Steampunk / Comic Books

Steampunk in comic books.

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• 2000 AD:
  • The series Defoe and The Red Seas contain elements of this style, typically leaning towards the clockpunk variant, given the Restoration and Age of Piracy settings, respectively. Defoe actually include primitive automatons explicitly referred to as "Clock Punks", presumably in reference to the term.
  • The Nemesis the Warlock storyline "The Gothic Empire" featured a far-future empire which modeled its technology with a heavy steampunk aesthetic. We are introduced to a rebel faction known as the "Young Goths," who, inspired by mid-20th century television broadcasts, wish to remodel their culture along dieselpunk lines.
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• Bryan Talbot wrote and drew The Adventures of Luther Arkwright in 1978, proving that steampunk is Older Than They Think. Also the sequel Heart of Empire, and a separate graphic novel called Grandville featuring a steampunk world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals.
• The Amazing Screw-On Head and its Animated Adaptation.
• Antarctic Press really went full throttle with this as a number of their comics in The New '10s focus on steampunk including Steam Wars, Steampunk Fairy Tales (which has included Cinderella, Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, the Snow Queen and a Lighter and Softer version of The Little Match Girl), and Steam Busters to name a few.
• Atomic Robo has a steampunk brainwashed cyborg supersoldier, and more bizarrely a moving pyramid with steam powered robot mummies that is operated by a steam-based mechanical computer.
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• The second part of El Eternauta, a long time classic Argentine comic, features Humongous Steam-Propelled Tanks made of timber. Quite cool and original, considering it was released in 1976.
• In February 2014, DC Comics released 20 books with steampunk alternate covers. Some of them are more steampunk than others. (The Green Lanterns in ruffs seem to be about 300 years out...)
• The Five Fists of Science depicts Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla as action heroes... and gives Thomas Edison an Historical Villain Upgrade.
• The Batman miniseries Gates of Gotham features the Architect, a Mad Bomber in steampunk Powered Armor. Red Robin even calls it "steam-punk-ish."
• There is a 1989 Alternate Universe comic of Batman, titled Gotham by Gaslight, in which the world's greatest detective has to do battle with Jack the Ripper. While it's mostly a straight period piece, the sequel is very steampunky, with dirigibles, automatons, and Death Rays.
  • Another DC Comics Elseworld, JLA: Age of Wonders imagines what might have happened if Nikola Tesla had worked with all DC's Omnidisciplinary Scientists: Barry Allen, Ted Knight, Ray Palmer ... and Lex Luthor.
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• Lady Mechanika is set in a steampunk version of England circa 1900. The heroine is steampunk cyborg detective.
• Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure is a Dynamite Comics Elseworld with steampunk versions of assorted Dynamite properties: Red Sonja, The Green Hornet, The Phantom, Vampirella, Captain Victory, Silver Star, The Six Million Dollar Man, Zorro and Flash Gordon. Dynamite followed this up with Battlestar Galactica 1880.
• In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the librarian comes up with the idea of building a hot air balloon to carry Link into Hyrule Castle. The balloon uses a ramshackle gadget to produce helium.
• The first two volumes of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (Later volumes are set in the 20th century).
  • Lampshades in volume IV which puts Mina in a comic strip parodying Minnie The Minx. Where she's "leading a gang of Victorian literary characters against arch-fiends and martians while being mistaken for steampunk!".
• Marvel 1602 features Lord Iron, a steampunk version of Iron Man in an otherwise Clock Punk world. Because Tony is just that good.
• The title character of Neil Gaiman's Mr Hero: The Newmatic Man is a steam-powered automaton from the Victorian era.
• The Chris Bachalo drawn series Steampunk featuring a cyborg Action Girl version of Queen Victoria.
• Arcana Studios' Steampunk Originals anthology, and other titles in the Steampunk Originals imprint including The Steam Engines of Oz and John Henry: The Steam Age. The Steampunk Originals mission statement says "Goggles, gadgets, and gears: considering steampunk on those terms is no less absurd then imagining our reality populated solely by electricians, hackers, and astronauts".
• The origin of Alan Moore's science hero Tom Strong involves a steam-powered pneumatic automaton and a gravity chamber at the birth of the 20th Century.
• The Transformers comic miniseries Hearts of Steel was set in the 1800's with the giant robots turning into steampunk equivalents of their regular forms. It also had Mark Twain as a badass action hero who saves the town from a coal powered Ravage.

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