Remembering Marvel UK: Motormouth and Kill-Power

Valhallahan

The Preamble

I've spoken before about my fondness for the old Marvel UK characters, I know they aren't the best examples of the medium of sequential art, but I have a lot of love for them nonetheless. It is a love/hate relationship though, as on the whole the concepts are a lot better than the execution, and the art is extremely hit and miss (mostly miss). I read a fair bit of their output as a child in the early 90s through the magazine Overkill, which was Marvel UK's attempt at a 2000AD-esque Science Fiction anthology, they chopped up the 22 page US versions into short chunks and printed about four stories per fortnightly issue. I think my love of some of these characters is less about actual quality storytelling and more a mixture of nostalgia and partly because it was such a brazen attempt to do these cyberpunky dystopian Sci-Fi tales, that wouldn't look out of place sitting between Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, but set them all on the periphery of the Marvel Universe. Motormouth and Kill Power rubbing shoulders with Nick Fury and The Punisher, Death's Head II and Tuck scrapping with the X-Men, it's sort of like Tyranny Rex turning up in the Avengers or Judge Dredd in the Justice League. It shouldn't work, but every now and then it really does. So, on the whole I like the books, with caveats, but every now and then they have an outright hit, which brings me to Motormouth and Kill Power.

The Shop

I picked up the entire 12 issue US run (annoyingly sans #2 & 5) of Motormouth and Killpower (nee The Indescribable Motormouth) last week for a song from The Mighty World of Comicana II, a well stocked, dusty, decidedly old school comic book shop on Shaftsbury Avenue which sadly is not long for this world and well worth a visit before it closes its doors for good in the coming months. Seriously, go now, it's shutting down soon. The member of staff (I've only ever seen the one chap in the 15 or so years I've been going there) is friendly and the shop is full of gems from yesteryear, which for the most part are very affordable. I spent about a tenner in their 25p bin alone, before picking up this series and plugging a few of my ROM: Spaceknight gaps. Many thanks to Ian at Dead Universe Comics for promising to hook me up with the missing Motormouth & Killpower issues.

The Characters

Motormouth is Harley Davis (I see what they did there) a 90s street punk who happens upon some fancy new sneakers that imbue her with the power to jump between different dimensions, but make her the focus of attention for all manner of shady cloak and dagger types. Along the way she is introduced to Killpower, a heavily armed, grotesquely over-muscled ubermench type with an obscene amount of high tech weaponry at his disposal. The thing is, Killpower is not quite right in the head, he's the mind of a child trapped in a 170% 90s comic book shell. He's been raised by the shady agency that created him to become the perfect killer, but in actuality he's just an amiable little kid who's been raised for his moral compass to point in the wrong direction. Initially sent to kill Harley, they develop a friendship of sorts, her rankled sarcastic nature rubbing against his bizarrely skewed childlike innocence, creating a rather fun dynamic duo. The Riot Grrl and the 90s comic book anti-hero parody. Once they hook up they hop from plane to plane with all due ensuing hijinx. Fantastically named adventures they are too; "Electro Vampires in the 21st Century!", "Off to Kill A Wizard!". This series also treats us to a scene I honestly never thought I'd see, Nick Fury and The Punisher gate crashing a warehouse rave in Islington. I shit ye not!

The Rest

OK, so the art is not amazing, but it's not bad either, it's just quite of its time. Motormouth's design is great and actually not something that would look out of place in Camden nowadays, and Kill Power is such an over the top parody character that the artists can just go nuts with him with impunity. It's also interesting to see early work from people like Gary Frank, who grows up to become one of the best "acting" and facial expression artists in the business. I really would love to see someone pick up these characters again, and it was great to see some of them make cameos in Paul Cornell's Captain Britain and MI:13 not that long ago. I really feel that there’s tons of mileage in this set up. I can imagine a place for the punky hipster with the foul mouth and the dimension hopping trainers getting into all kinds of transdimentional, cross-time hijinks in today's Marvel Universe. I'm thinking Van Lente or Peter Milligan writing with someone like Stuart Immonen, or Jamie McKelvie or Mike Allred making with the pretty pictures; It could be like Exiles but more British and actually good. Let’s start a petition I say! Who's with me?

