InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "shun the non-believer!"

richardak (richardak) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-05-19 03:10:00

Entry tags:

char: apollo, char: captain atom/nathaniel adam, char: grifter/cole cash, char: maul/jeremy stone, char: midnighter, char: mr. majestic, char: void/nikola, char: voodoo/priscilla kitaen, char: warblade/reno bryce, char: zealot, creator: will pfeifer, publisher: wildstorm

Captain Atom layeth the smacketh down.
In further honor of Captain Atom getting a back-up feature in Action Comics, I thought I'd post some images from Will Pfeifer's Captain Atom: Armageddon. To put these images in context, after saving the earth from a giant kryptonite meteorite, Cap found himself blasted into the Wildstorm universe. He soon encountered one of that universe's two Superman equivalents, Mr. Majestic. Majestic attacked Cap without warning or provocation. :

Cap was then attacked by the WildC.A.T.s They didn't fare much better. First up is Maul. Note that in the first panel, Cap tries to reason with him:

Some people have suggested that Maul might be based on the Incredible Hulk. Just because he has an inverse relationship between his strength and his intelligence, his civilian identity is a scientist, and he has a green and purple color scheme. Surely that's just a coincidence. Anyway, next up is Voodoo:

That didn't go well. Warblade tries his luck. Cap, although clearly getting pissed off by this point, does try talking to him first. No luck though. By the way, does Warblade remind anyone of a certain short, hairy Canadian? Just me?

I think he'd say that you just brought a knife to a nuke fight. Or maybe he'll just show you:

So now it's Zealot's turn. The WildC.A.T.s wikipedia entry says she may be a combination of Wonder Woman and Elektra. I guess I can believe that. Cap refuses to give up his faith in reason:

Well, he tried. And she does do a little better than some of her teammates. A little:

Note that Cap is no killer:

Cap's refusal to start shooting first and asking questions later is eventually rewarded when he encounters Nikola (again):

In one of my earlier posts, I suggested somewhat facetiously that William Moulton Marston would have liked Captain Atom. In all seriousness, though, one of the things he does have in common with Wonder Woman, and one of the many things that make him such a great character is that, unlike the vast majority of superheroes, especially in the "grim and gritty" nineties of which the Wildstorm characters were so archetypical, he makes a genuine and sincere effort to only use violence as a last resort. When he gets to that last resort, however, as against the Wildstorm universe's other ersatz Superman, and its ersatz Batman, you can be sure that Cap will layeth the smacketh down:

Sorry to interject some nerdiness into this, but even though this is how the sun is often shown in comics, it only looks like this in ultraviolet photographs. All those prominences are invisible to the naked eye, to which the sun appears as, well, a big yellow ball. But that's neither here nor there.

And now, all that's left is to deal with Midnighter:

"Easy? You call that easy?"

There were a lot of things I liked about Armageddon, which was actually a very interesting and subtle story. One of its less subtle but most enjoyable virtues, though, was seeing Cap kicking everybody's ass. After seeing him get turned into the butt monkey in Formerly Known as the Justice League and in JLU (repeatedly), despite being, on paper at least, the most powerful DC superhero after the Spectre, this was a great change of pace. Also, it was nice to see that Pfeifer remembered that Cap is not a violent man by nature or inclination, and prefers talking to fighting. But I have faith that Rucka and Robinson will also get what makes Cap special and interesting.

(Post a new comment)

	icon_uk 2009-05-19 03:56 am UTC (link)
	Some nice stuff there, though I think some of the scans might be a little out of proportion, they seem slightly squished vertically. And since when did Captain Atom have atomic manipulation powers like he uses against Maul? Energy burst and flight, sure, but messing with someone's physical mass like that? I don't recall him doing that before. (Reply to this) (Thread)

richardak
2009-05-19 04:09 am UTC (link)

