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My Unknown Greats pt. 5
2008-03-17 14:37:29

LIVEWIRES #1

Another day, another Unknown Great to talk about. So let's cast our minds back just a few short years, and cast a spotlight on LIVEWIRES.

LIVEWIRES had a strange and lengthy birthing process. And it all began with a "blank check." The way it happened was this: as happens every year, the publishing plan was being put together for the following year. This involved a slew of financial calculations, projecting what all of the various projects are going to cost to produce, what we believe they'll sell and what kind of a profit margin we'll make on each one, and whether all of those figures added together will give us enough revenue to achieve our financial goals for the year. The top editorial staff had been in a long, onerous line-item-by-line-item meting with a high-level exec for almost the entire day about this, and everybody was fried.

Right at the end, having heard that there'd been some movement towards the Iron Man movie seeing fruition, the Exec announced that we should create a number of additional tech-based projects, that this might be the coming wave. Now, this notion came out of nowhere, and everybody was unprepared for it. So we had nothing. And the Exec started asking about past Marvel characters who were tech-based and who we might be able to revamp and revivie. None of the obvious contenders such as Deathlok were meeting with his approval for one reason or another. And then I threw out the Mannites.

The Mannites was an idea that Bob Harras had ben extremely excited about some five or so years earlier. I think he'd come up with the notion while he'd been writing AVENGERS. In short, the concept was that, when the government had captuerd and dismantled the Vision during John Byrne's tenure on the book, they'd used some of teh components they'd found within his form to create what amounted to a new life form--the Mannites. Bob thought that they could be an exciting new element in the Marvel Universe--relating to mutants in the way that mutants related to normal humanity. But by the time the Mannites eventually appeared in the X-Men titles in the late '90s, though, the Vision backstory was relegated to the misty past and not really mentioned--and the characters never really took off, and quickly, quietly faded away.

But I remembered all of the many conversations about the Manites, and the assorted ideas that never made it into print. And so, in desperation, I tossed their name out, and explained them very simply--they were a technology-based lifeform. And the Exec bit hook, line and sinker, and approved the project on the spot--despite the fact that we really didn't have a creative team, a story, or even a firm concept. It was literally a "blank check" to make any book I wanted so long as it was about Mannites.

I used the opportunity to reach out to Adam Warren. Adam's a guy who thinks like nobody else on the planet, who's got a bouncy, fun cartooning style, and who'sa total tech-head. He seemed like an excellent choice to make something out of the random bits we had. I pitched it to him this way:"I'm looking for something that's part Astro Boy, part Metal Men, and part Gunslinger Girl." he took the ball and ran with it from there, conceptualizing the team as a group developed by a rogue government black book agency who'd been tasked with hunting down and destroying other rogue black book government agencies. He developed a whole social subculture around the mechanized lifeforms--the sort of thing that we had talked about in the early Mannite discussion days but were never quite able to achieve. The one thing Adam didn't like was the name Mannites--he built in a loose connection to the previous Mannites, but he really wanted to call the series something differernt. I thought this was going to be a real problem, as the name was the one thing we'd gotten the book approved under--and then the Exec in question left the company. Problem solved! Mannites swiftly became Livewires.

Adam's a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to the way he makes comics. My real hope was that I'd be able to convince him to illustrate the series as well as write it, but I simply could not move him on it--so we drafted Rick Mays to illustrate the book. However, Adam's methodology was to draw out the entire story in tight comps. These weren't quite as polished as finished pages, but all of the thinking in terms of pacing and storytelling had been made. he even hand-lettered them. They were tight enough that you could practically have printed from them, but Adam was worried about their rough quality, and was more comfortable with Rick essentially redrawing them in a cleaner style. (Adam would also send in a huge, super-detailed script along with this visual story, which would not only have all of the dialogue that was also on the layout pages, but extensive panel descriptions describing everything that could clearly be seen on the roughs. This was all part of Adam's process,and he couldn't wrap his mind around doing it another, simpler way. So LIVEWIRES was a comic book that was essentially written twice and drawn twice.)

Without any overt tie to the Marvel Universe, and no recognizable characters to speak of, LIVEWIRES didn't make much of a splash. Which is unfortunate, as Adam had a sequel all worked out. But that didn't keep it from being a smart, forward-looking, original series--the kind of thing that fans occasionally lament that Marvel doesn't do more of. The limited series was collected in the digest format, but the reproduction really looks sharper on the slicker paper of the original printings, for those who might be compelled to seek the series out.

More later.

