Mechanicus 2 is a Great Game, but Shouldn't Have Been Called Mechanicus 2

 

Having just finished Mechanicus 2, I can safely say that Bulwark Studios' follow up to their surprise 2018 hit is a well crafted tactical experience, an entertaining cyber gothic jaunt, and a worthy entry into the canon of great Warhammer 40'000 video games. You wouldn't know it, however, looking at the average discussions on the Mechanicus game Reddit page, or from its currently mixed review score on Steam.

Truth is, I understand why some players feel sour on Mechanicus 2. It is a very different game from the first, with very different priorities. It zigs where the previous game zags. It focusses its attention elsewhere. If you came out of Mechanicus 1 wanting more Mechanicus 1, then Mechanicus 2 certainly does not deliver on that.

In many respects, the game reminds me of the similar situation Dawn of War 2 found itself in. A very smartly designed game with a lot of depth and creativity, that nonetheless was not what players wanted coming out of Dawn of War 1.

So, let's tackle that, I guess.

Part 1: Just Another Brick in the Wall.

One of the reasons that Mechanicus caught so many people's attention is that despite being a Turn-Based Strategy Game, it was mechanically different from what so many people were used to. Normally TBS games follow the core design popularised by XCOM. Units have a predetermined turn order, a limited pool of 'action points,' and inflicting damage is dictated by an invisible dice roll chance to hit.

Mechanicus, instead, eschewed nearly all of these conventions. You could choose to play your units in any order each round. Instead of having a limited number of actions, your units shared a pool of 'cognition points,' which were accumulated from various power sources across the map, and could theoretically allow units to make as many moves as they wanted. Attacks always hit, though damage could vary and certain abilities could negate it.

The only exception to these rules were secondary support units, which could only move and shoot once per turn, but these very much were supporting players in the fight, with your Tech-Priests in the starring role.

What this did was bring a great degree of tactical depth to the game, and allowed players to focus on a wide variety of strategies. It also allowed for a significant scope of progression. At the start of the campaign, players had to be very careful, as they were limited to only a few cognition points. By the end of the game, your Tech-Priests were running across the length of the entire map in Turn 1 and mauling Necrons in close combat, or firing off multiple shoulder mounted canons to wipe out the enemy before they could even act.

This, naturally, made the game something that obsessive players could easily get addicted to. Your Tech-Priests have a wide variety of skill options to choose from, and they can mix and match them from multiple trees. With some experimentation it is possible to reach some absolutely game-breaking builds, and the re-playability of the campaign meant that there was ample opportunity for such experiments.

What Mechanicus had in mechanical depth, however, it lacked in terms of narrative scope. The plot of the first game is relatively threadbare, with the Imperial war against the Necrons going on entirely in the background, and the missions themselves involving Adeptus Mechanicus strike teams embarking on expeditions to weaken the Necron war effort.

Each expedition works as a sort of Rouge-lite run, where the player has to navigate across the map of a Necron complex, avoiding hazards, and making logistical decisions that can potentially help or hinder the player in the battles proper. The health of the squad persists across these runs, so losing Tech-Priests early can doom one before it has truly begun.

While each run has a specific story conceit from the high ranking Tech-Priest giving the briefing, there are only four types of battles. Kill all enemies. Survive a number of rounds. Reach an extraction point. Kill a Necron boss. Despite all this, the variability of the game means that it never feels stale, and you barely notice the limited number of objectives when playing the game the first time around.

Wrap all of this inside one of the most infectious soundtracks ever committed to a game, and you've got the makings of an absolute cult classic, and that is exactly what it was. Mechanicus got by with very good word of mouth, sold well, and had players eagerly awaiting a sequel for years. When that sequel did arrive, however, it wasn't quite what the fans expected.

Part 2: Welcome to the Machine.

Mechanicus 2, is not Mechanicus 1. Despite sharing similar DNA, and being a narrative sequel to the first game, Mechanicus 2 is otherwise entirely its own thing. Most of the elements that made Mechanicus unique are significantly de-prioritised in the sequel.

The big contributing factor, I feel, was the decision to focus more on the secondary units. Unlike in Mechanicus 1, where most of the action was done by your squad of Tech-Priests, this time only one Tech-Priest partakes in the battle, the bulk of the fighting being done by your force of what were previously secondary units, which, again, may only move and shoot once per turn.

What this does is move the focus away from the cognition point system. Where in the first game your access to cognition points could make or break a battle, here they are primarily used for activating your Tech-Priest's secondary weapons and buffs. This change also transitions over to the Necron campaign, who don't have access to cognition points at all, but instead a 'Dominion' system, where the more damage the Necrons do over the course of a battle, the more powerful abilities they gain access to.

All this puts Mechanicus 2 more square in line with traditional TBS games. While it still has some of the original's more unique elements, you can still activate your units in any order, and attacks (nearly) always hit, the game feels much more designed with a casual player base in mind. If you were the kind of person who bounced off the first game because it was too unorthodox, Mechanicus 2 is being more traditional will likely win you over.

So too do these priorities relate to your character's skill trees. Gone are the sprawling levels of customisation from the first game, instead each character is already specced to perform a particular role, and has a skill tree to accompany that. Most of your points will be spent on expanding your deployment count and buffing your basic troops. There are no game breaking power combos here.

If you've read this far you're probably coming to the conclusion that Mechanicus 2 lacks a lot of the mechanical depth of the first game, and a lot of the unique aspects that made it interesting, and you'd be right. Why then, do I still consider the game great? Well, because I'm judging Mechanicus 2 by what it is, not what it isn't, and what it is is a solid, action packed ride through some of the more lesser explored parts of the Warhammer 40'000 universe.

Part 3: High Hopes.

