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Here's something neat from the back pages of The Dragon #3 (of 5): a 'sketchbook' by Erik Larsen, detailing some of his work with Marvel. Naturally, this picture caught my attention; it's the lineup for the government X-Factor team (the successor group to Freedom Force), as proposed by Larsen and Fabian Nicieza.
On the right is Pyro, in an interesting new costume (with a nice concept for his flamethrower hoses; a much more practical design than the ones he's traditionally had, as they've always stuck out and been easily damaged). The X on his shoulder is also a unique look for him ;)
Believe it or not, the guy on the left is Crimson Commando in his original cyborg design. As Larsen writes: "He [Nicieza] suggested that we screw around with a character named the Crimson Commando and turn him into a half cyborg guy. Fabe sent me a drawing of a guy with a flag wrapped around his face at an angle and other oddly inspired components from various sources. I junked it from the neck down, straitened [sic] out the flag and gave it somewhat of a skull look and we had our new improved Commando (Fabian even went so far as to screw up the Crimson Commando in the pages of the X-Annuals...)"
Some may notice that this design for Commando is being used at Image for the character of SuperPatriot. Larsen explains that when the proposal fell through, he took the design over to Image and "created a new character to inhabit it". And Horridus, the spiky woman in the foreground, was also brought over --- at one point, she and SuperPatriot served together on the Image team Freak Force.
Presumably, the other two people shown here are Polaris (in her bulked up, non-magnetic phase) and Havok (?) --- Larsen doesn't actually mention anybody by name aside from Commando. He does note, however, that the eventual X-Factor lineup seemed to take elements from several proposals.
As people may have guessed, this proposal didn't win, and Peter David got the book. As much as I enjoyed his run on X-Factor, I would have loved to have seen the take on the former FF guys as they worked on a new team and in a totally different environment, with new comrades...as it is, Commando has since fallen into obscurity, and Pyro languished and died with the Legacy virus. But they could have had so much more, unfortunately.
In response to this picture, Mathew R. Ignash wrote: "I actually met Erik at a comic signing before he left Marvel for Image. He showed me a black and white sketch that was not the one you show, but had a similar theme. It looked amazingly like the cover of Freak Force #1.
His X-Factor team in this picture was Polaris, Havok, Guido, Wolfsbane, Horridus, and the Crimson Commando. The pic was almost identical to the cover of Freak Force #1, with Polaris as Rapture, Havok as Mighty Man, Guido as Barbaric, Horridus as Horridus and Crimson Commando as SuperPatriot. He explained how Horridus was supposed to be a former Morlock. In the version I saw, he had returned Polaris to having magnetic powers because Guido was the team brick."
Perhaps the X-Factor which saw print owed more to Erik Larsen than we might have thought. What interests me most about this lineup is that Commando was again a part of it; this, as well as Larsen's printed comments, suggests that he really was a serious contender for the new government team, and makes me curious as to why Peter David didn't use him. Those who have read Incredible Hulk #369 might remember that David wrote him in a fairly sympathetic manner, and clearly considered him one of the more human members of Freedom Force.
Thanks for the details, Mathew!