Anyone?

Oh, sod you then.



***Incidentally on my search of the web for Marvel UK info, I happened upon this blog. which is a great place for fans of the imprint.***

I went to Dublin and all I got...

Valhallahan
Well How do, folks? I spent last weekend gallivanting around Dublin meeting up with some lovely friends and drinking in some lovely sites. I also managed to get to a comic shop and see what the Craic was there. My friend gave me a little list of the three comic shops in Dublin and I plotted course for the first. Sub City on Exchequer Street. Sadly neither of the other two were open; one was clearly closed down, the other locked up, with the surly chap in the Head shop downstairs telling me that it never really opens. Balls.

Sub City is a small shop, oddly reminiscent of Gosh! or Comics Showcase (RIP) when it was still on Neal Street. Sub City was pretty damn poor for new releases (I didn't find one book I wanted – this could be due to snow induced lack of delivery though, I didn't ask but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt) I did manage to pick up #2 of Hellblazer: City of Demons, which I missed last month, which was a stroke. Where Sub City excels is the extensive selection of Graphic Novels and trades, they had pretty much all a seasoned pro or an adventurous newbie could want. Having to save money for cigs, gigs and lock-ins (which went rather well indeed thanks for asking) I didn't go nuts but could well have; their Trades clearance sale was particularly enticing, and on the subject of bargains, they had a marvellous selection of discounted books, recent and old. It would have been rude not to, so I picked up a 1 Euro grab-bag enticed by the Marvel UK title visible. Little did I know the horrors I would unleash...

Grab Bag A Go Go!

Warheads #6 & 7 (Marvel UK)
When I were a wee lad in the early ‘90s there used to be a real selection of anthology books for the UK market. There was 2000AD and Judge Dredd the Megazaine obviously, and others like, Toxic (violent), Crisis (righteous) and two from Dark Horse; Aliens (reprints of their US mini series’) and an odd tittle called Total Carnage, which reprinted Grendel: War Child, The Mask, Batman vs Predator, and the Army of Darkness film adaptation (I loved that magazine hard). I’ll halt my digression there and save it for a later post, but one of my favourite UK anthologies was Marvel UK's Overkill. Overkill had a few strips per issue and featured stories set in the periphery of the Marvel Universe, characters like Death’s Head II, Motormouth & Killpower, Hell’s Angel, Black Axe and Warheads (all as X-Treeeeeme! as they sound). Each strip had its own monthly printed in the states in the standard US format, which were released to varying degrees of indifference.

The Warheads were clearly -lets be charitable- inspired by the Space Marines in Aliens, but instead of dicking around in space getting killed by Xenomorphs, they dick around other dimensions getting killed by Warhammer 40,000 Rejects. At the behest of the shadowy Masons-stand-in cabal that is the MysTech board, they jump from world to world with their sass-mouths Liefeld guns and high mortality rate. In these nigh-incomprehensible issues a bunch of characters get massacred, some have a fight with Death’s Head II, some try to kill an off-model Mephisto (Spoiler: They fail), a talking gun has an identity crisis and starts talking like a Madam from the deep south and others do... I dunno, other stuff. There’s even an upside down Silver Surfer cameo. It’s a fun old romp, and I did genuinely enjoy the issues but I have to say they weren't as good as I remember. I will maintain though that these characters are ripe for a revamp. A Tigon Liger-led Exiles team anyone? Oh sod you then.

Shadowman (Valiant) Anyone remember Night Man? From Valiant? Valiant? Anyone? He had a cross-over with Aerosmith? The band Aerosmith? Now you're just being obstinate. Anyway, my words can not even begin to do justice to this '90s anti-hero, so instead I'll treat you to this scan of the final page. Oh yeah, check out the November Rain hair and brooding. So strong, yet so sensitive, a warrior and a poet. How did this ever cancelled?

Gross Point Presents #11: Mystery Meat (DC)
With a sub heading like "He turns into a monster at the touch of a pretty girl!" I was expecting something fun, but sadly this sounds a lot better than it looks. Not much to say about it other than it doesn't seem to live up to the promise of the premise and that I have never heard of this series in my life. The art is very much not to my taste. I would even go so far as to say that it's a big bag o' shite.

