Futurians (comics)
Encyclopedia
The Futurians was a superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 team created by Dave Cockrum
Dave Cockrum
David Emmett Cockrum was an American comic book artist known for his co-creation of the new X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus...

, who first appeared in 1983 in the ninth of the Marvel Graphic Novels series, then in a three-issue run published by Lodestone Comics.

In 2003, author Clifford Meth
Clifford Meth
Clifford Lawrence Meth is an American writer and editor best known for his dark fiction. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."-Early life:...

 revamped the comic as a yet-to-be produced screenplay for IDT Entertainment.

Publication history

The characters first appeared in Marvel Graphic Novels #9 (ISBN 0939766817) and the story continued in a 3-issue limited series
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....

 from Lodestone Comics. An issue #0 was published in 1995 by Cockrum's own Aardwolf Publishing.

The series was reprinted by Eternity Comics
Eternity Comics
Eternity Comics was a California-based comic book publisher active from 1986 to 1994, first as an independent publisher, then as an imprint of Malibu Comics. Eternity published creator-owned comics of an offbeat, independent flavor, as well as some licensed properties...

 in 1987.

In the individual comic by Aardwolf Publishing (Futurians #0), Dave Cockrum's excerpt inside the cover explains what happened.

The Futurians began as a graphic novel for Marvel (Marvel Graphic Novel #9), wherein I recounted the adventures of eight extraordinary humans with powers gained by way of genetic manipulation from the future. The graphic novel did pretty well, went into three printings, and a series was called for. Unfortunately, I let myself be lured away from Marvel and did the series for an independent publisher who promised pie-in-the-sky money. If I'd stayed with Marvel, we might be publishing Futurians #250 or something by now. Instead, I went with the independent, occasionally called Lodestone Publications, and my run only lasted three issues. A fourth issue was finished; this book you hold in your hands. Due to the vagaries of publishing, however, it never saw print as an individual issue until now. It was collected together with the previous three issues into a limited-edition second graphic novel in 1987. That second graphic novel was short-printed and is next-to-impossible to find. There has been renewed interest in The Futurians in recent months, and my friends at AARDWOLF and I decided to reprint the "lost" fourth issue, now numbered 0 for this edition, to test the waters for a possible new series. If you bought the three Lodestone issues but never saw the second graphic novel (and I know there are lots of you out there), here's your chance to finish the story.

Plot

The premise was of an extremely advanced future society called the Terminus, who attempted to alter the past by sending genetic information back through time, to give certain human beings super-powers (and a compulsion to use them) in order to enable them to stop some unnamed disaster. In the late 20th Century, a future inhabitant known only as "Vandervecken" or "The Dutchman" (both names for The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman
The legend of the Flying Dutchman concerns a ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. It probably originates from 17th-century nautical folklore. The oldest extant version dates to the late 18th century....

) downloaded his mind
Mind transfer
Whole brain emulation or mind uploading is the hypothetical process of transferring or copying a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device...

 into the body of a hobo who later becomes the owner of the Future Dynamics corporation; Vandervecken then began gathering up those who had been empowered to begin preparing them for their historic battles.

Members

The main characters of The Futurians:
  • Avatar: The first empowered human, he has flight, superstrength, and invulnerability, as well as three thousand years of knowledge and experience in strategy and tactics. He is the only Futurian to have overcome his genetic conditioning to obey Vandervecken. He has had many names and identities throughout the centuries,the most recent being Andrew Pendragon.

  • Vandervecken: The mind of a future time traveller in the body of vagabond who later becomes a millionaire scientific genius. He has vast knowledge of future events and technology.

  • Terrayne: Geologist Harry Robbins has become a livng mud-man who can manipulate rock and earth. At first he is permanently trapped in this form, but Vandervecken supplies him with a ring that allows him to become human again.

  • Silkie: Marine biologist Tracy Winters becomes a green-skinned amphibian with the ability to breathe underwater at great depths, fire bio-electrical blasts, control and shape water, and transform into a humanoid manta ray
    Manta ray
    The manta ray is the largest species of the rays. The largest known specimen was more than across, with a weight of about . It ranges throughout waters of the world, typically around coral reefs...

    -like form, which allows her to fly or swim at great speeds.

