(NOT) FAILED-PROJECT (AND NOT ON) FRIDAY: An actually successful comics proposal, part 2! (Patreon)

Wellp, just found out that I can't post the time-lapse Life Drawing video I intended to put up today, as Patreon wants a URL or link for video content, as opposed to the Procreate MP4 on my hard drive.

So, I'm hastily swapping in part 2 of my original pitch for the 2004 miniseries Livewires, following up from a recent post.

In an unusual break from the usual format of Failed-Project Friday, this time I'm going to feature a comic pitch that was, in fact, successful. Go figure! (Also, I'm being forced to post this sucker on a Tuesday, to even further break from the format.)

What follows is the second half of my proposal for the 2004 Marvel miniseries Livewires, though the project's initial title was Livewire, singular; you'll also notice a few other minor differences along those lines, such as Social Butterfly's original supranym (mechanym?) originally being Persona Grata, as opposed to persona non grata. (Note that the Livewires were originally supposed to be able to alter their appearances at will, a concept I wound up dropping purely for reasons of narrative clarity.)

And now, without further ado:

“LIVEWIRE”

MINISERIES PROPOSAL by Adam Warren (part 2)

So the posthuman operatives of Project LIVEWIRE are a colorful bunch, needless to say. They’re constantly online, wirelessly sharing sensory feeds and communicating via a “group intranet” while also accessing and exploiting the greater Internet. They’re very smart, very self-aware, very much unlike the cliché of the socially challenged, clueless machine (as in STAR TREK’s Data)… though, as Persona Grata notes, “our human creators, generally among the socially challenged themselves, tended to get uncomfortable when we behaved more believably as humans than they could.” Now, while the Livewires generally behave and interact among each other like humans, complete with in-joke-laden banter and distinct, individuated personality types, we can also sense the implacable, ruthless, utterly inhuman “machine intelligence” underlying their behavior. This trait becomes noticeable with their callous disregard for their own lives and safety as they throw themselves into one deadly situation after another. This ties into the fact that they’ve been inflexibly programmed by their human creators for absolute loyalty… But, as the “big twist” at the miniseries’ ending makes clear, the Livewires’ loyalty programming had a lethal side-effect that their human masters failed to anticipate.

The events: As mentioned earlier, the miniseries starts with our posthuman protagonists on the road, carrying out the first of several consecutive strikes on secret research programs deemed, er, “unredeemable” by Project LIVEWIRE’s renegade human leadership. Complicating each mission is the fact that the Livewires must conceal their involvement, requiring ruses such as faking disastrous accidents at facilities or planting forensic evidence implicating other groups, whether AIM, Hydra, supervillains or even superheroes. The shadowy, paranoia-ridden nature of the ultra-tech underworld they inhabit does aid the operatives in keeping their covert war hidden, though.

The dangerous nature of the group’s work is driven home almost immediately as Stem Cell, just barely activated and still unsure of what’s happening, watches the Livewires scavenging (and, in Cornfed’s case, literally cannibalizing) spare parts from the dying body of the catastrophically damaged operative she’s replacing. As powerful, intelligent and resourceful as the teammates may be, they’re still fighting alone and without support against even more intimidating enemies…

The miniseries begins and ends with extended action setpieces taking place at different targeted facilities, with, perhaps, several shorter missions in between. Such as:

*A secret facility that has been entirely consumed by the bizarre “pseudomatter” entity that it was studying, so that when the Livewire operatives infiltrate the complex, they’re soon trapped inside a lethal, shape-changing macro-organism the size of a small town. The constructs’ nanomechanical nature becomes quite relevant, here, as after being consumed by the “pseudomatter” creature, they try to seize control of it from inside…

*An assault on an AIM splinter-group facility happens at precisely the wrong time… Namely, simultaneously with a heavy-duty SHIELD raid on the same base. This leads to a twisted and confused Ruby Ridge/Waco replay, only with the besieged wielding homebrewed superweapons and the SHIELD besiegers fielding a monstrous Helicarrier and assorted mecha, while the Livewires try to finish their mission and somehow escape undetected.

*A federal plea bargain deal has forced supervillainous supragenius wackjob “The Mad Thinker” into performing research for, yes, a secret quasi-governmental program. Even while kept drugged and strictly controlled (to a Hannibal Lecter-ish degree), ol’ “MT” still has a few tricks up his sleeve… By the time Los Livewires infiltrate the project, all hell’s about to break loose… as in, Androids! Androids! Androids!

*In the final mission of the miniseries, our heroes must target the most unusual operation so far… that is, a shape-changing bus. Huh? Said vehicle, however, contains a miniature “pocket universe” housing a sprawling, enormous (as in miles across) research facility derived from extra-dimensional alien technology. The Livewires’ attempt to infiltrate this operation, though, goes quite seriously awry… Cue the mayhem, dismemberment and rapid-fire plot twists.

Also, throughout the story we see brief scenes set at Project LIVEWIRE’s (predictably) secret base, via a series of video clips reviewed by Stem Cell. These clips show us stages of the operatives’ development and assembly, and also allow for some stirring speeches and extended rationalizations by the human leaders of the project, as they try to justify their decision to unleash their creations on other, presumably more noisome secret projects. This is all set-up for the ending, when Stem Cell (and what remains of her teammates) returns to the LIVEWIRE “base ops”… and she uncovers the nasty twist behind the operative’s loyalty programming.

So, there you go. The miniseries is heavy on the high-tech wonders and high-test action, with a somewhat skewed character approach, given that the leads are intensely self-aware, effectively doomed machines only pretending to be human. None of them share the cliched android trope of wanting to be human, by the way; if anything, they’re well aware that artificial, theoretically immortal lifeforms like themselves are an almost certain evolutionary step beyond humanity. T’hell with mutants, when machine intelligence and nanotechnology are far more likely to spawn replacements for the human race.

Side note: Between the Mannites and Project LIVEWIRE was an even more disastrous attempt at artificial life, Project EMERGENT, which resulted in hyperintelligent, hyperevolving nanomonstrosities that went renegade within seconds of being created… Hence the Livewires’ draconian loyalty programming and highly limited nanoware. If there’s another miniseries, the insanely powerful and treacherous products of Project EMERGENT will become a factor…) There’s a certain degree of humor amidst the action and carnage, but it’s fairly black humor at that, given the Livewires’ fatalistic and pragmatically “not-long-for-this-world” outlook. Well, hope the concept appeals to you.

<END OF PART 2, and END OF PROPOSAL>

So, yeahp, quite a few differences in the potential stories, you'll notice, with that closing paragraph re: "Project EMERGENT" more or less having appeared in an altered form in the later miniseries Iron Man: Hypervelocity. (Well, sorta.)

BTW, here's a link to an interesting piece re: my SF projects for Marvel, including a section on Livewires. Yay?

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: My choice to go "every weekday" to close out the last full week of April has really bit me in the butt, so I'm not sure what the heck will be up next. Might be either more Distressed Damsel content or the finished version of a test illo I'm doing for The Chaste and the Chained:

Guess we'll find out tomorrow, right? Right.