Savant Garde

[Static-Pulse]

Prompted by her appearance in Majestic, I went looking for books with Savant (aka Kenesha, aka Cordelia Matheson) in them, and stumbled across the Stavant Garde series. I've only read #5 and #7 this far, but I've got to say Barbara Kesel's take on Savant, Majestic, and the others is pretty cool. It's your typical 90's Wildstorm book that didn't last a year:


Funny
Crazy adventures
Loose canon, with references that are fun if you get them, but don't ruin the story if you don't.
Characters who are more "adventurer" than "hero"
Funny

Has anyone else read this series, or can anyone recommend other works by Barbara Kesel?

[Apathy Boy]

SAVANT GARDE was a pleasant surprise. Nothing revolutionary, just good ol' fashioned superhero fun. Ryan Odagawa had a very pleasant art style and I'm disappointed that he never really did anything after that.

Barbara Kesel is a terrific writer, just like her husband Karl. Check out their HAWK AND DOVE stuff from DC from the late '80s/early '90s. She also did a lot of solo stuff at CrossGen, most notably SIGIL and MERIDIAN, which were both very good reads.

[aelio]

I have the entire run of Savant Garde, minus one issue, and I really liked it. The intitial "team-up" seemed rushed and contrived, but once I got past that, it was ok. It helped that it had Maj and Kenesha in it, and BK wrote some very funny dialogue.

[Static-Pulse]

Barbara Kesel is a terrific writer, just like her husband Karl.I whought that name was familiar, but I could have sworn his name had two L's. I've been meaning to check out Sigil, now I'll have to!

[MatthewC]

It was a great comic, and I'm sorry it got canceled so early.

I especially like Savant's "sidekick" Mabel Bligh, who apparently had a really interesting backstory that we never got to hear. (She claimed to have known Savant through like 7 reincarnations.)

[Iangould]

... can anyone recommend other works by Barbara Kesel?

Barbara and her husband Karl co-wrote the late 80s verson of Hawk & Dove - an extremey fun title which was unfortunately rather let down by subsequent events in Armageddon 2001.

[Stellar]

to be honest, i wasn't a fan of the later artwork, but the writing was pretty good. i liked how Savant was put down as the stuck up, yet untouchable, spoiled little brat she is. Maj usually doesn't tolerate such behaviour, which is why i kept wondering why he puts up with Kenesha. on the other hand, she's portrayed as being very witty when she blackmails Henry Bendix into giving her the files she needs.

[dancj]

I haven't been massively impressed by Barbara Kesel's books, but Elseworlds Finest: Supergirl and Batgirl is great.

[hex111]

This is another one of those books that I bought and read only a year or so ago (when I was working on completing my Wildstorm collection) and I didn't really like very much... I guess it's ok when I'm feeling a twinge of literary masochism, but for the most part, I didn't really think it was very good... not like "WildC.A.T.S. vol. 1 issues 38-50" bad... or Stormwatch vol. 1 #1-about 30 bad... but definately not great

[Stellar]

stormwatch vol 1 #1-30 was nowhere near as bad as wildcats v1 #38 - 50.

i don't think any comic was.

[Dizzy D]

stormwatch vol 1 #1-30 was nowhere near as bad as wildcats v1 #38 - 50.

i don't think any comic was.

True, I especially was annoyed by certain big character changes in Wildcats 38-50 (John Colt/Spartan suddenly acting psycho and Max Cash suddenly being this good guy, really great, everybody likes him.) But at least #50 had a good story in it.

Stormwatch 1-30 had some decent stories by Marz.

[hex111]

True, I especially was annoyed by certain big character changes in Wildcats 38-50 (John Colt/Spartan suddenly acting psycho and Max Cash suddenly being this good guy, really great, everybody likes him.) But at least #50 had a good story in it.

Stormwatch 1-30 had some decent stories by Marz.

In addition to the character changes, the absolutely nonsensical "time travel" story was the worst part of that "era"...

Stormwatch 1-30 was Ron Marz doing late 80's and early 90's Avengers stories but with different characters... just keep throwing new 1-dimensional costume designs with no personalities onto the page to make up for the lack of original story ideas... Jackson King was Captain America's personality without wearing a flag as a costume... especially early-mid 90's Captain America...

I think one of the reasons why #50 was pretty good was because Alan Moore contributed to it as well as James Robinson...

[Stellar]

if you ask me, #50 kind of wrapped up the whole series but WAY too fast. just look at Gen13 how everyone mourned Alex Fairchild for a long time, all Max got was a couple of pages of 'he will be missed.'