The Alternate History Rag

Reviews of MARVEL 1602, GIRL GENIUS and LIBERTY FROM HELL

By Kurt Wilcken

Some people call it a short attention span. I like to think of it as having a variety of interests. That's why I sometimes use this column, which is theoretically about role-playing games, to talk about non-gaming stuff that happens to interest me.

As it happens, in the last month or so I've gotten several books that I thought I'd share. If we stretch the point a little, we can call them all Alternate History Stories. That's the beauty of RPG's: just about anything can be considered background material for the next campaign.

Marvel 1602
Marvel Comics
Written by Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Andy Kubert
Digital painting by Richard Isanove

I missed MARVEL 1602 when it first appeared, although I coveted it from afar. I've enjoyed Neil Gaiman's writing and I like this historical period; but the series came out at a time when I was reducing my comic book purchases. And, I'm one of those annoying comic book customers who say, "Dang! I missed #1 and 2 of this miniseries. Do I really want to pick up #3?"

Fortunately for stingy customers like me, there are Graphic Novel Compilations. I bought MARVEL 1602 this past month and I am extremely impressed.

The story is set at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century. Queen Elizabeth is on the throne of England, but is not expected to live long. James of Scotland is waiting in the wings. Across the Channel, the Inquisition holds Spain in its grip, and in America, the Virgina Colony struggles to survive. Strange portents appear in the sky and people fear the End of the World is coming.

But strange creatures and people with remarkable abilities are coming too. Some are merely men of remarkable talent and skill, such as the Queen's spymaster, Sir Nicholas Fury. Some are mysterious, such as the Court Physician, Doctor Stephen Strange. Many are downright unnatural, such as the blind bard Murdoch, who is as fearless as the devil; or Carolus Javier, whose school outside London protects the Witchbreed, humans with uncanny powers.

No, the story insists, this is not an Elseworld, not an Imaginary Story. This is the Marvel Universe, except that something has happened. The heroes have arrived four hundred years too early. Something has gone terribly wrong.

I have to admit that the explanation of what has gone wrong, how the situation came to be, and how reality must be repaired, is the least satisfying thing about this series. But to me that doesn't matter. The fun is in Gaiman's beautiful characterization and the game of recoginzing the old familiar Marvel icons in Elizabethan hose rather than modern Spandex, and from seeing them fresh through the translation.

There are many lovely moments in the book, such as the banter between King James and Petros, the messanger who "runs fast"; or the scene in which a certain Mutant Master of Magnetism first demonstrates his power; (yes, I was expecting it, but it was still beautiful). Some of the in-jokes are a bit forced, such as Javiers wish that he could construct "...a room in which dangers would come from nowhere..." to train his students; or the revelation that young Robert Trefusis, the lad in Javier's group with ice powers, is the grandson of Sir Francis Drake, (Okay, Bobby Drake. We get it now). Some of them are wonderfully apt, such as Sir Nicholas' assertation to his young assistant Peter Parquah, "We are the Queen's shield. We are the nation's shield. Never forget that."

"I love to make things," Peter says in another scene. "I once watched a drop of dew in a spider's web, magnifying the blade of grass beind it. Which made me think, some of us can see like hawks, but many of us can not, and if I were to grind some glass to the shape of the dewdrop..." That little bit wonderfully evokes not only Peter's fascination with spiders, but an echo of Uncle Ben's microscope, which symbolizes the Modern Peter Parker's love of science.

The artwork by Andy Kubert and the digital painting by Richard Isanove is beautiful and conveys both the story and the period well. Kubert does a good job of keeping the characters distinct, which is not always easy when the heroes are not in uniform. The volume also includes the covers to the<

GIRL GENIUS
Airship Books
written by Phil and Kaja Foglio
drawn by Phil Foglio

I also finally caught up on the back issues I was missing of GIRL GENIUS, the fantastic steampunk romp from cartoon legend Phil Foglio. I first encountered Foglio's work in the back pages of DRAGON magazine, where back in the '80s he had a long-running comic strip called "What's New", which took a light-hearted look at the world of role-playing games; (See? I knew I'd find a gaming connection here someplace). He has illustrated many of Robert Asprin's "Myth" books and even written and drawn a couple of miniseries for DC Comics. His wife Kaja is also an illustrator and the two collaborate on writing GIRL GENIUS.

GIRL GENIUS bills itself as a "Gaslight Fantasy with Adventure, Romance and Mad Science" and it delivers on all counts. Agatha Clay is a young engineering student at the Transylvanian Polygnostic University in a world somewhat resembling Victorian-Era Europe, but with the addition of huge, fantastic, steam-powered, lightning-shooting, clockwork inventions; a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war and Mad Science rules the world. It's the sort of place in which Doctor Doom would feel right at home.

Unbeknownst to herself, Agatha is a "spark", a person with a creative genius for invention, or more vulgarly, a Mad Scientist. "Sparks" are generally considered menaces to society by most ordinary people and as unwanted competition by the "sparks" who already wield power. Agatha also has a connection to the Heterodyne Family, a group of adventurers whose heroic deeds are the stuff of legend and who mysteriously disappeared many years ago and who, it is said, will someday return.

