The Grenadier Debuts in Heroic #2 by Zenith Comics

My interest was drawn to Zenith Comics' Heroic book by a sketch of a character named The Grenadier (changed from the original name, which was simply The Canadian) found on  Facebook. The artwork was done by Alex Williamson.

To be entirely honest though, the more I tracked the book's progress the less I thought it would be my sort of thing. The main character is named Lady America and, as you might expect, wears a great big white star on her outfit (seen below). From looking at preview material, it became increasingly clear that The Grenadier's contribution would be minimal and that the bulk of the story would be based in the States and involve American characters. It reached the point that I wondered whether The Grenadier would be included at all aside from perhaps in a group fight scene or some such.

Still...Andrew Collas' (from Montreal) Kickstarter plea was confident and convincing so I made my token contribution in order to receive the first issue.

Of course, when I read the book I wasn't shocked when The Grenadier was a no-show. Regardless, I found that the creative team was telling the type of story I tend to enjoy so I contributed towards the second issue as well.

And it was well worth it! Not only does the story progress very nicely but The Grenadier shows up! Only for a couple of pages, mind you, but it was still good to see him.

"I've been doing this since Vimy Ridge". Nice.

I like that nearly everything Grenadier says suggests a lengthy history and friendship between these two characters. It's only one page, but it contains plenty of talk of trust and doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Heroic.

I don't know how much more we'll see of The Grenadier going forward. I'm going to continue to anticipate that we won't see him at all and hope to again be pleasantly surprised.

I'm also going to continue to support Zenith Comics Presents: Heroic because, at the end of the day, it's a quality product. If you want in, they are currently offering the books on a "pay what you want" basis on DriveThru Comics.

Hurry Up and Perk Up!

While writing about the New Recruits fundraising campaign last week, I mentioned a particular perk that they offered which I found to be a convincing encouragement to contribute.  Basically put, they offered something up front, which is a nice change from having to wait several months before seeing the benefits of your donation.

There are two other fundraising campaigns in which I've participated that feature(d) interesting perk ideas.

I need to hurry up in regards to the one that is currently ongoing.  The F1rst Hero campaign has a first-day contributor bonus which enables you to get a little more bang for your buck.

For that pledge, someone living in Canada can get the trade paperback version of the 4-issue series with extras shipped to him or her and if he or she is quick enough, the above preview book.  Not a bad deal at all.

Oh, what's F1rst Hero about?  I'm glad you asked!

What if everyone who ever had superpowers had gone insane and become a threat to society?  What if, after decades of this, one man gained abilities "far beyond those of mortal men" but kept his sanity?  Recently discharged from the Army and faced with a society that fears superhumans, a government that hunts them down and growing numbers of crazed supervillains all around him, JACOB ROTH must decide to either put himself at risk by using his powers to help people or do nothing and remain safe while innocent people get hurt.

The Canadian content appears to be among the creators.  Creator/Writer Anthony Ruttgaizer and Colourist/Letterer KT. Smith are both Toronto residents.  The book will be published by Pittsburgh-based Action Lab Entertainment.

The other perk that I thought included a cool feature is the one I originally selected for the Heroic campaign from Zenith Comics.

CANADIAN HERO - You get everything at the Reservist range, as well as a printed copy with the cover that will ONLY available for this Kickstarter! This tier is for Canadians only, all others use HERO tier.

Nice way to work in the extra shipping charges, since the "regular" hero tier is $15, as opposed to $25 for the "Canadian hero" one.

I might have taken this one a step further (though granted, there'd be an extra cost involved on the part of the publisher, so that's easy for me to say) and offered a Canadian-exclusive cover.  Zenith has a Canuck character named The Grenadier who was talked about earlier (look for the label at right).  A fan art pin up by a gentleman named Marvin Law was added to the Zenith Facebook page recently.

I am thinking along the lines of the rather awesome Phil Jimenez variant cover for Avengers #4.  The contents of the book were the same, but Marvel made an Alpha Flight cover specifically for the Canadian audience.

I doubt that the Kickstarter-specific cover will include the Grenadier, but I would gladly have plunked down a couple of extra couple of bucks for one that did.  Seems appropriate enough for the "Canadian Hero" perk.

The Grenadier from Zenith Comics

The artwork below is from Alex Williamson.

I found this character while looking further into a Kickstarter campaign just launched by Zenith Comics.

To tell the truth, I nearly dismissed the campaign altogether.  There are a great many such fundraising attempts out there and I can only support so many.  I still have a couple of hundred dollars floating around out there for which I have yet to receive the perk that I bought. I'm not looking to add to that total just yet.

But the project looked like one I might enjoy, so I looked a little further.  It was going through the image gallery on their Facebook page that I found the above artwork. Here's the caption to it:

So Alex Williamson has been playing around with some designs of characters who will be appearing in the prologue to HEROIC. Here is the Canadian! And yes, he grows a Crisis Beard and also pulls the cape over the villains heads and unloads uppercuts! Cheers!

That was last October.  In April, in response to a comment, the person responsible for the Facebook group (all posts are simply under the "Zenith Comics" name) added...

I think Alex outdid himself on this one! Makes me proud to be a Canadian, and moreso I love that we have renamed him the Grenadier! Very strong Canadian history there.

Proud to be Canadian?  In that case, I suspect that both comments are by Montreal's Andrew Collas.  That this might very well be a Canadian publisher wasn't immediately obvious because the campaign is being managed by someone from Rhode Island, and neither the Facebook page or the blog indicate an actual base of operations.

Regardless, while I doubt The Grenadier will get much face time, the book looks quite cool, and I plan on pitching in down the road.  Best of luck to Mr Collas, and congratulations on the fast start to your fundraising.