Black Science

Black Science may not is one of my favorite Image books right now,but seems to be a pretty good one-better allot overated,getting top because certain top comic comic brandname creations[[Superman]] and [[Spider-Man]].  Not so much because it’s by one of my favorite writers in current comics Rick Remender,since he not having created shit like KLUH (Hulk spelled assbackwards ) at Marvel, but because it’s everything I love about comics in one setting. It has high end action, lots of crazy science fiction (a note Remender is good at), and plenty of crazy twist and turns to keep you interested. It’s an ode to Pulp comics like Doc Savage and Remender makes no apologizes for it. I know I usually start my reviews with a rudimentary introduction, but what the heck? Cut to the chase because that is just what Black Science is as a series; one that cuts to the chaser and doesn’t let go.
"A must-read for Remender's fans or anyone thrilled by bizarre and compelling sci-fi." Starred Review - Booklist "This is a solid adventure tale..." - PW Grant McKay, former member of The Anarchistic Order of Scientists, has finally done the impossible: He has deciphered Black Science and punched through the barriers of reality. But what lies beyond the veil is not epiphany, but chaos. Now Grant and his team are lost, living ghosts shipwrecked on an infinite ocean of alien worlds, barreling through the long-forgotten, ancient, and unimaginable dark realms. The only way is forward, through the madness of the lightning sea-swamp and a futurepast trenchworld, where the Sons of the Wakan Tech-Tanka wage never-ending war on the savages of Europe! How did the Anarchist League of Scientists end up this deep in the onion? And, who among them sabotaged the Pillar?
Drawbacks.

BLACK SCIENCE VOL.1: HOW TO FALL FOREVER collects issues #1-6. Grant McKay, leader of the League of Scientist, has finally found a way to use black science in order to travel through other dimensions thanks in part to his invention, The Pillar. So McKay invites his family and the science team to look at his personal achievement and something goes wrong, to which the Pillar warps the crew into another dimension filled with frogs and monster having a war. The only thing Grant and his crew can do is try to stay alive while hopping through dimensions to hopefully get back home, if ever they make it back home.

Remender hits the ground running with this series as Grant and the crew is trying to survive in bad situations with each jump in weird crazy dimensions from fending off humanoid-frogs with electric tongues that live on islands of giant sea turtles, to a futuristic era of Civil War soldiers fighting cyber Indians. And that’s only a small part of what’s to expect. This is a zany adventure series that not only focus on the crazy worlds the McKay crew visit, but the conflict with the crew itself.Read more ›
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Rick Remender and Pulp-SF-Anarchy Return To Comics
By C. K. Lidster TOP 1000 REVIEWER on June 23, 2014
Format: Paperback
Rick Remender's return to the Pulp-SF territory of Fear Agent is a welcome one, and another great series continues Image's transformation from the worst comic publisher ever, pushing nothing but Spawn spinoffs and Witchblade-The Darkness-Youngblood type crap (with little to recommend them except 'super-collectible' platinum foil variants and the fact that every other issue is a rebooted 'super-collectible' 1st-issue), into a pretty damn good one, under Robert Kirkman's iron-fist. Matteo Scalera's artwork is reminiscent of the work of European artist Mastantuono (whose book Elias the Cursed was released a couple years ago by Humanoids); his versatility and imagination match up well with Remender's fantastic conceptual detours, and of course, the violent, sometimes horrific shocks he writes so well.

One of the best thing's about Fear Agent was the narrative freedom, as Remender created an atmosphere that straddled irony and earnestness and allowed the reader to accept every crazy twist as it came, without scoffing or criticizing, embracing the story and characters without pretense. He opens those same doors of possibility in Black Science, as punk-rocker turned not-so-theoretical physicist Grant Mackay and a group including his two children, his assistant/lover Rebecca, and his hostile boss Kadir, end up on a rudderless trip through the endless variations of reality, most of them ridiculously dangerous and utterly alien, thanks to an act of sabotage that unexpectedly activates their reality traversing device called 'the Pillar'. Unable to repair the controls that someone on board is responsible for destroying, they are helpless to stop the Pillar as it punches through each new 'layer' of stacked realities they dub 'The Onion'. This is not quite 'prime' Remender, however.Read more ›
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must read!

the script and the art are both stellar and original. Black Science was a wonderful surprise for me...best balance of fun and substance since Sandman. can't wait to read Volume 2! Read more
Published 19 hours ago by tcookc
Five Stars

A very entertaining book! Worth the buy!
Published 10 days ago by alexis
Fantastic, gripping series. You won't be disappointed.

