Deathmate Red...Part Deux!

So I think I'm thoroughly rested and recharged, and ready to take on the second half of Deathmate Red, where the lunatics of Extreme Studios run rampant across not just one, but two comic book universes!

If you missed the first part, check over here.

When last we left our heroes, they had just defeated the world's most pacifist terrorist organization with extreme prejudice. Let see what happens next...

Prophet stands on a hill, doing his best impersonation of the Watcher, as he...wait for it...wait for it...watches!

Although we should probably call him the Thinker instead, as he doesn't do a good job of actually watching as he misses the guy sneaking up behind him with a huge gun. So while his watching skills left a little to be desired, his thinking actually clues us in to the fact that Prophet is one of the only characters that realizes that two universes are merged and things are not as they should be. I guess that explains why Shaft was so hardcore and ruthless just two pages ago.

After waking up from being knocked unconscious, Prophet finds himself a captive of Knightstrike! They are the rebel faction of heroes on this merged world that have sworn to take down the evil Harada Corporation once and for all. They are composed of Chapel and Al Simmons (two former Youngblood members), along with Kirby and the Eternal Warrior.

Knightstrike has assumed that Prophet is one of Harada's latest genetically enhanced superheroes. During their interrogation, we find out that the terrorists from the first half of the book were actually the good guys as Harada really is an evil corporation bent on world domination, with Youngblood as his personal enforcers!

Prophet explains that he can usually tell the future, but somethng is messing with his powers as things are clouded here. The Eternal Warrior backs up his suspicions with vague feelings of uneasiness of his own. Prophet decides the best thing to do is play along with Knighstrike until he can make contact with Youngblood. I guess he must've missed that part of the interrogation where we find out that Youngblood is evil.

It also turns out the Prophet's arrival in New Harada is perfect, as there is a huge military parade tomorrow and that is when Knightstrike is planning their coup to take him down once and for all.

Strike they do, and if I may say, in a rather violent and ruthless fashion that easily makes this one of the most entertaining parts of this book. I found myself chuckling just a little bit more with each fatality that got piled onto the bodycount.

The first one to boared the carnage train is Al Simmons, who gets his torso obliterated by Dutch. Let's also give some extra bonus points to Dutch, as he's the first one to realize that these guns that everyone carries actually do work if you pull the trigger.

Diehard gets blown up, along with Kirby when he detonates a bomb kamikaze style.

Seeing as how Dutch was on a roll, he puts a bullet through Chapel's brain just as he is about to take out Bloodshot. While we're in a generous mood, let's give some bonus points to Bloodshot too, as he actually gets to speak two whole sentences in this half of the book!

The Eternal Warrior takes Badrock out with one punch through his stone heart. That makes me realize that I have no idea what Eternal Warriors powers actually are. I didn't realize that he was that strong that he could punch through rock. Though he does have pointy spikes on his gauntlets, so maybe they're really sharp!

Dutch then goes for the hat trick by trying to take out the Eternal Warrior. Alas, his streak has ended as his neck is snapped by the Eternal Warrior.

So while all of that was going on, Shaft was left conveniently unopposed long enough so that Prophet could try to talk some sense into him and let him know that this is not how it's supposed to be.

Just as he's about to make him realize that something is wrong, Shaft loses control of the sky-bike they're riding on and crashes into the side of the building. Prophet manages to save himself just in time, only to land on the ground to bear witness to the slaughter at his feet.

Finding no survivors of the horrific battle, Prophet steels himself to the task that is left to him, and him alone. He must return the world to it's rightful state.

SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN...

Somewhere in these 54 pages is the basis for an entertaining story. I caught glimpses of it here and there, and there were a couple of parts of this book that I really enjoyed. But it's kinda like having a Thanksgiving meal and only enjoying the corn. The turkey should be delicious, and it sure smells good, but in the end it was dry and tough.

And I shudder to think about the implications of what I'm about to say, but I think I may have enjoyed the Liefeld art in the first half. Hold off on the pitchforks for a second and let me explain myself. It was only after reading the second half of this book that I learned to appreciate the first half.

The art in the latter part of this book was just not all that good. First of all, with seven different pencillers it sort of made the story lurch along. Even considering the pencillers were all doing their best Liefeld style, the quality level was all over the place. Say what you will about Liefeld's art, but at the end of the day his work looked so much more polished than the other artists contributing to this issue. I can definitely see in hindsight, how he rose to the top of the artistic echalons at the time.

So there you have it...the nineties at it's worst (or best, or both...depending on how you look at it).

I survived reading Deathmate Red, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt blog post.

All characters and artwork reproduced are (c) Image Comics, Voyager Communications, Rob Liefeld, or Todd McFarlane

Related links for your surfing pleasure...

• Rob Liefeld's Official Website
• Be sure to check out Sonicdan's Valiant Website
• Apparently Valiant is still around in some capacity...who knew?
• Fascinating article about the rise and fall of Valiant Comics

Deathmate Red

TITLE: Deathmate Red

PUBLISHER: Image/Valiant

COVER DATE: November 1993

COVER PRICE: $4.95

54 pages


WHAT I REMEMBER...

