Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Skrull Kill Krew by Grant Morrison Skrull Kill Krew by Grant Morrison. I found out today how the scripting for Morrison & Millar's VAMPIRELLA issues was broken down between the pair (care of an ancient Usenet post from Mark Millar himself), which makes SKRULL KILL KREW the last M&M collaboration (at least of their US stuff) where I don't know for sure who wrote what. Apparently all of their stuff was plotted together (in the pub. ) and then each issue was scripted solo by one of the two - they don't seem to have collaborated at all on the scripts themselves. Here's who wrote what in case you were ever curious - SWAMP THING Morrison scripts #140 and 142, Millar scripts #141 and #143. I've got the first few pages of the scripts for #140 and 141 which confirm those two, the other two are an educated guess based on one being a interesting Clive Barker-esque horror issue and the other being a nonsensical rip-off of Terminator 2. SKRULL KILL KREW I re-read this tonight (it's still rubbish) and I'd guess that Morrison scripted #4, possibly #5. I'd say definitely Miller scripts for #1, 2 and 3. AZTEK Morrison scripted #1, 5 and 6; Millar scripted #2-4 and 7-10. I'd be very surprised if Morrison didn't write the 'Citizen Vane' text piece in issue #3. Issue scripts confirmed by Mark Millar in a (long deleted) Millarworld post from 2004. VAMPIRELLA Millar scripted #1-3, Morrison scripted #4, Steven Grant scripted #5 and 6 from a Morrison 'plot' (which, for issue 6 at least was one sentence of solicit text according to SG). Nobody knows who scripted #7 (Millar and Grant both say it wasn't them, and it's very unlikely to have been Morrison). #8-9 were written by Steven Grant with no involvement from Grant or Mark beyond their original outline document (all confirmed by Steven Grant/Mark Millar on Usenet). THE FLASH Morrison wrote 'Emergency Stop' in #130-132, Millar wrote the three done-in-ones in #133-135, Morrison took over again to write 'The Human Race' in #136-138. Millar gets a solo credit for #139-141 even though it's likely the Black Flash was a co-creation (again, confirmed by Mark Millar on Usenet). So there you go, you need never accidentally read a Mark Millar comic ever again. You're welcome :) Aztek: remembering the DC "hero for the new millennium" It's time to go back-issue diving for Aztek: The Ultimate Man. Published for 10 issues by DC from 1996 to early 1997 as a series, Aztek contained much of the quirkiness and mad unpredictability that flavored Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol a few years before, while at the same time, carried a through-line of Silver Age-style heroics from Morrison, co- writer Mark Millar, and artist N. Steven Harris. Looking back on it now, the series and the character are as fresh as anything coming from DC, and a little more accessible than Morrison and Mark MIllar's Skrull Kill Krew at Marvel, which brought a true British punk feel to comics. No, Aztek was a series with a cool hero, a cool setting, with worlds of potential that felt somehow… different. Looking back at Aztek, you can see strains of themes and ideas that are often used and became well-accepted in in the early '00s titles – the beginnings of Morrison's 'widescreen' approach to heroes is here, as well as heroes taking a no-nonsense approach to villains. Heck, it feels just like a modern book. But it came out in 1996, so of course, it was canceled. Like DC's Captain Comet, Aztek: The Ultimate Man was ahead of its time, pushed out on a market that had just seen its sales sliced roughly by half during the previous year, sending many fans into the familiar and, well, predictable arms of the traditional, mainline superheroes, and away from titles like Aztek. While his series ended with issue #10, Aztek was moved into the JLA from issues #10 - #15 (he left after the 'Rock of Ages' storyline), and returned for Morrison's final arc, 'World War III.' The following quotes from Morrison and Millar come from an interview that, unfortunately, never saw the light of day, due to the title's cancelation back in 1997. It's a fascinating look at where both the creators were near the series' end, and their thoughts on how this series could help to lift comics up again. Making a New Hero. When Aztek debuted, the comic market was slowly coming out of its self-imposed grim and gritty era, with Mark Waid's run on Flash largely credited for promoting the idea of upbeat, shiny heroes. Aztek followed the lead. "The lighter touch came out of a dissatisfaction with grim and gritty, which is what everyone's been doing for the last few years," Morrison said in 1996. "When I did Animal Man way back, that was only two years after Dark Knight, and already I was sick of that stuff. It's just time to get back to the kind of superheroes we like, a guy who would lookout for people, who would take the time to rescue a kitten or a lost lizard. We just wanted to do a nice guy again, because we were so tired of doing these miserable guys in trench coats with five o'clock shadow and ponytails." "We also wanted a challenge of doing a new superhero who would work, and that remains to be seen, but we were looking around and thought that Green Lantern was