While Mechanicus 1 had some very interesting characters with quirky personalities, and some great vocal taunts from its Necron villains, it didn't really have much of a plot to speak of. You arrive on the planet, you fight a bunch of Necrons, you beat them, roll credits. By contrast, Mechanicus 2 puts a significant amount of effort into weaving a detailed plot with twists, turns, surprises and betrayals.

Not only does it do this, but it delivers two campaigns that allow you to experience the story from different perspectives. There are mysteries raised in the Adeptus Mechanicus campaign that are resolved in the Necron one, and vice versa. Both campaigns have a sprawling cast of characters, from the cynical and demanding Omnisynnod council of Tech-Priests, to the Necron Phaeron's scheming advisors and generals, to cameo appearances from the Leagues of Votann and the Iron Hands chapter of Space Marines.

This widening of scope and greater priority on story means we get to experience a broader deal of the action this time around. While we don't get to partake in any large scale battles, you won't be commanding any tanks or aircraft here, we will still find ourself fighting on the planet's surface as much as we do in Necron tombs, and we'll even do battle in towering Forge-City spires.

All this is to say that Mechanicus 2's priorities are in a very different place. It wants to take you on more of a roller-coaster ride than the first game, albeit still at the kind of pace you'd expect with Turn-Based combat. This is a game that wants you to be absorbed into the fiction of its world more than that it wants you crunching numbers in order to unlock more powerful combos.

And I know some players are going to have a problem with that. I know many fans who have dedicated hundreds of hours to the first game are going to be disappointed to find that the sequel does not have the same degree of complexity.

It's very clear that Bulwark Studios didn't want to just sit back and do Mechanicus 1 again. They wanted to make a game with a different kind of scope with different priorities, and they absolutely nailed that in my opinion. Narratively, this game digs deeper into the backstory of both of its primary factions in ways that we haven't seen in video games before.

I love the cynical paranoia and duplicity of the Adeptus Mechanicus' senior Tech-Priests. I love the constant schemes and double-crosses that plague the Necron court. I love that the Votann are finally getting a bit of a spotlight. I love that I can joke that Scaevola and Nefershah have a toxic yuri relationship.

Alas, Mechanicus 2 just isn't getting a fair shake, and it is in no small part thanks to it's name.

Part 4: You Know You Just Can't Win.

I honestly reckon if they hadn't called it Mechanicus 2 then the game would have been embraced with open arms. It they'd called it, Warhammer 40'000: Battle for Heketeus IV, or Souls of Steel, or something, then audiences would have been more receptive to the changes. They'd have gone in understanding that the game is entirely its own thing, not something that picking up the baton of Mechanicus 1 and enhancing and evolving its gameplay mechanics.

I understand, though, that doing a name change probably wasn't really an option. In this current era of the digital economy, it is insanely hard to capture people's attention and get the word out. Had Bulwark Studios gone with a different name, they'd have run into the very real possibility that audiences would miss that it was a sequel to Mechanicus. They'd basically have to forgo the word of mouth and good will the first game had got in the hopes they'd find an audience all over again.

They had to call it Mechanicus 2 because brand recognition is the best form of advertising you can get these days. Better to run the risk of being labelled an unworthy sequel than languish at the bottom of the Steam charts on day of release. In a better world, in a more sane one that didn't have such a demented digital distribution process, Bulwark could probably have got away with a name change, but not in this one.

All in all, its a damn shame that Bulwark has found itself between a rock and a hard place. Mechanicus 2 is a great game, of that I have no doubt, but I don't really know what you could do to quell the dissenters. For many, this game is going to be the great disappointment of 2026. For those who spent years tweaking their Tech-Priest's power-sets and experimenting with combos, Mechanicus 2 really does have nothing to offer them.

This, unfortunately, doesn't bring me to an easy conclusion. It is highly likely that in time the opinion of Mechanicus 2 will mellow, but right now that mixed review score on Steam is really going to jeopardize the studio's reputation. I'm really hoping that the rumoured Votann DLC will smooth some things over and really let them reinforce that this is a game focussed on story first and foremost.

Mechanicus 1 hasn't gone anywhere. It is still there. Still available to play. Mechanicus 2 hasn't changed that. As the old adage goes, "Why not both?"

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Jack Harvey 2026

What's Been Going On with the Pathfinder Comics?

 

Ten years ago I wrote an Obscure Comic of the Month Special Edition about the first three volumes of Dynamite's Pathfinder comic, penned by Jim Zub and illustrated by a rotating selection of artists. I had nothing but glowing praise for the comic, pegging it as maybe the ideal iteration of a party-basted fantasy series.

In the intervening years Jim Zub has moved on to become a mainstay writer for the Dungeons and Dragons comics, Dynamite found itself courting controversy by allegedly supporting creators with less than progressive political viewpoints, Pathfinder saw the release of its second edition, and the Pathfinder setting itself has gone on to have featured in not one but two smash hit isometric RPG video games.

The comic, meanwhile, has continued to be published on and over the course of these years, seeing a couple stops and starts, crossovers and semi-reboots. All this leads us to ask, with Jim Zub's departure, has the comic managed to maintain the quality of its storytelling and the magnetism of its characters?

Well... not really, but let's take a look at each story arc volume by volume and break down what worked, what didn't and where it might go in the future.

Origins (2015)

When we last saw our protagonists they were becoming firmly established as members of the Pathfinder society, Seoni was finding renewed confidence as the group's leader, Ezren was finally fulfilling his ambitions as an adventurer, and Merisiel and Kyra had started a burgeoning romance. What then, was the story to do to further these characters and greater develop their arcs?

To look backwards, of course.

When you slap the name "Origins," on something you generally tend to know what you're in for. It's usually a prequel of some kind, showing how the characters started and foreshadow critical story beats that will become important later.

The framing device for this series involves our six heroes being asked to recount tails of their heroism to a superior at the Pathfinder society, which ultimately leads them to recalling a time before they banded together, and, as the story progresses, discover that all the stories link together in some way and involve stopping an ultimate threat in the final issue.

