Lesser Known Heroes From Comics & Gaming #1 - Cybergenic Ranger
Right off the bat, I know what you're thinking. No, he's not an obscure member of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I know there’s a ton of people going, “Where in the blue hell did you dig up this game from?” when they see this crap. I have to peg that credit to the folks at Games Done Quick as I caught one of their “mystery game” competitive speedruns as someone thought this would have been a great joke to troll the players in the bracket.
Who is the Cybergenic Ranger, you ask? He was launched out of a spacecraft by his parents to save him from certain death by renegade robots when he was an infant, and saved when someone gave him cybergenic enhancements. The character thus becomes the Cybergenic Ranger, to battle the renegade robots that killed his parents.
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| One of the many oddities that the Ranger faces as bosses in this game. |
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| The instruction manual included a pretty neat comic book detailing the Cybergenic Ranger's origin. |
It’s sad too as the art accompanying this game is pretty good. Too bad that we probably won’t ever see the Cybergenic Ranger return in another gaming appearance again. Then again, maybe that's a GOOD thing. Sadly, I wasn't able to find any good scans of the artwork from the game nor the manual's comic book pictured above.
There's VERY little gameplay of this game floating around on the Internet, but if you must see this game for yourself. There's a little sampler platter if you will at the link below.
Lesser Known Heroes From Comics & Gaming #2 - Velta
Unless you’re one of my readers originating from South America, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ve heard of this character period, if at all. Velta was created by Emir Ribeiro, a former artist, inker, and penciler for both Image and Maximum Press in the ‘90s as his work shows clear influences to his fondness of Marvel Comics as well. Ribeiro's previous work includes work on Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Jade Warriors, Lady Death, Purgatori, Glory, and few misc. issues for both DC and Marvel Comics.
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| Emir Ribeiro celebrating 30 years of Velta comics at a local convention. |
Velta’s origin is as follows. Katia Maria Lins is a Brazillian student who comes across a dying alien that zaps her with a strange ray. It grants her the ability to transform at will into a seven foot high super-strong blonde Amazon who can shoot lasers and occasionally lightning from her fingertips.
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| There's absolutely nothing wrong with having your own homegrown heroes for your native country. |
That being said, she's got one hell of a following in her native country, but too bad that never translated into any global popularity nor recognition. Ribeiro has to be doing something right though as from what I can tell, her adventures have been going on for 45 years in her native country as of 2013.
I'm going to see if someone has some comics scanned online for reading as I can barely find jack shit about this character as I'm simply intrigued to learn more about her comics history. She reminds me a lot of John Byrne's Sensational She-Hulk run that I adored reading when I was younger.
I have to credit one of my friends from DeviantArt for informing me about this character though as it was totally over my head. Always a pleasure to learn something new in the realm of comics that I wasn’t aware of.
Lesser Known Heroes From Comics & Gaming #3 - Maui Mallard / Cold Shadow
Why we haven’t heard of Maui Mallard / Cold Shadow since this game? Simply put: Because he was essentially Donald Duck. For the US release of this game, all references to Donald Duck were removed, but in international markets those references were left intact, so there’s a bit of questionable moments on why Disney never brought this back up again. I mean c’mon, even the current DuckTales reboot makes references to Donald’s past bad-assery that’s rarely shown, so this would have been pretty cool to have in their back pocket.
See, here's the thing. Back in the '90s during the height of Disney Afternoon's popularity, Disney had this strange fascination with Donald Duck and giving him a ton of various action games on various platforms. Mickey Mouse would receive this treatment too, but not in the same capacity that Donald Duck would have in terms of alter egos and "alternate versions" of this character.
The game itself wasn’t bad to say it was a PC title sporting some lower quality graphics for it’s time, but this is a title that was pretty hard to track down at the time since this was at the very tail end of both the SNES and Sega Genesis' console lives while retailers were looking to push more PlayStation and Sega Saturn units rather than hoard more older consoles. I remember seeing it once at the flea market but disregarded it as I didn’t know absolutely what the fuck it was at the time.
