Guardian 1
From Barbelith
Categories: Seven Soldiers Issues
"Pirates of Manhattan"
Barbelith thread: Press! (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/20483).
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Background & General Commentary
Seems like this story is going to be based on tabloid culture (which makes the lower-case "g" grant very happy).
Synopsis: Disgraced policeman Jake Jordan finds a new sense of pride when he answers a classified ad and is hired as The Guardian, a hero employed by the populist (and frighteningly high-tech) Manhattan Guardian newspaper. His coworkers on the streets of New York include the Newsboy Army.
His first job -- to investigate a series of attacks on innocent commuters by Subway Pirates, marauders of the undercity who ride commandeered trains along New York's Secret Subways. Two crews, under the dread captains All-Beard and No-Beard, are waging a bloody war to gain control of the only map to these unknown lines... a map tattooed on the back of a fearful fugitive.
Annotations
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Page 1
PANEL 2: "Headless Horror in Haunted Hospital!"
This lurid headline could be a reference to the upcoming Frankenstein series, in which the monster is rumored to regenerate itself using stolen body parts. According to series artist Cameron Stewart, however...
Cameron Stewart - "Nope. Grant didn't write this headline, I made it up on the spot as a silly 'News of the World' style tabloid headline. No significance to the narrative."
Oh well. It was a good guess.
Notice in PANEL 4 that the pirates ride the R line. R as in "ArrRrrgh!"
Page2-3
Hey, 8 Street Station - the same place that later Carla and her father will be assaulted and kidnapped; one of the subtler allusions this books has to the Sheeda threat.
Page 10
Ed Stargard, the Manhattan Guardian's publisher bears more than a passing resemblance to the legendary Jack Kirby. Kirby has appeared recently as God in Mark Waid's Fantastic Four, and as Jacob Krigstein in Mark Millar's The Authority. There's a distinct possibility, as a former child crime-fighter, that Stargard was in the original Newsboy Legion. It's unclear whether he and Guardian tower are separate entities as yet.
Artist Cameron Stewart informs us he's intended as a visual amalgam of Kirby and Rupert Murdoch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch).
And on the other hand...
Gumbitch -- stan? jack? the only 'so holy to be known by one name' comics guy being channelled here is pat - freak armies, serious kids, mucho massacred bystanders and a guy who survives being skinned, roasted and dragged behind a train. i really hope soapy doesn't die yet, and has a lot more nastiness in store in the next three ishs. oh, and the almost-sinister talking building, that was what first sent my mills-sense twitching.
grant -- Trying to find out if Ed Stargard had a history in DC Comics, I stuck "Stargard Ed" in Google and found this pulp novel summary (http://www.allreaders.com/topics/info_10130.asp). It's about an engineer named Conrad Stargard who falls asleep in an inn and wakes up in 12th century Poland, where he has to defend the town against the Mongol hordes from the East. I mention it here just because it seems really similar to Vigilante's time- looping life story.
It occurs that 'Ed' may not be his real name; just the classic newspaper lingo diminution of 'editor'.
Page 12-14
In Jewish folklore, a golem is a creature made of clay that is animated its creator prints a magic word across its forehead. In this case, the word is Yod-He-Vau-He, or YHWH, the holy name of God. Artist Cameron Stewart first drew the letters left-to-right, then tried to correct the art to read, as Hebrew does, from right-to-left, but the corrections didn't make it onto one of the pages. Notice that the Guardian "deactivates" the golem correctly, by smearing out the magic word. How he knows to do this is anybody's guess... though he may recall it from the 'Movie Monsters trading card series' he mentions just prior.
See Slaughter Swamp for more on the "intelligent clay" of which the Golem is made.
COBRA!: Am I wrong in seeing a Ben Grimm shout-out in the golem? I mean, there's a big 4 in his outfit. They should've made his eyes blue. CameronStewart: He also has Thor's hammer(s). Mr Tricks: The Thor's hammers & the 4 reinforced the whole GHOST-OF-KIRBY feel of that publisher...
Page 16
The speech balloon about "The Project" most likely refers to Project Cadmus, the genetics facility that cloned the original Guardian.
Page 18
PANEL 1: "...Sunny morning in New York City ...Imperial Tower to soar taller than the tallest buildings in both Gotham and Metropolis ...Cinderella City belle of the ball at last ...Shilo Norman, Mister Miracle, will attempt to escape from an artificially generated black hole in his latest spectacular stunt..."
The Shilo Norman referred to in the radio broadcast is the titular star of the upcoming Seven Soldier series Mister Miracle.
In the DC Universe, New York City's nickname is "The Cinderella City." This is a reference to its two "ugly step-sisters," Metropolis and Gotham, which generally receive more attention.
Notice that in the background there is a taxi from the "Pumpkin Cab" company. This is a reference to the pumpkin carriage that conveyed Cinderella to the ball in the fairy-tale. Klarion the Witch-Boy will ride in a similar taxi in Klarion #3.
The radio mentions an "Imperial Tower" that is currently under construction. This may be one of several architectural marvels that never got off the drawing board in the real world, but which Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart have seen fit to add to their fictional version of NYC. See Seven Soldiers #0
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