Black Canary image for me:

Smith had provided storyboards for Family Guy and other animation art for shows like South Park and various DC Comics and Marvel Comics TV series.  Current Marvel Comics lead writer Jason Aaron could be found with some good lines of fans waiting to get copies of his various Hulk, Wolverine and X-men series signed:

The facility was packed wall to wall with plenty of booths selling everything from graphic novels to collectible action figures, original comic book art, and comic book back issues.  Here, Elite Comics comic book store owner William Binderup appears to be raking in some cash from sales of comics at his booth:

Show producer Chris Jackson seemed pleased with the success of this year’s convention.

And of course there were plenty of cosplayers.  Here a few Batman characters huddled for a photo:

But I think the best was this “Hello Kitty meets Stormtrooper” mash-up:

No doubt it would have been a far different Star Wars had Luke showed up to rescue the princess with this outfit.

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New Bionic Woman comic book series promises “baguettes, bullets, and bionic badass”

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
January 19, 2012

Following up on the recent scuttlebutt on a possible Bionic Man movie down the road from the Weinsteins and Bryan Singer, Dynamite Comics has announced it is creating a Bionic Man spin-off series featuring Jaime Sommers, Bionic Woman.  Writer Paul Tobin has an entirely new take on the Bionic Woman, first appearing in the original Six Million Dollar Man series in the early 1970s.   Interviewed by WestfieldComics.com, Tobin characterizes the story as follows:

“At heart it’s a mystery tale, where Jaime needs to uncover a group of DECIDEDLY illegal organ transplant doctors, ones who have begun to look at Jaime, and other “bionics” as THE best organ donors, whether these “donors” like it or not.  Along the way, there are quite a few explosions, some new friends, some betrayals, a man with amazing hunting skills and no morals at all, a pretty French girl, a boat that sinks, some afternoon tea, a romantic hopeful, exactly 12,456 bullets (barring script revisions) and a partridge in a pear tree.  Said partridge may or may not explode. Have I mentioned the explosions?”

Sounds like it will have some good humor.  Dynamite Comics is marketing the series with the following blurb:

“Paris is the city of love?  Not anymore… not since Jaime Sommers, the Bionic Woman, came to town hot on the trail of the Mission, a collection of insanely high-priced surgeons who’ve been murdering OSI’s bionic prototypes in order to provide new life for billionaire patients.  But while the Bionic Woman is hunting the Mission, their #1 hunter is after her!  Can Jaime pick up the pieces of her past while protecting her life in the present, or will the city of love turn its back, and its bullets, on the Bionic Woman?  Acclaimed writer Paul Tobin brings you a tale of baguettes, bullets, and bionic badass!”

So it sure doesn’t feel like an origin story. But maybe Tobin and Dynamite are only summarizing the series itself as opposed to the first issue.  Still, Tobin has said there will be only a slight appearance by Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, despite the header on the book “From the pages of Kevin Smith’s Bionic Man.”  I still can’t help but scrunch my eyebrows a bit over the emphasis on the Bionic Man being a Smith story vs. the original Martin Caidin story.  Strangely enough one cover released has the reference to Kevin Smith, the other nearly identical cover doesn’t.  But no matter, one more bionic book just gives us more to look forward to on the comics rack and if Smith’s name has some marketing power then great.

We can also look forward to the new series’ Brazilian artist Leno Carvalho, who will be penciling the Bionic Woman.  Carvalho is a more recent entrant into the comic book art world.  Covers will be created by Paul Renaud.

And here is what finally makes sense about Jaime Sommers.  Her name.  Yes, “jaime” means “I love” in French, pronounced “zhem”, but as names go, Jaime is a centuries old Spanish boy’s name pronounced “hi-may.”  But like the street name Madison was turned into thousands of girls’ names in the 1980s because of Daryl Hannah in the movie Splash, there are as many 30 and 40-something girls out there from the 1970s named Jaime, not Jamie, and they pronounce it the same way: “jay-me”.  So by making Jaime a character in Paris, it finally all makes sense, right?  But how do we pronounce it?  I bet I know how readers in France will pronounce it.  Too bad they didn’t spell Sommers as Summers and we could have had a crossover family tale with our old pal Buffy Summers.

Anyway… Europe as a venue for modern superheroines is a good idea.  The Huntress limited series from DC Comics used Italy to good effect, and hopefully Hobin will do the same for the Bionic Woman in the streets of Paris.

Bionic Woman, published by Dynamite Comics, is expected to be published in March 2012.

