October 2025 – In My Not So Humble Opinion

It Came from the 1990s: Vampirella / Wetworks

Halloween is right around the corner, so in this edition of It Came from the 1990s we’re going to be taking a look at a spooky intercompany crossover that was published in the Summer of 1997. Harris Comics and the WildStorm imprint of Image Comics joined forces to produce two specials that saw Vampirella team up with Wetworks.

Vampirella is, of course, the sexy female vampire who protects humanity from her fellow bloodsucking fiends. She made her debut in 1969 in the first issue of her self-titled black & white comic book magazine from Warren Publishing. By the 1990s, Vampirella was being published by Harris Comics, who had acquired the character following Warren’s bankruptcy in 1983. Harris published numerous Vampirella titles between 1991 and 2007.

Wetworks is the creation of artist Whilce Portacio and writer Brandon Choi. A covert operations squad sent out on a suicide mission in Eastern Europe, the members of Wetworks found themselves fighting against vampires. In the midst of a fierce battle they came across a set of mysterious golden liquid metal-like symbiotes stored in class cylinders. The members of Wetworks donned the symbiotes to protect themselves. Remaining together after this mission, the team continued to fight against vampires and other supernatural menaces.

So, you have Vampirella and Wetworks, both of whom in the mid-1990s were hot comic book properties, regularly battling against the undead. It’s actually a fairly clever idea to team these two up in a pair of stories.

The cover to Vampirella / Wetworks from Harris, as seen up top, features artwork by Michael Bair, an illustrator who definitely specializes in rendering sexy women. That’s certainly on display here, as he renders Vampi in an even skimpier than usual outfit. I’m actually rather fond of Bair’s work. I don’t think I’ve seen anything new from him in the past couple of decades. I wonder what happened to him.

“Soul of Blood” is written by Steven Grant, penciled by Sean Shaw, inked by Gary Martin, lettered by Hugh Monhan, and colored by Haberlin Studios, Dan Kemp & Pat Duke.

Grant is best known for his work on the groundbreaking Punisher: Circle of Blood miniseries in the mid-1980s, and has also written such series as Challengers of the Unknown, Manhunter, X-Man and I-BOTS. I would definitely say that I’m a fan of his work.

On the other hand, I am totally unfamiliar with Shaw. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his work before. That said, I feel he did a good job on the Vampirella / Wetworks book, turning in some exciting pencils with clear storytelling.

In the small Caribbean nation of Isla De Lloron, the poor populace are being preyed upon by a vampire cult. Vampirella and the Wetworks team arrive separately to combat the plague. Unfortunately, Wetworks does not know who Vampirella is, and they take her for another evil vampire, resulting in a misunderstanding fight.

Vampirella discovers the location of the vampire cult’s lair, and Wetworks tracks her there. Fighting the vampires, they learn that the cult worships the Blood Red Queen of Hearts, an evil sorceress who originally appeared in the Warren issues of the Vampirella series. This is her first appearance in the Harris Comics era.

The Queen’s soul is, appropriately enough, trapped in a playing card, but it gets free and possesses the body of Wetworks cyborg Mother One. The Queen seeks to use Mother One’s technology to endlessly replicate the playing card that contains her soul, so that she can go on to possess the bodies of every woman on Earth. To free Mother One, Vampirella offers to let the Queen take possession of her body, which causes Wetworks to realize that Vampi is not evil. Fortunately, Mother One is finally able to use her technology to drive the Queen out of her body, and the rest of Wetworks destroy all of the playing cards, seemingly ending the threat of the Queen.

I was curious if Grant had any memories of working on this crossover, so I asked him on Facebook, but he admitted that he didn’t remember much. As he told me:

“I seem to recall it was kind of a rush job, which happened a lot back then, as marketing departments were often calling the shots on these projects without consulting editorial offices on the niceties of things like, oh, scheduling…”

A month later, the Wetworks / Vampirella special came out from WildStorm & Image Comics. The most notable aspect of this book for me was that legendary comic book artist Gil Kane (Green Lantern, Warlock, Blackmark) penciled the cover. I was really curious as to how Kane came to illustrate it, and I asked editor Mike Rockwitz if he knew, but Rockwitz’s memories of this project, like Grant’s, were extremely fuzzy, and he couldn’t recall the specifics, suggesting that perhaps Mike Heisler or Jim Lee reached out to Kane. Whatever the case, it’s definitely distinctive. I believe it’s the only time Kane ever drew Vampirella.

