WEEK OF DOOM: Necrotek Rising!

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

Probably my favorite issue of John Francis Moore's Doom 2099 run. Just a done and one issue where Doom take's on the mystical creature, Necrotek, and has to use his greatest weapon of all, his mind, to beat him. From Doom 2099 #13.



Brought to you by the fine folks from the 90s.

It pains me to cut so much of this issue, espically the beginning. Now the usual artist for Moore's run, Pat Broderick, didn't pencil this issue. Instead, a fill-in artist by the name of Alcatena. Yep one word. Curious to see if they have done any work after this. I really loved the style they drew for this issue.

Anyway, some poor sap does what poor saps do dabbling in forces beyond their understanding and unleashes a demonic entity named Necrotek. Meanwhile, the young gypsy mystic Vox has taken Doom to a monastery on the hill tops near Latervia that where kept so secret they where hidden away even during when Doom ruled.

The reason of course is again to unlock Doom's missing memories. However, as the watcher of such ancient books is looking for a spell (unlike some this dude modernized his library. In book and online form. Course he goes for the online version and falls prey to Necrotek who kills the old man. So what does Necrotek want? Why what the wee Vox has. A mystical item that we all know and love from Marvel:






Of course Necrotek finds Doom and attempts at bargaining. Doom will not budge even calling him, "HELLSPAWN!". Necrotek then decides to go after Vox given reasoning has failed. Doom then uses the only bargaining chip that will get the demon's attention away from slaying the young boy:





Thank god for all the subplots that went on during this issue. After the pain of not scanning the first couple of pages after that it was a breeze which pages to scan. You had Fortune looking for her brother (which was the next big arc for this book) and then you got the "Asgards" who show up at the end of this issue.

The very next issue was the first big crossover between all 2099 books that involved the characters taking on the Norse Gods, who weren't really the true gods, just some poor people a megacorp used. But we got Avatarr and Halloween Jack from the crossover so WIN WIN!

Comments

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

Definitely agree on the art, this is quite damned good. And given that I've yet to read a DOOM 2099 book I didn't like, the content is the equal of the visuals.

I'd love to see what this artist could do with modern printing and coloring methods...

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I like the way Necrotek is drawn; it reminds me of totem pole carvings and the tribal tattoos of the Maoris. Also, the idea of magic accessed via cyberspace is an interesting one - if demons are summoned through the use of symbols, what happens if those symbols are on a screen? Would the demon then get free reign of the Internet? Would a reboot of the system cause it to vanish? Would the computer regard the demon as a computer virus? Could you download the demon onto a disk? The concept raises some interesting questions, I'll give it that.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

It's an interesting notion which I've seen looked on occasion;

The Technomages in Babylon 5

The early Buffy episode with Moloch, a demon trapped in a book, who escapes into cyberspace when the words of his binding spell are digitally scanned. (See kid, OCR IS evil!)

The Shadowrun RPG

In the Inferno X-men crossover, they had technorganic demons from Limbo invading Earth, with Nastirh, one of their leaders, attempting to utilise technlogy to catalogue his spells and give him easy indexed access to them, but finding that he couldn't do it directly, and used Whiz-Kid, a mutant boy with power over machinery and technology, to act as his go between.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Ah, pop culture. Whatever weird notion you can come up with, it's probably already been used.

[lonewolf23k.insanejournal.com]

Great minds think alike.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

The art is lovely, there's a sort of Coleen Doran vibe, without EVERYONE being disturbingly pretty all the time.

And yes, the tribal markings/circuitboard design for Nekrotek is very striking.

[sir_mikael.insanejournal.com]

I have this issue! It's like one of the only three Doom 2099 issues I have.
I love it. It's gorgous. I mean look at the panel where Necrotek breaks Cytorraks bonds!
Of course the whole concept of magic in cyberspace is an alluring and interesting one that deserves to be used more often.
I remember being so suprised at how humble Doom is in this incarnation. He's a bigger man than regular Doom. He doesn't claim the power, agrees that the boy is better at magic (and meant to be that way) but sees how his own strengths (battle experience, tactics, his brains and tech) can be used in the cooperative fight.

[lonewolf23k.insanejournal.com]

I agree on all counts. Also, he truely valued his allies, rather then seeing them as disposable pawns. It's as if this incarnation of Doom has finally realized that Raw Power just can't compare to the Power of Friendship.