I guess you could call this series a highwater mark for the excess enthusiasm of the 90's. Here you had two incredibly popular (and at this point successful) independent comic book companies taking on the big two in their own backyard, and winning.

I remember a period of time where any book put out that carried either a Valiant or an Image logo was like printing gold. Hell, you could make a book printed on actual feces, and as long as it had the Image "i" on the cover it would sell out in minutes. I can only imagine the frenzy if the feces had come from an actual Image founder!

Actually, that's as apt a metaphor as we're likely to find, as a lot of the 90's books were shit. It was by no means limited to Image books, as DC and Marvel had their share of turkeys as well. I'm not just being a hater either, as I still have a lot of these books in my collection to back it up. So any book that gets mocked and judged against the standards of today's books was one that I bought with my hard earned money. Hell, I probably bought multiple copies of a lot of these.

This is also one of the few chances that we're going to get to read a Valiant book on this blog. I was late to pick up on their titles, and when I did start collecting a few, it was only for a year or so before I lost interest. The bulk of my Valiant collection then got ebayed away as one big lot about two years ago, leaving only a few of the multiple copies that I had originally bought still sticking around. So if you're dying to find out how the first issues of Bloodshot or Turok hold up, stick around as we'll get 'em eventually.

Deathmate

• Story: Rob Liefeld
• Script: Rob Liefeld, Eric Stephenson
• Pencils: Rob Liefeld, Marat Mychaels, Jeff Matsuda, Richard Horie, Dan Fraga, Cedric Nocon, Mark Pacella, Anthony Wynn
• Inks: Jonathan Sibal, Marlo Alquiaz
• Colors: Byron Talman
• Color Seperations: Extreme Colors, Jason Irwin, Andre Khromov, Ron Rife, Donald Skinner, Dave Smith
• Letters: Kurt Hathaway
• Editor: Eric Stephenson

This issue is divided into two parts. The first one being a Rob Liefeld triple threat with him providing the story, script, and pencils. The second half is a Liefeld studios jam issue with seven different pencillers.

Here's the elevator review for the first twenty-three pages of this book. And just to make it more challenging, I shall use no more words than there are panels of artwork on these twenty-three pages. That's only sixty-four words to use, so let's give it a shot.

Youngblood infiltrates a sparsely illustrated nuclear facility that is held hostage by armored protester/terrorists. Being the highly trained terrorists that they are, they decide to defeat Youngblood by rushing headlong at them instead of firing a single shot from their massively oversized guns. Their leader, pontificating about the evils of corporations, gets three arrows in the back courtesy of Shaft. Everyone grimaces.

There, that wasn't so bad, was it? I even saved myself a word, which I'll use now..."yawn"

Rob Liefeld gets a lot of flak thrown at him and has, perhaps undeservedly, become somewhat of a punching bag in the comic book industry. How you square that with his highly devoted and motivated fanbase is the million dollar question. Love him or hate him, the man has carved himself quite a niche in the industry and you can't fault him for that.

What you can fault him for, however, is a pretty shoddy comic book. Of which category Deathmate Red falls decidedly into.

Let's delve deeper into my 63 word review to avoid doing just a drive-by snarking.

If I remember correctly, the basis of this crossover was that Void from WildC.A.T.S and Dr. Solar had an interstellar fling which somehow caused the universes to merge. In this particular book, Youngblood is a part of the Harada Corporation which was from the Valiant Universe. So naturally when the terrorists strike against Harada, they send in Youngblood to take them down.

As a bare-bones plot, that's not an altogether bad framework to hang a story on, but in this case that's pretty much all we have. I know I was half-joking earlier, but this is literally twentysome pages of Youngblood taking down the world's most inept terrorist fighters, who have struck Harada simply because they are an "evil" corporation.

At least the artwork compliments the plot, as it is almost just as vacant. Of the previously mentioned sixty-four panels, less than half of those had any background drawn in. I'm being generous here, as easily half of the backgrounds consist of nothing more than a few odd lines to signify a wall or a floor.

Aside from Youngblood, almost everyone else in this issue is encased in full body armor with a mirrored helmet that doesn't allow you to see their faces. Perhaps that's for the best however, as there are only two types of expressions allowed here...a frown or a grimace. There are literally only three panels were a character approaches anything resembling a smile. Maybe Diehard's really smiling under his mask, but I guess we'll never know.

The action's well drawn and definitely energetic, but the battle is decidedly one-sided. We all know that Liefeld likes to draw his guns, and he likes them massively out of proportion. What he forgets to do is ever draw in the ammunition clips!

Quick guys! Let's ditch these state-of-the-art blasters and take on the humongous guy made of rock with our bare hands!

I realize that Youngblood is supposed to be one of the best tactical superhero teams around, but the law of averages is going to say that at least one of the terrorists should manage to get off a shot. I'm surprised none of them tried to shoot themselves in the foot to get out of this book.

