Alright, it's time we go back once more to the tumultuous 90s and finally witness the fate of Malibu Comics.

It's time for the one most of you were waiting for.

Time for the Ultraverse.
The usual disclaimer: Sensitive topics will be discussed and this thread will especially touch on some creators who have done very bad things. There's simply no way to skirt around them in the case of the Ultraverse, so please be careful.
Last time we explored how Malibu reached unprecedented success through their role as distributor of Image comics in 1992 and how the company tried to prepare themselves for when Image became truly independent by creating their own superhero setting with the Protectors.
Throughout that thread I referred to nebulous other goings-on at Malibu which eventually meant the demise of the entire "Genesis" line. That mysterious other line of titles was of course the Ultraverse.
So what the hell is an Ultraverse?
Who wants it?
Who's got it?
Simply put, while the Protectors and its spin-off titles were gaining speed, the Malibu staff reached out to seven popular comics writers, several of them famous for previous work for other publishers, in clear imitation of how Image had been formed by artists leaving the Big Two
The idea was simple - each writer would have the opportunity to create whatever superhero title they wanted to and together they would form an interconnected universe where each writer had a large amount of influence in whatever happened. The titles weren't creator-owned per se,
...but Malibu instead offered the writers creative control and promises of better revenue rates from both the comics and potential licensing. The writers each submitted various proposals for books they wanted to do and with assistance from editorial these were woven together.
The fact that the characters were ultimately still owned by Malibu would come into play later, but at the start this all looked very promising with the idea of a fresh new setting which could move forward and change depending on each writer's ideas.
Who were the Ultraverse writers?
James D. Hudnall, former writer on Marvel's Alpha Flight and Strikeforce: Morituri created Hardcase and the Solution.
Steve Englehart, classic Marvel writers on titles like Avengers and Silver Surfer created the Strangers and the Night Man
Steve Gerber, legendary writer/creator behind Howard the Duck and others created Sludge.
Mike W. Barr, writer of the Outsiders and Camelot 3000 created Mantra
Len Strazsewksi, writer on JSA, Starman and others created Prototype
James Robinson created Firearm
And finally Gerard Jones, previously writer on Green Lantern, JLI and other titles created Prime, the Freex and Solitaire.
To get this out of the way right now, Jones was convicted for possessing child pornography in 2018 and this is going to severely color his books.
Finally there is one more Ultraverse book from 1993 that we will discuss when we get to it. Suffice to say it's a special case.
The Ultraverse debuted in June of 1993 with a heavy promotion campaign for the starter titles (Prime and Hardcase among them) with lots of ad space both in other Malibu titles and in trade magazines and the like.
One of the early promises of the Ultraverse titles was to stay away from cover gimmicks and other similar sales stunts popular at the time but the line still had plenty of promotions. They published quite a few special #0 issues, many of which required collecting coupons or like
Let's take a closer look at the starting lineup of the Ultraverse, the titles that would be the backbone of the line through 1993 and 1994.
Prime was a modern take on the Billy Batson Captain Marvel, a young boy named Kevin Green who transformed into his ideal fantasy of a superhero, the muscle-bound and supremely powerful Prime.
When he reverts, Kevin emerges from the Prime body which sloughs off into a sack of goo and slime. And yes, Kevin is naked every time this happens which it might be best not to think about too much considering what we know of Jones.
Prime's de facto archenemy was Dr Gross, a twisted geneticist who had created Prime through experimenting on his mother at his fertility clinic without her knowing. So yeah.
Due to the literally malleable nature of Prime the character underwent many minor changes through his run, including when he was inspired by an encounter with Firearm to become a "badass" (as seen by a little kid) for a while.
Prime served as the lynchpin of the Ultraverse and had interactions with most of the other cast including a rivalry with Prototype and a very VERY doomed crush on Mantra.