The scans are squished vertically, because I misread the posting guidelines FAQ as saying the scans should be around 900 pixels in both dimensions, not just in width. Oh well, live and learn. Anyway, at some point I'll post scans from Captain Atom #54 and #55, wherein he created his own universe. It was at that point that he learned that there weren't any real limitations to what he could do other than his own mind. I'm glad you liked these scans.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	xammax 2009-05-19 04:13 am UTC (link)
	Remember, if not for legal fights and Moore wanting blue wang, Captain Atom was supposed to be Dr. Manhattan. While he is still not that level, he is something. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-05-19 08:51 am UTC (link)
	True, but for most of his post Crisis existence, Captain Atom hasn't had powers like that, so it was something of a surprise to see him pull such a stunt. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlroberson 2009-05-19 04:22 am UTC (link)
	I never particularly cared for DC's Captain Atom--I found he worked best as a foil, like in JLI, but not so much as a main character, and maybe it's that I like the Authority, but man! He's a dick here. I may be missing context, as I haven't read more of this story than you have here. But that costume is so hard on the eyes. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-05-19 04:50 am UTC (link)
	How is he a dick here? People are attacking him without provocation and he's trying to reason with them before he defends himself. I'll grant that the gold costume, which was in homage to the original (more or less) Charlton version of the character, is not so good looking. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ex_menagerie993 2009-05-19 11:05 am UTC (link)
	It's also the costume he had in Kingdom Come. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	lieut_kettch 2009-05-19 07:28 am UTC (link)
	In context, it was Wildstorm's "grim n' gritty, kill 'em all, strike first" heroes that were being dickish. Nate's just defending himself here. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	filbypott 2009-05-19 04:22 am UTC (link)
	Captain Atom is coming back? After they screwed the pooch on him in Countdown? That is SO good to hear. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-05-19 04:53 am UTC (link)
	Yes he is, yes they did, and yes it is. It starts in Action Comics #879, scheduled to come out this July. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	freezer818 2009-05-19 04:35 am UTC (link)
	As I've said before - any comic where The Authority gets their asses kicked is a good comic. :) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-05-19 06:04 am UTC (link)
	If it's Kev. (Reply to this) (Parent)

halloweenjack
2009-05-19 11:30 am UTC (link)

Nope, not hardly. There was a sort of mini-trend for a while, when the Authority was the Really Big Deal in the WS Universe, when every other WS writer had to have their team take on the Authority and beat them, more or less. Micah Wright had his non-superpowered-but-not-really version of Stormwatch beat them by a variety of dei ex machina (a quasi-magic bullet for Apollo, a literal remote-control off-switch for Midnighter, etc); Grant Morrison-wannabe Doselle Young had the Monarchy fight an alternative-universe version of the Authority; Kev beat them with another quasi-magic bullet; The Establishment retconned away the destruction of London in Warren Ellis' first Authority arc, while using various bits and pieces of Ellis' and Alan Moore's Wildstorm plots as grist for stories. Even Mark Millar, in his own Authority run, had the team beaten by a cyborg that had literally every superpower possible.

In a weird way, it's sort of a backhanded tribute to the influence of Ellis on the Wildstorm universe that all of these books, which were basically Authority spinoffs, had to defeat or at least challenge the mother team in some sort of Oedipal conflict, but it became self-parodying very fast--if someone had convinced Jim Lee to publish a comic book about a Girl Scout troop, they'd have had the Midnighter laying in a pool of blood by issue 3. (Even the Stormwatch "Post Human Division" re-reboot, which came a few years after the above series, had to fight them.)

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

jlroberson
2009-05-20 02:11 am UTC (link)

And when Ellis had them cross over to Planetary, it was under circumstances that prevented them from coming in contact with each other.

I'll just say this: the only Authority I've really found myself enjoying since Millar has in fact been anything involving Kev. Well, wait, Ennis' run on MIDNIGHTER as well. Come to think of it, Ennis' usual tone would seem to be perfectly matched to the Authority: ultra-violence, usually grotesque to the point of black comedy--check. An utter lack of respect for superheroes and their conventions--check. Underneath it all being driven by an engine of very secular morality(the drive to make a "finer world")--check. I'm surprised Ennis hasn't done the regular series, really.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	halloweenjack 2009-05-20 08:38 am UTC (link)
	I think that he could have done at least a little bit more with the team. He had a bit in one of the Kev minis (the one with the pervy alien, Slippery B'eeef, I think the name was) where Apollo actually talks the Midnighter out of taking on three SAS dudes at once that was really cool. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-05-20 09:02 am UTC (link)
	I've been going through those and the development of the dynamic between Kev and the Midnighter rewards further reading. And it's humor that writes itself. (Reply to this) (Parent)

statham1986
2009-05-19 04:40 am UTC (link)

As interesting as Atom is, in this (and it's interesting to see how he reacts to the WS heroes attacking him, but still refuses to start blasting everyone he comes across), this series was awful, and pretty much led to the crummy state of the WSU that last a couple of years.