Wetworks / Vampirella is written by Jeff Mariotte, penciled by Anthony Winn, inked by Richard Bennett, lettered by Amie Grenier and colored by Nathan Lumm & WildStorm FX.

Marriott was a regular fixture of the WildStorm universe, writing several of their titles, among them Backlash, Gen 13 and WildC.A.T.s Adventures. Winn also worked on several books for Image in the 1990s, including Brigade and Ripclaw, and he later penciled Star Wars for Dark Horse. His work was definitely inspired by guys such as Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, very big & hyper-detailed, but he was still a solid artist, with good storytelling abilities.

Wetworks / Vampirella opens with Vampi tracking down yet another vampire cult (there’s always another one, isn’t there?) this time in California. Unfortunately for Vampirella, she hasn’t had any blood to drink in several days, and the weakened femme fatale is captured by the undead minions of Baron Chase.

Meanwhile, LAPD Detective Ted Randall is attempting to locate his missing niece Kristin, who has run away from home. Randall discovers that Kristin has joined Baron Chase’s cult, but he is captured and bitten by one of Chase’s vampire minions. Escaping, Randall meets up with Wetworks, who are in the middle of fighting some robots. Randall was formerly involved with Wetworks member Maritza Blackbird aka Pilgrim, and he tells her team about the vampire cult.

Randall leads Wetworks to Chase, but the vampire forces the team to surrender by holding a group of teenagers, including Kristen, hostage. Chase reveals his plan to become leader of the Vampire Nation by infecting Los Angeles with a virus that will turn the entire population of the city into vampires.

Fortunately, Vampirella gets free and provides a distraction, enabling Wetworks to retrieve their weapons. Vampi flies after the airplane that is going to drop the vampire virus on LA and manages to crash in before it can be released. Wetworks kills Chase. Sadly, Randall, who does not want to go on existing as a vampire, asks Pilgrim to stake him through the heart.

The two books in this crossover were pretty fun. Looking at these now, I really feel like they epitomize some of the trends that were prevalent in mainstream American comic books during the 1990s. This is definitely a case of Bad Girls meeting Big Guns.

I do think that perhaps a concession should have been made to newer readers. I mean, pretty much everyone knows who Vampirella is, and Grant’s script for the first book makes it clear that she is on a mission to redeem her mother by wiping out vampires. But both books pretty much assume that the reader will be familiar with Wetworks. I’ve only read a handful of issues of their series, so I feel that Grant and Mariotte could both have included at least a little backstory about who these characters are supposed to be.

This is one of those crossovers that is probably not going to be reprinted anytime soon. Dynamite Entertainment now has the rights to Vampirella. As for Wetworks, they were part of the sale of WildStorm to DC Comics in 1998, so if Dynamite wanted to reissue these books they’d need to get DC’s permission to do so. Fortunately, both comics in this crossover can still be found at close to the original cover price, so if you feel like getting these books they’re fairly affordable.

Comic book reviews: Femme Noir

I was very sorry to hear that comic book writer & editor Christopher Mills had passed away on October 13th at the age of 60 after a lengthy illness. Mills worked on a number of independent titles over the past 35 years. I have always been a fan of his work.

Probably my favorite project by Mills was Femme Noir, which he created with legendary artist Joe Staton (E-Man, Green Lantern, The Huntress, Scooby Doo). An enjoyably atmospheric mystery & adventure series, Femme Noir featured the mysterious trenchcoat & fedora-clad, pistol-packing female sleuth known only as “The Blonde” who fought crime & solved mysteries in the dark city of Port Nocturne.

Femme Noir was inked by Horacio Ottolini & Mark Stegbauer and colored by Melissa Kaercher, Matt Webb & Michael Watkins.

There was a four issue Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries miniseries published in 2008 and a couple of short stories, “Night in the Life” and “The Dingus” and, unfortunately, I believe that was it. I really wish Mills & Staton could have done many more Femme Noir comic books, it was such a great series.

Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries and the two short stories were collected together in 2009 in a trade paperback published by Ape Entertainment. Re-reading it following Mills’ passing, I once again enjoyed the fine work he and Staton had done on it.

