Ah, 1993: a long comics boom, fueled by speculators and unwisely extended lines of credit, was about to catch fire and auger in. But this book probably had better sales than most today...I say, based on not much! It wasn't on Comichron's 1993 sales chart, but it had a shiny cover, which may or may not have gotten them anywhere. From 1993, Dark Guard #1, "Tour of Duty" Written by Dan Abnett, pencils by Carlos Pacheco, inks by Oscar Jimenez.
If you had been reading Marvel UK for a while, this book would've been your Avengers, bringing all your favorites together under one cover: Death's Head II! Motormouth and Killpower! Dark Angel! And the rest! Some of whom don't even survive the issue, although not in a dramatic, heroic sacrifice, but by opening an airlock when attempting to leave in a tizzy.
Wikipedia cites this as the book that broke Carlos Pacheco in America, and for that early in his career it's polished stuff! And we've seen Dan Abnett's work on the blog a number of times, usually with more recognizable characters. Actually, I did like Motormouth (early Gary Frank art!) before Killpower kinda took her book over. Come to think of it, the big menace the Dark Guard are brought together to fight, evil organization Mys-Tech, were the bad guys in her first issue too. I have zero recollection of what they were up to. Maybe if they had been used in a non-UK book; which would've made them seem big and badder, and hyped up the UK stuff. Hell, they could still be around, for all I know. Maybe they won...
Maybe? Idk though, it's not like that whole imprint was really getting a lot of love and support from the main branch anyways.
ReplyDeleteAhh early Carlos Pacheco art. Damn, you can really tell how far he's come since then.
And it looks like they slid in an appearance by the Jack Kirby's Highfather too. Nice.