A History of CrossGen Comics (kinda Abridged)

So it has been a while since I last posted something here, but now that I have finally begun to really settle into being back at school I will hopefully update once a week. Anyway, I have been thinking about possible topics to write about here and I have now come to a conclusion about what to write about: CrossGen Comics.

CrossGen Comics was a comic publishing company in the late 90s and early 00s. The company was founded with the idea that they would publish non-superhero comics that were connected by a theme, but not by characters, stories or worlds. When the company launched, their first wave of comics were only connected by a symbol that was located in different locations on each of the main characters' bodies. Depending on the character's setting, the symbol, or as they called it the Sigil, would manifest different powers. The only other shared trait of the comics was that each comic had a orange-eyed mentor who would help guide the sigil-bearers.

CrossGen launched with four monthly titles and a bi-monthly title that helped to fill in the history of the characters in the CrossGen universe. The four launch titles had a lot of variety, but equal amounts of story. There was Sigil, a sci-fi space opera, Mystic, a fantasy story set on a world full of magic, Meridian, the closest thing to a soap opera in comic book form, and Scion, a Arthurian-style fantasy adventure set on a world that utilizes sci-fi technology. My personal experience with CrossGen's comics is that they tell a similar story to what one would find in a book, but without relying on one's imagination (super-hero comics don't do that).

Eventually, CrossGen began adding more titles to their prime universe that ranged from mythological stories to some not so down to earth detective stories. Soon after that, the company began to publish licensed comics (that would be comics based off of books, TV shows, etc.) at which point they changed their name to CrossGen Entertainment. Shortly after the name change, the company went against their original mandate and began to build to a company wide story that would take place in a six issue mini-series. Before beginning this story, all of the original, and several of the later, titles were canceled so that the company was not making their readers pay more to get this story. However, the company ended up filing for bankruptcy before the mini-series was finished which also resulted in several of their other comics being canceled mid-story.

That would have been the end of CrossGen except that Disney had an interest in one of their properties and decided to buy up all of CrossGen's intellectual properties. However, in the six years since Disney bought the properties nothing has been done with them other than there being a few collections released by Checker Books. Well, nothing until this past summer. At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Comic's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada teased the possibility of a revival for the properties at Marvel (this is a real possibility since Disney now owns Marvel). So far nothing has been announced, but all of the original CrossGen creators seem to be behind this idea so I will remain optimistic that there will be new life for these characters.

No Ordinary Family Pilot Review

First off let me say that I was not expecting to review No Ordinary Family until it officially premieres on the 28th of September, but I was invited to watch a sneak peek of the pilot earlier today. That being said I think this show has promise.

No Ordinary Family is about a dysfunctional family that is trying to become functional again when they get super powers as the result of a plane crash while on vacation in Brazil. Prior to discovering their powers, the parents, Jim and Stephanie, are kind of boring and dead. Jim is a sketch artist for the police and Stephanie is a high ranking executive for a pharmaceutical company with little time for her family. This leaves Jim as a kind of Mr Mom character. Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz who portray the two parents showed this very well, but neither of the characters were particularly real for the majority of the pilot. Once their powers manifest, they become more alive. Jim gets super strength and limited invulnerability while Stephanie gets super speed. These new powers help them begin to salvage their marriage.

Their children, on the other hand, did come off as real teenagers trying to deal with life even with powers. Before getting powers, the son, JJ, was apparently suffering from a learning disability so for him, as well as his parents, his new power was a blessing. However, for the daughter, Daphne, the manifestation of her powers is a curse. She gets telepathy which promptly begins to ruin her social life.

However, the real highlight of the pilot was the supporting characters portrayed by Romany Malco and Autumn Reeser. Malco plays Jim's confidant, George, who encourages Jim to explore the limits of his power as well as use them for good. Reeser's character, on the other hand, works for Stephanie and is a complete nerd. She is also the first person Stephanie tells about her powers. My favorite part of the pilot involved Reeser's character questioning how Stephanie's super speed powers work while using a radar gun to track how fast her boss is running.

In the end, the pilot suffers from a lot of the things that most pilots do, but the foreshadowing near the end of the episode makes me think that the eventual payoff will be good. So if you are looking for a replacement for Heroes or nice sci-fi show on the broadcast networks No Ordinary Family looks like a good place to start.

Introduction to the Journey

Hello and welcome to my blog, Journey Through the Realms. What I will be doing here is using this space to write various reviews and articles on the science fiction and fantasy genres, hence the title. This would include movies, TV shows, books, comic books, etc. I am going to try to update it at least once a week. At the moment, I intend to do comic reviews once a week, but I am not going to limit myself to just those in any given week.
I will now give an overview of what can be expected to be seen in this space. For movies and TV, I will mostly be writing reviews, but there will likely be some articles on a movie or TV series that I really enjoyed. The same goes for books. However, I will likely write more articles about books than movies or TV. As mentioned above, I will be writing reviews of comics. They will mostly be on whatever I usually read (which is mostly superhero comics), but there will also be some reviews of comic strips as well as articles about publishers and completed series. Occasionally, I may break from these two primary genres and write something about a book,, movie, TV show etc., that I am currently obsessed with.
Anyway, please check back this weekend for my first real article.