First order of business: get me your 2026 comic industry predictions! Read the rules, then submit! SUBMIT, I tell you.
Next, back to Isaac P.’s question about ’90s comic publishers. Specifically:
“Is there one of these [oublishers/imprints] that you, as a reader, wish had been a success? Alternatively, are there any particular memories of this era that stick out to you from the sales side of things?”
Well, one I would have liked to see stick around is the Ultraverse line from Malibu, later purchased by Marvel Comics:
Yup, that’s Sludge there, Steve Gerber’s attempt at doing a new variation on the Swamp Thing/Man-Thing formula. Haven’t read it in a while, but I remember enjoying it, because, hey, Gerber writing a man-monster comic, of course I’d like it. (The initial artist of the book, Aaron Lopresti, would occasionally plot an issue and there are a couple he outright wrote himself.)
Anyway, I would have liked to have seen more of that book. And most of the Ultraverse in general. (Prime, a Shazam!-esque comic about a young man who can turn into a grotesquely-overmuscled adult hero, was one I enjoyed, until it turned out one of its original writers was a sex offender, tainting that particular property for all time.) But other books had their followings, like Mantra (an immortal male warrior reincarnated into the body of a woman), Rune (an evil demonic entity that got up to plenty of trouble, early issues written and drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith), Firearm (a non-superpowered private detective)…all quite popular at the time. And I know I’m leaving out your favorite, sorry.
Now, of the ’90s imprints that came and went, it would seem like Ultraverse would be the one that had at least one foot in the door for a full revival. The publisher was purchased by Marvel Comics, and for a time, there were several crossovers between the Marvel Universe and the Ultraverse. But, eventually, the Ultraverse characters just stopped appearing, even though Marvel still owns them.
There’s no official reason given, and there’s a whole section on the Wikipedia page about the current status of those properties. Revivals were planned and discarded, and it’s been suggested that the line’s former publisher maintains business interests in the Ultraverse titles, which I guess put the kibosh on any relaunches.
It’s a shame those titles can’t be revived or reprinted, at least at this time, as there was a lot of good work in there. I already mentioned Windsor-Smith, but there was a whole of of George Pérez in there, too. Ah, well, it’s just (maybe) a bunch of legal red tape, maybe it’ll get unknotted someday and we can see these books again.
One particular memory I have from the ’90s was when one of the Ultraverse writers happened to come to our store to do a little shopping. Now, back then, we did a lot of business in recent back issues, and we had several boxes of Ultraverse backstock marked and shelves in the back room, just visible through one of the doorways into that back area. The writer happened to spot those boxes and mentioned to his friend (but within my earshot, which I don’t think he realized) “oh, they’re never going to sell those.”
Well, ha HA mister, we did sell all of those! Eventually. In the 2000s. In a bulk sale for about a dime apiece. BUT WE SOLD THEM.
Anyway, Ultraverse…I think it would have been okay if it kept going. Maybe not even as its own standalone thing, but just fully integrated into the Marvel Universe like they were trying to do. I mean, 30+ years of Firearm comics? C’mon, that would’ve been pretty cool. And Rune, maybe not as his own standalone title, but as one of the many wildly-powered adversaries who menaces our heroes on a regular basis. He could have been the Big Bad in a series of Marvel movies by now. Brings a tear to one’s eye.
Next ’90s company/imprint to discuss: oh, what the heck, let’s talk about Comics’ Greatest World, even though I’ve read, like, almost none of it. But I’ll give it a shot in a few days.
I remember which writer it was, myself. He was also responsible for one of my favorite Green Lantern series, which is now equally tainted.
Three differently formatted issues of Rune vs Conan. Think we’ll ever see that reprinted?
I hope it’s okay if I comment this again, since people are probably more likely to see it here.
Last week there was “exciting” new Ultraverse news.
Two early/unfinished versions of the unreleased (and unannounced) Prime game for the Sega Game Gear were recovered and made available online.
This joins Firearm (Sega Genesis), Prime (Sega Genesis), and The Strangers (Sega CD) on the list of other unreleased Ultraverse games.
Since it’s not being officially released, you can go and look secure in the knowledge that no money will ever go to that guy.
More info: https://www.smspower.org/forums/20713-UnreleasedPrimeAndTheWorldOfSportGolfForGameGear
SLUDGE was good because of Gerber, and it was mostly older customers that had it on their pull list. The younger kids wouldn’t know old Swamp Thing or Man-Thing.
I’ve mentioned THE STRANGERS and MANTRA selling very well here. (I completely forgot about PRIME.) I’m just curious as to if there were speculators back then. One guy here would want three copies of #1 from any company, then decide on if he wanted to keep buying the books. I know he picked up a few.
