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scans_dailyThis started as a planned "One Perfect Moment"... well, two actually, but as I went through it I thought "Sod it, this is too cool not to spend more time on".
Way back in the late 70's and early 80's Alan Moore was writing, not for Marvel, but Marvel UK and that slightly looser playground gave him some fun opportunities.
The Special Executive actually debuted in the pages of Doctor Who Weekly, as mercenaries hired by the Time Lords as their agents and bodyguards during their four dimensional confrontation with a mysterious group called "The Order of the Black Sun". The first attack by the Order was meant to provent the Time Lords discovering Time Travel, but indirectly led to them being able to master time-travel in the first place (Moore didn't write all those Time Twisters for 2000AD for nothing)
The lupine alien Wardog was the first one we met, and then in a later story he's accompanied by the time manipulating Millennium, the telepathic precog Cobweb, and the intangible Zeitgeist, in a mission that saw Millennium mindwiped and used as an assassination tool by a Sontaran which led to Wardog having to kill her to prevent her triggering all out war. (Wardog did NOT take kindly to the Sontarans forcing him into that situation. As his first appearance put it "I'm told you're very popular Mr Wardog." "Well, it's true to say I don't have many living enemies" Quite.).
One theory is also that given their time related powers Wardog, Zeitgeist, Millennium and Cobweb (Wardog's mind is immune to temporal distortion that would kill any other being) are actually Time Lord constructs, but that's going down a path I don't really see the need for personally.
The next time we saw them was in the pages of "Daredevils", a series which featured Captain Britain. Where their first appearance, with a larger team, is to kidnap Captain Britain and take him to Otherworld... He's not really happy about that as you'll see.
The little green guy(s) is one of my favourite Moore characters, his name is Legion because he really is many, but we'll get to that. I also really love that the trans-temporal, inter-dimensional team don't actually have ANY human members, and that Alan Davis REALLY loves drawing not terribly human looking aliens.
There's an explanation elsewhere that Cobweb's precognition are linked to her telepathy, she's in mental contact her past and future selves, forming a four dimensional web of awareness.
And that's their approach in a nutshell, they're businessmen/people/BEINGS.
At present Saturnyne, the deposed Omniversal Majestrix (Who could give Emma Frost lessons in being a top class, cold blooded, arrogant, superior.... word I am not allowed to use on scans_daily), is on trial for her life after Earth-238, one of the Alternates under her control, dissolved into complete and literal chaos (thanks to the deranged and godlike "Mad Jim" Jaspers and his superbeing killing machine, the Fury). Her prosecutor, Lord Mandragon, is also her judge, and is also her replacement, so has no desire to see her cleared. He destroys what is left of 238's Universe, ostensibly to prevent its madness spreading, but also destroying any evidence that might exonerate Saturnyne.
Captain Britain is her only witness, and the high handed approach of Mandragon pisses him off so much he starts trashing the court, which leads to a confrontation with the rest of the Captain Britain Corps. Since Saturnyne hasn't paid them yet, it's in the Executives interest to protect her and Captain Britain and they join the melee.
These first four panels are the first of what would have been the One Perfect Moments as Captain Britain fights Captain England...
I ADORE Cobweb, though she'd be hell to be on the same team as. It's worth noting that we don't find out what some of these SE members are actually called. The big insect is Oxo, the green haired female is Fascination , the floating tray with the holographic map thingie is Lady Burning-Fish. (Chris Claremont would later rename Fascination Scatterbrain, name the big lizard guy "Numbers" (He's their accountant), the yellow blank-armour-faced female "Ringtoss", but the floating ball and the shrub-like alien are unnamed, as far as I know). Just to confuse matters further, another team, the Technet, actually predate the SE, but weren't introduced until some years later, and they share some members between them, or at least have members of the same species (Legion's brother, Thug, was in the Technet and this may not be the same beings as Ringtoss and Numbers). Others we saw in the Technet were allies of Nightcrawler and Excalibur for a time.
Anyway, having escaped Mandragon, the SE arrive on our Earth where they remain with Saturnyne, who has taken shelter with Captain Britain in Braddock Manor (Where Captain UK, the only survivor of Earth 238 is also living). It's a slightly tense situation for all, but they make the best of it in true British fashion...
That is indeed Betsy Braddock on the far right of the panel, with her then boyfriend/colleague/fellow psi (Whose name escapes me, but he does meet an unfortunate end later, so it's not terribly important)
Legion is playing chess at the back there
Alas for this weird, if faintly idyllic, setting, a new arrival rears it's misshapen head. The Fury managed to escape universal obliteration because, frankly, it doesn't know HOW to be destroyed, and will just rebuild itself every time it gets close. So it's tracked Captain UK to Earth 616 and it is determined to continue it's program to destroy all superbeings.
Lady Burning Fish only communicates via haiku it would seem.
