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7 Soldiers: Guardian

 
  

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Eskay Uno
17:48 / 08.09.05
Questions...

Is the Terrible Time Tailor one of the 7 unknown mystery dudes from slaughter swamp? Or is he Melmoth, the Sheeda Queen's husband? The 7umd's are shown to be putting a team of 7 together in 7S #0 (specifically creating a new uniform for I, Spyder) but here in Guardian #4, the TTT seems downright evil. Or does he only seem evil to the kids?

Are Gimmix and L'il Hollywood indeed one and the same? Gimmix did go on about demon-trauma in 7S #0 - a reference to her childhood Sheeda encounter?

Did I, Spyder betray his team or was he enslaved by the Sheeda? The last time we saw him in issue zero, he was fighting them off while his team got slaughtered.

Any one else notice the continual references to Red and Gold? Ed mentions the Gold place coming unhinged. Over in Klarion #3 Melmoth mentions mining for gold in the Red place. In Shining Knight #1(as mentioned by someone else elsewhere), the Sheeda Queen says that 'the colours of this age are red and bleeding gold'; in SK #3, Ne-Bu-Loh recovers the cauldron from Don Vincenzo's mansion on the corner of Orange Drive and Sunset Boulevard. Can this colour-play be some kind of alchemical reference? I believe a process of reddening comes before liquid gold can be created in alchemy. Hey Chad - red and gold and alchemy &/or the Qabalah - any insight?
 
 
The Natural Way
17:49 / 08.09.05
That was me, Ben. Not Quantum. Says so above. Logging in probs. Figured all of the above already (apart from the Suki bit - prolly was her, wannit?), but good that someone should point it out on-thread. Really fucking scary stuff. The Lodge is proper Black Lodge, innit?
 
 
The Natural Way
17:50 / 08.09.05
Mirror bit straight outta Snow White via Ring 2.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
17:57 / 08.09.05
I'd say TTT is pretty much 100% evil. What with the whole driving young children to sex and murder. He also cops to bringing Gloriana and her ilk to the DCU to begin with.

I don't think he's one of the SUMOSS either. Grant's intimated that they're all old DCU characters or something in one of the more recent interviews.

And yeah, it's pretty much the last episode of Twin Peaks condensed into one comic book page. Quite an astonishing achievement, to be honest.
 
 
Aertho
18:28 / 08.09.05
Fuck. How Why What.

My local shop was SOLD OUT of Guardian 4?

Stone K. - "Red" and Qaballese corresponds to Geburah, the sphere of WAR, sagacity, judgment, what I call the "how of we". Basically, Geburah is the sphere that squeezes the juice out. Some Gnostics believe that Geburah is the location of a hole in the tree of life - one that lets in demons and qlippoths and meaninglessness. "Gold", on the other hand corresponds to Tiphereth, the sphere of SOUL, harmony, peace, and the location of the "I". Think of yourself as a finite mote in a sea of emotion and reason... that "self" is your Tiphereth. Hence, when you get a whole bunch of Tiphereths together, it becomes "we", and getting that bunch to exist together needs both Red WAR, and Blue WORK.

Since Chesed (Blue WORK) isn't referenced at all in this story, and you need Blue to balance Red... I don't really know what to think of that. I've given up trying to get some magickal analogies out of all this.
 
 
The Natural Way
18:40 / 08.09.05
Well if TTT isn't related to the Avatar(?) used by the SUM, I'd say there's something very odd going on. They even use the same base of operations, fergawdsake (like the black/white lodge of TP fame).
 
 
X-Himy
19:24 / 08.09.05
Well, did Captain 7 molest/murder Chop Suzy, or someone else. I think that is what confused me about the suits, as I am not quite as familiar with that Morrison device. Was the ability of the Time Tailor to merely show them their future, thus corrupting them, and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? Or would they have ended up like that without ever meeting the TTT? Or, did the "suits" made by TTT affect their course of action.

That being said (asked as it were), I am confused by the chronology. You say that the Captain 7 incident happened simultaneously in the past and present. Could you please qualify a bit for a poor fool. Also, I don't know necessarily that Millions was killed. He was an old dog after all at the time of Mo's funeral.

Still, reread it a couple hours later after class. It stuck with me all through my classes, and I could not stop thinking about it.

