Noble Causes: Distant Relatives #3

History

Distant Relatives was the third Noble Causes mini-series, following First Impressions and Family Secrets, and arrived after the original ongoing format was abandoned when artist Patrick Gleason departed; Faerber restructured the book as a series of four-issue miniseries modeled loosely on the Hellboy approach. The entire Distant Relatives run was published in greytone rather than full color — a cost-cutting measure that Faerber acknowledged directly — and the series reportedly came close to cancellation at its conclusion before the book relaunched as a proper ongoing in 2004. Issue #3 split art duties between lead artist Andres Ponce, who handled the main story across all four issues, and Ray-Anthony Height, a newcomer who penciled the backup story — an editorial decision that gave the backup strips their own distinct visual character throughout the mini.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published by Image Comics; arrived in comic shops on October 29, 2003, as part three of the four-issue Distant Relatives limited series.
• Written by Jay Faerber; main story art by Andres Ponce; backup story penciled by Ray-Anthony Height (noted in publisher copy as a newcomer at the time of publication).
• The entire Distant Relatives mini-series was printed in greytone (black-and-white with gray washes) rather than color, an explicit cost-reduction decision by Faerber and Image.
• The issue's main story features Celeste Noble catching Rusty Noble in a compromising situation — a scene that escalates the domestic fracture between the two characters and feeds directly into Celeste eventually serving Rusty with divorce papers.
• The backup story, penciled by Ray-Anthony Height, reveals that Gaia is pregnant — and that Doc Noble discovers this — a major soap-opera beat for the series.
• Cosmic Rae, who made her first appearance one issue earlier in Distant Relatives #2, continues her prominent role here alongside Rusty; she is an apparent superheroine with magnetic powers whose secret android nature (secretly created by Doc Noble) is a key long-term mystery introduced during this mini-series.
• Rusty Noble (Russell Noble) is Doc and Gaia's firstborn son, whose human brain was transplanted into a robotic body following a near-fatal battle — a condition that shaped his emotional arc with Celeste and Cosmic Rae throughout the series.
• The Distant Relatives mini-series as a whole is collected in Noble Causes Archives Vol. 1 (Image Comics, 2008), a large black-and-white omnibus that also reprints First Impressions, Family Secrets, and the first twelve issues of the ongoing series.

Cast · 3 characters

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