Webcomic Week: Edison Rex

[lordultimus]

Edison Rex is a former digital-first comic turned webcomic by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver. It centers around Edison Rex, a Lex Luthor expy who discovers that his greatest enemy Valiant is a sleeper agent, which leads to Valiant destroying himself rather than destroy humanity, leaving Edison to take his place as Earth's protector.

Comments

[laughing_tree]

It's interesting how somewhere along the way of comics history, it became standard practice to closely base new superhero universes on the Marvel/DC Universes, complete with a roster of stand-ins.

I suppose it's because people realized a big part of the Big Two's appeal is that sense of history and a larger world, and visibly aping their universes is a handy way to evoke a similar sense.

[silverhammerman]

To think that back in the Golden Age, as defined as it was by shameless follow the leader tendencies, Captain Marvel was considered close enough to Superman and National/DC tied Fawcett up in court to the point of shutting down. Now much closer parallels, stand-ins even, are just an accepted trope!

[locuatico]

I think Kurt Busiek once talked about this. That, essentially, plagiarism and ripping-off is part of american comics DNA. Though he mentioned it in a positive light.

[locuatico]

Something I found interesting when DC did the original Hannah-Barbera stuff was... how much it felt like a separate superhero universe that did not felt derivative of neither Marvel nor DC.

[laughing_tree]

Same thing with early Image. Whatever else it was, it had that going for it.

[lordultimus]

One of the interesting bits is that all of the superheroes (and a couple of villains) are all named after comics companies. Valiant is named after Valiant Comics, The Eclipse is named after Eclipse Comics, Gladiator Gladstone is named after Gladstone Comics, etc.

[silverhammerman]

I really enjoy Edison Rex. It remixes these classic DC universe ideas but does them in a way that the real versions would never allow.

I keep forgetting that it's running as a webcomic now, and though it looks like it hasn't quite caught up with the point that the comixology collections have reached, I'll have to check once the story starts moving forward from what I've seen.

[zachbeacon]

The reveal related to Cerebella's division is truly horrifying.