  • Werehawk: Matthew Blackfeather, an attorney for the Dakota
    Sioux
    The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

     Indian tribe, can turn into a clawed, flying hawk-like humanoid; however, when he does so, he can become overwhelmed by predatory instincts and a berserker rage. If he loses control entirely, he turns fully into a giant raptor bird.

  • Silver Shadow: Ex-spy Jonathan Darknyte is able to become a living shadow, who can merge with, animate, or teleport through shadows and darkness.

  • Mosquito: Dana Morgan gains the ability to fly and generate ultrasonic energy. She also carries a gun that fires anesthetic or explosive darts.

  • Sunswift: A living fire elemental from Egypt, Neith can survive in space or in the Sun
    Sun
    The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

    's corona
    Corona
    A corona is a type of plasma "atmosphere" of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometers into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but also observable in a coronagraph...

     where she currently resides, generate solar-temperature plasma, and fly at tremendous speeds. She is also the former lover of Andrew Pendragon from ancient times. Sunswift must shed a great deal of her power before she enters a planetary atmosphere for fear of accidentally destroying anything around her. But even after doing so, she is still a very formidable opponent.

  • Blackmane: Walter Bonner becomes a lion-like being with razor-sharp talons and superhuman strength and agility.

Film adaptation

Clifford Meth
Clifford Meth
Clifford Lawrence Meth is an American writer and editor best known for his dark fiction. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."-Early life:...

, who wrote one Futurians story with Cockrum, has worked on the screenplay for the story which was optioned by IDT Entertainment and, after the rights reverted, he was in negotiation with Richard Saperstein, but that fell through as well.
The Futurians was a superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 team created by Dave Cockrum
Dave Cockrum
David Emmett Cockrum was an American comic book artist known for his co-creation of the new X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus...

, who first appeared in 1983 in the ninth of the Marvel Graphic Novels series, then in a three-issue run published by Lodestone Comics.

In 2003, author Clifford Meth
Clifford Meth
Clifford Lawrence Meth is an American writer and editor best known for his dark fiction. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."-Early life:...

 revamped the comic as a yet-to-be produced screenplay for IDT Entertainment.

Publication history

The characters first appeared in Marvel Graphic Novels #9 (ISBN 0939766817) and the story continued in a 3-issue limited series
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....

 from Lodestone Comics. An issue #0 was published in 1995 by Cockrum's own Aardwolf Publishing.

The series was reprinted by Eternity Comics
Eternity Comics
Eternity Comics was a California-based comic book publisher active from 1986 to 1994, first as an independent publisher, then as an imprint of Malibu Comics. Eternity published creator-owned comics of an offbeat, independent flavor, as well as some licensed properties...

 in 1987.

In the individual comic by Aardwolf Publishing (Futurians #0), Dave Cockrum's excerpt inside the cover explains what happened.

The Futurians began as a graphic novel for Marvel (Marvel Graphic Novel #9), wherein I recounted the adventures of eight extraordinary humans with powers gained by way of genetic manipulation from the future. The graphic novel did pretty well, went into three printings, and a series was called for. Unfortunately, I let myself be lured away from Marvel and did the series for an independent publisher who promised pie-in-the-sky money. If I'd stayed with Marvel, we might be publishing Futurians #250 or something by now. Instead, I went with the independent, occasionally called Lodestone Publications, and my run only lasted three issues. A fourth issue was finished; this book you hold in your hands. Due to the vagaries of publishing, however, it never saw print as an individual issue until now. It was collected together with the previous three issues into a limited-edition second graphic novel in 1987. That second graphic novel was short-printed and is next-to-impossible to find. There has been renewed interest in The Futurians in recent months, and my friends at AARDWOLF and I decided to reprint the "lost" fourth issue, now numbered 0 for this edition, to test the waters for a possible new series. If you bought the three Lodestone issues but never saw the second graphic novel (and I know there are lots of you out there), here's your chance to finish the story.

Plot

The premise was of an extremely advanced future society called the Terminus, who attempted to alter the past by sending genetic information back through time, to give certain human beings super-powers (and a compulsion to use them) in order to enable them to stop some unnamed disaster. In the late 20th Century, a future inhabitant known only as "Vandervecken" or "The Dutchman" (both names for The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman
The legend of the Flying Dutchman concerns a ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. It probably originates from 17th-century nautical folklore. The oldest extant version dates to the late 18th century....

