Ultraverse Comics

[Tabris]

Ugh, Rune made absolutely zero sense. Ulm was NOT a good writer.

Danko was actually pretty darn good on Warstrike. Firearm was probably the best of the lot though, although Englehart was great on The Strangers.

[GreatLakesAvengers]

I really enjoyed Sludge a lot, too. Actually ... I can get into pretty much anything written by Gerber.

[WMichael123]

For a brief time in the mid 1990s, I began buying comic books off a little wire stand at the local supermarket, after not really reading comics since the late 1960s. I stopped buying again when the little wire rack disappeared, and I learned why that happened not long ago after reading The Comic Wars, about the corporate battle for Marvel Comics.

Marvel had been expanding in every way imaginable in order to inflate its stock prices. They bought new kid on the block Malibu comics, which had just successfully launched their Ultraverse line two years earlier. They also bought two trading card companies, and a small distributing company, but I digress.

I hate to throw away books, so after I finished reading a book I would put it with a stack of read books in a big garbage bag in my garage. In 2005 I got married and bought a new house, and in the course of moving, I came across my trash bag of comics from 10-12 years earlier.

My wife and I went to Atomic Comics in Phoenix and bought a copy of the Overstreet Guide to see if we had any valuable treasures in the lot (we didn't) and I found myself reading through some of the titles, particularly MANTRA, one of the Ultraverse books.

Since I had only a few issues, I bought everything the store had in stock and then began going on-line to complete the full run of the title. Since some of the storylines carried over into other books, I began buying them as well, and eventually decided I wanted to acquire two of every issue of every title Malibu had ever published under the Ultraverse banner. I am now very near completion of that quest.

The great thing about collecting the entire series is that there were so many titles produced in such a short time, including special and variant covers (as well as a 30 minute vhs movie with a story continued into the comic book), and yet most of the books can still be had in very good to near mint condition for $1 or less (sometimes large lots are sold on Ebay averaging 10 cents per issue.)

Many of the characters and stores -- especially the early titles, are fantastic, although Mantra continues to be my favorite. You can certainly see how much things deteriorated once Marvel got involved. The fact that nearly 15 years later there is still so much interest in the Ultraverse bears testimony to what a great, if at times flawed, concept it was.

Marvel is still asked by fans to bring back some or all of the characters -- characters whose existence Marvel will not even acknowledge. There has been talk over the years of a PRIME movie, but it never seems to happen.

Personally, I think MANTRA would make an astounding movie, if done really well in the same vein as the last BATMAN movie. MANTRA's story spans 1500 years, on this world and on other worlds as well, and integrates with some famous historical events. There are interesting ethical questions raised, such as what happens to the souls of the men Lukasz displaces each time he "dies" and then is re-incarnated?

There is a 3 page great epitaph for the Ultraverse written by a fellow fan which appear in what I believe was the very last publication under that banner -- Ultraverse Future Shock. It is well worth reading.

Anytime a comic title published only 2 -3 years can still maintain a fan base 15 years later tells me there was something very worthwhile happening there.

[Odinwolf]

I didn't read a lot of the Ultraverse, but I do remember The Ferret from Malibu. I have issues 1-4 of that and I thought it was pretty cool that there was a Ferret comic book, since my best friend at the time had Ferret pets and we drew little comic books about them.

The Ferret was, for intents and purposes, the Wolverine of the Malibu world. He had claws (fingertips), enhanced senses, a healing factor and a bad "I'm not a team player" attitude. It wasn't a great book but it was fun when I was 12.

[Sijo]

It's true that in the 90's everyone in comics was trying to come up with their own Superhero Universes to compete with Marvel and DC's. However, of all of them only the Ultraverse impressed me. The stories and art were as good as anything from the big two- mostly because they were made by people who had worked there. But in addition, the characters managed to both feel innovative -particularly on Mantra and the Strangers- but without being taken so far that I would feel uncomfortable with them. That doesn't mean I liked everything- I hated the "let's spring the Death of the Exiles on the fans" thing, and I never cared for vampire-cannibal Rune, either. But in general, I enjoyed the Malibu Ultraverse series, perhaps mainly because I liked watching as this universe started to come together from the start; Marvel and DC were already complicated universes when I started reading them. But seeing, for example, Nightman grow into his role as a hero, was certainly very enjoyable.

And like most of us, I was disappointed with the Marvel Ultraverse books; they felt like they were changed for no good reason, though I did like the first few Marvel-Ultraverse crossovers. BTW, according to some interviews with some of the Ultraverse creators, Marvel owns the characters now lock and stock and would NOT owe them any royalties for their use, or minimal ones at most; Marvel either doesn't understand that or simply doesn't want to give even a small percent of their gains to the original creators.

[Magneto_X]

Marvel either doesn't understand that or simply don't want to give even a small percent of their gains to the original creators.

My guess is the latter.

