Computer’s back, I’m rested and I’m ready to go back to writing.
Since I’ve been internetually neutered for the past several days, here are things I’ve spent my spare time on:
– Watched the first half of Season 4 of the Wire. God, what a show. I really need to finish it over the next week.
– Started on Hickman’s Fantastic Four already. Key word is started. I read the Dark Reign miniseries. That’s something, at least.
– Read all of Scott Pilgrim, saw the movie and downloaded the game for Xbox. Fun shit all around.
– Read through the trade Dark Reign: The Underside, which features Lethal Legion, Zodiac, Mr. Negative and the one-shot Made Men. I remember initially picking it up because I heard some good things about Joe Casey’s Zodiac and it was definitely an interesting read. It gave me a notion that I ran through Twitter that got two reactions. cyberpilate retweeted it, which I take as an endorsement. It basically made Chad Nevett vomit a little in his mouth, which I take as the opposite of an endorsement. I figure it’s worth mentioning here at the very least.
So Zodiac is about Zodiac, who at this point can best be described as Marvel’s attempt at a Joker. While we do see his rather normal-looking face under his black hood, we know absolutely nothing about his background. He’s a murderous nutjob who loves him some chaos and revels in everything criminal. He’s violent, charismatic and one step ahead of everyone. With Osborn in charge of everything, Zodiac takes offense and uses his resources to strike against him. He comes out of the story completely unscathed and undiscovered, which works because as long as Osborn is the antagonist, you can still accept Zodiac as a twisted protagonist.
But what now? He just appeared in a two-page scene in Age of Heroes for no reason but to remind everyone that he’s still a concept in hopes that he doesn’t fade into obscurity. He makes mention that he’s going to challenge the Heroic Age, but is that really going to work? Can his stories work in the same ballpark when he’s after someone like Steve Rogers? I get the bad feeling that he’d go in the direction of Prometheus. He’d be worth one good storyline, then get nerfed and gummed up by every other writer.
One of the biggest complaints I’ve had about Deadpool for the past few years has been that he has no rogues. T-Ray has become worthless. Ajax existed to be killed. Black Swan was more of a plot device for the sake of giving us Agent X. Everyone else he fights is either borrowed from another hero or is going to be dead by the end of the story arc. The latest issue of his core series seems to be building towards giving him some kind of big bad (possibly the man responsible for his cancer), but who knows how that’ll turn out.
What I’m trying to say here is that Deadpool vs. Zodiac should be a thing. They should be archenemies. I think there’s a lot of potential in that pairing. Deadpool is a middle-of-the-road guy who doesn’t know whether he should be acting heroically or killing the person next to him at any given moment. Zodiac is ultimately Deadpool without any redeeming human qualities. In comparison, he makes Wade look like Spider-Man. It’s Venom/Carnage, but with mind games attached. Deadpool does heroic stuff on the down-low all the time and never gets recognized for it. Zodiac does horrific stuff on the down-low and goes out of his way not to be recognized for it. They could do a whole series of stories clashing against each other without the larger Marvel Universe having any idea what kind of secret w– …set of battles is going on. All while Zodiac tries to get Deadpool on his payroll.
A good villain is someone who could make the hero examine himself more clearly and in this case, this is what Zodiac could be made for.
What do you guys think?
