A 40-page one-shot about a bunch of vampire bug-things planning a subway tunnel collapse in the vicinity of a Roxxon lab that's preparing to experiment on Dragon Man, while the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing and the Sensational She-Hulk just so happen to be on the two trains that get caught in the collapse.
Hitch and Neary draw the first 25 pages, which is mostly build-up. Why these two heroes are taking the subway, plus each of them dealing with their own brand of jerks, what Roxxon's doing, the vampire geeks, the leader of which looks like he raided Killraven's closet. Reis and Emberlin handle the fighting and whatnot that occurs over the remaining 14 pages. I don't really see a reason why they switch teams at the point they do (Hitch/Neary draw one page after the one above.) This hardly seems like a book where you bring in another team because Hitch couldn't finish the whole thing in time. So maybe they thought Reis was better for fight scenes and Hitch for building the setting?
For having two heroes ostensibly trying to get two trains full of civilians to safety when there are vampires, dragon androids and unscrupulous corporate scientists and goons running around, DeZago doesn't take hardly any of it seriously. Ben suggests that Sue has success calming Dragon Man down by being 'seductive' with him - which, what? - and She-Hulk suggests maybe he should try it and runs off to look for the civilians. The Thing proceeds to stand there and try and talk Dragon Man down while being repeatedly doused in flames. They seem more concerned about getting mobbed by the press after they rescue everyone than anything else.
I have no idea why this comic exists. It was released in 2002. Neither character had a series of their own in a while, so maybe it was a way to renew two trademarks in one go?
3 comments:
Weird, I've never heard of this, and it is a weird concept, with an odd creative team (although Hitch did draw some She-Hulk issues). Like you, I can only imagine there was some sort of contractual reason for its existence.
It did come out at around the same time as Ultimates was starting up, so perhaps Hitch did in fact run out of time and chose to stick with the more high-profile project?
Your guess is as good as mine on the backstory for this. Hitch's work is not quite at the style it was in Ultimates here, yet, but not the Alan Davis clone he was on those Sensational She-Hulk issues (I preferred his work there, but I also really like Alan Davis' art, so no surprise), which makes me wonder if it got half-finished then sat in a drawer until Hitch became a bigger name and then they pulled it out?
From the image above, it looks like his work around Storm watch and the first Authority issues, so yeah, maybe it was an older thing they had in a cupboard somewhere.
Post a Comment