V09 – Pg34
So we say a sad farewell to both KingSword and Godiva, as we find out that X-Bow’s assault did in fact kill her. It’s a bit of a somber page for the holiday season, with KS unable to reach his lover before dying… but I doubt many of you we’re expecting a happier ending for these characters. With a majority of the team now dead, how will this story continue? I’ll have to change the header on this site for one! Heh.
Well, in regards to Vanguard page updates, that’s it for this year. Updates will resume on January 7th 2015. It’s a real shame that I had to drop down to a page a week updates in November, as I was on schedule to have this issue wrapped up before Xmas! Ah well. The final four pages will go up in the new year, before we launch into Vanguard – Part Two.
Over the Christmas week, I’ll be posting up some fan-art made by fellow CoH creators for you to enjoy.
I hope you have a great Christmas break and an awesome New Year. Thanks for taking the time to read/share/support the comic, it means a lot to me.
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Dan
MrHades
Edited by
Gary Cohen
Guys, guys, whatcha doin’ guys? You’ve killed off almost all your cast, main and supporting. Guys…where ya goin with this, guys? That said, I do not recommend changing the site header, spoilers. Also: man is this intense stuff. I hope Part 2 starts out…slightly more positive?
When you hit rock bottom, no where else to go but up, really.
You can always keep on digging. It just gets a bit harder. 😉
Daaaaan don’t you do this to me!
Sorry dude! 🙁
theres one question id like to ask in regards to the comics creation. How do you make the backgrounds? I understand if you dont wanna give up trade secrets, but I am rather curious. I used to love drawing comics, but I always hated making the backgrounds. Drawing buildings and other static things just isnt fun.
The backgrounds are made in either SketchUp or In 3DS Max. I used to do a little bit of animation ‘back in the day’ and have tried to apply some of those production skills to my comic book stuff.
Once I have the basic elements of the background in in place, it’s then coloured and amended in Photoshop, which is where the bulk of the work on the pages is done.
Beginning in the new year, I’ll be making tutorials on who I do my stuff. The catch will be that it’ll only be accessible to Patreons of the comic. That said, I’m more than happy to help people out in regards to any part of comicbook production. I am by no means a professional, but I feel I can offer up some pointers.
Thanks a lot for sharing this 🙂 You have really helped me out 😀
So he managed to fly away before further damage was done.
Still, losing an eye will definitely take a toll on his combat abilities. Heck, even just flying can be a problem like this. And PR-wise it remains to be seen if he can pull of the Nick Fury look.
You know, I was actually thinking about whether Max cares more about the physical damage, or the damage to his brand. It would give him an excuse to sell an eyepatch line of action figures, but his reputation and credibility will suffer because he got a critical injury and can’t really explain how. I’d guess if possible he’d try to get a prosthetic, but given all the cameras on him, I don’t think he could get one convincing enough to fool everyone. Especially if it has to be able to withstand the forces of being attached to an Alpha.
Yep, the damage done to the brand might actually be rather deadly. Which in turn would mean a huge cut into their operations budget. And possibly even them being dropped by sponsors like, say, the ones delivering the antidote to Max. After all, they can probably get just about any Alpha on the planet thanks to their bioweapon.
On the other hand they might get a Max that is even more in their hands. Possibly useful as well.
Weeell, it’s not so much a bioweapon as it seems to be a flaw in the Alpha formula in the first place, the medicine for which is simply a delay to the inevitable. At least as far as we know, anyway. Besides that, he’s getting the stuff from the US Gov’t, for whom he is their last Alpha anyways. There was only like what, no more than 10 on the planet at the beginning of the story or something? I forget. And now we’ve seen the death of 2-Kingsword and the other American one. I think the Russian ultranationalist is still alive but busy elsewhere, and the rest we’ve yet to meet.
So while Max may lose face in the public eye, he’s not going anywhere but back into combat.
Of course we don’t know for sure whether Max’s loss of eye is truly permanent either. We don’t know the extent of his healing/regenerative capabilities, he may eventually be able to grow a new eye. His scorching at Spitfire’s hands doesn’t seem to have slowed him down much, and looks like it may even be healing. If he could recover fairly quickly from that, the loss of an eye may be little more than a painful but temporary inconvenience.
