PUBLISHER-Hero Illustrated/Extreme Studios/Image
And it's another comic that I forgot I owned until when last year I started thinning out my collection.Extreme HERO is a preview comic that came packaged with an issue of Hero Illustrated. In it is 8 short previews of upcoming comics from the Extreme Studios part of Image.
The cover is by Rob Liefeld and Danny Miki. And I am guessing the guy on the cover is Cybrid. And that is just based on that fact that Liefeld and Miki did both the cover and the Cybrid preview on the inside.
The first preview is Cybrid by Liefeld and Miki. We get 4 pages of a cyborg man running around fighting stuff.I looked all over online and could find not evidence that Cybrid got it's own comic. I don't remember him showing up in any of the Extreme Studios stuff I have read. And after reading this 4 page preview I can say it is no loss if Cybrid never showed back up.
Preview number 2 is Law & Order. No not the long in the tooth tv show that has infected too many channels. This was instead created by Marat Mychaels.Who also writes and draws this 2 page preview. Like Cybrid I don't think this set of characters appeared outside of this preview comic.
3rd preview is Code 9. Again you get 2 pages. This time with Eric Stephenson getting credit for script. And the infamous Chap Yaep credited for creation,story,pencils and inks.I have no clue what the lead in this preview is called. He talks about being a good man until he was changed by Code 9.The art is decent for Yaep. But really 2 pages isn't enough to let me figure out if I want to read more of this character. But it doesn't matter cause once again it looks like Code 9 never appeared again.
L.A.N.C.E.R.S. is the 4th preview. Again it is 2 pages ARRGGGHHH. Richard Hornie is credited as creator and for the story and pencils.And Danny Miki did the inks. This at least is somewhat connected to the Extreme branch of Image. With a footnote telling you to read Extreme #0. I haven't seen Lancers appear outside this issue,and know he didn't get his own series.
RISK is the 5th preview. And again,I am really starting to hate this,it is 2 pages.Chuck Jones,not the guy who worked on Looney Tunes,gets credit for everything but inks. And the 2 pages of story is shit.I seem to remember Risk showing up in a future comic from Extreme.Which is better than the previous 4 characters showcased in the increasingly annoying comic.
6th is Meta-Force.Created by Jeff Matsuda and Eric Stephenson,am I the only one who loves how Stephenson started off as Liefeld's jack of all trades and moved up to being a big part of the business side of Image.It seems to be about a kid that can bring stuff out of his dreams into the real world. The art is nice. But then I like Matsuda's art. Sadly I am pretty sure Meta-Force didn't show up again.
Up next is two pages of hype for whatever Extreme Studios titles were coming out the month this shipped.With a spotlight on the Jack Kirby created Phantom Force.
Then 2 profile pages of Dan Fraga's Black Flag. I know they show up again. Pretty sure there was a Black Flag one shot or extremely short lived ongoing series.
And our final preview is of Art Thibert's Black&White. I am sure they appeared again cause somewhere in a longbox I got at least 1 issue of their series. The art is nice. Thibert was a great artist but so slow that he rarely did pencils.
The rest of the issue is just full page ads for various Extreme Studio titles. I really like the Jae Lee art on the Bloodstrike ad.
Looking around online this comic seems to be uncommon. But worth at most 2 bucks. I got mine with an issue of Hero Illustrated. And most issues of that I got for free or for 3 bucks tops.Unless you are trying to collect everything from Extreme Studios I see no reason to go out of your way to track this down.
Extreme HERO gets a borrow.