Back when J. Michael Straczynski was getting high-profile assignments on Superman and Wonder Woman, he started work on this original graphic novel, best described as ER meets Gotham.
Samaritan X is as impressive outside as it is inside: a twenty-story gleaming glass and steel tower with two landing platforms on the roof, bullet-proof glass three inches thick, a staff of the best and the brightest in a variety of disciplines, and every high-tech, cutting-edge medical, scientific and diagnostic tool ever created, all in service to an area of specialization, and a clientele, that is utterly unique. In a world where super-powered individuals fight a never-ending battle against evil, Samaritan X is where those wounded on either side of that struggle come to be treated and saved. Within its walls the essential human drama of life and death is made even more intense by its application to those whom the world calls heroes or villains, the celebrated and the vilified, the nearly immortal and the previously invulnerable. When an eternally young character suddenly begins agingwhen Metamorpho discovers that he can no longer control his chemical reactions and is a danger to himself and otherswhen Supergirl needs a life-saving operation but her skin cannot be pierced by any known sciencewhen a female hero is about to have her first child, and fears that the strength of her contractions in birth could kill her normal sonwhen Cyborg discovers that his life-sustaining cybernetic implants are failingwhen a hero with fiery powers discovers he can no longer turn it off and may have to live the rest of his life never touching another human being, even his own childrenwhen a hero is wounded in battle and brought to the hospital for treatment only to be pursued there by his enemy, who is determined to finish what he started regardless of who gets caught in the middlewhen a hero on the edge of collapse suffers a psychotic breakwhen young men and women from all over the world discover for the first time that they have powers and dont know how to handle them..when those or a million other things go wrong with people strong enough to tear apart whole cities with their bare hands...their best hope for survival is Samaritan X.
Odds Of Being Good: 35%. The pitch sounds amazing, really. A superhero medical drama is a natural and under-explored idea. The only problem is Stracynski-- his work on Superman and Wonder Woman was distinctly underwhelming, a far cry from his glory days on Babylon 5. Even his earlier Spider-Man work was largely mixed. Odds Of Being Published:8%. We haven't heard any reason this couldn't be revived in some way-- but that's just it: we haven't heard anything about it at all, and JMS is a busy guy. He's been headlining his own studio since 2012, and aside from Before Watchmen, his DC Comics work has sharply tapered off.
T Campbell has written quite a few online comics series and selected work for Marvel, Archie and Tokyopop. His longest-running works are Fans, Penny and Aggie-- and his current project with co-writer Phil Kahn, Guilded Age.
