FORGOTTEN FOES

Get ready for the dark side. The two creative teams responsible for Lastikman, Kapitan Boom, Varga, Tiny Tony, Dragonna, and the upcoming Flash Bomba will team up bringing you “Isang Lakas.”

“We’ve been thinking about putting all the Mars Ravelo’s superheroes that ABS-CBN has into a team since early 2007,” says Komik’s writer Ays De Guzman “Ang tagline namin as we do the story is, Isa para sa Lahat, Lahat para sa Isa. So this is really a teamwork type of story…it’ll be interesting kasi to see these different types of characters tapos hahatakin mo silang lahat and make them into a team. Panigurado may mga magka-clash dyan, mag-aaway, maiin-love…maganda yung mix and there’s a lot we can do about it.”

The series is planned to be released during the 1st quarter of 2009. Old becomes new again in Isang Lakas as a new threat arises from the old. “For this series there will be a new threat that the team will face…kasi as the western type of supervillains rose from their individual adventures or series, tulad nila Agaddon from Lastikman, who is an alien, Hector in Kapitan Boom, who is this corporate villain much like Lex Luthor, may mga nahimbing or nakalimutan na na mga kalaban ang mga pinoy superheroes…as they faced Agaddon, Hector and others, the superheroes essentially thought na wala ng threat that could come from these Forgotten Foes. But of course they were wrong.” Ays said.

So the next question will be who are these so called Forgotten Foes? “Well if you guys have seen the old Pinoy Superhero Movies, you’ll know who and what they are.” Ays teases. Isang Lakas is said to be going back to the root of Pinoy Superhero Mythology. Much of today’s pinoy superhero stories have been influenced one way or another by their western counter parts. Whilce Portacio (co-founder of Image Comics) has said that there isn’t much Real True Filipino Stories in pinoy comic books these days. Granted that Isang Lakas is not a comic book but the effort to be truly pinoy is one of the team’s goals. “Folklore is a big factor in our culture, which is also true in every country in Asia. That’s the difference we have from the west, so we’re taking a big scoop of that and adding it to the series” Ays said.

“Isang Lakas is not a comic book, but we are treating it like one. The individual adventures of the superheroes like Lastikman, Dragonna etc, those are their One Shot Graphic Novels and Isang Lakas is basically a big Crossover Event, so this means yung Episodic theme medyo mapapalitan ng Arcs. The episodic theme kasi tends to be repetitive, kaya we’ll be doing the arcs. Halimbawa, this story arc plot leads to this next arc which leads to the next hanggang sa marating yung big story.” Ays adds. The structure is what the western comic book publishers are now doing. For example in Marvel, their crossover event Civil War led to the next event which is Secret Invasion which again led to the next event in 2009, Dark Reign.

Isang Lakas will be the first superhero team and the fourth superhero crossover event that ABS-CBN has done. The first crossover event was in Krystala, second was in Super Inggo, third was in Super Inggo 1.5 Ang Bagong Bangis and now Isang Lakas. For his parting words Ays said “Isang Lakas is for the fans who have always been there for us…we are working very hard for them to enjoy this one so sana abangan ito at suportahan. Please talk about Isang Lakas in your blogs, forums, messages, everywhere. We need you help. Isa para sa Lahat, Lahat para sa Isa.”