I also figured that we'd have Newsboy army appearances in each of the Soldier's books. Ali Ka-Zoom and Kid Scarface are dead. Chop Suzy and Millions are dead. Captain 7 is was pushed into the cabinet, possibly dead (either from natural causes in the cabinet, or because the burning of the cabinet affected him), or is alive, escaping/leaving the cabinet at a later date. Baby Brains is Ed, and will probably spend a lot of his time clinging to Jake's shoulders (great final images by the by). And Lil Hollywood is my bet for Gimmix. There is an age thing, but in hypertime...

Actually, there are hints that Gimmix is much older than she lets on, and either surgery, or some sort of age retardation is certainly possible.

So, unless we work in flashbacks, or have more ghosts, are we going to see more of the Newsboy Army (particularly Captain 7)? I want to know, and wish that we do. And who wants to start matching up the Newsboy Army with Seven Soldiers 0 or with today's Seven Soldiers? I am not saying that they match up necessarily, but certain driving forces?
 
 
Eskay Uno
19:35 / 08.09.05
Notice the themes: Transformation. Changing clothes/uniforms/identity. Growing up. Maturing and expanding. Sex and death and blood. Harrowing/harvesting - collecting/producing gold from red places/blood/sacrifice/war. Cycles. Rebirth. Maybe the Sheeda are necessary agents of growth and change?

In Guardian #1 Ed tells Jake that the Guardian Heights building was like Ed's body. As it was being "invaded" by "terrorists", Jake was like an antibody fighting them off. Could the Sheeda then be like bacteria, introduced to strengthen/refine the DCU? They're certainly making some of it's lesser known heroes stronger, healthier, more vital than they've been.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
20:06 / 08.09.05
Just re-read it, and damn if it isn't chilling the way the Sheeda are harvesting kids...and cute dogs! For kicks.
Liked the general fairytale theme of encroaching puberty leading tp trouble. Just a very sad and creepy issue. I'm really warming to the Sheeda getting hurt.
 
 
Eskay Uno
20:09 / 08.09.05
There's plenty of BLUE in Klarion, Chad:

In #1, while talking to Brother Ezekiel, Klarion reveals that the place from which the founders of Limbo town came was called Blue Rafters.

In #2, while finally making it up to the world above, Klarion sings "Through hardship, we climb to higher towns! There to Abide! In Blue Rafters."

In#3, Klarion says: " I'll walk beneath Blue Rafters. Alone." (to which Teekle replies, "Not always Blue, Brother Klarion. Evil will come to Limbo Town.")

So where is Blue Rafters? Any connection to the Sheeda? And Blue + Gold + Red = ....?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
20:37 / 08.09.05
"War and blue running rivers of Sheeda blood, Vanguard!" - Shining Knight #4.
 
 
Are Being Stolen By Bandits
20:44 / 08.09.05
So where is Blue Rafters?

The sky.
 
 
Mario
20:50 / 08.09.05
Blue Rafters = blue ceiling = the sky outdoors, I thought.

And yeah, it's clear that Captain 7 molested/killed Chop Suzie (who "everybody loved" at some later date. He's the "poor foolish boy" mentioned in Zatanna #3.

And just because I can't stop making annotations.

Page 10: The possessed Mo Colley says "mmm...death".

Page 13: The Newsboy Army are all dressed in black. Probably for Mo's funeral. It's also clear that Captain 7, for one, is at least 17, tho he doesn't look it.

Page 15: "A spear that never was thrown". The spear of Lugh? The Spear of Destiny?

Page 16: Apparently, 7S #1 occured recently enough to have "just" happened. We all assumed it was a prologue. But what if all these minis happen before that issue?

Page #18: "Only a day will have passed" Possibly relevant, given the chronology issues. Worth remembering, anyway.

I'm predicting, BTW, that Captain 7 will show up in Frankenstein, and Lil' Hollywood in Mister Miracle. Call it a hunch.
 
 
Mario
20:56 / 08.09.05
Oh, and the Gold place refers to Cyrus Gold, who drowned in Slaughter Swamp and became Solomon Grundy.

I also think that (on page 17) the second panel of Captain 7 (and the bottom panel) takes place afterwards, not "at the same time". He's drawn slightly older.

Were I to theorize, I'd say that it occured after he came back from college, and after he did...what he did. The TTT was the Army's last adventure, but they met one more time....
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:22 / 08.09.05
Well, did Captain 7 molest/murder Chop Suzy, or someone else.

I assumed it was someone else, to be honest... someone still a child when he would be an adult.
 