Everyone other than Atom is portrayed as complete, mad, brawling idiots, and whilst the Authority were a proactive team, they at least would've figured out exactly what Atom was and why he was there, before going all-out on him.

That, coupled with the fact that the series essentially turned everyone into Captain Atom's whipping boy (even Jenny Quantum, who should've been badass enough to contain whatever was wrong with him - she did ingest a supernova, after all), makes this one of my most hated series of all time. To the OP, you've obviously not read too much of the WSU, because while, yes, most of the WS characters are based on existing ones (Majestic on Clark, Zealot on Diana, etc), the work done by Ellis, Casey and Moore at one point made these books way, way stronger than anything DC was putting out, and greatly widened the void between the characters and their inspirations..

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richardak
2009-05-19 05:05 am UTC (link)

You're absolutely right: I haven't read a lot of the WSU. In fact, this is the only thing I've read that took place there. Having said that, I wasn't criticizing it for having derivative characters. Pretty much every comic-book superhero is derivative of Superman, after all (that's why they're called superheroes), and Supes himself is derivative of Moses. I was just pointing it out for the benefit of those who might not be familiar with the characters, so that they would have some idea of who these people were. In retrospect, I can see that I may have come off as kind of flippant; that was merely an attempt to be light-hearted, not cutting. Sorry about that.

I don't doubt that the authors you mentioned did some excellent work.

As for your characterization of the miniseries, I disagree strongly. Neither Majestic nor the Authority are portrayed as idiots at all. Just as incredibly smug and self-righteous and far too willing to resort to deadly violence first. And the Authority did figure out who Cap was; in the end, they just didn't care.

As for Jenny Quantum being able to contain whatever was wrong with Cap because she once ingested a supernova, realize this: a supernova explodes with enough force to destroy a solar system. Cap was going to explode with enough force to destroy the universe. As I said to icon_uk, Cap once created his own universe, and later destroyed it. He's that powerful.

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20thcenturyvole
2009-05-19 08:33 am UTC (link)

Humph, motto. Captain Atom comes off well here, but anything where all the heroes in the WS universe are portrayed as a smug, destruction-happy idiots to make the regular DC heroes look better annoys the crap out of me. I've seen a lot of people (well, okay, I had an edit war with some idiot on TVTropes) who seem to genuinely think The Authority in particular are a bunch of amoral psychopaths, and trying to explain that, no, see, that's what we call shitty writing is about as enjoyable and productive as slamming my head repeatedly into a brick wall.

Then again, I feel exactly the same way about Iron Man, so it is possible that I should do what I did at TVTropes and just close the browser and go to bed. (Insert appropriate XKCD reference here.)

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

statham1986
2009-05-19 08:48 am UTC (link)

I think the problem is that most people tapped in to the Authority during the Millar phase, where they pretty much were psychotic, and the stories were disgusting and had ridiculous plot points that eventually needed censoring, like the Colonel supposedly shagging the corpse of Jenny Sparks.

But during the Ennis phase, and possibly during Brubaker's run, which are my two favourites, the writing was stellar, to me, I think they explained the group's 'fall from grace' pretty well, in that they hadn't had a figure like Jenny Sparks nudging them along.

But yeah, the number of people who dismiss the WSU really annoy me, given that they aren't nearly as mindless as the average issue of Wolverine.

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	20thcenturyvole 2009-05-19 09:08 am UTC (link)
	Seeing Millar's name attached to a favourite comic always gets a Big No out of me for exactly this reason. Still, I've really liked the World's End arc - it's depressing as hell, but the characterisation has been excellent, IMO. I hope it stays that way - who knows, in time it might mitigate the really stupid characterisation of other writers. (Reply to this) (Parent)

kali921
2009-05-19 09:28 am UTC (link)

My GOD, thank you so much for this comment. Totally agreed with everything. And Wildc.a.t.s. 3.0? Dear GOD, that was an army of awesome taking over everything in site. So very well done on all counts, and the last ten issues were like Grifter's love poem to Zealot writ in extreme violence and lots of explosions (they're my favorite couple-who-aren't-really-a-couple). Corporate power plays, brinksmanship, intrigue, and LOTS of violence plus Dustin Nguyen's art and the beautiful covers? I was sold after the first issue.