Zeitgeist and Wardog are at loggerheads. Wardog feels dutybound to protect Saturnyne (who will also be on the Fury's kill list) and assist Captain Britain in combat, Zetigeist is more pragmatic and feels that there's no money in this fight, they should just get the hell out of town and leave Saturnyne to her fate. Wardog overrules him and leads the team (other than Cobweb who lapsed into seizure as soon as the Fury started it's attack, and Zeitgeist who is looking after her)
It's not the SE's finest hour as the Fury is pure unreasoning hatred given form... and Legion's scene here was going to be the other perfect moment... albeit a rather sad one.
I loved this explanation for Legion's ability, something like that had never occurred to me (though it would be used again a few years later in John Byrne's Alpha Flight, when Flashback of Beta/Omega Flight had a similar power, and met a similar end). And now we find out something else as Cobweb's seizure becomes clearer, the Fury will destroy EVERYTHING and that's scrambling her powers...
In a nice Farscape like touch, I like that Cobweb and Legion were lovers.... it's unexpected, but no big deal...
I include this panel simply because I LOVE the Fury's design, it's so stark and ugly and sort of nightmare utilitarian. (And Captain Britain's comment is based on the fact he'd watched the entire universe it was a part of destroyed so had no reason to believe it could have survived)
The next to fall is Oxo, who is simply sliced in two by single swipe of it's arm... and Fascination STOPS smiling...
You begin to see why the Fury is so good at what it does.
As the fight turns even MORE against the team, Zeitgeist is still undecided about what to do... he wants to leave this place before anyone else dies, but that would mean getting involved, and he doesn't want to do that...
Still...
Zeitgeist makes Kitty Pryde look positively superdense by comparison, he's not just intangible, he's just... NOT THERE!
And there the pagecount forces me to stop, with the Fury as stopped as it can be for a while. Zeitgeist has saved the day, but the cost is that he forces Wardog to consider their options, and being the mercenaries that they truly are, they cut their losses and leave, if Saturnyne can't pay them (and she can't) there is no profit, and they have no loyalty to her or her cause so they vanish off into the multiverse to seek out new customers and new business opportunities... to fiduciarily go where no assorted alien beings have gone before!
(This was originally published in black and white, but I chanced upon the colour reprints before I could find the originals (which also lurk somewhere in my longboxes), so you'll have to make do with them)
Hope you enjoyed!
Way back in the late 70's and early 80's Alan Moore was writing, not for Marvel, but Marvel UK and that slightly looser playground gave him some fun opportunities.
The Special Executive actually debuted in the pages of Doctor Who Weekly, as mercenaries hired by the Time Lords as their agents and bodyguards during their four dimensional confrontation with a mysterious group called "The Order of the Black Sun". The first attack by the Order was meant to provent the Time Lords discovering Time Travel, but indirectly led to them being able to master time-travel in the first place (Moore didn't write all those Time Twisters for 2000AD for nothing)
The lupine alien Wardog was the first one we met, and then in a later story he's accompanied by the time manipulating Millennium, the telepathic precog Cobweb, and the intangible Zeitgeist, in a mission that saw Millennium mindwiped and used as an assassination tool by a Sontaran which led to Wardog having to kill her to prevent her triggering all out war. (Wardog did NOT take kindly to the Sontarans forcing him into that situation. As his first appearance put it "I'm told you're very popular Mr Wardog." "Well, it's true to say I don't have many living enemies" Quite.).
One theory is also that given their time related powers Wardog, Zeitgeist, Millennium and Cobweb (Wardog's mind is immune to temporal distortion that would kill any other being) are actually Time Lord constructs, but that's going down a path I don't really see the need for personally.
The next time we saw them was in the pages of "Daredevils", a series which featured Captain Britain. Where their first appearance, with a larger team, is to kidnap Captain Britain and take him to Otherworld... He's not really happy about that as you'll see.
The little green guy(s) is one of my favourite Moore characters, his name is Legion because he really is many, but we'll get to that. I also really love that the trans-temporal, inter-dimensional team don't actually have ANY human members, and that Alan Davis REALLY loves drawing not terribly human looking aliens.
There's an explanation elsewhere that Cobweb's precognition are linked to her telepathy, she's in mental contact her past and future selves, forming a four dimensional web of awareness.
And that's their approach in a nutshell, they're business
At present Saturnyne, the deposed Omniversal Majestrix (Who could give Emma Frost lessons in being a top class, cold blooded, arrogant, superior.... word I am not allowed to use on scans_daily), is on trial for her life after Earth-238, one of the Alternates under her control, dissolved into complete and literal chaos (thanks to the deranged and godlike "Mad Jim" Jaspers and his superbeing killing machine, the Fury). Her prosecutor, Lord Mandragon, is also her judge, and is also her replacement, so has no desire to see her cleared. He destroys what is left of 238's Universe, ostensibly to prevent its madness spreading, but also destroying any evidence that might exonerate Saturnyne.
Captain Britain is her only witness, and the high handed approach of Mandragon pisses him off so much he starts trashing the court, which leads to a confrontation with the rest of the Captain Britain Corps. Since Saturnyne hasn't paid them yet, it's in the Executives interest to protect her and Captain Britain and they join the melee.
