~ 54 ha BAH! ALL YOUR POWERS COMBINED ARE NO MATCH FOR ONIRIC® COMICS GROUP THE FORMIDABLES,,STORY-ARC ONE : PRIDE & PREJUDICES Part one of four Story & art: Chris Malgrain Colors: Chris Lacroix Letters: Oliver Hudson Editor: Steven A. Roman Graphic design: JiM Arden Special thanks to Sandrine Bethoux. (© 2619 Chis Malgrale and Oni Comies Onire Comics founded by Chris Malgraln. Contact =chelttophe.malgrain@orangete Nopart of thiseomicbeok a cording be reproduced oF transmitad in any form, by af ieans (eectoRle, photocopying ‘otherwise without the prior writen petnision af the authorNAMED APTER THE GREAT MASKED HERO OF ‘THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, ARCHER CITY IS KNOWN ACROSS THE LINITED STATES FOR ITS. AVANT-GARDE TOWERS, VIHICH HAVE BLOSSOMED ‘AROUND THE PROUD MONUMENT WHICH HAS OVERLOOKED IT FOR THIRTY YEARS, A HUGE STATUE OF ‘THE HEAVENS- -A LINK BETWEEN MANKIND AND ITS CREATOR.“4 THE YEAR AND DI DAVID EISENHOWER PRESIDES (ER THE FATE OF THE USA. OVER TWE, THE CITY HAS EXPANDED BOTH VERTICALLY AND HORIZONTALLY, IRRESISTIBLY ABSORBING THE SURROUNDING URBAN AREAS TO BECOME A MEGAPOLIS. UNDER HIS GUIDANCE, AMERICA HAS ENJOYED AN UNPRECEDENTED. Pr ISPERITY, AN ACHIEVEMENT THAT AMERICANS ARE HAPPY AND HAVE FAITH IN A BRIGHT FUTURE IN THE INO OF THE FREE.YET, A PART OF THE POPULATION DOESN'T HAVE ACCESS 70 COMPLETE FREEDOM, BECALISE OF THEIR SKIN COLOR SINCE THE ABOLTION OF SLAVERY IN 1865 THE BLACK MINORITY'S LOT HAs REMAINED A PAINFUL THE RACIST KU KLUX KLAN HAS LOST MUCH OF (TS POWER SINCE ITS PEAK IN THE TWENTIES, BLT AS THE SKTIES DRAW CLOSER, LYNCHINGS STILL EXIST.Uy} wn e , WE WON'T GO © 10 SCHOOL _*ALL TRAITORS PLOTTING. our ‘our OF ‘RABBIT HOLE, IF BA you DON'T WANT ANY ‘MORE VICTIMS! L>THE DAY T DREADED $0 ‘MUCH HAs ‘COME. We've BEEN HIOING HERE FOR ONE YEAR AWAITING mis maonans epby 10.90 ANFTNG! titee op nea ve wou Have ste roweR ‘aso wots oppiy ~ ano HE Nace THe ome coi Bick ON “onan us our HE oy Wen 2 ove A rReb ArTERNOON TO THE dos ron nie finer fe! ve rouno A Goo Way 70 oO tat FORTUNATELY, CAN ALERT THE OTHERS THROUGH THEIR ELECTRONIC ‘BRACELET: COME ON FOSTER, FORGET YOUR FEAR AND GO FACE THIS mantic!IF SOMETANG. PAPPENED To THE KIDS T COULD NEVER FORGIVE MYSELFIF ONLY THIS COULD BE SETTLED BETWEEN Us, wirHouT INVOLVING THE WOULD BE IN DEADLY DANGER SHOULD THIS FANATIC SUCCEED IN CAPTURING ME, AND FORCE ME TO i GIVE HIM THE MACHINE. wa ee rm veal = > 2 a = eS ‘ALL THE MORE 60 SINCE THE USA AND THE WHOLE WORLD’ Wy WO =nS aN PY A <4 eel enhHEY, COME DOWN TO EARTH, BABY! YOUR UNCLE'S CALL MEANS WERE GONNA HAVE 70 FIGHT. HURRY UP! WHY NOT? EVERYONE IN TOWN WILL SCON. KNOW THAT WIE DIDN'T DIE LAST YEAR.0 00 1. 1 FEEL TA My (Okay, SWEETHEART, TRUE SELF THIS WAY, SO FREE. ALLITILE ATOM MANIPULATION THESE SUPER-POWERS ARE ‘AND...VOILA! T LOVE IT! REALLY AMAZING! creer” J <4 aa OZ Ae AbsID HMdA, NOW THAT T HAVE 1 CAN GET ALL THe MOCKERIES 50 YARDS ie ‘AROUND! Aa |a "A SUPER-HERO™. AND WHY SHOU TBE ONE? uo 0°HERE YOU. ARE AT LAST, FOSTER! AS EASY AS YOU THINK, GARRY. TT MUST HAVE OCCURRED TO YOU THAT THE EXPLOSION GAVE ME SUPER- POWERS TCO. INDEED. T MUST GET YOU BACK WITHOUT TRIGGERING A WAR. [AND TO YOUR. MISERABLE MATES AS WELL. THEYRE COMING, ‘ARENT THEY? z Io You REALLY THINK THAT HOLING UP LIKE AAT WOULD ENABLE YOU TO ESCAPE US? YOLIVE CAUSED US TROUBLE FOR ONE YEAR, BUT YOU'RE FLUSHED OUT AT LAST AND AT MY MERCY. Now, FOLLOW ‘ME TF YOU WANT TO. | AvoIo aN even aiccer TO KILL INNOCENTS TO LURE Us OUT, FILTHY COMMUNIST TRAITOR= = “AND WEAR THE KU KLUX KLAN SYMBOL, TO KEEP YOUR REAL BOSS IN THE SHADOWS! I couLD WAVE ATTACKED WITHOUT A TAG, BUT THIS BLOODSHED CAUSED BY A WHITE SUPREMACIST WILL RADICALIZE THE BLACK MINORITY AGAINST THE WHITES AND DIVIDE THE LATTER, THUS WEAKENING YOUR ACCURSED COUNTRY. THE PEACEFUL DEMONTRATIONS WILL DEGENERATE AND THE BLACKS WILL THEN EMBRACE THE MARKIST CAUSE. AS AN