C.J. Bunce

Editor

borg.com

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Alex Ross brings Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist to Dynamite Comics

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Movies — Leave a comment
January 18, 2012

Alex Ross has said repeatedly that his favorite movie of all time is the 1980 movie Flash Gordon, featuring Sam Jones as Flash, Melody Anderson as Dale Arden, Max Von Sydow as Ming, Topol as Dr. Zarkov, Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, and Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan.  It’s no wonder that he has brought Flash Gordon to Dynamite Comics with the new series, Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist.

Ross has gone so far as to say that the Flash Gordon movie inspired him in his life and work.  As movies go, it’s a cult classic in every way.  Both from the over-the-top action, the soundtrack by Queen, the camp.  Yet if you saw it in the theater you had to think it was a fun movie.  The costumes were great, the set decoration was bright and unworldly.  And the actors, except maybe Jones as Flash, were great at their campy roles.  As Ming, von Sydow redefined and highlighted the classic villain from the 1930s movie serials.

In Zeitgeist, Alex Ross has painted some fabulous covers, and he has developed both the plot and art direction for the series.  For most of Issue #1 you would think you were reading an adaptation of the 1980 film.  The use of reds and yellows to identify Ming’s world, in contrast with the black and white imagery of Earth of 1934 could not be done much better by colorist Slamet Mujiono.  Daniel Indro’s page after page of non-stop action is well done, and I almost think Ross could not do much better with the panel work.  The story by Eric Trautmann is tight and compelling and has all the components of a story serial trying to get you to come back for the next installment, including the requisite cliffhanger ending.

I was a little surprised Ross’s love of the subject matter didn’t prompt him to take this all on himself, but it’s probably not surprising since he seems to have been juggling several projects in the past year.  Luckily it doesn’t matter, as you can pretty much hear the Flash Gordon theme while reading the pages of Trautmann and Indro’s work on Issue #1.

One of the changes from past versions is an apparent intersection coming between the fantasy story of Flash and the real-life era of 1934 Earth.  As genre bending goes, this is part fantasy and part sci-fi.  But there is also something else.  Something of an updated steampunk for the 1930s—with techno gadgets heavily featured in the story.  Trautmann has said he and Ross have exchanged several images of technology from the time period to help create the overall look of the series.  The result is a style almost of its own.

Look out for several different cover variants, in fact nine for this Issue #1, which seems to be a standard marketing shtick of Dynamite Comics.  There is a retro cover by Francesco Francavilla that is particularly cool.  What is for certain with Dynamite Comics is that its creators are producing books that are every bit as good in quality as the big two comics publishers.  Adding on to titles like Green Hornet, Kato, and Bionic Man, Dynamite is making its own mark in the industry.  And to top it off, the best part may be the price.  Issue #1 is available with a cover price of $1.  How can you beat that?

C.J. Bunce

Editor

borg.com

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Steve Austin is dead, long live the Six Million Dollar Man

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
November 25, 2011

   

Review by C.J. Bunce

Spoilers!

Steve Austin is dead.  At least that is how the secret military organization called O.S.I. has classified him at the beginning of Issue #3 of Kevin Smith and Phil Hester’s Bionic Man series.  In actuality his right arm and both legs are gone, lost because of the crash of his test jet the Daedalus in Issues #1 and #2.

Austin feels like anyone immediately after a crash this bad, he screams at friend Oscar Goldman and his personal physician Doctor Wells, “Why didn’t you let me die?”

Despite working on the secret military project involving advanced bionics that resulted in the creation of a Frankensteinesque cyborg from a man named Hull, it doesn’t occur to Goldman that the government may have a spare $6 million per day to try to build another cybernetic human.  His director at O.S.I. tells him it’s a done deal, Goldman just need to get Austin on-board.  He’s classified as dead right now, but “we can rebuild him.”

Meanwhile Hull is rampaging across Korea, hell bent to destroy anything in his path, on his way to take out O.S.I. for creating him, or at least failing to re-create him right.  For now, despite the coaxing, Austin isn’t playing along.  But the ramifications are distilled into the one key reason to hold on for Steve, the thought of being with his fiancee Jaime Sommers again.

Smith and Hester continue to pepper the Bionic Man’s creation story with nostalgia and clever updates, such as the obvious problem with a 1975 bionic man that made sense at six million dollars, but with inflation today he’s costing the military $6 million per day.  Alex Ross’s cover work continues to be impressive for Issue #3 and Jonathan Lau’s depiction of the battle scarred, destroyed test pilot is realistic and gritty.

But the real payoff comes with Issue #4, the part of the story everyone has been waiting for, the climax of the TV pilot for the original series, and what would become one of the best classic introductions for a TV series of all time.

