The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1086: Vext #6, August 1999

So, having spent 20 years or so searching for Vext, what is my final verdict?

It was, of course, worth the wait.

There's the obvious comedy of a deity who is Murphy's Law personified. But so much more comes of Vext's obliviousness to humanity. He doesn't know how to human, so to speak. Unlike many of his divine cohorts in the DCU, Vext appears to have spent little or no time in the human world. And rightly so - it's hard to imagine anyone worshipping a god of misfortune. What would a rite even look like? Successful only if it didn't go according to plan, perhaps?

There are, of course, the obligatory jokes about the series' cancellation being inevitable, and this raises for me an interesting idea: perhaps the series was only ever intended to run 6 issues, and all of the cancellation talk was merely set dressing. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing Keith Giffen has done. Regardless, Vext is well worth your time if you can track it down.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1085: Vext #5, July 1999

This is the one that I couldn't find, and now I've found it! Colleen finds out that Vext is a displaced god...just in time for the title to be cancelled next issue.

One of the great injustices of 90s DC, really.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1084: Vext #4, June 1999

You'll have to forgive me for the next few days. My wrist pain is not getting better, so typing is a bit more difficult than usual. I'll have to be brief. This was a good comics. Funny.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1083: Vext #3, May 1999

A word or two about the art of Vext. The series is very much in line with DC's house style of the mid-to-late nineties, inaugurated in such titles as JLA and Flash. I like the 90s DC style - it reminds me of the Marvel house style of the 80s that I've so recently looked at in Avengers, but with a slightly more sophisticated production quality. There's more bells and whistles you can add thanks to the assistance of computers.

I don't have a lot of Mr. McKone's art in the collection, a few pieces scattered here and there. I'm curious to see how his style translates to Marvel's less-iconic universe. Marvel's colour palette is very different from what we see in Vext, being somewhat dimmer, so it'll be neat to compare the relatively flashy look of Vext to his work with Mark Waid on Spider-Man, for example.

In today's issue, Vext, inevitably, eats a burger laced with a genetically engineered intelligent bacterium - that is digested fully by his god-like stomach, thus averting the worst viral outbreak in human history.

These things happen.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1082: Vext #2, April 1999

Spoiler warning!


The bad guy in this issue is a guy whose rage at Vext's excessively slow driving actually causes him to mutate and fuse with his car into a man-car hybrid full of anger at slow drivers.

A bit too close to home.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1081: Vext #1, March 1999

The cover date for this comic is March 1999 - I finished the series about 2 weeks ago.

It only ran 6 issues.

For the longest time, I was unable to find issue #5 of Vext. I would check every comic store I went to, every convention I attended, but few people had heard of the series, much less had any.

And yes, as my brother suggested, I could have easily found the fifth issue online somewhere, but that wouldn't have been any fun. As much as I love reading comics, hunting for them is fantastic as well. I mean, it's not called "collecting" comics for nothing. That thrill of the chase, searching for that one comic, be it expensive or not, that will satisfy a particular need, fill a particular gap in the collection. It's wonderful. I feel like getting the issue online would have been cheating.

So, since it's a relatively obscure title, here's the sitch: when his realm is closed due to lack of worship, Vext, god of misfortune and mishap, is relocated to Earth. He's basically the embodiment of Murphy's Law. There's some excellent jokes in this issue, a visit from Superman and Zauriel, and many, many demonstrations of Vext's particular influence on those around him. This series is really excellent, and at the time, cancelled after only 6 issues, I was quite angered that such a novel series was not being given the chance it needed. And this was in one of my favourite eras of DC. I think the title would fare much better now, perhaps as part of DC's Young Animal line.

Anyone know how I can get in touch with them?

To be continued.