ATHEIST, YOU SHOULD 700, YouR LOYALTY TO Tus PRINTIVE ‘SOCIETY IS PATHETIC FOR. ‘SOMEONE AS CLEVER AS YOU.T HOPE PEOPLE WiLL. CHANGE IN THME> = yes, We'Ve GOT AGENTS IN ALL YOUR UNIVERSITIES. HEY, LOOK WHO'S COMING!WE'RE OUTTA YOUR LEAGUE, RUSSKIE, YOU BETTER GNE your sravabo Soest You know wHar EVEN AMUSE T I WANT, FOSTER- - YOU'RE NO HARM WILL COME 70 YOU, BUT YOUR KIDS ARE USELESS TO ME. IF YOU DON'T COMPLY, T WILL SLAUGHTER THEM BEFORE YOUR EYES BEFORE TAKING YOU AWAY. DEMENTED FOOL! THERE ARE MORE THAN OUR LIVES AT STAKE. TF 1 OBEYED YOU, ‘AMERICA WOULD BE BUT YOU COULD BECOME THE GREATEST SCIENTIST IN ‘THE SOVIET EMPIRE AND HELP TOMORROW'S UNITED WORLD REACH THE STARS, 00 YOU REALLY WANT TO SACRIFICE YOUR LIFE FOR A COUNTRY WHOSE STINKING IDEOLOGY HAS COST YOU THE SS WOMAN YOu LOVED?(AL! BESIDES LEVITATION, SHE ALSO HAS A ITHIC POWER WHI... 1S TEARING UP MY MIND! UNGH.. Tmust NELITRALIZE HER FIRST. YES, JUST LIKE You, CAN manipuLate \ 7 MY ATOMS £6 T WISH T COME HERE, PRETTY!SITUATION IS "70 BE CONTINUED...AFEW WORDS FROM THE AUTHO! Hi Reader! lam Chris Malgrain, creator of the Formidables, and this is my story. | was born in France and knew as early as kindergarten that | was a comic book artist. | told all my friends my drawings were published and they believed me, until their parents told them it wasn't possible and they called me a liar. | was 5 and when I think about it, I find it pretty weird, but it shows there was something in me, a project that, needed realization. The sci-fi cartoons | watched back then, the TV series, the comics I looked at, all gave me a burning passion for imaginary worlds and fed my imagination. The dream was always in me, | drew my first comics on school copybooks and pretended they were real published comics. | was happy. Then at age 9, something fateful happened: | discovered American superheroes in a magazine. Spider-Man, the Silver Surfer and Nova--| immediately fell in love with those colorful heroes and the impressive city of New York, where their adventures took place. Aiter years of drawing cartoon heroes and Disney characters, | knew superheroes were what | wanted to do. I would draw them and go to New York City! Thus my American Dream was born. | was to start learning English at school the following year and | decided I'd be good at English. Because I'd go to the States one day. The dream made me learn English feverishly. | drew pages and pages of superheroes, imagining the day when | would be published for real. | went to study English at University and as | had to work for a living and my art was not yet ready, | became a teacher. | taught and drew comics in my free time. | read a lot of comics too, especially John Byrne's comics and Stan Lee's classics. | love the 1950s and ‘60s and reading and rereading those stories kept feeding my dream. | dreamed of meeting Stan Lee and telling him how much my life owed to the characters he co-created. Then | broke into comics. In France, at first. | was happy to work for the company that adapted Marvel comics. Besides superheroes, they published jungle and Western comics that had filled my childhood with wonder before | discovered superheroes. | thus got to write and draw those characters and it felt so great to recapture the magic | had found in their adventures as a kid and give it to new readers. | understood that this transmission is what my life is all about. | was such a Stan Lee fan that | went to San Diego for the first time in 2002 to meet him. | was too late at his booth and didn’t see him.Of course | had a good time there and made interesting art contacts, but basically, | crossed the Atlantic with one main purpose and didn’t attain Ouch! ee Then, one day in 2004, one of my editors, Jean-Marc Lofficier, who was based in LA and who knew my ultimate dream was to work for American publishers, emailed me that ibooks, inc. (not the Apple company), was