By far the coolest thing about Prime is that the original artist partnered with Jones was the late great Norm Breyfogle, who gave the title a dynamic energy and unmatched style. When he left the artistic quality declined quite a bit.
Hardcase was the closest thing the Ultraverse had to a senior superhero at the start. An actor who received his powers through a mysterious jumpstart, he became the hero Hardcase and formed the supergroup known as the Squad with three others.
Unfortunately a few years prior to the start of the Ultravese the Squad were massacred by a mysterious robot killer, with Hardcase the only survivor.
Written by Hudnall and originally featuring art by Jim Callahan, Hardcase was a story heavy in corporate dealings and superheroes as celebrities, no doubt inspired by Image comics. Hardcase also met another "ultra" named Choice who he reluctantly accepted as a partner.
Hardcase's series mostly dealt with his struggle against the self-proclaimed Rex Mundi, a mysterious manipulator who had created countless ultrahuman menaces.
Originally by Gerber and Aaron Lopresti, Sludge was the story of a corrupt cop subject to a hit and left for dead in a sewer filled with chemicals that transformed him into a lumbering man-monster.
Reusing some ideas Gerber had saved since his time on Man-Thing and Howard the Duck, Sludge was filled with the writer's tell-tale wry madness and was also very violent and occasionally very dark.
Sludge also introduced one of the all-time classic Ultraverse villains, the wicked and flippant scarecrow known as Lord Pumpkin. Absolute classic of a character whenever Gerber writes him!
Originally by James Robinson and Cull Hamner, Firearm was the story of Alec Swann, a private investigator with a gun powerful enough to kill even an ultra and a propensity to get mixed-up in superhuman crime and other weirdness.
Throughout the first year of the Ultraverse a mysterious assassin would kill ultras all over the country, cutting a bloody swath through the superhuman population (though established characters were of course safe). This killer was Firearm's nemesis, Rafferty.
A very Robinson-esque antagonist, Rafferty inevitably clashed with Firearm in a long, violent storyline which occupied the entire final part of the series.
Originally by Jones and Ben Herrera, the Freex were the Ultraverse's answer to the X-Men with a touch of the Doom Patrol - ultras who saw themselves as too grotesque or deformed for normal society.
Freex also introduced the VERY Emma Frost-like Contrary, a mysterious manipulator woman who wanted to take the Freex in and train them as she did her own foundlings. She would be the big character find of the series.
The Solution by Hudnall and Darick Roberston was about a mercenary team lead by Lela Cho aka Tech who had recruited martial artist Dropkick and alien exiles Shadowmage and Outrage to her cause. This title reminded me a bit of Silver Sable and had a focus on "wetware" supers.
Solitaire by Jones and Jeff Johnson featured a young ultra named Nicholas Lone who adopts a masked identity to fight his own criminal father, along with any other ultra-criminals he runs into. Slight Punisher vibes here due to the gunplay and urban setting
Prototype was the Ultraverse's answer to Iron Man, a young hotshot test pilot named Jimmy Ruiz using the most advanced power armor in the world in the service of his employer Ultratech.
Originally by Strazsewski, Tom Mason and David Ammerman, Prototype featured more corporate dealings and lots of power armor and cyborgs. Jimmy's predecessor in the armor, Bob Campbell, also played a prominent part and many of his old foes came back to haunt Ruiz.
The Strangers was another title with an extreme solid creative team with writer Steve Englehart and artist Rick Hoberg presenting a rich and colorful tale of a super-team thrown together by fate.
When an energy blast from the moon strikes a cable car in San Fransisco the passengers begin to develop superpowers and a few of them decide to use those powers for good by banding together and becoming heroes.
Joined by the sorceress Yrial, the Strangers are memorable to me for having an interesting and diverse cast, including an openly gay member.
Also one of the passengers who joins the Strangers is a rogue sex robot. Yeah, I'm not making this up. She's a surprisingly compelling character, too.
The other starting Ultraverse title by Englehart was Night Man which was originally by him and Darick Robertson. Johnny Domino was a jazz musician who was injured in the aforementioned cable car blast, being nearly blinded but given the power to detect evil thoughts!
