Real Superhero action returns with the next phase of G-Man Comics

FROM https://www.firstcomicsnews.com/real-superhero-action-returns-with-the-next-phase-of-g-man-comics/ by Joeseph Simon

A few months ago, fans of superhero comics enjoyed the exciting debut of G-Man Comics with their first Kickstarter. Now, at this very moment, G-Man Comics have another Kickstarter featuring the third issue of ‘The Agent’, ‘Comics 3in1 #1’, ‘G-Men United #1’, and the second edition of ‘Handbook of the G-Man Universe 2021 Winter Edition’. If you like your heroes patriotic with stories of other lands and dimensions, crossing over into different genres, you’ll want to check out the Kickstarter and read this interview!

 

 

Presenting a G-Man roundtable interview with guests Rik Offenberger, Jim Burrows, Eric N. Bennett, and Earl Wajenberg.

Get in on the superhero cool at Kickstarter HERE


Joeseph Simon

When did you discover the beginnings of the patriotic heroes of the ’40s? What were the memorable ones to you?

Jim Burrows

Jim Burrows
I’m not sure. It may well have been Captain America when Avengers #4 came out, or it could gave been reading about him, the Shield, or Fighting America in an early ’60s fanzine.

Rik Offenberger
It was Captain America as a kid, I felt very patriotic and still do, Captain America just connected with me. A few years later I discovered the ‘40s adventures through Alan Light’s Flashback reprint series of comics and I was hooked at a very young age.

Earl Wajenberg
I became aware of Captain America when I was in college, in the ’70s.  He was the only one I really heard of, except for Captain Britain, whom I knew nothing of except the name.  I was not really engrossed in superheroes at the time, so Cap was the only memorable one.

 

Joeseph
It is fascinating, comics in the ’40s sold in the hundreds of thousands and prominently featured the battle against fascism.

Rik Offenberger

Rik
I think that was part of the appeal, the comics battled the Nazis before the US entered the war.

 

Joeseph
It is sad to think that during the ’40s the anti-fascist sentiment was encompassed all of America. The problem though has transformed from what history talks of into what we have now. 
How is this reflected in your stories? 

Jim
Well, of course, anti-Fascism wasn’t universal in America throughout the pulp, Golden, and Atomic ages. While America was at war with the Axis, at least in public the country was anti-Fascist, but from the American Bund to numerous wealthy and politically active individuals, there was support for Germany, Italy, and the strong man politics that came from them. After the war and into the McCarthy era of the ’50s, one of the accusations leveled at suspect Communists and fellow travelers was that of “premature anti-fascism”. It was this very homeland fascist element that made the need for Red, White, and Blue patriotic heroes to stand so visibly against fascism. Especially if you were a Jewish comic creator.

Rik
Nazis were always the best villains for the patriotic heroes, so it only made sense to me that our patriotic heroes should continue to fight Nazis. 

Earl Wajenberg

Earl
It’s not directly reflected in my stories, or not yet.  I’ve only written a couple, both about “the Energist,” a research scientist who acquires powers and some brain trauma in an adventure he can’t recall, but his two stories are told from the viewpoint of his 15-year-old niece, who is a modern kid and so historically removed from ‘40s issues.

For what it’s worth, Irene and the Energist list in New Acadia, a multiethnic Massachusetts city.  The Energist’s boss is an Acadian (i.e. mixed-race) woman, and Irene has an oriental school friend, and everyone seems okay with that.

However, the original version of the Energist was set in the ‘40s and he had his fateful lab accident in a Princeton lab where he was working on something for Einstein, something related to five-dimensional space (a topic Einstein actually looked into at one point).  Einstein, of course, is everything to do with the fight against fascism.

 

Agent #3 Cover, The Agent vs Dr. Rottmann

Joeseph
For those who haven’t read The Agent #1 and 2, catch them up on those issues and how they lead into Agent #3.

