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"Future Quest"...

Started by SAGG, May 20, 2016, 11:20:06 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

DeCarlo Rules

#30
Quote from: SAGG on February 18, 2017, 01:02:23 AMKnow what's REALLY scary? "Versus", not "and", or "teams up with". They're gonna FIGHT one another?  :2funny: What's missing? Bugs Bunny vs. Superman?

Oh, no -- Bugs and Supes are both the good guys. Marvin, Yosemite Sam, Lobo & Wile E. Coyote, and Elmer Fudd are all bad guys.

Meanwhile, eighteen years ago (and now seeming like a timely candidate for a TP reprint collection) ...

Toons will live. Toons will die. (Or at least, have anvils dropped on their heads.) Elmer Fudd gains the powers of Superman. Daffy becomes the Duck Knight Detective. And due the mischievous machinations of those extradimensional imps, Mxyzptlk and the Do-Do, there looms a Cwisis on Infinite Eawths...

Written by Mark Evanier (who has plenty of experience with animated characters), penciled by Joe Staton, and inked by Tom Palmer & Mike "No Relation" DeCarlo.

steveinthecity

I'm kind of intrigued by the Jonah vs. Yosemite idea. I'm also kind of, I don't know, embarrassed that I would find this interesting.  This is an example of why I usually place the importance of writing over art.  A great story could make this (or any of the examples) a "win".  Al Jaffee could make this entertaining to a degree, but It's the writer that needs to be on point here imo.
Comics!

SAGG

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 18, 2017, 02:22:51 AM
Quote from: SAGG on February 18, 2017, 01:02:23 AMKnow what's REALLY scary? "Versus", not "and", or "teams up with". They're gonna FIGHT one another?  :2funny: What's missing? Bugs Bunny vs. Superman?

Oh, no -- Bugs and Supes are both the good guys. Marvin, Yosemite Sam, Lobo & Wile E. Coyote, and Elmer Fudd are all bad guys.

Meanwhile, eighteen years ago (and now seeming like a timely candidate for a TP reprint collection) ...

Toons will live. Toons will die. (Or at least, have anvils dropped on their heads.) Elmer Fudd gains the powers of Superman. Daffy becomes the Duck Knight Detective. And due the mischievous machinations of those extradimensional imps, Mxyzptlk and the Do-Do, there looms a Cwisis on Infinite Eawths...

Written by Mark Evanier (who has plenty of experience with animated characters), penciled by Joe Staton, and inked by Tom Palmer & Mike "No Relation" DeCarlo.
I remember this cover!  :coolsmiley:  It was crazy then, and it's crazy now....

DeCarlo Rules

#33
Future Quest #10 had the heroes finally getting organized, as Space Ghost is conscious and recovered from his injuries, and he's able to provide the Quest team and InterNation agents with some valuable intel regarding Omnikron. What remains of the Herculoids (Tarra, Igoo, Zok, and Gleep) also arrived on Earth to join in the battle. We saw Tundro's demise in the first issue, and this issue it was mentioned that Gloop had also been absorbed into Omnikron. I have to admit I don't recall what happened to Zandor and Dorno -- are they still alive?

We also got to see, in this issue, the new Mightor meet his prehistoric predecessor via an accidental trip by Ty through the void, and the original Mightor gives him some tips on how to use the power-club. It's kind of surprising to find out that the original Mightor lived in the prehistoric past of Earth, since I always assumed he just lived on some other prehistoric world somewhere in the universe (if not an alternate-Earth timeline), since there are many strange things in Mightor's world (flying, flame-breathing dragons for one) that never existed in the past of our planet. In some ways Mightor's world just seemed a little like Amzot, the Herculoid's planet, but inhabited by more human (or humanoid) tribes of people.

That set me to wondering a whole bunch of things about the H-B Universe.

1. Why haven't Vapor Man, Gravity Girl, and Meteor Man taken a larger role in fighting Omnikron? You'd think the Galaxy Trio would be as much or more aware of the danger of Omnikron as Space Ghost, and being among the most powerful of all the H-B heroes, their particular talents could be very helpful in combatting this menace.

2. For that matter, what about Kid Comet, Astra, and Moleculad? Do they even exist in this universe? You'd think that a group named the Teen Force had something to do with the Space Force of which Space Ghost was once a member...

3. What about other H-B heroes conspicuously among the missing? Young Samson & Goliath, and Blue Falcon & Dynomutt? Will we ever see them? Admittedly Blue Falcon is a bit underpowered for this type of situation, but Race Bannon and Jade are doing all right in this crisis without any super powers.

