“Yesterday’s” Comic> Metallix Free Comic Book Day

I’m not sure how extending your fingers like that stops lasers but I’m not trained in armor usage.

Metallix #1 (FCBD Edition)

Future Comics (April, 2003)

Bob Layton’s Future Comics seemed like a good idea at the time, but ran into some problems. The intent was to bypass Diamond (who had slowly worked it’s way into a monopoly of the comic distribution business and still has both a stranglehold on the business and often screws over smaller stores due to not really caring) and distribute online to retailers and readers with comics that appealed to the average reader instead of the niche that they were starting to fall into. It was actually ahead of it’s time seeing what the internet does today. But between lower than expected sales, leaving them open to being wooed by Diamond (thus disappointing the fanbase and investors), and an act of sabotage, Future Comics eventually closed shop. It’s kind of a shame because they had some good titles.

The cover story is about a group of hightly-trained specialists who share a liquid metal armor while operating as troubleshooters for Redstone Research. And hey, their boss puts the employees safety above the irreplaceable armor. How often does THAT happen? But as they survive a mission gone wrong (due to lack of information) and boost their combat training a man named Max Krome proves the old trope that having a certain name in a comic will mean you’re going to be evil when he attacks with his own liquid metal coating and goes after their boss and grabs the armor in it’s resting form. This looks like a great comic and I wish I had picked it up, but this was a time when superhero comics were in the final stages of their EXTREEMEMEMEMEMEMEEEEEEEEEEEEEE phase and heading to the dark and angsty of today, and I let it pass.

Peackeeper appears to be about one member of a group of them who decides to blow up a bad guy’s new high-security building because he can’t turn the criminal in. There’s less explanation here than in the previous comic but it still looks interesting, since we have a hero who doesn’t kill but will blow up a building after warning everyone to bug out. I do want to know more about this one.

The last two appear to be two pages from a comic that explains something about it but not much. Freemind is about a guy who can project himself into (I’m assuming because it isn’t clear) an android body and fight bad guys, while Deathmask has some kind of telekinetic powers. Ther eisn’t enough in either segment to properly judge.

I’m sorry Future Comics wasn’t a success because comics for the average person distributed over the internet is something we see now, but carrying the names that were attached to Future it might have started the process sooner and there are some good ideas in these comics. Peacekeeper never even made it to publishing. I wouldn’t mind seeing them try again with a series of webcomics or something because I’ve seen it work for smaller names in comics and names just as big (remember Mike Norton’s Battlepug?). If you come across some, give them a look.