Hello, Legions of the Unspoken! I had the chance to have a great conversation with Paul O’ Connor of Longbox Graveyard about the merits of the 70’s and Bronze Age vs. the 90’s! Scroll through some cool covers of both decades, and then you’ll find the podcast! Take a listen and comment with some of your thoughts! Thanks again Paul! Transcript coming soon!
Listen by clicking the link below!!!
Greeting, Legions, and welcome back to Madness Month here at The Unspoken Decade! I don’t know that I truly understood the meaning of the word “madness” until I experienced a certain ongoing basketball tournament Dean Compton-style, complete with days of games on multiple screens and more junk food than anyone in their right mind would ever consume, but now I am well prepared to take a look at some lunacy in the comic book realm. If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to take a glance at Dean’s take on Ghost Rider #33 and Darry Weight’s Venom: The Madness, but if you’re in the mood for madness of a slightly more irreverent nature, there’s no better place to turn than 1995’s Skrull Kill Krew.
Created by writers Grant Morrison and Mark Millar and artist Steve Yeowell, Skrull Kill Krew was published under the short-lived Marvel Edge imprint, which included many established Marvel titles like Ghost Rider, Punisher, and Daredevil. As the name would suggest, and since it was practically the law in the mid-90’s that things be made more extreme, Marvel Edge trafficked in edgier fare, and Skrull Kill Krew is nothing if not on the fringes of normalcy. From the first cover, it’s obvious this comic is going to have some fun and not be too concerned with how it goes about doing it.
We first meet Krew members Ryder and Moonstomp, who bust in on a history class, blow away the teacher, making the “she’s history” joke you totally see coming but would be disappointed if it weren’t there, take out a student, announce they were aliens, and dismiss class more flamboyantly than anyone since Alice Cooper. It’s a fitting introduction for this motley Krew because it’s exactly what you’ll get a lot more of in the rest of the books. Not to say that there is no depth to this series, but it doesn’t deviate far from the pattern of find Skrulls – make snarky quips – violently dispose of Skrulls. It’s entertaining, but anyone looking for something more probably wasn’t paying much attention to the cover up there when they picked this up.
One other thing the Krew does is recruit new members, but considering their recruitment techniques don’t look terribly different than their Skrull extermination techniques, their potential members can be a little reluctant. Dice, a surfer dude who has been experiencing strange visions and mood swings, runs from them, quite understandably so, as the Krew has shot his girlfriend after announcing themselves as “two seriously violent individuals” and started chasing him down with all the subtlety you would expect from people who mow down alien infiltrators in crowded public places.
The smarmy blonde British guy is Moonstomp, who we learn is a white supremacist who likes to deal out his violence with a claw hammer even though he could morph himself into any weapon. The black guy is Ryder, who we infer hates Skrulls enough to work with a white supremacist to take them out. The title doesn’t last long enough for them to get much character development beyond that, but the story doesn’t particularly demand any more of them.
Their partnership exemplifies some of the best and worst of humanity, something simultaneously beautiful and ugly. One on the one hand, it’s comforting to think that if there were an outside threat, we would put aside our differences and work together as a species to ensure our own preservation. On the other, it’s disheartening that it might take something decidedly more foreign than people of other races to make us finally set aside those prejudices and come together as one human family. I said that this story was not without depth, but this is the sort we get – not really examined in any meaningful way but there if you care to look for it.
In the second issue, we get an explanation of the Krew’s origin and powers. The gist is that in the 60’s, the Fantastic Four defeated some Skrulls impersonating them. Reed Richards, demonstrating what Ryder rightfully calls a “highly idiosyncratic sense of humor,” hypnotizes them into thinking they are cows and left them to graze. (You know you’ve read too much Greek mythology, when you find yourself wondering if Mr. Fantastic planned on boning any of the bovine.) During the Kree-Skrull War, they were changed back into Skrulls, but this time when they were defeated and turned back into cows, the Alien Activities Commission decided to do something weird and gross and send the cows to the slaughterhouse.
