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Underground > Comic Books >

7 Soldiers

  
  

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COBRAnomicon!
18:32 / 26.10.06
Yeah, I was hoping I was missing something hinting at more than that. After 4.8 issues of being an unstoppable ass-kicking machine, it's sort of a letdown to see him shuffle off under someone's control.

On the other hand, that does a lot to pump up Klarion's already-inflated Awesomeness Quotient.
 
 
Mario
18:33 / 26.10.06
Shudder-inducing, but it certainly makes sense, thematically and story-wise.

It also means, by the way, that Captain 7 was innocent.
 
 
Mug Chum
18:46 / 26.10.06
Hey, who better to decapitate a bratt-teen like K than Franko?

(jeez, those kids stories are f****** creepy)
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
19:18 / 26.10.06
It also -- neatly -- sets up Klarion's cameo in this week's 52, without spoiling anything. He's now, potentially, a real force to be reckoned with.

I desperately want a Ystina series, now. Very much a Silver Age Supergirl feel to the whole thing, and Ali-Ka-Zoom's line about forming her own Round Table was nice - playing into the idea of Sevens, forming little groups, and an echo of the Newsboy Army.

Nothing beats Ystina emerging from the Cauldron of Rebirth. "Gloriana! There is one!"
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
19:22 / 26.10.06
You know that suggestion about a separate spoilers thread?...
 
 
CameronStewart
19:28 / 26.10.06
Rather than setting up a seperate, no-spoilers thread, just wait a week and don't read THIS thread until you've got the comic, for heaven's sake. Obviously there will be discussion and spoilers!
 
 
Mug Chum
20:10 / 26.10.06
I was still hoping there would be some symbol or sigil-sign that clicked our memories, connections and skyhigh perspectives on all of it like Invis or Flex did for me. Of course, 7 will never be the same number again for me, and GodSight(skyhighRise) is still there, but still...

And Cam, I've seen you giving Christimas the grief up there for, what I presumed, downloading comics. I'm pretty sure anyone who's actually on Barbelith will be purchasing this (yes, I believe even those who created topics about how much it "sucks"). My own case, for instance, I read it on my computer 'cause my copy is due to arrive here in Brazil in two weeks (c'mon... could YOU have waited that long?). Christimas must be a out-of-States/UK buyer I assume.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
20:19 / 26.10.06
Ahem. Second to last page: OH MY GOD. "A pleasure doing business with you..."
 
 
Axel Lambert
20:35 / 26.10.06
Cam: Will buy, as I have all of the series. And paperbacks. Thought this issue was special case as it is so delayed. Here in Sweden it won't appear for another three or four weeks I hear.
 
 
Quimper
21:00 / 26.10.06
Yes, the "a pleasure doing business with you" page. I guess one member of the Newsboy Army managed to shed his coat and avoid the destiny Zor tried to give him. Unless that's a descendant of course.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
21:05 / 26.10.06
Certainly answers the unspoken question of where the Undying Don - Kid Scarface - got his start-up capital.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
21:25 / 26.10.06
"was still hoping there would be some symbol or sigil-sign that clicked our memories, connections and skyhigh perspectives on all of it like Invis or Flex did for me."

The "EKRITS SREIDLOS NEVES!" page did it for me.

I'd put so much time and work into the analysis of the Zatanna book... and she paid it all back.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:48 / 26.10.06
WHO THE FUCK CAN I DISCUSS MY SS ANTICIPATION WITH, THEN???

Blimey.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
21:49 / 26.10.06
That page is gorgeous. I really can't wait for everyone to finally see it.

The panel/page transitions between Ali and the Seventh Unknown Man suggest he might be one of them. Also: anyone else think the top-hatted jailor might be Zatara, paying back a hateful debt for his daughter (because she's Daddy's Little Girl) and making sure this can Never Happen Again?

Felt like the end of Promethea, partly because of the JHW3 and the colouring effects, only sped up ten times.
 