Curiously, despite the name, the stories told are frequently not origin stories in the strictest sense, and most involve the characters themselves being firmly established as adventurers to begin with. Instead, the stories serve to introduce a new selection of characters to the audience, in order to weave them in and out of future stories as the comic demands.

This is an element that had also been part of the Pathfinder comics from the start. Pathfinder as a tabletop RPG has always marketed itself heavily around it's "Iconics." Pre-made characters through which new players could jump right into the action. Seoni, Ezren and the gang were all created for the game long before the comic ever debuted, and as the story unfolded, other Iconics would cameo here and there, with info in the back of the book for curious readers interested in checking out the game.

During Zub's tenure these cameos were executed pretty seamlessly, weaved naturally into the story, even when it was pretty clear they were also serving as advertisements for the game. Come Origins, however, the format has never looked so blatant. Each issue involves one of our characters recalling a tale from before the party's formation and, like clockwork, cross paths with a new, previously unknown character that is shown to be a big deal.

It's not that great of a deal-breaker, but the noticeable difference from how Zub's tenure dealt with the cameos is just one of the giveaways that the writing team taking over feel like an obvious step down. Origins has three different writers, Eric Mona, James L. Sutter, F. Wesley Schneider, who I am given to understand are writing staff from the tabletop game side of the franchise. While they are no doubt served well with an extensive knowledge of Pathfinder lore, they are noticeably not writers with the same kind of experience Zub had.

That's not to say that Origins is bad, but its stories are, at best, serviceable. The action is exciting, the jokes are funny and the mysteries are fun to uncover, and the artwork is as fantastic as ever (even if it still has the problem of Pathfinder's over-design addiction,) but it is lacking the kind of spark Zub brought to the previous three volumes. Going from City of Secrets to Origins makes you feel like all the chemistry has been sucked out of the characters. Their dialogue feels more stiff and wooden at times. Especially Ezren, who just feels a lot less fun in this series.

Origins was decent enough to avoid killing my interest in Pathfinder stone dead, but it was clear from the outset that the loss of Zub as the main writer was a serious problem that the comics were going to struggle with, and as the series continued into its fifth volume, it's not a problem they were quick to resolve.

Hollow Mountain (2016)

Eric Mona, James L. Sutter and F. Wesley Schneider continue their tenure as writers on the Pathfinder comics and thus the problems that held back Origins continue to persist. Valeros, Seoni and the gang all feel like shadows of their former selves. The romantic chemistry that is really required to sell us on Merisiel and Kyra's relationship is direly missing. The characterisation continues, sadly, to feel somewhat hollow. Pun intended.

Its good thing, then, that Hollow Mountain manages to make up for these shortfalls by just having a solid, banger premise. Hollow Mountain is an ancient fortress built by the Runelords, filled with arcane knowledge, deadly traps, and an ancient artefact that our heroes must locate while clashing with another, less scrupulous band of adventurers.

Its a classic set up for a tabletop adventure, and that is exactly what the story proceeds to do. While the new writing team may have struggled with characterisation, you can really see their background writing for the tabletop RPG come to the fore here. Hollow Mountain becomes probably the most "tabletop campaign," feeling story arc in the series, and that is very much to its benefit. The comic really takes advantage of its six issue length, pulling out a plethora of deadly monsters and devious obstacles.

Additionally, our obligatory "Iconic cameos," this time round are presented as a rival band of adventures that our heroes have to contend with, and as such it feels much less egregious than how it was dealt with in Origins. Characters like Damiel the alchemist would go on to resurface during later story arcs and their reappearances feel much more natural as recurring characters.

All things considered, Hollow Mountain works as a bold, blockbuster experience. Lacking in depth, maybe, but chock to the gills with great action and nail biting thrills. Ending on a cliffhanger, it leads us right into the next main story arc.

Runescars (2018)

The next story arc pulls our heroes into the case of a mysterious killer, which eventually sprawls out into a wider conflict. Sutter and Schneider continue writing duties without any presence of Eric Mona this time around, and I'm happy to say their character writing has improved overall. While still not feeling as smooth as it was in the Zub penned stories, the characters start to feel more like their old selves than the somewhat cardboard versions we had to deal with in the last two arcs.

Runescars is a story that starts to delve more specifically into the world-building of the Pathfinder setting, something that the previous stories used more as set dressing. Here we're given more specifics into global politics and start getting introduced to nations like Korvosa and it's militant Death Knights. It's a welcome change and helps the story feel as though it has its own identity in comparison to Hollow Mountain which, despite being the stronger story, did feel as though it was just dipping into the fantasy kitchen sink.

Runescars also introduces us to Detective Quinn, who would quickly become a recurring character. Quinn is sardonic and charismatic and brings a welcome new perspective to the cast of characters. He's also another example of using the unwritten "Iconic cameo," mandate to good effect. Due to this beginning as a murder mystery, his presence feels like a natural extension of the story and not just an advertisement for another character sheet.

Runescars is somewhat chaotic and meanders at times, but it has some strong twists and character work, like Valeros burgeoning friendship with the stern swords-woman Tanin. There's also plenty of action and excitement to keep the ball rolling, and as the story continues on, it further hints towards future stories that began to be seeded back in Hollow Mountain.

With Sutter and Schneider's writing feeling much stronger, Runescars ends its run on what feels like a positive note, with the comic getting back on track towards something with a stronger foundation after the shaky few years of trying to find its feet after Zub's departure.

Worldscape (2017)

While it started its publication before Runescars, Worldscape chronologically takes place after it, which is why I'm slotting it in here. Marketed as a big crossover event, Worldscape sees the Pathfinder cast cross paths with the plethora of pulp heroes that Dynamite comics had the licence for, from John Carter of Mars, to Tarzan to Red Sonja. All written by Eric Mona which explains his absence on Runescars.

