Back in the day, the guys who put together Image Comics were some of the best comic artists in the world, and at that point in time every one of them was looking for some sort of an answer to Wolverine. If Ripclaw is Marc Silvestri’s response, then Warblade over on the WildC.A.T.s side was Jim Lee’s.
We’re celebrating 30 years of Image Comics, and today that’s Cyberforce #1. I’d first seen Marc Silvestri’s work in some early X-Men material. This is The Tin Men of War, part one of four, the original four-part mini-series that got Cyberforce kicked off. Marc Silvestri is the artist, Eric Silvestri is the writer, Mike Heisler’s lettering, Joe Chiodo’s doing colors, and Cynthia Sullivan was the editor. And of course Olyoptics was doing the color separations, which is what gave these books such incredible color for the medium at the time.
I’m pretty excited to be going through this one.
Velocity, an Alley, and a Familiar Face
Cyberforce #1 starts with a character with a black lightning bolt on her face. This is Velocity. She’s sort of their version of the Flash, not really, but she definitely runs faster than normal people. As she’s running through an alleyway we see a familiar face, the homeless guy off in the cut. You’ll recognize him as Jacob Marlowe from the WildC.A.T.s.
Velocity is being chased by a group of mercenaries, or at least what looks like military or paramilitary mercenaries. They’re being led by someone very specific, who at this point is only identified as Blue Leader.
Above them is a member of Cyberforce, Ripclaw. It’s funny, they do this little thing where they’re talking through the captions, and comic books were big into doing that. If it wasn’t thought bubbles like in Spider-Man, it was definitely captions. Then you get this really awesome double-page spread. We get to see his name, there’s lightning strikes, and it’s very cool. And of course he’s got metal for hands.
The Mutant Running for Mayor
You cut to Advanced Aerospace, the division for Cybertek. Cybertek’s one of the companies in Cyberforce, and there are a lot of corporations in this particular comic book. Several of the characters are there, and they’re responding to a message from Ripclaw saying this is what’s going down. Everybody says okay, we’re heading out.
Then we cut to a really interesting mayoral speech, being overlooked by another member of Cyberforce named Stryker. He’s the guy off in the cut who’s watching.
What’s cool is this mayoral candidate is a mutant. Marc Silvestri didn’t shy away from using the word mutants, because I don’t believe Marvel owned that specifically, and they decided to use it a little more flexibly than Marvel does. Mutants are very much a part of this society. Unlike the Marvel universe, where you’re constantly hiding, they’re out there. They’re running for different offices and doing the best they can to let everybody know, hey, we’re here, we want to be a part of it.
So Stryker’s there, and you go to the next page and he’s got the double-page spread. He’s got four arms, three of which are on one side. There’s some backstory in later issues where you find out a little more about how that particular mutation happened. Either way, he does his Stryker thing, and of course the gunman tries to get away.
Cyblade, Impact, and the Archetypes
And sure enough, there’s Cyblade. Cyblade is Marc Silvestri’s discount Psylocke. Now, she does eventually grow to be bigger than this, but at this point in time that’s what she was. She was essentially Psylocke.
All of this is really setting the stage, so there’s not a whole lot of deep storytelling going on at the moment, other than the fact that Cybertek and this other company called Cyberdata are at odds. They both have cybernetically enhanced mercenaries who work for them.
Cyblade puts a stop to the gunman who escapes. There’s another guy who gets out, because obviously, two gunmen, and you get to see Impact. Impact is a huge, big dude. He’s their answer to Colossus. Again, everyone is a response to something else happening in comics, because everyone figures, you know, let’s go with the archetypes.
Ripclaw Rips Into the SHOCs
You see Velocity a little bit later. She’s sort of escaped, but then she hasn’t, and the SHOCs are there. The SHOCs are suddenly ambushed themselves by Ripclaw. So Ripclaw, no pun intended, rips into them and rips them a new one, and how many more rip turns of phrase can I actually use?
Eventually the Blue Leader lady shows up, and her name is Ballistic. Her power is she doesn’t miss, ever, and she’s also got a cool little cybernetic eye. Then some of the other members of the Cyberforce team show up in their neat little plane.
If you were reading comics back then, all of this should feel very familiar, because at the time that’s what it was. The storytelling does eventually outgrow a lot of the tropes that are being dropped here and becomes its own thing, and I’m really excited to get you to that point. None of this has much to do with the main story throughline, other than identifying who the characters are. Essentially they’re after her because that’s what they do. They recruit really strong, powerful mutants and convert them to being cyber agents, if you want to call it that.
The Sister in the Nightmare
Cut to New York, and you see one of the main villain characters. She’s their mother, if you will. It’s very stylized, and she’s got a lot of very Egyptian things going on. I kind of love this character.
Then you get some backstory, where you discover Velocity as a little girl. You get to see her being abused, and you get to see a sister. Her sister is identified as a blonde girl. I know the story, so I know who she eventually becomes, but at the time I remember thinking to myself, man, I bet you money she’s such and such.
So I’m going to give some spoilers. She grows up to be Ballistic. Ballistic doesn’t remember Velocity, and Velocity doesn’t remember Ballistic, other than this dream that’s happening. Nightmare, I guess.
Timmie, and the Ambush
Velocity wakes up at the home of some of the characters we saw earlier. She meets Timmie, a little android boy. Then you get to see a familiar face on the news, which is really awesome, and it’s keeping that in-world, in-universe continuity, which I’m a big fan of.
They walk her through, you get to see Timmie’s other toys, and that’s where she finds out Timmie’s actually an android. Then proximity sensors go off, they’re attacked, and there’s an ambush. And eventually you get to see, bam, the crème de la crème of Cyberdata operatives. It’s this really cool pinup page, with Ballistic at the center of it saying, “I told you we’d be back.”
So there you go. Now you know. And if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
We’ll be continuing this story as we spend this entire year celebrating Image Comics.
Which Image launch book did you pick up first, and did you clock who each character was answering? Tell me in the comments on the video above.