Staton, in a lengthy career that has lasted more than half a century, has drawn thousands of comic books. It is worth noting that Staton is especially fond of “Killer in Steel” from Femme Noir #3, describing the story on Facebook in December 2022 as “one of the best things I ever did.”

In the first issue of Femme Noir, it is told to the readers that The Blonde might be one of three women: mob princess Vanessa DeMilo, sexy nightclub singer Dahlia Blue, or intrepid reporter Laurel Lye. Mills never did reveal the true identity of The Blonde. I was friends with him on Facebook, and a few years ago I told him about my own crazy theory for her secret ID, namely that I thought all three women were The Blonde, and that they took turns donning the blonde “pastry curl” wig & going out to fight crime. Mills merely replied to my supposition with a smiley face emoji. I suppose now we’ll never know one way or another.

One of the occasions that I met Staton was when he was doing a store signing for Free Comic Book Day in 2011. He was drawing quick head sketches for fans, and I asked him for a drawing of The Blonde from Femme Noir, a request he was happy to fulfill. Here’s the piece he did for me:

All four of the Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries issues are still available for purchase online at the Indy Planet website, along with a number of Mills’ other creator-owned books. Here is the link. I encourage everyone to order some of the great comic books he worked on.

New York Comic Con 2025 Artist Alley spotlight

I had a lot of fun this year at New York Comic Con 2025. It was an amazing four day event held at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. Once again, my favorite place to hang out during the show was Artist Alley, where dozens of talented creators were set up. Here are just a few highlights from Artist Alley this year.

It was really great to see the incredible June Brigman, co-creator of Power Pack and Captain Ginger, at NYCC this year. June and her husband, inker Roy Richardson, used to live in White Plains NY back in the day, so I used to see them all the time. They moved back to Georgia about 20 years ago and I haven’t seen them since. So, it was nice to catch up with June at the show.

Acclaimed comic book artist Jamal Igle has worked on numerous titles throughout his career, including Firestorm, Supergirl, Molly Danger and The Wrong Earth. He’s a really good person, and I was glad to catch up with him again.

Whilce Portacio worked on Uncanny X-Men in the early 1990s, where he co-created the character Bishop. He then went over to help found Image Comics, where he was the co-creator of the Wetworks series. I like his highly detailed work a lot. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet Portacio before, so it was cool to get the first issue of Wetworks signed by him.

Terry Dodson has worked on numerous titles, among them Uncanny X-Men, Adventureman, Fire and Ice, Wonder Woman and Thunderbolts, often collaborating with his wife, inker Rachel Dodson. Most recently Terry & Rachel drew a gorgeous Wonder Woman & Captain America backup story in the Deadpool / Wolverine crossover book. At the show I picked up a copy of their beautiful variant cover for that special.

Deathlok penciler and co-founder of the Milestone Media line, Denys Cowan had a really gritty, atmospheric style. He’s another creator I had never had an opportunity to meet before. I got my copy of the Hardware: Season One hardcover collection signed by him.

Reilly Brown has worked on Deadpool, Amazing Spider-Man and the Batman/Fortnight Zero Point miniseries. I think he has a really nice style and is a very solid storyteller. He did a nice sketch of Mantis for me in my sketchbook.

I’ve been fortunate to be friends with Emmy and Ringo award winning comic book creator Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma, The Fox, The Red Hook) for a number of years now. Dean was sharing a table with Dan Goldman, the creator of Red Light Properties, a series about a realtor who offers “previously-haunted” houses at below-market prices to folks who could never otherwise afford one. Goldman describes it as “Better Call Saul meets The Shining.” Definitely check it out.

Writer Stephanie Williams has been doing great work on the character of Nubia, often working with penciler Alitha Martinez. I enjoyed the Nubia & the Amazons miniseries and its follow-up Nubia: Queen of the Amazons that they did. Among her other projects, Williams is writing a revival of Street Sharks for IDW Publishing.

I’ve always found artist Todd Nauck to have a really fun, energetic style. He got started in the mid-1990s at Image Comics and immediately out the gate was doing good work. In the last 30 years he’s worked on a variety of titles, including Badrock, Young Justice, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and his creator-owned series WildGuard.