Worldscape is a typical crossover affair. The characters are all pulled into a mysterious dimension where they are free to battle, team up and double-cross each other without any greater consequences to the fictional worlds from which they originate. It's mostly an excuse for a big old team up and to have a bunch of characters be smashed together like action figures.

All in all, the story is fine, serviceable fair, but it does feel like a squandered opportunity. I often find the real appeal of crossovers is to see how the different characters react when coming into contact with different perspectives and philosophies. For example, probably the best scene in the first Batman/Judge Dredd crossover is when Dredd has Batman in a cell and is interrogating him, which is far more interesting than any of the scenes where they team up for an action sequence.

Worldscape, by contrast, mostly just has the characters team up and fight the bad guys. There some distrust and double-crossing along the way, but for the most part we see little of how these characters relate to each other when outside of combat. Which is a shame, especially when you have characters like Red Sonja who could serve as an excellent foil for the more upstanding members of the Pathfinder team.

All things considered, Worldscape could get away with being considered superfluous, if not for the fact that the comic has a subplot concerning Merisiel's backstory that eventually gets elaborated upon further in the main series. While not unwelcome, I did find it's inclusion as a somewhat baffling choice given the otherwise throwaway nature of the crossover itself.

Worldscape's storyline was fully wrapped up in six issues, but it would later see further issues published that feature other Iconics from the Pathfinder world and elaborate what they got up to and who they crossed paths with within the Worldscape. Much like the main series, they are enjoyable but mostly disposable.

Spiral of Bones (2018)

With the conclusion of Runescars and the concurrently running Worldscape, the tenure of Mona, Sutter and Schneider's writing on the series was at an end. I don't know it it was always intended to be a temporary arrangement or if a decision was made from the top, but the next arc, Spiral of Bones, would see Crystal Frasier take over as lead writer. While Frasier was recruited from the Pathfinder writing team, she also had a background in webcomics, and would later go on to work in comic writing full time.

It is no surprise to say then, that with Frasier taking the lead, the quality of the writing shoots back up immediately. Spiral of Bones gets off to a roaring start as a typical questing romp, before swerving into far more interesting and high concept ideas.

Perhaps the story's greatest strength is the decision to focus specifically on Valeros as the point of view character. While far from being one-note, Valeros had previously very much been played as a secondary character. There for some comic relief and action sequences, but he mostly stepped aside to let the other, more nuanced characters get the limelight.

Instead, Frasier decides to dig deep into the character's background and see what makes him tick, all through the framing device of Valeros being put on trail in the afterlife for the fate of his immortal soul. The story makes great use of taking a character that lacks little ambition beyond seeking excitement for the day and a flagon of ale at the end of it, and unfurls a character being crushed under the weight of self esteem and peer pressure.

Not only does this serve as an interesting character piece, but it also allows the story to get more wild and cosmic. We get to dig more into the cosmology of the Pathfinder universe, see how the godly entities lay claim over their subjects and how powerful magic users seek to subvert them, all through a nice, straightforward courtroom adventure with angelic lawyers and demonic judges. On top of it all, Tom Garcia's art brings a wonderful, over the top cartoonishness to the events, which keeps readers invested but the tone staying breezy.

This story arc's obligatory "Iconic cameo," is the flamboyant orc Imrijka, an old flame of Valeros' and a perfect foil for his more vulgar personality. Also returning is a cameo from Tannin, exploring further the chemistry between the two characters. Both flow naturally into the story and neither feel, as some previous cameos have, like simple adverts for pre-made characters.

The whole story wraps up nicely, with one of those great 'beat the evil wizard at his own game' style swicheroos. All things considered, Spiral of Bones turns out to be a rollicking good time, a fine return to form for the series, and a really effective moment in the limelight for a previously underutilised character. With such a bold and exciting execution, it left me with great hope that the comic still had the best ahead of it.

Wake the Dead (2024)

However, like any good arcane pact, there was a price to pay for the increase in quality. Pathfinder wouldn't see another series start for many years, with the next arc, Wake the Dead, not getting a collected edition until 2024, the entire Covid pandemic unfolding in the interim. Naturally, this meant Crystal Frasier had moved on to bigger and better projects, which is a shame, since I'd liked to have seen what she'd have done with the series given the chance to write more storys. Still, she is succeeded by a respectfully blooded comic book writer in Fred Van Lente, and right from the get go we can tell the series is in safe hands.

Wake the Dead serves as somewhat of a soft reboot for the series, which is frankly a fairly understandable direction to take it. The series felt for a while like it had a hard time figuring out what to do with Seoni and co, to the point it was going through the motions, so putting together a brand new team with a brand new set of foibles to get over is fertile ground to get things going again.

Our adventure team this time is made mostly of familiar faces, though you'd be forgiven for forgetting them from their previous "Iconic cameos." Quinn the private eye returns as de-facto leader, as magnetic and sardonic as ever, and is a great choice for our new lead. He's joined by Seelah the deathly serious paladin, Sajan the fiery monk and Lem, the cowardly but cunning bard. Serving as a touchstone back to our former protagonists, the dwarf Harsk returns, and rounding things off as a semi-antagonist and wild card is Nyctessa the necromancer.

They're all bold and strong personalities and work well within the expertly crafted story, which involves the group having to team up to track down a defector from the land of the dead, each for their own often irreconcilable purposes. Along the way they are forced to clash with the various other factions also on the trail of the defector and are often forced to think fast, and creatively, to deal with the threats they come across deep in enemy territory.

When the story works well, it works great, frequently drawing upon its tabletop roots by having the characters have to leaf through their items or abilities to find an outside-the-box solution to the more ridiculously outrageous scrapes they find themselves in. However, holding the series back a little is Eman Casallos' art, which, far from being bad, does happen to look a little stiff in comparison to the fast flowing work of Tom Garcia. I do wonder, however if this is due to being mismatched with colourist Jorge Sutil. Both have done great work on other projects but together their characters can hit the uncanny valley at times. This becomes less and less of a problem as the story goes on, however, so it's possible the two just took some time to acclimatise.