Rik
We don’t publish on a regular schedule, so it is very important that each issue stands on its own. You don’t have to read #1 or #2 to enjoy #3. The only real theme we have on-going is that the FBI is battling a Neo-Nazi group called the Aryan Alliance. Henry Rothländer is the head of that group but also a billionaire industrialist who produces arms for the US Government. In the first issue, the Aryan Alliance attacks Fort Knox along with a giant robot “stolen” from Rothländer Industries. In the second issue, we see Henry Rothländer in action as Murder Hornet. Murder Hornet is a registered superhero who uses his status to inflict violence on people in minority neighborhoods. Henry Rothländer has a Murder Hornet double who takes all the heat for any trouble Henry may get into and we also get Henry Rothländer secret origin.

When we roll into the third issue we deal with two of the Rothländer Industries employees Dr. Stephen Rottman and Arial Roswell. In a freak accident, Dr. Rottman is turned into a human skeleton and Arial is in a coma. Dr. Rottman experiments on Arial and he becomes a little green man called Arial-51. Together they attack Simon N. Kirby in his home when he is asleep. It’s a psychological attack in which everything good that happened in Agent Kirby’s life is turned into a nightmare, and that is before the zombies attack. 

 

Joeseph
What inspired The Agent#3?

Agent Kirby #3 – Steven Butler cover

Rik
After we finished the script on issue two Lou Mougin, our script editor, said to me, you really needed to dig into who Simon N. Kirby is and what motivates him. So I wanted to tell a story about Simon more than the Agent this time. I wanted to cover what motivated him to be an FBI Agent and superhero. At the same time, the villains are really important. I wanted a little green man, so Arial Roswell becomes a little green man called Arial-51. He is the sidekick or lab assistant to a living skeleton, who is our mad scientist. Dr. Rottman will be ongoing and create more of our villains in future issues. There is a huge horror vibe to the story mixed with ‘50s sci-fi. We get to all of that before the action starts.

 

Joeseph
That is one of the great things about comics. You can do stories that crossover to other genres. Superhero plus horror, slice-of-life, science fiction, noir, fantasy, or whatever else you like. What are your influences outside of the superhero genre?

Earl
Science fiction and fantasy, really more than the superhero genre.  I am particularly interested in the world-building side of it and follow the design of the G-Man setting.

Jim
A lot of the world-building comes from my role-playing game experience. Earl and I were college roommates and started playing D&D in 1973, the year it came out. I started running my own campaign in 1976, and besides being a player, Earl ghostwrote many of the adventures. When we started doing SF-based instead of fantasy, he created the initial setting. We collaborated over the years on that setting and others. When my second son was born, the Fantasy and Science Fiction game went on hiatus, and in the interim, we played Super World. About 10 years later, I started building my newsuperhero world. A couple of years later, I started to create the Halflands, the “2nd edition” of my science fantasy campaign. The Halflands are a world between worlds that acts as a nexus between many worlds, SF, fantasy, and superheroes. Rik added Kawaii. My novel, Aunt Jenny and the Delayed Quest takes place in the Halflands themselves.  In the Demon Priest, some of the characters travel through the Halflands to Dream and the bound realm where the fallen angels of the story were imprisoned.

Agent Kirby #3 Cover, Gilbert Monsanto version. Arial-51 joins Dr. Rottmann to fight The Agent.

So, the setting has evolved over 3 or 4 decades, largely created by me, but with major contributions by Earl, and more recently Rik.

Rik
For me, it’s sci-fi, westerns, and cop shows. Having said that we are doing a ‘50s sci-fi/zombie story in Agent Kirby.

Eric N. Bennett
Science Fiction and ancient mythology. I’m a HUGE Norse myth buff and have been reading Thor and associated myths for nearly as long as I could read.

 

Joeseph
Thankfully, the intriguing tiny villain Arial-51 survived. Will we be seeing more of Arial-51 and his partner?
 

Rik
Dr. Rottman will be ongoing and create more of our villains in future issues. Dr. Rottman is both the head of weapons development at Rothländer Industries and the developer of supervillains for the Aryan Alliance. At some point in the future, all the villains will band together into a giant supervillain team to battle the G-Men but that is down the road.

