Seven Soldiers
Seven Soldiers is a 2005–2006 comic book metaseries written by Grant Morrison and published by DC Comics. It was published as seven interrelated mini-series and two bookend issues. The series features a new version of the Seven Soldiers of Victory fighting to save Earth from the Sheeda. The series has been interpreted as "an extended metafictional treatise on the writing and reading of comic books in general and the superhero genre in particular". Publication history Seven Soldiers started off as a different project which evolved over time. According to Morrison: The metaseries is bookended by Seven Soldiers #0 and #1, with art by J. H. Williams III. The rest was made up of seven mini-series: Shining Knight with art by Simone Bianchi, Manhattan Guardian with art by Cameron Stewart, Zatanna with art by Ryan Sook, Klarion with art by Frazer Irving, Mister Miracle with art by Pascal Ferry and Freddie Williams II, Bulleteer with art by Yanick Paquette, and Frankenstein with art by Doug Mahnke. Plot summary In the first issue of this story (which was part of a two-issue framework for the project), the Vigilante gathers together a new Spider (called "I, Spyder" and apparently the son of the original), Gimmix (the estranged daughter of Merry, the Girl of a Thousand Gimmicks), a new Boy Blue, Dyno-Mite Dan (owner of two "working fakes" imitations of the explosive rings of T.N.T. and Dan the Dyna-Mite), and the Whip (granddaughter of the Golden Age Whip). The team sets out to battle the Buffalo Spider (later on, the Sheeda are betrayed by Spyder in Seven Soldiers of Victory #1 in another nod to the original), only to be killed during an event known as the Harrowing. The seven miniseries follow seven other characters with indirect connections to the first group, each with their own art styles, genres, and character arcs. A central part of Morrison's idea for the current series is that, although the seven characters in question are each a part of the same struggle, they never actually meet (although there are references to each other in the various titles). Thus, the team is actually not a team. An explanation for this is presented in Manhattan Guardian and Zatanna. In the first, a man named Ed Starsgard (Baby Brain) tells Guardian that the Sheeda have been attacking humanity in periodic waves, taking everything of value (physical and mental) and leaving behind just enough for the survivors to rebuild for next time. It is prophesied that the Sheeda will eventually be stopped by seven soldiers, so they target teams of seven, including the Ultramarine Corps and the Justice League of America (JLA: Classified #1–3). However, because the Seven Soldiers have never met, they stand a chance of doing the job. In Zatanna, a ghost remarks that there are too many coincidences in the story and it feels like there is a "mystery string tying it all together". It eventually emerges that the Seven Unknown Men of Slaughter Swamp are driving the Seven