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| Game Boy release. |
Besides typical platform game gameplay (running around, jumping from platform to platform), one of the game's most distinctive gameplay features is allowing to switch the player character's form to suit one's needs. The player begins the game as Maui, whose only means of self-defence is an insect-launching pistol that can launch several forms of bugs, some of them combined for greater effect. However, once the player reaches the second level, Maui transforms into Cold Shadow, his ninja alter ego, who defends himself with short-range attacks using a bo staff. Cold Shadow's staff is also primarily used to explore the level further, such as climbing a narrow tunnel. After the second level, the player can switch back and forth between Maui and Cold Shadow at will, provided he has enough ninja tokens for the transformation. The amount of ninja tokens Maui or Cold Shadow holds determines Cold Shadow's strength – who can then chain more and more attacks as his skill improves – when played as him in the SNES version. On Genesis, however, Maui needs to collect red ninja tokens instead, the amount of white tokens being useful for metamorphosis alone. Some levels of the game, however, prevent Maui from transforming at all, as Cold Shadow cannot bungee jump on vines, for example, which forces the player to use Maui throughout the level.
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| You Better Duck. |
Disney actually had plans for a sequel to this game, along with an animated series, but this game didn't do well at all in terms of sales and overall interest, so those plans were dropped completely. Sucks that happened as it would have been pretty cool to see Cold Shadow team up with the likes of Ducktales' Gizmoduck or Darkwing Duck in some capacity. You know it would have happened too because Darkwing Duck was part of his own psuedo-Justice League by the time his series ended.
This character would go down as one of the first of many alter-egos/aliases that Donald Duck would don then would be later forgotten over the years, including his persona as Paperinik (Duck Avenger in the US) in the multi-platform title PK: Out of the Shadows. That is something to come back to talk to another day though...
Boy, I wonder if anyone remembers that game and/or character too...
Lesser Known Heroes From Comics & Gaming #4 - Zen: Intergalactic Ninja
Zen the Intergalactic Ninja is a fictional character created in 1987 by Steve Stern and Dan Cote, and initially published under their Zen Comics imprint. In the early nineties Zen was licensed to Archie Comics, and then to Entity Comics.
Zen has been depicted by many well-known comics artists, including Paul Pelletier, Mike Mignola, and Sam Keith, as well as silver age legends Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Other artists who have drawn Zen include Jae Lee, Frank Brunner, and Bill Maus. Maus has been credited with redesigning the character's classic look from the late '80s to the popular version seen today, of a taller, more muscular character who is bit rough around the edges. The first appearance of Zen's new look was in Entity Comic's Zen #0, published in 1993.
Alien Hero is a collection of novellas and short stories about Zen, written by Steve Stern. Zen has also appeared in magazines as varied as Mixx, published by Tokyopop, and Heavy metal.
In 2008, a new series of Zen trade paperbacks was to be launched by publisher Devil's Due. In addition, Devil's Due has announced an all-new continuing Zen comic-book series, written by fan favorite Joe Casey and illustrated by Joe Abraham. Devil's Due published only the first book in limited amounts. When the creators refused to surrender shares in their IP, Devil's Due discontinued the project. First Comics stepped up in 2010 publishing a full immersion 3D comic. Artist/creator Dan Cote retro-fitted his Earth day annual original pen and ink book into anaglyph 3D (red/blue, readable only with anaglyph red/blue glasses). First comics published "The best of Zen" in 2012.
In terms of powers and abilities, Zen is a skilled martial artist, trained in the ways of the Masters of Om. He is a master fighter, and knowledgeable in all forms of hand-to-hand combat. He speaks via telepathy, directly to one’s mind. So that explains how he’s able to communicate without a mouth.
Video Game: Zen: Intergalactic Ninja (NES)
The comic was adapted into a video game that was released in 1993 by Konami for both the Nintendo Entertainment System and Gameboy. The music for the NES game was composed by Kôzô Nakamura, Junichiro Kaneda, Yuichi Sakakura, Ayako Nishigaki and Tomoya Tomita and has been played on the Swedish radio-channel P3's programme Syntax Error.
Either you saw me stream this game back when I had Mystery Game Night weekly streams archived on YouTube or the livestream back on Twitch a few years ago. Good luck finding a physical copy of this game as you’ll easily pay well over $100 for it, but I personally consider it among some of the best among “must-have” titles on the NES. Just don't go breaking the bank trying to acquire a copy of this game.
Zen’s adventure on the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy saw him taking on the forces of Lord Contaminous, who along with an entourage of henchmen - Sulfura, Oil Slick, Garbageman, and Smogger, sought out to destroy the Earth by spreading their pollution across the planet. If I were to speculate, I think this game sought out to capitalize on the eco-friendly message that the Captain Planet cartoon popularized at the time. Think about it, this game released in 1993. Captain Planet first premiered back in 1990. That definitely couldn't have been a coincidence.
Toyline:
To my surprise while researching data on this hero, I found out that he had a short-lived toyline like everything else in the ‘90s.
The toyline consisted of merely six figures (as seen below) by the Just Toys company.