To begin with, Alex Ross’s cover is one of his best-ever covers, and Lau’s tryptich incentive cover is also top-notch.

And Issue #4 begins with one of the coolest ideas so far, a bionic German Shepherd–rebuilt from a heroic police dog nearly killed in the line of duty.  And he’s as normal as any dog, lifting his leg on Steve’s bed.  The dog is meant to help convince Austin to go through with the surgery to add bionic devices to his own, to create another cyborg.

The remainder of the issue is a scene by scene account of why we loved the Bionic Man in the 1970s and why we love him today.  What must have been a dream job for any artist is undertaken nicely by Jonathan Lau.  There’s not a lot for Smith and Hester by way of writing duties, however, in this issue as the classic story takes over.  Lau doesn’t miss the opportunity to keep Austin’s first test run in his trademark red track suit, instead of trying something new.

And Austin gets to learn the “why” of all this attention and investment of millions of dollars.  The tradeoff is he must come to work for O.S.I., to go after bad guys.  And with a virtually unnoticeable new body in place, Austin happily agrees.

What more could anyone want?

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Review–Good dialogue moves us forward in Smith/Hester’s Bionic Man story

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Superheroes — Leave a comment
September 27, 2011

Review by C.J. Bunce (with spoilers)

Kevin Smith and Phil Hester’s second issue of the new Bionic Man comic offers some great exchanges between characters, particularly between Oscar Goldman and a lead of the O.S.I. branch responsible for the bionics division named Margaret.  Margaret must select a second candidate for the bionic program as the prototype has gone all “Frankenstein’s monster” and ripped up a few special strike force SEAL teams.  The bionic prototype, called Hull, has created its own goons and they are not just killing their creators, they are eating them.  It’s a strange turn of events for this story, yet it seems to be a good segue into the types of stories from the original Six Million Dollar Man TV series a lot of us loved 35 years ago.

And artist Jonathan Lau’s depiction of this Margaret character would be nicely portrayed on-screen by TV series Psych‘s chief Karen Vick, played by actress Kirsten Nelson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Everwood).

Time to cast Bionic Man for a new series or movie?

For some unreal circumstances the character exchanges are believable, and whereas the first issue seemed to spend too much time on more clichéd exchanges, the dialogue seems to have kicked in.  The O.S.I. team needs a new bionic man to take out the first creation that has failed so miserably and the board room exchange is full of politics and posturing.  We want to like this Oscar Goldman fellow, and the set-up allows us to want to support this guy’s efforts.

It is the background story that takes charge in Issue #2, primarily because our series lead has crashed his experimental aircraft at the end of Issue #1, with the fallout spilling into Issue #2.  Goldman only late in his discussions learns his friend Steve Austin is barely alive, and jaws of life can’t get him out of his smashed plane.  Goldman doesn’t ask anyone for permission, he gets his crew to start working straight away to use the resources available–the best resources anywhere–to save Steve.

In the first 48 pages we haven’t moved toward Austin’s reactions to the bionics, so it will be interesting to follow the pacing of the Bionic Man series.

Alex Ross continues to provide superb cover art, as does Lau with alternate covers.  From time to time you buy a book with a Ross cover and you’re disappointed with the interior art.  Not so with this issue and Lau’s good images.

Here is Lau’s alternate cover to Issue #2 featuring the mangled and menacing bionic villain Hull:

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Iowa comic con to feature Denny O’Neil Saturday

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Pop Culture, Superheroes — 1 Comment
September 16, 2011

Denny O’Neil, the genius who wrote the best team-up ever in the early 1970s will be the featured guest at the Comic Book I-Con Saturday, September 17, 2011, just outside of Des Moines in Altoona, Iowa at the Adventureland Inn.  The Iowa Comic Book Club has been hosting the convention for about ten years now, sometimes at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and more recently at the Adventureland venue.

O’Neil and artist Neal Adams both re-defined the modern superhero with their run on Green Lantern starting with Issue 76 back in 1971.  Along with Adams creating the modern look of Green Arrow with goatee and new costume, O’Neil brought us a new image of the modern hero, giving Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Green Lantern a new purpose: saving the world one problem at a time.  Their Hard-Traveling Heroes storyline and the team’s greater social consciousness beginning with that Issue 76 has been labeled time and time again as the beginning of the Silver Age of comic books.

O’Neil will be featured on a panel at I-Con at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Also headlining the event is long-time Iowa attendee and former Green Arrow artist Phil Hester, who has been drawing the Green Hornet series for Dynamite Comics and co-writing Bionic Man with Kevin Smith.

