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 scene. They talk about how hot she is, and she … Continue reading Jab’s Image Comics Deep Dive: WildCATS Continued!
For more on WildCATS as an overall review, click HERE. Spartan was pretty clearly the “Cyclops” of the WildC.A.T.s team when they first debuted- as most of the members could be traced either visually or character-wise to the X-Men, it made sense we’d have a “Cyclops”- a stoic, stable guy. Spartan even had the “hair-showing mask” with a very similar (though more flowing) haircut and … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive: Image Comics (WildCATS pt 2)
WILDC.A.T.S:Among the more notable and famous, and hot-selling, of the early Image Comics line was Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.s (“Covert Action Teams”. Yeah). The book was pretty much entirely his brainchild, and co-written by Brandon Choi, and was very much a shining example of their style- an action-packed, cross-hatched, character-driven, plot-lite story full of Hot Babes, Guys With Claws, and rip-offs of his X-Men work! WildC.A.T.s #1 came out in Aug. 1992, … Continue reading Jab’s Image Deep Dive: WildCATS part 1!
First of all: we lied. Jab wasn’t QUITE done with Rob Liefeld yet! Because he initially forgot about YET ANOTHER team book Rob created for Image… Yes, Rob Liefeld created ANOTHER friggin’ superhero team in his first couple of years at Image Comics, the NEW MEN. Here, they’re another band of X-Men knockoffs who are “Nu-Genes”, which is the Legally-Distinct-From-Mutants of Rob’s universe… even though … Continue reading Jab’s Image Deep Dive: Jim Valentino!
The snarling, grim, intense-looking Prophet was Rob Liefeld’s other attempt at a solo hero in his Image franchise, and is a weird combination of Rob Tropes- he has long hair and a weird cloth “boxing helmet” on, just like X-Force ‘s Shatterstar, but he’s also a roided behemoth in an extremely plain costume, so he’s a male power fantasy in addition to being easier to draw. The … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive on Image Comics – The LAST Liefeld Chapter!
For more Brigade, click here! This guy is literally just a 1990s Batman: The Animated Series toy where he’s wearing, like, Aquatic Armor that never showed up in the cartoon! You know, when they wanted to sell a “Blue Batman with a rebreather” or “Arctic Batman” or whatever! That’s Seahawk! Seahawk and his brother Coldsnap were wealthy brothers who were given powers when a “mysterious object” penetrated … Continue reading Jab’s Image Deep Dive – Brigade/Liefeld continued!
BRIGADE:Inexplicably, despite releasing his old “Youngblood” concept with a book featuring TWO whole teams of characters, and having a knack for delivering art late, Rob Liefeld’s “Artist’s Disease” led him to create a seond book for Image Comics in 1992, entitled Brigade . And of course it was ANOTHER “Paramilitary-Style Superhero Team”, which was almost exactly what Youngblood was, making it extra-pointless. It was originally just WRITTEN … Continue reading Jab’s Image Comics Deep Dive – Brigade
(For more on Jab’s look into Liefeld, click here!) ROB’S ARTISTIC QUIRKS & FLAWS: “Rob Liefeld is a bad artist” and “Rob can’t draw feet” get mentioned so many times as to be cliche, but I feel the need to actually list ALL of the disparate ways in which he is a bad artist. The vast majority of these are do to a combination of … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive: Image Comics (Liefeld cont’d!)
-There is no more “Early Image” book more infamous and controversial than Youngblood. Rob Liefeld was “King Shit” in 1992, so him leaving X-Force (a book he more or less invented, taking the scraps from the New Mutants and plopping his own character designs onto it) was a huge, huge deal- he was not as big as Jim Lee or Todd McFarlane, but he was likely the third-most prominent Image … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive: Image (Youngblood)
Rob Liefeld has nothing to offer. It’s as plain as bacon on your plate. He has nothing to offer. He cannot draw. He can’t write. He is a young boy almost, I would expect, whose culture is bubble gum wrappers, Saturday morning cartoons, Marvel Comics; that’s his culture… I see nothing in his work that allows me to even guess that there’s any depth involved … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dives: Image Comics (Rob Liefeld)
IMAGE CREATORS- TODD McFARLANE:-Todd McFarlane remains the most famous and possibly most successful of the Image creators, though isn’t the most notorious. Born in Calgary, Alberta, and washing out of baseball, he got his start in comics with DC’s Infinity, Inc., where I remember Roy Thomas declaring in an editorial, “Todd McFarlane- remember that name”. His style was more typical of the era, lacking many of … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive: Image Comics (part 3)
For more, check out part 1 HERE! SPAWN: Big in the ’90s- Spawn, Spawn, Spawn!:-The biggest solo star in Image Comics history, and a near-superstar in his own right, was Spawn- Todd McFarlane’s contribution to Image. Spawn kind of got a “test-run” in Marvel when Todd wrote a Spider-Man issue featuring a scary-looking, brooding Morbius living in the sewers of New York City, being served by an … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive: Image Comics (part 2)
Hey all! Here’s a series of things I was writing for another site about Image Comics and its history. Anyone with more familiarity, or any recollections of that period, feel free to chime in as well! I wrote little things about each team and many of the solo characters, particularly of the 1990s period. IMAGE COMICS: -Image Comics: where justifiable anger against your bosses, “Meet … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive: Image Comics – Part 1 (of A LOT)
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