Remake & Reboot: The CYBERFORCE Comic Series

Image Comics turns twenty next year, and the as the California-based publisher edges to maturity maybe it’s time for some of it’s original comics to do so as well. Marc Silvestri’s Cyberforce was one of the six launch titles to Image back in 1992, but of all those launch titles it remains the most elusive. After playing a small part in Top Cow’s summer event series Artifacts, maybe it’s time for the cybernetic super-heroes to come back and claim what’s theirs.

The Concept:

Cyberforce‘s original concept as that an enormous (and malevolent) tech company named Cyberdata had been experimenting on cybernetic / mutant hybrids in an effort to take over the world, but were put on the defense when a group of those test subjects escaped into the open. Silvestri also had a background storyline of a mutant running for public office, but primarily it was cyborg soldiers rebelling against their creator.

For the Cyberforce title to work today, I believe they should bring back the team not in a reboot forgiving past stories but a relaunch distancing themselves from the sometimes abrasive continuity but also mining the best bits of it for the future. Instead of the traditional full team, I’d focus first on a smaller group comprised of Velocity, Ripclaw and Cyblade with measured appearances by their former team-mates. In this series, this is a crime story in the secret world of black-market technology like some tech-savvy version of Fringe but heavy on the action.

The Creators:

Writer – Andy Diggle: Fresh off his exclusive from Marvel, Andy Diggle is one of the most in-demand free agents in comics and given his background writing The Losers, Green Arrow: Year One and his overlooked Bionic Commando comic and he’s a good fit for the book.

Interior Artist – Andy Clarke: Currently dwelling in DC’s Gotham City, Andy Clarke would do well to break out from the shadows and join up with the artist-led outfit over at Top Cow. Clarke worked with Diggle in the past on the Snow/Tiger story in 2000AD and I’d love to see what they’d do for the Cyberforce designs.

Interior Artist – Kenneth Rocafort: As the defacto heir apparent to Marc Silvestri, Rocafort has been lured away to work on DC”s Red Hood & The Outlaws but I hear Rocafort still has a lot of ties back to his alma mater Top Cow. Rocafort would be a good artist to follow-up Clarke in a short salvo of issues to bring the authentic Top Cow brand back to the title.

Interior Artist – Tomm Coker: I’ve picked three interior artists for this in an effort to ensure monthly shipping, but also to provide a quick short story-arcs of two and three issues to liven things up. Bringing Tomm Coker onto the book might be jarring for traditional Top Cow fans, but if Andy Diggle could write a story-arc to match Coker’s sensibilities it could be a definite must-buy as the series goes on.

Cover Artist – Lee Bermejo: Cyberforce needs vibrant covers to draw in readers, and more so than what’s been done in the past. For this, I’d enlist Lee Bermejo to provide the primary covers for the book and built up a visual theme to the book not unlike what Dave Johnson did in 100 Bullets.

Cover Artist – Marc Silvestri: You can’t have Cyberforce without Marc Silvestri, and I’d use him to provide variant covers (and maybe a special one-off issue) to remind people of the book’s legacy.

Comments

  1. “Fresh off his exclusive from Marvel, Andy Diggle is one of the most in-demand free agents in comics”

    …Really? Everything I’ve heard about his Marvel work has been awful.

  2. It might just be fond memories, but I feel like the original Cyberforce run was pretty good stuff. I know I have the issues somewhere, all the way through the Killer Instinct Crossover, probably worth a re-read

    • I feel the same about the original Wildcats series. Could be good, coooouuulllld be nostalgia. Not sure if I want to give it another look.

    • Loved Cyberforce, superficially they were a chronic Claremont/Lee Xmen ripoff right down to the interpersonal relationships between the characters (no one else drew the Ripclaw/Velocity v Wolverine/Jubilee comparisons?). But as the series went on it got pretty damn good, especially when the alien, enemy behind the enemy got involved.

      Plus there was a guy with a deer head, or an elk head, or something, just omgawesome.

  3. I would totally read that series, though I would disagree with you on one point.

    “Bringing Tomm Coker onto the book might be jarring for traditional Top Cow fans”

    If you take a look at Broken Trinity: Pandora’s Box, at least from that one page Tom Coker has a style that it similar to Alessandro Vitti. So Top Cow fans will already be familiar with that style of art.