Timestorm

Ok, so I just read about this.

I have to say, the title had my interest. The description of the ideas, not so much.

2099 was my gateway comic. Before this, I was mildly interested in comics. Not enough to read or buy. Just enough to look and go "ooo, neat." I grew up watching Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. I watched the other Hulk series with Lou Ferrigno. I watched reruns of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman. I saw the X-Men cartoon on FOX. I watched a number of bad superhero movies (Live action Cap with the Italian Red Skull, Roger Corman Fantastic Four). Hell, I even watched some episodes of The Flash live series when it was on. So, I liked comic characters. Just never enough to but the comics.

2099 changed that. Partially due to the X-Men cartoon, and partially due to how cool Spider-Man 2099 looked, I started to read X-Men 2099. A team book where the team never really comes together. Where a character is killed early on, and never brought back. Even then, I knew that character death meant nothing if you were not Bucky, Jason Todd, or Uncle Ben (we see how those worked out now, haha). That comic blew my mind. It was so good.

Anyhow, years later I remembered how much I loved that series and went on a crusade to find the rest of the 2099 run. I am still a few issues short. Not for long, as I plan on ordering them from a comic shop online very soon (my local shop can't find them for me). The rest of the series were pretty decent. A few rough starts, a lot of rough endings, some painfully 90's art. But, really, a great setting.

Hell, I liked this setting and the characters enough that i have tracked down the other comics they have appeared in, even when those comics were not very good. I kept up with Exiles far longer than i should have, because it had Miguel in it.

So, I hear this new series will be a reimagining of the setting, like the New Universal was for the New Universe. I'm not sure what I feel about this. Yeah, there are things that just don't necessarily work. But, I don't think any of that is in the characters. The characters remain solid, and work well today.

Looking at the concept sketches, I have some thoughts:

* Punisher looks pretty awesome, actually. Enough so that I don't hate the changes to his look. Hopefully, they will keep his character close enough to the original.

* Cerebra looks ridiculous. Shakti was fine in her initial look. This new one is just lame. Hair that looks like brain? Ugh. No, just no.

* Human Torch. Hmmm. Not sure what i feel here. Looks cool. Like what I read about them making a new version, as opposed to the stupid variation they did in the original 2099 stuff. This is a change I think may work. Again, if done well.

* Spider-Man looks pretty much the same. Younger under the mask, but the look of the costume has not changed. The article implies that the costume may be all that has not changed. I hope this isn't completely true.

* Ghost Rider. Well, I will admit to not having read this in the original 2099 form yet. I ma missing an issue, so I have not wanted to read the rest yet. This one looks pretty cool though, and the concept if the 2099 version I know of was sort of silly.

So, I guess I will see what happens with this. I hope it is good,and faithful enough to the original source to make me happy. I also hope that, if it is something i like, it is good enough to get more 2099 comics out to read.