History ComicBook / Elementals

''Elementals'' was a dark superhero series published by Comico in three volumes in the 1980s and 1990s. It was initially written and illustrated by Bill Willingham, later of ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'' fame, but as the book went on, he eventually stepped down to simply writing it before leaving the book altogether halfway through volume 2. It also features early work by Jill Thompson (''ComicBook/BeastsOfBurden'', ''ComicBook/TheSandman'') and Tony Daniel.

* MoralGuardians: For the lack of a better term, with a dash of PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad. A government official somehow manages to enter the labs where scientists study the remains of creatures the titular team has defeated. She suffers a moral outrage when she sees the corpse of Captain Cadaver, a literal vampire, still has a stake lodged in his ribcage. She promptly removes it, over the objections of the scientists (who know full well it's a damn ''vampire''), citing the man's right to dignity as a corpse. To absolutely no one's surprise but the idiot's, Cadaver almost instantly regenerates and proceeds to transform Cleveland into a city of the undead.

* WeCanRuleTogether: Saker delivers this speech to Tommy, leading to a {{Shut Up Hannibal}} moment.

* {{Stripperiffic}}: Fathom's second costume, as shown in volume 2, is skin-tight with an elaborate cut-out panel that, depending on the artist, sometimes left one nipple bare. It was either made entirely of tape or was supernatural in origin, as otherwise, there's no way it would stay on at all.

* TheCavalry: At the end of the first arc, the Elementals have finally taken down Saker and his super-powered minions. Unfortunately they're also beat up, exhausted, and trapped on a remote island with hundreds of Sakar's personal mercenary army. Then General Richtor's join Navy/Marine expeditionary force arrives.

Four ordinary humans--Air Force pilot and Vietnam veteran Jeff Murphy, homicide detective Jeanette Crain, flighty heiress Rebecca Golden, and 13-year-old academic prodigy Tommy Czuchra--are brought {{back from the dead}} by ancient elemental spirits in order to combat Saker, an evil sorcerer who is a danger to the natural order.

* SlaveToPR: An interesting take on this one. The Elementals are about to be [[TheyWouldCutYouUp used as lab rats]], and have no legal power to prevent this. So they start doing superheroic things as a way to keep the public on their side, keeping themselves {{Untouchable}} as far as the government is concerned.

** Thor shows up towards the end of volume one as a well-meaning antagonist for the Elementals, and spends a lot of his page time talking about how silly the Marvel Comics version of himself is. Among other things, he's been hanging out on Earth for the last few thousand years, so he talks like an erudite Englishman rather than Thor's faux-Shakespearian dialect.

* AndIMustScream: Janet Brown, who eventually becomes the superheroine called the Haunting, was murdered by Saker in the 1920s, because she had a slight amount of natural magical ability and he wanted to see what would happen when she died. She promptly stuck her soul in a bottle and left it in storage somewhere for the next 60 years or so. It's not surprising that Janet is a clingy, emotional wreck.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Especially in the first and second volume, the book could not be more about the 1980s in America if it tried. Ronald Reagan makes a couple of cameos, Jeff is a young Vietnam veteran, Rebecca is constantly dressed in what would have been the height of fashion for the time (shapeless jackets, big shoulder pads, etc.), and Cold War tensions form a big part of the geopolitics of the supernatural.