Marvel Flipside

Killer Croc

Trying to keep up with the Ten Ton Studios Sketch Challenge, but they sure seem to like their DC stuff. I don't usually sketch DC characters, and it's a bit out of the focus of this blog. Next time, I may try to do a team-up or a throw-down with any non-Marvel character they come up with next.

I wanted to do some kind of mysterious tone, perhaps playing into the more urban legend-ish stories of crocs in the sewer. However, the character's bulk doesn't seem to play into that. Also, I could have played a bit more with the camera placement, and, my biggest area of weakness, a heavier emphasis on shadow. Still, I like the foreshortening and the monstrous face, even if the texture of the skin didn't work as I would have liked.

Raven

I know it's DC, but I thought I'd try the Ten Ton Studios sketch challenge this week, and it happens to be a non-Marvel character. That's just so Raven!

Namor versus Shagreen

This started as a sketch of Namor the Sub-Mariner, as I wondered why not try to see if he could get a costume change simply by giving him pants instead of a speedo. But it seemed like his pose was telling me he was punching someone. So obviously I had to add a villain at the end of his Imperious fists. But who to choose? Something nautical, of course. I immediately flashed to Shagreen the Sorcerer, a villain from another dimension that was visited by Nightcrawler in his limited series in the mid-80s. Shagreen has an obviously cartoony appearance with a giant misshapen head that turned out to be impossible to sketch from the angle I chose, so a sketch that started as something I was proud of turned out to be quite crappy IMO. But that's the random kind of thing that happens when I'm sketching after dinner.

And, hey, it's just in time to be a Friday Night Fight picture! Since it's actually more easy to sketch my own Friday Night Fights rather than to scour the back issues to find things to turn into blog posts, this might be the start of a trend... Sorry to Spacebooger.com and all the regular participants. I hope you enjoy the sketches instead!

My Christmas Wish for Iceman

My Christmas wish for Iceman is to have him Do Something. For some reason, Iceman was always among my favorite X-Men. And yet, what's weird is that, aside from his powers, what really is Iceman all about? What does he actually *do?*

With more complex and rounded characters, you have many diametrical forces working to create interesting stories/conflicts. Take Nightcrawler, another fave, who is torn between the gravity of his soul and the lightheartedness of his whimsy, the sensitive empathy he has and the fearsome appearance he has. Iceman, in contest, has pretty much one side to himself, which is usually his own carefree attitude. At best, this leaves him as pretty much a wisecracking, fun-loving background character. At worst, he comes off as a poor man's Johnny Storm/ Human Torch.

(There are a few message boards that have a running joke (or is it a joke?) that Iceman should become a gay character, which I say is neither here or there. It's irrelevant to the main problem that I want to talk about, and that's besides the fact that I think it would smack of a cheap hack writer tactic.)

The main problem is Iceman doesn't get to have one of those classic "I must but I must not" inherent character dilemma in that Mighty Marvel manner. If I might make a suggestion, I would want to highlight together Iceman's powers and his personality-- what if his bubbly personality was really just an unconscious overcompensation? What if his powers naturally left him numb, the kind of unfeeling numb that makes you feel disconnected to your numby parts? The problem is that, for Iceman, his entire body is becoming numby parts!  So that's why he is constantly extroverted-- he is reaching out to make sure he can "touch" the world around him. For lack of a better metaphor, he's a "warmth vampire," both socially and emotionally. 

And what would happen when the more he's growing in power, the more he affects others? Remember, cold is not really a force in itself, but merely an absence of heat. Unconsciously, he is leeching heat more and more from the people around him. So the more numb he gets, the more he reaches out-- but the more he reaches out, the more people will pull away for their own safety, leaving him more numb! 

Plus, he's got really cool (both literally and figuratively) powers!

My Christmas Wish for Wolverine

My Christmas wish for the Avengers is that they might have more conflict. And how's this for the sake of argument-- let's keep Wolverine in order to do so.

Who would have thought that I would be advocating for Wolverine on an Avengers roster? I'm as surprised as anyone! But the more I think about it, the more it would be nice to have Wolverine, IF he could be a force of personality that would lead to some team-tension. We need some sparks flying between some powerful personalities in the kind of clash we'd come to expect from Marvel hero teams! The problem is that Wolverine is a bit too far afield from his initial edgy and brashy living-on-the-edge wildman neophyte persona. Thankfully, he's not too far away from being a bratty living-on-the-edge crazily grizzled veteran. In other words, he should be violent enough to keep his teammates raising their eyebrows, respected enough that others fear confronting him directly, and just crazy enough that his ideas seem all wrong in prospect but is exactly what is needed in retrospect.

In some ways, Wolverine's basically that mean ol' veteran fisherman that grinds his hands on a chalkboard when he wants your attention and will get your shark for you if you would just shut up and let him do it his way.  Or in another analogy, just understand that Wolverine lives his life as if he is a shell-shocked, embittered but ultimately hardened Vietnam soldier wandering through the jungles, and by jungles I mean basically *anywhere he happens to be at any given time.* He puts the "now" in Apocalypse Now. Speaking of apocalypses, Wolverine lives his life as if he is the lone survivor in a dystopian future, which it probably is from his long-lived perspective. So, yeah, put that guy on the Avengers, because the Avengers have to use him as both an asset and a source of worry. 

People like Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel have worked with Wolverine enough that they can tell him off, but they are never his "superiors" in any way, so he can always ignore them, and they know that. He is someone better off on 'our side' than left to his own devices, but that means potentially setting him off at any moment, and it means potentially not being able to reel him in when he does.

