Kid's Stuff, Part III Shogun Warriors #1

The BEST book ever created about giant robots!

Shogun Warriors was one of the few toy crazes that I got into back in 1978. And by “toy craze I got into” I mean that I was 11 and I thought the Shogun Warriors were the coolest things to come along since Jesus. The whole line of giant robots and their various support vehicles came from separate Japanese anime shows, most of which hadn’t even been seen in the states. Mattel licensed the figures, made some really cool toys out of them, changed their names ever so slightly to make them easier for us round-eyes to pronounce and then marketed them without any background material. The toys never really caught on and almost all of them would be banned today due to their small spring loaded missiles and arms, perfect choking hazards for small kids. It’s a wonder how any of us survived to adulthood given that the toys we played with back then no sane parent would give their kid today.

The two toys I had from the Shogun Warriors collection were Two-in-One Raydeen and a Shigcon Tank, both part of the die-cast metal line. They were both sturdy toys that had a real weight to them when you held them in your hand.

Raydeen was awesome with his rocket arms that you could shoot across the room, leaving you with stumps BUT you could move these shields on his back around to cover the missing arms, close the cover over his face, detach some wheels on his back and bend his legs at an angle to turn him into this wicked looking flying-bird robot that rolled better then most Matchbox cars.

The Shigcon Tank featured real rubber treads, dual missile launchers that would shoot things up to 4 feet away, a rotating drill in the back that you could push in and depress a button on top of the tank to make it pop back out and severe swivel action because the entire body of the tank was built onto the treads lazy-susan style. That means you could turn that bad boy to any angle with respect to the treads.

I don’t have either of these toys now, so that price tag on the box makes me kick myself twice as badly as I normally would. And normally I would kick myself pretty damn hard. They were very fun toys to play with. To see the whole line Mattel put out at that time, go here:

So now you know how biased I am. I wanted to clear the air for you to gauge the awesomeness of the Shogun Warriors comic for yourself. Doug Moench wrote the series, along with the Godzilla, King of the Monsters comic. Neither of these series would last beyond the two year mark. Moench’s work speaks for itself, he has a breadth of titles with a wide range of story types including various Batman comics to the Thor and Shang Chi series. The extensive list of series he’s written shows versatility, even if he never really settled down on one particular book for very long. Herb Trimpe does the art chores respectably. While I’m not usually a big fan of his penciling style, in this series he is both very consistent and exciting to watch. His art captures the feel of giant robot battles with wonderful results.

Thankfully, both writer and artist know what their audience wants when it comes to a giant robot story. The answer is not “long, drawn out origins” either.

Bam! There’s my man Raydeen about to throw down with some giant cyborg lava monster. Page one and you can already hear Michael Buffer’s infamous call to battle “Let’s get ready to Rumble”. I love that cryptic opening line about how Raydeen will find victory in defeat and defeat in victory or whatever. Whets my appetite for what is to come. So who is this putting the hurtin’ on Tokyo?

Rok-Korr, who I always assumed would pronounce his name “Rock-Core”, is so evil he’s spouting lines for old republic serials. Even cooler is that Raydeen is a machine being piloted by other characters. Because the pilot of a giant robot can have love interests, a personal life and whatnot that add to the story. A giant robot that’s “alive” through the miracle of AI, not so much. Unless you count him sexing up the Holland Tunnel while bored one day.

Not only that, the pilots of Raydeen don’t have a real good idea how to drive him. So not only do we have the potential for them to grow as characters, we also get to watch as they figure out just what this bad boy’s powers really are. It’s like watching Spider-Man’s origin all over again. Looks like they learn pretty quick, too. Quick enough to cost Rok-Korr a pincher arm.

Now we’ve got missile-on-missile action! And notice that huge hunks of real estate are just blazing away. This is a Godzilla fan’s wet dream. The missiles destroy each other leaving Rok-Korr to try a more direct approach.

Boom! He’s down folks. The quarterback is toast! Not really, but it’s nice to see that our three hero pilots are getting a good workout from the first monster they encounter. It’s also interesting that their efforts just barely seem to work. They find the right controls or remember how to use something in the nick of time. Also each one of them works as part of a team to defeat Rok-Korr. There’s no posturing or pulling rank on each other. So far a great start and an awesome big robot battle.

Now they take it to the bad boy and turn the tables on him. Course, Rok-Korr has something else up his sleeve. Or more precisely, in his sock.

Officially wowed now. I don’t know which company is making it, but I want a Rok-Korr toy. Anything with that many weapons systems would be a blast to play with. And as a giant robot fight fan, I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of the book so far. Now if they want to do a flashback and throw a complicated long-winded origin story at me, I’ll happily sit through it. And sure enough, Moench and Trimpe understand this and move the story back a bit in time to explain how we all got here.