looking for artists and | should apply. | sent them samples and got an immediate response. | was hired on the adaptation of a story by Isaac Asimov! My American Dream was coming true at last! My editors on this were Steven A. Roman and publisher Byron Preiss and everything was cool with them. But the project seemed to go very slowly and | got worried. Then it was cancelled. Steven and Byron were sorry, and | was devastated. Was | cursed? I had missed Stan Lee two years before, | had done a try-out Superman sequence for Bob Greenberger that he had approved just before losing his position as Superman editor, and now this! Maybe | was not meant to work in the US after all... Three months later, Steven and Byron got back to me and offered me a new job: Stan Lee’s Alexa! St-Stan Lee? Did you say Stan Lee? | drew and inked a chapter of this comic and inked another, drawn by John Royle. The other artists on the book were Dave Gibbons and Dan Jurgens, and Small Little Me got his name on the cover alongside those giants! And two years after missing Stan Lee at San Diego, not only did | get to meet him, but | also got to ‘sign a preview of the comic with him! That's crazy, isn’t it? This has taught me that present failures may in fact pave the way for tomorrow’s successes. | don’t know the secrets of life, but my feeling is that when you have a strong desire from the bottom of your heart, it will manifest in real life through a kind of subconscious network. Anyway, whether destiny or mere coincidence, this magical meeting taught me to never give up my dreams. The road to their realization is not easy, but there must always be hope. After Stan Lee's Alexa, | got an offer from the mythical French magazine Pif. | co-created The Rovers (adapted in the US by Arcana Comics in 2012) for Pif and drew their adventures for four years. That led to other great projects that have occupied me till this day. Recognition in my country is cool, but when | turned forty, | started to think about the flight of time and about what | really wanted. It’s time to devote my whole time to the dream of the 9-year-old child within me now.As said before, my role is to be a transmitter of the magic of comics. To me, comics are meant to entertain and elevate us. To make us dream and use the energy of this dream positively in our lives. To give us hope when we go through hard times. | remember reading an article in the ‘80s about a blind kid for whom Daredevil was a tremendous source of support and joy. Helping us real people is what superheroes are all about to me. They're metaphors of the power within us to overcome our problems and respect other people. Tragedy is a necessary element in comics, but so is joy. Comics must be fun and inspirational. | know this sounds corny in today's comic world, where cynicism rules. Heroes are no longer heroes, they have no grandeur. The stories are dark for dark’s sake and there's no fun in them. The Formidables is an homage to the comics that once were, and to my idols. Throughout this eight-issue limited series, | play with the archetypes of superheroes and the codes of Silver and Bronze Age comics, but | also give my series a modern twist by dealing with racism, homophobia and religion-based intolerance. Drawing it in a style close to John Byrne’s was very important to me if | was to really express the magic of my childhood reads. This kind of homage comics has been done before, by Alan Moore, for instance, through his 1963 series, or John Byrne himself, through Danger Unlimited, Trio and Triple Helix. Of course, the characters will remind you of the great superheroes we all grew up with, but each of them is a combination of several character concepts, and as you will see, appearances are sometimes deceptive. Hope you enjoy the ride, fellow dreamers !WE'RE BRINGING BACK THE DREAM! em LIAL FILMI / em ic AN =). ep esi aml WWW.ONIRICCOMICS.COM