 
Aertho
21:45 / 08.09.05
Waitaminute. So nobody is looking at that post-funeral scene and thinking Chop Suzi is preggers? She's got her hand on her tummy twice, and she looks hella pregnant in the Poor Ol Millions panel. Then she and Cap 7 opt out of kid's games, and come up with excuses in the very next panel.

Dude. They'd already done it. If she's 13 at that oint, and he's 17, that's still statutory, right? Even with consent? I think they push him into the cabinet later, after the horrors of Slaughter Swamp, when they find out that Suzi died... they "punish" Cap 7. Bet it was miscarriage complications that killed her.

I was wrong about the fuck off Carla. Ah well. Jake's gonna get his egomaniac hero on in other ways.

Blue Shmoo. Sorry. I doubt Rafters or bloody rivers count.

Star columnist ofr the Daily Recorder is The Whip. I'm with the group that thinks Lil Hollywood is Gimmix. She freaks out early in 7S:zero at the mention of the huge spider. At the time we thought it was the huge spider, but she said light hero work. Maybe she knew about the Sheeda, and that's why she threw up and got fetal?

Remember that Planetary where they all go to London to be at the funeral for the Constantine analog? And they meet a Superman analog who was retrofitted to like Thai rentboys and Nazis or someting? To make him harder, and thus more appealing? That's what I immediately went to. The golden age of kid's adventures was dragged under by the "Identity Crisis" of the Modern Age.
 
 
Mr Tricks
21:55 / 08.09.05
yeahh... I also read it as Capt 7 killing the old dog who attempted to save Chop Suzy.

Also of interest; while Capt 7 seemed slightly older in the panel after his destiny was revealed/imposed he was still waring his costume. In the following panel he's dressed in a college style varsity jacket AND was blindfolded. I suspect he was either executed or exiled into Ali-Kazoom's chest as punishment for his crime.

Is Baby Brain to Jake Jordan what Wing was to Crimson Avenger? An unmentioned sidekick/soldier?

TTTT the golden age Melmoth? I think so.

Also enjoyed the grainy "Newsreel" quality to those flashbacks.
 
 
Eskay Doss
21:55 / 08.09.05
I also figured that the Blue Rafters meant the sky, but does that mean the folks from Limbo Town came from up, up, and above? Might they actually be related to the Sheeda somehow?

Mario: I don't think the Gold Place is Cyrus Gold. It's a place after all, not a person, just like the Red Place is Mars. Perhaps, when it bacame "unhinged", the Gold Place turned into Slaughter Swamp?

"A spear that never was thrown"... could it be... the Bulleteer?

Cameron, this issue was superb! I loved loved LOVED the openning sequence with the kids! It was like an amalgam of the Little Rascals, the AppleDumpling Gang and some Hannah Barbera cartoons on psychotropic drugs! GREAT facial expressions throughout, too. Baby Ed breaking up and crying, man that was so well done! Your kids actually look like kids! The subtle aging was done just right. And that scene inside the swamp house with the TTT - sooo creepy. What's next on your slate, and why didn't they put you on Mr. Miracle?

I loved this issue and am digging the saga thus far, but I must admit the Guardian story didn't conclude AT ALL if you were getting this solely as a stand-alone four issue mini. I guess Seven Soldiers #1 is essential reading no matter what 7S title you're following.
 
 
Aertho
22:05 / 08.09.05
Gold Place is Cyrus Gold's place. It became unhinged from time and space. It's where things go soft and change.
 
 
The Falcon
22:19 / 08.09.05
Surely the red & gold is just autumnal imagery?

Where do Sheeda come from - Summer's End, innit?

Anyway, wow. Yeah. Guardian's been hit'n'miss for me; the even no.'s have been ripper, but the odd's not so much. The whole wormgod train and that(Hurricane Gloria)'s just been so much preiterative foreshadowing. Which might be why this book has the best chance of surviving post-7S. Hero was the most straight-up, too. Is he supposed to have Jay-Z's haircut and head minus lips, I've often wondered?

Not sure if it's pure Stan'n'Jack or plain Jack; 'wouldja believe' reads like the former, though.

Liked the noise lines in the colouring, also.
 
 
Aertho
22:29 / 08.09.05
Any ideas why Larry would be called "El Mar"? Doesn't that mean "The Sea"? Why would he have a Spanish codename?
 
 
Eskay Doss
22:56 / 08.09.05
The ocean! The ocean is blue, too!!!
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
23:55 / 08.09.05
From Guardie #2:

"..Lauren Marcus would be mourning a daughter too."

