dab writes...

Was the structure of Gargoyle clans (in particular, children in common) at all influenced by Plato's ideal society in the Republic? Similarly, from where did Gargoyles derive their prediliction for protection? Sounds an awful lot like the Platonic guardians. Is this true, and if so, was it intentional?

More generally, what sorts of philosophical streams most strongly influenced your idea of the ideal gargoyle society?

Thanks!!

The Tigress writes...

My review for issue #7.

I won't cover every little thing since I don't have the time, but I will address the things that stuck out at me the most.

I was able to pick up issue 7 from a comic shop in Seattle and I have to say, what a fantastic issue! So far I think this is my favorite, with issue 5 being a close second. I've been a huge Gargoyles fan since the 6th grade and I'm so happy that the series is being continued in a new format with all new canon.

-I'm really thrilled to find out that Dr. Sato is indeed someone to trust and has allied with the Gargoyles and mutates. You also did a really good job showing the readers that although he's more than willing to help them, but also that finding out about the Gargoyles and the mutates has been very taxing on him mentally.

-Finding out that Maggie is pregnant is very interesting and I look forward to see how this develops. (no pun intended) It's funny because I was actually very curious if Talon and Maggie were able to produce offspring/or were going to have offspring in the future. (Searched the archives one time and didn't find much info on that)

-When Goliath mentiones that he is "healed but not whole", I'm assuming that he means mentally he is not quite healed yet but that his physical injuries are fully healed by now. Since I'm on the topic of Goliath, I absolutely loved the Goliath/Elisa scene at the end of the comic. That almost gave me tears of joy to see. I also noticed how you wonderfully had the beginning set up to parallel the scene from issue 3 where Goliath and Elisa are sitting very far away from each other on each side of the castle balcony. I liked that. It actually made me nervous about the conversation, but then once I read through, I got this very good feeling of joy being able to see that Elisa indeed re-affirmed her change of heart and the end of issue 5. I've been pro "Goliath/Elisa" since I started watching the series in middle school. Props to Hedgecock for bringing out the great emotion and facial expressions of Goliath in those last panels.

-Loved the designs of the new London clan gargoyles we saw towards the end. I especially give you props for having a female gargoyle who isn't the stereotypical "elegant and beautiful" type. Not that I think the other females have that problem, in fact I always have been happy that most of the female gargoyles have a bit of musculature to their bodies and that they are just as capable of being great warriors as the males. This new female boar gargoyle expands even further on this.

-The art is quite decent in this issue for the most part. Hedgecock has improved quite a bit since issue 3 in terms of being on model, although there are still a few errors here and there. Most noteably is that he sometimes makes subjects heads too large for their bodies. I think someone else might have pointed this out before but I'm not sure. The coloring looked fantastic. I really love what Bobby Bevard brings to the table.

-It was also very nice to see Hudson and Lexington in a main role so to speak. The jetlag issue was briliant, and it perfectly explains what was going on in the cover of this issue. Pretty good trick there. :P

-Macbeth is becoming more and more interesting as the series goes on. It's good to see him on the side of the good guys now. I look forward to seeing what happens between him and King Aurthur in the next issue.

I know there's many more elements in this issue I could cover, but I am running out of time, however I'd like to say that I really hope Gargoyles stays alive for a long time to come, whether it be through comics/dvds/anything else. I purchased season 1 and season 2 volume 1 dvds, and all of the comics including Bad Guys 1 up to this point to help support Gargoyles. Sad about Season 2 volume 2 but I am not giving up hope on it, and will buy it first thing if they ever decide to release it.

Keep up the great work!

Benji writes...

Hi Greg, I've written to you a couple of times, you've always given me great answers on things, there was something I was just thinking about today that I was wondering about? You were the creator of Gargoyles, so I was just wondering how did you come up with the idea of the series? I think the plot lines for the series were often better than that of a Disney film that made it to Theater's. I just think it was a cool idea, and I really like good writing. If you can show me a good story you'll have my respect, and you Greg most definitely have my respect, not that you'd care,hahahah just saying. What episodes did you write?? I know there were some you wrote that were awesome!! I never really heard the story on what happened to Gargoyles in Season 3?? Howcome it was changed from Gargoyles, to Gargoyles The Goliath Chronicles? I know you worked on The Journey, (which is the best episode of that Season by the way) but there was a different crew working on the rest of the season. And a lot of fans hated it, and that's what ultiumately killed the series aside from the comics. I don't think it was as bad as a lot of people make it out to be, but I do agree that was the weakest season, and the show was better with you in the picture. What happened that made you leave??

Lenny writes...

Oh and one other thing about Gargoyles The Goliath Chronicles was the Gargoyle hate fanatic John Castaway actually John Canmore one of the hunters from "Hunters Moon"? in the last epsioded Goliath mentions an ancient hatered he had.

Lenny writes...