the last superhero comic in the last 30 years that's worked at DC, and hasn't been canceled. We wanted to create a new superhero that was actually viable, and was interesting enough, and had a visual look that was distinctive enough that it might survive. That's why we created it at DC, cause we wanted to create a character that could be long-running." Dusting off the recipe for the classic Golden and Silver Age and pulp heroes, Morrison and Millar pulled out the traditional ingredients: a hero following in the steps of his father trained by a mysterious society (the Q Society) the last in a long line of heroes, pure motives square- jawed alter ego of a naive, awkward teenager brilliant in numerous fields from philosophy to medicine a connection to a threat that was supposed to one day destroy the entire world. Heck, Aztek was following formula so dead-on, his name 'Aztek' was given to him by a reporter in issue #2. Sound familiar? "He's kind of the Doogie Houser of the superhero community," Morrison said. "He's so painfully naive, he's almost impossible to talk to, but he's the ultimate man in terms of the mental and physical training he's gone through. He's the weird kid in the back of the class. The 'class nerd' of superheroes." Aztek is the kind of guy who would stay up all night looking for a lost pet (issue #4) just because it's the right thing to do. He's also the kind of hero who would give muggers some money so they would stay out of trouble (issue #3). But since he was raised by a secret brotherhood in the Andes as humanity's savior, his motives are beyond reproach, but his contact with society has been somewhat limited. To call him naive is an understatement. "He's this fantastic warrior who's read every book of philosophy that exists," Millar explained. "But he can't figure out how to order a pizza, or ask a girl out. So he's this great hero with a horrible social life. Sadly, Grant and I wanted to create a character we could empathize with." The quick background of the character included ties to Aztec mythology (since virtually every other mythology has been mined for heroes), was that Aztek was the latest in a line that stretches back 2000 years, of warriors trained since birth to battle Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of darkness that makes the Western view of Satan look like a pretty tolerable guy. According to Aztec mythology, Tezcatlipoca would return to battle the embodiment of light - the warriors of the Q Society. "The god of darkness was imprisoned 2000 years ago, but they knew they couldn't hold him, and he'd be back, and when he came back he was going to destroy the earth and create a new earth in his image, so this society was formed to prepare a champion, and every generation they have a new one since they don't know exactly when the guy's coming back," Morrison said. "It's now gotten to the point that the last champion who should've faced it was Aztek's dad, and some mysterious thing went wrong with him, which we'll find out in the series, and they killed him, which Aztek doesn't know about. He's only 19, and has been stuck with the task of dealing with the thing because they've realized that it's coming back within the year, and it's chosen this city called Vanity to make its return." The Touch of Vanity. Two of the pioneers of a technique that would be used later by the likes of James Robinson with Starman's Opal City among others, Morrison and Millar created a new and unique fictional city within the DCU, Vanity. Giving the city its own unique history (laid out in the series as well as the occasional essay or faked newspaper article in the back of the issues), Morrison and Millar made the city a character in itself, albeit an evil one that corrupts everything it touches. It was the perfect home for the bright shiny hero to prove his mettle. "We took the idea of this really nice guy, a superhero from the '60s in terms of his morality, and put him in a city that embodies all of the worst aspects of what we saw happen to superhero comics in the last ten years," Morrison said. "The criminals are psychos. Even the heroes are psychos in Vanity." Or as Millar succinctly puts it: "Aztek's the world's nicest guy in the world's shittiest city. Everybody always says that a town is worse than Gotham, but it never really is, there are just more back alley muggings. In our plan Vanity is actually much worse, and the evil is built into the city's architecture. Every priest is a pervert, and there's a monster in every family. The city was built by Charles Vane, who was a worshiper of the dark, and he wanted to create Hell on Earth." The effect of Vanity was so pervasive that even its best heroes (and visiting heroes, as Green Lantern found out in issue #2) became corrupted and evil. In essence, Vanity gave Morrison and Millar a chance for their hero to strike out against the 'evil' that the two felt had infected the comics industry. "No matter how good you are, when you come to Vanity, and you end up a bastard," Millar said. "Bloodtype and his girlfriend were originally Mr. America and Miss Liberty, and within a few months they became Bloodtype and Death Doll. The city just had this terrible effect on them, so the people see Aztek as a real hope, but