Einsatzgruppe Deutschland And D-Gruppe -Germany's Premiere Super Team...

....This might get a little confusing!

It is rather interesting seeing the pages of Task Force Germany (Einsatzgruppe Deutschland) posted by Subzero over at Tales From The Kryptonian.  This is art by Subzero's brother, Enrique Ruiz who, as far as I know, does not have a blog or web page?

Thor -painted by Arthur Rackham c. 1910

There is the question, that I'm sure people will ask, of why another team of super heroes was needed for Germany?  

My mind.  That's the answer.  You see, I get idea after idea after idea flash through my head day and night. At times I make quick notes.  At other times perhaps a sketch and a name.  If I actually wrote and drew every idea I had I would have no time to sleep but if I continued in comics I have enough ideas to last the next twenty years (like I'm going to live that long!).

D-Gruppe was created when I was a youngster in Germany in the 1960s.  By now the characters would be in their 80s or 90s so I only count their aging based on first printed appearance which would be in the 1980s (Prentiss, "The Mummy" dates back to 1985).  So they will get older.  No re-boots!  We can count D-Gruppe as being the German Avengers. Task Force Germany would be, sort of, like Alpha Flight or the Defenders with a mixed roster but low profile compared to D-Gruppe whose members have been featured in documentaries, comics (ridiculous!) and even made into action figures.

D-GRUPPE THE ZEIT GEIST SAGA brings the team up to 1995 while The Trial takes place in 1996. And it has not been the history I had planned since by now the Days Of Terror would have been at least ten years ago.

This is the blurb for the collected book:

"Germanys first super heroes have fumbled along since the “Externsteine Event” 

"One day something crashes into forestry followed by a “white out” event and the appearance of the Pied Piper of Hameln and then the appearance Frederick Barbarossa seemingly out of history at D-Gruppe headquarters and his calling them into action. At the Place of the Gods, D-Gruppe meets heroes from other German parallels –all targeted and some destroyed by a seemingly all powerful being known as “Zeitgeist” and the race is on to find and stop “It” But there is a traitor amongst the heroes. 

They were Germanys first. Germanys best heroes. But will they live long enough to succeed in their task? This book collects together the first adventure of D-Gruppe –Revenge Of The Ice Queen– along with the three part Zeitgeist saga and the 2012 annual that concluded the German super hero epic!"

The Trial saw a few of D-Gruppe's members put on trial in the Cosmic Fulcrum while those left behind team up with other (non-German) BTC heroes to investigate and...fight a number of threats.  I am currently re-lettering this.

The Narri Narro was a D-Gruppe adventure "after" a major event in the team's history.  Narri Narro is an annual German festival -folklore, myth, festivities, costumes ....so why not?  These pages were uploaded to the Yahoo D-Gruppe page as well as Comic Art Fans and Art Wanted back in...2007!!

Someone I knew wanted to draw the story but there were a few problems so I drew some rough layouts.  These are they!




 

There are also a couple scripts that artists specifically asked for so they could draw D-Gruppe.  One said 7 pages was hard work....and gave up.  The second actually raved about the story but said he had decided to write comics instead -"Do you mind if I change character names and use the story?"  I said "No problem.  I could use the money I'll get from suing your ****** ass!"

But here is where Task Force Germany come in: they have Thor (yeah, let Marvel/Disney sue over that because they do not worry be at all) -the traditional long red hair/beard Thor of the Norse legends.  It's been established that Evangeline from D-Gruppe "may" be some type of goddess ("I'm not supposed to talk about that").  We know that Waldmeister has some sort of deity connection and as his brother is Meer Peter (Sea Peter) who was due to make a comeback a while ago, the idea was that Thor would see Waldmeister and literally go ballistic -the reason I'm not telling!- which leads in to the tradional super hero groups....FIGHT!

As it is we have seen the more contemporary D-Gruppe in Return Of The Gods and in that team leader Kopfmann and some team members vanish while chasing a UFO. a few years have passed and D-Gruppe and Task Force Germany are active during the Green Skies event.

So we can guess that there has been no team clash yet....but it is coming!   And we have to learn what happened to Kopfmann and co.

Task Force Germany may well replace "Germany's Premiere Super Team"....now that could be interesting.