Compilingthe seven-issue mini-series from Dynamite Comics written by notable Fables writer Bill Willingham, Legenderry gets the trade paperback treatment this week as it is released nationwide. Legenderry is the steampunk–or more accurately “steam noir”–series featuring the ultimate mash-up: Red Sonja joins with Six Thousand Dollar Man Steve Austin, Zorro, Vampirella, the Green Hornet and Kato, Captain Victory, Silver Star, and the Phantom, all to face off in a final showdown with Ming the Merciless, Queen Flor Zora, Kulan Gath, Lydia Valcallan, General Tara, and Doctor Moreau.
It’s as fun as it sounds, and could only happen at Dynamite Comics, which carries the licenses to so many classic titles. And it’s just the first of several series with these classic characters in their newest and most creative incarnations–a “what if” where they all rub elbows in the 19th century instead of the 1930s to 1970s.
The last day of the year is finally here, and with that the last of our reviews of the best content of 2014.
We’ve previewed comic books each month thanks to publishers like Dynamite Comics, Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing, BOOM! Studios, and Image. We sample the best of all that Marvel and DC Comics has to offer, too, and although we don’t have enough time to review everything we review those titles we think our readers might like to check out, especially those with a sci-fi, fantasy, or retro angle. And we read plenty of books–sci-fi and fantasy, pulp and spy novels, movie and TV tie-ins, even Westerns and steampunk, as well as non-fiction books about movies, TV, and other genre topics. This past month we have looked again at these titles, as we narrowed our selections to what we think are the very best. So here are our picks for Best in Print for 2014.
Best Comic Book Series — Black Widow, Marvel Comics. We were wondering early on what would take the place of Fraction and Hollingsworth’s Hawkeye series for the most satisfying superhero fix. It didn’t take long to see this other Marvel series looking at another superhero in a similarly personal–but very different–way. It was a standout in a great year of comics. Phil Noto’s art and colors were incredible and Nathan Edmondson’s story didn’t let up once. Full of action, espionage, and intrigue. A great series to catch-up on in a trade edition. See our reviews of the series here and here.
Best Comic Book Mini-Series — Afterlife with Archie, Archie Comics. Who would have guessed someone could make Archie and friends so accessible to any demographic in the 2010s? And whose brilliant idea was doing it via a horror genre story of zombies taking over Riverdale? Smart writing by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and spooky atmospheric illustrations by Francesco Francavilla made for a sumptuous series like no other. Not technically a mini-series, it feels like one because of its staggered release. See our earlier raves about the series here.
Best Comic Book Writing – Dan Abnett, Wild’s End, BOOM! Studios. Abnett’s Wild’s End really caught us by surprise. An incredible fantasy read that is truly unique from BOOM! Studios. Anthropomorphic characters with incredible archaic dialogue that’s witty and smart. A crazy mash-up of War of the Worlds, Christopher Robin’s neighborhood, and the dark edge and high stakes of Revival. We can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of this series. Check out our earlier review here.
Bill Willingham’s Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure was one of this year’s best ideas, a combination of steampunk, superhero mash-up, and just plain great retro fun. Legenderry saw a parallel universe including the creation of Steve Austin–the Six Thousand Dollar Man, and alternate versions of Flash Gordon, the Green Hornet and Kato, Vampirella, the Phantom, and Red Sonja, among others. It was the ultimate new look at familiar characters that Dynamite holds the licensing rights to today.
We’re hoping for a future addition of Miss Fury to this steam-powered world, and to hear about a Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure trade edition to collect the seven-issue limited series. Until then Dynamite is branching out beyond Willingham’s story, focusing on three of the characters: Red Sonja, Vampirella, and Green Hornet, each to have their own new series.
David Avallone will write the Legenderry: Vampirella series, featuring Madam Pendragon and her path to become Vampirella. Daryl Gregory (Planet of the Apes) will write the Legenderry: Green Hornet story featuring Hornet and Kato in a Gangs of New York type setting.
Legenderry is the seven-issue mini-series from Dynamite Comics written by notable Fables writer Bill Willingham. Legenderry is also the steampunk setting where in Issue #7 Red Sonja joins up with Six Thousand Dollar Man Steve Austin, Zorro, Vampirella, the Green Hornet and Kato, Captain Victory, Silver Star, and the Phantom, all to face off in a final showdown with Ming the Merciless, Queen Flor Zora, Kulan Gath, Lydia Valcallan, General Tara, and Doctor Moreau.
And we hope this is the first of several series with these classic characters in their newest and most creative incarnations.
The best character development in the series is that of Red Sonja, who has spells leaving her to think she is actually the mild and citified Magna Spadarossa, sister of Sonja. By the end of the series her primitive side breaks through and she is the savage we’re all familiar with. A close second is Willingham’s Six Thousand Dollar Man and his then-pricey 19th century prosthetics. Including Oscar Goldman as his companion was a brilliant move.
Artist Sergio Fernandez Davila creates a visually stunning location, and Willingham’s fun take on these classic characters makes the series one of the best steampunk stories to enter the comic book medium.
