Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Brave New World, the Atom, Martian Manhunter, Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fights, etc.

First, click here (newsarama)

Whoa! This seems really cool! Another $1.00 80 page one-shot followed by 6 new series!

Atom - yes!

Creeper!

Martian Manhunter!

OMAC!

Uncle Same & the Freedom Fighters! - cool!

The Trials of SHAZAM!

Atom - I really wanted to see Ray Palmer again, as I love that character. That's a little dissapointing, but I'm interested if Gail Simone is writing. Too bad though...

Steve Niles on the Creeper with Justiniano sounds like it'll be cool.

Uncle Sam & Freedom Fighters is an 8 issue mini. Here's hoping the Ray is heavily featured!

And J'Onn looks like he'll have a good series (also an 8 issue mini).

The "All-NEW" Atom. Huh. I'll wait until I see the previews.

I'll definitely check out BRAVE NEW WORLD, and CREEPER looks great.

Trial of Shazam?! But he's dead! Stoopid Marvel copyright...

I hope the OMAC mini wraps up the whole "spy-in-the-sky, millions of sleeper robots" riff. It did its job helping launch IC, but I don't care for it as a continuing subplot.

More money down the drain.

I like the Atom. The others soud cool. Hopefully it will turn into some tradebacks..

And give us an incontinuity Buddy Blank. *

I'm in for UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS because I really like Justin and Jimmy's writing, so I'll give it a shot. Hearing *who* "the Freedom Fighters" are will do a lot more to raising my interest level in this title.

Creeper...is a maybe and I'll try Shazam out like I do all Marvel Family related stuff.

*Yes I know the two OMACs mean different things.

Re: DAN DIDIO ON DC'S BRAVE NEW WORLD AND SIX NEW SERIES


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Originally posted by MattBrady
The All-New Atom (ongoing, July) – writer/artist: Gail Simone/Trevor Scott
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Hmmm, maybe. Will have to see what Scott's art looks like and also get some idea of who's wearin' the white dwarf for this series. Many a promising series has been killed by an unlikable lead (see: Manhunter)

But what about that title? How long before it becomes the The Almost-New Atom, then The Kind-of-New Atom, The Been-Around-A-While Atom, The Continuity-Laden Atom, and finally, The Begging-For-A-Reboot Atom?


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Originally posted by MattBrady
Creeper (six issues, August) – w/a: Steve Niles/Justiniano
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For both the Creeper and the Question, I have to be assured that the creative team has read and undertands Ayn Rand before I'll buy in.

Hey, let's all chip in and buy Judd Winick a copy of Atlas Shrugged. It'll make his head explode.


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Originally posted by MattBrady
Martian Manhunter (eight issues, August) – w/a: A.J. Lieberman/Al Barrionuevo
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Big old fat yawn for me. I'm not looking for an MM who'll be a powerhouse and not blend in. In fact, J'onn has got so damn many powers, I'd be happy if blending in was all he could do.

For me, I'm looking for an MM series that's part police procedural and part Stranger in a Strange Land as J'onn tries to understand humanity and the behavior of the common criminals he hunts down.


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Originally posted by MattBrady
OMAC (eight issues, July) – w/a: Bruce Jones/Renato Guedes
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La de da. So what?


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Originally posted by MattBrady
The Trials of Shazam! (twelve issues, July) – w/a: Judd Winick/Howard Porter
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Hoo boy, I wouldn't buy a gold-plated fart for fifty cents if these two signed their names to it first.

Still waiting for the Jeff Smith version though.


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Originally posted by MattBrady
Uncle Sam & The Freedom Fighters (eight issues, August) – w/a: Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray/Daniel Acuna
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So NOT what I'm looking for in an FF series. I'm all about the Earth-X resistance, baby. This whole government santioned team thing puts me off a bit.

And that's another goofy title. Kind of unweildly, I think. I'm having a hard time picturing what the logo will look like.

I'll most likely check out the Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters title (if only to go with my Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes title ). I was a fan of the original FF, and if it features Damage and the Ray at least then I'll like at least some of the membership. I hope they don't add too many non-FF-inspired characters... I don't want this to be another Suicide Squad book. Like the JSA, I think Freedom Fighters should be a legacy-driven title.

And the original Freedom Fighters logo would be cool

Daniel Arcuna just talked to the Pulse about FF.

THE PULSE: How did you decide the look for each of these new characters? I noticed that Phantom Lady looks the same, but Doll Man looks quite different from what one might recall. So, what influenced your rendition and recreation of these classic characters?

ARCUNA: I was very well guided by the editors and the writers, they indicated me if they wanted to completely redesign a character or not… From my personal point of view, when I redesign a character I prefer that it keeps something of its glamour, of the old design, that it can be recognizable… In Phantom Lady’s case, it’s obvious, yeah, or on The Ray, with whom I made some kind of a mix between Quesada’s and the classic one… When I redesign a classic character, I don’t only give him a new look, what I try above all is to give it an homage, something that convinces me that its creator would be happy…

But, Doll Man was written as a military type, so I had to completely redesign him…

THE PULSE: Who or what influenced the way you rendered Uncle Sam?