 

3in1 #1 Cover

Joeseph
Next up we have COMICS 3in1, #1. G-Man Comics shares other synergies with comics in the past. Comics from the ’40s featured taking the fight to fascism as well being told in the anthologies format featuring shorter comic stories. Comics 3in1 and G-Men United take us back to the anthology with shorter stories. What inspired the company to do Comics 3in1 and G-Men United in the anthology format?

Jim
All three of the founding G-Men creators had multiple creations at the time. I had literally hundreds, having started the world of New Acadia as a setting for a prospective RPG game roughly a quarter-century earlier. We wanted a vehicle to tell their stories in without doing a lot of one-shots. An anthology book seemed the way to go, and 3in1, with a story by each of us, seemed to fill that bill.

Rik
3in1 has always been the plan, the three of us, me, Jim, and Eric telling three stories, like the old Tales of Suspense with Captain America and Iron Man sharing a comic.

Jim
The origin of G-Men United is a little more complex. It started with one story that didn’t seem to quite fit as a backup and “just grown” from there.

Rik
I had a Hawk & Dove-inspired story with Terror Noir (my version of Black Terror) and Pocahontas, the Irish Indian. It was a message of unity in a divided world. I was going to run it as a back-up story in Agent Kirby #3 with art by Fish Lee. But as Jim said it didn’t fit. Jim suggested we do Energist & Irene as the back-up instead. I was excited and Joshua 1:6 Holley was doing our letter headers, and I wanted him to do a story, so we were off with a new back-up story. However, I forgot we had planned to use that space for something else. We now had 2 back-up stories, so why not make another comic? Jim and I then each wrote another story with more art by Joshua about our characters working together. In my tale Sgt. Flag rescues FBI Agent Chris Squires from a T-Rex in another dimension, a dimension of ultimate cuteness, Kawaii, and Sgt. Flag is anything but cute.

3in1 #1 – Steven Butler cover

 

Joeseph
As writers, how was it writing longer stories like The Agent vs. shorter stories like those in Comics 3in1 and G-Men United?

Jim
I’ve never written a full-length comic story, so I can’t say. I came from short stories and novels. That and nearly a half-century of playing RPGs. Earl and I start doing that back in 1973.

Rik
I always loved the Tales of Suspense comics and the Green Lantern back-up stories in the Flash. The Silver Age and Bronze Age were filled with shorter stories. As a writer, I like doing both. The challenge is getting the store complete in the shorter page count but there is a long history of that in comics and it’s rewarding when it comes together.

Eric
Longer stories, especially full-length comics, stress me out. I seem to be able to come up with short stories, but the minute I try to make myself fill up a full issue, it’s like hitting a creative brick wall. I’ve been trying to push my way through, and sometimes it does work out really well (see the upcoming third issue of POWER COMPANY for example). But generally, I think I put too much pressure on myself when confronted with a whole issue to do on my own. 

 

Joeseph
Comics started as single-issue stories and as time went on, the two-parter to the continuous storyline came into play. I think it’s an important distinction to have as a company. For new fans coming onto a title, the prospect of starting late in a story and having to buy back issues or waiting for the trade is a lot less appealing for many. This is something I think the industry is trying to come to grips with. 
Was this an intentional aspect of G-Men comics?

Jim
Yes.

Ric
We publish very slowly and on Kickstarter. It is very important for us to tell shorter stories so that the fans can buy a single issue and be satisfied. The last thing we want to do is have a 6-month cliffhanger and then with the next Kickstarter have fans miss the first half of the story. We need to be reader-friendly.

 

Joeseph
The Agent selects Sgt. Flag for a mission to save a kidnapped damsel in distress. Her kidnapping is to pressure the woman’s father, a judge, from making a judgment against an El Jeffe. This is the kind of task The Agent has for every mission as the leader of the G-Men.

In a real-world way, the G-Men effectiveness is in its resources. How many G-men does The Agent have to select from when he choose those who go out on assignment?

Rik
The inspiration is Mission Impossible. Peter Graves would pick the agents for each mission at the beginning of the episode, that is how Agent Kirby works the G-Men. Every hero has to register with the government as a superhero or that can’t operate as a deputized member or law enforcement. Agent Kirby is the head of the caped agent program, so the FBI assumes he is in charge of all the superheroes in the G-Man universe.

