The Alien Legion – Part V
This is part 5 of a series of posts looking back at the Marvel/Epic Comics title “The Alien Legion.”
After a 20 issue first volume of The Alien Legion, the editors at Epic decided it was time for a change of the status quo for Nomad Squadron and made the call to reboot the series. Their first move? Getting rid of that pesky “The” in the title:
The powers that be wanted to streamline the series a bit, emphasizing fewer characters and providing “grittier” storylines, which meant that the environmental and other social cause subplots would disappear with more of an emphasis on violent conflict. New blood (Chuck Dixon) was also brought in to help script/plot the series, though Potts would remain on staff.
The series actually opens two years after the original series ended, where we find (now) Major Sarigar leading a new squadron into battle. What happened to Nomad, you ask? Apparently it was a mission gone bad, with all the legionnaires lost on a hostile planet on which they had been dropped, as usual, ill-prepared for what they’d find:
For the past two years, then, Sarigar has been haunted by his perceived failure and the loss of his best team. He apparently has also continually requested the opportunity to go back to Hellscape to try to find either survivors…or remains, though to no avail.
The last straw for Sarigar comes in a bar where a few legionnaires openly mock him for the loss of Nomad and declaring him a coward. He resigns his position in the Legion (then beats the HELL out of said soldiers), and makes an oath to himself to discover the fate of Nomad. Through some nice detective work, and the financial backing of his former lieutenant’s father (Torie Montroc), Sarigar learns that some members of Nomad might still be alive, and so he returns to the planet in search of answers.
Through the aid of a Quaalian prisoner, Sarigar is able to locate Jugger Grimrod and Torie first. Jugger’s pretty much unchanged, though Torie, as the first volume’s noble, at times too trusting lieutenant is now a withdrawn and blunt hardcase. Two years of being in hiding with Jugger does that to a man. So is seeing two of your legionnaires tortured and eaten by scavengers. Torqa Dun and Durge didn’t survive the planet, or, more directly, the reboot of the title:
Rounding out the survivors would be Meico, the four-armed telepathic medic; Tamara, the late addition to Nomad discussed last time; and Zeerod, a wolf-like humanoid who lost his legs on the planet. The reunion is an awkward one, though that wears off quickly as the Quaalians mount an attack on the squad allowing the troops to take out their frustrations in an appropriately violent fashion. Sarigar marvels at the changes in his former squadron, but nonetheless decides that the best thing for them is to reform as Nomad Squadron.
After some impassioned appeals and some called-in favors, Sarigar has his wish granted and Nomad is recreated as a strike force. But first, he’ll have to recruit some more legionnaires…
Next week: the new members of Nomad and Jugger gets promoted (really!)
The Alien Legion – Part IV
This is part 4 of a series of posts looking back at the Marvel/Epic Comics title “The Alien Legion.”
The end of volume one of The Alien Legion would come with the publication of issue 20, much to the surprise of readers. No warning had been given in the pages of the comic that the series would end, and the letters pages continued to respond to fans’ ideas and praise as if the writers had no end in sight for Nomad Squadron. Epic had even seen the publication of Alien Legion’s first graphic novel.
Of course, this was the mid-80s, long before the internet would come along and allow comics readers to know about upcoming titles, plot lines, and cancellations. We were tougher back then, not as spoiled as today’s comic readers – and we all walked three miles uphill in the snow each week for our pull lists – so we were able to blithely read each issue, always sure that we’d see more of Jugger and Sarigar next month.
Perhaps fans should have seen the cancellation coming, though. The last few issues of volume one, admittedly, fell into a bit of a rut, as Nomad Squadron would land on a planet, face a hostile indigenous race, blast the hell out of them because they had no other options, and in the process lose an occasional legionnaire here or there.
