CBR: CCI: Jim Shooter Talks Gold Key at Dark Horse

[CBR News]

Saturday's Dark Horse panel at Comic-Con revealed Jim Shooter is returning to the Gold Key characters Turok, Magnus: Robot Fighter, and Doctor Solar. CBR News spoke with Shooter about the project.


Full article here.

[Sean Walsh]

Makes sense. Dark Horse has done a lot of (darn good lookin') Archive collections with the Gold Key in recent years. Nice to see Shooter re-involved with these characters too.

.....and to top it off, they're returning (and being reinvented) in the pages of the relaunched DARK HORSE PRESENTS!

[Yodazone]

Makes sense. Dark Horse has done a lot of (darn good lookin') Archive collections with the Gold Key in recent years. Nice to see Shooter re-involved with these characters too.

.....and to top it off, they're returning (and being reinvented) in the pages of the relaunched DARK HORSE PRESENTS!

Dark Horse Presents is coming back? To print?

[Drew Geraci]

Dark Horse Presents is coming back? To print?

I do miss DHP, where I first discovered Concrete, The American, The Creep and other characters. This may be another venue for new talent to emerge, as it was for it's 150-issue run.

I also miss Shooter's take on classic characters. He may not be flavor-of-the-month, but he's very smart. He was writing stories about quantum physics in the 1980s and made them entertaining as well. His Valiant stuff rocked!

[hondobrode]

Valiant was one of the coolest publishers and I miss them deeply. Back in the 90's I had only heard of the Gold Key properties and that was the extent of my exposure. Shooter and crew built those three licensed properties up, along with new characters like X-O Manowar, and created something very special.

As I go through my collection weeding out what to sell, I find I'm keeping the Valiant stuff.

In that spirit, I'm really hoping Shooter can once again give us greatness. I wonder what we'll see with Mighty Samson.

Too bad we haven't heard anything from Valiant Entertainment about what they're plans are going forward with the non-Gold Key characters.

It'd be neat down the road if the two publishers had some crossovers.

Don't know which news I'm more excited about : the return of the GK characters or Marvelman !

[SMARTASS8]

After DC, Dark Horse is my favorite company, so this is great news. It sucks that this means that there's not much that Valiant Entertainment can do in terms of reprinting these characters' books or giving us new stories. I missed out on Valiant the first time and was hoping V.E.'s first 3 HC reprints would lead to new Valiant Universe stories.

[rasx]

Hooray! This is the best news I've heard out of Comic con, can't wait to read new Turok:Dinosaur Hunter stories!
Come on VE stop sticking, it's time to bring back the other Valiant characters!

[alz]

Wow... this is really great news! I was drilling through the net last night trying to find a good replacement for Shooter's STAR BRAND and SOLAR stories... then I find this bit of news!

Hope it being in DHP doesn't mean the story slowly drips out 6 pages every 2 months, though.

(BTW, does anyone know of any good comic book or sci-fi stories that mimic the "every day man with unlimited power" in a contemporary space/universe setting (hard sci-fi, no crazy or immediate space opera plots).

(On a side note, the DHP thing can be good for Shooter. My one criticism of his work is that he expanded his product line too fast, flooding his reader base)

[stingerman]

This is the best news to come out of the SDCC yet! Cool!

[grphxkindaguy]

(BTW, does anyone know of any good comic book or sci-fi stories that mimic the "every day man with unlimited power" in a contemporary space/universe setting (hard sci-fi, no crazy or immediate space opera plots).

Hmmm, you might want to try DREADSTAR (an old Epic title by Jim Starlin) or even Valiant's X-O Manowar title (Barbarian w/high tech alien armor in present day).

[Ben Akers]

Great news.

I hope that Shooter can work on them for a longer period of time than his recent Legion of Super-heroes arc that lasted just long enough for him to start building everything up. He's a writer that really works better during a long run on a series.

[grphxkindaguy]

Great news.

I hope that Shooter can work on them for a longer period of time than his recent Legion of Super-heroes arc that lasted just long enough for him to start building everything up. He's a writer that really works better during a long run on a series.

its unfortunate that no one seems to want to work w/Shooter these days, or at least for very long...

[Gunner Downe]

yeah! Cannot wait! Seriously...

[Pil]

The original Doctor Solar is one of the best and most interesting characters from the 1960's IMO. I have some of the reprints and Danish editions. Great stuff! Hope it won't be long before they start publishing the new books.

[thehazens]

No! No! No! No! No! They just don't understand.

Being a long time Magnus Robot Fighter collector ( and an owner of 5 original Russ Manning pages), I had to comment about Dark Horse's adaptation of Magnus Robot Fighter.

I realize that this was a labor of love but in my opinion they have completely missed the mark on some very important points that made Magnus Robot Fighter stand above all comics and even outselling Superman at one point in time.. Please don't think I'm being overly judgmental, NO ONE has managed to capture the magic that Russ Manning gave us. I am not talking only about the artwork, there are more fundamental issues in play.

First of all,the Russ Manning Magnus Robot Fighter was more of a Science Fiction graphic novel. 4000 AD was a believable optimistic future than seemed real. North-AM is open, bright and airy (except in the goph levels which was only explored once and not a main focus of the series.). Magnus and the North Am world exemplifies the purity and best human kind has to offer.

Every attempt after Russ Manning left has turned Magnus Robot Fighter into, dare I say it, merely a comic book. This was painfully obvious in Valiant's version when they had a robot dressing as a human and the continuous use of slang terms such as “Meatbags”, “Milespire” etc.

Dark Horse's variation has a Cyborg named “Big Guns” which is as comic bookish as you can get.
Robot's conversing during confrontations, Magnus sleeping with another woman are more examples of how far they have deviated from the world created by Russ Manning.

The following excerpts are examples of the comic bookish dialog and slang that appears is aimed at the grade school reader and not adults. Russ Manning's Magnus Robot Fighter never talked down to it’s readers.

“Q-ROBS”
“BLIP-OFF-ANY-INTERFERENCE”
“THE-OTHERS-HAVE-BEEN-BLIPPED”
“LET'S ZOOM”
“WHATTERYA HIS P.R. GUY? CLAMP IT.”
“I TOLD YOU HE'S THAT FREAK-STRONG ROBOT FIGHTER”
“HE MUST BE GEN ENHANCED TO THE MAX”
“THUG-ROBS”
“THE BOYS AT THE PENS WILL SQUEEZE WHAT SHE KNOWS OUTTA HER ZAP-QUICK”
“STUPID-FRAIL!”
“CHOOCH, BEEZER...GO WITH BOSS ZAPO.”
“SCRAPPERS SQUEEZER”
“SCRAM AND ZOOM”

As gifted as Bill Reinhold is, he has not captured the open clean look of Russ Manning's North AM. Even the upper level scenes seem cluttered and crowded giving a completely different feel for North AM.

I do not expect anyone to be able to duplicate Russ Manning s North Am, but I was hoping for at least the flavor and mood to be captured.

In my opinion, Russ Manning's Magnus Robot Fighter is still the greatest comic ever produced.

I am truly disappointed that once again Magnus Robot Fighter had emerged only to sink into oblivion and obscurity once again.

Gregg Hazen

Brunswick, Ohio