SAGG

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 22, 2017, 04:59:23 AM
Future Quest #10 had the heroes finally getting organized, as Space Ghost is conscious and recovered from his injuries, and he's able to provide the Quest team and InterNation agents with some valuable intel regarding Omnikron. What remains of the Herculoids (Tarra, Igoo, Zok, and Gleep) also arrived on Earth to join in the battle. We saw Tundro's demise in the first issue, and this issue it was mentioned that Gloop had also been absorbed into Omnikron. I have to admit I don't recall what happened to Zandor and Dorno -- are they still alive?

We also got to see, in this issue, the new Mightor meet his prehistoric predecessor via an accidental trip by Ty through the void, and the original Mightor gives him some tips on how to use the power-club. It's kind of surprising to find out that the original Mightor lived in the prehistoric past of Earth, since I always assumed he just lived on some other prehistoric world somewhere in the universe (if not an alternate-Earth timeline), since there are many strange things in Mightor's world (flying, flame-breathing dragons for one) that never existed in the past of our planet. In some ways Mightor's world just seemed a little like Amzot, the Herculoid's planet, but inhabited by more human (or humanoid) tribes of people.

That set me to wondering a whole bunch of things about the H-B Universe.

1. Why haven't Vapor Man, Gravity Girl, and Meteor Man taken a larger role in fighting Omnikron? You'd think the Galaxy Trio would be as much or more aware of the danger of Omnikron as Space Ghost, and being among the most powerful of all the H-B heroes, their particular talents could be very helpful in combatting this menace.

2. For that matter, what about Kid Comet, Astra, and Moleculad? Do they even exist in this universe? You'd think that a group named the Teen Force had something to do with the Space Force of which Space Ghost was once a member...

3. What about other H-B heroes conspicuously among the missing? Young Samson & Goliath, and Blue Falcon & Dynomutt? Will we ever see them? Admittedly Blue Falcon is a bit underpowered for this type of situation, but Race Bannon and Jade are doing all right in this crisis without any super powers.
Sorry about just responding, DR. Good question about the Galaxy Trio. Maybe the writers think they have enough characters, and the GT would be too much, or something. I would have liked to see them, though...

SAGG


Spoiler Alert for the last issue:


































DR, apparently the Galaxy Trio DID fight, but were lost. The same for Tundro from the Herculoids, and some others, apparently, though there's a baby Tundro that will replace the deceased one...  :smitten:

DeCarlo Rules

Read it last Wednesday, but I guess I'll have to re-read it. Completely missed any Galaxy Trio appearance -- although I did catch the baby Tundro hatchling -- who knew Tundro was a female?

Also enjoyed the 4 crossover one-shots, but still waiting/hoping to see if there are any forthcoming spinoffs from FQ.

SAGG

#37

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 12, 2017, 02:34:07 AM
Read it last Wednesday, but I guess I'll have to re-read it. Completely missed any Galaxy Trio appearance -- although I did catch the baby Tundro hatchling -- who knew Tundro was a female?

Also enjoyed the 4 crossover one-shots, but still waiting/hoping to see if there are any forthcoming spinoffs from FQ.


Here's the scene. I believe they fought the creature "off-page", and lost:



DeCarlo Rules

#38
Quote from: SAGG on May 12, 2017, 07:53:47 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 12, 2017, 02:34:07 AM
Read it last Wednesday, but I guess I'll have to re-read it. Completely missed any Galaxy Trio appearance -- although I did catch the baby Tundro hatchling -- who knew Tundro was a female?

Also enjoyed the 4 crossover one-shots, but still waiting/hoping to see if there are any forthcoming spinoffs from FQ.


Here's the scene. I believe they fought the creature "off-page", and lost:

Whatta cheat. Not only left them out of the story, but he just HAD to stick in that one panel mentioning them as dead, to prevent anyone else from using them in future stories.  :tickedoff:

Things I wanted to see in future H-B Universe comics:

Galaxy Trio teaming with Space Ghost/Jan & Jace
Galaxy Trio teaming with the Herculoids
Galaxy Trio teaming with Teen Force
Teen Force teaming with Jan & Jace
Jan & Jace teaming with Samson & Goliath
The Impossibles teaming with Teen Force
   ... and many other possibilities.

Neither the Teen Force nor Samson & Goliath were shown in FQ (or other characters like the Blue Falcon & Dynomutt), but that doesn't mean they couldn't have appeared in some future story, or even (somehow) Shazzan or the Arabian Knights. Why reboot a universe by killing characters off right from the start? If Jeff Parker didn't like/want to use any of those other H-B characters, well okay then, don't use them. But don't kill them off out of spite just because you don't like them. That's just being petty.

It probably isn't going to make any difference to anyone that Tundro gets replaced by Tundro-II, but I forgot already... whatever happened to Zandor and Dorno? Dead already too?