Finally, we get to the big showdown with the main terrorist, but it's not much of a showdown. The biggest threat he poses is that he holds a detonator in his hands that has everyone quaking in their big cuffed boots. Well, it did scare C-3PO back in the day.

Halfway through his big speech to list his demands, he's struck down with three arrows in the back. I realize that this version of Youngblood is supposed to be all hardcore and everything, but that just seems cold. It's not like he would've fired a gun or actually used his detonator. Sounds like overkill to me (not to be confused with Overtkill, which was a different corner of the Image universe altogether).

That brings the first half of this issue to a close, and it was a relatively quick read. The Valiant side of the crossover doesn't get much exposure, with only Bloodshot getting the token appearance as part of Youngblood. Even then, he only gets to say two words..."Oh, Shi--" And he isn't even allowed to enunciate them both!

Well that's about all of the Liefeld-verse that I can handle in one night, so we'll finish up the other half tomorrow. Thumbing through the pages, it looks like we get a little more plot this time around. At the very least, we're getting about 10 times as many words. Whether that's a good or bad thing, we'll just have to find out the hard way.

SuperPatriot #4...or bullet holes are the new black

TITLE: SuperPatriot #4

PUBLISHER: Image

COVER DATE: November 1993

COVER PRICE: $1.95

24 pages


WHAT I REMEMBER...

I actually don't remember a whole lot about this title, other than it had some killer artwork by Dave Johnson (which I touched upon here already), and that it was more fun than I thought it would be going into it.

Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon was a fun book, and was definitely the most put together of the initial Image titles. Because of the quality of that title, I tended to give his other series at least an initial read. Of those, I remember enjoying two...SuperPatriot and Vanguard.

SuperPatriot

• Creator/Scripter: Erik Larsen
• Plotter/Storyteller: Keith Giffen
• Penciller/Inker: Dave Johnson
• Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
• Colorist: Lovern Kindzierski
• Color Separation: Digital Chameleon
• Editor: Jannie Wong

The first page is a nice splash page that reminds me instantly why I like Dave Johnson's artwork.

In the foreground is one of the Youngblood guys, whose name I can't remember. I'm sure it's Death-something or Blood-something...We'll just call him DeathBlood for now.

The visuals on DeathBlood are all right, as Johnson does the best he can with the design he's been given. The real highlights are the U.S. Soldiers in the background. I like the way he draws tech, as it's pretty unique and looks usable and used at the same time.

It seems that DeathBlood has been called in to put a stop to SuperPatriot's rampage. He's apparently an old friend, and it's up to him to talk him down. The first thing DeathBlood does is give us his name. It's Diehard. I was close.

SuperPatriot doesn't seem to remember or care about his name either, as he proceeds to blast Diehard in half. This causes one of Diehard's other android bodies to activate, this one being a prototype model, to try again.

Two pages later and the battle still rages, with neither android getting the upper hand. Diehard is not the only member of Youngblood present, as Shaft is on scene too. We find out that the reason that SuperPatriot is out of control is that he's been reprogrammed by the Covenant of the Sword. Shaft tells the suits on scene that this is Diehard's play, and no one moves until he either succeeds or fails.

Diehard succeeds in momentary getting the upper hand, and presses the advantage by ripping off SuperPatriot's weaponized arm.

It's a good thing he has two of them however, as he uses the other one to plaster Diehard with a flurry of gunfire. He leaves him for dead and begins to walk away. Diehard was playing possum, and strikes SuperPatriot from behind with his severed arm.

After Shaft gets the government suits to back down, he has to work on the other members of his own team as Badrock is also itching to get in there and do some damage.

Back to the fighting, and it looks like Diehard is beginning to realize that he can't stop him by force alone. He starts to play on their history together as WWII teammates in The Allies. He rips off his mask and forces him to confront his human side, which is still buried beneath all of his circuitry.

That's eventually enough, as SuperPatriot is finally able to overcome the reprogramming and come to his senses. His link to the Covenant of the Sword is broken.

Back at their secret base, the member in charge of controlling SuperPatriot is demoted in a rather permanent way.

Later, at a government hospital, SuperPatriot is getting fixed up with a new arm and a shiny new, bullet hole free body. He's approached by one of the government agents from earlier, who seems to think that SuperPatriot should be grateful to the U.S. Government for the fact that he is back in one piece. SuperPatriot doesn't see it that way and leaves without saying a word.

SuperPatriot heads to a diner to figure out where to go next, over coffee and pie, when he is approached by an old teammate. It seems Mighty Man is getting the old band back together from the 60's and is looking to do it right this time.

Intrigued by the idea of being able to do some good, outside of government intervention, he agrees.

SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN...

...that not all of the early Image stuff isn't worth the million-plus pages of paper it's printed on.

This series was a lot of fun, and even reading just the last issue some 15 years later, it hasn't missed a beat. It doesn't pretend to take itself desperately serious, so if you're looking for a good rip-roaring yarn, you should check out this mini-series.

You'll be more than aptly rewarded with just the artwork alone, as Dave Johnson is truly an original talent.