Other licensed products include posters from the Starmakers company, phone cards from Patco, chromium cards from Maxx, and a vinyl model kit from Inteleg International.
Lesser Known Heroes From Comics & Gaming #5 - Lastman
Lastman is the name of a very popular French comic book series made in the style of Japanese anime in terms of how it’s action is stylized and from how it’s narrative layout is presented.
The synopsis of the comic book's narrative is as follows. In the "Valley of Kings", a world where magic is acknowledged as reality, an annual grand tournament sponsored by the King and Queen is being prepared. Young Adrian Velba works all year in the combat school of Master Jansen to participate. Sadly, Adrian’s partner suddenly falls ill and deserts. Since it is a duo tournament, the young boy is forced to give up his dream… until Richard Aldana, a "hunk with bearish manners" (as he's described in the books) comes out of nowhere to unexpectedly ally himself with Adrian.
The series was initially pre-published on delitoon.com, a free website for the publication of comic books on the web. It is depicted as a "French-style manga", by Bastien Vivès : " We use the format and some codes of the manga but we’re not playing at imitating Japanese culture". Vivès also mentions as other influences Disney movies and blockbusters from the 80’s and 90’s (some of them by Steven Spielberg).
Adult Animated Series: Last Man (Mondo Media VRV)
Richard Aldana is the protagonist of the animated series that serves as a prequel to the comics of the same name.
The adult animated prequel to the comic book was produced thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign in the summer of 2016. The episodes were all aired on France 4, on Tuesday evenings from November 22 to December 14, 2016. The show was made available for streaming on the Mondo Media VRV channel in the United States and Netflix in France in 2018. It is currently airing on Saturdays as part of the El Rey Network's Mondo Animation Hour.
About a week or two ago, I shared the trailer (along with the link to the first episode) for the adult animated prequel to this comic book and got nothing but crickets in terms of a response over on Facebook. Once again, I’m going to ask this question. WHY THE HELL AREN’T MORE PEOPLE AREN'T TALKING ABOUT THIS SHOW???
I'm going to repeat the same thing that I did over on Facebook and share both the trailer and first episode on here in hopes that maybe this show gets some more exposure that it rightfully deserves.
I discovered it as part of the Mondo Animation Hour on El Rey Network on Saturdays at midnight (for two hours) earlier this year. I have been absolutely blown away by the animated series. The series was originally funded by a Kickstarter but managed to produce all 23 episodes. It follows Richard Aldana as he gets into all sorts of trouble trying to care for his deceased mentor’s boxing gym and estranged daughter, who has some sort of mysterious powers that attracts shady individuals from all corners of the globe. I doubt that will be a turn off for some, but the series falls heavily into adult/mature territory as there’s uncensored violence, nudity, and obscene language across the board.
I think the lack of exposure and/or awareness to Lastman stems from the medium being limited to Mondo Media VRV's subscription service. Mondo recently made the move to make the series available on Netflix and now on satellite for those who have the El Rey Network, but that’s not really helping on that front much either. Not everyone has the El Rey Network on their cable/satellite packages, so one can’t count nor rely on new viewers becoming aware of the series from that medium. It was cool of them to provide the first few episodes on YouTube along with several more on their VRV site without requiring viewers to sign-up/register to the site until they hit a quarter ways into the season to see if Lastman would be something they would like to check out in its entirety. VRV isn’t a popular streaming service like Crunchyroll nor Netflix, so it’s a stretch that only the die-hard fans would invest into paying for a subscription to check this out. If that's not bad enough, you can't subscribe to the service outside of the US, so that limits the series' reach even further.
There's a few sellers on eBay selling complete series blu-ray sets with both French and English audio/voice acting, but buy at your own risk.
For me personally, I’m content with viewing the episodes weekly on the Mondo Animation Hour block.
Video Game: Lastfight (Steam/PC)
To my surprise, there’s a video game adaptation of Last Man available on Steam, called Lastfight. The video game was developed by the independent publisher Piranaking, and came out on September, 20th 2016.
As of this posting, I haven’t had the chance to check out both the comic book series nor the video game on Steam, but if they are anywhere as awesome as the animated series is then I’m sure I’m going to enjoy them both the same.To my surprise, there’s a video game adaptation of Last Man available on Steam, called Lastfight. As of this posting, I haven’t had the chance to check out both the comic book series nor the video game on Steam, but if they are anywhere as awesome as the animated series is then I’m sure I’m going to enjoy them both the same.
