Thread by @Comrade_Bullski

Good day. Today instead of one enormous thread I will be doing two smaller threads, the first of which being the promised Malibu addendum covering the "missing" comics I didn't cover previously.

First, the much-requested Bravura imprint. I will not go into each of these titles very far because I think they're all good to excellent and well worth seeking out and reading, but let's talk about it quickly.

Bravura began in 1994 with the Ultraverse and the Protectors already in full swing and consisted of entirely creator-owned titles, much like Image. One of them was a pre-existing popular comic in the space opera Dreadstar here done by Peter David and Ernie Colon.

Another property which survived Bravura (and Malibu) as Dan Brereton's supernatural horror-action title the Nocturnals which continued with several publishers.

Marv Wolfman and Shawn McManus's The Man Called A-X about a rogue cyborg warrior is an odd case since it actually had a new series at DC Comics later on, probably due to Wolfman's ties with the company.

Jonathan Peterson and Kevin Maguire's super-fun Strikeback! only had 3 of its 6 issues published at Bravura and their hunt was unresolved until the creative team went to Image where the series was completed.

Howard Chaykin's superhero comic Power & Glory never had a sequel that I know of, but the series did get republished as a collection by Dynamite.

Steven Grant and legendary artist Gil Kane teamed up to do a series called Edge about a violent, gun-toting hero, very much in the style of the time. Another character who never returned.

The late, great Norm Breyfogle created his own comic called Metaphysique for the imprint which looks absolutely amazing but I have not read and I do not think continued anywhere. :(

Walter Simonson needs no introduction and he chose to realize an old school idea of his into a full-blown space war comic called Star Slammers which fortunately got a remastered edition in 2018 from IDW and is really enjoyable.

The last Bravura title I want to talk about is 'Breed from Jim Starlin which is a fairly unsettling story of a boy created from a demonic impregnation and his not very pleasant life. This series had two six-issue series with Bravura and a seven-issue third series at Image.

Overall it seems the Bravura titles were financial duds, which is no surprise in the over-crowded marketplace of 1994 and 1995. And even had they been big sellers, the Marvel acquisition of Malibu likely would have spelled the end for the imprint anyway.

Malibu did also continue publishing stray comics which were not connected to any imprint in their last years, most of which were licensed. For example there was a Project A-Ko comic which was a US reinterpretation of the original... a localization if you will.

Surely there was some kind of "the kids won't LIKE this weird art style" thinking going on? :) The comic was done by Tim Eldred and Ninja High School creator Ben Dunn.

Having lost their Street Fighter licensed quite suddenly in 1993, Malibu tried their hand at the fighting game genre again in 1994 with a much more violent franchise more suited to their style... Mortal Kombat!

...yeah unfortunately it wasn't very good. I'm sorry to anyone involved, but illustrating cool and dynamic fight scenes is kind of vital to this kind of comic. And most of the Malibu ones looked like this.

Hey at least it ends with a movie joke! One day I shall force @TalkinLadyShiva to read every one of these and dissect exactly how well the lore meshes.

Very late in the game (95-96) Malibu also started publishing Terminator comics, explicitly branded on Terminator 2. T3 was a ways off at this point, but these comics have nothing on for example the Dark Horse ones.

Cool cover on this one though! And hey, here's Mark Paniccia!

The final Malibu imprint I want to talk about and the final installment to this very long series (FOR NOW) is Rock-It Comix which actually started in 1993 and lasted into 1994.

MTV was one of the defining cultural institutions of the late 80s and 90s, for good and bad, and it's no wonder that comics companies sought to hop on that trend as well, from Revolutionary Comics to the short-lived Marvel Music.

Rock-It Comix consisted of a series of one-shots which each had a comics story (often fully painted) and a number of other features about the star band or artist to give it an almost "magazine" style

The actual stories vary WILDLY in content. The Metallica story is an almost sombre, very documentary story about their rise to fame and the tragedy of Cliff Burton's death.

Meanwhile in the Ozzy Osbourne one Ozzy fights against demons, zombies with the help of the ghost of Randy Rhoads. It's EXACTLY what you're imagining right now.

And honestly I have NO idea what's going on in the World Domination one. They're fighting the Illuminati to keep music free and uh something something liberate the planet?

The Sabbath issue is pretty cool really since Geezer Butler co-wrote it and it's another pretty down to earth retelling of their rise to fame.

But the capstone to this thread, the pizza resistance is Lita Ford. I never knew who Lita Ford was except that she had a Rock-It Comix to her and oh boy.

Written by Roland Mann with art by Jim Balent, the story has Lita fight a morally outraged woman trying to censor her music by summoning demons and uh... yeah. Jim Balent does Jim Balent things.

With this short-lived imprint I take my leave of Malibu (for now) and bid you all return again after a short break as we deep dive into one of my favorite obscure comics of all time...