Tom B

Amazingly, I just read this miniseries for the first time last night, and I agree: it is an Unknown Great. I went and dug this up after enjoying Iron Man: Hypervelocity (and I was apparently the only one who did) and it's a great fun read, especially if you're a sci-fi tech head. Again, would love to see a proper sequel to this -- in MCP, perhaps?

Posted by therubberbandman on 2008-03-17 15:43:17

Wow. That was a cool story. It's really interesting to hear stuff like the budget meetings and Exec stuff.

Posted by kyle-latino on 2008-03-17 15:50:23

He had a sequel all planned out, and there's no chance of seeing it? That makes me so sad. I think Livewires is the best thing Adam Warren's ever done, and I really really really want to see more of them. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to wait for some other executive to make a random request that the Livewires happen to fit perfectly.

Posted by MoriartyL on 2008-03-17 17:17:15

If this has been explicitly tied to the Avengers and the Vision as in the initial concept, it would have done a lot better. Maybe if you bring them back, you can work that into their backstory.

Posted by CylverSaber on 2008-03-17 18:02:35

i liked it a lot in Digest form - shame there's no more, but that DID give us Empowered...

Posted by stuckinazkaban on 2008-03-17 19:29:29

well i never read it, but the way it was created seems really interesting. Seem's like Warren really knew what he wanted outta that book.

Posted by Anson17 on 2008-03-17 21:36:11

objection
as I see the cover, I'm almost sure I'll not even spent one minute to take a look ( okay, except to be sure ), I tend to avoid this kind of comic-book, manga-styly only because this is the mood and so valuable,I very much love manga , that's why.
I can be from France but you didn't make of me an happy man with publishing 'Sky doll', I used to read comics especially to run away from books like this , so I just hope you'll just won't try to make me believe that is new or outstanding or whatever.
I notice that you take a particular attention to provide a strong concept ,dealing with the Appleseed-90's steam punk vibe, but in a way to still being, you know,...comic-books.
I don't know, ask Jae Lee for a revival, or try to make a video-game from it.

Posted by notapotatoe on 2008-03-18 05:36:01

LiveWires was not good...
..which, by coincidence, is similar to Brand New Day which is also not good.
I wont say anything else, otherwise Anson will write 3 paragraphs about me. Nice to know you care enough to read my stuff, Anson.

Posted by Steve Zoovie on 2008-03-18 11:23:29

I bought the digest and really enjoyed the story, I was absolutely gutted when there were no more adventures to follow on with. For me this was a far more successful book than a lot of other stuff I've read in the last few years and I still recommend it to people as a hidden gem.

Posted by ukdavew on 2008-03-18 12:33:52

Steve Zoovie=Burnt Cheerio

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2008-03-18 13:19:15

Yay
I Loved Livewires! It was just such a different and cool story, it would be nice to see the sequel some day

Posted by Rain on 2008-03-18 15:06:47

I'm disappointed we'll never get to see that sequel. I liked Livewires, though I have to admit I thought Spellbinders -- which came out at the same time -- was a better read. I suspect we'll never see the potential sequel for that title either, though.

Tom, can you talk about why characters from those minis seem to fade into obscurity while others (Hood, the irredeemable Ant-Man, Agents of Atlas etc.) seem to continue on in other titles? Just writers' choice? I'm struck, for example, by Ultra Girl, who labored in obscurity for like a decade after her three-issue mini before suddenly re-emerging in AI and NWv.4. Is that just because Slott, for example, likes her or is there ever anything deeper to the process?

Posted by motteditor on 2008-03-18 18:58:47

This Book was Incredible...
...and i'd really like to see more of the characters: i honestly believe the concepts in here were the kind of things you could build a summer event out of. You should really pass this around to your top guys and suggest someone do something with them, they really could fit almost anywhere.

It makes me very sad to hear there were plans for a sequel that never saw the light of day. I'd buy it, dangit!!!

Posted by artiepants on 2008-03-21 18:00:10

Livewires
...was funny, moving and creepy all at the same time. It was absolutely, hands-down my favourite mini of that year. I chased down a bunch of other Adam Warren stuff after that (it was my first exposure to his work), but nothing quite measured up to this.

Posted by Ovid on 2008-03-22 19:05:42

livewires
i hate digests but bought livewires as i was waiting for a collection - and i loved it! i remember asking you on some forum or other Tom about Adam Warren as I'd never read his work before. The guy really is a talent. Really hope we see the sequel one day.

Posted by bomaya on 2008-03-26 08:32:30

Sequel?
I never knew there was a sequel! Damnit, I want it! I was also hoping that the survivors would show up in the initiative somehow as well.

Posted by CyberSkull on 2008-08-07 12:03:30

Array

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