TITLE: Armor Issue #3 – Deathwatch 2000 Prelude Issue #1
YEAR: April 1993
COMPANY: Continuity Comics
Story: Peter Stone
Pencils: Sal Velluto
Inks: Rudy Nebres
Colors: Paul Mounts
Letters: Jade Moede
In 1993, Continuity Comics made a splash with their foil covers and their major comic book crossover for “Deathwatch 2000″. As the comic book magazines were promoting this crossover, many people were not aware that the independent comic book company had been around since 1984.
This was before Image Comics started and made a big push for creative freedom and creator-owned characters, this was always a point of contention with comic book writers and artists who created characters and comic book companies would make money from these characters and there were no royalties.
Neal Adams did it in 1984 when he formed Continuity Comics (his work to unionize a creative community even goes farther back into the ’70s) and it was his outlet to creative freedom and with the title”Ms. Mystic” (originally published by Pacific Comics and then revived in 1987 with Continuity) and other titles and eventually working with other talents in the industry, especially writer Peter Stone, Continuity Comics was an independent comic book alternative to Marvel and DC.
In fact, 1987 was a major year as he won his battle with Marvel which returned his original artwork rights back to Neal Adams and also Jack Kirby.
One of the things that may confuse people about Continuity Comics is the numbering of the comics. While “Armor” has been around, this 1993 comic is issue #3, but it’s considered as “Armor Deathwatch 2000” Issue #1 (as mentioned in the opening credits).
The storyline is about how the Hybrids, troubled teens who felt alienated on their planets that are half human and half alien and powerful have come to Earth and live a new life.
But they are aware that Earth is suffering due to overpopulation, pollution, radiation, the destruction of the ozone layer, etc. and this self-inflicted destruction would culminate in the year 2000 known as Deathwatch.
Knowing the future of Earth’s demise, the Hybrids try to plead their case, going so far to take over the United Nations building, to no avail.
In this issue, super-powered individuals known as the Hell Benders begin attacking humanity and threaten to take the aircraft carrier “Thunder Bolt” to finish the problems in he Middle East.
Armor wants to go fight the Hell Benders and tries to get his fellow Hybrid superheroes to help, while the others want no part of it.
Meanwhile, watching this all unfold on the news is the mystical Warlock, a man who has sworn to no longer use his magic powers at it is destroying his own body.
This leads to Warlock donning his costume again and his magic makes him spin out of control. Warlock crashes into the Hybrids building and everyone goes in attack mode vs. Warlock.
Overall, “Armor” is an entertaining issue but truth be told, Continuity Comics were a pain to find. They were comics that were ordered sparingly and if you got one issue, you never know if you would find the next or the one before. To make matters worse, you didn’t know what issue to get next. In fact, the next two issues were “Deathwatch 2000 Issue 2, Armor Issue #9” and “Deathwatch 2000 Issue 3, Armor Issue #15). So, for those who were just starting to get into Continuity Comics because of what they saw on a comic magazine, probably got confused with the numbering system. And unfortunately, while there were electronic BBS, the Internet was not fully available to the public until a few years later.
The good news is that you can find Continuity Comics lots on eBay for cheap, if you want to read the storyline but it’s important to know that Continuity Comics, which started back in 1984, would unfortunately stop publishing in 1994.