The story ends on a high note though, with Nyctessa coming out on top after all her machinations and leaving her as one of the funnest and most interesting characters so far. After such a bold new opening for the series, I'm left hungry for more of the new band of adventurers and can't wait to see where we go with them next.

But we don't quite go there just yet, because after Wake the Dead's conclusion we get one more story with the classic group, together again. Ezren, Senoi, etc, minus Harsk, have finally made it to the Grand Convocation of Pathfinders. Respect, recognition and majesty at last, only to see them caught up in an escapade with the bumbling but heroic goblin Fumbus.

The story is a fine return to form and a really makes our original characters feel like themselves again after so many years of struggling to distinguish themselves. Likewise, Tom Garcia is back for another round of bold, fluid artwork to lend a sense of mischief to the proceedings. The story is quick, and mostly disposable, but if Pathfinder indeed intends to storm ahead with its new cast of characters it serves as a perfect swansong for our original cast, and a great reminder of why I fell in love with the series in the first place.

Conclusion, and... the future?

So there you have it. After a few rocky roads, it really feels like the Pathfinder comic has found its feet again. If it sounds like I've been too harsh on Mona, Sutter and Schneider's tenure, I haven't meant to be. They did, after all, have the unenviable job of taking over from Jim Zub, who would go on to be one of the hottest writers in fantasy adventure comics, and they did, in the end, manage to keep the comic going, something that IDW failed at with its own first attempt at Dungeons and Dragons comics back in the early 2010s.

All things considered, there's more good than bad within this (so far) eight volume run of comics, and while it buckles at the edges, and maybe doesn't quite live up the expectations set by those first three volumes, there is still great fun to be had, and, as both Spiral of Bones and Wake the Dead prove, fertile ground for more bold and interesting stories.

The question is, then, what does the future hold? At time of writing there has been no announcement by Dynamite of any upcoming Pathfinder projects in the works. This is unsurprising since the previous series was a limited run rather than an ongoing, and Dynamite are famously inconsistent when it comes to promoting their own series. Still, I hope this doesn't mean that the comics are going on hiatus for another number of years again. Wake the Dead was a shot in the arm for the series and feels like it is raring to go from where it left off.

Fundamentally, it depends on the readership. Pathfinder is, famously, a niche spin-off from an niche franchise. It's never going to be in a position where it is flying off store shelves. But I like it, and frankly, Dynamite comics, you should keep making them just for me.

With the last volume feeling like a resurrection of sorts, and with story threads still left to be addressed, it'd be a shame to see the comic bow out now. Only time will tell, but it would be great if I could do a write up, in another ten years time, going over another six volumes. If not, well, like Valeros, you can't say the comic didn't go out swinging.

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Jack Harvey 2025. Images used under free use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Coal Face

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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Coal Face - The Devil in the Smoke by Jay Gunn - MoonAlp Books 2023

Contains 'Miner' Spoilers

There's always been a somewhat oversimplified framing of the 1980s miners strikes as a simplified David vs Goliath story in popular culture, but it's easy to forget that things were much more complicated. Even more so when it comes to the legacy of those strikes and the industry they were connected to.

The book I'm looking at today isn't a comic pre-se, though it did start life as one, and ultimately it's final form as an illustrated prose story is close enough as far as I'm concerned. It's my column and I can do what I like. Written and illustrated video game developer and National Coal Board work-experiencer Jay Gunn, who uses his own past and family history as a jumping off point into this period fable of teenager Tony Gray's maybe real, maybe imagined, adventure into the ancient cursed history of his town's local and currently be-striked coal mine.

Gunn weaves a great deal of tendrils throughout the tale, having Tony not just have to deal with the local strife and uncertainty around the strike, but also, and not limited to, his parent's broken marrage, health problems caused by local pollution, class divides, family expectations and his desire for a future in programming video games.

From these themes weave out the fantastical. From the vampire-esque Fancy Man representing corporate (and personal) greed, to Maybell The Wooden Girl speaking for the blighted rural areas, to the dragon Coal Face itself becoming the nexus of pain from which radiates from the coal industry, long term respiratory problems and premature death.

Gunn plays with a lot of threads and does so pretty effectively for a story that isn't all that long. It's works for the most part given the ambiguity of the fantastical elements, which may be no more real than dreams or part of Tony's imagination, especially given that he is seen working on a video game with a story that exactly mirrors the adventures he is supposedly experiencing for real. This allows Gunn to frame these fantastical elements as a child's rationalisation of the difficult reality surrounding the pit closures.

Whereby the striking workers through noble cause can give in to their worst impulses, it is easier for someone like Tony, who lost his grandfather to the pit and saw his parents ripped apart by idealogical divide, to rationalise the whole thing as the schemes of a legendary beast that can poison the mind as easily as it can poison the body.

In that respect, you might expect that Gunn is going for easy answers here, but in fact he is doing quite the opposite. All through the story Tony shows little desire to follow his father and grandfather into the mining industry, clearly not having the temperament or the physical health to do so, yet he is treated with suspicion and destain for wanting to seek a future in video games. Likewise, Tony's lower class upbringing is mocked by those more well off who never have to worry about work like coal mining, and Tony is tempted away from class solidarity with the promise of luxuries and frivolity.

I love the intricacies and difficulties that Gunn explores here. I'm no stranger to striking myself, and have little sympathy for scabbery, but even I'm not so foolish as to think people slot into easy roles. My town is a former mining town. I have family member who have died due to the health problems their work down the pit left them with. There are constant promises of re-opening the coal mines, and despite the fact that we are in desperate need of more jobs, I absolutely do not want to see that industry return to blight this town.