Those cows were turned into burgers, and some of the people who ate them died, some were unaffected, and some, our protagonists, were infected by the Skrull meat in a way that gave them powers like shape-shifting, ability to detect Skrulls, and near indestructibility, as well as an increasingly violent and irrational urge to off the Skrulls. The unfortunate side effect, though, is a bad case of dying soon, as the virus eats all of someone’s brain tissue in a few years. (This comic was created at the height of the Mad Cow Disease scare in the UK, and while it doesn’t necessarily have anything profound to say about media-induced panic or the horrors of mass food production, it capitalizes well on that panic, and using the cows was a clever way to integrate an older, fairly minor idea into the modern world.)
Just as the Fantastic Four all got different powers as the result of their exposure to cosmic rays, so too do the Skrull Kill Krew get unique powers from their Skrullovoria Induced Skrullophobia that reflect their personalities. Spiky haired punk rocker Riot, named because she is a Riot Grrrl and this is the super 90’s, transforms into a huge prickly insect. Dice’s powers manifest at random. Catwalk, the supermodel, turns into a giant cat. The most compelling affect of their powers, though, belongs to Moonstomp, who appears to be the only one exhibiting any of the degeneration yet. He has multiple dark patches on his body that are spreading, and it would have been interesting to see if a fairly flippant book would have handled a white supremacist turning black with any kind of subtlety.
It’s not just playing on the idea of Mad Cow that makes this comic feel so much like a product of its time. In fact, of all the 90’s comics I have looked at for The Unspoken Decade, this might feel the most 90’s of all. It’s more than the “edginess,” the over the top violence, or the fact that the Krew all look like they stepped straight off the set of Hackers. There’s something about the anything goes, nothing-to-lose, nihilistic tone that transported me straight back to the mid-90’s, but it’s hard to separate how much of that is the comic, about a group of invincible feeling young people, and how much of it is a product of the fact that the height of my own invincible feeling growing up took place in the mid-90’s watching movies like Natural Born Killers and talking about how nothing really mattered.
Something decidedly un-90’s in this comic is an appearance by the Man out of Time himself, Captain America, which feels incongruous for a number of reasons other than time. Not only does Captain America have a completely disparate mood from Skrull Kill Krew, but, as Dean pointed out when we were puzzling it over, if they were trying to use a big hero to sell more books, someone like Wolverine would have been a better option in 1995. It’s possible they used Cap just because he would have been such a random choice. It’s also possible they use him specifically because he represents an old-fashionedness and supposed conformity they were trying to flout.
The last reason would make the most sense to me because it would explain the diatribe below by Ryder that doesn’t really fit into the rest of the book otherwise. I can tell I’m no longer my younger cynical 90’s self because instead of thinking, “Yeah, you tell that old jingoistic bastard!” I just wanted to yell at Ryder not to talk to Captain America that way. I also want to balk at the idea that he could handle Cap so easily, but I suppose this is his comic and all.
The actual storyline involving Captain America doesn’t seem especially important, but the book gives the impression that it might have led to something significant had it continued. Basically, the President of Slovenia is flying into America, and Cap is at the airport to greet him. Baron von Strucker has other plans, though, and intends to take the president, and Slovenia, for himself. The Krew show up looking for Catwalk, who happens to be on the same plane, and realize the president is a Skrull. Strucker buggers off when he sees how many superpowered people are about, and the Krew, realizing the president is Skrull, tussle with Captain America, who thinks he is just protecting an important person. Oh, those wacky superhero shenanigans! Cap tells Nick Fury what happened, and Fury divulges that he knows exactly who Ryder is.
That revelation seems to be the most important part of the whole story, since it teases an even bigger reveal about Ryder, but I suppose that reveal will have to forever reside in Speculation City. At least we get this great moment with Strucker. Take that, fascist:
The other big cameo in these issues is the Fantastic Four, which makes sense, since Reed Richards’ actions caused this whole chain of events in the first place. The only problem is that it’s not the Fantastic Four at all; once again, those menacing Skrulls have impersonated them. There is some nice Twilight Zone-esque stuff at the beginning of the comic as we see a town completely get taken over by Skrulls from the perspective of a traveling salesman, but otherwise, there isn’t much in the way of plot to get in the way of multiple pages of the Krew beating up on the Fantastic Four replacements.
