Question about The Specials

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I just saw a movie called the Specials, and many of the characters in it stirred up a weird sense of memory for me.

Particularly a character called Dead Girl who can teleport from place to place by entering the land of the dead, summon demons, and make animated skeletons.

The film is from 2000, and I don't think it was a comic book beforehand.

Does anyone know if there is a comic about those characters now or ever was/is a comic related to those characters?

 

[Skade]

Well, Dead Girl sounds vaguely like Magick from the New Mutants, but she never really raised the dead, and teleporting was her mutant power. She just happened to be also a Demon Lord somehow, and commanded demons.

 

[s/LaSH]

Any data on other characters? I'm not familiar with a Dead Girl or that specific power package (and haven't seen the movie).

Magick, I know, was Illyana Rasputin, Colossus' little sister, who got accidentally trapped in Mephisto's hell dimension for a decade during one issue of X-Men about 15-20 years ago. (After I was born, probably.) I don't know much more than that.

Wizard magazine doesn't list a Specials comic, although it doesn't list every comic ever printed, for what that's worth.

Neil Gaiman's Death was a rather nice goth girl, but she didn't really have ostentatious powers - she was just rather nice to talk to.

The only group referred to as the Specials in comicdom that I know of is a set of 113 super-powered beings from J. Michael Straczynski's Rising Stars comic. They were all, how you say, in their mother's stomachs (I can't say pregnant, it wasn't the kids who were pregnant - there's a flaw in the language!) at the time some cosmic event hit the small town. One of them can talk to the dead (and took to living on a mountaintop because it was quieter there), but he was (a) a guy and (b) not a 'porter.

So here's a big list of have-nots for you. But I'm no expert.

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

I do not have any answers for you, but I thought I would toss in the question of how was the movie?

 

[Zappo]

They were all, how you say, in their mother's stomachs (I can't say pregnant, it wasn't the kids who were pregnant - there's a flaw in the language!) at the time some cosmic event hit the small town.

In their mothers' womb. Definitely not stomach.

 

[Drawmack]

They were all, how you say, in their mother's stomachs (I can't say pregnant, it wasn't the kids who were pregnant - there's a flaw in the language!)

embrionic

 

[Mr Fidgit]

Does anyone know if there is a comic about those characters now or ever was/is a comic related to those characters?

i don't believe there was. i've read that the writer James Gunn is an avid comic book fan, but i haven't seen anything about The Specials that would indicate it was liscensed from an already-existing comic book

Gunn also worked for Troma films for some time, and most recently co-wrote the film Scooby Doo

 

[Klaus]

The Specials was about half a notch above the Justice League series pilot (GAH!).

There is a couple (the guy who played Ned in "Ned & Stacy" is the leader of the group) that act as leaders for the outcasts of superhero society. One member of the group (Rob Lowe) ditches the group for the highly-prestigious superhero media-darlings (led by Michael Weatherly, "Dark Angel"'s Logan).

The movie is basically talking heads, taking a very "independent comics" approach to superheroes. They only show off their powers in the last 5 minutes.

Oh, and Jamie Kennedy (the geek from Scream I, II and III) is all blue, Nightcrawler-style!

 

[Particle_Man]

2nd-class superheroes? Sounds a bit like "Mystery Men". Now the shoveler was a fun hero!

I never even heard of the Specials. was that direct-to-video? made-for-tv?

 

[Mr Fidgit]

it's a low budget indie film. i'm not sure if it was direct-to-video...it definitely wasn't made for TV (some adult language in the movie)