In 2008 and 2010, comic book creators Ed Brubaker (writer) and Sean Phillips (artist) came out with a new, pulp-inspired comic book, Incognito, published as a pair of mini-series.
Brubaker is probably best known for his work on Captain America. With Phillips, he did Sleeper at Wildstorm, which was about a secret agent undercover in a supervillain organization, and Criminal at Marvel’s Icon (their imprint for creator-owned comics), which takes a look at various crime story cliques. Incognito also appeared at Icon, and was Brubaker and Phillips’ take on a pulp-inspired universe and characters. As an added bonus, pulp researcher Jess Nevins contributed articles for each issue.
Incognito is set in modern times, but in a world different from ours. We get information about it, and it seems clear that Philip José Farmer‘s Wold Newton Family was an influence. About 200 years previously, something crashed into the woods of New England. The first to reach the scene was an escaped convict, who was altered and became the science-villain Black Death. The descendants of the soldiers and cops in pursuit would later become the science heroes and villains of the world.
In the 1930s, the two main heroes were super-scientist Professor Zeppelin, a Doc Savage-esque character, and Lazarus, a character in the mold of The Shadow.
Professor Zeppelin would, among other things, operate on criminals to make them no longer be criminals. He would later create the Special Operations Service, which would both fight the science-villains of the world, as well as keep it all quite from the general public. SOS would now be run by Zeppelin’s daughter Zoe and Colonel Von Chance.
Lazarus was known as the Resurrected Man. He would seemingly be killed, only to return whole and hearty. But he disappeared sometime in the 1940s.
The main character of Incognito is Zach Overkill. He and his twin brother, both superstrong and supertough, had been soldiers in Black Death’s organization until someone tried to bump them off. Zach’s brother, Xander, was killed. Zach survived and turned state’s evidence against Black Death, as it seemed it was his organization that tried to kill them. Zach was put into witness protection, and given a drug that took away his powers. He lives a boring life as a mail room clerk.
Taking recreational drugs, he finds they counteract the drugs that neutralize his powers. But instead of using his restored powers to be a criminal, he winds up being a minor vigilante. This brings him to the attention of both Black Death’s organization and the SOS. During the story, he meets Zoe Zeppelin, learns about who he really is, wipes out Black Death’s organization, and decides to now work for the SOS against other villains.
The first Incognito series ran six issues; the second one, subtitled Bad Influences, ran five.
Set a couple of years later, Incognito: Bad Influences has Zach successfully working against other villains, though many in SOS don’t fully trust him. Then it’s discovered that a deep cover agent of SOS embedded in the science-villain organization Level 9 is about to become one of it’s leaders and it’s decided that Zach will be used to finally bring the agent in. To do so, the SOS makes it seem that Zach has gone rogue, and on the run from SOS. Around the same time, someone seems to be using old Lazarus tech that makes it seem that perhaps Lazarus is back and wiping out science-villains. Could this be Zach? In the end, getting the SOS agent out fails, and it seems that Zach has indeed gone rogue, and he winds up in prison alongside Black Death.
We’re kind of left with a cliffhanger.
I hope that Brubaker and Phillips will come out with another Incognito story. They have since moved on to Fatale, which mixes Lovecraftian horror and crime noir in a very interesting way. I’ll delve into that in a future posting.
As I mentioned, each issue of Incognito has an article by Jess Nevins. In the first series, the articles profiled The Shadow (#1), Doc Savage (#2), The Spider (#3), Operator No. 5 (#4), Fu Manchu (#5), and Zeppelin Pulps (#6). The last one needs a bit of explaining. This one creates a non-existent pulp publisher, whose pulp heroes (including Professor Zeppelin and Lazarus) are the “inspiration” for the characters in Incognito.
In the second series, the articles were: The Phantom Detective (#1), G-8 (#2), Captain Future (#3), Nick Carter (#4), and pulp super-villains (#5).
Now, Brubaker’s writing is not pure pulp. He used pulp as an influence in what he wrote. He has his own sensibilities. He would have done a poor job writing a pulp story that was true to the originals. So it’s better that instead of mistreating Doc Savage, The Shadow, et al, that he created his own characters that he could do with as he wished. This way, no one could be upset with how he used or portrayed the characters. For me, I really enjoyed these titles and look forward to seeing more.
A word of warning: Both series have been collected in trade paperback. Unlike other trade collections, Brubaker actually does not put the extras in the trades, but in the comics. So none of the articles were reprinted in the trades. That’s the opposite of most trades. Now, there has been a hardback collection with both series in it, and while it includes extras, it ONLY includes the original article from #6 on the pseudo-pulp inspirations for the characters.
