Monsters

Product Information

After leaving Marvel, Windsor-Smith became the creative director and lead artist at Valiant Comics, where he illustrated the company's revival of the 1960s Gold Key Comics character Solar, and created the original characters Archer and Armstrong. He was also the chief designer of the " Unity" crossover storyline. After leaving Valiant in 1993, Windsor-Smith did work through a number of publishers, including co-creating the vampiric character Rune with Chris Ulm, which was published as part of Malibu Comics' Ultraverse. Rune's adventures included a crossover with Conan that Windsor-Smith wrote and illustrated. He also provided art for the WildStorm Productions/ Image Comics storyline " Wildstorm Rising", though he later came to regret that work. He subsequently created an oversized anthology series, Barry Windsor-Smith: Storyteller through Dark Horse Comics, though it was cancelled after nine issues. Strapped to an Operating Table: The project does not bother to anesthetize Logan during any of the multiple operations they force him to undergo. The Professor claims his healing factor will fight off any attempt, but they don't even try. He ends up waking several times and is clearly in agony. years in the making, the most anticipated graphic novel in recent comics history! 2022 EISNER AWARD WINNER: Daudt, Ron E. "Joe Barney Interview (Pt. 2)". The Silver Age Sage: A Tribute to the Silver Age of DC Comics. Archived from the original on 13 October 2015 . Retrieved 18 May 2013. a b "1985 Haxtur Awards". Comic Book Awards Almanac. Archived from the original on 19 January 2016 . Retrieved 4 February 2016.

Monsters isn’t beach reading. Not only would you not want to expose Fantagraphics’ beautiful edition to the sand and salt air, you might end up crushed under the weight of the tome, or burned to a crisp by the sun if you stay out all day reading it to the end in one sitting. But those up for the challenge will be rewarded with one of comics’ great literary epics, a masterpiece of story and art and a generous, unexpected gift from a legendary creator in total command of his craft. Weapon X. New York: Marvel, 1994. ISBN 0-7851-0033-4. Republished as Wolverine: Weapon X. New York: Marvel, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7851-3726-9 With Jim Novak. Shazam Award, Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards Best Individual Story ("Devil Wings over Shadizar," by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith, from Conan the Barbarian No. 6 and "Tower of the Elephant," by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith, from Conan the Barbarian #4) (nominated) [43]Marvel Treasury Special Featuring Captain America's Bicentennial Battles #1 at the Grand Comics Database Windsor-Smith mounts compelling scenes of Elias cooped up in his basement taking scissors to his collection of Golden Age comics, or Tom plotting violent vengeance on the men who comforted his wife during his war. But these passages are there to take us deeper, to show how the men's dances on the threshold of their minds leave their families at thresholds far more real - abandoned by their breadwinners and traumatized by their behavior, left to the mercy of a society with just this side of nothing to offer them. Slowly, Janet Bailey emerges as Monsters' real main character, a desperate, determined woman dumped into a nightmare no self-sacrifice can stop from playing out. If you’re of a certain age, Barry Windsor-Smith’s name is synonymous with ‘Weapon X’, the iconic storyline that ran in “Marvel Comics Presents” in the early 1990’s that arguably remains to this day the definitive Wolverine story. Windsor-Smith’s classically trained illustrations were almost too good for “Marvel Comics Presents,” a series that was often host to newer talent, and did not court icons such as BWS, whose work on Conan comics for Marvel some twenty years prior are almost as recognizable and enduring to the property as Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. Nevertheless, Windsor-Smith’s story about the mutant Wolverine getting his adamantium claws via some truly vicious government experiments not only enlightened fans on Wolverine’s murky past, but also made for a pulse-pounding epic about an unstoppable killing machine that you just might actually be rooting for, if only because the people being killed are worse than the monster they created in Wolverine (or “Weapon X” as he is designated). It is interesting, then, that Windsor-Smith would return to this trope so many years later, but it’s obvious the creator has much more to say. The ugly cynicism and moral bankruptcy of the United States in carrying out “Operation Paperclip” seems to be just as potent a villain to BWS as any costumed creep. Since leaving Valiant, Windsor-Smith has worked for a number of companies. For Malibu's Ultraverse line he co-created Rune with Chris Ulm, including a crossover one-shot comic titled Conan vs. Rune published by Marvel Comics in 1994 after they took over Malibu. As a result he once again came up against legal ownership problems, and the Rune stories have remained un-reprinted as a result. For Image Comics he worked on the crossover storyline " Wildstorm Rising", drawing and coloring Wildstorm Rising No. 1 (May 1995), and all eleven of the covers for the interlinked series. Windsor-Smith later said that he was talked into illustrating Wildstorm Rising, and regretted participating in it, stating that in reading the story and illustrating it, he could not understand the motivations of any of the characters, even when he read earlier Wildstorm books featuring the characters. He says he altered the plot in an attempt to improve it and his enthusiasm for it, later learning that writer James Robinson was not pleased with his doing so. [31]

When Bobby Bailey tries joining the army, he winds up being as a test subject in the Prometheus Project... For the Evulz: The Professor at one point pours hot coffee onto Logan's face, knowing that, due to the mind control, he literally cannot react to the pain of it burning him.Didn't Think This Through: Making Wolverine into a living weapon and somehow expecting it to go well counts, though they initially thought he was just a regular, albeit tough, human. Continuing on with the experiments after realizing that he's already a nigh-indestructible, inhumanly strong mutant with a really bad temper is just begging to get hurt. That silent yet pivotal figure is Bobby Bailey, a mentally damaged young man who's subjected to a government experiment that horrifically disfigures him. How did you decide that he wouldn't speak after the procedure? Did your conception of his character evolve over the years?

Implacable Man: One of the goals of the project is to create one. Logan was already superhumanly tough, but once he gains the Adamantium skeleton, he takes it to a new level. Climaxes when he is shown to survive a bath in molten nuclear waste and just keep coming.Achievements in Ignorance: The project chose Logan because they thought he wouldn't be missed and because his military file showed he had remarkable stamina. They did not know he was a mutant with a powerful Healing Factor, Claws, and Super-Senses. The Anonymous Benefactor of the project did know, however, but chose not to inform the staff or the Professor. It's left ambiguous whether Logan would have even survived the bonding process without his healing. It is of considerable importance to point out that this somewhat extraordinary story requires the use of what the comic book publishing world might consider profanity. Eye Scream: The Professor pours hot coffee onto Logan's face and into his eyes. Not even for some experiment, just out of sheer sadism. Super-Soldier: The purpose of Experiment X is implied to be trying to create one, but the focus is more on Logan's ability to kill rather than any other military application. Manning, Matthew K. "1990s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 252: "It was not until Barry Windsor-Smith wrote and illustrated the thirteen-chapter Weapon X serial that fans really sat up and paid attention [to the Marvel Comics Presents series]."

The cross hatched ink art in this book perfectly captures the tone of the story and gives it a timeless feel. You can tell that BWS put a ton of effort in crafting every portion of this book. If I had one small complaint, it is that many of the adult males look very similar and can be difficult to tell apart, especially if they are wearing a hat. With a book this long, it is incredibly impressive that BWS was able to keep up the quality for such an extended time.

The first volume provides examples of the following tropes:

Windsor-Smith uses lots of dates and places to set up scenes but they add nothing to the context - who’s really going to remember that this scene is taking place three months after the one before last?