So here we have the Lord Zordan-ish “Followers of Light” who appear to be very interested in the recent activity of a certain volcano. Seems they’ve been tasked through out the millennia, to watch for the reappearance of Lord Maur-Kon and his agents of evil. Which, when you think about it, is a pretty sweet job. Someone wants to set me up with some high-tech digs just to sit around for a few centuries in case someone reawakens from years of slumber, just say the word and I’m there. As long as it has a fast internet connection and good dental then it sounds like my dream job.

In true Mighty Morphin Power Ranger form, Lord Maur-Kon does awaken, a giant monster bursts from the place he’s long laid dormant and the Followers of Light spring into action. And the first thing they do is…

...murder three innocent people completely unrelated to the story so far. Ok, so they don’t really kill them. Those beams transport them to their sanctuary. Sorry for the mix up folks.

Dr. Tambura and the other Followers proceed to calm down our three hot-headed new recruits and give them a tour of the facility that culminates in a very lame holographic show. They tell them how the Earth was marked for evil by bad aliens until the good aliens captured the bad aliens and trapped them all in a volcano. You know, pretty much the whole Scientology stick.

He then tells them about how Lord Maur-Kon and his agents are responsible for global warming, missing socks and the giant monsters that are terrorizing the world. Then he shows them his giant robot, gives them his best sales pitch and tries to sell them some auditing sessions.

And they fall for it. Granted who wouldn’t want to pilot a giant robot into battle while simultaneous defeating the man responsible for years of mismatched socks. What follows is a one panel montage of the three heroes summoned being trained for battle while sitting on odd looking exercise equipment or flight simulators. Then we’re off!

Trimpe manages to pull off something almost Kirby-ish in this panel with the foreshortened bodies and odd room style. Way to go Herb! All of this flashbacking ends here, however, and we are rocketed back to the incredible Rok-Korr battle. As you remember we left Raydeen on his feet and while Rok-Korr was tipping over, shooting his “missile toes” at them. Appears things have only gotten worse for him.

With one Hi-Ya of Raydeen’s breaker blade (great name for that sword/shield thing), Rok-Korr is pushing up daisies. A solid win for the good guys.

Ewww! Robot guts!

All that pink Play-do stuff forms into a new Rok-Korr, who seems both bigger and more than slightly pissed off. Now’s the time to run guys!

Rok-Korr spits up the contents of a small quarry onto our three befuddled warriors, burying all of them but their feet.

Which leads them to decide that maybe they need some more training before taking on Rok-Korr, Version 2.0. So they break out of the ground…

…and lead the monster away from the city. But luck is with them, because when they get back to the Sanctuary, they find that Santa Claus dropped by while they were out. Good news: he left them a couple of presents, Bad news: They don’t fit under the tree.

And that’s where the issue ended. So much bruising, brawling fun and so much promise of more. Sadly Shogun Warriors wouldn’t get the television tie-ins that would help fellow toy-to-book colleagues G.I. Joe and Transformers go on to hit status. The run at Marvel lasted a paltry 20 issues, the final 2 bringing in cameos by the Fantastic Four in hopes of jumpstarting sales. Alas it was not to be and the Shogun Warriors fell on their own swords.

But man what a ride…

Wildstorm Spotlight featuring Loner #2

I’m waiting for Loner’s new book “Wildstorm Team-up featuring Loner”.

As I read more and more Image books, I have to say that my initial assessment of the company was all wrong. Image’s past is full of dreck titles with stories that went no where, couldn’t meet deadlines, used backup artists instead of the hotshots and became all-around disappointments. But they did put out some enjoyable stuff back then too. 

Case in point: Steven Grant’s Loner three-issue mini. Grant is best known for his run on the first Punisher mini way back in the 80’s along with stints on Hulk and Avengers. I’m going to plead ignorance to knowledge of the Wildstorm universe. I’ve read The Authority: Relentless, but beyond that I’ve no idea who’s who in this section of comic book reality and I have no idea how the Loner character fits in it. What I can tell you is that Grant does a great job of plotting and writing this book. Roy Allen Martinez pencils this book. Although he’s no Mike Zeck or Frank Miller, outside of a couple of odd panels, Martinez gets a good visual flow going.

Loner is Rick Vega, a second generation superhero. He’s part acrobat and part knife-fighter. If you want to try and pigeon-hole him, think Daredevil with sharper weapons. Rick’s Dad was the original Loner, but he’s been out of the superhero game for over twenty years. Now spending most of his time at the bottom of a bottle, Ray Vega taught his son all he knows about fighting. Rick’s become Loner on the sly, trying to tie up his Father’s unfinished business without his knowledge. Here’s Rick as Loner saving the life of a news reporter who’s just been thrown off a building by a corrupt police officer.

