Super-Human Advanced...something something

Agents of S.H.A.D.E.

Of all the titles introduced in DC Comic's New 52, Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. is the one which really caught my attention.  Not only did it star the break-out character from Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory, but it boosted his profile by putting him in charge of a reborn Creature Commandos.  

The concept originated during the pre-New 52 Flashpoint event,

but stuck around in the new continuity.

From there, S.H.A.D.E. only grew cooler as it became the home for a number of other re-imagined war-time characters.  My52 will take a lot of inspiration from this series, but lean a little bit to the side and make it an anthology series akin to my Action Comics and Detective Comics.  In this case, though, the anthology will rotate through all the factions which operate under Father Time and S.H.A.D.E.

While Wonder Woman's Department of Metahuman Affairs acts as the domestic front of superhuman police work, S.H.A.D.E. is more of the CIA of super-crime, working to root out global threats to the United States and keep them from ever seeing the light of day.  We're talking truly gonzo events here, things that would freak out even residents of the normal DCU.

Frankenstein is S.H.A.D.E.'s go-to agent to investigate events beyond human ken, but when things are beyond what he can do with just his gun and sword, he assembles his Creature Commandos, a bizarre assemblage of scientific experiments, freaks of nature, and mysterious entities which coincidentally match Universal's monster library.  My art direction won't go *quite* so far into the gruesome territory as DC's title was, with my vampire looking a bit more Bela Lagosi and the wolf man at least being able to change to human form.

Alberto Ponticelli drew some freakish Creatures, didn't he?

I really like the addition of the Lagoon woman (the original Creature Commandos had a medusa woman), but I'm unsure about the mummy fellow.  Still, I wonder if there are any good concepts for a hunchback commando.

The Bride will also act as a solo agent for S.H.A.D.E., engaging in the occasional assassination mission or mysteriously appearing to help Frankenstein before vanishing again. Undercover work is the job of the Unknown Soldier, a hideously scarred master of disguise, while general grunt work for the organization is performed by an army of unthinking, disposable G.I. Robots.  The presence of a Haunted Tank or Viking Commando are unconfirmed.  

Since Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, S.H.A.D.E. has been closely tied with Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, but that highly-visible superpowered group has no place in the Men-in-Black Ops of S.H.A.D.E.  On occasions where the two groups do meet, I imagine they'll be butting heads a lot.