Plumbing the obscure The Old Guard
Although summer blockbuster season has been interrupted, we’ve been fortunate enough to get some great TV shows based on comic books lately.
CALL it the Summer of the C-list.
Despite the pandemic, TV still has a lot of original content – much of which is based on comic books. But with so many shows lifting concepts, ideas and entire series from comics, most of the low-hanging fruit is long gone. A lot of today’s TV shows arise from pretty obscure material.
Which is not to say that any of this material, by virtue of being lesser known, is of lesser quality. Some of it is fantastic in its original medium, some of it gets better through adaptation, and some of it is both.
But, yes, obscure.
Snowpiercer
Take this for example. The first season of the Snowpiercer series ran from May 17 to July 12. It features class warfare among the last survivors of Earth, eking out survival on a perpetual-motion train traveling endlessly through an Ice Age hellscape. Response has been enthusiastic, and Snowpiercer has already been renewed for a second season.
But before it was a really good US TV show, it was a really good South Korean movie, based on a really good French graphic novel. Titled Le Transperceneige, the 1982 graphic novel has spawned several sequels and prequels – some of which haven’t even been translated to English yet.
That’s pretty obscure. Which brings us to three shows coming to their season finales this month. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., Doom Patrol and Stargirl aren’t obscure, precisely, but they certainly aren’t A-list.
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D
S.H.I.E.L.D., whose seventh and final season ends tomorrow, began in 1965 when then-tiny Marvel Comics was in the midst of its creative Big Bang. Created by the legendary team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. replaced a Human Torch feature in a book still titled Strange Tales from when it was a suspense book in the 1950s, taking over the half of the book not occupied by Dr. Strange. It repurposed Nick Fury from the company’s only war book, Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos, as the new, hard-bitten director of a secret espionage organisation dedicated to protecting the world – especially from its main foe, Hydra.
But despite its pedigree, S.H.I.E.L.D. has never found an audience. Marvel has attempted six or seven S.H.I.E.L.D. series, with and without Nick Fury, and none have lasted very long. Including the one starring Godzilla. (Yes, Godzilla.) The organisation has long been more part of the background fabric of the Marvel Universe rather than a headliner in itself.
Doom Patrol
On another front, Doom Patrol was created two years earlier, in 1963 at DC Comics. It was an offbeat feature that tried very hard to read like a Marvel title of the era (and mostly succeeded). But the title didn’t hit any kind of prominence until Scottish superstar Grant Morrison began writing it.
His run (1989-1993) introduced many of the bizarre elements that make the TV show such a treat, such as Crazy Jane, Danny the Street, Dorothy Spinner (and the Candlemaker), Flex Mentallo and Mr. Nobody.
Still, not exactly the Justice League, is it?
Stargirl
Stargirl comes closer to that standard: Both TV and comic book incarnations incorporate the Justice Society of America, the inspiration for the Justice League.
The JSA was a 1940s superhero group that DC Comics has continually tried to update with “legacy” heroes based on the originals, with varying success. Stargirl, as the modern incarnation of the original Starman and Star-spangled Kid, is one of those and usually appears with the team. But her own title, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., only lasted 14 issues.
Her TV show is doing better. It’s already been renewed for a second season.
Warrior Nun
Next up is Warrior Nun, whose first season dropped on Netflix on July 2. Talk about obscure: The source material is from tiny Antarctic Press, and the original six-issue miniseries, which ran 1997-98, has never been reprinted.
Not that it matters. Most of the Warrior Nun comics focus on Sister Shannon, who (spoiler) dies in the first episode on TV. The show focuses instead on a made-for-tv character, Ava (Alba Baptista), and that’s not the only big change. Some Warrior Nun comics are available in trade paperback, and TV viewers may enjoy that take on the concept. But right now the TV show is the only version of Warrior Nun most people are going to know, including comics fans.
While the Warrior Nun concept is more than 20 years old, The Old Guard is – despite its name – relatively new. Launched at Image Comics in 2017, the first five-issue miniseries was written by Greg Rucka (Whiteout, Stumptown )and drawn by Leandro Fernandez. A second miniseries, The Old Guard: Force Multiplied, just wrapped up and should be available as a trade paperback in September. A third miniseries, The Old Guard: Fade Away, is confirmed but unscheduled.
Netflix dropped an Old Guard movie July 10, to pretty much rave reviews. Starring Charlize Theron as the ancient Andromache of
Scythia, the movie varied from the comics in some major particulars but kept intact the basic premise of hidden, immortal warriors.
Rucka is a celebrated comics writer and Image is the third-largest comics publisher, so comics fans were well aware of The Old Guard before the movie. But I bet without Theron, nobody else would have heard of it.
Wynonna Earp
OK, raise your hands if you heard of Wynonna Earp before the Syfy series debuted in 2016. Anyone? Anyone?
And yet, Wynonna had been around in comic book form since 1996, when Image Comics published a five-issue miniseries by writer Beau Smith and artist Joyce Chin. Smith moved the series to IDW Publishing in 2003, where various series have been published ever since.
The TV show takes some liberties from the comics, where Wynonna works for “The Monster Squad,” corralling supernatural lawbreakers. The show, on the other hand, simplifies the concept (Wynonna uses her grandfather Wyatt’s magic six-shooter to kill “revenants”), adds or expands characters and mixes in more soap opera elements. I am more than OK with that.
The Umbrella Academy
Next: I’m not sure how many people had heard of The Umbrella Academy before it became a series on Netflix. (The second season dropped July 31.)
First published in 2007 by Dark Horse, I wouldn’t expect it to be widely known – except that it’s written by Gerard Way, the frontman for My Chemical Romance. So there may be a whole subculture of music/way fans who knew about it.
Probably not. Regardless, the TV show is excellent. While it mixes, matches or changes elements from the first two Academy miniseries (Apocalypse Suite and Dallas), the screen version retains the quirky humour that had me laughing out loud at the page. And the Season Two finale promises to deal with the mysterious, third Umbrella Academy miniseries, Sparrow Academy, which hasn’t come out yet.
Lucifer
Lastly there’s Lucifer, whose fifth season drops on Netflix Aug 21. As most are probably aware by now, it bears little resemblance to the mature-readers comic book on which it’s based. That concept spun off of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman ,and is much more serious and subtle than the TV show.
Which, it must be said, is something of a cliche: It’s a police procedural. “She’s a cop. He’s a devil. They fight crime!” But it’s a very charming and funny police procedural, and I’m probably not the only one who was grateful that Netflix saved it from cancellation (at Fox).
Or that TV saved these comics concepts from obscurity. My only regret is that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t last long enough to get to Godzilla. – Tribune News Service