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	kali921 2009-05-19 09:32 am UTC (link)
	I remember that Mike Deodato loved Zealot so much that he based DC's Artemis on her, at least visually. And again, total motto to this entire comment. And Warblade being a low rent Wolverine? Please. Reno's a painter in his spare time! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bariman1987 2009-05-19 10:57 pm UTC (link)
	Logan sometimes practices Japanese calligraphy. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	kali921 2009-05-20 10:25 am UTC (link)
	I know Logan has some artistic skills. My point is that they are totally different in personality. Reno's a sensitive artist type who happens to have some Kheran supahpowerz. He's the total opposite of Logan in terms of approach, persona, and problem solving. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-05-20 01:46 pm UTC (link)
	I believe that. I was just commenting on the claws and the sideburns, to be honest. Very little in this post was meant to be all that profound. (Reply to this) (Parent)

kali921
2009-05-19 09:26 am UTC (link)

There were a lot of things I liked about Armageddon, which was actually a very interesting and subtle story. One of its less subtle but most enjoyable virtues, though, was seeing Cap kicking everybody's ass. After seeing him get turned into the butt monkey in Formerly Known as the Justice League and in JLU (repeatedly), despite being, on paper at least, the most powerful DC superhero after the Spectre, this was a great change of pace

I have to respectfully disagree. I thought this mini was a train wreck, and I read it four times because of the hot Angie/Atom drippy liquid sky sex. There's the pointless fight with the Wildc.a.t.s. - who, by the way, don't attack people without provocation either - the bad characterization of Majestic, who is the Wildstorm verse's version of Superman and is not to be trifled with - and how easily Zealot goes down. (She's far, far more than a combination of Wonder Woman and Elektra, by the way, although that's an interesting description. She's almost as powerful as Majestic, and she's older than recorded history, an alien, immortal, and has been training to fight since she was a young girl on Khera. She's Coda, and she is not to be fucked with.) The only person I felt who was in character was Angie, and sadly she wasn't in this mini that much.

But I *did* like Cap's characterization in that it did indeed show that he really didn't want to be fighting everyone. And there were a few moments where Grifter was spot on.

I wonder if Rucka will acknowledge this mini as being in continuity. I kind of hope so, because I started to ship Angie and Atom because of it.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

richardak
2009-05-19 11:49 am UTC (link)

I definitely hope he does. But I have to respectfully disagree with you on pretty much everything else. The fight with the WildC.A.T.s wasn't pointless. They rightly believed that Cap was eventually going to explode and destroy the universe; they wrongly believed that killing him would prevent that. While they weren't provoked in the conventional sense, they did have a reason.

I don't think Majestic is characterized that badly either. Firstly, he's pretty much the only Wildstorm hero who figures out what's really going on and takes Cap's side, so he comes off pretty well in that respect. Secondly, he is characterized as being like Superman on a power-level. Cap himself says it's like being hit by Supes. But remember, Cap is more powerful than Superman: Superman's powers come from the sun, which, while certainly a very large power source, is finite; Cap's powers come from the quantum field, which is infinite.

The same applies to Zealot; she comes off as much better than the rest of the WildC.A.T.s who were involved in the fight, in that she at least takes it seriously. Also, describing her as being like Wondy and Elektra (and it's not like I wrote that wikipedia entry) is hardly describing her as someone to be trifled with in any case, but I'm perfectly willing to take your word that she's a very different character from either. But again, she doesn't come off in the text as someone to be trifled with either; far from it. But remember, Cap is the most powerful DC hero after the Spectre, so he's not exactly someone to be trifled with either.

Lastly, I have to disagree that Angie wasn't in the mini that much. She was one of the central characters in issues 5, 6, and 7, which I think constitutes a major role.

By the way, I feel I should add that I'm not trying to persuade you that your opinion is wrong. I just want to explain why I don't agree.

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	espanolbot 2009-05-19 10:18 am UTC (link)
	What Captain Atom did to Jenny saddened me. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-05-19 11:27 am UTC (link)
	It saddened him too (and me as well). It was supposed to be a sad moment; it was the end of the universe, after all. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ex_menagerie993 2009-05-19 11:11 am UTC (link)
	I had a love/hate relationship with this series. I thought it was amusing to see DC doing something interesting with Captain Atom. It was just so silly though. The cliche hero fights, the Authority being mostly pwned by him. I haven't read enough WildCATS but are Voodoo's powers defined as telepathy and magnetism? Weird combination. (Reply to this)

	pyrotwilight 2009-05-19 03:13 pm UTC (link)
	I LOVED Captain Atom Armageddon. Particularly Adam's fun use of his powers to beat up the Wildstormers. WonderwomanElektra for Zealot's pretty accurate I'd say. (Reply to this)

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