Image Comics came about within my first three to four years of reading comic books. As somebody who had really only known Marvel and DC (and let's be honest... only Marvel), it kind of blew my mind. There would be comics not directly tied into the worlds of Spider-Man or Batman? Comics that could tell... Continue Reading →
Among Image’s early failures was the hero “WildStar”, who was created by people outside of the “Big Six” (Al Gordon & Jerry Ordway)- he had a four-issue Limited Series in 1993 (the year after Image was founded), but his ongoing book that followed was cancelled after three issues. Apparently behind the scenes, both creators each... Continue Reading →
Overlord exists as the first “Big Bad” in The Savage Dragon , though he’s very clearly drawn from the “List of Generic Super-Villain Cliches”- a big armored dude with a cape and a metal mask. I mean, it’s a big “Doctor Doom” thing and that’s it. He turned out to be a Mafiosi in his secret identity... Continue Reading →
SuperPatriot- Most Prominent Dragon Ally?:Among the most prominent of Savage Dragon’s supporting cast is SuperPatriot, a masked cyborg superhero who dates back to World War II in that setting. His origin story is that he was a WWII soldier captured by the Germans, who used him as a guinea pig for evil scientific experiements- these... Continue Reading →
Savage Dragon being based around the notion of the main hero fighting the “Suprefreaks” that make up Chicago’s supervillain community, it made sense to slowly gather good-aligned superfreaks to help out. The Chicago PD recruited various characters- the Detroit vigilante Dart, the abuse victim Horridus, and Ricochet & Barbaric were recruited by the Dragon. The elder... Continue Reading →
Erik Larsen is a study in contrasts- he bailed on Marvel with the rest of the Image creators, yet retained working at Marvel for the longest out of all of them. He seems like the member with the least grievances with other creators and writers, yet has by far the most public grievance of anyone,... Continue Reading →
https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/0/6799/1248677-engineer_01.jpg A shiny, metal, naked lady, The Engineer is the second “nigh-omnipotent” member of her team, nearly matching the Doctor’s versatility and having less of his weaknesses. Her predecessor was a member of “The Changers”, working for The High- he was killed when Henry Bendix dropped a viral bomb on the Changers’ base. In his... Continue Reading →
Apollo & Midnighter are obvious Superman & Batman analogues, created by Warren Ellis soon after he started writing StormWatch - they were part of an entire group of JLA knock-offs, but ended up being the only survivors. Apollo had been bio-engineered by SW “Weatherman” Henry Bendix with solar absorption powers, making him incredibly powerful- he was a... Continue Reading →
Superman Fights The Elite:In 2001, a year after Millar and Authority fans LOL’d through his team massacring parodies of the Avengers, Joe Kelly wrote the Superman story What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way? , a sensational book in which a team of obvious parodies of The Authority show up and act like… well, the Authority. Moralistic, hyper-aggressive,... Continue Reading →
And now we come to… the absolute most BORING thing Image produced during the 1990s. Like, seriously- while Brigade , Youngblood , Strykeforce and everything else were god-awful piffle, they’re at least ENTERTAININGLY bad. You can have a lot of fun ripping on Liefeld or Silvestri’s absurdities or lack of originality. But StormWatch ? It’s just the most generic “This is a superhero... Continue Reading →
I mean, credit where it’s due- when they decided to make a fanservice comic, they just went all-in. No pretense. Perhaps no other character is as iconic for JUST fanservice than Caitlin Fairchild. J. Scott Campbell went all-out in his fetish for gigantic legs by turning the super-strong amazonian member of Gen¹³ into not a... Continue Reading →
So Why Was It Successful?:ASS. Ass ass ass. And legs. Sometimes boobs. But mostly ass and legs. J. Scott Campbell was made an almost instant superstar, and the fact that the book reveled in T&A more than anything else in Image at the time was a big turn-on to an audience of horny teenage boys.... Continue Reading →
Yes, DEATHBLOW. I’m less surprised by the name and more surprised they didn’t come up with it elsewhere- it’s possibly the most “Iron Age” name in a line that includes Warblade, Ripclaw, and Ballistic. The comic itself is an attempt by Jim Lee to ape Frank Miller, and it’s curious and bold on that attempt-... Continue Reading →
For more on Jim Lee's WildCATS, click HERE! HAHAHAHAHAHA- Jesus! Lookit this guy! I mean, Rob Liefeld was a PARTNER of Jim Lee’s at this time! Youngblood guest-starred in the second & third issues of Jim’s signature Image book! So Jim just COMPLETELY rips off Deadpool, right down to the color scheme and Those Damn... Continue Reading →
For more on WildCATS, click here! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh man, we were supposed to just be ENAMORED with Zealot, I can tell. They spend half the first issue of WildC.A.T.s gushing about how deadly the Coda Assassins are. Grifter goes on about her. She gets a big dramatic save and a two-page centerfold spread of her debut on the... Continue Reading →
SWO Productions 