Wonderful gripping series by Remender. I've been sticking to the superhero trope my entire comic-reading life until I was introduced to Brian K Vaughn's "Y the Last Man". Read more
Published 13 days ago by Sajid
Four Stars

Pretty fun read
Published 17 days ago by JQ16
a+

A must read
Published 22 days ago by Shicobie Adams
Pulp-style sci-fi with a twist!!!!

I want to start out by saying that Black Science is a twist on the Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers type of adventure science-fiction. Read more
Published 24 days ago by AParkR
Holy Black Science Batman!!

I actually finished this volume in one sitting! I was intending to read a few chapters, but from page one, I couldn't stop.
Wow. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Ashraf A. Dawod
Unoriginal but fun

I was really, really surprised to find that Black Science was actually a pretty good comic because I’ve read Rick Remender’s Marvel stuff like Uncanny Avengers and Captain America... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sam Quixote
A great intro to a great concept

A great intro to a great concept. They keep the details thin and push you forward at a pace that makes you relate to the characters of the book. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sarah
Fantastic in every way.

So I never really liked the run of the mill super hero comics. They all lacked something for me. I mean how many Spiderman or Batman comics and stories can you make? Read more
Published 1 month ago by Aaron
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Black Science

Black Science (comics)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Black Science (comics)
Publication information
Publisher	Image Comics
Schedule	monthly
Format	Ongoing series
Genre	Science fiction
Creative team
Writer(s)	Rick Remender
Penciller(s)	Matteo Scalera
Inker(s)	Matteo Scalera
Colorist(s)	Dean White
Creator(s)	Rick Remender

Black Science is a creator-owned American comic book series by Rick Remender and Italian artist Matteo Scalera. Image Comics released the first issue in November 2013. The story follows Grant McKay, an ex-member of the Anarchist Order of Scientists, and his team as they are thrown through dimensional barriers to alien worlds while they try to repair the Pillar and return home. His invention, the Pillar, is a piece of technology that allowed McKay and his team to travel between the dimensions with the use of Black Science. Using the Pillar, McKay and his fellow "Dimensionauts" leap between worlds at will, taking anything they want for the benefit of their home reality. A member of Grant's team sabotages the pillar, causing it to jump to random locations at random times, the group is left stranded between a series of increasingly bizarre and nightmarish worlds, struggling for survival. ^[1]

The first several issues of Black Science sold out of first printings at the distributor level, and Image announced that certain issues would be reprinted.^[2]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Plot
• 2 Characters
• 3 Other Characters/Places/Things
• 4 Publication Dates
  • 4.1 Status
• 5 Collections
  • 5.1 Trade Paperbacks
• 6 History
• 7 Collected editions
• 8 References

Plot[edit]

Grant McKay, former member of The Anarchistic Order of Scientists, has finally done the impossible: He has deciphered Black Science and punched through the barriers of reality. Grant theorizes that each alternate reality of what he calls the 'Eververse' is like an onion. Pierce into each and you discover a new dimension, one based an infinite variety of choices made by everyone everywhere. What lies at the center is perhaps the primal universe that started it all. What lies beyond the veil is not epiphany, however, but chaos. Now Grant and his team are lost; living ghosts shipwrecked on an infinite ocean of alien worlds, barreling through the long-forgotten, ancient, and unimaginable dark realms. The only way is forward.

Run-amok reality! Grant and his crew escape the madness of the lightning sea-swamp only to be flung into a futurepast trenchworld, where the Sons of the Wakan Tech-Tanka - a high tech version of Native Americans who wage never-ending war on the savages of Europe in a kind of reverse Manifest Destiny. The Anarchist League of Scientists ended up this deep in the onion because someone among them sabotaged the Pillar. Shell-shocked and battered, Grant McKay and his team are stranded on the front lines of the European savages' final standoff against the Sons of the Wakan Tech-Tanka.