These first four panels are the first of what would have been the One Perfect Moments as Captain Britain fights Captain England...
I ADORE Cobweb, though she'd be hell to be on the same team as. It's worth noting that we don't find out what some of these SE members are actually called. The big insect is Oxo, the green haired female is Fascination , the floating tray with the holographic map thingie is Lady Burning-Fish. (Chris Claremont would later rename Fascination Scatterbrain, name the big lizard guy "Numbers" (He's their accountant), the yellow blank-armour-faced female "Ringtoss", but the floating ball and the shrub-like alien are unnamed, as far as I know). Just to confuse matters further, another team, the Technet, actually predate the SE, but weren't introduced until some years later, and they share some members between them, or at least have members of the same species (Legion's brother, Thug, was in the Technet and this may not be the same beings as Ringtoss and Numbers). Others we saw in the Technet were allies of Nightcrawler and Excalibur for a time.
Anyway, having escaped Mandragon, the SE arrive on our Earth where they remain with Saturnyne, who has taken shelter with Captain Britain in Braddock Manor (Where Captain UK, the only survivor of Earth 238 is also living). It's a slightly tense situation for all, but they make the best of it in true British fashion...
That is indeed Betsy Braddock on the far right of the panel, with her then boyfriend/colleague/fellow psi (Whose name escapes me, but he does meet an unfortunate end later, so it's not terribly important)
Legion is playing chess at the back there
Alas for this weird, if faintly idyllic, setting, a new arrival rears it's misshapen head. The Fury managed to escape universal obliteration because, frankly, it doesn't know HOW to be destroyed, and will just rebuild itself every time it gets close. So it's tracked Captain UK to Earth 616 and it is determined to continue it's program to destroy all superbeings.
Lady Burning Fish only communicates via haiku it would seem.
Zeitgeist and Wardog are at loggerheads. Wardog feels dutybound to protect Saturnyne (who will also be on the Fury's kill list) and assist Captain Britain in combat, Zetigeist is more pragmatic and feels that there's no money in this fight, they should just get the hell out of town and leave Saturnyne to her fate. Wardog overrules him and leads the team (other than Cobweb who lapsed into seizure as soon as the Fury started it's attack, and Zeitgeist who is looking after her)
It's not the SE's finest hour as the Fury is pure unreasoning hatred given form... and Legion's scene here was going to be the other perfect moment... albeit a rather sad one.
I loved this explanation for Legion's ability, something like that had never occurred to me (though it would be used again a few years later in John Byrne's Alpha Flight, when Flashback of Beta/Omega Flight had a similar power, and met a similar end). And now we find out something else as Cobweb's seizure becomes clearer, the Fury will destroy EVERYTHING and that's scrambling her powers...
In a nice Farscape like touch, I like that Cobweb and Legion were lovers.... it's unexpected, but no big deal...
I include this panel simply because I LOVE the Fury's design, it's so stark and ugly and sort of nightmare utilitarian. (And Captain Britain's comment is based on the fact he'd watched the entire universe it was a part of destroyed so had no reason to believe it could have survived)
The next to fall is Oxo, who is simply sliced in two by single swipe of it's arm... and Fascination STOPS smiling...
You begin to see why the Fury is so good at what it does.
As the fight turns even MORE against the team, Zeitgeist is still undecided about what to do... he wants to leave this place before anyone else dies, but that would mean getting involved, and he doesn't want to do that...
Still...
Zeitgeist makes Kitty Pryde look positively superdense by comparison, he's not just intangible, he's just... NOT THERE!
And there the pagecount forces me to stop, with the Fury as stopped as it can be for a while. Zeitgeist has saved the day, but the cost is that he forces Wardog to consider their options, and being the mercenaries that they truly are, they cut their losses and leave, if Saturnyne can't pay them (and she can't) there is no profit, and they have no loyalty to her or her cause so they vanish off into the multiverse to seek out new customers and new business opportunities... to fiduciarily go where no assorted alien beings have gone before!
(This was originally published in black and white, but I chanced upon the colour reprints before I could find the originals (which also lurk somewhere in my longboxes), so you'll have to make do with them)
Hope you enjoyed!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 07:29 pm (UTC)Its pretty interesting seeing this, and kind of weird seeing all those members of Thug's species all at once like that.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 07:34 pm (UTC)Technically it's not "all those members", it's just the same member, repeatedly... so to speak. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 07:43 pm (UTC)I always had it in the back of my mind that Chiana from Farscape was visually reminiscent of Cobweb...and there's just enough British talent and comics influence on Farscape that one couldn't completely rule out the possibility that Alan Davis was an influence on the show's designers, though granted it's a long shot. But you make me sense broader similarities between the Special Executive and the crew of Moya that accounts for my devotion to both. I can't quite put it into words, but there's something there.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 09:17 pm (UTC)This looks super cool! I'd love to see these characters brought back... but considering the state of the comics industry these days, maybe it's for the best that they're not.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-14 02:36 am (UTC)