Wednesday, March 22, 2023

NULL-MYTHS: SHI / CYBLADE: THE BATTLE FOR INDEPENDENTS (1995)




While looking around for a second "woman-themed" mythcomic for this month, I came across this one-shot from Crusade Comics. I was minimally aware of both Cyblade and Shi, but I'd never heard of their having crossed over. And, crossover-enthusiast though I am, I definitely hadn't heard of a project that guest-starred a host of other characters from what nineties comics-fans called "independent comics"-- hence, the project's punny subtitle, "The Battle for Independents." 

Such conceptual battles had generated comics-projects before. The 1982 one-shot DESTROYER DUCK united the talents of Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby to lambaste the exploitative nature of Marvel Comics (against whom Gerber had filed a suit over the ownership of Howard the Duck). But SHI / CYBLADE is a little closer to the model of SPAWN #10 (1993), in which Dave Sim penned a jeremiad against the foolishness of artists signing away their works to big corporations. 



The deliberately thin plot, co-written by Crusade publisher Bill Tucci, has Cyblade and Shi wake up in front of a wall, which Shi's inner monologue has already referenced as a wall she built to keep her dreams from interfering with her reality. That's about all the symbolism we get from them, for it's soon made clear that the two heroines have been called here to exterminate a threat to human creativity.





Cerebus pops up to tell the girls about "the bad thing out there that wants to eat us," much the way Dave Sim encouraged independent artists and publishers to avoid the rapacious maws of the Big-Two-Who-Purchase-All-Rights. He magicks the ladies over the wall (aren't they both super-athletes?) and lands them in a swamp called "Wallace Woods," which includes a gravestone for Kirby and a sign stating "Ditko Was Right." There the heroines meet Mr. Spook of BEANWORLD, who more or less repeats Cerebus' dire warnings and then disappears.



The heroines behold a great golden tower where their unnamed enemy dwells. An equally nameless blonde guy calls out for help, so Shi and Cyblade scale the tower-walls to help him. In a big narrative hiccup, both of them get captured somehow. They're next seen hanging in a laboratory while a megalomaniac rants at them about how easily he can crush all the creative voices that rebel against his control. (Maus and Omaha the Cat Dancer are marginally seen in viewscreens). Some characters I've never heard of rescue Shi and Cyblade and they all escape, making for the safety of the wall. (So the wall's GOOD now?)




The tower turns into a ray-blasting mecha-robot to chase them, but Fone Bone of the BONE comic shows up to trip the mecha. "That seemed a bit too easy," opines one character, and this notion is reinforced by the way a cavalry of mostly obscure independent characters appear out of nowhere to fight the robot. I did recognize Usagi Yojimbo, Megaton Man, Katchoo and a half dozen others. Most characters only get one-panel cameos, though there's a concordance for the curious in the back of the comic.



Just so no one forgets who are the stars of the comic, Shi and Cyblade deliver the finishing blow and reveal that the mastermind is a literal weenie. 

Whereas Dave Sim's screed for SPAWN #10 was concise and affecting, this self-indulgent rant is all over the place-- which is probably a big reason I never heard of the comic back in The Day. I for one would be interested to read a fictional treatment of both the good and evil aspects of corporate entities, since their existence seems pretty much an immutable aspect of modern life. I'd like to see something that was neither a superficial rant like this or a one-sided apologia a la Ayn Rand. But I suspect this desire will never be realized.


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