at the same time, they really don't hold out much hope for him to do much. It's a matter of will he change the city, or will the city change him, and he'll end up as big a bastard of the others." All in all, Vanity was a perfect place for the Aztec god of darkness to make its return. In fact, the city's creator Clarence Vance, designed it as a lens to focus the evil that would one day return to the Earth. In vanity, Morrison and Millar presented an analogy for the then-current comics scene – normal heroes were being and had been transformed into twisted, dark versions of themselves. Literally and figuratively, Aztek was here to fight against that threat and trend. The Adventures of the Hero as a Young Man. From issue #1, Aztec was on the manic Morrison/Millar fast track; each issue loaded with hundreds (if not Morrison's later, characteristic, thousands) of ideas per issue. In issue #1, Aztek battled the Piper, a villain that resonated to Morrison's Doom Patrol days. After all, here was a villain whose shtick was animated smoking pipes. In his attempt to bring down Piper, who was being extorted by the shapeshifter Synth (who alternated between geraniums and moron every other day), Aztek battled Bloodtype, the perfect epithet spewing, gun-toting mockery of any given Image character. The Piper was killed during the battle, allowing Aztek to assume his civilian identity, Dr. Curtis Falconer (the noble, soaring bird reference in his last name was no coincidence). Falconer was days away from beginning his new job at Vanity's St. Bartholomew's Hospital, so Aztek became the city's newest doctor, as Curt Falconer. Yup – people thought it was odd that he was just 19, but let it pass when they saw his skill as a doctor. After establishing his secret identity, Aztek encountered Green Lantern in issue #2, giving the creators a chance to poke a little fun at the still relatively new Kyle Rayner. It was 1996, after all, everyone was poking fun at Rayner. During their meeting, Aztek took Green Lantern's ring from him, again, subtly establishing himself as a hero to be taken seriously. After that, he was targeted for revenge by Bloodtype's girlfriend, Death Doll, and then encountered the Lizard King in #4 and #5 (no, not Jim Morrison), a warrior who was Aztek's father's second, ready to step into battle if the hero ever fell. Seeing the young Aztek as far too naïve for the job, the somewhat mad Lizard King took Aztek's helmet, a move that ultimately drove him mad. The young hero joined with Batman to battle the Joker in issues #6 and #7 ("He likes to vacation somewhere that's worse off than Gotham," Millar said.), earning the endorsement of the Dark Knight, returned to the Q Society for repairs in #8, giving some of the obligatory background exposition of his training and mission and also revealing that Lex Luthor has ties with the group, setting up a huge conspiracy that, if the series had lived, been shown to stretch throughout the entire DCU. The obligatory nod to Superman (along with commentary on Superman's then-current change to his electric blue version) followed in issue #9, and by the series' final issue, #10, Aztek was the JLA's newest recruit. Peppered throughout the series were things that were beyond avant-garde for the time – posthypnotic puzzle command to keep the voices of 2000 years of warriors contained in his helmet occupied, heroes being tracked by a light dusting of radioactive gas, psychics preventing the public from recognizing the hero, 4th-dimensional energy, ultra-violent villains, super-hero groupies who make gifts of their, um, underwear, and the notion that superhero groups had deeper secrets than what the readers ever saw. "We want to show things we've never seen before, like the JLA initiation, which is this whole Masonic-type of thing," Morrison said. "Aztek will learn the secret handshakes and passwords that heroes use so they don't run into trouble with shape-shifters and impersonators." Aztek: The Later Years. Aztek's tenure with the JLA only lasted five brief issues, and the hero was given a convenient out in the aftermath of the 'Rock of Ages' storyline, when he confessed that due to his connections with Luthor he could compromise the League's security. At the time, rumors circulated that Aztek got the boot from the League due to the fact that he was a character whose own book was canceled and was too new to serve with the big guns. Either way, Aztek apparently returned to Vanity, to wait for Tezcatlipoca's return. Prior to his cancellation, Morrison and Millar had plans for the character, both within his own series and the JLA. The series was to start building towards the confrontation with Tezcatlipoca's in mid-1997, after Aztek discovers that there's a grand conspiracy under riding the entire DC Universe, tied into his own upcoming battle. The conspiracy was to have far-reaching implications throughout the DCU, reaching all the way to the top levels of power (both Lex Luthor and Thomas Wayne had connections), and into other books as well. The battle with Tezcatlipoca was to take place in issue #24, and then. um, well. they didn't have too much planned beyond that. After all, his motivation for fighting and existing was presumably going to be defeated in