She finds herself fleeing from Baron Wulfenbach, the cruel overlord who rules most of Europe from his invincible aerial castle, a zeppelin the size of a city. He sees Agatha as loose cannon, and in a world where cannon are frequently mounted on twelve-foot-tall mechanical legs which can walk by themselves, this is not a good thing. The Baron's son Gilgemesh, also a gifted "spark", has a more romantic interest in Agatha; which she might reciprocate if not for the flashes of his father she occasionally sees in his behavior.

In her adventures, Agatha meets a slew of weird and wonderful characters. There's Adam and Lilith, her adoptive parents: loving, protective, and inhumanly strong; the stitches on their bodies that they keep hidden show that they are constructs, Frankenstein-like creations of Mad Science; Krosp the First, a failed science experiment intended to be the King of All Cats; the Baron's elite army of Jägermonsters, sort of a cross between a Klingon and an orc, who love violence, destruction and fancy uniforms and who speak in thick Pottsylvanian accents; ("Any plan vere you lose you hat iz a BAD PLAN!"); and the incomparable Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, a hero's hero: strong, fearless, noble, and about as smart as wheel of cheese.

Phil Foglio draws his characters with a loose, cartoony style which lends itself well to slapstick and banter as well as high adventure. Like Sergio Aragones, his world is full of extravagant, baroque details; elaborate gingerbread and glorious fiddly bits. You'd expect the 'clanks', the huge steampunk mecha, to be executed with meticulous detail but he lavishes the same attention to the clocks, the tables, the wagons and the salt shakers.

Foglio is perhaps most notorious for the adult XXXENOPHILE comic he created in the late '80s and for the "Sex in D&D" running gag from "What's New", but apart from the occasional appearence of Victorian-Era undergarments, GIRL GENIUS is suitable for most readers. My own 11-year<

LIBERTY FROM HELL
(Mature Readers)
Radio Comix
story & art by Christina "Smudge" Hanson

I intended to mention LIBERTY FROM HELL last summer when we were reviewing King Arthur, but it got crowded out by other things. This six-issue limited series from my good friends at Radio Comix, actually has nothing to do with Arthur, the story takes place in Gaul and there are no knights in shining armor, but it is set in the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of King Charlemange, about the time when the historical Arthur is supposed to have lived.

Phalloide is a minor demon, summoned to earth by a rather clueless and self-centered young monk. When the monk neglects to send the demon back to the netheregions, Phalloide finds himself at liberty on earth. He plans to to make the most of his holiday and have as much fun as possible before his superiors notice he's gone and drag him back.

He posesses a likely mortal named Sebastián, only to learn that he has gone from one hell to another: Sebastián is a conscripted soldier in a company of mercenaries involved in a war between a couple of petty Frankish kings. To complicate things further, Phalloide's displays of demonic magic convince his company commander to promote him and partner him with André, a by-the-book officer who dislikes his smart-ass attitude and resents his rapid advancement. But although Hell hasn't noticed Phalloide's truancy yet, Heaven has; an angel named Azeal offers him permanent liberty from Hell... if he can pass a certain test.

Creator Christina "Smude" Hanson has put a lot of historical detail into her story. The soldiers of the Rook's Claw company have Roman titles of rank, suggesting that they were at one time part of the Legions before Rome withdrew from Gaul. The battle fought in issue #2 was based on an actual battle of that period, (although the historical battle lacked the demonic special effects). I am not historian enough to tell if all the details are accurate, (and the dialogue does tend to be modern; jarringly so in places), but these details give it a level of versimilitude that simply recycling the Hollywood King Arthur clichés would lack.

LIBERTY FROM HELL is labled as for Mature Readers, and for good reason. Phalloide is a demon of lust, and has something of a one-track mind on the subject, making him popular with the camp followers, the prostitutes who accompany the army. There is a certain amount of partial nudity in the series, and frequent scenes of coupling, although never of a graphic nature. Phalloide is omni-sexual, willing to hump anything that moves; including his partner André, who may be straight-arrow, but who is not straight. Readers who are outraged, offended, or just plain squicked-out by homosexuality will probably want to give this book a pass. Personally, I'm not crazy about hot guy-on-guy action myself, but the interplay between the characters kept me interested.

Phalloide, although a demon, is not without scruples. For all his wiseguy attitude and ravenous appetites, he is a likable, sympathetic character. So is André; it would have been so easy to make him simply an uptight, repressed jerk, but he is more than that. As we get to know him, and as he and Sebastián go from being antangonistic, to being comrades, to being companions, we see him not as repressed, but as a man comfortable in his sexuality and in control of it. The relationship between the two men becomes the core of the series as the hedonistic Phalloide becomes more and more aware of and constrained by his own moral and ethical boundaries and as the ramrod-serious André learns to relax.

I have to say I also like Azeal. Usually in stories where demons are the prota

Every year, intrepid Wisconsin gamers from all over Sheboygan County brave the February snows to attend Fire and Ice, Sheboygan's premiere game show. If you're going to be in southeastern Wisconsin the weekend of February 18-20th, come on over and roll some dice with us. I'll save a chair for you at my table.

And even if I don't see you personally, you can send me your comments, questions and Seasonal Greetings over at our Nifty Pop Thought Forum.

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas.

Nil Desparandum

           Add A Comment to this article
          Email the Author of this article

Herein we discuss ... all the things you watch read and play