I’m curious as to, by customer sales and for their pull list, which titles sold best from the get-go?
“And I know I’m leaving out your favorite, sorry.”
Ha ha, wrong! My favorite was FIREARM!
I started out buying a bunch of the titles, including THE STRANGERS, EXILES, PRIME, and two or three others, but gradually dropped them until only FIREARM remained.
Oddly enough, I had already decided to drop EXILES from my pull list with issue #4 – but I was stunned by the ending. No way could that be done today. Heck, I’m surprised Gerber got away with it then.
From my memory, the best selling Ultraverse we had was Freex and Nightman by far. Sludge did ok, but I agree with Wayne that it tended to skew to the older crowd. All of the BWS Rune stuff sold like hotcakes, but as soon as he was gone it died off. Prime never got out of being a mid-range title. The rest tended to languish in that mid area as well. Mantra was the lowest from the start. That kind of second round of mini series was pretty much DOA for us, they just kind of picked at them.
Although I was getting all of it myself, I have to say that Freex and Sludge were my favorites. Followed closely by that BWS Rune, and Nightman. I still enjoyed the others ok.
I don’t remember more than a few customers getting all of the titles, but once the Marvel takeover happened it was like rats from a sinking boat. We cut our orders back to the bone. I kept getting it all until the bitter end but I fell out of reading all of it. Godwheel wasn’t awful and some of the crossovers were fun. Black September started strong but fatigue set in pretty fast.
I had picked up and read a few of the Ultraverse books over the years (Firearm, early Mantra, Rune), but a few years ago, I decided to make a concerted effort to pick up the rest of it, and I have, bar the Prime issue included with the videogame.
Before Marvel bought it, it was good. Not Valiant pre-Shooter being kicked out good, but good, which is to be expected given the writing talent involved. After Marvel bought it, everything went to hell.
What’s weird is despite all the reasons given for why the Ultraverse characters can’t pop up any more… Topaz is in Thor: Ragnarok. That version of her has gotten a Heroclix and appeared in Marvel SNAP.
Actually strike the Topaz Heroclix, I was thinking of Hunter B-15 from Loki, another stocky woman carrying a phallic object.
But here’s her SNAP card.
https://marvelsnapzone.com/cards/topaz/
Thanks, John.
I had completely NIGHTMAN the TV show. WGN the super-station (now the CW/NewsNation) would put the show on whenever it could. I think the regular time slot was on Fridays, but WGN was known to just rerun either shows with decent ratings and televangelists (Dr. Robert Stanley) or very early infommercials, back when they would just repeat every 20 minutes for an hour.
So there were times where I saw NIGHTMAN when I turned WGN on two or three times a week. Probably cost them a skeleton staff in the office.
It was a big thing to my friends that it wasn’t a DC or Marvel character show that was on the air.
Joe-Is the Topaz in Thor: Ragnarok the same as the character from Ultraverse? I thought it was the Topaz originally introduced in Werewolf by Night that the movie creators decided to just reuse the name and randomly throw into the movie, due to the expectation that a direct adaptation of the Marvel Universe version of Topaz would probably never be used in the MCU.
The Topaz in Thor: Ragnarök sure bears more of a resemblance to the Ultraverse one than the mystical one. They’re both alien women wearing armor carrying around stick weapons. Yeah, it’s a bit tenuous, but a lot closer than to the other Topaz.
“Three differently formatted issues of Rune vs Conan. Think we’ll ever see that reprinted?”
Rights issues would probably make that unlikely.
“Before Marvel bought it, it was good. Not Valiant pre-Shooter being kicked out good, but good, which is to be expected given the writing talent involved. ”
I might give Ultraverse som edge over Valiant, because it didn’t look so samey-samey as valiant did.
“Prime, a Shazam!-esque comic about a young man who can turn into a grotesquely-overmuscled adult hero, was one I enjoyed”
Yeah, it was pretty good!
“until it turned out one of its original writers was a sex offender”
Yikes!
” But, eventually, the Ultraverse characters just stopped appearing, even though Marvel still owns them.”
They wanted the printing press! And why publish their own competition, I suppose!
The Ultraverse was the one I stuck with the longest. After the fact, I pieced together a fair chunk of the pre-Marvel run out of discount bins but wound up giving them all to a friend in a round of collection downsizing.
I haven’t even gotten around to sampling any Ultraverse, but I snagged a lot of about 40-50 a couple of years ago. And Solution is my guy by having the most covers by Dan Brereton.
Anyways, catching up on the blog I realize I’m late commenting on this topic, but I’ll give a shoutout to IDW’s Black Crown imprint. Whatever happened to the Vertigo wannabe? Do people still remember or buy them? Assassinistas is probably still popular due to Beto, but what about Kid Lobotomy or The Lodger?