) downloaded his mind
Mind transfer
Whole brain emulation or mind uploading is the hypothetical process of transferring or copying a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device...

 into the body of a hobo who later becomes the owner of the Future Dynamics corporation; Vandervecken then began gathering up those who had been empowered to begin preparing them for their historic battles.

Members

The main characters of The Futurians:
  • Avatar: The first empowered human, he has flight, superstrength, and invulnerability, as well as three thousand years of knowledge and experience in strategy and tactics. He is the only Futurian to have overcome his genetic conditioning to obey Vandervecken. He has had many names and identities throughout the centuries,the most recent being Andrew Pendragon.

  • Vandervecken: The mind of a future time traveller in the body of vagabond who later becomes a millionaire scientific genius. He has vast knowledge of future events and technology.

  • Terrayne: Geologist Harry Robbins has become a livng mud-man who can manipulate rock and earth. At first he is permanently trapped in this form, but Vandervecken supplies him with a ring that allows him to become human again.

  • Silkie: Marine biologist Tracy Winters becomes a green-skinned amphibian with the ability to breathe underwater at great depths, fire bio-electrical blasts, control and shape water, and transform into a humanoid manta ray
    Manta ray
    The manta ray is the largest species of the rays. The largest known specimen was more than across, with a weight of about . It ranges throughout waters of the world, typically around coral reefs...

    -like form, which allows her to fly or swim at great speeds.

  • Werehawk: Matthew Blackfeather, an attorney for the Dakota
    Sioux
    The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

     Indian tribe, can turn into a clawed, flying hawk-like humanoid; however, when he does so, he can become overwhelmed by predatory instincts and a berserker rage. If he loses control entirely, he turns fully into a giant raptor bird.

  • Silver Shadow: Ex-spy Jonathan Darknyte is able to become a living shadow, who can merge with, animate, or teleport through shadows and darkness.

  • Mosquito: Dana Morgan gains the ability to fly and generate ultrasonic energy. She also carries a gun that fires anesthetic or explosive darts.

  • Sunswift: A living fire elemental from Egypt, Neith can survive in space or in the Sun
    Sun
    The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

    's corona
    Corona
    A corona is a type of plasma "atmosphere" of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometers into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but also observable in a coronagraph...

     where she currently resides, generate solar-temperature plasma, and fly at tremendous speeds. She is also the former lover of Andrew Pendragon from ancient times. Sunswift must shed a great deal of her power before she enters a planetary atmosphere for fear of accidentally destroying anything around her. But even after doing so, she is still a very formidable opponent.

  • Blackmane: Walter Bonner becomes a lion-like being with razor-sharp talons and superhuman strength and agility.

Film adaptation

Clifford Meth
Clifford Meth
Clifford Lawrence Meth is an American writer and editor best known for his dark fiction. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."-Early life:...

, who wrote one Futurians story with Cockrum, has worked on the screenplay for the story which was optioned by IDT Entertainment and, after the rights reverted, he was in negotiation with Richard Saperstein, but that fell through as well.
The Futurians was a superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 team created by Dave Cockrum
Dave Cockrum
David Emmett Cockrum was an American comic book artist known for his co-creation of the new X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus...

, who first appeared in 1983 in the ninth of the Marvel Graphic Novels series, then in a three-issue run published by Lodestone Comics.

In 2003, author Clifford Meth
Clifford Meth
Clifford Lawrence Meth is an American writer and editor best known for his dark fiction. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."-Early life:...

 revamped the comic as a yet-to-be produced screenplay for IDT Entertainment.

Publication history

The characters first appeared in Marvel Graphic Novels #9 (ISBN 0939766817) and the story continued in a 3-issue limited series
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....

 from Lodestone Comics. An issue #0 was published in 1995 by Cockrum's own Aardwolf Publishing.

The series was reprinted by Eternity Comics
Eternity Comics
Eternity Comics was a California-based comic book publisher active from 1986 to 1994, first as an independent publisher, then as an imprint of Malibu Comics. Eternity published creator-owned comics of an offbeat, independent flavor, as well as some licensed properties...

 in 1987.

In the individual comic by Aardwolf Publishing (Futurians #0), Dave Cockrum's excerpt inside the cover explains what happened.