It was during this last stretch that the writers would finally introduce female legionnaires, too. There had been many letters questioning the lack of females in the Legion (and also many saying “keep ‘em out”), and by the time issue 16 came around Nomad Squadron and readers were introduced to Tamara, a new recruit who is easy on the eyes, but hard on the jaw:
It was, in my opinion, a testament to the writers that they took fan input seriously. I don’t know that today’s Marvel or DC would adjust their story lines as significantly (hell, even at all) as Epic did, and not make it a patronizing gesture. Far from it – Tamara would be put through her paces through the next four issues, holding her own and then some when compared with regulars Jugger, Torqa Dun, and Zeerod. Still, the change in the status quo (and the scenery) wasn’t quite enough to keep The Alien Legion going, and, after a twentieth issue that saw the members of Nomad Squadron forced to hunt one of their own for desertion, with an unsettling conclusion, the letters page closed out with a brief note that surely stunned readers:
The shock wore off quickly, though, as those madcaps at Epic had included another box just below that one:
And so the loyal readers were promised a new Alien Legion series, featuring some familiar faces, and even more new ones, and, as they say, an all new format. But how would this second volume compare with the first? Come back next Thursday to find out…
The Alien Legion – Part III
This is part 3 of a series of posts looking back at the Marvel/Epic Comics title “The Alien Legion.”
The early issues of volume one would see Potts and Zelenetz experimenting a bit with the story-telling, tacking on an epilogue to the main story which would add further detail to a particular plot point seen in the issue. Oftentimes these epilogues would serve as methods by which we would learn more about a particular character, as seen here where Sarigar is seen apparently deep in thought about something…
This scene would be left behind, with most readers (like myself) probably thinking that Sarigar was tense about the situation his squadron faced. Come to find out, he was actually thinking about his sister and her betrayal of his trust…
These extra tales would end by issue six, probably because by this point readers were familiar with the main characters and the pages could then be used to advance the main plot.
Force Nomad would see a variety of adventures in this first run, and they really started hitting a stride by issue 7, where Nomad finds itself escorting a pair of magistrates back to the judiciary, though several members hold grudges against a figure they view as nosy and unappreciative of their efforts to recover a bomb from the Harkilons. And probably not a coincidence, it’s issue 7 where the until now little seen Jugger Grimrod really starts to take center stage. And it’s not because of his winning personality…
Jugger would probably be recognized as the Wolverine of this team: a violent loner who doesn’t have much use for authority figures, though unlike Wolverine Grimrod has no real moral code except to look out for himself. This arc would really bring Grimrod into the limelight as a force to be reckoned with in Nomad, and he would continue to be a central character throughout the series, and particularly in the second volume a couple years later.
After the magistrate’s introduction to some of Nomad, the ship ends up being attacked by the Harkilons, and after both ships suffer damage, both Nomad and the Harkilons end up crashlanding on a nearby planet. Jugger comes close to killing the magistrate who could identify him as an escaped murderer, but the Harkilons end up capturing and torturing him for information about the location of the Legionnaire’s ship, as their craft is beyond repair. Jugger refuses to talk, but the crafty Harkilons allow him to believe he escapes after having secretly implanted a bug on his person, very similar to when the Imperials traced the Millenium Falcon back to the Rebel Base in the first Star Wars.
One of Grimrod’s character defining moments comes in the middle of a Harkilon ambush, where just before he and another legionnaire named Mescad come across the heavily wounded Bospor. Jugger attempts to convince Mescad to cut and run, leaving the Bospor behind to die, while Mescad struggles with the idea:
Mescad eventually decides that Jugger is right, though it weighs on his conscience. As for the Bospor, well, the Bospor doesn’t make it…
This storyline would eventually see Nomad Squadron join forces with the Harkilons to fight a more dangerous indigenous life form on the planet. This decision would have repercussions that would reverberate throughout the rest of the volume one, as we’ll see next week.
Next Thursday: the end of Volume One…
The Alien Legion – Part II
This is part 2 of a series of posts looking back at the Epic Comics title “The Alien Legion” – see this post for a quick introduction to the origins of the series.
Any comic title’s first issue not already based in an established universe has a lot of work to do (as, really, any piece of fiction does). Not only does it have to establish setting and characters, it has to do so in a way that will get the reader invested in both and want to pick up the next issue. Realizing this information would have to be presented in prose rather than merely the art, Potts and Zelenetz chose to dedicate the inside cover of the premiere issue to giving readers a quick rundown as to the nature of the universe they are about to be thrown into:
Not exactly as simple as Star Wars’ “It is a period of civil war” scrawl, is it? (nor do we have the benefit of listening to a John Williams score while reading it). It’s actually quite heavy in its use of sci-fi jargon: “Galactic Union”, “Sidereum Galacticum”, “bioforms”, etc., along with the appropriately alien-sounding names of planets and political entities. I wouldn’t be surprised if many readers at the time moved right past that page and into the book itself. Still, the summary offers up the central conflicts that will be played out in the pages of the comic.
