Monger

Monger is the name of a limtied comic series from the Heroes of the Void Universe. Written by Ezekiel Rage, the comic focuses on the 10th generation of the titular character and his adventures

The title premiered on Monday, October 1st 2012 alongside two other Books - Nightfighter and Raven/Black Shadow - and is the only comic on the site that is a photonovel, featuring real people as characters. The book was completed on September 27th with issue 3.

There are three shortfilms based on a previous version of the character.

Generation IX
The Agent is patroling her city when she witnesses a young girl being followed by a rogue Shadowclan clone. The Agent follows the clone and when the clone attacks the girl the agent intervenes. The clones tries to run but the Agent uses her powers tostop im and slam him against a wall. She turns his own gun into a bal of metal and feeds it to the clone before she turns the metal into a spike, impaling the clone through the head. The Agent tells the young girl to be safe as she heads off.

When a woman is kidnapped by the Shadowclan to lure out the Agent, a meeting is arranged in a parking garage. The Agent however quickly realises it is a trap and kills the clones, leaving only the dirver alive. Knowing that there is a bomb in the trunk, the Agent tells the driver to bring ehr to the girl. At an old cottage in the middle of nowhere, the Agent dispatches the clones guarding the girl before rescuing the girl. The driver meanwhile tries to escape but is blown up by his own bomb, something the Agent witnesses when she takes the woman home.

When the Agent is overwhelmed by a bunch of clones, she is taken hostage and brought before the Phantom, leader of the Shadowclan. The Phantom has a device that blocks her from using her powers and makes her an offer to join him or die. She refuses and is killed by the Phantom. Some time later, the Phantom is killed in return by the Generation X Agent.

Generation X
On October 12th 2018 the Generation X Monger is fighting some goons in a street in Baltimore to find information about a young girl named Joanna Reed who was kidnapped by the Shadowclan, a secret organisation. The sole survivor is Hank Masters and to save his life he spills the beans. The Monger actually lets him live and heads to the location described by Masters, a private parking garage below a church. But Masters contacted his boss and the entire garage is now filled with goons and clones. A fight ensues and the Monger takes out all the enemies except one clone. This one clone tells him that a new guy is now head of the Shadowclan and he is right behind Monger.

The Monger spots a blonde hair on the guy behind him who is dressed in a black robe. They fight and the Monger loses but the Phantom does not kill him. When the cops arrive they both escape. As the Monger heads back to base he ponders what he has learned. Meanwhile the Phantom demands a strange device from his engineer.

The next night, Monger heads back out to the city to find more out about the case. When he witnesses a cop checking the ID of a woman he realizes where his train of thought went wrong. To make sure of his theory he asks the cop if all people born in the city are recorded on the city mainframe and can theoretically be looked up easily. The answer is of course yes so the Monger thanks the officer and heads off.

In the basement of City Hall he then meets the Phantom again. He reveals that the Phantom is in fact Joanna Reed and she is the daughter of the previous Phantom - the very same girl that was saved from a rogue clone by the Generation IX Monger Agent. She is using an EMP device to delete all data from the city mainframe so that nobody can connect her to her father. A fight ensues and the Monger wisn, revealing that he found it out because she spared his life when she learned he is looking for her. But she tells him she will lead the Shadowclan and he better kill her. He complies.

Characters

 * Monger Agent IX
 * Monger Agent X
 * Joanna Reed
 * Clones
 * The Phantom

Development
The comic was originally conceived as a series of short films. During production however, it was decided to instead use screengrabs of the video to create a photo comic, since a few special effects were needed that would have been too expensive to film, mostly the scenes where multiple clones are figting at the same time.

The comic was originally planned to be 5 issues, each shortfilm would have been one issue. However it was decided to trim the comic down to three issues because the flow of a comic is different from the flow of a video. A minute in film can easily be compressed to two panels in a comic. Because of that, three issues were a much better option.

After the comic was completed, it was decided to go ahead with one shortfilm based on a previous incarnation of the characters. But after seeing how the theme translated so well to video, two more shortfilms were created to tell the story of the 9th generation Monger, with generation 10 featured in a small cameo at the end of the third short. All three shortfilms can be watched here.

Artists
The entire comic is a photocomic. So technically there are no artists in the title. The book was written by Ezekiel Rage who also stars a the Monger. Other characters are mimed by friends.