 
Tom Coates
22:09 / 26.10.06
I think if we can wait until the weekend to really talk about this in detail it would be a good thing for the people who havent' managed to get a copy yet, but I really think that's as long as certainly I'm able to wait. For god's sake guys! Go and get one! Now!
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
22:15 / 26.10.06
It's like I have that prisma-coloured fluid Spyder was drenched in at the beginning of #0 inside me and it threatens to leak out on everything. I fear I may use exclamation points or em dashes AT ANY MINUTE. Damn, there goes the caps lock.
 
 
The Falcon
22:40 / 26.10.06
For god's sake guys! Go and get one! Now!

Aye, really. If you weren't such part-timers, we'd not have a problem.

Filled in my crossword, and now anticipate janny-in-Flex-Mentallo effect.
 
 
LDones
22:52 / 26.10.06
Yeah, Molecules Turn On. And how.
 
 
CameronStewart
23:06 / 26.10.06
>>>think if we can wait until the weekend to really talk about this in detail it would be a good thing for the people who havent' managed to get a copy yet,<<<

All due respect, but I don't see why it should be the burden of the people who have a copy to refrain from discussing it, rather than the far-more sensible solution of those who don't have it to refrain from reading this thread until they do. I know, I know, long wait, exciting, Christmas morning, etc etc - but really, it's not THAT difficult to just skip this thread until you're caught up.
 
 
The Natural Way
09:13 / 27.10.06
That fucking Conan the King panel with Aurakles lounging around with his sexy slave-girls complete with suggestive spear talk. I love the fact that one of the unperishable treasures resides in the first superhero's penis. Bloody right too I say. I don't know, I could just go 'I like, I like, I like...' forever. There's so much to like. Why can't other superhero people even approach anything this DINNER!?
 
 
Tom Coates
10:10 / 27.10.06
Cam - yeah, you're probably right. I certainly want to talk about it.
 
 
Sniv
10:17 / 27.10.06
Cam - it's not THAT difficult to just skip this thread until you're caught up.

Yes. It is. It's like if your parents told you christmas will be delayed until June, and then on christmas day, you can't open your prezzies becuase you're at fucking work!! (go faster Friday, dammit!)

I think that you should be able to have a spoiler-y discussion though (just leave a spoiler-gap for us slo-bos). Me and Stoatie will just have to make do...

One thing I wanted to know though Cam, did you know the ending when you were working on your issues, or were you waiting for this week with bated breath as well?
 
 
Grady Hendrix
11:26 / 27.10.06
One of the hardest things about Seven Soldiers - and this is only apparent after reading the last issue - is how oddly this story has been told in single issues. With all the delays and my confusion over reading order (the trade order? the order they came out?) I wind up with a SEVEN SOLDIERS #1 that rewards me depending on how much I want to go back and immerse myself in the original miniseries which all feel a little like ancient history at this point.

I loved SS #1, but I refuse to do homework to understand who's who and what's what so what I'm left with is a finale that's full of noise and confusion but beautiful for all that. I miss things that are important like who the hell Zor is and why should I care? And the threat of the Sheeda seems far more diffuse and stock villain-ish than I imagine it's supposed to be. But there are beautiful moments like Vanguard's breathless, last minute rescue of the Shining Knight and Mister Miracle's arms forever breaking the chains of death.

At the same time, as wonky as the single issue format has been for this series, it's also been a neat stage trick to see these issues trickle out and slowly coalesce before our eyes into something greater than the sum of their parts like a great book slowly assembling itself out of smoke. It's a nice stunt, almost like stage magic, and like stage magic it's going to be an experience denied to future readers who will first encounter SEVEN SOLDIERS in the trades or in some massive Absolute edition. There's a performative aspect to this series, and like all performances it's trapped in time, here today and gone forever.

So up your sigils and your pop magick and your theoretical shaministic BS. For a year, we've all been involved in a reading experience that's the closest any of us will ever come to reading Charles Dickens the way he was originally published when it seemed like all England held their breath, waiting for the next chapter. Sure, we're a little smaller - a little nerdier - but we've been woven together into a communal organism where, for all our differences, our heads all throbbed with the same burning question: "What happens next?" And that's magic enough for me.