It’s great reading all your thoughts no the possible outcome of the character. As it stands, MaX might be the ONLY Alpha left on the planet… and he’s on a relatively short leash. He does what he’s told, or there’s no medicine, which will end in a slow, painful death.
These threads will be explored as Vanguard moves into it’s glorious second phase 🙂
Next chapter: All-New All-Different Team Vanguard! It’s been done before with other super-teams (though not usually because the old team members are dead, but still…).
‘Hey, wanna join my new team?’
‘What happened to the old one?’
‘Umm…’
….*shakes out the envelope containing the contents of the space wasp’s stomach*
Well what ever happens i sure hope it will continue to be the most originol (original?) super hero comic i read in years.
Thanks for the kinds words 🙂
Much appreciated!
Hmm, we havent actualy seen spitfire die have we? Two brocken arms and thrown up into the air but he might have landed somewhere… softer.
Pharashoots have failed and people have survived that so maybe just maybe.
Spitfire can fly, and I don’t think he needs his arms to do so. He was conveniently removed from the combat zone, and nobody’s left that can chase him. As long as he doesn’t pass out (I highly doubt this outcome, for several reasons), he should easily be able to fly away… however he may have some trouble deciding where “safe” is. Regardless of his fortitude, he’s not setting two broken arms on his own OR taking off his costume. He has to find a place that can both cast his arms and not advertise his location, and do so without maps or communication. Good luck, Spitfire!
You’ll see what happened to Spitfire when pages start updating in 2015 🙂
Why????? The good guys are supposed to win, not get shredded and die alone on the ground forsaken of friend and family.
The comics code is dead. Long live grimdark! :S
Ha ha! Never fear, this is not the end, rather than the end of the beginning.
Damn
Damn indeed!
that pretty much ends my hope that maxia is an undercover operative investigating max, whose been saving people off screen. I was also thinking that Godiva could take over maxia and become trapped when her body died and merge/taken over/forced to coexsist with her.
Great theory! Well, Godiva could still be alive in the body of the Hollow Man she took over to she John Hatcher and her niece to safety.
which part was a good theory?
The idea of Godiva’s ‘conscience’ being in MaXia’s body. It’d be a great way to keep the character in the story.
I can still see team Maxtreme getting taken out, because the military must have some protocols for countering supes. (Also, Xbow’s lucky not to have been shot already, Maxia doesn’t seem all that high-powered or all that much of a fighter, and Max is distracted). But as they’re just the hired help, there seems to be a real lack of people left to take on the real villains of the piece.
Indeed, the real villains behind all this have yet to be revealed. The military would/should have a way to counter Methumans, but most governments have had to so much to deal with, these measures seems to be lacking.
Maybe have the site header be page sensitive. Or give Part two a different site or something, if you want to avoid spoiling the comic for new readers.
A new site means a new domain name, which sounds like a lot of cost, time and effort for not a lot of gain. Besides that, most people who stumble upon this site won’t have any idea what’s going on anyways, so either a recap page(s) or simple archive binge will be necessary.
I’m looking into options where the first part of the comic will have one look, while the second part onwards would look a different way.
I find it rather remarkable that Godiva supposedly is dead while neither of the areas are in near her heart.
Kill a punctured long or kidney maybe that fast ?
*areas = arrows
I guess it depends what was damaged internally. If it severed an artery or similar, she could bleed out relatively quickly.
The upper arrow certainly would have a choice of an artery or two that would fit the bill if nicked or severed.
So the comic is over now.
No, not over. The story is just beginning, trust me.
Part two is well under construction… It’ll be a little more laid back to begin with, to give us a breather from two issues of non-stop action.
but goddamn Max is such a tool, in so many ways.
Really though, why would someone with Max’s combination of absurd power and complete lack of moral squeamishness just. . . do as they’ve been told? The disease that’s infecting him is not at all fast acting, and he has to have at least one inhaler on his person. I feel like he could more than easily find the people responsible and beat them them like inhaler pinatas.
X-Bow is compromising the hell out of this team’s plausible deniability, too.
MaX won’t be letting whomever did this to him get off lightly. As Vanguard progresses, we’ll see exactly how much of a leash his new ‘owners’ have on him.