Issue #7 hits comic book stores this week. Take a look at the first five pages of this final issue after the break.
It’s Wednesday again, and that means the new comic books are out for the week at your local comic book store. We’ve got several previews for a whopping seven issues of new books that should have something for everyone. There’s Dark Horse Comics’ great ongoing Star Wars series, which will be wrapping up this year. Then there’s Bill Willingham’s excellent steampunk series Legenderry for Dynamite Comics, reuniting the best of classic pulp heroes with new twists, like the Six Thousand Dollar Man. We also have previews of two issues from Archie Comics–one from Archie Comics Digest and the other from the SEGA video game universe: Sonic the Hedgehog.
Also, a new Angry Birds series begins, IDW is releasing a brief history of Godzilla comics, and a preview of the next issue of the ongoing Star Trek series is here, all from IDW Publishing.
After the break, check out previews for one or all of them, courtesy of their respective comic book publishers.
We at borg.com have been pretty excited about Bill Willingham and Sergio Fernandez Davila’s new monthly Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure. So much so that our resident author and frequent TV and movie reviewer Elizabeth C. Bunce cosplayed one of the characters at Planet Comicon last week (and Willingham said yesterday on Twitter it may be the first time anyone cosplayed one of his non-Fables characters!). Check out our earlier review of Issues #1 and #2 of the series here. Call it steampunk, steam-noir, or as Willingham prefers “steampulp,” the new series is moving full steam ahead with the Dynamite Comics arsenal of licensed characters from the past and telling their story in a fun, new way. And what’s more exciting than taking the Bionic Man in a new direction?
Last month we sneaked a peek at future marketing blurbs and knew this was coming, but the origin story of Major Steve Austin and scientist pal Oscar Goldman was even more intriguing than we could have hoped for. The opening image of Steve Austin in a wheel chair–the result of some experimental flying gone wrong and an “uncooperative autogyro”–is just plain inspired.
Austin’s first mission with his $6,000 worth of prosthetics comes about when Captain Victory’s dirigible encounters a disaster in-flight. Austin and Goldman’s chummy banter is immediately believable and true to their mirror universe 1970s incarnation.
The Six Thousand Dollar Man’s design, both in this month’s Legenderry Issue #3, and the formal look on the cover, has set up a gentlemanly steampunk hero whose exploits, whatever they come to be, could take on the best of the genre–if given a chance.
After the break, check out this preview of Legenderry, Issue #3, from Dynamite Comics, featuring the first appearance of The Six Thousand Dollar Man:
You’d need to be paying close attention or you might have missed that Dynamite’s new steampunk series Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure is a steampunk genre story about Britt Reid, the classic publishing magnate who takes on the disguise of the Green Hornet, and his tryst with Vampirella, here a social butterfly and owner of the Scarlet Club. The covers and promos don’t shout either Vampirella or the Green Hornet.
Immediately you’re taken to a place unfamiliar–a mixture of times and places. A mysterious woman is being accosted by masked street thugs and she escapes into the steampunk speakeasy, as Reid and Vampirella are engaged in a clever Benedick and Beatrice-esque lover’s quarrel. Vampirella doesn’t look like any prior version of Vampirella–she’s a classic beauty and not a bit vampish. The appropriate geared and copper weapons are drawn by the men on hand, but there is no need. Vampirella doesn’t need a man to defend her or anyone in her own pub as she cuts them to pieces. The police arrive and learn nothing, as Vampirella and Reid begin this detective story, all in the first issue of the monthly series.
Fables creator Bill Willingham serves up an evocative tale complete with a radio personality named Felix Avalon who offers up word-on-the-street celebrity gossip of the 1920s to 1940s variety via listeners’ “wireless”–the old-time radios. You can almost hear that drone of the snappy and crackling narrator voice from the days of classic radio plays. Although Willingham offers up some meaty dialogue and is expert in a classic dialect, it is artist Sergio Fernandez Davila and character costume designer Johnny Desjardins who bear the bulk of delivering all the steampunk vibe, with settings full of geared-up fixtures and equally geared-up costumes and props.
Could this be Steampunk Noir? It’s hard to place this in an era of the 19th century or the 1920s, 1930s or 1940s. There’s a bit of Casablanca to this story, too, with dialogue such as “it wasn’t anyone else’s doorstep you landed on. It was mine.” It’s probably a blend of all of the above eras, a time and place similar to that unplaceable setting of the realm of fairy tales Willingham is so used to writing in. It is definitely fun imagery to see Kato driving the Green Hornet in a horse carriage instead of his famous 1960s roadster.
Yep, it’s the Six Thousand Dollar Man.
It’s being planned for this series to encounter other classic licensed characters in Dynamite Comics’ arsenal, including Red Sonja and The Phantom. Issue #3 is coming to comic book stores next month—Will Willingham and Davila give us their take on a steampunk Bionic Man? Look out in Issue #3 for the premier of the Six Thousand Dollar Man.
Grab your copies of Issues #1 and #2 of Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure now, at comic book stores everywhere.