Jim
There is an interesting assumption and question embedded in that which will come to light over time.

Eric
And we’ll also see how other super-teams within this universe feel about the arrangement as well.

 

Get your G-Man Trading Cards on Kickstarter!

Joeseph
It will be interesting, as readers discover who all the G-Men are, they can analyze the Agent’s profiles in your handbooks.  How The Agent came to make the choices he does in who he sends on missions will be more understood. At the same time, readers can use the information in the handbooks to see if they would have chosen different G-Men than The Agent. 
Will the handbook be a regular title?

Jim
Yes. And the trading cards as well.

Rik
With each Kickstarter, the plan is to update the Handbook with the new characters and a few from the next Kickstarter as a preview.

 

Joeseph
Resources are one part of the equation in the G-Men’s effectiveness. Dedication to doing what is right is the other. The G-Men are dedicated, risking their lives to bring safety and security to the world. 
What are the reasons for the dedication to being in the G-men for Agent, Sgt. Flag, and the featured in the latest releases from G-Man Comics?

The villains from The Agent #3.

Jim
As in the real world, the motivations of our patriotic heroes, and all of our characters vary from person to person and even over time.

In my case, the Champion of Liberty² plays superhero for several reasons, reasons that are in tension with each other. Jack is the illegitimate son of the original Champion of Liberty from back in the ’80s, raised by his single mother, without either Jack or his father knowing about each other. He was a petty thief and a hacker, who was arrest for hacking the federal government. He was recruited to be a confidential informant; his parentage discovered, including his susceptibility to the super-soldier serum. He was coerced into following in his father’s footsteps. Over time, the role grew on him.

Rik
I have two patriotic heroes the Agent is more a silver-age style hero who does the right thing because it is the right thing to do no matter what. Sgt. Flag is a ‘90s hero, he will do whatever it takes to get the job done no matter what that is. They have very different approaches to the job at hand but they are in 100% agreement that it needs to be accomplished. Both heroes volunteered for public service.


Joeseph

Not only do we get to see Champion of Liberty², but we also get to see more of Demon Priest. Jim’s creation debuted in a Demon Priest ashcan and was also in the last handbook.  This is a flashback story that seems to be directly bringing  Demon Priest to the attention of the G-Men.  I think prison was a great start for Demon Priest’s story.

Jim
Actually, though it is something of a spoiler, the Demon Priest’s incarceration arises out of the events of the novel. I’m polishing the novel for release in the not too distant future. When Rik and I were discussing the creation of G-Man 3in1, he suggested that my story could feature either the Champion or the Demon Priest. Or both. And with that, I realized that they could meet in prison, that Jack’s FBI handlers, distrusting Father Gregory, could sic Jack on him. He already had a record, after all.

 

Demon Priest and Champion of Liberty².

Joeseph
If everyone is capable of redemption, a fallen angel can as well. Is that the premise of Demon Priest? 

Jim
The Demon Priest started as a slip of the tongue, and after I’d said “Demon Priest” a half dozen times, I dismissed it as an absurdity. There couldn’t really be such a thing as a demon priest, could there? Two weeks later, Lee started narrating the story of the Demon Priest. I was raised in the Episcopal church, was a lay minister for a while and a philosophy major who studied religious history and theology, and the setting for my longest-running role-playing campaign feature Lilith as a villain, so my background and subconscious sent me a rebuttal to the “no such thing” claim, as told by Lee, Alan (Faria), Whim and the rest.

 


Joeseph
Is this story the start of Demon Priest proving his good with the hero community?

Jim
He proved it to some in the novel and hasn’t managed to prove it to all to this point. Likewise, his sidekick/partner Red Halo, who has cameoed in a couple of stories and will probably take the lead in a couple eventually. Along with True Blue and Richard, the True Knight.

 

Joeseph
Patriot heroes are not all the same. Including personalities specialties, and tactics, The Agent, Sgt. Flag, Champion of Liberty², American Eagle, and the others are pretty different from each other. What are the differences in personalities, specialties, tactics, and any other you think are noteworthy?