If this seems familiar despite never having seen the comic, it's because the Night Man had a short-lived TV show developed by Glen Larson. The TV show came out after the demise of the Ultraverse and was a last gasp in many ways.
Dealing with darker superhuman and supernatural crime,Night Man fought villains like the murderous face-stealer Deathmask, but his archenemy was the immortal sorceress Rhiannon.
The final ongoing Ultraverse title was Mantra, originally by Mike W. Barr and Terry Dodson. You may have noticed that the other titles have been relatively free of traditional cheesecake? Well here we are.
Mantra originated as Lukasz, one of an order of immortal, constantly reincarnating knights recruited to fight the sorcerer Boneyard by the mysterious Archimage. In Mantra #1, the knight Thanasi betrays the order and together with Boneyard slaughters all the others...
As an absolute last-ditch attempt, Archimage places Lukasz' soul in the body of Eden Blake, a young woman with a natural talent for magic.
Now if you've read Barr's masterful Camelot 3000 (with the fantastic Brian Bolland) you will remember that that series also featured the Arthurian knight sir Tristan reincarnated as a woman against his will.
Despite some unfortunate tropes, Mantra is absolutely and purposefully a discussion of body dysmorphia and gender identity, coming out in an era when this was rarely discussed at all, much less expressed in comics.
Lukasz initially tries to reject the female identity entirely and doesn't even try to care for Eden's kids, and also has to try to stop Boneyard from killing her once and for all, as well as deal with all the other ultra nonsense.
Later on Lukasz manages to place his mind into an android body created by the government agency Aladdin to give Eden her life back, but this ends with Thanasi taking over Eden's body instead.
Eden is killed this time and Lukasz willingly returns to her form, promising her that he'll take care of her children. The series ends with a surprisingly positive note of acceptance. But I've now gotten ahead of myself.
In order to discuss the first Ultraverse event, we go back to before the Ultraverse existed. Remember this? Remember how I said the Malibu editors had dreamed up a superhero comic way before the even launched Protectors in 1992?
The first issue of that comic, entitled "Exiles" as a clear X-Men reference was largely finished, written by Tom Mason, Dave Olbrich and Chris Ulm with art by Ex-Mutants vol 2 artist Paul Pelletier.
The issue was never published but was brought out of the inventory when the Ultravese was prepared as a potential launch title. That's when writer Steve Gerber came on board and the Malibu editors got him to re-write parts of the first issue as well as script a continuation.
The second issue by Gerber and Rob Phipps continued the X-Men-esque saga of the dysfunctional super-team arranged by an eccentric scientist and their struggle against rogue industrialist Malcolm Kort.
What nobody except the creative team and editors knew, however, was that the fate of the Exiles had already been written. You see, one of the ideas that had come up was "What if we do a book solicited as an ongoing and then just kill everybody?"
And so the first taste of things to come came in issue #3 where team sweetheart Tinsel was shot to death by Bloodbath...
...prompting her teammate and unrequited lover to kill Bloodbath, Kort and most of his ultra henchmen in a suicide attack in #4...
...while the naive Amber Hunt accidentally overloaded her blossoming ultra powers, violently destroying the headquartes of the Exiles and killing almost all of the team in the violent detonation...
The idea with Exiles was to show that "nobody was safe" in the Ultraverse and that sometimes having a dysfunctional, quibbling team just leads to disaster, although this would be the only time they tried something like this. Amber flew off into space...
...which led to her calling most of the active ultras to the Moon and to the alien Entity which was responsible for the creation of the Squad, the Strangers and many others in the pages of Break-Thru!
A crossover running through every Ultraverse title at the time, Break-thru had two bookend issues with art by George Perez and writing by all the Ultraverse writers!
I shan't spoiler what happens fully, but it's a fun crossover with very tight plotting and good character moments, and served as a nice introduction to the Ultraverse.
Now I need a small break just to clear my head, and after that we shall see what happened in 1994 and beyond!
Before we continue, let's talk about Rune.

