Broken Frontier

This week, Top Cow releases Cyberforce/X-Men, a crossover between two superhero teams that are made for each other—or is that ‘made in the image of the other’ where Cyberforce is concerned? Sure, Cyblade and Ripclaw might very well have been made with Wolverine and Psylocke in mind, but that didn’t stop Ron Marz, with Pat Lee on art, to put the four of them together in an high-octane, action-packed one-shot.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Unlike traditional team crossovers in years past, Cyberforce/X-Men does not feature the entire teams, but instead focuses on four characters only—Wolverine, Psylocke, Ripclaw, and Cyblade. Why is that?

RON MARZ: More than anything, it's because we're doing this as a one-and-done story. There are other features in the book, but the main story is 22 pages. If we were using the full rosters of both teams, that's probably more than we could comfortably squeeze into 22 pages. Even so, we crammed a lot into this one—four starring characters, ninjas, giant robots. It definitely hits the ground running and keeps a pretty quick pace.

BF: When creating a crossover between Cyberforce and the X-Men, the two characters everyone wants to see in there are Ripclaw and Wolverine. How did you decide on Psylocke and Cyblade as the other ones?

RM: The characters were actually chosen by editorial. They said "How about these four?" and I said, "Sure." Part of the idea was to take these characters that are kind of mirror images and let them play off of each other.

BF: How do the four characters' paths intertwine to set up the story?

RM: The story is set in Japan, which is obviously a location where Wolverine and Psylocke each have some history. Cyblade is kidnapped by the Hand, with the intent of turning her into a pawn for their use. Ripclaw comes looking for her, bloody mayhem ensues, and eventually a Sentinel crashes the party. That's what brings Wolverine and Psylocke into it.

BF: You already pointed to it indirectly, but back when Cyberforce was created, people ripped the team for being a shallow version of Marvel's most popular team. The characters most singled out in that regard were Ripclaw and Cyblade, because of their similarities to Logan and Betsy Braddock. How do you look at these characters after having reintroduced them for the new millennium?

RM: It would be pretty silly of me to ignore the elephant in the room. Obviously the X-Men were an inspiration for Cyberforce, as well as a hell of a lot of the other super-hero teams that have been introduced. But that doesn't mean Ripclaw and Cyblade can’t be interesting characters in their own right. It's not something you can do overnight, though. It takes time to build truly three-dimensional characters.

BF: From your point of view, how have you tried to add some of that 'three-dimensionality' to the characters over the course of the six Cyberforce issues?

RM: You definitely try to make everybody a little more three-dimensional, though obviously that takes a bit longer with a team book because you only have so much space to devote to each character. Truthfully, I didn't do as much character-oriented stuff in the first six issues of Cyberforce as I would have otherwise wanted. The initial arc was more about re-introducing the characters, getting the team back together, and playing out the big action pieces in the issues. If I can get back to the book at some point, I'd like to use the next arc as more of a character-building story.

BF: Cyberforce was a fixture recently in several rumor columns on the web because of Pat Lee using Alex Milne as a ghost artist on the series, and other work of his. How did you deal with this?

RM: First, don't believe everything you read on the internet. I think too often people simply take whatever they read as gospel, especially when you're dealing with a rumor column. I should think it was pretty obvious that Pat Lee was using Alex Milne as a background guy, because Alex is listed as such in the credits of issues #1 through #3 of Cyberforce. So that sense of "A-ha, we caught Pat Lee using a ghost artist!" was kind of silly to begin with. Alex was listed in the credits from the first issue, but apparently it was too difficult for some people to actually open the book and look at the credits box. Now, whether you actually agree with the practice of an artist using a ghost or a background guy, that's another discussion, though it's been done since the medium started. 

Alex's credit got dropped in issues #4 and #5 because of an editorial oversight, not because of some deep, dark conspiracy. I'm not sure whether he was credited in issue #6, as I haven’t seen a printed copy (Milne was credited as background artist in the issue – ed.). The point is, Pat and Alex had an arrangement, and it's something that Alex agreed to, because Alex said so in an e-mail to me. Now sometime after that, Pat and Alex had a falling out, I guess, because it's pretty likely it was Alex who spread his side of the story over the net in a fairly one-sided take on the situation. 

People are always willing to think the worst of Pat, and obviously the Dreamwave situation—what little I know of it—ended badly and was handled very poorly. I'm not defending that by any means. But whatever the disagreement between Pat and Alex was on Cyberforce, it should have been handled it a lot more professionally than running to a gossip column. There's way too much crap on the internet already, there's no need to create more. 

I can say that Pat told me he was no longer using any background guys, and that he drew everything in X-Men/Cyberforce himself. I think it shows—there's a hell of a lot of effort in the book, and we got very nice inks and colors to go with it. This is certainly the best looking Cyberforce issue we've done. 

BF: All things considered, are you satisfied with the way the first six issues of the new Cyberforce volume have panned out?

RM: It's pretty rare that I'm satisfied with anything, and Cyberforce is no exception. There's stuff I like, and there's stuff that in retrospect we could've done better, both story and art. I'm satisfied with it in that I think it works to re-establish the characters and their environment. I think it was a pretty good first step, but the process isn't complete. 

BF: In 2007, the property celebrates its 15th anniversary. Do you and Top Cow have anything special planned to mark the occasion?

RM: Most of my focus right now is on Witchblade and First Born, which is the Top Cow crossover series I'm writing for next summer. Cyberforce will be involved in First Born, but more on a supporting or cameo basis, since the story is definitely built around Witchblade and the Darkness.

BF: Briefly moving on to your other Top Cow book, Witchblade. Has the public responded to the two new females—artist Adriana Melo, and soon-to-be new bearer Danielle Baptiste—as you hoped they would?

RM: So far, so good, I think. Adriana had a tough act to follow, because Mike Choi had really made the book his own, but she's settling in quite nicely. As for Danielle, the readers haven't really seen that much of her, and she's been a little prickly up to this. That's on purpose, because I actually want the readers to be unsure about Dani. It's easy to bring someone on stage and pander to the readers to make the character likable. But I'd rather create a more fully-formed character, someone with strengths as well as weaknesses. I think the readers are a little cautious toward Dani. A lot of them are taking a wait-and-see attitude, which is fine, because we've got a lot planned for her. Her story is just beginning. 

BF: Where are you taking the title over the next few months?

RM: We're going to be telling stories about both Sara and Dani—Sara as she adjusts to not having the Witchblade, and Dani as she adjusts to wielding it. The next issue, #103, is the actual transfer of the Witchblade, and #104 is the aftermath, as well as a big turning point in the relationship between Sara and her partner, Detective Gleason.

Then Croatian painter Stjepan Sejic comes in for three issues, so we can skip Adriana ahead. Issue #105 features a guest appearance by the Magdalena, and then #106 and #107 are focused more on Dani as she returns to her hometown of New Orleans. After that, we'll be ramping up to set the stage for First Born, which as you might expect, is about the birth of the baby Sara is carrying.

For a sneak peek at Cyberforce/X-Men, click here.