the battle. Millar had a rather non-conformist idea on how to wrap up the Curt Falconer Aztek. "Actually, issue #24 would be a logical point to kill him off," Millar said. "We think it might be cool that on the morning of the day after he defeats this ancient evil and saves the world, he'd get hit and killed by a car while he walked to work. Superheroes always have these grand deaths like, 'If I die, I die knowing I saved the multiverse!" We thought it would be great to have one die like a normal person, on the way home after getting a pint of milk. But then again, we might keep him around for a while after that. Who knows?" Instead of buying it thanks to a careless driver though, Aztek's threat was realigned with the 'World War III' storyline, and retrofitted and clarified to be Mageddon. As such, Aztek appeared in the midst of the story, and, heroically, detonated his 4th-dimensional battery in issue #41, ultimately buying Superman time to escape from Mageddon's grasp. It was a crucial turn of events that allowed the JLA to win the day, as well as a perfect heroic end for Aztek, really. In the interviewing time since his debut which was supposed to be a return to the heroes Morrison and Millar were familiar with as kids, the 'big seven' had returned to the JLA, taking their place at the top of the hero hierarchy in the DCU, banishing grim and gritty in favor of big-screen heroics. Aztek's mission, both literal and figurative, had been completed. So where should you go to find Aztek? If you didn't pick up the original issues, any reputable comic shop worth it's salt should have the back issues or available. In 2008 DC published a collected edition - JLA Presents: Aztek - but that's long out-of-print. Given Morrison and Millar's post-Aztek work though, don't expect to find them in the discount bin unless you're really lucky. Grab 'em and enjoy, or if you bought them when they first came out, pull 'em out again and read it in one sitting. You'll be happy you did. Aztek is available on most major digital platforms. but which one is the best? Check out our list of the best digital comics readers for Android and iOS devices . Skrull Kill Krew TPB – Grant Morrison, Mark Millar. An inspired idea and fun sense of ’90s ‘tude is nonetheless cut short by a wavering sense of awareness of that ‘tude, and a general go-nowhere plot. Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, fresh to Marvel Comics in the mid-90s, were given some outer edges of the Marvel Universe to play with, landing on an oddball plot detail from decades earlier – a very Morrison-y shtick – and revitalizing it into some wonderfully silly and kitsch, while also purposefully playing in to the whole edginess of comics of that time. The “Skrull Kill Krew” was comprised of several humans who’d been infected with a Skrull-power-granting disease after ingesting burgers tainted by Skrull meat; for, you see, that oddball plucked plot detail from eras passed involved the Fantastic Four hypnotizing some Skrulls to transform into cows, after which Grant and Mark figured on those cows being used for slaughter… “Ryder,” “Moonstomp” and others now have all the shape-shifting powers, as well as the ability to spot Skrulls-in-disguise, but the disease is also killing them. So in the meantime, they’re on a mission to find others afflicted similarly – building up their Krew – and killing whatever undercover Skrulls they find. The flagrant, anti-p.c. = commentary mentality of the 90s is combined with some potentially more interesting and subtler jabs at self-identity and individualism – the Kill Krew features a skinhead who’s disease is slowly turning him black; the series gleefully features violence against children and the police, under the auspice of them being Skrulls; Captain America pops in, just to have his politics put on the same level as any other blindly-followed belief system – and there’s the overriding sense that our writers are just sort of having a good time causing some havoc, but then you have plenty of doses of when it feels like they’re not in on the joke – doses I’m inclined to attribute more to Millar than Morrison – when writing with a smirk becomes writing with the belief that being edgy and crass is automatically clever. Steve Yeowell’s loose artwork can be a great boon for adding a sense of momentum and character to pages, but he’s also so lax on detail that heftier action sequences end up looking sloppy. As combined with the era’s not-to-pretty digital coloring and the aforementioned tonal gaffes, there are plenty of pages and sections that come off as an unideal mix of being rushed and ignorant. In general, though, the tongue-in-cheekness of the thing works, and the goofy inventiveness of the core idea keeps it feeling – at a high level – fun. At a longer run, this might’ve kept the series afloat long enough to shape up beyond this okey-dokey quality, but it instead was cut off after four issues, allowing for one last wrap-up fifth issue. This means that some of those subtler jabs and occasional subplots – the aforementioned Cap appearance, for example – very truly go nowhere , with the final issue a sort of shoulder shrug of all-out-slaughter-just-because, leaving us on a note of feeling like the story is ultimately rather pointless. Heidi Sladkin (Earth-616) Heidi Sladkin aka Riot is a punk rocker member of the Skrull Kill Krew. Riot is one of the victims of the Skrull-turned-cow-turned-hamburger known as Skrullovoria Induced Skrullophobia . In her human form, Riot is a cute redhead with a short buzz cut, but after eating the Skrull meat, she transformed into a massive, beastly creature with sharp teeth, massive tusks and an insectoid carapace. Like most of the Skrull Kill Krew, Riot has shapeshifting powers, but in her insect form, she has great strength and sharp spines. She was stuck in that form for an extended period of time. Riot and Ryder joined up with 3-D Man during the Secret Invasion because of his ability to see the new super-powered Skrulls in their native form and went on a hunt for all the Skrulls who had infiltrated the 50-State Initiative. [1] During the tail-end of the Secret Invasion, Riot altered herself back to her human form, succumbing to the fatal transition and passing away as a human. It is later revealed that she survived, working with Ryder grudgingly. Riot was also looking on Match.com for a lesbian dating partner, though she had trouble reverting back to her human form again. Due to the degenerative properties of the infection, Moonstomp, Catwalk, and Dice's bodies eventually start to rot away. Riot and Ryder preserved their teammates' heads in cryo-stasis. This was done as they knew they could only be brought back for one last mission. Eventually she finally learns to control her transformation from insectoid to human form. Riot met a Skrull named Eva and fell in love with her. Riot had to repeatedly defend her against the other members of the Skrull Kill Krew. Eva eventually became an inactive part of the Skrull Kill Krew, riding with Heidi. Powers and Abilities. Powers. Riot had the shape-shifting abilities, as she could turn into an insectoid form. Ryder (Earth-616) The man known only as Ryder was one of a number of people who had unintentionally eaten meat from Skrull's that had been brainwashed into transforming into cows and retaining that form for life. Some of the meat eaten by people transferred the Skrull's adaptable DNA code into the human's cells, resulting in a bizarre condition called Skrullovoria Induced Skrullophobia , in which these individuals not only gained shape-shifting powers equal to, or greater than, actual Skrulls, but also developed an intense fear or hatred of Skrulls. Only a small number of humans proved susceptible to this syndrome, and most did not survive the initial stages of infection. But several people who proved somewhat longer-lived (though still dying), and Ryder gathered them together (known as Riot, Catwalk, Dice, and Moonstomp), to act out their increasingly irrational impulses to seek out and destroy the ones who did this to them (by "letting" themselves get turned into cows), usually by graphically "blowing away" the Skrulls with high-powered weapons. [2] After the Civil War, he was listed as a potential recruit for the Initiative. [1] Secret Invasion. Ryder and Riot returned much later to ferret out more Skrulls. Ryder had kept the other three alive, as heads kept in jars; their Skull infestation has resulted in the loss of their bodies. [3] They encountered the new 3-D Man in the New Mexico desert and saved him from a Skrull posing as 'She- Thing'. Ryder and Riot helped 3-D Man and the Initiative find and kill all the Skrulls infiltrating all the Initiative teams. Moonstomp, Dice, and Catwalk, were able to help track down Skrulls, which allowed the speedsters and teleporters in the Initiative to take the Skrull Kill Krew members and 3-D Man across the country very quickly. [4] After the Skrulls are defeated, Moonstomp, Dice, and Catwalk's heads all died, and Riot reverted to human form, dying also. 3-D Man and Ryder then set out to find and kill any Skrulls that might still be on Earth. [5] He returned to solo adventuring, stalking the remainders of the Skrullian army on Earth, and strongly believing there may be more milk and meat contaminated by Skrull genetics. However, it's implied he may be a Skrull himself: one of the original Skrullian cows able to restore himself to a human appearance, but losing his memory in the process and explaining his superhuman powers with the "Skrullovoria Induced Skrullophobia." [6] Powers and Abilities. Powers. Self-Molecular Manipulation : Due to his altered DNA he possesses limitless shape shifting abilities to alter his mass, color, texture and height at will. Telepathy Teleportation Stealth Mode : Possesses some kind of cloaking ability, resistance to heat and flame, Regenerative Healing Factor Superhuman Condition : Ryder has augmented reflexes and strength above human norm. Weapon Morphing : In addition to the metamorphic powers he has displayed. He usually uses his powers to turn his hands into ballistic weapons which fires ammunition fatal to skrulls. The ammunition presumably is generated internally. Skrull detection : He also can see anyone rendered invisible, can see through Skrull’s in disguise. Abilities. Skilled in the use of weapons and unarmed combat. Weaknesses. Skrullovoria Induced Skrullophobia : He also developed an intense fear and hatred of Skrulls.