I-Con is a good local convention where visitors can get a lot of one on one time with comic book writers and artists.  Notable past guests include Mike Grell, the writer and artist on Green Arrow who re-defined Green Arrow for the 1980s generation.

The day’s events include:

10 a.m. Heroclix intro in the Game Room

11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Spider-man available for photos, 501st Legion, Mandalorian Mercs, Dazzler

11 a.m. Panel from the Bullpen with Denny O’Neil

12 p.m. Cosplay Costume Cavalcade

12:30 p.m. Trivia Contest

1 p.m. Comic Book Writing 101.1 With Tony Bedard

1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Heroclix Tourney in the Game Room

2 p.m. Wave/Bluewater Comics panel

3 p.m. – 4 p.m. Portfolio reviews by Phil Hester (limited to six people and six pages each)

The show is one day only.  Check out the I-Con website and Iowa Comic Book Club website for more information, including a full list of other guest artists and writers scheduled to attend the event.

C.J. Bunce

Editor

borg.com

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Review: Bionic Man comic book released this week

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Fantasy, Pop Culture, Sci Fi, Superheroes, TV — 1 Comment
August 26, 2011

Review by C.J. Bunce

The highly anticipated adaptation of the Six Million Dollar Man TV series in comic book from Dynamite Comics was released this Wednesday and was not surprisingly sold out in its first print run.  Titled The Bionic Man, the adaptation was written by Kevin Smith (Green Arrow, Jay and Silent Bob) with Phil Hester (Green Arrow, Green Hornet, Ant Man), based upon a screenplay Smith had written for a never-produced 1990s motion picture version of The Six Million Dollar Man.  Over all, I’d say issue one is a good launch.

Starting with the numerous covers, which you cannot tell a book by, they all look great, and the ten variant covers based on four original works are all pictured inside the back page.  Alex Ross provided the main cover, with Paul Renaud, Stephen Segovia and series artist Jonathan Lau providing the rarer incentive covers.  I posted the covers in a prior article.

The interior art, with pencils by Jonathan Lau and coloring by Ivan Nunes, also looks great.  This is an appealing looking book.  Steve Austin looks pretty close to Scott Bakula as he looks today, as opposed to original series actor Lee Majors, making me think he’d be fun to watch as this updated character.  Oscar Goldman, on the other hand, looks younger than Richard Anderson from the TV series, but has similar facial features to the actor and a more rumpled look about him.  Recall Goldman’s incredible arsenal of suits and the inexplicable checkered suit on the action figure.  Yet check out how similar they look…

   

Clearly this is not about adapting the original but updating it a bit.  The story starts out with an apparent cyborg character gone astray, something like Rambo with a sword, yet some slasher flick stylings…

If there is anything I didn’t care for with the art in issue one, it was this over the top scene, which reminded me of the disturbing opener of Ghost Ship (not a recommended flick).  All other visuals are interesting, with good continuity, and the scene of Austin’s test pilot trip of the experimental Daedalus Mach 8-capable aircraft is definitely nostalgic.

As to the story, there are minor changes to update the character, an already existing relationship with future Bionic Woman Jamie Summers, for example, but otherwise the book’s main story is tracking with the TV series pilot.  Which begs the question, why does Kevin Smith’s name need to be so big on the cover?  And if this is based on a screenplay by Smith, how much of the resulting story reflects Smith and how much reflects co-writer Phil Hester?  At least for this first issue, I think the answer might reflect Smith a bit, based on his modern aka umm, too personal (?) look at Austin discussing a negative bathroom experience with girlfriend Jamie, and an almost pop culture adherence to the original story.  Something about Smith bringing Stanley and his Monster into the first ten issues of his Green Arrow story reminded me of the second storyline of this book. Regarding the killer cyborg subplot–little is divulged, yet is he reminiscent of the Six Million Dollar Man android Maskatron?    Austin is billed as the bravest man alive, yet unlike the TV version, this guy has a nervous stomach before his flight.  Necessary?  I don’t know, but worth pointing out and maybe Smith’s/Hester’s intention of showing thaeir Austin is footed in “modern reality.”

An oddity is the similarity of the character building for Steve Austin as compared to the treatment of the motion picture Hal Jordan in this summer’s Green Lantern movie.  No doubt this is just a coincidence, but the almost slacker test pilot running late to his important test flight is now firmly, if it wasn’t before, cliche.  Since neither original work had it, you get the impression that the slacker generation is creeping into the iconography and mythology of American pop culture a bit.  Maybe this is just an attempt at a hot shot pilot a la Tom Cruise in Top Gun.  No doubt Chuck Yeager and his Right Stuff brethren had a bit of this cockiness to be able to do what they did.