If I have one criticism of the story, it's that this attempt at showing the shades of gray comes with the risk of walking away from this story with anti-union sentiment. Of course, Gunn makes it pretty explicitly clear that the true villain of the story is the pursuit of capital, but we do unfortunately live in a world where folks will ignore the moral of a story if it doesn't suit them.

However, I've only talked about the text of the story so far, when there is so much more to it with the art. Gunn's illustrations bring to life an already enthralling story, with a vibrancy and texture. The characters are animated and believable, the blighted landscapes drawing you in and cementing you into a specific place and time. The fantastical elements have an otherworldly, uncanny feel to them that emphasises the ambiguity of how much of what Tony is experiencing is entirely from his imagination.

The story's other big subplot, that of Tony wanting to get into programming, is emphasised and reinforced through the illustrations also. The stark, primitive visuals of the Atari days glow in neon green, feeling almost pre-historic by today's standards. This adds to the feeling that Tony's character is no weak and frightened fool, as even just through the visuals we can understand the skill it would have taken to programme a video game in those days. Tony might not want to go down the pit, but that doesn't mean he lacks willpower.

The visuals and the text work in tandem to create a tale that feels very simple and easy to digest in it's delivery but that contains a history with great depth beneath. The story closes with a bittersweet ending. The monster defeated, but Tony's personal strife continues, as he is left still finding his way in the world where he has to try and show solidarity for a line of work he knows is doomed to closure. The story does not let you off with any easy answers, and doesn't sugar coat that the world is not so easily fixed.

Coal Face is a finely executed all-ages tale that creates a perfect snapshot in time to emphasize that while heroes and monsters exist in both fiction and reality, it's only in fiction that these distinctions are so easily spotted. Right now, as it was in the 80s, being a hero is not as easy as simply picking up a controller, and defeating monsters can't be done with simple button presses.

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Jack Harvey 2024. Coal Face (c) 2023 Jason Wilson. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - 20th Century Men

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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20th Century Men by Deniz Camp and Stipan Morian - Image Comics 2023

Contains Mild Spoilers

I wasn't expecting to write about 20th Century Men for this column. I had already seen quite a bit of buzz about it within the general comics community and expected that it would explode into the mainstream as soon as the series had hit critical mass. Instead, however, it doesn't appear to have reached the wider audience I was expecting it to. So, here I am, doing my part to try and evangelise a comic that far more people really should have heard about.

20th Century Men is, in short, a riff on Alan Moore's Watchmen. The story takes place in an alternate cold war where super-science and adventuring heroes turned the tide of history and their legacy causes a chain of events that dooms us all. The twist this time is that it's the Soviet Union who got the immortal supergod this time around and it is through communist eyes we experience most of the story.

If that makes it sound like 20th Century Men is a simple 'what if' then stay with me a little longer, because while Camp displays the Watchmen influence pretty proudly it is very much not trying to do a simple palate swap. The Dr Manhattan analogue only plays a minor role in the plot, more homage than anything, while the main crux of the story is centred around Platonov, a sort of analogue Iron Man if Tony Stark was a communist and also a Warhammer 40'000 Space Marine Terminator. While Watchmen was a murder mystery, with most action taking place in flashback, 20th Century Men is set during the Soviet expansion into Afghanistan, and the blood soaked conflict is very much front and centre.

The chosen perspective is definitely an interesting one, giving the Soviets a somewhat sympathetic point of view during a conflict that pop culture has frequently painted them the villains of. Depicted far more villainously in this story is US foreign policy, embodied by President Goode, part Captain America, part Lex Luthor, part Gary Busey, an institution and character more interested in proving their superiority as opposed to a utopian ideal.

Still, while not apparent at first, it quickly is made clear that it is Afghanistan itself that is the true protagonist of the story. The so-called 'Graveyard of Empires,' home to people deserving of life just as much as their American and Soviet counterparts, yet treated as little more than pawns by those who see themselves as the 'true' civilisation. It is at this point the meaning of the title becomes clear, and that it is the 'civilised' world's failure to treat Afghanistan as anything other than a tile on a game board to be fought over that has condemned us to the doom in which we now find ourselves.

The comic is blisteringly harsh in that regard. A real road to hell paved with good and not so good intentions. The line "A million of us dead and millions more to come because you couldn't imagine a civilisation without flush toilets," is particularly scathing and will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. Camp aims high with what he wants to do with this comic, and frankly, he hits every target he shoots for. 20th Century Men is a comic that left me with literal chills and made me ask things about myself that I'd rather not ask.

Which brings me on to Stipan Morian's art. It feels like the ultimate combination of 1990's Vertigo at it's best with the contemporary grit of current generation 2000ad all wrapped up slickly to the kind of standard Image comics is known for these days. Simultaneously retro and modern, Morian has to tackle a lot over the course of this comic, from blood soaked battlefields to utopian communist farmland to sleazy boardrooms and the dusty streets of Afghan villages that feel more real than real. Morian slips between the majesty of a techno-future past that never was and the grime between our fingernails of a tragic present that probably is.

That 20th Century Men hasn't become one of our seminal texts already is unconscionable but also probably unsurprising. As a Watchmen riff it already finds itself in the company of a billion other superhero comic deconstructions that we have seen in the years since. As a condemnation of the western world it covers subjects that one can easily find all too popular YouTube know-nothings arguing about for hours on end. In a lot of ways 20th Century Men has become lost in the shuffle, struggling to find a niche in areas already stuffed to the gills with diluted and far inferior products.

So here I go, ranting about it in the humble way as best I can and trying to sell it to my motley collection of followers. 20th Century Men is a monumental piece of work. You can feel the sheer force of will from Camp, Morian and letterist Aditya Bidikar bringing it to life. It should be a shoe in for every 1001 Comics to Read Before you die list and frankly if I don't see it enter on the 2024 edition I'll 'insert humorous self-deprecating action here.'

