compound
Well-Known Member
Okay, I confess -- I'm a long-time X-Force fan. I started reading the initial New Mutants title at 13 years old, shortly after Liefeld took over pencilling duties. Admittedly, I was thrilled by the over-the-top "kewl"-ness of it all. I followed it beyond its relaunch as X-Force, and continued with the series, on and off, throughout the 90s. By the time Milligan and Allred took over in 2001, my own tastes had expanded and matured, so I loved their completely irreverent take on the new, media-hungry group.
I wanted to come up with a set of Ultimate characters who somehow paid homage to BOTH Liefeld's original group, as well as the mean-spirited self-reflexive fame-whoring of the Milligan/Allred version.
So I came up with the bright idea of contrasting them with Ultimate Spider-Man, and his almost dogmatic power/responsibility schtick. With that in mind, I give you my treatment for Spider-Man: "Extreme".
Ultimate Spider-Man: "Extreme", part 1., "Young Blood"
It's spring break! And like many ordinary teenagers, Peter Parker and the gang (MJ, Liz, Kong, and Flash) head down to Fort Lauterdale to catch some rays.
Kong is excited because of rumors that X-Force will be aapearing at the popular vacation spot. As Kong explains, X-Force are an illegal group of reckless young mutants, who are more interested in taking digital videos of their juvenile, super-powered exploits and selling them on the Internet for money, than they are in saving the world.
Sure enough, while the party is in full swing on the beachfront, X-Force's helicopter descends from the sky, in attention-grabbing fashion. At the moment, the group is comprised of:
Cannonball, the de facto leader, an over-emotional Southern kid, who is best known for "blastin'" through a row of brick walls in his invulnerable form, as a way of getting over his ex;
Skids, a happy-go-lucky lesbian skater girl, who uses her ability to generate tangible force shields mostly for developing innovative tricks with her board;
Rictor, a cocky, short-tempered Latino with earth-shaking tectonic abilities who has joined the group mostly as an excuse to publicize his anti-capitalist views about globalization -- to mostly uninterested audiences;
and Boomer, a bored middle-class girl whose timed-release energy blasts were once fodder for petty webcam shows; Boomer signed up for the group mostly to piss off her do-gooder liberal folks;
Their activities are documented by a Digital Optical Observation Protocol (or D.O.O.P.), an intelligent robotic device which objectively records the actions of its "self-friends" from the most interesting camera angles possible.
X-Force work at the service of a ruthless "talent manager" named Coach Dayspring, a one-eyed, white-haired 'roid-head, more concerned with his investments than the welfare of his clients.
They've come to Florida, in the hope of recruiting a new member, to replace fallen comrade Feral, who passed away during a recent mission to stop big game hunters in Africa.
Understandably, Peter is disgusted by the immature group, who seem dedicated to using their "great power" with as little responsibility as they can, even as he recognizes how much fun it could be to use his powers in such an uninhibited way.
X-Force holds a degrading'open audition', publicly rejecting would-be team members, like a blonde girl who can "slip between moments", and a lycanthropic bookworm.
The parade of embarassment is disrupted by a z-grade gang of criminals with carnival-themed outfits, looking to hold the entire resort for ransom!
I wanted to come up with a set of Ultimate characters who somehow paid homage to BOTH Liefeld's original group, as well as the mean-spirited self-reflexive fame-whoring of the Milligan/Allred version.
So I came up with the bright idea of contrasting them with Ultimate Spider-Man, and his almost dogmatic power/responsibility schtick. With that in mind, I give you my treatment for Spider-Man: "Extreme".
Ultimate Spider-Man: "Extreme", part 1., "Young Blood"
It's spring break! And like many ordinary teenagers, Peter Parker and the gang (MJ, Liz, Kong, and Flash) head down to Fort Lauterdale to catch some rays.
Kong is excited because of rumors that X-Force will be aapearing at the popular vacation spot. As Kong explains, X-Force are an illegal group of reckless young mutants, who are more interested in taking digital videos of their juvenile, super-powered exploits and selling them on the Internet for money, than they are in saving the world.
Sure enough, while the party is in full swing on the beachfront, X-Force's helicopter descends from the sky, in attention-grabbing fashion. At the moment, the group is comprised of:
Cannonball, the de facto leader, an over-emotional Southern kid, who is best known for "blastin'" through a row of brick walls in his invulnerable form, as a way of getting over his ex;
Skids, a happy-go-lucky lesbian skater girl, who uses her ability to generate tangible force shields mostly for developing innovative tricks with her board;
Rictor, a cocky, short-tempered Latino with earth-shaking tectonic abilities who has joined the group mostly as an excuse to publicize his anti-capitalist views about globalization -- to mostly uninterested audiences;
and Boomer, a bored middle-class girl whose timed-release energy blasts were once fodder for petty webcam shows; Boomer signed up for the group mostly to piss off her do-gooder liberal folks;
Their activities are documented by a Digital Optical Observation Protocol (or D.O.O.P.), an intelligent robotic device which objectively records the actions of its "self-friends" from the most interesting camera angles possible.
X-Force work at the service of a ruthless "talent manager" named Coach Dayspring, a one-eyed, white-haired 'roid-head, more concerned with his investments than the welfare of his clients.
They've come to Florida, in the hope of recruiting a new member, to replace fallen comrade Feral, who passed away during a recent mission to stop big game hunters in Africa.
Understandably, Peter is disgusted by the immature group, who seem dedicated to using their "great power" with as little responsibility as they can, even as he recognizes how much fun it could be to use his powers in such an uninhibited way.
X-Force holds a degrading'open audition', publicly rejecting would-be team members, like a blonde girl who can "slip between moments", and a lycanthropic bookworm.
The parade of embarassment is disrupted by a z-grade gang of criminals with carnival-themed outfits, looking to hold the entire resort for ransom!