What a strange trippy week in Seattle for heroes and villains in comics and in reality.
Let’s start with comics – Peter David and Leonard Kirk’s excellent X-Factor #235 saw the mutant detectives go undercover in Seattle’s real life super hero movement – we really have one! Shatterstar and Madrox go undercover to join the X-Ceptionals (an Emerald City based group of wannabe costumed heroes) after other would be heroes are sliced and diced by a mystery attacker. The tone twists from comic to tragic with clever dialogue and expressive art.
Let’s get back to reality – Citizen Heroes and The Collectibles co-sponsored the Avengers Assemble film series at SIFF Cinema. Citizen Heroes is a documentary of the real super hero movement in the Pacific Northwest. Director Matt Harrison – my interview with him here – and local masked crimefighters helped introduced the Marvel solo movies this week. The biggest star of this phenomenon is Seattle’s Phoenix Jones of the Rain City Super Hero Movement.
Jones has apparently inspired “an enemy.” This week a challenge was declared in this video by a man calling himself Rex Velvet who claims to be Seattle’s greatest super villain. Velvet delivered this video to the Comics Blend Facebook page.
And I got the meet some of The Collectibles this week – think Avengers meets The Office. Here’s my interview with the Seattle stars of this comedy web series.
A very strange week of coincidences in Seattle indeed.