McKay and his team of Dimensionauts are given a short reprieve when the Pillar drops them not into a surreal hotel. McKay encounters doppelgangers of himself and his wife, who lost their children using the pillar. They now want this Grant McKay's children as replacements. But the real Grant will not let that happen without a fight.

Grant discovers that Kadir sabotaged the Pillar, and this information tears his team apart just as they are launched into a dimension of mad gravity and violent monkey ghosts. Stranded in the most dangerous dimension yet, McKay’s rage at Kadir, his onetime boss, boils over. Ignoring the chaos all around them, the two finally come to blows. Trapped in a fantastical dimension, the Anarchist League of Scientists discover a race of bizarre creatures that hold the mysteries of the Eververse and a startling discovery behind the Pillar's deeper mythological significance. McKay is killed before the team can make the jump. Fueled by a long string of failures as a leader, Kadir launches a mad rescue attempt to bring McKay's kids and the remaining team members back to their reality.

Characters[edit]

• Chandra - Second in command to Kadir.
• Grant McKay - Member of the Anarchist League of Scientists, father of Nathan and Pia McKay.
• Kadir - Bankrolled the Pillar project, often comes at odds with head scientist Grant McKay.
• Nathan McKay - Grant McKay's son, stranded with him after the sabotage of the dimension jumping machine known as the Pillar.
• Pia McKay - Grant McKay's daughter, trapped with him in another dimension after the sabotage of the Pillar.
• Rebecca - Scientist who worked on The Pillar and entered an affair with Grant McKay.
• Shawn - Junior scientist on the Pillar project for the Anarchistic Order of Scientists.
• Ward - Ex-military that now operates as security officer for the Anarchistic Order of Scientists and Grant McKay.

Other Characters/Places/Things[edit]

• The Anarchistic Order of Scientists

Publication Dates[edit]

Status[edit]

Ongoing series.

Collections[edit]

Trade Paperbacks[edit]

• Black Science, vol. 1: How to Fall Forever - Collects #1-6. "Anarchist scientist Grant McKay has done the impossible! Using the Pillar, he has punched a hole through the barriers between dimensions, allowing travel to all possible universes. But now Grant and his team are trapped in the folds of infinity, the Pillar sending them careening through a million universes of unimaginable adventure, sanity-flaying danger and no way home..."

• Black Science, vol. 2: Welcome, Nowhere - Collects #7-11. "The Anarchist League of Scientists has lost their leader, the most recent victim of the Pillar’s violently random jumps through the Eververse... but are they really random? As the survivors fight their way through a world where magic and science are one and the same, the secrets of their predicament slowly come to light... and illuminate a terrible truth." - (forthcoming, December 2014)

History[edit]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (November 2014)

Collected editions[edit]

Title	Material collected	Publication date	ISBN
Black Science: How to Fall Forever	Black Science #1-6	May 2014	9781607069676
Black Science: Welcome, Nowhere	Black Science #7-11	Jan 2015	9781632150189

References[edit]

1. Jump up^ Black Science Preview, www.comicbookresources.com, 2 July 2013
2. Jump up^ Aaron Long, Image Announces Second Printing for Black Science #4, www.comicosity.com, 3 April 2013

Categories: 

• Science fiction comics
• Image Comics titles
• 2013 comic debuts

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Top Ten Superhero Lairs!

NOV 27

Posted by Longbox Graveyard

Longbox Graveyard #117

Having recently completed my own secret headquarters, my thoughts naturally turned to comic book secret lairs, and how I might rank them. And Lo … a Top Ten was born!

Like all of my Longbox Graveyard Top Tens, my choices are idiosyncratic and non-authoritative. I could more accurately call these lists “Favorite Tens” — but that wouldn’t stimulate as much interest (or conversation, as these posts invariably provoke a storm of comments setting me straight on my dubious selections). There are also the usual caveats that my selections are influenced by my obsession with the Bronze and Silver Age of comics, and that there are blind spots from my decades-long Odinsleep away from funnybooks, rendering me ignorant of many more recent developments in the field.

