The Sword in the Stone

Tag : Frozen Squid Tube

With any luck, you've already heard of Top Cow's "Pilot Season"promotion, now in its second year. Basically, Top Cow picks a fewof its creators, lets 'em create a new series, lets readers vote ontheir favorites, and the two that get the most votes get awarded anew ongoing series next year.

One of the entries in this summer's "Pilot Season" is a storycalled "Genius," about a girl named Destiny Ajaye who organizes LosAngeles' gangs and takes on the LAPD. It's written by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman , the creators of "The Highway Men" and "Monster Attack Network,"with art by Afua Richardson . When they're not creating comics, all three have other jobs, too-- Marc is a senior editor at "Entertainment Weekly," Adam is a TVproducer who's worked on everything from "Gene Simmons.

FamilyJewels" to "Total Request Live," and Afua is a professional singer,songwriter, voice actress, musician, and graphic artist.

Destiny is a 17 year old girl from South Central L.A. She hasbeen surrounded by violence, drugs, street crime etc. her wholelife. She decides she is the one that will do something about it.Every generation has its military genius - Hannibal, Napolean,Patton...who is to say Destiny is not ours? I guess hero or villaindoesn't really apply to her. She is doing what she feels she needsto do to ensure survival. And she's hot.

It's always worth remembering that every villain is the heroof his or her own story, and that good and evil are subjectivelabels. It's like, the only thing that separates a cult from areligion is numbers. From her perspective, I think she sees meritin what she's doing, even if she becomes the necessary evil.

I'm a junkie for Discovery/History/Learning Channeldocumentaries--I could watch those all day long. Anyway, I caughtone a couple of years ago about the Middle American Militiaculture, and one of these dudes was asked why they're training sohard. And he said something like "Because you don't think thosegang-banging animals aren't training? That's all their lives are,learning to exist under fire, and learning to kill. We need to beready."