ARCUNA: I would say that I was very influenced by Alex Ross’s work with him… That presence, decadent and heroic at the same time, and of course, all the Second World War Posters I found… And I just thought about giving him an overcoat inspired on the USA war of secession to give him a martial and timeless look…

Hmm... what other Quality comics characters have legacies?

I believe, but may be incorrect, that the Red Bee and Miss America are both Quality characters.

On a sidenote, the Blackhawks originally were too (DC bought them but continued the numbering just the same).

None of my above post answers EDE's question of course

(New plucky female Red Bee! We want her!)

Quality heroes include (but are not limited to):

Black Condor
Blackhawk
Blue Tracer
Captain Triumph
The Clock
Doll Girl
Doll Man
Espionage
Firebrand
Human Bomb
Invisible Hood
Jester
Kid Eternity
Magno
Manhunter
Midnight
Miss America
Neon the Unknown
Phantom Lady
Plastic Man
Quicksilver
Ray
Red Bee
Red Torpedo
Stormy Foster
Torchy
Uncle Sam
Wonder Boy

Wow, that's so many more than I remembered!

I completely forgot Firebrand and Manhunter were originally Quality. Kid Eternity too, although I specifically recall now someone on LW telling me that long ago. Captain Triumph was awesome in 'The Golden Age', so it'd be cool to see him again!

And for those who don't know: Quicksilver = Max Mercury (from Flash & Impulse, recently seen in Infinite Crisis #4).

Some of them, like Magno, Neon the Unknown, Invisible Hood and Red Bee (I think it was all of them) went to Earth-X (?) with Uncle Sam back in the All-Star Squadron comic. I think that some if not all of them were killed in that storyline. It's been absolute ages since I read that story, so my memory is a little fuzzy.

Uncle Sam recruited (I believe) Magno, Neon the Unknown, Invisible Hood, the Red Torpedo, Miss America, Hourman, and the Red Bee as his first batch of Freedom Fighters, all of whom were killed in their first adventure except Hourman and Red Bee (who later died at the hands of Baron Blitzkrieg. He then recruited the "classic" Freedom Fighters in the All-Star Squadron Earth-X story, then all of the rest of the Quality heroes during Crisis. All of this was actually retconned out by Crisis, of course.

The Quality Firebrand was the male version, brother to the All-Star Squadron character. There were two Manhunters, one DC and one Quality.

Oh, and that All-Star Squadron storyline was one of my all time favorites, even though in retrospect I think the whole "migration of heroes" angle was a mistake.

It would be cool to see a modern version of Miss America. Not only was she one of the first female super-heroes, but she was quite powerful for her day.

Wasn't the Spirit associated with Quality Comics in some way? I know he was primarily a newspaper strip character, and was owned by Will Eisner, but I think some of his adventures were printed in Quality as well. Midnight was, as I recall, created to be a "Spirit" analogue that was owned by the company itself.

Quality Comics did produce a Spirit comic back in the 40's.

What were Miss America's powers? I seem to recall her having magnetic powers, but then I'm thinking that she had different powers (maybe as a retcon?). After Crisis, she was retconned in as Fury's mother (adopted mother, I guess) before Young All-Stars came out and the original Fury was introduced.

Golly... Crisis was so confusing!

Couldn't Miss AMerica transmute matter?

I think Ms America had transmutation powers sorta like Ronnie Raymond early Firestorm. Also maybe enhanced strength. My introduction to the character and most of those Quality heroes was and issue of Secret Origins starring her and Black Lighting. It had a terrffic Kevin Nowlan cover on it.

As I recall, she had a whole slew of powers, including transmutation and flight. Maybe magnetic powers as well? I'm not sure.

I could be thinking of someone else... maybe Marvel's Miss America...?

Well, according to this site , she is "able to alter, shrink or create matter out of thin air. Able to fire energy bolts from her hands. Able to shrink herself to a tiny size."

And check here for a listing of more Quality characters.

I'll probably pick up the one-shot, but the rest of these are on the "wait and see" list. Nothing jumps out as a must buy.

I'm very glad that most of these are mini-series though. With the market being over-saturated already, it makes sense to see what the interest is before committing to a monthly.

Yeah, transmutation is pretty powerful and early on she pretty much could do whatever she wanted.

I believe that Roy Thomas altered her to have superstrength when he decided to have her replace Wonder Woman in the JSA, but I won't swear to that.

Basically Quality Comic's publisher, 'Busy' Arnold, was the one who brokered the deal that got Eisner the newspaper insert. The short story is that a newspaper syndicate wanted to tie into the comic books popularity and approached Arnold about getting an artist they liked to do a book for them. Arnold saw they were asking for Lou Fine and knew that Fine was too slow to do a weekly comic, so lied to the newspapers and told them it was Eisner. Eisner had been fairly disatisfied with comic book work and was happy to try and work out a deal, which ultimately saw him packaging comics he owned (The Spirit, Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic, IIRC) for the newspapers.

Arnold in turn got the rights to reprint the Spirit stories (and briefly owned partial rights to the character when Eisner went to war, just in case he got killed) as well as Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic.

Oh, my--- I'm *MOST* excited about the Uncle Sam/FF book, but will check them all out.