Darkstar and the Winter Guard: A Review

Writer: David Gallaher; Art: Steve Ellis and Scott Hanna; Cover: Clayton Henry

Rating 4 out of 5 stars

The Winter Guard are a number of Cold War-themed characters who made their debuts over the years in such Marvel books as Iron Man and Avengers. It was writer Bill Mantlo who first assembled them as a team, the Soviet Super-Soldiers, in Incredible Hulk #258, published in 1981. They were a group motivated by Russian patriotism that did not necessarily agree with the repressive policies of their government. A second group known as the Supreme Soviets, who were loyal to the Communist regime, was introduced in 1989. In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became obvious that any team name with the word "Soviet" in it would soon be outdated. For a while the combined line-up of the two teams was known as the People's Protectorate which, while passable, isn't really very catchy. Finally, in 1998 Kurt Busiek came up with the name Winter Guard, and they've been known as that ever since.

This trade paperback reprints the recent Hulk: Winter Guard special and the three issue Darkstar and the Winter Guard miniseries, both by David Gallaher & Steve Ellis. It also has Peter David's excellent story from Incredible Hulk #393, plus material from X-Men Unlimited #28. The Hulk and X-Men stories are somewhat connected to the miniseries, as they feature appearances by members of the Winter Guard.

Two of the members of the Winter Guard are Red Guardian and Crimson Dynamo. It's something of a running joke that there have been multiple versions of both characters, as over the years the various individuals assuming those two identities have defected to the West, been fired, or died, among other fates. Gallaher takes that trend of rapid turnover and cleverly makes it a central story point of his series. Because the Winter Guard is the official government team of the Russian nation, the unstable post-Soviet government, wanting to project an image of strength and endurance, covers up the deaths or departures of the numerous Guardians and Dynamos. They immediately replace them with new, identical costumed operatives to maintain the illusion to the Russian public that the Winter Guard is a formidable, unstoppable force. The team is as much a propaganda device as it is a protective force.

A long-time member of the Soviet Super-Soldiers / Winter Guard was Darkstar, who was killed off in X-Men several years ago. Seeing that their policy of replacement heroes has worked so well with both the Guardian and Dynamo, the Russian government decides to extend this practice to the Darkstar identity. Unfortunately, in the case of Darkstar, it isn't as simple as slipping on a spandex costume or a suit of battle armor. Not only does the replacement Darkstar have to change her physical appearance but, more importantly, she most learn to control the powerful extra-dimensional energy known as the Darkforce.

The new Darkstar feels that she is in way over her head. Unlike the Red Guardian and Crimson Dynamo, who've had multiple iterations, there has only been one Darkstar, and she was a celebrated hero. Additionally, controlling the Darkforce is a very challenging, dangerous task. The icing on the cake is the original Darkstar's father, the insane cosmic-powered entity known as the Presence, who seeks to conquer the world by transforming humanity into radioactive beings. The Presence considers the new Darkstar to be both an insult to his daughter's memory, and a pale, ineffectual copy. As a result of all this, the woman who has assumed the identity of Darkstar feels overwhelmed and out of her league.

A crisis is precipitated by the reappearance of the mysterious sorceress Fantasma, a former member of the Winter Guard. Emerging from a dimensional warp, Fantasma is soon followed by other old teammates, who now view her as a dangerous threat. We soon learn exactly why: Fantasma is in actuality a Dire Wraith.

Back in the early 1980s, Marvel published Rom: Spaceknight, a series written by Bill Mantlo, the same creator who first put together the Soviet Super-Solders. Rom told the tale of a cyborg warrior who was at war with the Dire Wraiths, a race of shape-changing aliens who were in the process of invading the Earth by mass-infiltration. The Rom series was a deft blending of superheroes, sci-fi, and horror. The Dire Wraiths, unlike their Skrull cousins, were more than just extraterrestrial shape-shifters. They were a vile species who had perfected a deadly mixture of science and sorcery. And the Wraiths didn't just impersonate people. No, they would steal their human victims' memories and identities by actually eating their brains via drill-like tongues. When I was a kid, the Dire Wraiths seriously creeped me out!

Fantasma was first introduced as a member of the Supreme Soviets when they were dispatched by the USSR to eliminate the defecting Soviet Super-Soldiers (apparently the Super-Soldiers were extremely forgiving people, since they let bygones be bygones when the two teams merged). As far as I know, the enigmatic Fantasma's past was never delved into. The only hint we ever got concerning her was in, yep, that Peter David-penned story from Incredible Hulk #393. During a battle between the People's Protectorate and the Hulk's allies the Pantheon, the archer Atalanta uses her energy arrows to stun Fantasma. Coming across the fallen sorceress, Atalanta is startled when she glimpses Fantasma's "true appearance" (which we, the readers, do not get to see). That was the only hint ever offered that there was something strange about Fantasma, that she was something other than she appeared.

David Gallaher decided to utilize the more-or-less blank slate that was Fantasma and reveal that she was a Dire Wraith who escaped her race's final defeat in the pages of Rom. While I doubt that was what Peter David had in mind when he wrote the scene mentioned above, seeing the horrific visage of a Dire Wraith would certainly account for Atalanta's shocked reaction.