That’s a nice intro for a character. He’s heroic and flashy in a Nightwing way. And there isn’t any useless posturing or huge guns in sight. While saving the young lady, Loner wonders how his Dad could have given this up. After she’s safe he goes after the cop. He bloodies the guy’s nose, knifes him when he goes for his side arm, and then after knocking him off the roof…well you tell me what he does here:

Pay no attention to the woman in the lower right corner, as you can tell, she’s in another panel below these. I can’t make up my mind what exactly happens here. The cop falls off the roof, that much is very clear. Next something odd occurs. My first guess is that Loner throws out a grappling rope which goes around the cops body and then curves back up to a roof top. That is an impossible throw so I discount it. Maybe the cop hits a guy-wire which breaks free from its mooring and then wraps itself around him four times before the mooring anchor taps him on the noggin…not really plausible there. Ok, someone else figure this out for me and let me know. Short end of it is Loner catches bad cop while reporter looks on.

This is the artist’s one flub on the book. Most of the time he’s dead-on with projecting action scenes and character moments. So one little mistake shouldn’t mean we kick him over. (But Loner is holding one end of the wire in the third panel, and in the fifth panel he’s floating in mid-air. That can’t be since he can’t fly. Panel three Loner is definitely holding the end of the wire and then in panel five it’s in front of him. AAAAARRRGH! It MAKES NO FLIPPING SENSE!) *ahem* Sorry. The art here is fine. Really.

Now that Loner has the bad cop tied all up, what does he do? Why head for the nearest meeting between the dirty Mayor and the evil gang lords. Pay special attention to boss Molinari and his lead henchman Barrow.

So the mayor is a “tool” that Molinari can oil down and make him stop “squeaking”? Well, there’s certainly no homosexual symbolism in that statement. I don’t change these word balloons at all folks. Really. I guess that little “quip” doesn’t really mean these guys are gay. It’s not like the writer has them singing “It’s Raining Men” or anything.

WOAH! It IS raining men though. Let me get this straight: Loner stripped the cop while he was tied up. Why in heaven’s name would he do that? Whatever the reason, I love Barrow’s reaction. “Get back Mr. M. He might be RIGGED, let me do a quick cavity search. Keep back everyone, HE’S MINE!” I’m sure it’s just Barrow’s keen body guard instincts taking over. Or maybe the fact he’s keen on that guard’s body. Not only that, he has a definite idea about what he expects from our trussed up officer.

“Wacking somebody”, hmmm. I bet Barrow has just the person in mind, too. The guard has to fess up to Barros that he didn’t complete the hit on boss Molinari’s least favorite investigative reporter. This news pales in comparison to his next exclamation, however.

And that panel is followed by this one…

Why yes, that is the Loner’s back. How perceptive of the officer to notice that. Loner takes a call from Molly, his very young step-Mom, who informs him that his dad is on a drinking binge again. Off he goes to get his Dad out of the bars before he decks someone. We check in with lady reporter, Shelly Moran, as she is recovering from her shake up. Just in time, too, for her to learn that the officer that threw her off a building has just died in “the line of duty”. He’s being hailed as a hero but she vows to break her story of his actions anyway.

Meanwhile Rick catches up with his old man, unfortunately it’s after he’s beaten up the entire clientele of a neighborhood bar. Ray tries the same moves on his son when Rick asks him to leave. Rick lays him out and then gets Molly to help him to the car. This is a pretty cool exchange between the upset bartender and our title hero.  

Molly tries to get Rick to open up to her in the car, a conversation he shuts down pretty quickly. Then he explains that his Dad never shared certain parts of his life with Rick. His Dad comes to on the couch at home and the first thing he hears is a newscast about the new Loner, which causes him to tell Rick point blank to get out of town. Rick leaves to stalk the gangsters once again. They seem to be all in a tizzy.

What’d Loner do? Pee in his scrambled eggs? What follows is an above-decent three page fight where Loner trashes all of Molinari’s men (including a guy with a samurai sword) and threatens the big guy himself. The L-guy tells Molinari to get out of town or else. A couple of panels just to whet your appetite.

Molinari gets a little P.O.ed after this and borrows Barrow’s gun. He head shots all the guys Loner knocked out and then hands the gun back to Barrow with the warning “Those men disappointed me. Don’t ever disappoint me again.” Woah, that’s motivational. Talk about your tough love. Anyway Loner goes back to visit his old man once more. He fesses up to being the new Loner which causes his Dad to explain that Rick’s put them both in danger. The reason his Father stopped being Loner was because his identity was uncovered by the same gang Loner is harassing. Ray was given an ultimatum: stop being Loner or have his whole family killed. Now Rick has jeopardized that truce…