Battlerock Comics

Today is Free Comic Book Day, the day when people check out new comics at their local comic book store.

A lot of big and not-so-big publishers, including Image and DC (Marvel said no this year), have special free issues to share, from new collaborations to returning characters from TV shows like “Supernatural” and “The Greatest American Hero”.

Well, we here at Battlerock Comics have nothing but free comics! Mostly because we’re not allowed to charge for the comics given the rights owned by the various source materials.

But today is a good opportunity for us to give an update about a comic series that was on the back burner for several years.

“Task Force Twilight” is returning!

“Task Force Twilight” is a limited comic series that started in 2017 following the events in “Furia and the Guardians”.

When Jason Knight and the other members of the Guardians of the Dawn started going after the corrupt officers of the Paragon City Police Force, they had no idea how far up the corruption went, nor did they know just what those corrupt officers would do for retaliation. By Issue #3, Jason Knight was presumed dead and framed for the brutal murder of one of those corrupt officers.

But Jason didn’t go without setting up contingencies. His sidekick, Cardinal Syn, would soon pick up where he left off, creating her own task force of various heroes, including new heroes like Artema, Ally Kazam, and Streetangel, and with established heroes like the Elite Ice Queen, KDave, and the hero formerly known as Street Justice.

The series paused after Issue #5, with Cardinal Syn being taken into police custody after being supposedly betrayed by one of their own.

So the question is… what happened after that? Did the Task Force prevail? How did the conflict with the corrupt cops end?

Unfortunately circumstances forced us to pause the story for a few years, and by the time we were able to get back into “The City”, we were unable to bring back all the material we had previously set up. A big reason had to do with the new official licensing of City of Heroes Homecoming with NC Soft, which meant a lot of characters and bases had to be shelved and everything restarted new.

So the decision was made to finish telling the story, but only in text.

Starting with Issue #6, “Task Force Twilight” will be continuing as text-only backstories to the new “Galatea Powers” series, starting with “Galatea Powers” Issue #2 and continuing until Issue #5. Each backstory issue will continue the story as they were meant to be shown in comic format, but with words instead of images.

There is actually a history behind this. If you’ve ever read the first issues of “Action Comics” back in 1938, you’d know that Superman was only the first story. Beyond that were other stories, including those of Marco Pollo, “Pep” Morgan, and Tex Thompson, along with several text-only short stories. “Action Comics” back then was more of an anthology series than just focusing on one hero. Eventually, though, that changed, and Superman soon became the sole star. But the concept of anthology comics continued for decades after that, with one of the most famous of them being “Heavy Metal Magazine”, and DC even dabbled with anthology comics a few times with “Action Comics”.

But here, we’re using the opportunity to finish telling the tale of the events in Paragon City from 2017 to 2018, showing what happened to the heroes of Paragon City during that time between “Task Force Twilight” #5 and “Galatea Powers” #1.

“Galatea Powers” #2 is still in production, but stay tuned for updates on its release. In the meantime, be sure to visit your local comic shop and pick up the free comics they have to offer.