Broken Frontier

At last year’s Marvel creative summit, Marvel editor Bill Rosemann revealed that he was planning to turn Jim Rhodes, aka War Machine, into a one-man army based in a stealth satellite with a mandate to take on the tyrants and madmen across the globe who commit horrific atrocities that no outside power is willing to stop.  And he needed a writer.  I hadn’t planned on angling for a new book, but as soon as I heard Bill’s pitch, I was hooked. 

I’d had an eye on Rhodey for a while -- I’d written an alternative version of him into the “1602 New World” miniseries and had tried to work him into a couple of other projects over the years.  And I’d been researching the Holocaust for the “Magneto Testament” miniseries, which had led me to read about more recent genocides and atrocities.  The new “War Machine” series seemed like a perfect place to tackle a character I’d always loved while exploring difficult questions of war, interventionism, and violence in the name of justice.

With the second issue of “War Machine” scheduled to hit comic book stores on January 21, now seems like a good time to take an inside look at some of the decisions that went into “War Machine” #1 and drop some hints about where the book might be going in the future.

WARNING:  SPOILERS AHEAD!

Page One

The idea with this opening page was to immediately set the thematic context of our story.  “War Machine” takes place in a world in which presidents and prime ministers roundly condemn genocide and promise “Never again.” But almost invariably, whenever a new genocide begins, no one steps up to stop it.  Except, as we’ll soon discover, Jim Rhodes, a.k.a. the one-man army known as War Machine. As the series progresses, we’ll provide alternate perspectives on Rhodey’s new attitude.  But in this first issue, we’re looking at the world only through Rhodey’s eyes.  And from his point of view, there are few shades of gray in Santo Marco -- just armed soldiers with long histories of war crimes about to massacre another group of unarmed civilians. 

And yes, Santo Marco is a fictional country found only in the Marvel Universe.  Every atrocity in “War Machine” has real world antecedents and we’re striving for immediacy and realism in both the storylines and Leo Manco’s brilliant art -- the image of anguished UN peacekeepers standing by while people are murdered because their mandate prevents them from intervention is based on horrific accounts of the genocide in Rwanda, for example.

But I always planned to use fictional countries because for better or for worse, War Machine’s actions will have a transformative, long-term impact on the nations he visits.  Magneto’s history in the real world events of the Holocaust works because the history informs the character rather than the other way around.  But the stories we’re telling in “War Machine” require the character to change the course of history for the nations he deals with.  It just didn’t sit well with me to use real world human beings who are suffering unbelievably horrific atrocities even as we speak as characters in a story that would require outcomes that ultimately contradict real world events.

And on a purely practical, comics continuity level, using fictional countries helps us avoid the sliding scale time problems that occur when a comic book character’s history is tied to real world events.  We’re thinking long term here, folks!

Page Two

In an early outline of the script, the civilians in the arena were going to be carpet bombed by F-16s.  But then I remembered, hey, this is a comic book!  So we went with the retrofitted Sentinels reprogrammed to enable General Augustine’s regime of ethnic cleansing.  The look of the Sentinel here was inspired by the brilliant vision of the wild Sentinels in the Morrison/Quitely “New X-Men” run. 

   

Page Six

Here’s the first unveiling of War Machine’s new internal monitoring system.  Rhodey’s tapping into a huge amount of data that gives him the histories of the killers he’s facing.  This may not justify what happens on the next page, but it provides important context for Rhodey’s behavior.  The fact that the child in the foreground is a split second away from having his head blown off might also be a motivating factor.

One note to self on this page deals with the size of the text of the internal monitors.  It reads fine when you’re holding the physical comic book, but it’s a bit harder to get through when looking at images online.  And these days, we need to be thinking about multiple formats for comics.  (A little ironic that the guy who’s writing a big future-tech book is only figuring this out now, huh?)

Page Nine

We’ve purposefully withheld certain information from this flashback scene.  Rest assured, we’ll eventually reveal the full context of this scene, including where this bombing took place, who the enemy is, and just what Rhodey’s doing there in the first place.

Please take note -- Rhodey’s clearly lost his arms and legs, but I made a special request that he maintain the physical integrity of his nether regions.   Ahem.

   

Page Ten

This theme of certain people having the ability to wrest opportunity from disaster will recur.  I’ll say no more.

Pages Eleven and Twelve

Jim Rhodes has killed in the past, most notably in the first few issues of his last ongoing series, when he participated in a war to free a Nelson Mandela-style character in the African nation of Imaya.  But he’s never killed with so little hesitation before this storyline.  Bethany’s warning to Rhodey about “physical, mental, emotional... maybe even moral stresses” in Panel Three of Page Eleven might just provide some context for this new attitude.

  

Another indication that his new enhanced state might be affecting him in unexpected ways is Rhodey’s statement on Page 12 that he “can’t stop seeing everything.  Every woman they’ve raped... every child they’ve shot...”

Word to the wise:  Keep an eye out for “War Machine” #4 and #6 for some critical scenes regarding this theme.

Pages Fifteen and Sixteen

Chuck Austen did a great job of reimagining Parnell Jacobs in the out-of-continuity “US War Machine” maxi-series.  I loved Parnell’s appearances in the Busiek/Chen issues back in the day and thought the backstory with Rhodey and Parnell and Glenda would provide some rich material for the new series.

   

I love the information overload feel of Rhodey’s internal monitors layering Parnell’s history over the entire spread.  And I think Leo knocked it out of the park in particular with the look on Parnell’s face.  And it occurs to me that here’s an image that can only work in comics, where the reader can get hit with the impact of the full image but then take the time to read through the information at his or her own pace. But we did put in the white arrows at the last minute to help guide the reader through the page.

Page Seventeen

The “Don’t eat paste” line made Bill laugh.  And making my editors laugh always makes me happy.

And finally, a few teases for “War Machine” #2 and beyond! 

In “War Machine” #2, we’ll find out whom Rhodey won’t kill and why.

In “War Machine” #3, War Machine meets God of War as Ares enters the fray!

And in “War Machine” #4, Suzie Endo returns! But whether that’s particularly wonderful for War Machine remains to be seen...

Thanks for reading -- we’ll be back soon with another thrilling installment of “Pak Talks Comics.”  Please click here to submit your questions for our Reader Q&A section and see you next time!

© 2009 Greg Pak.  All rights reserved.  For more about Greg Pak’s comics and films, visit http://www.pakbuzz.com/.