So as I get into comics and submerse myself in the world and culture, I was reading Image Comics’ site and their news where they announced the Emissary comic for May. Is anyone else excited about this? It looks like a pretty cool concept to me.
What do you guys think?
Here’s their news item I was referring to: http://imagecomics.com/news.php?content=emissary060220
It looks ok but seems a little Watchmen-esque for me.
Also, why is he from a minority group? Last time I checked, “Black” Humans outnumbered “White” humans.
So he’s only a minority in the USA?
Here’s a radical idea, have a comic book that isn’t centered around north America!
Ooh, black. How controversial.
It’d be way cooler if he was, say, a lesbian eskimo midget albino.
“EMISSARY is created by Jim Valentino”… and they lost me.
Well I must admit I’m surprised no one else likes the idea.
Nothing that hasn’t been done before.
That doesn’t mean it can’t be good, but it’s certainly not groundbreaking.
Have we really seen it before? What comics have actually dealt with the realistic ramifications of the FIRST super hero showing up?
I’m a bit out of the comic loop but I can’t think of any that I know have. I think Supreme Power might have dealt with it but I never read it.
Watchmen, like Lochdale said.
I was thinking more of the “and he’s Black”, line. Which, given that Superman alone has had half a dozen dark-skinned homages, alternates, and acolytes, is kind of yawn inducing.
But Watchmen dealt with the heroes in a “real world” where they’ve been around for awhile.
That’s not this.
But Manhattan was the only one with powers, and near-omnipotence at that. The rest were, at best, slightly better at what they did than the average cop or soldier, only more colorful. Manhattan was something different entirely.
I’ll reserve final judgement until I can actually read it, but I’m initially underwhelmed: first by the news that Jim “A Touch of Silver” Valentino’s heading this, and especially by the actual seven page preview from ronincyberpunk’s preview. The story isn’t comepllimg, the dialogue is clunky (and chucky. Talk about wordy!) and the visuals are pretty uninspired for that sequence to be as emotional powerful as it was obviously intended to be.
One the other hand, it’s announced a tweve issue, three part storyline with three definite arcs, so maybe there’s a lot more to this than a first glance suggests. But if it had nailed the supporting characters and visuals in that preview, I wouldn’t be worried. But I am.
The handful I can think of offhand, starting in the mid-80s:
Watchmen (which does, indeed deal with the topic - just not in the immediate present).
Marvel’s New Universe (not that they did ‘realistic’ terribly well, mind).
Supreme Power.
Rising Stars (or so I understand…I haven’t read this),
Nothing wrong with the premise, but it’s not terribly groundbreaking.
Like Askia I’ll probably give it a shot, but I’m not seeing a lot of promise - but rather a lot of promises I’m not convinced it’ll be able to keep.
Marvel’s MARVELS, by Busiek and Ross, deals with the ramifications-of-first-arrivals-of-superheroes-concept, as does MIRACLEMAN by Alan Moore and John Totleben and to a lesser extent, Moore and Chris Sprouse’s TOM STRONG series. Also, the granddaddy story that started the whole superhero archetype, Philip Wylie’s novel Gladiator.
For the record, I do like the idea. It’s just very, very hard to think of things that haven’t been done with the concept, and the few snippets I’m seeing here with EMISSARY don’t leave me with a lot of hope. (Even “Emissary” seems to be a half-assed Star Trek allusion to Benjamin Sisko.) Technically, we’ve already seen this story as recently as 2003 with Morales’ and Baker’s TRUTH: RED WHITE AND BLACK featuring the story of Captain America’s black precedessor, Isaiah Bradley. Homage is one thing, but if it’s not done artfully it will come off as unoriginal.
Yeah, Supreme Power, all the way. Sounds uncannily familiar. I like that image of The Emissary (Thats his name, right?) hovering over the city. Seems to me that Image comics may not have the most original plots (Walking Dead, Rising Stars) but the art is second to none.