Checkmate: A Note of Thanks

[dewline]

This is going to ramble for a bit.



I've been discussing fictional "cloak-and-laser" or paramilitary defence/intelligence services linked to the UN in pop culture - UNIT, SHIELD and so on - with fajrdrako earlier today in one of her threads devoted to Torchwood, and Checkmate came up for discussion during the course of that talk. Seeing as ruckawriter and mercuryeric have announced some changes in the creative roster on that series, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate what we've had these last two years thanks to them and the people they've worked with.

I have a complete run of the original Checkmate series in a room in the basement here somewhere. It spun out of stuff being done in Doom Patrol, Vigilante and Suicide Squad involving US government covert super-shenanigans, although its ambit originally focused more on domestic craziness within the USA than anything else. Given that Paul Kupperberg was writing two of those three series around that time, his role as writer made sense.

After almost three years, that original series wrapped up quietly. The characters of that series have, for the most part, faded away quietly with little or no explanation. The organization itself carried on of its own momentum, being retasked to watchdog the capes and masks. And if you read Countdown to Infinite Crisis and The OMAC Project, you know what happened to that.

After Infinite Crisis, they got reconstituted under UN control per the work that Greg Rucka and company put into recreating the series. As good as the original was for its time, this was better. The tensions within the Royals - the executive board of the new incarnation - due to their politics, ethics and allegiances has been a steadily fermenting boil of story material always throwing new ideas and character developments into the mix. Ditto those between the Royals and the UN Security Council, particularly the Permanent Five.

And then there's the relationship between Checkmate and the metahumans of Earth. Deputization. Threat containment: dealing with the likes of Oolong Island, the Kobra Cult's factions, Amanda Waller and her rising belief in American exceptionalism and the rights it supposedly confers upon her nation. And on it goes.

It's been a fun ride so far, and while Greg and Eric are leaving the book now, I want to thank them for getting this new version to a good boil. I wish they could stay, or failing that, return at some point. And I plan to keep a close eye on their successors, to see how they manage to keep the series and the characters going.

I'm certainly recommending the trade paperbacks of everything they've done for the book so far. I plan to pick up my own copies ASAP.

That's it on that subject for now.

Comments

[querldox.livejournal.com]

One bit that's not really been played up enough, at least to me, is the very gray nature of many of the non-pawns. I mean, short of certain Avengers lineups and the Thunderbolts/Suicide Squad type groups where that's the whole point, I can't think of a group with so many folk previously classed as super-villains on it...and in most cases, it's not at all clear to me that the characters have "reformed" per se.

Specifically, I mean the Thinker, who with Master Jailer are oddly enough basically responsible for base and organizational security, Bad Samaritan, Count Vertigo, and possibly the August General In Iron (the whole aspect of a Chinese government organized super-team is gray to other governments, but having had the revamped Egg Fu as a member and responsible for what went on on Oolong Island, they have to be shaded a bit darker than just being representatives of a non-ally government).

And, with the exception of Master Jailer and a couple of lines of dialogue from Samaritan (and, I suppose, that Vertigo at this point is basically collar and leash attached to the Wall), these characters haven't been focused on in terms of why they were chosen by non-villains, why they're willing to work for Checkmate, and whether their personal goals and desires are actually in line with Checkmate and its royals. It's a potential vein of strong character conflict I don't think they've really mined so far.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it's mainly due to Very Careful Screening. If I've learned anything from Eric's Gideon-II site(which, as you'll recall, is written from the ex-Master Jailer's POV), it's that they have access to all manner of abnormally infallible ways and means of checking a Royal Candidate's bona fides, intentions and so forth. If they checked Carl out sixty ways from Sunday, they've checked out the others.

(Granted that it doesn't fully explain how Waller and Vertigo gamed the system, but we know that Waller always maintains access to, shall we say, independent resources under any circumstances.)

For specific cases: I suspect that the August General in Iron - I wonder how you say that name in his own language? - is likely glad to be well away from Dr. Chang Tzu and his Science Squad, given the twisted doctor's treatment of Sasha Bordeaux in "CheckOut".

The Thinker? He's having his curiosity and ego played to in a major way, as the kinds of problems Checkmate has are often of highly unusual sorts with consequences of failure to match. The kind that few other intellects on the planet could hope to successfully deal with.

[mercuryeric.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks.

:)

-E

[dewline.livejournal.com]

You guys earned it!