SAGG

#39
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 13, 2017, 03:27:51 AM
Quote from: SAGG on May 12, 2017, 07:53:47 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 12, 2017, 02:34:07 AM
Read it last Wednesday, but I guess I'll have to re-read it. Completely missed any Galaxy Trio appearance -- although I did catch the baby Tundro hatchling -- who knew Tundro was a female?

Also enjoyed the 4 crossover one-shots, but still waiting/hoping to see if there are any forthcoming spinoffs from FQ.


Here's the scene. I believe they fought the creature "off-page", and lost:

Whatta cheat. Not only left them out of the story, but he just HAD to stick in that one panel mentioning them as dead, to prevent anyone else from using them in future stories.  :tickedoff:

Things I wanted to see in future H-B Universe comics:

Galaxy Trio teaming with Space Ghost/Jan & Jace
Galaxy Trio teaming with the Herculoids
Galaxy Trio teaming with Teen Force
Teen Force teaming with Jan & Jace
Jan & Jace teaming with Samson & Goliath
The Impossibles teaming with Teen Force
   ... and many other possibilities.

Neither the Teen Force nor Samson & Goliath were shown in FQ (or other characters like the Blue Falcon & Dynomutt), but that doesn't mean they couldn't have appeared in some future story, or even (somehow) Shazzan or the Arabian Knights. Why reboot a universe by killing characters off right from the start? If Jeff Parker didn't like/want to use any of those other H-B characters, well okay then, don't use them. But don't kill them off out of spite just because you don't like them. That's just being petty.

It probably isn't going to make any difference to anyone that Tundro gets replaced by Tundro-II, but I forgot already... whatever happened to Zandor and Dorno? Dead already too?
Really?  :o  You didn't see them near the end of the story? Zandor and Dorno welcomed the rest of the surviving Herculoids when they returned from Earth, and Dorno was the one who pointed out the new baby Tundro that was hatching out of the egg...

DeCarlo Rules

#40
Quote from: SAGG on May 13, 2017, 11:47:36 AM
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 13, 2017, 03:27:51 AM
It probably isn't going to make any difference to anyone that Tundro gets replaced by Tundro-II, but I forgot already... whatever happened to Zandor and Dorno? Dead already too?
Really?  :o  You didn't see them near the end of the story? Zandor and Dorno welcomed the rest of the surviving Herculoids when they returned from Earth...

A lot of things about the story just didn't seem clear to me, like why Tarra would be off on her own on Earth, without Zandor's help (so maybe I'd had it in mind a while ago that Zandor and Dorno must have become victims of Omnikron), plus it seemed like the Herculoids got involved pretty late in the game (apart from that flashback origin story).

That seems to be one of the big problems with a story that has so many characters in it. It's hard to remember everything that happens to every single one of them, because you see so little panel-time with any individual character. I guess I should probably try to find the time to re-read the whole thing from the beginning. The earliest issues in particular were kind of hard to follow everything going on. I seem to get a lot more out of a continued story now by reading it in the trade collection, but I just didn't have the patience to wait for one in this case.

This was almost like one of those vast Marvel or DC crossover stories, but normally they'd expect the readers of those stories to be familiar with all of the characters' current situations going into it. It might have been easier for DC to build-up into something like FQ by setting up three or four miniseries beforehand featuring the more popular characters first, just to reintroduce them as individual concepts being rebooted. They probably could have held back on the Quest team (those being the most familiar, and the least changed in the reboot) to debut them in the FQ maxiseries, then added in all of the other H-B super-adventure characters not covered in the earlier miniseries.

The last time I can remember something "event-like" like this series, that introduced so many rebooted versions of old characters was Dynamite's Project Superpowers. IIRC, I had some of the same problems following the thread of what was going on in Parker's Kings Watch, another Dynamite series that tried to do the same thing by way of a crossover event rebooting the King Features adventure-strip characters Flash Gordon (and Dale and Zarkov), The Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician & Lothar.

DeCarlo Rules

I've just re-read FUTURE QUEST #1-12. The story made a lot more sense the second time around, and I was able to pay attention to a lot of things I missed when I originally read it issue-by-issue over the course of a year. Not understanding the nature of the threat or how Omnikron worked made the story at first read like a lot of disjointed scenes where the focus kept changing (and was interrupted by a few flashbacks) and characters disappeared for issues, only to reappear later on, and it was hard to remember what they had all been doing before. There were a lot of things I liked, but also a lot of things I disliked about it.

