Incarnate is not a particularly great comic book. It's not even really a good comic book. It's perfectly serviceable, with a particularly tedious and average premise (some immortal being called the Revenants are bandying about, one such immortal wishes to finally die an honourable death on the battlefield, who even cares). It did have some quite pretty artwork, however, as well as the backing of KISS bass player, renaissance man and all-around business douchebag Gene Simmons. Because Incarnate was written and drawn (with the help of no less than four assistants) by his son, Nick Simmons, you see. Except it turns out that even with all of that tipping the scales in Nick's favour, he still had to cheat. Nepotism and not actually doing the work himself wasn't enough: he also had to rip off the entire premise, style and cast of Incarnate off from a bunch of webcomics. Oh and Bleach, one of the most popular manga series currently being published. Woops. All told it turned out Simmons had plagiarised character designs, fight scenes, plot segments, dialogue, poses and expressions from both professional and amateur artists, the comic ceased publication before the third issue could come out, and he managed a half-arsed apology.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
