When Jim Shooter published Warriors Of Plasm little did anyone realise the implications that were made by this move. Shooter, having just been ousted from Valiant, the company he had run as his own personal fiefdom, was desperate to grab some market share, and prove that he could come right back at his (supposed) detractors. So Plasm was a political machination, a vanity project so intrinsically bereft that it was obvious to all that the comic itself was not the point. Marvel, who got the point, sued over copyright as they had a nothing title called Plasmer. It was an act of pitiless and petty vengeance. In the end Defiant folded after 12 months, but not before producing the Worst Mainstream Comic Ever, Plasm 1 - a comic so obnoxious and worthless one could imagine it was designed to make one vomit. Copiously.

So what, indeed, (apart from the fact that I enjoy raking over such tawdriness) does Com X’s opening salvoes have to do with the aforementioned atrocity? Well, to be fair none of them plumb such depths. The unlearned lesson is that to have the product on the racks is no cause for self-congratulation. And my alarm bells started ringing the moment the artist of one of these books referred to a colleague as a "visionary"- surely a word whose meaning has been hacked to pieces from overuse. In the publishers quest for high production values, (which are far more accessible now anyway) serious adult content and filmic glossiness, they’ve left behind the storytelling and characterisation. Can I be a visionary too?

Puncture, (the pick of the bunch) by Uttley and Oliver, looks fine due to excellent colouring and use of light, but makes very little, if any sense. Having (presumably) overdosed on Sienkewicz, Muth, Miller’s Sin City tract and a raft of dreary Vertigo-alikes, the creators (another word that’s lost its’ buzz) felt that it was acceptable to shoehorn a load of incongruous plot-strands into a 20 page comic. Couple this with po-faced, fragmented dialogue, and one is left with a confusing, empty mess. Ambitious it may be, but the information overload, obscurist graphics and pounding, Vorticist lettering end up as mere fripperies. Just what the hell is going on? Essentially it’s an ultraviolent battle scene crosscut with a rape/fight in a dark alley and that’s it. One feels there should be more, but the narrative devices are shallow, nonsensical and riotously funny. Shome mishtake, shurely? No. The creators mean every bit of it, mate. Nevertheless, not without promise. More focus (and less gimmicks) would improve matters considerably.

Up next there’s Bazooka Jules, by Googe. Again, this product is too genre specific, suffering as it does from amateurish, sub Jamie Hewlett art and pointlessly derivative dialogue. Clearly aimed at a different readership to Puncture, Bazooka Jules is a very straightforward, banal tale of a maverick, leather clad superhero who nicks valuable information from corporations. On a mission, he narrowly avoids colliding with the girl (Jules), and for no reason whatsoever, sends out a mechanised gnat to imbue her with powers to stave off The Man. The in- school dialogue is patronising and twee, and the narrative stings are so relentless that it’s difficult to say who it’s aimed at. Just prior to the baddies’ invasion of her school, Jules declaims "Our lives are sooooo boring. Same thing day in day out. Just once I wish I could have some real adventures..." Gee, I wonder what happens next. Perhaps the ultimate in wish fulfilment cliche, this sentence neatly encapsulates the dated feel of a comic that, (its’ publishers hope) will win over prospective readers in a very tough marketplace. Not trendy- less dumbing down would help.

And finally (god help us all) there is the mighty, massively overblown Razorjack, by John Higgins. Shoving two or three ribald storylines into one unworkable tale, this comic throws everything against the wall in the vain hope that it might stick. Once again (aargh) here’s the plot- a sinister bunch of hooded, cultish zombie- types are preying on itinerants in New York. A couple of ‘tecs are on the case. Meanwhile in the Nexus, some weird shit is going down. Everything converges at the end for one immense hoedown involving a lot of aliens surging into NYC after experiencing a rebirth. Or a powerplay. Or something. All of them are naked and talk complete bollocks.

Sounds flippant? It should do, as (with the exception of the two tecs on the zombie trail, which was presentable) this was the most nebulous, over the top, pretentious pile of cobblers I’ve read since the bleedin’ ark. Granted, the art was passable, and it was unintentionally amusing, but it’s hard to be charitable in the face of such vain self-indulgence. Equivocation is impossible here. For christ’s sake, these people need some editors who’ve had experience working with the big players, who can enforce balance and make things cohere and gel. Despite this, the worst thing was that the story was absurdly hard to follow.