For anyone who's been reading this broadcast, you would know that I am a Marvel Comics guy. My very first comic book was a Fantastic Four comic. I have been collecting Marvel Comics for years now but on occasion I do wander out to other areas of the comics world, to a place where you don't tug on the Man Of Steel's cape. To a city that is under the protection of a Dark Knight Crusader as he fights his nemesis The Clown Prince Of Crime. A universe where Star City, Gotham City, Metropolis and St Roach are real cities where heroes lived. Yeah I indulged in DC Comics as well.
Both Marvel and DC Comics gave me a look at a very very rich world filled with heroes and that also gave birth to dreams of having Spider Man meeting Superman, Batman meeting Daredevil and so on and so forth. Being comic book fans, we have seen our dreams come true or as they always say a fan boy's dream come true, one day I'll talk about the long awaited JLA Avengers cross over. Yeah I was one of those who bought all four issues of that cross over but that's a story for another day.
So what am I going to talk about this time around? As the title suggests A Valiant Image, it's about a few independent comics I found in my collection. Being a collector who collects Marvel and DC Comics, I was really amazed to see that there were other publishers out there, call them Independents if you want to, these comics also had great stories, great art and great heroes. I could recall the time when Todd McFarlane was the hotshot artist in Marvel Comics, names like Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri were mentioned in hushed tones, much like rock stars and movie stars. When they launched their own comic company after leaving Marvel, it was huge news. Any comic fan will tell you that they bought Image Comics titles the very second they were released. I was no different. In fact I remember I asked my Dad to buy a copy of Spawn No.1 for me. This was months after it was released and I was hoping he would be able to find it. Well.......
He did!!! My Dad was going away on a business trip and none of the tiny book stores in town were carrying Image Comics, hell they had drastically cut the number of comics they were selling by the time Spawn # 1 was released. I knew it was a long shot but my Dad found a copy and I was over the moon. Growing up my parents were not fans of my comic collecting but they never stopped me from collecting and I am grateful for that. Spawn # 1 was my first ever Image Comics. I had never read anything other than Marvel or DC Comics at that point, so this was a first for me. Image Comics brought with them wide spread changes to the comics industry, one that is still felt today as Image Comics is still going strong, Spawn is still around and while some creators have moved on to other endeavors elsewhere, the original Image founding fathers are still together.
The year was 1992 when Spawn # 1 was released or rather unleashed and wow, the cover really stood out with pencils and inks by McFarlane, colors by Ken Steacy. This issue came with a centerfold poster printed on glossy paper. And with that I decided to broaden my collection to include other comics as well. Marvel definitely! DC Comics yes! Image oh yeah! and then I found out about Valiant Comics.
By the time I found out about Valiant Comics, It was a little late. I missed out on some really good quality stuff like XO Manowar, Magnus Robot Fighter, Solar Man Of The Atom, the original Rai, Harbinger and so on. I read the reviews and they were glowing reviews of what Valiant was putting out there and the talent involved with Valiant was equally as impressive, Jim Shooter, Bob Layton, Barry Windsor Smith, Joe Quesada, Rags Morales and many more. There was no way I could even find back issues of Valiant titles, the only reason why I was able to read Unity # 0 was because someone had sold it to a bookstore who didn't know what they had and practically gave them away. I loved reading XO Manowar and when I managed to but a Solar TPB, I was blown away with the quality of the story and Barry Windsor Smith's art, whoa!!! Absolutely beautiful.
With that, I had to put more cash aside to fuel my hobby. So for a while there, I just bought whatever I could find. Valiant and Image and Marvel and DC!!
I decided that I didn't want to miss any other # 1's from Valiant so when this title was released, I jumped at the chance to reserve my copy, Armorines # 1, cover and interior art by Jim Calafiore, story by Jorge Gonzalez. I told myself to get as many Valiant comics as I could which was why I jumped at the chance to get this next comic when it was announced.
When it was announced that Valiant and Image would collaborate on a major inter company event, the comic world was thrilled, so was I, I didn't even blink, I just said take my wallet. Now I'm not sure if I have all the issues of the Image /Valiant Deathmate titles which were not numbered, they used colors. I bought this mainly because I found out that Marc Silvestri and Joe Quesada would be drawing two separate stories in Deathmate Epilogue. In fact the cover shown here was penciled by Joe Quesada and inked by Marc Silverstri. The story was written by Bob Layton.
The other Deathmate book I bought was this one, Deathmate: Black.
Deathmate Black featured a cover by Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee. Now this book featured a lot of artists, story wise, there were 2 writers
Brandon Choi (Plot); Eric Silvestri (Script). But in terms of the art, well, you had on pencils: Brandon Peterson; Brett Booth; Marc Silvestri; Jeffery Scott; Scott Clark; Greg Capullo; Jim Lee; Wilce Portacio and on Inks: Scott Williams; Sal Regla; Alex Garner; Trevor Scott; John Dickenson (assists); John Tighe(assists); Rich Johnson (assists).
The Deathmate books were all released on Cardstock Glossy Covers were which the norm those days, the more gimmicks they cover had, the more desirable they were. Now the reviews for this huge inter company event wasn't all that great. Major delays hurt this crossover. A lot. The uneven quality in the artwork didn't help either. The fact that I only found these two issues made me wonder just how bad the other issues were. I had read that a major sticking point for fans was the uneven art, the lateness and the bad story. The one significant thing about Deathmate Black is that Gen 13 made their first appearance ever.
Do you remember when Gen 13 # 1 was launched? I read that # 1 would have variant covers. A lot of variant covers. I wanted them all but in the end, I could only get these two. I took what I could get. I can't recall how many variants there were, 11 or 13 or something like? No, I think it was 8, I could be wrong but at the time Gen 13 was a hot Image comic.
One of the gimmicks that I personally liked back in those days was covers like this one on Turok # 1.
Turok # 1 featured an embossed cardstock cover with chromium strip and red foil logo. Possibly Jorge Gonzalez did the chromium strip coloring while Kevin VanHook did the
background coloring. the art is by Bart Sears which is just spectacular. Here's a closer look at it.
Nice huh? This issue was written by David Michelinie, Art by Bart Sears and Randy Elliott. I was so happy to see this issue again and I'm thankful it's still in such great condition. Those were just a small sample of the diverse universe of comics I read back in the day. Today the choice for the comic book fan is almost limitless as there are now more titles to choose from as more companies big and small are producing more and more comics. Image comics still stands strong today, there are now more independent comics out there for us to enjoy.
Looking back now, it was a time for good comics, great comics and some not so great but man what a time it was to be a reader, collector or even a casual fan and I look forward to reading and collecting even more comics today, how about you?
Thanks for dropping by for the 43rd Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast, I truly hope you enjoyed it, see you again next time, remember drop by anytime, you're always welcome here.
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