Jim
As I already mentioned, Jack, the second Champion of Liberty, is something of a reluctant hero. He’s also rather torn by the differing demands of XCOM—the military’s extraordinary (meta-human, and extreme tech) operations command, who supplied his gauntlets and uniform and triggered his powers with the super-soldier serum—and the FBI who turned him as a CI and believes that it can draft any registered meta. As a mostly reformed criminal, he’s not that fond of either. His equipment is like the Agent’s, but he also has meta-human powers like the American Eagle, though AER is WAY more powerful.

Rik
For me Agent Kirby is the planner, he sets up the mission and thinks long term about what needs to be done. Agent Kirby is an FBI Agent so I like to take that approach to his character and actions. Sgt. Flag is a man of action, he just throws himself into the heat of battle to save anyone in danger. He was a Marine and worked in search and rescue, he makes sure everyone makes it out alive.

 

American Eagle vs Brain Bruiser.

Joeseph
In the ‘Price of Liberty’, we are presented with a story involving American Eagle. The bad guy in this story is Brain Bruiser. He is an interesting brain-powered villain with strength who is not entirely that intelligent.
What is the story behind his creation?

Eric
Have you ever messed with one of those random name generators? That’s where he came from. I was fooling around and the name “Brain Bruiser” popped out. It just struck me as so goofy that I had to come up with a character based on it. And I decided that instead of going with a hyper-intelligent “Brainiac”-style character who knew how smart he was and reveled in it, that we’d take a guy who was just a mob enforcer and give him these psionic-based abilities that he’s absolutely not equipped to handle to their fullest potential. As the saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, then everything else looks like a nail.

 

Joeseph
A surprise and new emerging villain enters the sense, with who I suspect is Half Man, at the very end of the story. What is Half Man’s association with Rothländer, if any?

Eric
There’s not any connection between the two that we’re aware of. There are multiple White Supremacist/Nationalist groups operating in our world today that don’t work together, aside from sharing a similar philosophy, and this is another case like that. Does that mean they may not sync up in the future, but for now they’re each left to their own devices.

 

Joeseph
As a writer and letterer, you get to create italics, bold, emphasis, sound effects, and everything to your exact liking for your own stories.
Name a time when this was a super pro and another time when it was the opposite.

Eric
Honestly, working on the lettering for Rik’s Agent stories has been a blast. I really enjoyed what I got to do on the first two issues. Also, I’m really pleased with how the second issue of THE POWER COMPANY came out as well. Conversely, the book that was my very first “pro” job lettering (which I won’t name here because I don’t want to potentially hinder its sales) I’m just extremely unhappy with. I had a lot to learn (and I still do), but that book…let’s just say the art and my lettering didn’t blend well at all, and I remain VERY unhappy with it.

 

The Agent and Sgt. Flag.

Joeseph
That’s right, you did The Power Company.  A lot of readers might be familiar with everyone’s name for different reasons. Outside of G-Man Comics, what are you guys doing?

Eric
Power Company is from my fine partners at Coalition Comics. Naturally, I’m working on that, as well as lettering a number of other series, and working with the folks at Fresh Monkey Fiction doing graphics and writing for their Amazing Heroes action figure line.

Rik
I run First Comics News.

Jim
As mentioned, I’ve completed two novels. At the moment, I’m trying to find an agent, editor, or publisher for “Aunt Jenny and the Delayed Quest” a high fantasy novel in which the “Prophesied One” is not a young guy, but a 67-year-old woman who is a retired librarian, nurse, and athletics coach. I intend, shortly, to self-publish “The Demon Priest”. I did an “ashcan” preview including a 2-page comic book style intro drawn by Gilbert Monsanto. I’ll be upgrading this. “Watch this space”.

Before retiring, I worked in computers, software, networking, and telecommunications. I had a 4-decade career specializing in “doing things I never did before”. After I retired, I’d never been a novelist, comic book writer, editor, and publisher, so that seemed natural.

 

Joeseph:
Is there a code or code of conduct for the heroes of the G-Men?