There's probably a billion other things I could string out to try and convince you to read it, but I dunno, I guess I'm just hoping my words can burst out of the page even a fraction as strongly as they do in 20th Century Men. Even holding the book in my hands feels like I'm carrying the weight of the world within it. It's a tome that almost refuses to be ignored as our civilisation spirals once more towards it's darkest impulses.

It's a good comic you should read it.

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Jack Harvey 2024. 20th Century Men (c) 2023 Deniz Campbell, Stjepan Mihaljevic, and Aditya Bidikar. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Squire

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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Squire by Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas - 2022 Quill Tree Books

Contains Spoilers

There's been a topic of conversation floating around recently putting forth the idea that stories with a 'message' are somehow compromised by their decision to prioritise some kind of 'personal opinion' over the 'telling of the story.' Now, anyone who has at least paid half attention to what they were told in literature class can tell you how silly of an idea that this is, but it is increasingly depressing to see how many people are parroting such nonsense.

The idea that 'the story' and 'the message' are two separate entities that can clash makes about as much sense as implying that 'the mechanics' and 'the movement' of a vehicle have no impact on each other. While, yes, it is possible for stories to tell broader tales with no great high minded purpose, even something as simple as 'this is funny' or 'this is exciting' still constitutes a 'message' and intent.

Really, I shouldn't have to waste my time going over this, but I felt it a particularly pertinent point to begin on given I'm about to cover Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas' Squire, a fun, simple adventure story with a capital M message.

Squire tells the story of Aiza, a young girl who lives on the fringes of the Bayt-Sajji empire and a member of the Ornu people, a colonised minority within the empire. As an Ornu, Aiza is a second-class citizen and is forced to hide her identity due to being treated as a potential insurrectionist, guilty until proven innocent. Aiza seeks to become a squire and later knight within the empire's ranks in the hopes of gaining full citizenship and proving to the greater populace that her people can be loyal subjects.

Aiza's attempts, however, soon prove to be in vain, as no matter how hard she tries she realises that she alone cannot gain acceptance for her people within the eye of an empire that calls for blind obedience. That no matter how far she goes to try and show that the Ornu can assimilate her masters will be more than happy to demand she take up arms against her own people.

Reading that short plot description you can see already that Squire is no entirely constructed fictional world, as if such a thing could exist. There are probably more than a dozen historical and contemporary conflicts that you could map Aiza's dilemma on to. Given that Alfageeh and Shammas come from Jordanian and Palestinian backgrounds, respectively, you can probably reason out yourself what history the story has been inspired by.

If all this is making Squire sound like a dour treatise on the nature of colonialism then fear not, because it's quite the opposite. The story is light, breezy and fun, with optimistic but well rounded characters. The story falls pretty heavily on the idealistic side, a much needed take given our current propensity for cynicism right now. It's a rip roaring adventure full of excitement and heart. You could easily consume it in one sitting, cover to cover.

Alfageeh's artwork brings a magnetic, animated style to the proceedings. There's a feeling of constant motion to the panels that emphasises Aiza's energy and optimism. As she refuses to be beaten down by the world, refuses to give up, we believe it because of the energy and dynamism Alfageeh give to her movements. Add to that the use of several real world locations as inspiration for settings of the comic, and it almost feels as through the panels are moving in front of us.

This is not to say that Squire takes it's own subject matter lightly, however. As mentioned, Shammas has put great deal of intent into the words and world in which we see this plot through. By choosing to set the story within a constructed, fictional conflict, the story takes on a more universal context. The injustices that Aiza faces mirror a great many injustices across the world, and her refusal to back down and be beaten into cynicism has likewise a universal appeal.

As Squire's story continues, we get drawn further into not only the empire's crimes, but also their justifications, and the apparatus in which evil is done and is continued to be done, sometimes by the most well intentioned of people. While the story concludes into a neat and tidy ending, it does not leave the reader with the suggestion that the evils of the world are so easily defeated through a single sword fight. Aiza's story may be over (for now) but her fight is far from done. Yet in spite of such insurmountable odds, her refusal to give up is a victory in and of itself.

Squire is a solid, fun, exciting and at times intense and emotional story that is wrapped entirely around it's message and it is all the stronger for it. Taking out the real world subtext of the story would be like taking the engine out of a car and expecting it to still go. It's a damn shame that we're still having silly arguments about how stories are 'ruined' by 'messages,' but I take heart in knowing that we have works such as Squire to prove that such an attitude is balderdash.

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Jack Harvey 2023. Squire (c) 2022 Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh. Images used under Fair Use.

How COPRA Redefines the Sincerest Form of Flattery - An Obscure Comic of the Month Special Edition.

This column normally takes a look at obscure comics. For every every sixth month, instead of taking a look at a comic that nobody talks about, this special edition will take a look at a comic I feel not enough people talk about.

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COPRA by Michel Fiffe 2012 - Present

Contains minor Spoilers

If you've been into comics for a reasonable amount of time, especially superhero comics, then discovering a story that involves thinly veiled versions of pre-existing characters will come across as nothing new. Heck, it's common knowledge by now that Watchmen, considered by many to be the Citizen Kane of comic books, was originally conceived as involving a bunch of Charlton Comics characters that had been recently acquired by DC before Alan Moore decided to change them in order to tell a more definitive, daring story.

Still, the act of 'poaching' characters from other publishing lines and altering them just enough not to trigger a copyright case is, if not looked down upon, certainly considered less artistically valid than creating a cast of unique characters from whole cloth. In instances where the duplication is more blatant, then the more people view the writer's legitimacy as suspect (See basically anything Rob Liefeld created for his Extreme Comics line.)

In this regard it is somewhat difficult to explain why COPRA is one of the most fantastic, unique and creative comics out there, because, gun to my head, if I had to explain it in one sentence it would be "Suicide Squad with the serial numbers filed off." And to be fair Fiffe has no interest in disguising these inspirations. The story follows a top secret government taskforce led by a stern, stout black woman who's only different from Amanda Waller because she's called Sonia Stone. Deadshot, Deathstroke, Vixen and more, the line that Fiffe is willing to walk at times feels almost arbitrary.