Rune was created by legendary artist Barry Windsor-Smith and was the story of an alien vampire come to earth to feast on the ripe energy of superhumans, aka ultras.
With additional scripting by Chris Ulm, Rune started as a long serial told in tiny chapters on the back of other Ultraverse books, much like BWS's earlier Solar story at Valiant had been. Suffice to say the art here is mindblowing.
Rune received his own ongoing in 1994 where he contended with many of the other ultras and the S.H.I.E.L.D-like Aladdin, and that series is just a treat. Absolutely one of the high points of the entire venture.
Following Break-Thru each Ultraverse title also ran brief two-page origins of characters from ANOTHER book as a further incentive for people to check out more titles. The universe was already quite interconnected, so this was more incentive.
1994 saw a relatively low amount of new ongoing series as most of the aforementioned titles were stable. One new title was Wrath, about a superhuman in the direct employ of Aladdin.
Another new title was Warstrike by Dan Danko and Hoang Nguyen, giving the gun-toting mercenary and reluctant ally of Mantra his own comic. This was the first Ultraverse title to LOOK like a stereotypical 90s comic.
The year also introduced miscellaneous new characters to the lineup, some of which I've already mentioned. One that I haven't is Topaz, a warrior-queen from a female-dominated alternate dimension who clashed with Mantra and would become important later.
The very end of 1993 also began Ultraverse Premiere, a title which wasn't even a title but a flip-book which migrated between various Ultraverse titles. This resulted in those issues being 64 pages and being price bumped up to $3.50 from the standard Ultraverse $1.95!
Premiere introduced various new characters such as Elven (a girl given the same powers as Prime by Dr Gross) and Ripfire, and also gave solo stories to supporting characters and team characters.
Of course we cannot discuss 1994 and Malibu without first adressing what was going on behind the scenes. Malibu had established itself as one of the six big comic book publishers in North America and still enjoyed good sales and lots of hype with the Ultraverse in 1993.
As a result DC Comics were reputedly interested in acquiring Malibu, which prompted Marvel Comics to also pursue the company in order to deny DC the extra market share. Rosenberg sold Malibu to Marvel in November of 1994, something which would have dire consquences.
As a side note - there are other reasons why Marvel ended up purchasing Malibu such as gaining access to their digital coloring studio, but it appears that the struggle for market shares was the actual main reason for the acquisition.
While all these behind the scenes dealings were going on, Malibu launched their great flagship title in 1994 - Ultraforce!