Directed to no one in particular, and to everyone all at once: thank you. This was fun.

Let's do it again.
 
 
CameronStewart
14:11 / 27.10.06
>>>One thing I wanted to know though Cam, did you know the ending when you were working on your issues, or were you waiting for this week with bated breath as well?<<<

Nope, I had no idea how it would end, so I'm as much the excited fan as anyone else today. When I was hired to do Guardian I was given the proposal for the entire SS project, which was was a pretty large document that went into detail about each of the seven characters, and explained who the Sheeda were and what they were doing (was the fact that they were evolved humans from the end of time revealed only now in SS#1? I can't remember, I've known that part of it since the very beginning), but the proposal synopsis did not include the end of the story. I remember at a Seven Soldiers "cast" dinner (most of us except Grant) at San Diego in 1995, our editor extraordinaire Peter Tomasi was saying that (at least at that time, when only Shining Knight, Zatanna, and Guardian had debuted) even HE didn't know how the whole thing was gonna end, and he'd never been in charge of a project and not known the finale, which was making him nervous. I'm sure we all had faith that he'd tie it all together though...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:31 / 27.10.06
That was, like...

WOW.

I can't even begin to imagine how cool it would have been had it come out on time, when my head was full of Soldiers and the cliffhangers were all still recent.

As it was, it was pretty fucking magnificent.
 
 
iamus
16:30 / 27.10.06
Oh that was pure, unfiltered, kaleidoscopic rainbow magic firing out of the page like fucking afterburner heat-haze.

What a comic. Is that what happens when you decompress super-compression?


I remember at a Seven Soldiers "cast" dinner (most of us except Grant) at San Diego in 1995

You guys and your Sheeda magic....
 
 
Sniv
16:42 / 27.10.06
That was, as promised, a total headfuck. Yay! I can't believe I had to wait all day for that, it was unbearable.

So, who's left on the wait for me brigade? As far as I know, it was only me and stoatie that couldn't play. Who wants to start cutting up this cadaver?
 
 
The Natural Way
17:02 / 27.10.06
There are loads of people. But, 'give a fuck, I say fan-wank away....
 
 
sn00p
17:13 / 27.10.06
SPOILERS (sorry i can't wait any longer)


















Spoilers!!!!
If Klarion is now king of the evil Sheeda his cameo in Infinite Crisis makes no sense.







SPOILERS
 
 
Mario
17:19 / 27.10.06
Only if he STAYS king. He could easily get bored at come back to the good old 21st century. It's MUCH more entertaining.
 
 
Mr Tricks
18:50 / 27.10.06
My bet is that Klarion hung out long enought as Sheda Boy king to infect them with his particular lust for adventure. perhaps experiementing with his own understanding of the secret of the spear (he's got father box as a teacher or at least oracle). Then it's back to the 21st century, initially after Teekle but then for an extended visit.

this also has me thinking of the debute of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN in the pages of tean titana. Wouldn't a FRANKENSTEIN / KLARION "team-up" be fun.
 
 
Quimper
18:55 / 27.10.06
*SPOILERS*


The character that really shone for me upon my umpteenth reading is Baby Brains/Ed Starsgard.

His reporting of his own "I Saved NY" story just smacks of his character. Having his and Jake's story unfold partially via his defense of his own actions is just wow. He armed Manhattan with protective suits and empowered them to fight back, just like he empowered Jake.

And that one panel later on, the zoom-in on his eyes after the Newsboy Army appearance..."I told you we'd beat you somehow." GAWD!!! I thought I was capable of emotion there for a second. The Newsboy Army feels so vindicated to me.

And now, Lars and Lena...so they're Suzi's, eh? The ethnicity issue is mindboggling. Is it something to overlook or dare we assume the worst...a) that Cap 7 didn't impregnate her, b) (gulp) that Baby Brains did, and c) that Ed allowed the punishment of Cap 7 to continue.