Once the Krew have dispatched with the Fauxtastic Four, they turn their attention in the last issue to the town, which has been entirely replaced with Skrulls. This title was originally meant to be ongoing, but when it was cancelled, editor Tom Brevoort convinced Marvel for one more issue, making it into a mini-series. While it’s always nice when series get a resolution, Skrull Kill Krew has so little going on in terms of plot or character arcs that it’s really a resolution in name only. But when the majority of its action involves the killing of as many aliens as possible, I suppose there could be no better resolution than the all out mayhem that accompanies the mass slaughter of an entire town of them.
I hope when I keep saying that there isn’t much going on plot-wise that it doesn’t come off too disparagingly because the other thing completely lacking in Skrull Kill Krew is pretense. It never once tries to be something it’s not, not for a moment, so while it’s most decidedly not a masterpiece, it most certainly is what it sets out to be, which is a rollicking good time. The sort of comic where you can kick back and enjoy some wanton destruction and not bat an eye because someone’s powers, which they acquired by eating ground up alien, cause them to turn into a human slot machine whose jackpot is becoming pure energy. Yes, that happens:
It might not be a huge letdown that the series didn’t go on longer like some other comics I’ve read recently, but it is nice to know the Krew made a reappearance in Secret Invasion and got a second mini-series in 2009. What was even more intriguing, but also slightly disappointing, was learning that there was talk of making a Skrull Kill Krew television show, which would be the perfect medium for this bunch of freaks. Had it been made, I’m sure it would have held a plum spot on the list of shows from my adolescence that were cancelled too soon.
I hope you’ve been enjoying Madness Month here at The Unspoken Decade, which will conclude with the maddest thing yet! Dean Compton will be allowing an interloper into our midst, one Mr. Paul O’Connor from Longbox Graveyard, to discuss his view on 90’s comics. If you don’t know some of Dean’s thoughts already, you might have forgotten what website you’re currently on, but Paul is a Bronze Age guy, so opinions may vary wildly! You don’t want to miss it!
How best to judge an unfinished work? Is it fair to contemplate what might have been and fill in what you can imagine the artist would have done next, or is that too presumptuous? Is it better only to discuss the parts that actually have been finished, even to the ultimate detriment of that work?
These are the questions I wrestled with while planning out this article on Neil Gaiman’s Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man, and I never really came to a satisfying decision. Sure, I went on some mental tangents about how da Vinci maybe meant to paint some eyebrows on the Mona Lisa and never got around to it, but as far as figuring out the best way to analyze art that never got the chance to fulfill its potential, I was torn.
It can be tricky to apply the concept of completeness to a comic book, which, by its very nature is usually meant to be ongoing, but Mr. Hero, published in 1995 by the short-lived Tekno Comix, has to be one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had reading anything because of just how incomplete it is versus how much potential it had. This book posed so many questions, set so many mysteries in motion, and it stopped having resolved exactly zero of them. Of course, reading it 20 years after it was first published and facing an ever dwindling number of issues, I knew it would end before I found out everything, but what made me want to punch a wall instead of just shake my fist, was how close to some of those answers it came.
Seriously, if the whole company hadn’t stopped putting out comics, I would be convinced Mr. Hero stopped when it did just to aggravate me as much as possible. Like me personally. That’s how it felt. The last issue even says The End, even though it ends in the most cliffhanger-y way possible.
Of course, the reason it bothers me so much that I’ll never find out what happens is that I was genuinely invested in the comic and intrigued by its premise and characters. If it were terrible, I wouldn’t have spent several paragraphs ranting about how there isn’t more of it. In that light, I suppose I could tell you more about the things that actually happen in this comic rather than the things that never will. Let’s cleanse the palate with a page of a moustachioed robot beating people up and then dive right on in, shall we?
Meet Mr. Hero, the robot best friend you and I and every other person in the world have always wanted. (If you say you’ve never wanted a robot best friend, you are either lying or a self-hating robot.) Mr. Hero was one of a line of comics conceptualized by some very big names in science fiction, including Gene Roddenberry, Isaac Asimov, and Leonard Nimoy, for Tekno Comix, which, this being a 90s comic website, I feel compelled to point out is the most 90s sounding name a company could possibly have. Neil Gaiman created Mr. Hero, and the book definitely has some Gaiman-y trappings to it, but it was Eisner Award winning writer James Vance who entertainingly brought the metal man to life and built something unique around him.
