Under the Net with Jake Estrada
Special Edition
John Prophet is Awake
Back Story
When the title hero Prophet appeared in Youngblood # 2, he wore a purple suit with a warrior’s face plate along with larger than life pouches and shoulder pads that appeared to weigh a ton. He was a time traveling hero who would go to sleep in a cryogenic stasis chamber. Prophet had awakened, and he was ready to fight off the enemy. Prophet was a creation of Dr. Wells that originally was supposed to be a tool made for Phillip Omen, but Dr. Wells thought otherwise and instilled Prophet to be a hero and to love God.
This made Prophet a proper hero, someone that fought the good fight, and he would combat evil on many different fronts along with his pal and sidekick Kirby.
Prophet made several appearances; he was a primer hero for then Extreme Studios, which was Rob Liefield’s flagship part of Image comics. Of course, Image had an issue eventually with Rob and they kicked him out of the company, which booted Prophet for the most part, and he was not seen again.
Prior to being booted, there was an artist that made Prophet truly famous besides Liefield drawing and creating him in Youngblood. Prophet had his own series and he started with his purple suit, but before long we were introduced to Stephen Platt’s version of Prophet that was larger than life with huge nasty machine guns, and this Prophet had spiky hair and was off the chain.
Stephan Platt drew us a Prophet that took no crap and he was diesel as all can be, and in some cases, he was so muscular it made readers wonder how he could even move his limbs.
No matter what you could say, you knew that Prophet was a Cable reject. He had all the same trappings as Cable, a time displaced hero that would appear at a time of need that took out the bad guys. If it were the future, the past, Prophet was there. He was the ultimate time traveler, and he took no one’s crap.
But as I stated, that all came to an end. Part of me thought Prophet was over; we would never see him again, and he was just a minor footnote in comic history like so many other characters.
Well, flash forward to Jan 2012 when Prophet #21 was released. The world was going to get their Prophet on in a bold new direction.
As in previous appearances, Prophet awakens from his stasis chamber, and when he awakens he is on earth that is very foreign to him. Humans are nowhere to be seen, animals have evolved, and some of the species have mutated due to being mixed with extraterristal life forms. So John Prophet awakens, and his mission is simple. He has to restart the human empire.
You see this bold new direction as Prophet goes from one location to another, killing creatures and eating them, and boy, I must say that this Prophet eats a lot.
The writer, Brandon Graham, has truly created a lush world for this new world we have entered. For instance, there is a Jell city that many of the said aliens live in. They suffer along with Prophet trying to reach the G.O.D Satellite that orbited nearby the Towers of Thauliu Vah, which had an electromagnetic lock onto the Satellite.
Spoilers below.
I must say that the way the story plays out pretty much has you just along for the ride. You aren’t getting fed the story, and it leaves you wondering where this adventure is going to leave you. Before you know it, you are in the heart of the story in issue #23 where Prophet gets onto the G.O.D Satellite, gets into a small melee combat with an alien that had been tracking him for several pages, and finally gets assistance from a hooded figure. When it is all over, Prophet is confronted by many other lookalikes, and he places his hand onto the Control Panel inside the G.O.D Satellite. He activates the Satellite, and he restarts the human empire once more. He really awakens and spreads his knowledge to all the John Prophets across the galaxy. Yes, I said all the John Prophets out there are the human colony to repopulate the cosmos. That tells us that John Prophet is and has been a series of clones since the beginning.
This also leaves a lingering question because, like I said, Brandon Graham has his artist draw a panel where there are skeletal remains of a person on a command-like enterprise chair, and the remains have this spiky-haired guy with huge shoulder pads, with a faceplate, and appears larger than life. What this illustration tells me is that this is the Prophet that we followed in the original Youngblood series; the one that we learned to like in the early to mid-1990s, but who was now dead. That’s how this series has been linked to its past.
I thought it was an intelligent way to tell fans the past did matter, but this was a new day and world for Prophet. We finally got a little sense of closure from the past series, and it also tells us this entire time Prophet wasn’t a time traveler and hadn’t been sleeping. He has just been a clone forever, and he would appear when he had a new mission to complete.
Issue #24 of Prophet starts with another John Prophet awakening, but this time in a spaceship far in the human empire colony. When this Prophet awakens, there is a huge mess on the deck as there are pods of other Prophets that are dead and never had a chance to awaken to try to live their lives.
This Prophet is given a task that he must complete by crossing the ship known as the Sleepingman and come face to face with a creature that looks eerily familiar in appearance. Oh, did I tell you that this version of Prophet has a tail? Yes, I said tail. I loved this series as I saw this new Prophet talk to a small hologram girl that fed him his objective and guided him through the ship that was filled with radiation. As he finally came to the close of this story, he had to fight the creature that looked like someone he knew.
This creature was another version of Prophet that had awakened and tried to reach the end of the Sleepingman but failed as the tailed version of Prophet fought and defeated the mutated, radiated version. Once our tailed Prophet finished his fight, he got out of the ship, and he used Star Skin to travel to the vessel he was trying to reach. When he finally got to his objective, which was the planet below, he was greeted by other Prophet versions with a huge face-like creature that almost appeared to be wearing the old Prophet faceplate. Of course, I am left wondering what is going on here, but I do have to admit that Graham has been captivating, and I am wondering where all of this is going.
I just like the fact that there are many Prophets. This is the end of the human race, and they all carry a similar face and they all awaken for a particular mission. Our hero happens to be a man that may be more than one man. I like this very fresh take, and I love all the sci-fi elements that are being thrown together here. The story never feels forced, and it is a very brisk read.
Jake Estrada
Email me at estradajake@yahoo.com for website suggestions. I’m always looking to review underground comics, and web comics. Thanks.
Jake Estrada is a published author who holds degrees in Multimedia Design and Criminal Justice. He is a father to three wonderful children and married to his beautiful wife, Beth. You can find his comics at http://graphicly.com/estrada-mediaand other fine online stores.