Next, Potts and Zelenetz present a series of “bio summaries” of the key players of Force Nomad. Written as if they are taken from the Legion’s private databases, the entries introduce us to the characters with fare such as age and place of origin (immediately giving readers a sense of the enormity of this universe), along with brief psychiatric evaluations.
These entries were an attempt to highlight the more important characters for readers, as the sheer number of legionnaires presented in just the first issue could be a bit overwhelming. Combine this with the unfamiliar setting and numerous planetary references, and the writers were probably concerned that without this foothold, many readers would feel lost before the adventures really got underway.
The story itself begins with a bang, literally, and I wouldn’t begrudge you if you thought the images were vaguely reminiscent of the first scenes of Star Wars, what with the ship under attack and the planets in profile in the background.
Things go bad for Vector Squad pretty much immediately as a band of mineral pirates find them and, at the urging of the pirates’ captain, annihilate the legionnaires. Unfortunately, due to their original directives, the soldiers are only armed with biodegradable darts that would not affect the fragile environment, leaving them easy targets. Force Nomad soon finds the remains of Vector Squadron and realize they’re in for a rough time in what would be a common theme in the series – undermanned, outnumbered, and hamstrung by distant politicians’ rules.
It is at this point that the characterization picks up a bit, and we start meeting the core members of Nomad. The humanoid lieutenant Torie Montroc gets quite a bit of space allotted to him, as does Captain Sarigar (seen above), a serpentine alien whose first appearance comes when he breaks up an inter-squad fight among two members of Nomad when tensions run high:
The characterization of each legionnaire is by and large distinct. Above, you can see a bully in the larger Skathe Mescad, and the Bospor (the froggish alien) is a fawning, insecure weakling whose choice was either a prison sentence or a stint in the Legion (Mescad, in a noble moment later in the issue, would save the Bospor from certain death, proving that, at least for him, the brotherhood of the Legion matters). After things calm down a bit, Nomad has to plan a mission to take on the murderous pirates and save the planet from further ecological harm, which is easier said than done, what with the limited resources they have. Still, through the battle intelligence of Sarigar and the viciousness of some of the other legionnaires, Nomad would prove up to the challenge.
Speaking of viciousness, Jugger Grimrod, another legionnaire who would go on to be a fan favorite, only gets a page or so devoted to him in this first issue. But he makes it memorable:
That’s character development!Frank Cirocco’s artwork is fitting for this series, and he manages to invest each alien with a distinctive look, although many of the aliens tend to be humanoid in structure (an issue that would be commented on by readers throughout its run). Still, there’s a nice pacing to his artwork that can help detract a bit from the fact that there’s so much prose on the page. And that fact is one of the drawbacks, admittedly, in this first issue: sometimes the pages are just drowning in dialogue and other forms of exposition, and talking heads don’t usually make for engaging comics, particularly in what’s supposed to be a space opera. Still, much of the information is needed and engaging in its own right…
Intrigued? Then look next Thursday for Part III continuing this look back at the legionnaires of Nomad Squadron.
The Alien Legion – Part I
Think back to the Mos Eisley cantina scene in Star Wars – remember the wide variety of aliens and creatures inhabiting the bar, drinking away their worries while chilling out to the jazzy tunes of the Modal Nodes? Of course you do – it’s one of the most iconic scenes Lucas gave us in the film. Now imagine that that collection of “scum and villainy” (judgmental much, Ben?) has been recruited into a universal peace-keeping force, and must work together as a unit despite their different backgrounds to survive the rigors of interstellar combat. Intrigued? Well, have I got a series for you:
Back in 1983, Carl Potts, a writer for Marvel’s imprint company Epic Comics, along with Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco, created The Alien Legion, a series that would see two incarnations and a few one-shots over the next couple decades. Imagined as the “French Foreign Legion in space”, the squad was initially planned to be all-human, but fortunately Potts rethought the concept as it was being developed, allowing for the conglomeration of humans and aliens that would comprise Force Nomad. This series would result in some very memorable characters and a series that I’d really like to see make a comeback.
What will follow over the next week or so is an introduction to some of the members of Force Nomad, and a look back at their adventures as found in volumes one and two of The Alien Legion. Look for Part II on Thursday.