Lesser Known Heroes From Comics & Gaming #6 - Gen 13
You probably heard of this throughout the early 2000s, where comics went into that "extreme" everything phase and it seemed like every comic book label under the sun had that teen/college-aged group of super-powered misfits. Jim Lee and Brandon Choi were definitely inspired by the original X-Men line-up and the follow-up New Mutants in terms of the team layout.
The series takes place in Jim Lee's Wildstorm Universe, and Gen¹³'s stories and history intertwine with those from his own works, such as Wildcats and Team 7 (in fact, each of the main characters in Gen¹³ is the child of a Team 7 member).
The setup of the series is that a group of teens ( Originally consisting of Caitlin Fairchild, Roxy Spaulding, Grunge, Burnout, and Threshold in disguise. They were later joined by Sarah Rainmaker.) are invited to take part in a government project, which is in actuality a prison-like testing ground on "gen-active" teens. The teens make their escape, but not before they manifest superhuman powers, and are labelled dangerous fugitives. They rely on each other to fight their foes and unveil the personal secrets that linked them to Team 7 and International Operations.
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| Cover for Gen13's initial run. |
After their initial run, the comic saw a revolving door of creative changes behind the scenes, which saw illustrator J. Scott Campbell leave the book to start his own comic, Danger Girl (which I'm sure we'll talk about in another edition of this featurette at some point) and various different writers and artists were brought on to help handle the book, including even Chris Claremont at one point. Hell, they even went as far as killing off majority of the team with a 6-megaton bomb to serve as a justification for a reboot to the title, with Fairchild serving as the new team's mentor. (Laughs) That's one hell of a way to start over from scratch...
Despite all of these changes, fans of the original run weren't too keen of all of these changes left and right to the vibe of the comic that got them hooked to it to begin with. I'm sure many of you have seen art from this comic over the years, but never knew where it originated from as majority of the marketing for this comic was with the various women from the comic dressed in barely nothing at all or there being some random excuse to be clad in nothing but bikinis. The first issue sees Fairchild's powers manifest and reduce her clothing to mere scraps barely concealing her modesty after her "transformation" and things like this didn't stop after the book went into full swing. Brandon Choi and J. Scott Campbell pretty much got a reputation for their depictions of their "sexy" women in the comics, even to this day, from their work on this book and various others during their duration for Image Comics. Jim Lee can be lumped into that mix too, but I feel like his iconic work for Marvel and DC Comics pretty much "standardizing" a lot of iconic heroes' looks and appearances overridden anything he's done in that regard though - at least for me.
Gen 13’s comics run went from 1998 to 2006 under Wildstorm, but they became officially part of the DC Universe after the New 52 reboot.
The title was "rebooted" in October 2006, initially written by Gail Simone with art from Talent Caldwell. At first, the title had no continuity with earlier series. The series was involved in the "Armageddon" crossover event and then taken over in 2008 with a new creative team, Scott Beatty and Mike Huddleston, as part of "World's End".
The new series was canceled along with the rest of the Wildstorm titles published at the time when the line folded. When the Wildstorm universe was subsequently folded into the DC Universe following Flashpoint, several of the members of Gen 13 began appearing in other titles. Caitlin Fairchild played a supporting role in Superboy and eventually began starring in the spin-off title, The Ravagers.
They even managed to have a wealth of crossovers with other heroes, including with Superman, Spider-Man, the Maxx, Monkeyman and O'Brien, two crossovers with the Marvel Comics teen hero team Generation X, and a crossover with the Fantastic Four. At one point in the early years, Wildstorm and DC were planning a teamup between the team and Batman. However, due to creative differences between creator J. Scott Campbell and DC, the crossover never happened, although Campbell did create artwork showing Fairchild, Grunge, Roxy, and Batman in a promotional image.
Gen¹³ also highly embraced the MTV Generation and built its sense of style on what was the contemporary fashion at the time, including the name Grunge (which was a quickly dated reference), references to popular bands such as Soundgarden, and a youthful drama inspired by MTV’s The Real World. Not coincidentally, Gen¹³'s editor was Sarah Becker, a cast member on The Real World: Miami.
McFarlene Toys produced a few figures based off the comic book characters, due to Images' existing relationship. Not all of the characters were made though. Caitlin had three different figures, including a 6" Fairchild, a 1998 Wizard ToyFare Exclusive (12" Fairchild), and another as part of the 12" Figures by Exclusive Toy Products and Diamond in 1999 that included Burnout, Lynch, and Rainmaker.
