EXCLUSIVE: Dark Horse Expands Heroes With "Brain Boy" & "Blackout"

[CBR News]

This May, Dark Horse grows its superhero pantheon with a revival of '60s hero "Brain Boy" from Fred Van Lente and the all-new hero Blackout. Mike Richardson explains how it all comes together.


Full article here.

[rasx]

Blackout sounds interesting, I don't buy DHP(too expensive), but I will check out the #0 and minis. Starting from 2012, we seem to be in a new Indie boom just like the 90's.

[Dark-Flux]

Well, ive been enjoying Ghost and plan to checkout X and Catalyst Comix (mostly for Casey written Supes) so ill keep an eye on these too.

[Captain Craig]

I agree that Blackout sounds promising. Looking at that retro cover for Brain Boy cracked me up.
I'm liking Ghost alright. Waiting for X to be collected out of DHP. The cover price on DHP is crazy, you have to be very indie dedicated to get that each time it's out.
I'm also going to grab Catalyst when it debuts.

[Brave Sir Robbin]

This sounds interesting. As I keep dropping DC titles, it will be interesting to see superhero books from another company that is not so editorially overbearing. I have looked at a couple of Valiant books that looked good. I may start those. I could give these a try to. The important thing will be to see if they can be like Image, where you get the feeling that the writer is in charge and you never know where the book is going to go.

[Dr.J.]

This May, Dark Horse grows its superhero pantheon with a revival of '60s hero "Brain Boy" from Fred Van Lente and the all-new hero Blackout. Mike Richardson explains how it all comes together.


Full article here.

Everyone has ONE book, in their collection, their oldest owned comic.For me, brain boy 6 is that book! Frank Springer was a decent artist, taking over shield after steranko left.Now they got to do something as well, with the backup character, the strange mr. ozmadaus. Im sure I spelled that wrong. Very moody supernatural guy, with real potentual.The first issue was done by Gil Kane, had he done all six, more would know the character better.

[fredmanson]

I don't have bough "Ghost" because I have not like the character presented into the pages of DHP (which is cheaper: 80 stories pages for $8.00 = $2.00 the 20 stories pages. So, which publisher is doing that except DHP??? Hum???), but I will do "X", "Captain Midnight" and these two new titles.

I already have dropped all the DCnU titles, and I am dropping a lot of Marvel NOW titles as well. So, for "super-heroes" comic books publishers, we have Dark Horse and Valiant. DE is cool too but its release scheduling is not perfect and all is titles are licensed titles...

Yeah, a return to the sources... Are we in the 2010s????

[Ramage]

Brain Boy is an interesting concept, but their other licensed Gold Key books didn't do that well.

[The Steve Rogers]

I wonder if Darkhorse is bring back their superhero characters due to fear they will loose their Starwars license in a few years to Marvel?

[md62]

I'll try Brain Boy. I like the offbeat 60's Gold Key characters.

[Alton]

This May, Dark Horse grows its superhero pantheon with a revival of '60s hero "Brain Boy" from Fred Van Lente and the all-new hero Blackout. Mike Richardson explains how it all comes together.


Full article here.

Not at all familiar with Blackout, but was a huge fan of Brain Boy.To me having read Harbinger Vol.1 from the VH1 era and having followed VH 2's Harbinger it strikes me that this is where Shooter and company lifted the idea for Harbinger.Nothing wrong with that,but did anyone notice no mention(unless I missed it) of Dell/Gold Key connections or the debacle of Dark Key? This has a lot of potential and as one poster here mentioned the original retro cover I'd love to see Brain Boy placed in it's original Cold War era.Right now any premise is OK with me.I guess this means some Gold Key is still in DH's hands?

[emb021]

FWIW- Brain Boy is NOT a Gold Key character.

He was created for Dell Comics separate from Western, and was published by Dell after the Dell/Western split. (Western then launched Gold Key as their comics line, forcing Dell to come up with their own characters).

Dell went on to create a few interesting characters like Nukla (sort like Charlton's Captain Atom), Fab 4, and used the 3 Universal Monsters as superheroes (Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolfman). There were also adventure titles like Kona Monarch of Monster Isle, Toka the Jungle King, and Naza Stone Age Warrior.

John Stanley, the man behind the success of Little Lulu, went to Dell to do their Nancy & Sluggo title, and created several original titles like Melvin Monster, Thirteen going on Eighteen, Kookie, Dunc and Lou and others.

Not sure who owns the rights to the Dell stuff (they aren't PD).

[md62]

FWIW- Brain Boy is NOT a Gold Key character.

He was created for Dell Comics separate from Western, and was published by Dell after the Dell/Western split. (Western then launched Gold Key as their comics line, forcing Dell to come up with their own characters).

Thanks for the clarification. The Gold Key/Dell/Western stuff is confusing....

[Alton]

FWIW- Brain Boy is NOT a Gold Key character.

He was created for Dell Comics separate from Western, and was published by Dell after the Dell/Western split. (Western then launched Gold Key as their comics line, forcing Dell to come up with their own characters).

Dell went on to create a few interesting characters like Nukla (sort like Charlton's Captain Atom), Fab 4, and used the 3 Universal Monsters as superheroes (Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolfman). There were also adventure titles like Kona Monarch of Monster Isle, Toka the Jungle King, and Naza Stone Age Warrior.

John Stanley, the man behind the success of Little Lulu, went to Dell to do their Nancy & Sluggo title, and created several original titles like Melvin Monster, Thirteen going on Eighteen, Kookie, Dunc and Lou and others.

Not sure who owns the rights to the Dell stuff (they aren't PD).

Thanks for the clarification.When I read some of the Dell/Gold Key stuff back in the day some of what I was reading may have been reprints which confused the whole thing even further.The painted covers on some titles gave the books a similar but distinctive look.Not sure if artists crossed back and forth or not.Despite the similarities with Turok I wouldn't mind seeing Naza resurface.I don't remember a lot of that one or the jungle titles either. So basically Richardson doesn't have to refererence Dark Key in relation to this book. But hopefully the pitfalls with that project will be avoided with BB and any other Dell launches. I'm glad he likes Brain Boy, but I gotta wonder why this one because it's pretty obscure.

[BugsySig]

Thanks for the clarification.When I read some of the Dell/Gold Key stuff back in the day some of what I was reading may have been reprints which confused the whole thing even further.The painted covers on some titles gave the books a similar but distinctive look.Not sure if artists crossed back and forth or not.Despite the similarities with Turok I wouldn't mind seeing Naza resurface.I don't remember a lot of that one or the jungle titles either. So basically Richardson doesn't have to refererence Dark Key in relation to this book. But hopefully the pitfalls with that project will be avoided with BB and any other Dell launches. I'm glad he likes Brain Boy, but I gotta wonder why this one because it's pretty obscure.

Sometimes the obscure titles are the best to reboot because you have a base concept with a lot of room to work with. Being one of the earliest "plain-clothed" superheroes definitely made Brain Boy innovative. It wouldn't surprise me if that book influenced a lot of people (Shooter included).

Speaking of Shooter, the best move being made here is staying away from him. As brilliant as the guy was in his heyday, his style just doesn't work anymore. The Dark Key stuff showed that, and its funny that DH has now turned to another creator responsible for the success of the new VALIANT in FVL to launch a property (Dwayne S was also brought in on X).