Parademon

The Secret Six. A rag-tag group of baddies who escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can be strangled and left for dead by that creepy-ass Ragdoll.

Anyway, I only read the first Secret Six mini and it was about eight hundred percent more entertaining than I thought it would be. That’s not a knock against series writer Gail Simone—her Birds of Prey stuff was excellent—but my only exposure to the Secret Six was waaay back in Action Comics Weekly. I wasn’t a fan. But BAM!, Simone whipped up a different take and elevated a bunch of D-listers by crafting fun adventures full of fresh characters and snappy dialogue. She did good. So much so I wanted to use a little Secret Six team when losing to friends in HeroClix, but they never released a Ragdoll (click here for him) or a badass Parademon. So I made my own…

Not owning much in the way of comic books any more, I had to go online to find reference for this guy. As the Parademon-themed image at the top of this post would suggest, I couldn’t find much in the way of Secret Six art that showcased a full body shot of our boy here. Not a big deal. There’s an endless amount of Parademon images & toys to use as a guide, and they all look alike, right? Right…?

Turns out the Secret Six creative team DID give him his own distinct costume, a look that made him recognizable as an Apokalips grunt BUT made him stand out in a Parademon crowd. That’s a good feeling, spending hours hunched over a miniature, putting the final touches on and it and SURPRISE, the reference material you used wasn’t accurate. F*ck it, though. I’m still posting these pictures.

Ingredients: I wanted him to have a beefy look, so I went with the absurdly scaled Hydra agent (Sinister), an even more absurd firearm (Cable—of course—Mutant Mayhem) and finished it off with a set of wings (Mach-1, Sinister). Costume trimmings were strips of index card cut to shape and then hardened with a drop of Krazy Glue. Some acrylic paint, a coat of matte sealant and this Parademon–whichever one he is–was done. Custom Parademon dial here.

So what does the Secret Six Parademon suit look like? I finally found a group shot on some random website, and lookit that…the S6 ‘demon has more of an Apokalips bathrobe thing going on. Ech…one day I’ll go back and make a comic-accurate version, but I’m kinda dreading it. The moment I do I know I’m gonna want to make another half dozen or so “regular” Parademons to keep my single grunt happy.

And hey, I have no idea if the below pic is a published piece of DC art or something from a fan site. I tried finding info on it but came up empty. If anyone recognizes where this is from–even if it’s from a Flikr fan page or whatnot–drop a note in the comments section. I wanne give credit where it’s due.

Oh, one last thing. If they ever make a Secret Six animated series, the opening credits should be the exact opposite of this.

———————————————————————————-