El Mar = Larry Marcus.
 
 
Mario
23:58 / 08.09.05
I assumed El Mar was chosen because his name was Larry Mar-something. Just like J-Lo.

And yeah, I was suggesting that "the Gold place" is "the place that belonged to (Cyrus) Gold". I should have been clearer.

Thought:

if (as seems possible) Suzie was pregnant...what if the child survived? I'm starting to wonder about the Bulleteer.
 
 
LDones
00:27 / 09.09.05
Quite a 4th issue. Unsettling.

Some random thoughts

- Blue Rafters IS the sky, but it appears to be meant as the name for the world itself as we know it as well. When Klarion says Blue Rafters, he means our world, not a world in our sky.


- The Terrible Time Tailor is one of the Seven Unknown Men. He's using their time sewing machine, he's in Slaughter Swamp in the exact cabin Spyder goes into, he looks exactly like they've been depicted all along. He's one of them. Whether he's a traitor or just appears evil in light of his actions is less obvious.

Morrison did say in the past that one of the 7 Soldiers would be a traitor. And on every team of 7 we've seen thus far, one of them has turned 'traitor', or been thought of as such.
(Newsboy Army: Captain 7)
(Vigilante's team at Miracle Mesa: an Unknown superhero who jumped ship, or Spyder (don't know if he counts, I think he's got a Spine Rider).)
(Knights of Camelot: Galahad, who was corrupted)
(Seven Unknown Men: Terrible Time Tailor (whoever he really is in DCU terms))


- Ed is the spirit of superhero comics made flesh. Brilliant, visionary, but never matured, just gotten old.


- On page 13, panel 5, Suzi is most definitely packing a belly, beyond any doubt. Note also the sideways glances she and Captain 7 make in a few panels over the next few pages. It was definitely she who Captain 7 was involved with, and I think that Suzi's death, possibly from childbirth as mentioned above, and the stress of later secrets being revealed probably drove them all a little crazy to punish him and dump in the cabinet.


- I've been thinking for awhile that these minis are largely prequels to 7S#0, but I don't think it's that linear. Bear in mind that Neh-buh-loh says "The Harrowing has begun." in 7S#0, and in Zatanna#3 says the Harrowing will begin after he's delivered the Cauldron. But the SHeeda exist outside of time for whatever reason, so there may be no nailing it down.


- Ed specifically says that a columnist (The Whip) and 6 others disappeared out at Miracle Mesa. That's 7 total, when we saw only 6 out there. So either there is a hidden seventh out there with them, or it's a screw-up.


- Love the reveal that this team of 7 Soldiers is being put together specifically so they would never meet, and would not know who one another were - to protect them from the Sheeda, and perhaps each other.


- I Heart Jake Jordan. He's strappin' a baby to his back and kickin' ass across town to go save his wife, accepting parental and husbandly roles.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
00:48 / 09.09.05
It's possible that the Seventh Soldier from the Whip's team was killed by the Sheeda on the way there, or taken control of and forced to bow out - ensuring their failure. It's possible that nobody knows only six of them disappeared in the desert, if everyone thinks the seventh went as well.

Think we'll find out who it was?
 
 
Aertho
01:04 / 09.09.05
El Mar = Larry Marcus.

Missed that. Thanks.

if (as seems possible) Suzie was pregnant...what if the child survived? I'm starting to wonder about the Bulleteer.

Good call. She's covered in silver, but are we all picking up an ethnic vibe? I thought Alix Harrower sounded a bit nondescript, but were the initial sketches of a black woman in a penis hat? T'Would work for the sex-sex-sex theme we're all pickin up too, just now it's kind of sad. We'll see.

he means our world, not a world in our sky.

Of course. This is a boy from a society that has a figurative and literal ROOF over their heads. Their entire language and worldview would be determined by a lack of infinite overhead. To Klarion, we'd HAVE to have something over our heads, and to him, it's a blue field, hung really high up. Surprised that needed clarification.

The Terrible Time Tailor is one of the Seven Unknown Men.

George Burns people. The SUMOSS maybe the seven parts of the TTT, or he's their wicked gestalt. Isn't the Devil only God when he's drunk?

Also, I doubt Grant would do this again, but isn't Grant Morrison himself a DCU character from years past? The SUMOSS and the TTT are doing weird editorial things to the characters, recontextualizing them, growing them up, bringing in enemies... etc. Just a thought, a boring one actually.

one of the 7 Soldiers would be a traitor.