If it was the former the Ultraverse would have been merged with the Marvel universe by now. And we'd have the various Ultra villains and heroes appearing all over the lines.

[Michael P]

My guess is the latter.

Dingdingding!

That, and Marvel only ever wanted Malibu's in-house computer coloring technology, anyway.

[marshal99]

I didn't read a lot of the Ultraverse, but I do remember The Ferret from Malibu. I have issues 1-4 of that and I thought it was pretty cool that there was a Ferret comic book, since my best friend at the time had Ferret pets and we drew little comic books about them.

The Ferret was, for intents and purposes, the Wolverine of the Malibu world. He had claws (fingertips), enhanced senses, a healing factor and a bad "I'm not a team player" attitude. It wasn't a great book but it was fun when I was 12.

The Ferret was from Malibu's Protector world , he died along with all his teammates when his earth exploded in the last issue of the protectors.

[WMichael123]

I've read tons of speculation on why Marvel bought Malibu. One theory is that Malibu had a very advanced computer graphics coloring system and both DC and Marvel wanted to get their hands on it. Another theory was that display space for titles was at a premium with so many titles around at that time, and each of the two companies wanted the additional display space. And a third theory was that each of the big guys wanted to take control of an up and coming rival which might prove to be a threat.

I don't think it was really any of these things. From what I understand from things I've read, all the independents together had scarcely 3% of the market -- Malibu was no competitive threat, nor would it have provided much display space. I've also read that Marvel continued to have its books colored the way it had been and never particularly was interested in the Malibu coloring system.

My guess is that there were two factors involved: 1st, Marvel ownership at this time was playing some big time games with pumping up stock prices and manipulating the company. They acquired two trading card companies and one or two small distributorships to further inflate the stock value.

2nd, I think Scott Rosenberg - Malibu founder, was a pretty sharp dude and got DC and Marvel each thinking the other was interested in acquiring the company. Of course if Marvel wanted it, they must know something DC didn't know and vice versa.

Today, Scott Mitchell Roseberg owns Platinum Studios which brought Men In Black to the Big Screen.

Unfortunately Marvel won the bidding, just at the very time they were destroying the industry by instituting distribution policies that hurt retailers and ultimately themselves. Plus, all the stock maniuplation came to roost and by about 1995, Marvel sat on verge of bankruptcy. Two guys who owned a manufacturing business -- I think it was called Toy Company, ended up running an end run around two powerful factions that wanted to acquire Marvel and I believe are both still in control. One of them had the vision to get Marvel into the movie business big time, which is probably where the bulk of their money comes from today.

Marvel, like most companies, has always treated their character creators, writers and artists as guns for hire, with no ownership interest. Malibu, meanwhile, gave their creative people an ownership stake in their creations. Even though most everyone has offered to give most of all of their claims, Marvel probably sees some big time legal action down the road if one of the Ultraverse characters would achieve any real success.

Beyond that, Marvel probably thinks "why bother? We've got more than enough characters and titles out there now, why dilute our product?"

Joe Quesada, who I believe is still the managing editor of Marvel, has said he personally would love to bring back the Ultraverse, or at least some of the characters, but the powers that be have nixed the idea.

IMHO, Marvel is missing the boat. The fact that this relatively small series still draws comments of interest a decade and a half after the fact suggests there was something of lasting value. If you want to see something really interesting, put MANTRAVERSE in your website and you will see an incredible sight dedicated to just the Mantra character.

[WMichael123]

I meant to say "Put Mantraverse" in your web browser (not website).

[mastaflan]

I Loved Nightman...Kyle Hots was great back then and I aam glad he is back with Marvel making things happen.

I wish that some home The Ultraverse makes a comeback in some form.

[Madison Carter]

Marvel is still asked by fans to bring back some or all of the characters -- characters whose existence Marvel will not even acknowledge.

We acknowledge them all the time in the Handbooks.

[Love Machine]

Night Man was such a great character they turned him into an awful TV show. There's no praise higher than that!

On behalf of awful TV shows everywhere how dare you lump us together with the streaming pile of dogpoo that was Night Man. Seriously worst 1990s comic to TV property...worse even than Model by Day or Gen X:o

[Gaastra]

I read most of the ultraverse books.

I loved strangers and ultraforce.

I even watched the ultraforce cartoon. Remember that show?

I remember reading in wizard when marvel bought the ultraverse books that they were planning to put topaz in the avengers.

Nightman is still trapped in the main marvel universe also while his clone is in the ultraverse so they can use nightman if they wanted becouse he's in the marvel universe right now.

I wish marvel would bring the ulraverse back.

They brought heroes reborn and new universe back but not the ultraverse?

[Expletive Deleted]

They brought heroes reborn and new universe back but not the ultraverse?

Marvel doesn't have the same degree of ownership over Ultraverse properties as they do Heroes Reborn and New Universe. I forget the details, but most of the Ultraverse material is (at least to some degree) creator owned.