Hey Greg, I always wanted to know did the plan to have Gargoyles The Goliath Chronicles continue a second season? or was it just ment to last 1 season? i always considered it the 3rd season so i guess if it had gone on it would of been season 4 ect..

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

Bad Guys Reactions
I hope it is acceptable to post two reviews in a row. I'm a little behind reviewing and I with the comics coming once a month now, there is a lot to review!
============SPOILERS===========
So Bad Guys is one of the Spin-offs I'm least interested in, but I still enjoyed this issue and look farward to more, especially the stories about Yama and Fang being recruited. I especially hope we get to see more of the Ishimura clan in the second issue!

The best line has to be "There'll be no more ~inserting~!" I laughed so hard at that! XD Apparently Matrix has absorbed Dingo's old armor because it isn't there anymore. And I'm sure that his original power armor didn't involve any "inserting," since he was trying to avoid that sort of thing in Upgrade. Heh, poor Dingo. And then Matrix refuses to attach to him anymore! Dingo does soften his objection when it comes to fighting without his armor on. But I think that that link, and the ability to feel pain (and emotions?) will be quite important for any character development of Matrix.

I wonder where that guy got a hold of thylacines. And I hope there are more wherever they came from! Thylacines are one of the more interesting and unique (and tragic) rare/possibly extinct animals. I like the idea of them being alive in the Gargoyles Universe, and they were drawn very well. They looked fairly accurate to me, except for having legs a bit too long. They can jump like... and they've got teeth like...! I'm glad that Dingo had the sense not to hurt them. But what did Matrix put around their necks and muzzles? He left them tied up when Dingo flew away, so are they attached to the tree by abandoned nanobots? o.0 That'll puzzle the police, for sure. :) Hopefully the police will put those two thylacines in some place where they can be protected and taken care of and maybe, the species can be revived. It was a nice touch to name one of them Benjamin.

I agree with others that the Tazmanian Tiger is a corny villain. The Pack were cheezy too, but children's television superheroes often are. This Taz guy, I wonder what his issue is. Ordinary persons don't commit crimes with the help of rare/extinct, even if they are fearsome. That is especially a bizarre costume to be comitting crimes in. He's the sort of person who would be featured in a magazine like Time, as a curiosity of "look at this weirdo!" (Time actually does do that.) However, he is no weakling, and clearly he has unusual resources.

Dingo is obviously enjoying being a superhero, because he's using lots of cliches. Or rather the comic is. It's a bloody missile!

Matrix looks funny (in a good way) listening to a boombox. Which turns out to be part of him. Apparently he can pick up radio waves? I wonder if he has any appreciation of music. Does he listen to the patterns in it?

Yama has a katana. Heh.

No funny jokes from Fang, but he is drawn very well. I look farward to the humor from this guy in future issues. He's such a fun character.

Strange that Matrix can be disabled by an em pulse. And when it's wrapped around Dingo, he's effectively disabled as well. That's quite a weakness! But the Matrix needed a weakness to balance its abilities, and this is an appropriate one. I didn't understand it until the others in the Comment Room explained that it is a common weakness of technology, to be disabled by em pulses.

If we didn't already know the basic plot of Bad Guys, I'd be very concerned by that talk of tengu hunting! Especially coming from Robyn. I've yet to see any indication that she's changed her genocidal attitude toward gargoyles, so it'll take a lot of character development before I like the character (as a person). But I am liking Dingo and the unnamed shaman. (And it's great to see the word tengu used in the canon.) Matrix doesn't really have a lot of personality yet, but as much as it does have, I like.

The art in this issue was excellent, I love Karine's work. Of course I'd love it more if it was color, but it is still great as it is.
============SPOILERS===========

Vaevictis Asmadi writes...

