Your Home for Toy News and Action Figure Discussion!

Looking Through the Longbox: Minis from Deadshot and Hercules

This week I’m concentrating on two short and very different series. One DC and one Marvel. One Hercules,
one Deadshot. Different indeed.

First up is the 1982 Hercules: Prince of Power Mini-series by Writer/artist Bob Layton. It’s set some unidentified time in the future and once again the immortal party-boy has fallen out of favor with his father, Zeus. Zeus ants hercules to finally grow up and start acting responsibly, or he’s going to shove a lightning bolt up his ass. Literally. So off Mount Olympus he goes, on a space-chariot, driven by enchanted horses.

Obligatory horsepower joke can be inserted at your convenience.

Along the way, he picks up a sidekick, Recorder, an android who…records…his adventures. And his
adventures basically add up to big cosmic science-fictiony adventures where he tries to control his
legendary temper and partying ways while delivering “the gift!” (which is usually a sock in the head) to any who would stand in his way.

Even Galactus.

Want to see a drunken Galactus? This series is for you.

All in all a very enjoyable mini with a great straight man in the Recorder who ends up suffereing more
and more while following Hercules around, all noted dryly and wryly. It’s available in affordable single
issues or in a Hercules: Prince of Power trade. Also collected in the trade is the follow up mini by
Layton as well. The second mini isn’t as good as the first, but still enjoyable enough.

Next up is the 1988 Deadshot mini series, written by the husband/wife team of John Ostrander and Kim Yates and illustrated by Luke McDonnell. If you want to know why Deadshot is the fatalistic, nihilistic sumbitch he is, this series gives you some pretty convincing reasons. When his son is kidnapped, Deadshot goes on a killing spree to find him, and take out those responsible. His psychiatrist from Task force X goes on a tangent journey to find out about just what makes Floyd Lawton tick. Their two paths converge as Lawton’s unpleasant family history is revealed.

Not pretty.

This is a dark, stripped down story that hits with a minimalist gutpunch and defined Deadshot beyond the mask. Does Floyd care about anything or is he just a gun with a heartbeat? This story tries to answer that question. And it’s about as opposite a story from Hercules as you can get.

So there it is, two mini-series equalling 8 issues of reading enjoyment. Check them out.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *