The Flash wasn’t the only speedster super-hero at Comic-Con this year. Meagan VanBurkleo dressed up as Velocity from Top Cow’s Cyberforce.
Check out her site for more photos and a write-up of the costume. If you have time, read her article at Game Informer on SDCC: A Cosplayer’s Perspective.
ABC ran the entire pilot episode for No Ordinary Family today at Comic-Con, followed by a brief Q&A session with Greg Berlanti, John Harman Felman, and stars Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz. It looks promising.
It’s a little hard to pin down, genre-wise. It’s not a super-hero show, but it has super-powers (and lots of references that comic book readers will catch). It’s not really an action show, though there is some action involved. I’d say it’s primarily a family drama with comedic and action highlights.
On one hand, there is a bit of an Incredibles vibe to it: It’s about a family with super-powers, the father is trying to reclaim his glory days by going out and secretly fighting crime, etc. But it’s different enough not to feel like a retread. For one thing, the powers are new, and it’s set (like Heroes) in a real-world setting that hasn’t seen super-powers before.
The pilot is structured as an interview with flashbacks, first with Jim Powell speaking, then with Stephanie Powell taking over, then switching back and forth. The episode shows the characters and how they relate, then shows each of them discovering their powers, then delves into how those powers affect them. Edit: You do eventually find out who they’re talking to.
Sort of like Freshmen, they all gain powers related to their self-perceived shortcomings.
Last year at Comic-Con, DC announced that they had acquired the rights to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a covert team of international super-heroes operating under the authority of the United Nations. The characters were originally published in the late 1960s by Tower Comics, and have been revived several times over the last few decades.
Among the classic members of the team is Lightning: former Special Forces agent Guy Gilbert wears a suit that gives him super-speed…but every time he uses that speed, it ages him.
Today at The Source, DC announced that the new series will launch in November, featuring lead stories by writer Nick Spencer and artist CAFU and backup stories by a team still to be announced. The series will focus on a new team of recruits. Editor will Moss describes it this way:
The new series casts the team as a covert special ops force dealing with global threats the rest of the DCU don’t even know exist — all the while struggling with their own choices to become agents and the tortured pasts they’re running from. With character-first storytelling and threats exploding from real-world headlines, this relaunch of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS will offer something new, different, and daring for both today’s broader comics audience and fans of the original team.
Top Cow has released its list of Comic-Con Exclusives, including a variant edition of Velocity #1.
I’m not sure, but I think this might be the first cover for the series that features her new costume (which I have to assume is glued on). The standard covers for #1 and #2 were originally going to be pin-up variants for the series that was scrapped, and had her previous costume. The ChrisCross variant was originally going to be a standard cover for that series, and featured a new costume that ChrisCross designed.
I like the detail of her holding up the Comic-Con badge, but…sometimes I wonder whether there are two Kenneth Rocaforts: the one who draws the incredible interior art, and the one who draws the covers that belong on something like Maxim. Yeah, I know it’s Top Cow, but I always feel like I need to explain that no, really, I read it for the articles.
As for the issue itself, I thought it was quite good.
The first issue of Ron Marz and Kenneth Rocafort’s Velocity miniseries delivers an effective blend of action and exposition. Appropriately for a book about a speedster, it hits the ground running, and while the main conflict doesn’t really begin until the end of the issue, there’s plenty going on in the opening chapter.
The setup for “Decoys” is simple: A mad scientist infects Velocity and her teammates with a virus that will kill them within an hour, and she’s the only one who might be able to stop it.
A bit of background for those not familiar with Top Cow’s resident speedster: Carin Taylor is a member of Cyberforce, a team made up of former (unwilling) test subjects of Cyberdata. Cybernetic implants give her super-speed, and a layer of Kevlar under her skin gives her some degree of invulnerability.
The comic is actually quite new-reader friendly. You get a good sense of Velocity’s personality (snarky, tends to get ahead of herself), powers (runs fast, jumps fast, dismantles killer cyborgs fast…but vibrating through walls and into other dimensions is right out), and the basics of her origin. The villain’s motives are established clearly. There’s even a page in the back with short profiles of Velocity and her teammates.
Newsarama has a 5-page preview of Velocity #1 by Ron Marz and Kenneth Rocafort.
Carin Taylor is the fastest woman in the world. At least, she’d better be if she wants to save her own life and the lives of her Cyberforce teammates. When a former Cyberdata scientist — and test subject — seeks revenge against the members of Cyberforce, only Velocity can save her friends before the clock literally runs out.
Bringing together writer Ron Marz (Witchblade, Angelus) and artist Kenneth Rocafort (Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer) for the first time. Featuring two covers by Rocafort and Chriscross (Captain Marvel).
I quite liked the Pilot Season one-shot by Joe Casey and Kevin Maguire, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing more solo adventures, even though this is a completely new team, and a 4-issue miniseries rather than an ongoing. (The downside: as well-executed as Rocafort’s art is, the covers are cheesecake-y enough that I feel like I need to hide the comic on the bottom of my stack — and avoid reading it in public!)
Velocity #1 ships next Wednesday, June 30.
Update: I’ve had the opportunity to read an advance copy. Here’s my review of the comic.