Jim
More than one, both personally and officially. The FBI, the military’s XCOM, and FALCON, the domestic agency specifically created to handle meta- and para-human affairs, all have different understandings of the law, regulations, and relationship of superheroes and the government. You see some of this coming out in the books, especially G-Men United, which has a bit of the disunited in it and maybe should be call G-Men Uniting.

Rik
We try to be real-world based in our universe with superheroes. So, it is the same code of conduct you get from the FBI in my stories and we pushed up against that in issue two of Simon N. Kirby, The Agent.

Eric
American Eagle is a soldier (as was I) and approaches things from a soldier’s perspective. Sometimes that means doing what may be necessary.

 

G-Man United #1 cover

Joeseph
The four stories in G-Men United show inner relations of the G-Men and other facets to how the team works while introducing readers to many more members of the team. The roster is getting bigger! Does that mean the threats will be more menacing in future releases of G-Man Comics?

Jim
Possibly. In the universe’s timeline, there was a huge Crisis about 3 decades back—the Demon Wars—where not only a huge number of superheroes were involved, but also supernatural figures including Titania the faerie queen of the Summerlands, her sister queens, and the forces that joined them. Things can go really wrong in this world. It has happened before. That threat always hangs over the world. But mostly, I suspect we’ll be telling individual stories. Lots of them.

As to the roster. I brought a couple of hundred heroes with me and more than a hundred villains when Rik suggested that we set the stories of G-Man Comics in my world. Many of them will only be background figures or cameos if they appear at all, but the roster is potentially huge, given that Rik and Eric brought their own stables, and Earl has contributed a couple of his own.

Rik
I had planned on focusing on Agent Kirby, Sgt. Flag and Lynx but then I had another idea for a different type of story and I needed different characters, we will expand as we have different stories to tell organically.

 

Joeseph
United is the unifying word in each story. How important is that theme to each of you personally? 

Jim
The goal of uniting is, to me, perhaps the most challenging issue of the time in the real world. This will undoubtedly come up in my writing.

Rik
The title was a play on Justice League United, which told different stories of smaller groups of the Justice League in the cartoon. In our comic, the united becomes a verb as they are becoming united.

 

G-Man United #1 – Steven Butler cover

Joeseph
In “Into the I Want You!” story we are introduced to New Acadia.  Here the heroes are different and the villains are of a different bent. Where the G-Men are of a patriotic nature, what are the heroes of New Acadia like? 

Jim
New Acadia is home to a lot of my characters. It’s my Metropolis or Gotham. It is based on the US cities I love the most: Boston, New Orleans, and San Francisco, with bits of New York and Quebec for good measure. It has a detailed history dating back to the 1750s when a couple of thousand Acadians—people of French and native descent—settled in what in our world became Newburyport. This happened in part because there was an isolated French Catholic mission there. It was a destination for escaped slaves on the underground railroad and Haitian refugees. As a result is an old multi-ethnic city like New Orleans, San Francisco, and Boston. The local Creole population, the Acadies are like New Orleans Cajuns (both words derive from ‘Acadian’). It’s not far from Salem, and there’s a bit of a supernatural bent to it. It has thus been a bot of a destination for meta-humans and connections to other Realms. Note that Lovecraft’s Arkham is also set in the same area.

The local FALCON office is headed by the famed Woman of Bronze, Simone Lafort, an Acadie. In part, because New Acadia is New Acadia and in part because of her, the New Acadia branch is second in importance only to the DC/Bethesda area headquarters. Of course, Lionheart, the World’s Wealthiest Superhero would tell you that the fact that the Lyonnaise,  the center of his real estate and security empire is in New Acadia is more significant than the Woman of Bronze or any other factor.

 

Joeseph
Will the rogue’s gallery of bad guys that the G-Men are facing join up with the villains of New Acadia?

Jim
Probably. And the heroes as well. We’re still finding our dynamic balance.

 

3in1 #1 – Michael Netzer cover

Joeseph
Your Kickstarter includes The Agent #3, 3in1 Comics #1, G-Men United # 1 plus the above-mentioned G-Man handbook.  You also have variant guest cover artists include the always good Steven Butler and super pro Michael Netzer. Michael of course is a well-known Marvel and DC artist. What other surprises are there in store for G-Man Comics fans?