Team Youngblood #9 (Image)
Listen up kiddies and I'll tell ye of a time when industry hack Rob Liefeld's creator-owned super-team Youngblood was popular enough to have not one, but two ongoing spin-off series; Youngblood: Strike File, and this little wonder, Team Youngblood! Team Youngblood, as far as I understand is the more internationally active branch of Youngblood, who were US based... I think, but to be honest this issue is set in the states and from what I gather from the opening page roster shots, this issue of 'Team Youngblood' focuses almost entirely on characters from Youngblood, the parent title.

Somehow this issue, though not without some perverse charms, manages to be worse than expected. I never like to jump on a hate-wagon (this is a lie), but Good Lord this is bad! I think this deserves post of its own. Every criticism anyone has levelled at Rob Liefeld's 'art style' (pronounced 'hyperactive ineptitude') is painfully apparent here:

Nonsensical Plot? Check
Poor Anatomy? Check
Character designs ripped off from Marvel? Check
Inconsistent costuming? Check
Lack of realistic 'acting'? Check
Inconsistent Hair? Check
Even worse anatomy? Check
Lack of feet? Check
Ridiculously-spined women? Check
Weird weird weird haircuts? Check
Gigantic implausibly hanging tits? Check
Excessive 'detail' lines to disguise technical failings? Check
Total inability to draw normal street clothes? Check
Only 2 facial expressions? Check
Obscenely large guns? Check
With square barrels? Check
Pouches? Oh hell check!

I really could go on all week, but I'll stop there.

And Finally...

When I got back I picked up the latest issues of iZombe, American Vampire and Sweet Tooth. All of which were chuffing good. Also I got the unsavoury beast that is Action Ash to pick me up a copy of Taskmaster #4. I hope it’s not soiled when it arrives.

Excelsior!

It Came From The Bargain Bin!

Valhallahan
I love giving to charity, particularly when I get a stack of comic books in return. With that in mind, I went to Oxfam in the leafy suburb of Hertford to ransack their rather tasty collection of second hand comic books and collected this funny little pile of picture books for the combined price of £2.94. Nice.
Here's what I got and why.

Icon #1 - I've always had a soft spot for the Milestone characters but apparently I didn't actually buy many of the comics (apologies to Dwayne McDuffie) and the books I did buy in my childhood seem to have largely disappeared, so I always pick up issues when I see them on the cheap. Icon was Milestone's sort-of-Superman character, but as with all of the Milestone characters, it's not quite that simple... Incidentally, the cover pictured here (that I nicked off the internet) is not the same as the copy I bought, I didn't realise they did alternate covers.

Marvel Two-In-One #86 - I'm one of those fans that really likes the thing in theory, but I rarely buy any books with him in. I bought this purely for the awesome cover image of The Thing and Sandman chilling in a pub. Good times. I'm actually amazed that this monthly book which featured various heroes teaming up with The Fantastic Four's The Thing (that's a lot of 'The's) lasted as long as it did, no way a title like that would make it to 86 issues in today's market. This Issue came out in 1982 - the year before I was born, fact fans!

The Shadowmen #2 - I'd never heard of this series before, it came out in 1990 and is written by some guy called Mark Millar. Never hear of him. Anyway the art is so bleak and "Adult Comics" that Action Ash will laugh in my face when he sees it. Love it, and from the looks of it, the story is about miserable people looking miserable. Get in!



Sebastian O #1 & 2 - This is an oddball, steampunk-y victoriana tale from Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell I've often glanced at this on the shelves but stopped short of buying it, but two of the three issues for 50p an issue was an offer I couldn't refuse. I'll let you know if it was worth it.




Satan's Six #1 - This really looks like some kind of idiot bastard son of a comic, but I just couldn't resist the creative team involved. The pencils for most of the book are by Jack King Kirby, and he's inked by Frank Miller, Todd McFarlane and Steve Ditko. Yes, you heard that right. Sadly there are a lot of awful looking filler pages by some 90s hack joining the dots. This is truly an odd fish. Published by Topps.