And one additional caveat, or maybe a semantic clarification … I’m talking about comic booklairs here, secret or otherwise, and by that I mean anyplace that primarily serves as the base of operations for a comic book character or group. This definition excludes kingdoms (Atlantis), planets (Apokolips), planetoids and asteroids (Titan, and Asteroid M), regions (the Savage Land), and nations (Madripoor … though an awesome base inside a nation is fair game, as we shall see). It also (barely) excludes superheroic city-states, so … sorry, Attilan.

What does that leave? Plenty, starting with …

10) The Outer Space Floating Palace of Awesome Skulls!

Near as I can tell, this only appeared in the Infinity Gauntlet, and it never got a proper name, but anyone who grew up with an Iron Maiden poster on their wall will agree that Thanos’ little outer space palace of death is radical, dude!

When you have the power to destroy half the universe with a snap of your fingers, limiting yourself to such juvenile decorating sensibilities might seem a little … unimaginative. But Thanos is working through some pretty serious girlfriend issues, and he is a death god, after all. Just go with it.

9) Sanctum Sanctorum

Doctor Strange’s Greenwich Village Sanctum Sanctorum is the very definition of groovy. Sumptuously appointed, home to priceless artifacts, and our world’s first line of defense against supernatural threats, the Sanctum Sanctorum is like the Library of Congress, NORAD, and Murder House from season one of American Horror Story all rolled into one!

Bonus points for the Sanctum’s other wizard-in-residence — the lovely Clea — and loyal manservant Wong, who possesses unexpected capacities, not least of which is that he brews a mean cup of tea.

8) Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters

The only school a comics-reading youth actually wants to go to, Professor Xavier’s upstate New York academy appeared in the very first issue of X-Men back in 1963, and have become a pivotal part of the X-Men mythology, both on the screen and in the pages of innumerable X-books.

Of course, like many things in comics, the sublime concept of a secret superhero base masquerading as a learning academy has been trampled upon through the years, with Xavier’s hallowed halls eventually reduced to ruins, and some newfangled Jean Grey school rising in their place … but for decades, school was cool at Xavier’s little sleep-away camp, and that the school was also a center for defending and preserving mutant culture gave the place just that much more gravitas. Plus … Danger Room!

7) Castle von Doom

This is one of only two supervillain bases on my list — not because villains don’t have cool bases, but because those darn heroes keep wrecking them. Fu Manchu, Magnetto, and Arcade have all had ace digs at various times, but with legions of superheroes tromping through the lobby and punching people through walls, it’s difficult to keep the lights on.

Here’s where Doctor Doom has an edge. As monarch of Latveria, Doom has the ultimate home field advantage. Not only does he have a creepy ancestral castle that would make Dracula green with envy, but he’s also boss of the whole darn country, so even if the Fantastic Four trash his digs, it is a trivial matter for Doom to rebuild. Having your “secret” headquarters listed in the Michelin Guide has its liabilities, but it only seems fitting that Doctor Doom — that most arrogant of villains — would brazenly hide in plain sight.

6) The Baxter Building

World famous headquarters of the Fantastic Four, the Baxter Building was the first iconic address in the Marvel Universe, and in many ways remains the most important.

This building has it all — sophisticated laboratories, rocket silos, and a portal to the Negative Zone. Doctor Doom tried to carry it away in a net, and Galactus set up his planet-devouring apparatus on the Baxter Building’s roof. I always found it especially charming that the Baxter Building had regular civilian residents, too, who would complain about Ben Grimm stomping around on the ceiling or the Human Torch speeding past their window while they were taking a shower. While the current Baxter Building is a kinda-sorta replica of the original built on the foundations of the first headquarters, it does at least share the name and address of the original iteration, which is more than I can say for many of the locations on this list.

5) Justice League Satellite

One of the greatest creations of the Silver Age of comics, the Justice League Satellite is home to the world’s greatest superheroes, and taught a generation the meaning of the term, “geostationary!”

