This evocative and graceful 1978 Marvel Premiere cover by Dave Cockrum and Joe Sinnott dropped out of nowhere. The saga of Seeker 3000 immediately put me in the mind of those classic Star Trek adventures, a dynamic captain and his determined and varied crew in a sleek spaceship poised to cruise across the depths of space. That was doubtless intentional.
The actual comic book story by underrated scribe Doug Moench and painfully underrated artist Tom Sutton gives us something a bit stranger still. It's rather high-concept sci-fi.
In 1998 Marvel decided to finally exploit this lost gem. First, they reprinted the story from Marvel Premiere #41 under a new cover by Andrew Currie and Art Nichols, which intentionally evokes the Cockrum original. This was done to promote the four-issue limited adventure written by Dan Abnett and Ian Edgington. Here is the complete cover gallery.
Apparently, the series never caught on, and these six comics are all that exist of the intriguing universe of Seeker 3000. I've never read the follow up stories, but I suspect they might be found in many a back issue bin. Might be worth the time, or perhaps not.
Rip Off
Doug Moench definitely isn't underrated by ME as he wrote all of Marvel's Planet Of The Apes stories and it was thanks to POTA that I discovered Marvel in the first place!
ReplyDeleteMoench has done so much at Marvel, DC, and in the Independents. It took me a while to appreciate his voice.
DeleteI remember this one! It had great potential, so it was disappointing to see that no one followed up on it past that first brief revival. Doug Moench had a distinct way with science-fiction, as can also be seen in the few Star-Lord stories he wrote - I'd love to see those collected one day, but with the de-Shipped Star-Lord reimagined for the Marvel Universe & then for the movies, that's hardly likely, alas. I'm also afraid that Seeker 3000 might be brought back as part of the Marvel Universe, which would water it down as other non-Universe concepts were when transferred to the superhero Universe.
ReplyDeleteThe very nature of Marvel is that it's all connected...eventually. Fusion with the larger universe does take some of the specialness away.
DeleteI loved this series but because the original came out when I was young I never realized it was by Doug Moench. Any chance you will cover his DC sci-fi series Star Hunters?
ReplyDeleteI never read Star Hunters. I remember the ads, but never bought the comic.
Delete