There was a Gen 13 video game in development for the original PlayStation but never finished as developer Grey Matter went bankrupt before it could be finished. I guess EA didn’t want to pick up the pieces and finish it. From the limited footage that you can find of it online, it seems like they dodged a bullet anyway as it looked as bad as that Mortal Kombat: Special Forces game from Midway. On the plus side, there were plans to have the entire team playable in some fashion.
You can find the entirety of the animated movie up on YouTube/Dailymotion as the film was never released in the US, but saw a limited release in Europe and Australia. I've linked the video above, but don't be surprised if that gets taken down in the meantime. I claim no rights to the video above.
Kevin Altieri (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm) directed a Gen¹³ animated feature for Buena Vista Pictures. It was shelved by the studio soon after Wildstorm was bought by DC Comics and never released in the United States, but it has seen a limited video release in Europe and Australia in 2000. Grunge was voiced by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lynch was voiced by John de Lancie, and Threshold was voiced by Mark Hamill.
In the mid-1990s, WildStorm owner Jim Lee put his company on the market as comic book sales began to decline. It was during this period that Disney Studios expressed interest in developing a Gen¹³ film. The film project was already in production when Lee began talks to sell WildStorm to DC Comics, a Time Warner company. The sale was finalized in January 1999. By the time the film was finished, Disney decided to shelve the film because they did not want to market a film with ties to a rival production company. Consequently, the film was never released in the U.S., but did receive a limited video release in Europe and Australia and was aired on the Russian 2×2 channel on August 1, 2010.
Gen 13’s comics run went from 1998 to 2006 under Wildstorm, but they became officially part of the DC Universe after the New 52 reboot.
The title was "rebooted" in October 2006, initially written by Gail Simone with art from Talent Caldwell. At first, the title had no continuity with earlier series. The series was involved in the "Armageddon" crossover event and then taken over in 2008 with a new creative team, Scott Beatty and Mike Huddleston, as part of "World's End".
The new series was canceled along with the rest of the Wildstorm titles published at the time when the line folded. When the Wildstorm universe was subsequently folded into the DC Universe following Flashpoint, several of the members of Gen 13 began appearing in other titles. Caitlin Fairchild played a supporting role in Superboy and eventually began starring in the spin-off title, The Ravagers.
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| Gen13 had a wealth of crazy crossovers, including one with Marvel's Spider-Man. |
Gen¹³ also highly embraced the MTV Generation and built its sense of style on what was the contemporary fashion at the time, including the name Grunge (which was a quickly dated reference), references to popular bands such as Soundgarden, and a youthful drama inspired by MTV’s The Real World. Not coincidentally, Gen¹³'s editor was Sarah Becker, a cast member on The Real World: Miami.
Toyline:
McFarlene Toys produced a few figures based off the comic book characters, due to Images' existing relationship. Not all of the characters were made though. Caitlin had three different figures, including a 6" Fairchild, a 1998 Wizard ToyFare Exclusive (12" Fairchild), and another as part of the 12" Figures by Exclusive Toy Products and Diamond in 1999 that included Burnout, Lynch, and Rainmaker.
Video Game:
There was a Gen 13 video game in development for the original PlayStation but never finished as developer Grey Matter went bankrupt before it could be finished. I guess EA didn’t want to pick up the pieces and finish it. From the limited footage that you can find of it online, it seems like they dodged a bullet anyway as it looked as bad as that Mortal Kombat: Special Forces game from Midway. On the plus side, there were plans to have the entire team playable in some fashion.
Animated Film:
You can find the entirety of the animated movie up on YouTube/Dailymotion as the film was never released in the US, but saw a limited release in Europe and Australia. I've linked the video above, but don't be surprised if that gets taken down in the meantime. I claim no rights to the video above.
Kevin Altieri (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm) directed a Gen¹³ animated feature for Buena Vista Pictures. It was shelved by the studio soon after Wildstorm was bought by DC Comics and never released in the United States, but it has seen a limited video release in Europe and Australia in 2000. Grunge was voiced by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lynch was voiced by John de Lancie, and Threshold was voiced by Mark Hamill.
In the mid-1990s, WildStorm owner Jim Lee put his company on the market as comic book sales began to decline. It was during this period that Disney Studios expressed interest in developing a Gen¹³ film. The film project was already in production when Lee began talks to sell WildStorm to DC Comics, a Time Warner company. The sale was finalized in January 1999. By the time the film was finished, Disney decided to shelve the film because they did not want to market a film with ties to a rival production company. Consequently, the film was never released in the U.S., but did receive a limited video release in Europe and Australia and was aired on the Russian 2×2 channel on August 1, 2010.
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