Aside from Spidey and Ms. M, there's all kinds of tension. How far might Wolverine consider the new Cap as someone who repeated his own mistakes? How much might he resent Iron Man's optimism and self-assuredness? Will he respect Luke Cage as a leader or bristle under anyone giving orders? And it would appear that he is a complete opposite to Iron Fist-- the one who grew up rich to his poor, who became a peaceful martial artist to his berserker killing machine.

Basically, with Wolverine you have an ultimate Lone Wolf (emphasis on the "wolf") brought into what is Earth's mightiest band of brothers. How could we *not* expect conflict-rich story dynamics coming out of that?

Falcon Redesign

The Falcon, a recurring featured character here on the blog, is set to co-star in a new superhero team as  Heroes for Hire is revamped as a slick new series. Marvel.com talks about it here.

It's not exactly the headlining I would prefer, as I still hold out some love to see Falcon break out on his own, but it's great to see him branch out of Captain America's corner of the world. I look forward to seeing how he can react with other characters that he hasn't normally shared panel-time with, such as Moon Knight (Falcon would be a down to earth realist versus such a "crazy guy," and, yes, that's meant to be ironic for a hero with flight powers) and Misty Knight/Iron Fist (all three represent different approaches to being heroes dedicated to urban crime-fighting.) 

Another foregone conclusion (but one I would really like to see) is to push Falcon into more of a traditionally "heroic" mode, including costume and m.o. I would love to see Falcon standing tall on a darkened building, listening intently into the night, with a dramatic cape fluttering in the night air. He is kind of a Superman at heart with a Batman powerset in a Spider-Man setting. If that ain't intriguing enough, you gotta read more comic books! 

And with such a focus, a different costume might be needed. Here's a quick sketch with a splash of color, but I didn't have enough time to really the cape as I would have liked.

In other words, the cape doubles as wings by overlaying electricity/hard light over them, and his usually-open mask now has bird-of-prey googles in the design.

I figure, if you're going to go superhero, then go big. The days of paramilitary fatigues and padded jackets/jumpsuits are over. Let's go back to sleek, iconic, and sporty, appropriate for an idealistic do-gooder like Falcon!

Tangerine

There was a recent thread featuring this hero on Comic Book Resources, and I couldn't help but sketch her out. It's such a striking design, especially when paired alongside other, more "EXTREME!" costumes. It immediately makes a quirky impression, and it makes you want to know more about this character. Graphic Design Lesson, kids: Sometimes edgy doesn't immediately translate into "cool." Sometimes coolness comes from being so unique.

She was only a throw-away line by one time-traveling character, but five years later, that one line was picked up and an entire character was developed around it, as the character Phoenix (Rachel Summers) regained her memories and time-traveled with her team Excalibur to help save the future. Tangerine was a telepathic hero who helped the mutant resistance against their robotic exterminators.

Apparently, she made a later appearance, with a complete make-over that turned her into Yet-Another-Matrix-Looking-Hero. Disappointed.

For more info on telepathic afro-sporting freedom fighters, check out your local library, or this blog.

Doctor Spider vs. Octo-Man

What's going on here? Just a Flipside-version of familiar Marvel heroes and villains!

What IF?! There was never a public exhibition of radiation back in the day, and only scientists were observing the fateful experiment that was interrupted by a spider-- and it bit the mild-mannered visitor going by the name Otto. And what if a young Peter Parker managed to become an intern for a laboratory using experimental robotic arms, and when an accident caused things to go horribly awry... well, I guess you get something like the above pic!

Dracula & Nagala the Serpent Witch

Super-Villain Team-Up!

Haven:t had one of these for a while, so let:s check in with the possible pairings of villainous doings in the Marvelous universe.

How about the Lord of the Vampires with the Witch of the Serpent Crown?

Dracula, Lord of the Vampires, is soon to make a big comeback in (of all places) the X-Men titles. The Serpent Crown seems to be making a comeback (or at least, serving as inspiration) in the Secret Avengers book. So why not see if Dracula and Nagala (a witch from Atlantis who has rather close ties to the Serpent Crown) could team-up for even more trouble?

I:d imagine that it would cause a lot of trouble for Namor, the Sub-Mariner, if Dracula and vampires descended upon Atlantis. Perhaps Nagala,under the evil influence of the crown, serves as a magnet for the evil of Dracula. Perhaps Dracula, without the need to really breathe, will find Atlantis a ready source of meals and without the defenses that the surface world has from it:s long mythological history.That:s perfectly in line with Nagala:s goals of chaos and destruction.

And, of course, we:d have to have a line about "tasting fishy" somewhere along the line...

Awesomed By Comics

Recently, I've been enjoying a great comics review podcast called Awesomed By Comics. The hosts, Aaron and Evie, are just fun to listen to and are really funny to boot. Inspired by their answers to which comic book creators/comics concepts they'd like to see mashed together, I took pencil in hand and whipped up this little sketch this week. It pairs up Mike Allred's artwork (such as from X-Force/X-Statix) with Rob Liefeld's Youngblood team.(Oops! Technically Aaron said it was Peter Milligan's writing style paired with Rob Liefeld's characters, but sometimes reality gets skewed in my head!)

I gotta say, I realize what hidden strengths lie in the seemingly simplistic art of Allred's. It's deceptively simple with lots of power behind it. On the other hand, it was frustrating to try to recreate or even simply break down Liefeld's art. Costume elements just didn't make sense and the awkward anatomy made it difficult to "translate." This little exercise has given me newfound appreciation of Allred's art and newfound disappointment in Liefeld's skills.