The Futurians began as a graphic novel for Marvel (Marvel Graphic Novel #9), wherein I recounted the adventures of eight extraordinary humans with powers gained by way of genetic manipulation from the future. The graphic novel did pretty well, went into three printings, and a series was called for. Unfortunately, I let myself be lured away from Marvel and did the series for an independent publisher who promised pie-in-the-sky money. If I'd stayed with Marvel, we might be publishing Futurians #250 or something by now. Instead, I went with the independent, occasionally called Lodestone Publications, and my run only lasted three issues. A fourth issue was finished; this book you hold in your hands. Due to the vagaries of publishing, however, it never saw print as an individual issue until now. It was collected together with the previous three issues into a limited-edition second graphic novel in 1987. That second graphic novel was short-printed and is next-to-impossible to find. There has been renewed interest in The Futurians in recent months, and my friends at AARDWOLF and I decided to reprint the "lost" fourth issue, now numbered 0 for this edition, to test the waters for a possible new series. If you bought the three Lodestone issues but never saw the second graphic novel (and I know there are lots of you out there), here's your chance to finish the story.

Plot

The premise was of an extremely advanced future society called the Terminus, who attempted to alter the past by sending genetic information back through time, to give certain human beings super-powers (and a compulsion to use them) in order to enable them to stop some unnamed disaster. In the late 20th Century, a future inhabitant known only as "Vandervecken" or "The Dutchman" (both names for The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman
The legend of the Flying Dutchman concerns a ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. It probably originates from 17th-century nautical folklore. The oldest extant version dates to the late 18th century....

) downloaded his mind
Mind transfer
Whole brain emulation or mind uploading is the hypothetical process of transferring or copying a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device...

 into the body of a hobo who later becomes the owner of the Future Dynamics corporation; Vandervecken then began gathering up those who had been empowered to begin preparing them for their historic battles.

Members

The main characters of The Futurians:
  • Avatar: The first empowered human, he has flight, superstrength, and invulnerability, as well as three thousand years of knowledge and experience in strategy and tactics. He is the only Futurian to have overcome his genetic conditioning to obey Vandervecken. He has had many names and identities throughout the centuries,the most recent being Andrew Pendragon.

  • Vandervecken: The mind of a future time traveller in the body of vagabond who later becomes a millionaire scientific genius. He has vast knowledge of future events and technology.

  • Terrayne: Geologist Harry Robbins has become a livng mud-man who can manipulate rock and earth. At first he is permanently trapped in this form, but Vandervecken supplies him with a ring that allows him to become human again.

  • Silkie: Marine biologist Tracy Winters becomes a green-skinned amphibian with the ability to breathe underwater at great depths, fire bio-electrical blasts, control and shape water, and transform into a humanoid manta ray
    Manta ray
    The manta ray is the largest species of the rays. The largest known specimen was more than across, with a weight of about . It ranges throughout waters of the world, typically around coral reefs...

    -like form, which allows her to fly or swim at great speeds.

  • Werehawk: Matthew Blackfeather, an attorney for the Dakota
    Sioux
    The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

     Indian tribe, can turn into a clawed, flying hawk-like humanoid; however, when he does so, he can become overwhelmed by predatory instincts and a berserker rage. If he loses control entirely, he turns fully into a giant raptor bird.

  • Silver Shadow: Ex-spy Jonathan Darknyte is able to become a living shadow, who can merge with, animate, or teleport through shadows and darkness.

  • Mosquito: Dana Morgan gains the ability to fly and generate ultrasonic energy. She also carries a gun that fires anesthetic or explosive darts.

  • Sunswift: A living fire elemental from Egypt, Neith can survive in space or in the Sun
    Sun
    The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

    's corona
    Corona
    A corona is a type of plasma "atmosphere" of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometers into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but also observable in a coronagraph...

     where she currently resides, generate solar-temperature plasma, and fly at tremendous speeds. She is also the former lover of Andrew Pendragon from ancient times. Sunswift must shed a great deal of her power before she enters a planetary atmosphere for fear of accidentally destroying anything around her. But even after doing so, she is still a very formidable opponent.

  • Blackmane: Walter Bonner becomes a lion-like being with razor-sharp talons and superhuman strength and agility.

Film adaptation

Clifford Meth
Clifford Meth
Clifford Lawrence Meth is an American writer and editor best known for his dark fiction. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."-Early life:...

, who wrote one Futurians story with Cockrum, has worked on the screenplay for the story which was optioned by IDT Entertainment and, after the rights reverted, he was in negotiation with Richard Saperstein, but that fell through as well.
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