I can't believe you're throwing Captain 7 and Galahad in with I, Spyder. Who betrayed the JLA 7? J'onn, when he was gurgling in a volcano? Or Bats, for being spitroasted while the team did the real work?

I think the traitor, if there's a new one (I think I, Spyder counts as a "soldier" through to the end.), is gonna be Mister Miracle, only because he's theorized to want to seek peace and treaties. He won't play by the storybook rules, and he'll get wasted for it.

So either there is a hidden seventh out there with them, or it's a screw-up.

I doubt it's a screw-up. I bet there's somebody out there.

So nobody's gonna fight me on the Jackie outburst in 7S#0? After Boy Blue says there's a saddle and harness on a gigantic spider, she flips out. Since she's the Zero Soldier who ends up revealing the means of stopping the spider anyway, why would she speak out then? I know, I know, little things... but we've seen clues. Blood Red Whiskey? How's that work?
 
 
X-Himy
01:36 / 09.09.05
I still don't understand the fictionsuit thing well. Would Ed have grown up into a normal body if it were not for the TTT? Would Captain 7 have done what he had done?
 
 
Mario
01:39 / 09.09.05
I think he just created an alter-ego (a "secret identity" of sorts) based on how he'd theoretically look as an adult.
 
 
X-Himy
01:44 / 09.09.05
Well yes, I get that is what happened in the present. But in the past, if Ed had not been given the "suit" by the TTT, had not been pushed into that role, would he have grown into the man in the screens? Or was his mental mutation also going hand in hand with a physical mutation?
 
 
LDones
01:48 / 09.09.05
X, I think you may be fixating on particulars that Morrison generally does not choose to clarify. Did the Time Tailor ruin their lives with suggestion or just reveal the horrible truth of painfully growing old and apart and insane? Does it matter? Not to George Morrison, and I tend to agree.

Come here, put there.
 
 
Aertho
01:50 / 09.09.05
Fictionsuit ? TTT "suit"

In the case of the former, here are two definitions. One, from inside the story of the Invisilbes refers to the ability for John A Dreams to play several roles in the story. Secondly, and more commonly used, are "fictionsuits" as the occur in this world. X-Himy is your internet fictionsuit. When I write myself into a story, it becomes a fictionsuit.

In the case of TTT, he merely makes the kids percieve the world as they would as adults. This doesn't do anything really. Sure, it scares the hell out of them, but destiny is what you make it. I wonder if prophecy is another theme? Gloriana is trying to escape prophecy, so's the Newsboys... Anyway, the TTT didn't do anyting but make them self-conscious. Ed wouldn't have been a freak his whole adult life if he'd not thought about it that way. But he did, and STILL invented the Guardian newsmag and his empire. Don Vincenzo became a successful mobster, but felt guilt his whole life because he should have been better. There is a big self-fulfilling prophecy involved here, but don't get hung up on the "suits"...

Did that help?
 
 
X-Himy
02:30 / 09.09.05
It does a bit Chad. Much thanks.

I guess my question is half rhetorical, and half not. But I think I like your idea on it.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
04:06 / 09.09.05
i'm a little confused by the Captain 7 thing. I understand that a theory is that he killed Chop Suzi and maybe Millions. But what does this exactly have to do with their relationship? and his comment "No! She wanted me!"

I mean...what is the story there? I can't seem to reconcile any scenario in my mind...Birdie, you seemed to have an idea regarding it...can you elaborate more?



(And Cameron...Baby Brain is the best comic book baby depiction I've ever seen! This issue was easily the best thing of yours I've seen. Congrats.)
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
04:15 / 09.09.05
Well, my take is that in the sort of in-between space of the Outfits, Captain 7, as an "adult", believes that Suzi, also an "adult" (and therefore "of legal age"), wants to consummate their relationship. In that in-between space, presumably, they have what he perceives to be consentual sex. However, in physical reality, she is 14 (or potentially even younger) and since Cap is of college age, and visibly older than the rest of the Newsboy Army, he is, in the technically physical reality, a child molester. Which is why he says "No, she wanted me." They all thought they were adults, but at the same time knew that they weren't.

It strikes me as potentially the worst thing anyone could ever do to someone via time manipulation, as far as emotional devastation goes, except maybe making them kill their own infant selves.

I'm really quite fascinated with this emerging theme of adolesence and maturity running through the project. Now, especially.
 
  

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