From the very first page, it’s obvious that Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man will defy easy categorization, as we are introduced to a hellscape called Kalighoul run by a giant evil lizard named the Teknophage, who seems to be building an army of Victorian-era robots powered by melted souls. Or something. The specifics on how the automatons are created are a little fuzzy, one of many aspects of this world I was disappointed not to see fully explored. So right away, we get a little science fiction, a little steam punk, and some metaphysics, which will soon be joined by healthy doses of action, adventure, and comedy, all rolled in a shiny metal package.
Mr. Hero is shipped off by the Teknophage to Earth to be of future use to in taking it over, but in the meantime he becomes a part of a magician’s act, learns boxing, accidentally punches a punter, gets boxed up, and does not reemerge until he is discovered decades later, sans head and one hand, by our human protagonist, a young mime/aspiring magician/museum worker named Jennifer Hale. Credit where it’s due to artist Ted Slampyak (pencils), both for having an amazing last name and for being insanely prescient in drawing the location of the missing head, a piece of artwork that doubles as a bike any modern hipster would trade a significant portion of his vinyl collection for.
When Jennifer puts the head back on Mr. Hero and essentially brings him back to life, a whole host of the Teknophage’s baddies come to reclaim him, but, as evidenced in the page above, Mr. Hero is more than adept at giving some rapscallions what for. Much of the earlier issues is devoted to such skirmishes and the schemes of these minions, but the specifics aren’t particularly important, not because they are bad, but without resolution, much of the meat and potatoes of the plot seems random, and a “throw it all at the wall and see what sticks” vibe is pervasive. I attempted to lay out just the basic plot points for my own use, but it sounded so convoluted that I abandoned any notion of describing the comic that way. If I found myself muttering, “Why exactly is this happening?” to myself while actually reading it, I can only imagine how erratic it would sound to someone who didn’t.
What is important are the antagonistic characters themselves, a very motley crew working in various capacities for the Teknophage, everything from genetically modified men who can camouflage themselves with any background to actual monsters to sniveling bureaucrats. One of my favorites is a man named Mr. Kingman who is sent to Earth to oversee the capture of Mr. Hero. He does exactly what I would do if I were sent away from a hellscape to a relatively cushy planet, which is not give a shit about anything I was supposed to be doing and enjoy some earthly comforts for a while. Did I mention he thinks dressing like Elvis will help him fit in?
Considering Mr. Kingman’s fascination with Elvis and video games and the fact that one of the main antagonist plots revolves around subjugating Earth’s population through their TVs, I assume that there was much more pop culture satirization planned for future Mr. Hero issues. As it stands, in addition to all the other genres intermingling in these comics, Vance finds some room for comics’ favorite genre, the superhero. Two of the Teknophage’s genetically modified goons are introduced to Kingman’s comic, and they do pretty much what anyone with superpowers and a newfound knowledge of superheroes would do: demand costumes and cool names:
If the letters pages of these issues can be taken as an accurate representation of how readers felt about these characters, fans were decidedly split over whether Deadbolt and Bloodboil were great additions to an already great comic or bad enough alone to ruin them outright. For my part, they were a great injection of humor at a point in the story that could have easily been bogged down by exposition leading to no satisfying resolution. (Something to do with a group of rich guys who are against technology and a plan to take over the world using a Sasquatch-y looking character, who seems neither to be human or one of the Teknophage’s experiments, as a mouthpiece. I’m not sure how this storyline would have fit into an overarching plot, but it does give me an excuse to mention of my favorite classic Dr. Who stories, which it reminded me of, Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Watch it and thank me later.) I enjoy how they ably demonstrate that superpowers alone doth not a superhero make, and I appreciate how they add yet another layer to an already complex universe, but their most valuable asset is the amount of just plain fun they bring.
Some of the best genre-mashing Vance pulls off in Mr. Hero combines the grotesque with a dash of humor, particularly when it comes to satirizing corporate culture. A revolving door of terrified cronies come to cower before their big boss man, and the slightest infraction or failure is met with swift and horrific retribution. The Teknophage maintains an air of etiquette and refinement, all while committing unspeakable acts, and I’m sure the conspiracy theorists who believe the upper echelons of society are lizard people would read this and think that there isn’t even any satire involved.
