I recently picked up the brief run of this aborted series for next to nothing on eBay, largely for the cool artwork by Tom Grummett and Karl Kesel, and after reading it, really wished that this book had continued beyond its short run. This book was lots of fun to read, it was beautiful to look at and it definitely deserves to be revived. Section Zero was created by writer/inker Karl Kesel and artist Tom Grummett and published in 2000 by Gorilla Comics (an imprint of Image comics). The series followed a covert organization working under the aegis of the United Nations, whose mission was the investigation and containment of unexplained phenomena around the world.
Section Zero was originally proposed as an ongoing series, but due to financial problems experienced by the organizers of Gorilla Comics, only three issues were ultimately published; and then only after Image Comics stepped in to help out. A fourth issue was solicited, but was never published.
Gorilla Comics was designed to be a creator owned company financed by a comics related website called eHero.com. The website quickly proved to be a financial failure, leaving the creators to personally finance their own books. Along with the other Gorilla Comics creators, Kurt Busiek & Stuart Immonen (Shockrockets), Mark Waid & Barry Kitson (Empire), George Perez (Crimson Plague) and Mike Wieringo (Tellos); Kesel & Grummett attempted to continue the series they started, but these efforts proved to be unsuccessful.
Section Zero's eclectic cast of characters included Dr. Titania Challenger, the last living member of a family of scientific adventurers; Sam Wildman, the team's field leader and Doc Challenger's ex-husband; Tesla, a childlike alien who pilots the team's flying saucer. Tesla has no memory of his life before he began working for Section Zero; Thom Talesi (aka the 24-Hour Bug), an Asian-American teenager with a magical tattoo that allows him to transform into an insect-like being for a twenty-four hour period; Sargasso, a reptilian being who worked for Section Zero in the 1960s and 1970s only to be found in the present and A. J. Keeler, the group's leader. Keeler secretly also leads the Ghost Soldiers, a second covert group that may or may not be working against the best interests of Section Zero.
1 comment:
I really liked Section Zero, it had the most potential for being a fun ongoing series. I sampled the rest but found most of them to be if not boring, self limiting. Though I give them credit for really trying something new.
But, Section Zero had the right blend of superheroics meets the X-Files.
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