Written by Jones (again) with art by George Perez, Ultraforce began as another small-chapter serial before launching a regular series.
With spectacular panache, Ultraforce brought together Prime, Hardcase, Prototype, Topaz, Ghoul from the Exiles, Contrary and Pixx to fight the underground despot Atalon.
The art is classic Perez and along with his Break-Thru is some of the best art you'll find in the Ultraverse line.
If you're asking yourself "Hey Comrade, who is Pixx?" Well, she is the spunky young character out to prove herself who ends up being the all-too-predictable sacrifical lamb of the storyline, sacrificing herself to destroy Atalon's nukes. Ghoul loses another teammate...
Other than that, 1994 also saw various one-shots, specials, giant-size annuals and other limited offerings such as the Lord Pumpkin special by Dan Danko and Aaron Lopresti.
As 1995 dawned, changes were in the air for the Ultraverse. The Marvel buy-out at first didn't seem to affect the company which seemed to continue on its own trajectory, but soon things were happening everywhere.
The year seemed to start normal enough with some mini-series like Year Zero: The Death of the Squad chronicling the rise and fall of Hardcase's original team...
...and Eliminator, a mini by Roland Mann (of Silverline), Hank Kanalz and Mike Zeck about a cyborg mercenary which also introduced the lady thief known as Siren...
But things had already changed. Even a relatively off-beat title like Eliminator featured a subplot about Sersi - yes THAT Sersi - searching for an Infinity Gem in the Ultraverse!
The Ultraverse was suddenly constantly intermingling with the Marvel Universe, with characters constantly crossing over and meeting.
As a result, the first 1995 Ultraverse event ended up being both the culmination of many ideas began at the creation of the setting as well as the end of many others.
You see, one of the listed fathers of the Ultraverse was a man who had never actually written a comic for them - famed science-fiction author Larry Niven. Niven had merely contributed various ideas used by the other writers, but it was enough for him to be credited many times
The Godwheel, an ancient disc-shaped world home to a race of Kirby-esque ancient gods of immense power, was one of Niven's ideas (really just a kind of riff of his own Ringworld mixed with New Gods).
The event featured different writer and artist teams telling a rather disjointed tale of the heroes and villains contending on the Godwheel - a far cry from the tight plotting of Break-Thru. At this point Malibu was also starting to rely increasingly on "sexy" promo art.
The climax of Godhweel saw Thor come to the Ultraverse to aid the heroes, and the ending also saw Loki cross over in search of the Infinity Gems, which was setting up for the SECOND big event of 1995...
I should point out that at this point The Strangers, Solitaire, The Solution, Sludge, Prototype Freex and Firearm were either already canceled or on their final issues, leaving on a few ongoings lasting through spring and summer of 1995.
1994 was the beginning of the great comic book collapse, so the market was already hurting at this point, and the best way to try and salvage thing in Marvel's eyes was a relaunch of the Ultraverse to tie it even closer to the Marvel Universe...
The Black Knight, dimensionally displaced after the finale of the Gatherer's saga in Avengers (as mentioned in a previous thread) appeared in the Ultraverse and joined Ultraforce...
What happened next is annoying to follow, but basically the Infinity Gems ended up in the Ultraverse as previously mentioned, resulting in the Marvel Universe and the Ultraverse merging fully in the Ultraforce/Avengers crossover.
The Infinity Gems were reunited to re-form the primordial creator-god mentioned by Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet #1 who turned out to be the mad goddess Nemesis...
At the end of this confusing event, the Black Knight shattered Nemesis which caused the universes to separate again, but not quiiiite the way they should have.
The Ultraverse seemed to be permanently changed, with characters like Contrary and Hardcase nowhere to be seen, and Bob Campbell never having been crippled and replaced as Prototype. This move also served to make the Ultraverse considerably more... vanilla.
Following the so-called "Infinite Month" of Black September, several Ultraverse books like Prime and Night Man were relaunched.
Prime saw him partially sent to the Marvel Universe to become ... Spider... Prime. Yeah. Told ya he was malleable. While Night Man also ended up in the Marvel Universe for a bit.
Probably the biggest example of how much the new Marvel-i-fied Ultraverse had changed was Mantra, however. With the new Mantra #1, Lukasz/Eden as shuffled off to an occasional supporting character to be replaced as Mantra by a generic teenage girl.
Interestingly, the new Mantra #1 does not have Mike W. Barr's name anywhere on it despite the fact that he wrote it. Subsequent issues WOULD have his name again, but I do wonder if that was intentional.
Ultraforce meanwhile was relaunched by Warren Ellis and Steven Butler and featured a lot of Ellis-isms early on...
...like this moment! And a generic edgy gunslinger type running around.
They also relaunched the Exiles. If you remember, Exiles had once been conceived as a riff/parody on the X-Men but Marvel chose to make the title entirely unironic instead. Written by Terry Kavanagh and Ben Raab with art by Ken Lashley and M.C Wyman, this title teamed up...