Looking forward to the character development and addition of the cybernetic enhancements that define the Bionic Man in issue #2, out next month.

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Kevin Smith, Phil Hester, Alex Ross take on Bionic Man

Filed under: Blasts from the Past, Comics & Books, Fantasy, Pop Culture, Superheroes — Leave a comment
June 25, 2011

I couldn’t be more psyched about this news.  Dynamite Entertainment, the comic book publisher who primarily focuses on adaptations of established properties like Army of Darkness, Robocop, Terminator, Xena, Highlander, Battlestar Galactica and most recently The Green Hornet, announced that it will be launching a new Six Million Dollar Man comic book series starting in August, titled The Bionic Man.  And they aren’t pulling any punches with the creative team.  Kevin Smith and Phil Hester, who together created the second Green Arrow series with the “Quiver” storyline (then with Smith writing and Hester pencils), this time around will be sharing writing duties.  Dynamite regular Jonathan Lau will be drawing the series.  The comic book series will follow Steve Austin again as the test pilot/astronaut whose body is nearly destroyed in a crash and because “we can rebuild him, we have the technology” became the first mainstream cyborg back in the 1970s.  Oh, yeah, and comic cover artists extraordinaire Alex Ross painted the cover to Issue #1 (above).

If you watched the original series, this page from issue #1 will be very familar:

Like other Dynamite titles, Issue #1 will have multiple covers, by Paul Renaud, Stephen Segovia, and interior artist Jonathan Lau.

The creators’ takes on the new series from the Dynamite press release:

“True story: when I turned in a script for The Six Million Dollar Man back in ’98, there was an exec who dismissed it as being more like a comic book than a movie,” said acclaimed film director and writer Kevin Smith.  “It’s an honor to head back into the trenches with the same creative team at Dynamite that made my Green Hornet script so readable and fun.”

“I’m one of those kids who grew up with The Six Million Dollar Man toys all over my house,” said cover artist Alex Ross.  “I still prize them as one of the favorite parts of my youth for the amazing variety of things that Steve Austin could use or fight against.  The Six Million Dollar Man is one of the coolest original superhero properties invented for television.”

“When I heard about The Bionic Man, my initial thought was how to make him stand out from the rest of the cyborg genre, and that’s where my style comes into play,” said artist Jonathan Lau.  “Hopefully this will be a fun ride showcasing a more extreme play of action than I used to do!”

“I’m thrilled to help bring Kevin’s unique vision for Steve Austin and company,” said Phil Hester.  “Fans of the original will find all the classic elements they long for, while those hungry for new elements will get a healthy dose of bionic action for the 21st century.”

“I grew up LOVING The Bionic Man,” said Dynamite President and Publisher Nick Barrucci.  “As a child I wanted to be him, but since that hasn’t happened, the next best thing is publishing The Bionic Man. Dynamite will also be bringing The Bionic Woman to stores in 2012!  Wait until you see what we have planned!”

“As a child I wanted to be him…”  Hey, Nick Barrucci, me, too!  Kinda what got me putting this whole borg.com thing together as I said in this earlier post.

Although Kevin Smith’s run on Green Arrow wasn’t my favorite, you can see him bringing back a creature like Bigfoot for Bionic Man like he did Stanley and his Monster in Green Arrow.  As for Phil Hester, I’m a big fan because he works all his artistic magic not from LA or NYC but from my home state of Iowa and because he drew some great pages in his run on Green Arrow and because he attends cons like no one else.  And who doesn’t think Alex Ross is one of the top 5 cover artists of our time, if not #1?  I particularly love it when he veers from standard superheroes and hits the tangent characters like Space Ghost and Battle of the Planets and one-off pieces like Sesame Street’s Super Grover.  Jonathan Lau is an up and coming artist with some great pencils–just check out his website for more images.  Here’s Lau’s alternate cover to Issue #1:

And while I’m at it, here’s Stephen Segovia’s alternate cover to Issue #1:

I love Segovia’s because it reminds me of the Star Wars cover of the first cyborg published as a “borg”, borg bounty hunter Valance, seen here:

And here is Paul Renaud’s cover:

Alex Ross’s cover (at the top of this article) mirrors Steve Austin right off the action figure box from the 1970s so it gets a thumbs up from me.

Looks like we’re going to have a busy Fall with some great new series!

C.J. Bunce

Editor

borg.com

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