Last but certainly not least is another artist I’m fortunate to call a friend, the very talented Buzz, who has worked on Vampirella and JSA. He’s recently drawn a great, fun cover for the Harley Quinn x Elvira crossover. Buzz was sharing his table with Mars Howard, a talented artist who’s drawn some really beautiful Vampirella covers.

Those are just some of the many talented creators I was fortunate enough to meet at NYCC 2025. Thank you to all of the comic book pros who came to the show and made time for the fans.

Power Girl at Fifty

This month is the 50th anniversary of the debut of the Kryptonian fighting femme Power Girl, who made her debut October 1975, half a century ago this month, in the pages of All-Star Comics #58 by the team of writer Gerry Conway and artists Ric Estrada & Wally Wood, published by DC Comics. Power Girl was created by Conway & Estrada, with some probable involvement by artist Joe Orlando. Her early visuals also owe a great deal to Wood, who did finished artwork over Estrada’s pencil layouts.

All-Star Comics #58 was a revival of the Justice Society of America for the first time since December 1950. As my pal Alan Stewart discusses on his excellent blog Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books, to offset the decidedly middle-aged regular JSA members (the characters of Earth-Two were the rare DC property to age more or less in real time), Conway featured a trio of younger characters, namely Robin, the Star-Spangled Kid and Power Girl.

Who is Power Girl? Simply put, she is Superman’s cousin in the Earth-Two reality. In other words, PG is the other-dimensional counterpart of Supergirl. In addition to a different haircut and costume, the writing and artwork on All-Star Comics also seemed to depict PG as being a few years older than Supergirl, making her in her early 20s rather than a teenager.

I commented on Alan’s blog post about All-Star Comics #58 that I really like the character of Power Girl when she’s written well… which sometimes she’s not.

As I’ve previously blogged, as someone who wasn’t born until 1976, I didn’t discover the JSA until the early 1990s. I eventually read the 1970s All-Star Comics issues in the two Justice Society collections that DC published in 2006 and 2007. So, my first exposure to Power Girl was actually in 1989 in the pages of Justice League Europe where, um, she was basically a cranky straw feminist who was addicted to diet soda. The fact that JLE penciler Bart Sears drew PG with a perpetual scowl on her face probably didn’t help matters.

This was, of course, immediately after Crisis on Infinite Earths, when PG’s backstory was majorly confusing. Earth-Two and all the other parallel realities had been erased from existence, and editorial policy was that Superman was the only survivor of Krypton, so PG was in need of a completely new origin. The surprising result was that PG was revealed to be the granddaughter of Arion the Atlantean sorcerer, I think. It’s definitely considered a weird period for the character… although I will admit to having a bit of a soft spot to the gold & white jumpsuit she wore in the early 1990s.

Anyway, as a result of all this, it was something of a revelation to me when several years later vi back issues I read the JLA / JSA crossover guest-starring the New Gods that ran in Justice League of America #183-185, and I discovered that originally PG was actually from Earth-Two and was Superman’s cousin… plus she was a lot less cranky. I’m glad that in the last couple of decades PG’s original backstory & personality has been restored.

Thinking about it, I feel that some writers really don’t know how to script assertive women too well, instead making them aggressive & belligerent. I do think Conway was a little bit guilty of this with Power Girl in his All-Star Comics stories. I expect he wanted to make her a liberated woman but wasn’t quite successful at pulling it off. I feel that when Paul Levitz took over the series that he smoothed over PG’s rough edges, and she became a better character.

Of course, I can’t discuss Power Girl without discussing her costume. Okay, maybe her “boob window” showing off ample cleavage is gratuitous, but I feel that it suits her personality, in that she’s unashamed of being a beautiful woman. It’s an iconic visual, anyway, and it’s not surprising that, despite several costume changes over the decades, sooner or later PG ends up returning to her original look. But maybe that’s just me as a male enjoying drawings of a sexy woman? I don’t know.

It does seem that there are at least some women who are fans of Power Girl in her original costume. Artist Amanda Conner definitely seems to be fond of her. And I do feel like in the half century since PG’s introduction there have been a lot of other female characters introduced who have much skimpier outfits who feel much more exploitive. So, count me as a fan of her costume.

Those of you reading this, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about the character. Feel free to leave a comment.