Jim
That would be telling, and then where’s the surprise?

 

Joeseph
With eight stories told plus the handbook, what was your favorite scene to write?

Jim
I really enjoyed the repartee between Simon and Outrage that brackets “I want you!”

Rik
I usually start with scenes in my head and then connect them into stories. In Agent Kirby the stuff between Father and Son was great for me, but I thought of the Arial-51 escape as a starting point and love how that turned out.

 

Joeseph
Why?

Jim
Because it starts to bring some of the conflicts in premises inherent in our world to light. Rik and I each had a superhero registration act in our worlds before we merged, and they work differently. Rather than resolve that difference we’ve allowed it to stand. The FBI, FALCON, XCOM, and individuals like the Champion, the Agent and Outrage have very different views on how the law works and affects superheroes, meta- and para-humans. And the real world works that way, too. The conflicts in both my story and Rik’s that start and end G-Men United illustrate that. I think they add something to them—and let’s not go overboard with this term—‘realism’ of our world.

Rik
You have to have evil villains and of course, the hero has to capture them or they have to escape without making the hero into a fool. I felt the escape was in keeping with who he was as a character without diminishing Simon N. Kirby as a hero.

 

G-Man United #1 Alan Farara cover.

Joeseph
What was your favorite scene to see once you saw the art?
Why?

Jim
Probably the Red Halo cameo in the Agent #2. That was the first time another writer and artist portrayed one of my characters. Their vision of her wasn’t the same as mine, but adapting their views to her is going to make her more interesting and again that word, ‘real’. Gilbert had drawn my characters. But in this instance, Rik wrote her and Alan drew her, and I just got to watch. It was thrilling.

Rik
In 3in1 the two pages with the large images of Agent Kirby and Sgt. Flag from Gilbert are incredible. In Agent Kirby, the image of the team coming out of the helicopter and Lynx with the zombies was everything I could have asked for and more.

 

Joeseph
With the shorter stories, crossovers, and mega team-ups that readers will get to experience, everyone is writing stories with characters that are not theirs and are as new to them, as they are to the readers. That is one of the wonders of a shared world universe. What character is growing on you that you have written that isn’t your own creation and why? 

Jim
While Simon is fun, perhaps Infantino? His corruption weakens the heart of the FBI’s view on the registration act and their authority over the heroes. He stands in contrast to the Woman of Bronze. 

Though you didn’t ask, I think I’d like to write Lynx, especially, Maya, meeting either Simone or Outrage.

Handbook of the G-Man Universe 2021 Winter edition

Rik
I love the Demon Priest from the name to the complex back story he is really well fleshed out, but I have read the novel so that might color my judgment. I am just beginning to learn about all the other characters along with the readers.

 

Joeseph
If your heroes are defined by their patriotism, then how are your villains defined?

Jim
Their selfishness, pettiness, and arrogance? Maybe? I’m eager to see what the others say.

Rik
My villains think they are building a better world in their image. They want to build a white fatherland in America, it’s their dream and ambition. Which is what brings them into conflict with my heroes.

Eric
I try to make villains that remind me of the characters I read as a kid. Sometimes goofy, other times massively threatening. One minute you’ll have an arch-villain bent on ruling the world with the power to make it happen, the next you’ve got some D-list wanna-be who just wants to rob a bank and kick back in Tahiti. 

 

 

Get in on the superhero cool at Kickstarter HERE

A few months ago, fans of superhero comics enjoyed the exciting debut of G-Man Comics with their first Kickstarter. Now, at this very moment, G-Man Comics have another Kickstarter featuring the third issue of ‘The Agent’, ‘Comics 3in1 #1’, ‘G-Men United #1’, and the second edition of ‘Handbook of…

Joeseph Simonjoeseph.simon@firstcomicsnews.comAuthorI am honored to bring the comic book industry closer to comic book fans everywhere! I’m an author, musician, graphic designer, and comic book reporter • Find out more about me at : ((My reporting)) www.facebook.com/joesimon.comicbookreporter + ((My music project)) https://lureoftheunknown.com/First Comics News