Like much of the best of DC Comics, the Justice League Satellite was sacrificed during the Crisis On Infinite Earths … which seemed like a good idea at the time, but nothing that has followed has ever been remotely so cool as that Justice League clubhouse located 22,300 miles above the earth. The Silver Age DC characters were the ultimate “science heroes” and nothing suited them better than traveling to and from their many meetings by teleportation beam.

4) Avengers Mansion

The Avengers are superhero royalty, so what better place for them to live than in the Gilded Age splendor of the Tony Stark family mansion on New York’s Fifth Avenue?

Like many entries on this list (and it is getting depressing typing this out again and again), Avengers Mansion has been cruelly devalued in recent years, having been several times destroyed and rebuilt, and now presently headquarters to something called the Avengers Unity Squad, which sounds like a suite of Microsoft business tools. But before our present era of unwise line-extensions and mandatory summer cross-overs, Avengers Mansion was the center of the Marvel Universe, home to the Vision (before John Byrne messed him up), the Scarlet Witch (before she went crazy) and the indefatigable Jarvis (before he became a disembodied A.I. voice in the movies).

And you wonder why I prefer old comic books?

3) S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier

As Tom Mason noted when we named Nick Fury the manliest superhero of them all, it takes a special pair of stones to operate out of a “secret base” that’s as big as an aircraft carrier and that also flies through the air. But that’s our Fury for you!

The Hellicarrier has had a lot of looks through the years, but I still prefer the original Jack Kirby design, introduced during one of the greatest “reveals” in comics history in the pages ofStrange Tales #135. Since that time, the Hellicarrier has been grounded, crashed, subverted, and even wrecked by Godzilla, but the secret flying spy base always rises again … and thanks to a starring turn in the Avengers movie, the Hellicarrier is today more popular than ever before.

2) The Fortress of Solitude

While it has been reinvented many times down through the decades, the mission of the Fortress of Solitude still cleaves close to its Silver Age roots, as a hidden retreat for Superman. It really is the answer to the age-old question of what you get for the man who has it all …

The Fortress of Solitude is the most alien and contemplative of the locations on this list, housing as it does what remains of Krypton (including a bottled city), as well as the other artifacts and memorabilia of Superman’s life. It is an exotic and vaguely creepy retreat, and while I have generally given contemporary comics a hard time (both on this list and at Longbox Graveyard in general), the Fortress of Solitude may never have been more intriguing than inGrant Morrison’s All-Star Superman, where the complex is revealed to house bizarre genetic labs and miniature suns. Located in an arctic fastness and stocked with otherworldly enigmas, the Fortress of Solitude is the least cozy homestead on this list, but it is certainly the greatest …

… but for one …

1) Pet Avengers Mansion (!)

Located behind Avengers Mansion, Pet Avengers Mansion is headquarters to Hairball, Throg, and Lockjaw, the intrepid Pet Avengers! Unquestionably the greatest superhero headquarters in all of comics, the …

… the …

… oh, all right. Of course the backyard base of the Pet Avengers isn’t tops on this list (though if I could unearth records of a meeting place for the Legion of Super-Pets, it surely would have claimed a spot). But, sheesh, we all know what’s #1.

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

It’s the Bat Cave, silly!

1) The Bat Cave

But it does say something about the nature of comics that what is certainly the greatest superhero hang-out of them all seems … not boring, exactly, but kind of predictable. I’m not doubting the Bat Cave’s cool factor for a second, but after seeing the place so many times in comics, film, and television, I guess I’m just a little over the whole idea (but not so over it that I’d rank it anywhere but the top of this list, nor would I turn down the opportunity of having my very own Bat Cave under the house!)

So there you have it, True Believers, the Longbox Graveyard list of the greatest superhero lairs in comics. What did I miss? What did I underrate? Take me to task in the comments section, below!

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About Longbox Graveyard

Revelations and retro-reviews from a world where it is always 1978. There's a new blog every odd Wednesday at www.longboxgraveyard.com!

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Posted on November 27, 2013, in Lists! and tagged Avengers Mansion, Baxter Building, Justice League Satellite, SHIELD Helicarrier, Top 10. Bookmark the permalink. 39 Comments.

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