Friday, August 25, 2023

Even worse, the scars were how he got the girlfriend in the first place. Stupid time loop.

Not to Monday-morning quarterback and second-guess a series from 1992, but maybe they shouldn't have come right out of the gate with the Wolverine guest-spot? Count on a new number one for some sales, save Wolvie for issue three or so. I don't think they thought they had the space to breathe, though; from the way this issue's laid out: Warheads #1, written by Nick Vince, pencils by Gary Erskine, inks by John Beeston.
This issue introduces us to Mys-Tech's mercenaries, the Warheads; by killing off three of them. Kether Troop usually goes through wormholes and tries to bring back tech or knowledge that can then be made profitable, but squad leader Colonel Liger realizes what this trip was: closing a time loop, since they've arrived in the past. Specifically, a nothing little ghost town in Australia...circa 1988. Liger remembers a warning, that three would die, two men and a woman; and was already kicking himself for dating within his squad. While Liger tries to underscore the danger while being super-vague; one of his men goes off-mission quickly, sick of Mys-Tech and no longer caring if the timeline were altered, he opts to shoot the first person he sees and change history. Unfortunately, the first person he saw was Wolverine, so that didn't go super-well: sometimes, the timeline resists being changed, doesn't it?
Liger's girlfriend gets it, while the other Warheads download data from the Reavers' computers. While the surviving squad members wormhole home, Liger stays behind, to talk to Wolverine; in an attempt to change history. Two years later, a young Liger is British intelligence in Madripoor, where he meets Wolverine: for his first time, but Wolvie has a message for him. "Remember me...and remember this." It might've been left at that, if the young Liger hadn't fought back: Wolverine goes berzerk on him, trashing his face. Liger did remember when he saw Wolverine, but couldn't do much without fear of changing history; not that he would've been able to kill Wolverine with ten squads of Warheads. Still, his boss Grant isn't too broken up about the losses; worth it for the intel they pulled. Liger struggles to not kill him; but that seems like a matter of time.
Despite being by the same creative team, the next eleven pages seem to be a completely separate story; like the formatting was going to be closer to a British anthology book like 2000 AD but then opted for a more American-style comic. It's not bad, just unusual; and the second story intros new Warhead Leona, as she tries to sort her role in the squad.

1 comment:

  1. Even back then in the early 90's Erksine's work was so, so solid & detailed. I guess he honed that working on 2000AD, but his work would get even better by the time he worked on The Twelve (GOD I wish Marvel was doing more w/ those characters than they are. It's almost been 20 years and nothing!)

    Never bought a single issue of Warheads or Mys-Tech, as I only ever remember them from their Marvel trading cards at the time, 1992 I think or '93?
    Anyhoo, cool concept, just wish it'd been given more love by the main Marvel offices other than randomly throwing appearances by a Wolverine or FF.
    But then a lot, if not MOST of the Marvel UK titles suffered from being viewed as the red-headed stepchildren of Marvel, and that's mostly due to the then current owners of Marvel, Revlon.

    Maybe they'd have fared better as a concept that'd have been taken better care of if it had been published at Image back then?

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