...the long-suffering Amber Hunt along with some other minor Ultraverse characters with mutants Sickle, Siena Blaze and of course the JUGGERNAUT.
At this point the Ultraverse had lost its entire identity. Most of the original characters were retired or only seen rarely, the new books looked like and read like low-grade Image or Marvel imitations and most of the original creators were long gone.
Something really weird is that they also brought back Shuriken as part of the Ultraverse. Remember Shuriken? The self-published Osamu Tezuka-inspired character Malibu bought way back in the 80s? This version is rather different, of course.
1996 saw Ultraverse sales plummet further and Marvel tightening the noose even more. At this point a crossover where the Phoenix entered the Ultraverse was attempted as well as more overt crossover books, but nothing could stem the downward spiral.
Through whatever titles were left, things began to be put back in place. The Juggernaut was soon sent back to the MU, various crossovers restored the ultra heroes to their home universe and soon little remained to be done.
Ultraforce defeated the final great alien invasion in the pages of Ultraverse Unlimited #2...
...which also saw the Black Knight, Reaper and Siena Blaze return home to the Marvel Universe...
...while some last-gasp titles like Witch Hunter (interestingly by the all-female creative team of Laurie Sutton and Joyce Chin) tried to ride the late 90s "bad girl" wave...
...which also included the time-displaced Foxfire, the designated breakout character of the Phoenix Resurrection event...
The very final Ultraverse title and the last appearance of most of these characters to this day was Ultraverse: Future Shock which came out in February 1997. Written by Mark Paniccia with art by Fabio Laguna, Manny Clark and Kevin West this title fully crossed into the JoeMad era
With the past and future both at stake from timeline disruptions, the ultras of two eras must come together to overcome the threat.
The story is barely coherent and the art is, sorry to say it, not very good at expressing what's going on. At least it ends with most of the characters displaced by Black September restored, so that's something. But it is a pitiful end to what was once a promising universe.
Future Shock ends with various farewells from the remaining Malibu staff, thanking the readers who stuck by them.
And that was that. The final Malibu titles trickled out, then the lights went out. Forever.
Ironically Malibu had managed some limited success in merchandising even during the tumult of the Marvel take-over and reorganiziation. The aforementioned Night Man TV show came out in 1997 and lasted for two seasons, and Ultraforce had a one-season cartoon in 1994-1995.
1995 also saw a small series of action figures from Galoob!
So why hasn't Marvel tried to revive the Ultraverse characters or at least used them for crossovers since 1997? There have been different reports on this, including the belief by some of the original creators that the Malibu royalties are too high for Marvel to stomach.
There's also the theory that Scott Rosenberg has clauses in the Malibu deal which mean he must be involved in any relaunch which might be another stumbling block.
Regardless of where the truth lies, the Ultraverse is a story of great promise which was quickly and efficiently squandered. Malibu's greatest gamble paid off - and killed the company.
This thread and the previous ones go out to all of you who worked to bring us these titles and all the ones that came before, regardless of whether you were an artist, writer, staffer, editor, colorist... Good job.
As long as you're not a convicted criminal.
I will do a mini-thread quickly covering Malibu's remaining brands Rock-It Comix and Bravura next, as I don't want to add to this already cumbersome thread, and I have much less to say about those imprints since Bravura is just great all-round.
Feel free to comment, engage, correct and reminisce about Malibu to your heart's content.

And until next time, thanks for reading.

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I'm not normally a movie news guy, but I watched Shang-Chi (And the Legend of the Ten Rings) on the always reliable advice of my good friend @TalkinLadyShiva and I want to share my thoughts below.

SPOILERS abound.
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Kept ya waiting, huh?

Let's continue our journey through the many, MANY titles of Malibu comics with part two.

This time! The superheroes are here! Genesis! And the US comics market changes forever as we go back in time to 1992...
First off let me start with this: In the previous thread I received some INVALUABLE corrections on the ins and outs of early Malibu from people who WERE THERE, so a huge thanks to all of you including David Lawrence, Roland Mann and many others!
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WARNING: This thread will contain discussion of sexual violence, theft, racism and other sensitive topics.
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Several of the people involved in the history of Malibu are very sordid or have very troubled histories.

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And other things!
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Alright, I think the time has come for another topic. This time we tackle how comics publishers spread information to their readers before the internet and the inherent limitations therein.

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