My IMHO is that Cap 7 wasn't innocent, that maybe he did touch her...just didn't knock her up. Let's assume that Baby Brains did. Am I undervaluing the TTT/Zor's involvement in this? Is the reason Cap 7 was punished, yet probably not the baby daddy, bc of the TTT's magic? Bc he gave CAP the coat of child molester and not Ed?
 
 
Sniv
19:48 / 27.10.06
Small problem with this idea - has Ed passed puberty? Does the baby-ness extend to biological functions too, or is he all man, but in a baby's body? I thought the children would be from Jim Harper, didn't he have blond hair? Nice pickup though.

NEW SPOILERS





My favourite bit of continuity fun was when we see the disembodied head of Hannah Control shouting at her husband. It made me laugh out loud (as opposed to turning the page and going "Fuuuuck... Woah..." etc).

One thing that has irked me more than anything esle was that we don't get the reveal of the seven unknown men, which I think we were told we'd get. The presence of the DC pin of TTT/Zor's tie makes my mind boggle even more. The only idea I had (and bear in mind it's Friday, and I'm more than a little stoned), was that the 7UM were the artists on each of the mini's and the TTT was GM. This would make JHW3 invisible, mind, but seeing as his art is so great in this issue because he is homaging the other artists, the interplay of the art styles was perhaps one of the ways the Soldiers were fighting the sheeda. These villains were used to their superhero battles being by one artist (Kirby, the Camelot flashbacks...). What happens when seven styles come together to fight them? (!!11!1 -> yes, I know how daft that sounds) OR!! JHW3 is the TTT, making his comic from all of the styles like a patchwork. GM is the 'architect of the universe who remains yet hidden'.

Or maybe not. MetafictionGO!
 
 
The Falcon
22:57 / 27.10.06
The DC pin is on the man(sx7) addressing Zor, though, John. GM, they call him.

Anyway... I like, I like, I like...

I love the passage from Shelly Gaynor that Baby Brains runs in his editorial; that final paragraph, so Granty, so affirming - 'Every day is mythology when you use your X-ray vision to really, really LOOK.' It's a touching capstone to her doomed 80's Dark Age romanticism back in #0; that first ish is really about her and I, Spyder looking back - nice to see the actors back in the finale, George has always been rather good at tearful farewells.

I also really like Millions the Mystery Mutt coming out trumps; confirming what blithe Mark Waid (it is a flattering portrait Paquette paints, but I'm sure it's the man who, so pleased at blending an obscure Easy Company and Howling Commando into an Amalgam character confessed he couldn't see straight afterward. Who else could have such fond love for trivia and the Frank Gorshin show?) had suggested to Li'l Hollywood back at the Hero-con in Bulleteer #3.

I love that there was a crossword, even though I too am bewildered at Lars & Lena's heritage now.

The future stuff, btw, Cameron - I think Sky-High first figured it in Bulleteer and this was later confirmed by SHADE in Frankenstein. Defo a shame about his role in the closer, speaking of, but really he got all the work done in his own mini - killing Melmoth, sabotaging the Sheeda fleet. Also the very idea of a team-up mini with him and Klarion in the future with Frank attempting to break free of his witchbrand as young K takes them on Dancers at the End of Time lunatic adventures(!) every ish is... well, it's pleasing.

Question: I dunno, I love that last page, as bright and Kirbyesque as MM's mini was dour and downbeat, but does anyone get the impression it's set-up? I'm kinda used to the ongoing fiction-fest that Marvel pump out with every mini leading into other things and so on - it's partly likeable and partly irritating - but if you check signifier's 52 blog above-linked for wk 25, there's mention that the 52 logo does look a lot like the other tie-pin in 7S#1 and I'm really still a bit befuddled by the Apokalips ('Four Horsemen of...'? there's a load of Intergang and Darkseid bubbling about right now, in any case)/New Genesis side of things throughout here, and someone here - though possibly not someone in whom I'd invest a ton of credibility - did mention some GM plans for a New Gods thing. Hmm.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
23:20 / 27.10.06
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks, JHW3, GM, CS and all the other 7S.

will come back later for proper dissection
after i've come down from this trip.
 
  

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