Coming across a clutch of Dire Wraith eggs hidden beneath the Winter Guard's headquarters (it was previously a Wraith base that the Soviet Super-Solders took over way back in the pages of Rom), Fantasma reveals her true, alien identity. She finds a willing ally in the Presence who, embittered by his past defeats, sees the Wraiths as another opportunity to reshape and rule humanity. And the only ones opposing them are the Winter Guard, a group that, due to the Russian government's political maneuverings, has among its line-up several relatively new, untested recruits.

The concept of the Winter Guard as a unit of interchangeable agents adds to the suspense. We know that most of the team members are not the originators of their costumed identities, and, due to that aforementioned alarmingly frequent rate of turnover, they will likely not be the last, either. So, unlike a story with the Avengers, where it is a virtual certainty that everyone is going to make it to the end of the story alive, here pretty much all bets are off. This is one of the only mainstream superhero stories I can think of in recent memory where you really do not know who will live and who will die. Working with what could be described as a C-list group of characters allows Gallaher to both up the ante, as well as offering him the freedom to engage in some in-depth character development.

There are at least a couple of unresolved subplots by the end of the miniseries, with a brand new one being laid out in the final pages. Gallaher appears to be setting things up for a possible sequel. While I'd enjoy seeing him return to these characters, I cannot help but be concerned that such a sequel might not materialize. It's no secret that comic book sales are at a record low, at least as far as individual issues. I do not know if Darkstar and the Winter Guard sold enough copies for Marvel to green-light a second miniseries. So, while the plots that Gallaher leaves open could lead to another interesting series, he may not ever have the opportunity to write it. Which means that these subplots could be left dangling for a very long time indeed. Perhaps it would have been better if Gallaher had written this story with a bit more closure to it.

I also wish that the miniseries had been at least an issue longer. The third and final chapter was somewhat rushed, with the Winter Guard's battle against the Dire Wraiths feeling crammed for space. An additional issue would also have allowed Gallaher to delve a bit more deeply into the new Darkstar. With the title Darkstar and the Winter Guard, you would expect her to be the story's central figure, but it really is much more of an ensemble piece. I wish the character had been developed further.

Finally, it would have been great if we could have gotten some more backstory on Fantasma other than just "She's really a Dire Wraith." How did she survive the Wraith War? How did she come to adopt the identity of Fantasma and manage to gain the confidence of the Soviet government? And just how did it affect her teammates to find out she was actually an evil brain-eating alien?

The art on both the Hulk: Winter Guard and Darkstar and the Winter Guard miniseries is by Steve Ellis. I've been a fan of his work for a number of years. He did some great work on the noir supervillain book The Silencers, written by Fred Van Lente. Ellis previously entered the realm of Russian superheroes when he drew the first three issues of the Crimson Dynamo miniseries in 2003. He's collaborated with David Gallaher before on the werewolf western High Moon, which is on my short list of books to purchase.

Ellis' work on Darkstar and the Winter Guard is very good, with a tremendous amount of detail and strong storytelling. He is great at conveying the emotions of his characters, giving them very vivid facial expressions and body language. For example, Darkstar's fears and doubts really come across to the reader via his artwork. Ellis also draws a very repulsive depiction of the Dire Wraiths. Fantasma's half-human/half-Wraith state is particularly unsettling. Ellis has come a long way and grown tremendously as an artist since he started out drawing fill-in issues for Marvel in the mid-1990s.

Ellis inks his own pencils on the Hulk: Winter Guard special. Inking for the miniseries is courtesy of Scott Hanna. This really demonstrates just how much of an impact an inker can have on the finished artwork. Ellis' work has a rough, gritty, rather abstract quality to it when he does his own inking. When inked by Hanna, it shows a more slick, polished look. I've noticed that aspect of Hanna's work before, when he has inked Igor Kordey on X-Treme X-Men.

Hanna is definitely one of the best inkers/embellishers in the comic book industry. I think his talents are often overlooked because his contributions are incorrectly ascribed to the penciler. For someone such as myself, who is not an artist or art expert, it can often be difficult to tell who did what. Unless you have someone such as Terry Austin or Klaus Janson, who have very distinctive stylistic flourishes to their inking, it can be difficult to discern where the penciler's work ends, and the inker's begins. So it's great when you have an instance like this, where you can look at Steve Ellis inking his own work side-by-side with Hanna's finishes, and see what each of them brings to the table.

The older material repackaged within Darkstar and the Winter Guard is of variable quality. "The Closing Circle" by Peter David is, as I mentioned before, very good, one of the best stories he wrote during his lengthy, groundbreaking run on Incredible Hulk, with fine artwork from Dale Keown and Mark Farmer.

As for the X-Men Unlimited tale, it's a rather average piece. Certainly writer Joe Pruett has done much more interesting work in his career. I always felt his work on the X-Men titles ten years ago was not a good representation of his talents, especially if you were familiar with his excellent creator-owned books published by Caliber and Image. The pencils from both Brett Booth and Ron Lim are decent enough. Unfortunately, they had the unenviable task of drawing the X-Men in what were probably the must unappealing costumes the characters had ever been unlucky enough to be saddled with. But, on the whole, "A Plague Among Us" is not awful, merely unmemorable.

While not perfect, David Gallaher's work on Darkstar and the Winter Guard is very good. It can be seen as a nice homage to the writings of Bill Mantlo, taking some of the heroes he previously chronicled in interesting, original directions, while bringing back a classic villain that he created. And the art by Steve Ellis and Scott Hanna is top-notch. Hopefully sales on these books will indeed spur Marvel to ask the team of Gallaher & Ellis to return to the Winter Guard in the near future.