#7
I finally found a comic shop semi-near my apartment and figured out how to get there by bus. It's kinda creepy standing alone at a totally unfamiliar intersection after dark, but I got my comic the day it came out. And the store only had 2 left when I got there, that same day.

~~~~~~~~~~SPOILERS~~~~~~~~~~~
So yes, this is pretty hard to follow, it's hard to review the story when we don't have #8 and #9, but all that Withheld stuff will be useful now. Even though... we have the times right there in the comic. Here's my initial thoughts:

*I am happy to see Macbeth, and being friendly with the clan. He's my favorite 'antagonist' in the series. "Don't you have minions for this?" is a great line.

*Goliath has healed very nicely, there's not even a mark.

*Brooklyn wants to stay in NY to get a break from seeing Broadway and Angela holding hands and being all "OMG WE'RE IN LOVE!!" when they wake up in the evening. Then they decide to stay too. Poor Brooklyn. And I wonder what Angela whispered. I wouldn't feel sorry for Brooklyn because he is being jealous, except he still feels like there are no more females of his species left. Does he not realize there is a whole clan in England? I would have expected him to want to meet them, especially after he asked Goliath "When do we get our World Tour?"

*Jetlag and gargoyles, interesting. It is a nice way of demonstrating (like Broadway underground in the animated series) that gargoyles have a biological clock, that they don't just react to sunlight. And there's Macbeth, drinking lots of coffee to keep himself awake, and looking bored. He should have brought a book. I was wrong about thinking Lex was cold when he woke up, thanks for clearing that up. I'm not surprised they feel lousy.

*Hey look, its the little green guy from Demona's clan. I liked that character design. And there's Gruoch and Demona, too. But no Lulach.

*Maggie is pregnant! I guessed it from the way Dr. Sato says "condition" and the way she and Derek are looking at each other. I'm surprised it happened so soon. Are they going to get married then? Or at least have a ceremony, since the legal benefits won't be useful in the Labyrinth. It is nice to see Dr. Sato becoming an ally of both NY clans. I wonder how Maggie will explain all this to her folks in Ohio, though, because we haven't seen her contact them yet. And I'm eager to learn what their offspring will look like. Human, mutant, half-human and half-mutant... it could be anything.

*The conversation between Goliath and Elisa is interesting. The same panels and poses from #3 are deliberately repeated, the contrast is good. And I like her conclusion. "Normalcy is so overrated." She's thinking about Derek and how he seems to be gaining happiness in spite of not having a normal life. And she touches his hair, so he kisses her. :)

*Shari's watching Thailog take a bath!? Also, he has a surprisingly modern-looking computer for 1996, but what with all the cyborgs and super-robots and nanobots running around the Gargverse, I guess Thailog's rich enough to afford something "futuristic."

*I do wonder if the stories told of the Stone are true or not. Probably they are, but how did a handful of Greeks and Egyptians conquer all of Ireland? If that Stone is a Child of Oberon (as you once suggested it might be), it seems to be very patient with sitting around for long boring stretches of time being a rock. Then again, I don't think you intend it to be a Child of Oberon anymore, since it isn't at the Gathering.

*I wonder what are Thailog and Brentwood looking for, and where are they? Maybe we'll find out in #8.

*The new Coyote robot is one of the uglier ones in my opinion, though not as ugly as 4.0. Generally I think the one in Cloud Fathers (5.0?) was the sleekest-looking. That's not a critique of the penciller or the character design, but a critique of whoever (Xanatos?) designed the robot itself.

*I'm not surprised to see King Arthur, but I am surprised to see him do ~that~. Guess he and Macbeth have some more issues to work out yet! I wonder why he's so mad at Macbeth. And his motivations... it would be so bizarre if he was an antagonist in this story arc.

*New gargoyles! Plus Griff is back, I really like Griff. I am happy to see new gargoyles, as I've been very curious about non-Scottish clans, but I admit to being very disappointed with the new character designs. I am sorry to tell you this, but I dislike them. It doesn't make any biological sense that each one's heads just happens to ~exactly match~ his/her feet, when they aren't mammals nor related to those particular animals at all. I'm still very happy to see new gargoyles, though, but I was hoping for gargoyles that looked like they could have evolved, instead of like they were designed to look ~exactly~ like specific mammals. I still think that "chameleon genes" in general are plausible, and I ~love~ the variation in the other clans, but the London clan is no longer plausible for me (except Griff, who has mixed-together body parts). Each other gargoyle has his or her specific feet and tail cherry-picked to match ~perfectly~ his or her specific head, so that he/she looks like a winged, anthropomorphic/mutate version of one single, specific mammal, instead of a gargate that happens to remind humans of some animal. The white male has the face of a deer, and also antlers and a deer's cloven hooves (not horse-like hooves like Una), and they all match. The brown female has boar's hooves and a boar head to match. You have said that evolution and creation are supposed to be equally possible origins for gargoyles, but so far each London gargoyle (except Griff) is designed to look exactly like a single animal. I hope this isn't an indication that the rest of the clan will all be like this. They all live together and mate each other. Wouldn't offspring inherit a mix of their parents' traits?
But other than that, it is interesting to see the combination of wing-claws with the feather-like surface. Also surprising that some London gargoyles have the leathery wings instead. And that female has neat clothing. I agree with others who are happy to see a female who isn't thin or attractive by human standards.

Although the new gargoyle character designs bother me a lot, I'm still happy with lots of information and events, and I like this issue. TONS of teasers, and an intriguing storyline of which I look farward to learning more. Overall, the format is a confusing way to tell the story and I wonder why you are telling it this way, surely not only to mess with our heads (though I'm sure you enjoy that too!). Perhaps the next two issues will reveal the reason for the unusual format. As for the art, David Hedgecock is much better than before and this is the best colorist to be paired with him yet; Thailog's not black anymore, and the Mutates are tailless again. But Broadway is still off model in almost every panel and it bothers me. Everyone else looks really great, though, especially Goliath, Elisa, and Angela. It is true that sometimes Goliath's head is too big, but I didn't notice until other reviews pointed it out. I like this issue's art better than #6. I hope you guys stick with this art team from now on, Hedgecock is looking good and Robby Bevard brings out the best in his inks.
~~~~~~~~~~SPOILERS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~