Things I Disliked:

1.  Too many artists were involved in this for a 12-issue story. I would have much preferred if they'd kept on as they started in the early issues, with Evan Shaner drawing the main part of the story, and Steve Rude drawing flashback sequences that focused on specific characters. In reality Steve Rude only contributed interior art for issues #1 and 3, and Shaner only contributed interior pages to issues 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11 and 12 -- and for most of these, he didn't draw the entire issue. Ron Randall was the most consistent of the fill-in artists, contributing to issues 2, 4, 7, 9, and 10. Ariel Olivetti drew the entirety of issue #8 by himself. Olivetti is not a bad artist, but his work is so different-looking it makes this chapter stand out like a sore thumb. But there were at least half-a-dozen other artists contributing story pages in different issues (and most  of those were not flashback stories like Aaron Lopresti's and Karl Kesel's in issue #3).

2.  The new version of Mightor just didn't work for me. Taking that character out of his primitive setting makes him kind of pointless. I would have preferred if they'd kept the original Mightor as a character, and just had him existing on a primitive planet somewhere in the universe -- either that, or make Mightor's world and Dino Boy's Lost Land essentially the same place, more like a vortex into a primitive pocket universe with dinosaurs and other monsters. Mightor's costume change didn't work for meat all, nor replacing the flying, flame-breathing dragon Tog with Snag, a giant sabretooth cat. I was reminded of both Marvel's Ka-Zar, and H-B's own Young Samson and Goliath (who frankly would have worked better in this story for characters if they wanted a newer, more ethnically-diverse version of an old character).

3.  I will never forgive Jeff Parker for introducing the Galaxy Trio for a couple of pages in issue #2, only to kill them off immediately.  :tickedoff:

4.  Turning Frankenstein Jr. into a robot with a pilot control cabin. Too cliched, and it makes him too much like any of the Japanese giant robot heroes.

5.  Falcon-7 and Big D both turning out not to be a real persons, but false-front personas for Deva Sumadi. Too little background info on Deva Sumadi and how she created Inter-Nation given, too -- doesn't feel believable.

6. Too little seen of Birdman's partner Avenger, and Blip could have been used more.


Things I Liked:

1.  Some background given on Space Ghost. He's Captain Kyr of Space Force Section 90, and the Space Force is kind of like the Green Lantern Corps, with higher-ranking officers being entrusted with a Power Band similar to the GLC's Power Ring. He's the last 'ghost' of the Space Force after they were all wiped out by Omnikron, and is training Jan and Jace to begin rebuilding the Space Force.

2.  Some background (but not too much) given to Birdman's identity of Ray Randall, as an archaeologist, but also somewhat of a general scientist, and defining his exact relationship as an agent of Inter-Nation. Hopefully more of his background and origin would be explained in a series of his own.

3.  Working out a background relationship for Dr. Quest, Dr. Zin, and Dr. Conroy, as well as explaining what happened to Jonny's mother.

4.  NOT changing the Quest Team, Space Ghost Team, Birdman, or the Herculoids too much. Keeping the original Phantom Cruiser design.

5.  Good origin story for the Impossibles. The setup for how they acquired their powers also allows for future appearance of super-villains in the H-B universe. I didn't mind the addition of the new fourth (and female) member, Cobalt, although her codename could have been better, more in keeping with the other Impossibles' codenames. Magnetic powers are sort of overused for comics characters, so some kind of body-morphing powers (again in keeping with the original trio's powers) would have been better.

6.  How Birdman's traditional foes F.E.A.R. were worked into the story in a good way.

7. The robot spiders being a creation of Dr. Kim-Conroy, and being copied by Dr. Zin to be used for nefarious purposes.

8. Small cameo appearances of Shazzan and Brak.

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 18, 2017, 02:22:51 AM
Quote from: SAGG on February 18, 2017, 01:02:23 AMKnow what's REALLY scary? "Versus", not "and", or "teams up with". They're gonna FIGHT one another?  :2funny: What's missing? Bugs Bunny vs. Superman?

Oh, no -- Bugs and Supes are both the good guys. Marvin, Yosemite Sam, Lobo & Wile E. Coyote, and Elmer Fudd are all bad guys.

Meanwhile, eighteen years ago (and now seeming like a timely candidate for a TP reprint collection) ...

And oh hey, look... they ARE reprinting all 4 issues of that Superman & Bugs Bunny miniseries as DC LOONEY TUNES 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #1.
(And it's cheaper than a trade paperback.)


SAGG

I'd like to add that I liked the origin of Zandor and Tara with the machines taking over their planet, and they had to go to their twin planet, becoming deliberately anti-technological. Rats. I forgot which one was the jungle planet (Amzot?), and the technological advanced one (Quasar?). And I CANNOT believe Shazzan would lose. He's a genie. They have god-like powers. In fact, he'd wipe Omnicron into nothingness.

SAGG

Hm. I can't seem to modify my last post. I wanted to add that I also liked Dr. Zin's turn against F.E.A.R. for his safety. He and Dr. Quest made a dynamite team when they work together....

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