Â
By Mark Evanier & Will Meugniot (About Comics)
ISBN: 0-9716-3387-8
Every twenty years, give or take, there seems to be a burst of comics creativity that raises the overall level of the industry and also helps sales. We’re about due for another any minute now, in fact.
The last time was the mid 1980s, and one of the first hits of the then nascent direct sales market was a series called DNAgents. Creators Mark Evanier and Will Meugniot told sharp superhero/sci fi tales of corporate skullduggery resulting from the creation of artificial teenagers with wonderful powers and a built-in sense of alienation guaranteed to appeal to the X-Men/Teen Titans set.
Lots of cheesy and salacious semi-nudity and Evanier’s sharp, sardonic scripting didn’t hurt either. Now the stories are being collected in black and white pocket sized editions and they actually stand up pretty well. A bonus is that this series created a true ‘lost classic’ character.
Crossfire – a shabby gumshoe/bail bondsman who stumbled into super hero-dom debuted as a support character in this series, and his own adventures – by Evanier and the magnificent Dan Spiegle was one of the high points of the decade.
Lets all look forward to the republishing of all those stories too. In the meantime you could do worse than track down these sly, sharp and savvy alternatives to the X-Men and Teen Titans.
© 1983, 2004 Mark Evanier and Will Meugniot