Of course this is all in service on one singular goal; to write the greatest Suicide Squad story that DC Comics would never allow him to write. Unburdened by corporate oversight, publisher targets and the cyclical nature of comic book continuity, Fiffe is limited by only his own imagination, and folks, let him take you down because we're going to...

1987 was the year that John Ostrander's run on Suicide Squad began, and is considered by many to be the definitive take on the characters and setting. Hailed at the time for being dark and uncompromising, and willing to kill off it's characters permanently at a moment's notice, it's a formula that many later revivals have tried and failed to replicate, not least because the series has become somewhat of a Harley Quinn side comic in recent years. DC's own editorial mandates have ensured that the kind of environment that might produce such a comic might never be seen again.

And so, stepping from the shadows like a nebulous government agent, came Michel Fiffe, a renegade who answered to nobody, seeking only to bring back that feeling of John Ostrander's comic from 1984. If you were expecting a simple homage, however, you'd be dead wrong. As dead as many of the unfortunate characters in this very comic.

While COPRA lifts the premise and many of the characters from Suicide Squad this is no simple homage. It is clear from the get go that this universe is much grittier, much bleaker, and much more surreal than that of the mainstream DC line. If I had to compare it to another comic, it actually feels more like Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol at times than Ostrander's Suicide Squad.

The very first story involves the shard of ancient power being fought over with an eccentric mass of brain in a jar called Dy Dy and it only gets stranger from there. What I find really interesting about the comic is how it reinterprets the fundamentals of the superhero shared universe into something more frightening and unknowable. Fiffe doesn't just pull characters from the Suicide Squad but also brings in a Dr Strange-like character. Unlike in Marvel Comics, however, where no matter how dangerous the magic we know the good doctor will survive, the magic Vincent deals with constantly feels more threatening and malevolent given that we know his survival isn't guaranteed.

Additionally, a form of Apokolyps and the mythology of Kirby's New Gods is likewise reinterpreted as a strange and unsettling dimension whose inhabitants are utterly confused and out of their depth once stranded on Earth. Fiffs' take on a superhero universe feels so utterly unique in what it decides to explore, to the degree where I'm not really sure it's accurate to say it actually does takes place in a superhero universe, given the lack of many of its more traditional archetypes. Superpowered universe might be more accurate.

The idea of being surrounded by mystical and para-natural forces that could change an individual's biology at a moment's notice is treated as nothing less than harrowing. The fact that multiple crime syndicates and enemy government forces are made up of unkillable agents and mind controlling parasites is shown as being as horrific as you can imagine. The fact that the forces of good have to resort to the most repulsive methods to hold the world together shows us clearly that they are barely the forces of 'good' at all.

So COPRA continues. Characters die, suffer life altering trauma and carve out lifelong grudges in the wake of failed and barely successful operations. Yet life goes on, and the pain never goes away. COPRA is not a happy comic, though it can be laugh out loud funny in it's comedic moments. Unlike the big two, where a status quo needs to be maintained, COPRA can genuinely explore the consequences of it's arcs. It's why, going back to read it, I'm surprised how plot much unfolds over the course of six volumes.

And I haven't even spoken about the art yet. If what I have written above already has you interested, let me just say what Fiffe achieves in his writing he achieves doubly through his art. I've never seen another comic artist do it quite like Fiffe. He pulls out every visual technique in the book. Panels will duplicate and multiply, or split into mathematical grids. Characters and speech bubbles will warp with every thrown punch or broken wall of reality. Whole swathes of story will be rendered in different shades of single colour, sometimes to represent a mystical forces, sometimes to represent a character's psychological mood.

Let me be utterly clear here. Fiffe's art grabs you by the neck and refuses to let go. His interdimensional forces and eldritch horrors genuinely feel beyond human comprehension in the way he depicts them, the structure and consistency of the pages breaking down in front of our eyes. Yet human frailty and psychological damage is depicted in much the same way. He understands more than anything that art can convey emotions in more ways than just drawing a pained expression on a character's face.

If all that wasn't enough, even the feel of the pages between your fingers is a small part of COPRA's storytelling. Right from the get go Fiffe decided that he wanted the comic published on rough newsprint like the comics of old, even in the collected editions. There's just something about that feel, that coarseness, that feels missing on the shiny laminated pages of contemporary comics. It's why I felt it was a bit of a shame that COPRA lost that once Fiffe scored the deal with Image to get it a greater distribution. Then again, I don't blame him. This is the reality of comics. You gotta' take what you can get.

I hope all of the above helps to emphasise how calling COPRA "Suicide Squad with the serial numbers filed off," does it a disservice even when it's at it's most blatant in it's replication. Just because Guthie is obviously Duchess doesn't make her story any less heart breaking. Just because Castillo is obviously The Punisher as played by Sylvester Stallone doesn't make his fate any less gut wrenching.

What Fiffe achieves goes beyond simple homage. It is comics uncompromised. It is storytelling where the rules can be broken. It's a superpowered nightmare world where no twist, turn or reveal can be predicted, because the boundaries don't exist. It's the artistic equivalent of choking down oysters doused in Tabasco and following them up with harshest of whiskeys. Each turn of the page feels like I'm getting my teeth pulled out and I am desperate for more.

COPRA is probably one of the greatest comics out there right now and I genuinely don't think it's getting the respect it deserves. If you've been burned out by predictability and the lack of experimentation in mainstream comics of late, COPRA is the perfect cure. Michel Fiffe has given us six volumes so far, and I'd happily eat up sixteen more. Read my lips: Make mine COPRA.

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Jack Harvey 2023. COPRA is (c) Michel Fiffe. Images used under Fair Use.