Vanguard: Strange Visitors #1

History

Vanguard himself debuted in Gary Carlson's self-published anthology Megaton (1983–1987), where the feature also served as early professional work for Erik Larsen. When Larsen co-founded Image Comics in 1992, he and Carlson retooled the character and relaunched him in a six-issue Image miniseries (1993–1994), which had been conceived as an ongoing but was curtailed partly due to a revolving roster of artists. Strange Visitors followed as a second four-issue miniseries, with Carlson again writing and Scot Eaton providing consistent pencils throughout all four issues — a notable contrast to the first series' instability — with Larsen serving as editor and cover co-artist. Amok, introduced here, is co-owned by Carlson and Eaton, making this one of the rare instances in the run where the penciller shared creative ownership of a new character.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published October 1996 by Image Comics; cover-dated the same month; 22 pages; part one of a four-issue miniseries running through January 1997.
• Credits: writer/co-creator Gary Carlson; penciller Scot Eaton; inker Bill Anderson; letterer Chris Eliopoulos; editor/co-creator Erik Larsen; cover by Scot Eaton and Erik Larsen; cover colors by Reuben Rude and I.H.O.C.
• First appearance of Amok, the last surviving member of the Radanian race — a character co-owned by Gary Carlson and Scot Eaton — who serves as the primary antagonist across the entire miniseries.
• First appearances of Vivienne Wells and Robert Wells, the parents of Vanguard's girlfriend Roxanne Wells, who are introduced when Vanguard brings Roxanne home to meet them for dinner.
• The shape-shifting android Lurch, discovered again wandering Chicago trying to escape his assigned role, briefly disguises himself as pop-culture figures including an Image-comics version of Mr. Spock (Star Trek), The Thing (Marvel, disguise only), and Charlie Brown (Peanuts, disguise only).
• Issue's B-plot involves a NASA space shuttle crew dispatched to repair a satellite disabled to contain the villain Modem; the shuttle retrieves a floating pod, from which Amok violently emerges, crashes the shuttle at Cape Canaveral, and immediately confronts Vanguard.
• The miniseries as a whole drew on a wide roster of Image Universe guest stars — including Supreme, Glory, Badrock, WildC.A.T.S., The Dragon, and Freak Force — positioning Vanguard as a meaningful participant in the shared Image/Savage Dragon continuity of the mid-1990s.
• Vanguard originated in Gary Carlson's Megaton anthology (first published 1983), which also featured early work by Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, and others — a lineage that led Rob Liefeld to dub Carlson 'the Grandfather of Image Comics.'

Cast · 8 characters

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