Lenovations, the Indie comicbook
company from Len Mihalovich recently announced that they will start being distributed
through Philbo Distribution. “Lenovations Press has officially entered comic
shop distribution through Philbo Distribution, beginning with Section 12 #1.
The 48-page issue is currently available for retailer orders in Philviews
Catalog #16, with a Final Order Cutoff of December 1 and an in-store date
of January 13, 2027.” The Section 12 series was created by Len in ‘94
and first published by Dilemma
Productions as part of an anthology from that company. It then appeared in
its own series from Mythic
Comics. The Section 12 series told us about super-powered individuals who
are being forced to work for a secret government agency that’s keeping
scientific failures from the public eye.
Given all that above, we’d like to
begin this slate of reviews by writing about Section 12 (Megasize)
Flashback; 2025 (which reprints the first four issues of the
Flashback series, which originally appeared in 2018). This series presents us with
the origins of the secret governmental organization tasked with housing the
results of botched scientific experimentation. While some of you may have
caught these stories the first time around (not me), others (like me) may have read
Len’s prose novelization of those issues which he published in 2025. Here we
learn that Army Lieutenant Michael Batterson had volunteered for a special
project that unfortunately turned him into a monster Hulk-like creature full of
rage. Even though he was given a suppressor drug, it only lasts for about nine
hours, and then he reverts into his (now) natural state.
The complex is under the command
of the iron-willed Whitney Thorne who promptly puts Batterson to work when a
breakout at the facility occurs. Over the course of those first four issues,
Batterson cobles together a team of the “rejects” so that they can travel
around the U.S. to corral other “mistakes” and cart them back to the Section 12
facility. We had previously reviewed the novel here.
A second comic we have here is Section 12 Lost
Adventures #8
(which gives us a back story from the team’s past. This particular story,
titled Road Rash Dash has the Section 12 team become characters in a
videogame in order to beta test some new security software. Once inside the
game, they must free themselves by racing each other and face strange but
familiar foes in a bizarre virtual world. Truthfully, this is a rather off-beat
issue, but not entirely without its own charm.
Next up is Lenovations
Press Unmasked (2025) which is a first character directory that features
nearly 100 character profiles, exploring heroes, villains, and supporting casts
of the Lenovations universe (much akin to the versions developed by Marvel, DC,
and other comicbook companies. This edition covers characters from Section
12, Edge of Adventure, guest characters, and more.
The Lenovations
comic Uneven
Ground #1
goes in a very different direction in that it delivers a pair of historic stories
from WWII about a Colonel Draža Mihailović (who may or may not be related to
Len), who fought for Yugoslavia against the Germans. Based on true events, this
powerful debut comic follows the resistance leader who fights against an
overwhelming force, even though his country has already fallen to the invader.
So, without a king, an army, or even a country behind him, Colonel Mihailović
led his rag-tag forces (comprised of solders, farmers, and townspeople against the
Axis. One man who refused to surrender but chose to stand up and fight. Giving us
a nearly forgotten chapter of WWII comes to life in this stirring first issue.
The comic delivers two tales, a new one, as one that was reprinted from Real Heroes #6 from 1942.
The final
comic we’ll be discussing here is The Edge of Adventure (Mega) #1
which is an anthology comicbook that explores westerns, public-domain heroes,
golden age crimefighters, historical tales, and standalone adventures outside
of their main Section 12 universe. This particular issue collects the
first four issues of the regular title featuring the Old West historical
figure, Buffalo Bill, and his traveling show. These stories are written in a
much lighter vein than the Section 12 stories, and offer up un-apologetically
historically inaccurate, tales that are filled with wild west action, circus
freaks and strange adventures. What we are treated to are stories where Bill
assists the local law enforcement to solve a strange case in which three
unrelated town’s people have robbed the local bank. Then one where Bill and the
Wild West Show find themselves facing a very dangerous monster. And finally, a
story that has Bill and his allies face their most dangerous ambush as they set
a trap to stop an armored stagecoach on a rampage across Colorado.
All the
stories from these comics, as well as other Lenovations Press comics (which I reviewed
over
here) are all highly entertaining and thoroughly engaging, all of which
helps bolster our initial point that Indie comics are every bit as readable as
corporate comics, and quite often better, as Indie books are driven by story
and content not marketing, so are often simply better as they are singularly
driven by their creators and not some marketing team, or creators who have
simply “inherited” the characters adventures decades after the original
creators have moved on or forgotten by the company that now owns them. (No
disrespect meant to the creators themselves.)
