First off, I have to say, good luck on finding these books! I can only imagine that most of the copies of these have been sold in the 25 cent box years ago, and destroyed by little kids. The rest are probably being horded by V&V fans.
Villains & Vigilantes the mini series was produced by Eclipse comics in 1986. The scripting was done by Jack Herman (as well as the editorials) and the penciling by Jeff Dee. The rest of the participants were also V&V vets. The first book contains a great editiorial by Jack Herman, that gives some insight to V&Vs history, and Jeff and Jack. You can tell they are VERY excited to be doing the comic, and hope it becomes a regular monthly book.
Lets talk about the art first. I have to admit that Jeff Dee fans will be a bit disappointed. While Jeff Dees style is evident, his works are mostly ruined by bad inking (although it does improve with each issue). Also some figures are a bit disproportioned at times, and some of the movement looks awkward. I was really surprised to see how fast it looked like Dee ripped out the pictures. Not near the quality of his illustration work. On the other hand, some of the characters (Temper and Marionette come to mind) really shine in the artistic personality department. The funniest thing is the super heroes and villains keep on their costumes 24/7! One panel sees the crushers escaping from prison in a prison van in full costume, while on the same street, Condor and Shatterman are driving a U-Haul (moving)...in full uniform! :) In fact, there is only one (or is it 2) panels where they take off their masks. Pretty funny, but they really aren’t going for realism in this book. They are telling their story in the way that only they can.
Now lets talk about the storyline. V&V fans will be delited, as this is a sort of retelling of V&Vs classic adventure, There’s a Crisis at Crusader Citadel (see my review of that adventure, also on RPGnet). It’s sort of a reboot, since it takes place years after the original adventure. All the characters are higher level, and the Crusaders have been fighting the Crushers for years. Some characters aren’t present (vulture, for instance, went straight), and some are dramatically changed (Shrew is now the Hauntress. See that’s what she became after dying of rabies!). Fortunately, we are informed of all these updates. For fans of V&V this is easy to read. I have to think that someone who just picked up the comic would be a little lost. It is taken for granted that the reader already know a lot about the characters. That said, even vets will have to double take a few times, as there are some things they seem to expect us to now, like we’ve been reading the comic for 20 years, or something.
The script is really a mixed bag. At times they do some really brilliant things (the opening page, where Marionette is controlling all the prison cops minds, and has them “fire” the warden, for instance) at others they use some terrible cliches, at others they just say stupid things. There are times when Jack and Jeff really can’t decide what they want to do, sometimes being deadly serious, and others slapstick funny.
Of course, the coolest feature, are the V&V Stats at the end of each book. In the first issue, we get Manstar, a new Crusher, and updates on all the other characters (changes since the adventure module). The second issue sees Shatterman and Condor (the new characters applying to be crusaders...in essence, the Player Characters, if you run the parallel with the adventure). The third issue has stats for the Hauntress, and she kicks butt!). The last issue is a bit of a disappointment, as it details the Crusaders mini-space shuttle. I would have MUCH rather seen the Intercontinental Ballistic Man, a giant robot the US government launches at our heroes, thinking they might be russian spies (this was in the 80s remember).
At the end of reading the books, one thing I can say is it’s VERY V&V. In fact, after reading this, it made me realize the reason I love the game so much...It is, and always has been Indie! V&V (the role-playing game and all the works it has inspired in general) isn’t Marvel, and it’s not DC (at a time when that’s pretty much all there was!). It’s not even inbetween...it is it’s own unique way of looking at super heroes. I don’t think fans would have it any other way. If this was a regular series today, I would get a subscription, and it would probably be the only comic I read. I can only imagine the story and art would get better with time AND I would have a constant source of inspiration, and cool V&V source material.
If you’re a V&V fan, I would say it is worth hunting down the series...but I wouldn’t pay more than a couple bucks per issue. Unless you REALLY want it.
