Lenovation’s Section 12 and More

     

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.)

 

 

 

Lenovations Press is an Adventure in Reading

Len Mihalovich is a comic book writer, publisher, editor, letterer, and digital artist, awell as the founder of Lenovations Press. He has worked for a number of Independent Comic publishers over the years, creating his fair share of super-hero adventures.  In 2014, he founded Lenovations Press to create his own Indie Comic titles. These titles include The Adventures of Track Suit Man, a comedy based on real social media events, Fantastic Fan Boys Adventures, Avenger New Blood and others. Most recently, Lenovations Press has branched out into Westerns and golden age characters with their new Edge of Adventure line. However, he and Lenovations are perhaps best known for his work the ‘90s comics series Section 12 and its offshoots Section 12 (Flashback), Section 12 (Declassified), and Section 12 (Lost Adventures).

The backstory of Section 12 is that the facility is a research program much on the order of the “research facility” we all saw on Stranger Things, and elsewhere in fiction.  It operates as a top-secret government installation designed to conceal the world’s most dangerous scientific mistakes. Imagine if the government was attempting something to Marvel Comics’ Project Wide Awake program where the U.S. government was attempting to create the Super Soldier serum, only there were more mishaps than successes. Here—in Section 12—all of the failed experiments and their strange, often terrifying results are hidden away from the world at large.

Every trace of the existence of these so-called “mishaps” is wiped clean, and the survivors are each locked away with no chance of ever being released or acknowledged.  Their facility’s “retrieval team” is made up of super-powered beings who are blackmailed into service and forced to bring back others like them. Failed experiments deemed too dangerous to remain free.

Then in 2025, Len decided to take his storytelling to the next level and bring some of his comicbook characters into prose with a novel simply entitled Section 12. What he did, was for all intents and purposes, was to retell the story of Section 12 that he had been telling in the comics, but with much more detail and depth than was possible in the comics. Something that he does with style, grace, finesse and talent. The novel is the tale of Lieutenant Michael Batterson—once a proud soldier—who awakens to a nightmarish reality as one of the hidden failures of the program and finds himself trapped in a place where the line between man and monster blurs.

It is during an outbreak of interred subjects, the Lieutenant is tapped to lead a team of other subjects to subdue and detain those that are rioting, and to do so before any of them actually break free from the confines of the facility and make their way into the unsuspecting outside world. This is where Michael must fight to reclaim his own humanity.

So now Lieutenant Batterson must navigate the dark corridors of Section 12, where secrets are as deadly as the creatures they imprison. With each step deeper into the vast facility, the horrors of the place multiply, and the stakes increase. Prisoners of the secret facility must choose either to accept the fate imposed on them rise against their captors or accept Batterson’s offer to side with him and hope for a more lenient sentence and possibly join his newly formed containment team. However, their escape comes with a price, and the outside world is simply not prepared for what will be unleashed if any of the inmates actually escape.

If you are already a fan of Lenovations comicbooks (as are we) or specifically the Section 12 comics, you’ll really want to seek out not just the Section 12 novel but all of the Section 12 comics as well. Oh heck, go ahead and sample comics from across the entire run of Lenovations comics and books. Also, Len makes numerous appearances at various comicbook shows, and also has plenty of comics and books on hand

 

Tales from Section 12 & Beyond

Recently we were at a local comicbook show where we reconnected with Len Mihalovich, a comicbook writer/creator who penned several stories for various titles for Mythic Comics & Entertainment Group. These days he helms his own publishing corner of the Indieverse with Lenovations Press, and we not only caught up on old times, but we also picked up three of his comics at the show; Avenger New Blood #1, Fantastic Fan Boys Adventures #1, and Section 12 Antarctic Special #1 Search for Tomorrow with Tomorrow Girl.

Section 12 was created by Len Mihalovich in 1994 and published first by Dilemma Productions as part of an anthology and then in its own series from Mythic Comics. 

Avenger New Blood resurrects the legacy of the Golden Age (formerly Magazine Entertainment, now Public Domain) character, Avenger. In the first story of the issue, we meet wealthy scientist Roger Wright who became the superhero Avenger to retaliate against the Soviet agents who tortured and killed his brother. While the Avenger had no powers, he does have his own inventions on which to fall back, most notably his VTOL aircraft, Starjet and Dissolver pistol. The Avenger also possessed a utility belt containing items for almost any occasion. The first tale is from the past where Avenger and his (not sidekick, but personal filmographer) Martin “Booker Roberts, but we, for the purpose of this story are focused on Avengers granddaughter, Erica, who, though a criminal, is apparently being recruited to be the New Avenger, hence the “new Blood” aspect of the story..

Fantastic Fan Boys Adventures is about four young friends who join forces to fight evil with the greatest weapon of all, their imaginations and the comics they create to fight crime, and all before dinner. That’s the premise of this comic. As comic fans seem to have a knack for diving deep into the worlds they adore, dissecting characters and stories to apply real-world logic to comic-book science. These four friends not only create characters and scenarios, but then, once the talk has been played out, the other members do their best to dissect the tale as presented. In this issue, we discover the Fanboys’ origin stories, meet our newest hero, the Living Rocket, and witness the return of Track Suit Man. All told, it’s a wonderful comic full of adventures you’ll want to read.

The third book we scored from Len was Section 12 Antarctic Special which kicks off a three-issue miniseries with Antarctic Press and brings Ben Dunn’s character Tomorrow Girl into Lenovations Section 12 series of comics. According to a statement from Lenovations Press, “We are thrilled to unveil our first ever mini-series that brings together two comic book universes.” This collaboration has Tomorrow Girl — a fan-favorite character from Antarctic Press — teaming up with Lenovations’ super-team, Section 12.

Created by Ben Dunn, Tomorrow Girl first appeared in Antarctic Press’ Ninja High School V2 #1 as part of the Tomorrow Man family and the Ninja High School universe. Tomorrow Girl (Heidi) is 16 years old and attends Quagmire High School. Section 12 follows a top-secret government project employing super-powered individuals to contain scientific failures. With this three-issue crossover, Tomorrow Girl (in her own universe) goes up against a robot operated by a Professor Von Zoot, and gets tossed out of her own universe and into Section 12’s.

The fun part of this crossover is partly from the fact that in her own book, she is rendered in a very cartoony style, however, while in Section 12’s, she is depicted in a more realistic image. Unfortunately for her, once the universe shift, occurs, one of the monstrous, killer robots follows her into Section 12’s world and continues to weak havoc. Once she stops the robot, she is interviewed by a less than reputable reporter who casts Tomorrow Girl as a rogue alien who came here to attack the citizens of Earth. Fortunately, members of Section 12 see the broadcast and already know that the reporter is more interested in scandalous reporting than facts, and vow to track down Tomorrow Girl and resuscitate her heroic nature.

These books are  not only all ages, but pure fun, and (for us at the very least) harken back to an era of the entertaining comics of our youth which were there for the fun read, and not over-dubbed with any sort of agenda save that of heroes helping regular folks.