The Teknophage is a tricky character for me because a big dinosaur who has conquered countless worlds, subjugated untold numbers of people, and harnessed pure soul power is an antagonist who sounds downright terrifying on paper. The problem is that I see the big toothy smile and the proper suit, and it just looks a bit, well, silly. Almost, dare I say…cute? He’s handing out man cubes, and I’m having a hard time not going, “Tee hee!” Is it my fault dinosaurs wearing clothes are adorable? (side note: so are snakes wearing hats).
I do not intend that comment to be a criticism of the character itself so much as a criticism of my own ability to sometimes take things seriously. The Teknophage is a fascinating specimen, juggling many schemes and machinations at once, always one step ahead of his adversaries. Any time they think they have gained an advantage over him, he reveals they have been playing into his hand all along, and you get the impression you have yet to see the limits of his power. He is formidable. It is one of my biggest disappointments in the premature end of this title that we don’t find out more about his plans and motivations, though some of the answers I seek might be found in the solo title I’m thoroughly unsurprised the Teknophage received.
There are so many things I could say about this ad, but it so thoroughly speaks for itself that it would feel almost disrespectful to add anything. Just bask; just take it all in.
Some of the Teknophage’s plans are more well thought out than others, and one that doesn’t lead the places I thought it might is a plot to corrupt Jennifer Hale. The basic idea is that they will give her a lot of money, let it corrupt her, and then take it all away. I like that the Teknophage is convinced the best way to take over the Earth is through corruption, but using her as a trial run doesn’t make much sense since he already seems well aware of the corrupting influence of wealth. He also doesn’t let her keep the money long enough for it to have much of a corrosive influence on her, but they still consider the plan a success, even though the worst thing she does is use a grade school insult on a boss who’s being a bit of a prick.
While we don’t delve deeply into the Teknophage’s corruption and subjugation of Earth, later scenes on Kalighoul give us a frightening glimpse into what centuries of his dominion look like. More disheartening than his sadistic tyranny itself is the affects it has on his subjects, many of whom would rather worship old revolutionary legends than be their own heroes. The ease with which people will accept, and then come to depend on, being ruled is not one of the more flattering sides of humanity, but it is well worth exploring.
Many stories examine what exactly it is that makes us human, and some of those stories contain robots, but Mr. Hero may be the first I’ve encountered that does so without using the robot as the vehicle for that philosophizing. For as many aspects of this comic as I have touched upon, the one part of Mr. Hero you may have noticed conspicuously absent is, well, Mr. Hero. The biggest reason for his absence in my retelling of his own story is that his role in it is mostly reactionary. He fights because he is attacked; he seeks answers because those around him pose questions. Even when he discovers that he was once a flesh and blood man, with a wife and children and a rebellion to lead, there is not time for even a moment of introspection. He just kind of goes, “Blimey!” and everyone goes on with their day in a hell world.
Just because he is not given the opportunity to develop a great deal of emotional complexity, though, does not mean he is a shallow character. For starters, this is one automaton with not one, but TWO heads, one for ol’ timey boxing and one for thinky times:
Granted, the heads aren’t normally on his body at the same time, but we still get some nice Jekyll/Hyde by way of the Odd Couple bickering between the two even when we only get them one at a time. The pipeless head is the one you want to show up to your party, quick to defend his friends, endearing in his simplicity, an all around good bloke. The head with the pipe, who goes by the Ratiocinator, is the one who will come to your party only to recite poetry, then insult you when you ask if he could just not. I think it goes without saying that this is a character who is easy to like and to want to know more about (I mean, did you look at that picture?), but the only time he takes initiative is setting out to find his missing hand, which we never find out the story behind!
I know I have sounded like a broken record about all the things that don’t happen in this comic, but I’m no less torn at the end of this article than I was at the beginning when it comes to how to discuss it. How do you assess, critique, recommend, etc. something that promised so much but never made good? On the one hand, I think it would be yet more tragic if this comic were to be forgotten, but on the other, can I really suggest anyone should read something that will ultimately lead to frustration? (I mean, to be fair, I do still recommend Firefly…screw it, read the comic.)
Perhaps if you do read Mr. Hero, it will wet your whistle for later this year when we take a closer look at Tekno Comix!
Something a little closer to look forward to, though, is the rest of Madness in the Month that happens to be March here at the Unspoken Decade! Next up is Darry Weight’s look at Venom: the Madness!
The Unspoken Decade: 90's Comic Book Blog Extraordinaire 