"Part Blade Runner... part We3... completely AWESOME!" In all honesty, this is not a fair comparison, cause I have yet to read We3. But this book was completely fucking amazing.
Look, I know like many of you, the amazing lettering the Richard Starkings and Comic Craft have done in the past decade or more of comics. And I also know that Starkings began the Hip Flask mini stories as a way to promote Comic Craft's superb abilities. But was anyone expecting the full on dynamic characters, the sweet lineup of artists who would handle the art chores and the flat out amazing story that would come of it? Elephantmen is a superior comic on so many levels. The concept is hundreds of years in the future, a geneticist named Dorctor Kazushi Nikken, under the auspices of MAPPO splices animal genes and then places the embryos into host human females. The result was humanoid hippos, alligators, rhinos and more, all created for the sole purpose of war. MAPPO controlled every aspect of the creature's lives, including education, training and making the creatures including Hip Flask and Ebony completely dependent on them.
The creatures attempts at acclimating to society after their trials are staggering. For the most part, the humans reject them. So much so that like in our country, they have enacted laws to stop people from marrying the mutant creatures. That is until a young woman named Sahara, who's own mother was kidnapped from an African village and forced into being a host for Doctor Nikken's insane experiment, falls in love with an Elephantman named Obadiah. Obadiah is probably, at least in volume one, the most powerful of the Elephantmen, and seems to be involved with some shady customers. The engagement of Obadiah and Sahara made national news, prompting bigotry and outrage from some people, sort of like same sex marriages seem to do the same now.
Doctor Nikken acted as if he were god, under the hood of an evil multinational corporation. The voice heard by the young animal/human hybrids was always Nikken's. Warning them that they were created as inferior to humans, but MAPPO made them stronger. MAPPO sent these Elephantmen out on warpaths, destroying cities and maiming and massacring people. It's no wonder that people feared these behemoths.
In all, like with groups of people who are almost wholly distrusted by society today, not all of the Elephantmen are bad, or have bad intentions. Most of them just want to exist somewhat unnoticed by the masses. Something that is very hard to do when you're nine feet tall with gray skin and a trunk.
Elephantmen was something I picked up after meeting Richard Starkings at last year's San Diego Comic Con. I got a free copy of issue one, which had some amazing artwork, including the superstar cover art. Took pics of the Sky Cab cutie, complete with window pane top. And watched a friend pick up all three collected hardcover volumes. It took me almost a year, but I finally got my own volume one at Charlies Comics right here in Tucson. The money I spent on it was more than worth it. A massive phone book sized compilation of the first seven issues, plus issue 0 AND all of the covers; back stories, sketches and more. Elephantmen is an excellent read and a great play on current events and how they might unfold. I give this awesome book something very suitable in the annals of wrestling history... The WWF's annual tournament event that culminated with the June pay per view King of the Ring. The two combatants who made it to the finals were the staunch veteran, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and the young, brash upstart who was told just a year earlier that he would never make it past mid card status and couldn't make a career out of wearing black trunks and black boots to the ring, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Roberts had a busted up set of ribs, and Austin had just returned from the hospital after getting his lip stitched shut caused in a previous match that night. Immediately Austin went for the ribs with such gusto that it caused then Commissioner Gorilla Monsoon to break up the fracas just long enough for Roberts to gain the upper hand. But in true "Rattlesnake" style Austin sent the veteran crumbling to the mat with a Stone Cold Stunner. Following the match came possibly the most famous words ever uttered in a promo. As a broken Jake Roberts was helped back to the locker room, Austin began running his mouth in what would be the first of many amazing Stone Cold promos in the WWF/E. "You thump your bible. You talk about your Psalms. You talk about John 3:16. Well Austin 3:16 says, 'I just whipped your ass!"
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