Issue 51, Director's Cut and Year-End Thoughts

First off, issue 51 is out and here's a link to it: Issue 51

For Year-End thoughts, it was an interesting year for the comic.  I had been going strong and being almost monthly for a while, but then with the injury to my arm I couldn't put out any new issues for close to 2 years.  That definitely destroyed the momentum I had built up in the series.  It was frustrating at the time as I suspected that would be the case, but there was nothing I could do about it.  Even now, being monthly again since March, the readership is way down and I'm hardly getting any interaction on any platforms.  I know it will take time, but I miss where it had been.  Hopefully it will get back there some day.

This year was interesting, I introduced my comic to TikTok and I've enjoyed that to an extent.  I also played with doing 1 AI image of each of my characters and that is what I've shared on TikTok.  While I've gotten some good feedback, it has also been very frustrating, there are a lot of negative voices on there and most of the people on there just see one image on their page of a single character, but they don't look beyond that and they don't see the 'whole' picture of what my universe is about.  Those that do have been wonderful to talk to though; I've had some good and interesting chats with some other creators on there.

As for the future of the comic, it is still going strong and will for the foreseeable future, but it's going to be a little less than monthly.  I work a full-time job and the comic takes up most of my weekends with writing, drawing, coloring and lettering as well as prepping the promotional posts - and while I do enjoy that, it has not left me any time to do any other creative things that I want to pursue - some are even related to the comic and I haven't been able to do them as I've been stretched too thin time-wise. 

I've decided to stress less about being monthly and make some time for myself to do other things.  The comic will still come out, but sometimes it might be bi-monthly for much of 2026 as I work toward getting other things accomplished.   I'll announce more when the time comes. 

Spoilers Ahead: Ok, this won't really give away what happens in issue 51, but it will hint at some things and reveal a bit.  When I was writing this book, I had originally planned a longer conversation between Titan and Magno II, but decided to shorten it as I felt it would have dragged out too much in the comic.

The scene that I really changed from the original concept was the scene with Phantom.  When I wrote the issue, I had it where he returned to the headquarters with Water Wonder and then they talked about the spell, which I really wanted to include in this issue.  However, there is an underlying story with where Master Mind was buried that is part of a bigger story arc that ties in with Phantom and I decided to alter the scene to still include the spell, but not have him return to the Headquarters yet.

There are also two cut scenes and the reason I cut them is because they were humorous and I wanted this issue to have a more serious tone with the funeral for Master Mind.  The first scene deals with David, Crossbow's brother, who learned that he gained powers.  I was going to have him testing them out.  I won't reveal much as I plan to use that scene in a future issue.  The second scene cut deals with Phantom.  With what happens at the end of the issue with Titan and Crossbow, I was going to have Phantom overhear them and comment on it in a funny way, but it didn't really fit the tone. 

Well, that's it for the director's cut!  More coming soon!

Issue 50 the Director's Cut

Something I thought about doing for a while, which was to do kind of a behind the scenes of the issue and take you through some things that changed as I was creating it. 

In the opening scene we see that Spider-Star and X-Ray Boy discover that Beam was a traitor and that their portals weren't working.  They meet Marmet who shows them where the villains were leaving through their own portals and then they go and attack the villains to try to stop them.  In the original draft of this issue, I had Marmet lead them into a room where the portal was being created and when they failed to stop that a fight with the villains broke out in that room. 

When Titan, Magno and Throttle get to India they soon realize that they walked into a trap.  I originally planned for them to fight Shock Troopers there and that Zesto was only there as a hologram, but opted to leave that out.

When Beam reveals herself to the team and attacks Master Mind and Crossbow, I didn't have her say anything and as I was lettering the issue, I thought about if I wanted to come up with dialogue for her, but decided to keep the scene silent.  

After Cat defeated Ox, I thought about having Lizard Lady come up from behind him to also attack Cat, but decided that I didn't really want to slow the story down with another fight that Cat would have won.

With the scene with the Gallina Negra, that is not an original creature, but it comes from myth/folk tales and I had heard that it was believed to be Cuban in origin, but I think it actually extends beyond that.  As for the milk escape that Yahgan uses, that comes from folk/fairy tales and is a seldom referenced trick that was first mentioned centuries ago.

When Spark goes into the Control Room, he sees a weird device that is plugged into four USB ports at once and he knows that doesn't belong there. 

When Spark takes Power Supreme to the Medical Center, I originally planned to show him putting the injured hero on a bed and showing Mr. Roboto run a scan on him, but just cut the scene entirely.  

When David got free and snuck back to headquarters, I originally planned to show him peeking through the bushes and watching the shock troops dragging Crossbow into the realm, but thought that might have slowed the pace of the story down too much.

There is an art error on the gloves that David puts on.  The gloves are meant to be very tight and form-fitting, which I hadn't thought of when I drew the scenes.  Instead of redrawing anything, I just made the gloves appear loose on David, but that really is an artistic error.

