Black Badger Expanded Universe
Project Sabotage. The name of Micromilspec’s epic new collaboration with Arcanaut’s James Thompson – better known in watch circles as Black Badger – is evocative. It’s disruptive. It’s everything you might expect from a partnership like this. And there’s a lot to say about the watch itself, its colour scheme ripped from a Star Wars rebel pilot’s flight suit, it’s riff on the already-solid Milgraph and the lume, oh the lume!
The thing is, while Project Sabotage is a hard-hitting new watch, it’s only the vanguard of what’s to come, the Iron Man of a nascent a cinematic universe of tool watch timekeeping. And it starts, as all good Netflix shows do, with anime.
Of the many hats he’s worn in his eclectic career, James was once hired by an anime production studio in Dubai. Yes, that sounds like the set-up to a joke, but this is one instance where reality is stranger than fiction. Despite a trip to Japan, it never panned out, but one character did: the Black Badger himself.
This character, a sci-fi gun-toting humanoid-Mustelidae (real word) was the rebellious spark around which Micromilspec have built their animated universe: The Time Wars. Sure, Doctor Who did that first, but without nearly as many watch puns.
It has to be said that this isn’t the first animated world James has dreamt up. Arcanaut’s Garnet Goblin came with a little slice of Bohemian folklore about a little goblin that could. So while this might not be Black Badger’s first rodeo, he and Micromilspec have still grabbed the bull firmly by the horns. And given who they’re taking on, goring is a possibility.
Every great hero is defined by his nemesis and in the Time Wars the Black Badger’s is the CrownGuard. Yes, they’re named after a watch component that Micromilspec are a fan of, but there’s no prizes for working out who they’re a stand-in for. “Gleaming, relentless, and armed with absolute authority”, with a suspiciously familiar frame around their minimalist space-cop helmets. If you’re still not sure, drop the Guard.
No faceless authoritarian entity can exist without a charismatic figurehead, albeit one as mysterious as The Chrono Sovereign. Yet while the CrownGuard’s real world inspirations are obvious, this time-bending villain’s origin story is only revealed by his alias: the Grand Psycho. Again, if you’re not getting it yet, I’m not sure what to tell you.
Baki the Grappler from Baki Hanma in order to appreciate the comic book aesthetics of The Time Wars. You don’t even need to like it in order to appreciate Project Sabotage. But it is something that you won’t see anywhere else.
Most watchmakers are too entrenched in the status quo to even dream up something like this. Why disrupt when you can sit back, relax and let market calcification do your job for you? It takes a mix of disruption, imagination and a specific dry wit to not only release a watch, but make it the first chapter of an animated saga taking direct aim at some of the watch world’s biggest players.
It begs the question: who’s next in the Black Badger’s sights? The militaristic empire of the Imperial Oak and it’s aloof ruler King Phillip the Stern? Only time – and its various wars – will tell.
