"The A-Team" detours into comics before hitting the big screen
The 1980s TV show “The A-Team” is being reborn on the big screen.
But before “The A-Team” arrives in theaters on June 11, fans can whet their appetites with two comic-book miniseries starting this month from IDW Publishing.
TV’s “A-Team” featured a wild foursome of former Special Forces soldiers — John “Hannibal” Smith, Templeton “Faceman” Peck, “Howling Mad” Murdock and “B.A.” Baracus — who go rogue after being set up for a crime they didn’t commit. The movie follows the same idea, but with an updated timeline; the four are now Desert Storm veterans instead of Vietnam vets.
IDW’s biweekly, four-issue “The A-Team: War Stories” focuses on a different team member each issue, telling stories of their Desert Storm adventures before they teamed up. “The A-Team: Shotgun Wedding,” also biweekly and four issues, tells of an early mission when the team was still a government-sanctioned one.
The two projects are in the hands of editor Tom Waltz, who also wrote “Shotgun Wedding” — and is a Desert Storm veteran himself.
“The funny thing is, you would think it would be natural for me to write ‘War Stories,’" he acknowledged. But Chuck Dixon and Erik Burnham wrote that miniseries.
Dixon, Waltz said, was pretty much an automatic choice for “War Stories.”
“He’s our ‘G.I. Joe’ writer, and if there’s a guy made to write action stories in this day and age, it’s Chuck,” Waltz said. And Dixon and Burnham, who have wanted to do a project together, both love “The A-Team,” he added.
Waltz, meanwhile, had a partner on “Shotgun Wedding” — it was co-plotted by the movie’s director, Joe Carnahan.
The story, Waltz said, opens in the middle of a mission, with the team rounding up a renegade Russian arms dealer in Alaska.
Sick of the cold, they readily accept an invitation to attend a wedding cruise for the daughter of an old Army friend of Hannibal.
But when threats against the daughter surface, their chance for a little R&R turns into the team’s next undercover mission. Murdock is the chef, Face the wedding planner, B.A. the driver and Hannibal — “who happens to always be ready and has an online minister’s license” — is set to officiate the wedding.
“I’ve written lots of comics, and I’ve never had a more fun, easy time writing four characters,” Waltz said. “With ‘The A-Team,’ it’s almost like I said, ‘I know these guys.’”
And for those fans who do “know these guys,” the movie will be a treat, Waltz says.
“This is not one of those ’80s remakes where they said, ‘OK, we’re going to keep the title and change everything. Other than the timeline, they’re staying absolutely true to what made it work before. I think people are going to be really happy with this movie.”