When Crossbow gets free, I originally thought about having her give a knife from her boot to Janice so her sister could free herself, so Crossbow could chase after David, but decided to just do away with that all together.

Pacing:  originally I planned to have Titan get back and encounter Janice in the hallway as Crossbow was coming along dragging Beam, but decided that I really wanted Janice out of the picture before Titan and Crossbow spoke.

In the final scene you see that Freedom has returned!  I originally planned for Magno to come in and find Freedom protecting Master Mind's body and ask how he got there, but I felt that would have taken away from the emotional impact of the scene and decided to save that scene for issue 51.

The Truth About Master Mind

Hopefully by now you've read the big 50th issue of the comic.  If you haven't, there are major spoilers ahead!  

Ready?  Okay - here we go!

As I've mentioned before, I started to create my comic when I was in 5th grade.  When I created the team, it was more akin to the way that the Legion of Super-Heroes handled things in the 1960's; by that I mean I just created the character and boom - they were on the team!  I didn't deal much with onboarding the members, they were just there. 

When I created the comic Master Mind was not a founding member of the team.  In fact, she was actually dead before I created her.  When I created her, I did so as a member of the team who had been killed in the line of duty at some point in the past and the heroes just remembered her.  In fact, they had a golden metal statue built for her memory that they kept on the grounds of their headquarters.  

The original story went that she was the first hero to join the team, but was killed by the traitor Beam during an assault on the headquarters.  Much of the story in issue 50 stayed true to the original version, except for Master Mind having been a founder of the team.  I felt that her being a founding member would add more emotional impact to the book than just some random member who came later.

The other change that I made:  in the original stories, the team used a castle as their headquarters and the members lived in barrack-like structures built on the grounds.  After that was destroyed, when Master Mind was killed, they moved into the U-shaped building that they stayed in.  

When I was creating this comic a few years ago, I decided to leave out the castle/barrack set up and just have them in the U-shaped building from the start.  

I'm going to reveal something here that the public as never seen before!  The original headquarters layout and a breakdown of each floor of the castle.  Again, please keep in mind that I was a kid when I drew these...

The image is broken down into three sections.  The upper left shows the castle.  The lower left shows the damage the castle took in the battled that killed Master Mind and the left side of the image shows the castle in relationship to the barracks.

The image above shows the breakdown of each floor of the castle's interior.

At some point, maybe on some Alternate Earth storyline in the future the castle might just have to make an appearance again one day!

Oh, before we go - you might be wondering whatever happened to Beam in the original version of the stories?  Good question!  I actually had two outcomes in mind for her; in one version of the story she was killed (which the option I went with in this issue); in the other version she went into hiding and was never seen again.  I felt that since I had no other stories for her, I opted not to go with that version of the story.  

The Big 50th Issue

After much to do, the 50th issue of my comic is out!  Here's a link if you'd like to read it: Issue 50

If you've never read an actual issue of the comic before, this would be a good one to read!  

A traitor is revealed, a hero loses their life and an old ally returns!  

October Issue

Wow, I'm a bit behind, I forgot to put up a post about the October issue!  It's been up since October 29!

Here's a link if you'd like to check it out: Issue49

This one is a holiday issue and has a bit of humor built into it.  Every hero is mentioned in this one.

September Issue

The new September issue is out - here's a link if you'd like to check it out: Issue 48

This issue brings the Ogg War to an end.  

Honestly, I have to confess - I wasn't happy with the way the story played out and it's my own fault!  When I created the Worioggs, which look like this:

I really messed up the design.  While they look fearsome, they aren't really practical as a threat.  Their legs are too short and their mouths are too small, so basically you have this oversized creature with pretty much just the tail as any sort of threat. 

When I was setting up the comic, this was one of the first monster creatures I created and I realize now that my design was flawed.  While I did tell the full story that I wanted to tell, I actually cut most of the fighting scenes with them from the last two parts and in fact they only appear 'off camera' in the last issue.

A lesson learned for future stories.  For now, onwards and upwards towards the next issue!

Return to YouTube!

I've decided to get back into uploading the issues to YouTube and here's a link to the channel if you'd like to check them out...YouTube Channel

When I stared this series, my original plan was to put the issues all up on YouTube, and they were all originally fitted to that size ratio.  

However, as I went along I realized that most of my interaction, and reactions, from fans were coming from Instagram, so I opted to reformat the size of the panels so that they fit Instagram better.  Of course they still work on YouTube, but look a little different than before.

When I took a break from the comic I kind of moved away from YouTube and the videos and I hadn't realized how far behind I was in posting them.  

I saw recently that the last one I posted was the Annual back in 2023 and then nothing until now.  I'm a bit backlogged, but I do plan to get all of the issues uploaded on there within the next two weeks.