As part of my continuing efforts to make the most of this ridiculous year there has been a massive restructuring of the cosmicsparky boudoir. Old furniture has been cast off in favor of more functional new additions, old items are being dug out of ancient corners, long overdue handyman projects are nearing completion. Honestly it’s all a bit of a mess but the upside for you fine folks is all that potentially post-worthy items that have been rediscovered during this ill-conceived attempt at home-improvement. Case in point being the contents of this old longbox that for the past few years has served as the base of a poverty-stricken laptop desk. We’ve ventured into the contents of this box a couple times in the past to talk about items like my very first comic but today I thought it’d be nice to start venturing further into obscurity, beginning with the Ultraverse.
A Note Before Moving Forward:
In all fairness I should note before going too far that I’d hoped to make this post larger until life tossed out one of those oh so fun curveballs. On Saturday night, as I was wrapping up the final exams of my summer courses and looked forward to a full week of relaxation my cat decided to go and have a leg issues. Turns out the lil guy might have hip dysplasia, at least according to the vet we were able to take him too. Tomorrow his main vet is gonna go over the files and figure out if this really is the case and what treatments we might try. Still gonna try to get the Halloween season stuff started on time for you all while I babysit my less mobile furry friend. If you all could send Mr. Forrest some positive vibe it’d be appreciated.
Back to the Article Proper:
It should be noted that this longbox is actually the remnants of several comic collections, resulting in all manner of twisted relics. There’s no better example than the assortment of Ultraverse comics my brother left behind once he left for the army. You’re forgiven for scratching your head in wonderment as to what the hell Ultraverse even is. It was an attempt by Malibu comics to launch their own edgy superhero collective. There was an equivalent character for each main type. Prime was a disgusting body-horror take on Superman, Prototype was a lame ass riff on Iron Man. In place of Wonder Woman there was Mantra, a single mother with the reincarnated soul of a wizard… yowza. Instead of Man-Thing or Swamp Thing they had Sludge. There was even a Deathstorke/Deadpool sort of gun-toting anti-hero in the form of Solitare. Possibly the best known of the batch was Nightman, a Batman type notable for his atrocious late-90s television series.
As noted before, each of the characters had to be more edgy and violent than the competition because it was the 90s and good taste had long since gone out of fashion. The characters of the Ultraverse might have made a name for themselves without gimmicks thanks to some of the creative talent behind the scenes. Malibu brought writers like Steve Gerber, Mike W. Barr, and Chris Claramont. Bing names for sure though none of them seemed to be bringing their best to the field. Perhaps that had something to do with the sheer focus on marketing and cross-promotion witch the characters wasting no time in visiting other books. The line even had its own major cross-over event within the very first year.
The story of Ultraverse has one more weird turn. After the line found some amount of success Marvel comics bought up the characters and launched an event called Black September to start having them interact with the current roster of Marvel heroes. Thus we saw the likes of Prime and Juggernaut serving on the same team, or Rune facing off against Venom. The popularity of these new heroes quickly dwindled. After all; the big appeal of reading the Ultraverse was being there for the beginning of something new. Once it was all integrated and reconfigured into the Marvel universe there was little reason for readers to care. Why bother with bastardizations of heroes within the same continuity as the real deal. It wasn’t long before most of the Ultra heroes vanished into obscurity.
The question for years has been what to do with these books. They’re aren’t high quality, that’s for sure. Nor do they command a high price on the used comic market. The things are pure lemons. Few people even know about them and even fewer want them. And yet their rarity is almost guaranteed as there seems to be some sort of contract snafu that prevented Marvel from relaunching or republishing the titles. I’m sure that legal matter has only gotten more complicated since the Disney acquisition.
My brother’s stash wasn’t solely based on failed interconnected universes. He did have a few legitimately interesting titles like some Comicco issues of Johnny Quest, a sighed copy of the first issue of Valiant’s relaunch of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Probably the most widely known are issues of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear. Sadly the massive print runs of the 1990s ensured that these books are not at all rare. Plus I hate Frank Miller so maybe the bro will get these in a holiday care package.
Back when we kiddies were gathering comics during that 90s boom era my mother joined in as well by indulging in her Star Trek fandom. There’s about 20 issues each of DC’s regular and Next Gen Trek books along with the first few of Malibu’s DS9 material. I’ve never made an attempt at reading these but now might be the time to start. After all, current Trek isn’t all bad but there’s something to be said for the glory days of the franchise of which these books are a part.
As mentioned before I gotta cut this post a bit short of my goal, didn’t even get to my section of the longbox. The idea I’m trying to float however is diving into random issues or arcs as a new recurring series for the blog. Try to make these lemons into internet lemonade. I’ll figure out a schedule for that down the line. Right now I gotta care for my lil dude and prep some Halloween stuff in my spare time. Any luck and there will be more posts within the week, and hopefully some good news about the quadruped.
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