Wizard often featured mail-away offers for exclusive merchandise. Wizard began a practice of producing specially offered Wizard #½ issues. These were special issues of ongoing major comic book series which featured in-continuity stories that supplemented the regular series’ published issues. The issues were numbered #½ so as not to disrupt the series’ ongoing numbering system. Often Wizard would also include free pack-in issues with their magazines, usually numbered as Wizard #0.
The New Teen Titans relaunched with a new #1 issue in August 1984 as part of a new initiative at DC informally referred to as “hardcover/softcover”. The New Teen Titans along with Legion of Super-Heroes and Batman and the Outsiders were the first and only titles included in this program. The same stories were published twice, first in a more expensive edition with higher-quality printing and paper distributed exclusively to comic book specialty stores, then republished a year later in the original format, distributed to newsstands. The title was renamed Tales of the Teen Titans with issue #41, while a new concurrently published series named The New Teen Titans vol. 2 launched with a new #1 following the release of Tales of the Teen Titans #44 and Annual #3, the conclusion of the “Judas Contract” storyline.
Pérez temporarily returned with issue #50, when the series took the name The New Titans without the “Teen” prefix, as the characters were no longer teenagers. Issue #50 told a new origin story for Wonder Girl, her link to Wonder Woman having been severed due to retcons created in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Issues #60 and #61 were part of a five-part crossover with Batman, “A Lonely Place of Dying” and along with issue #65, featured the debut of Tim Drake as the third Robin.
Tower of Shadows was re titled Creatures on the Loose with issue #10 (March 1971), this version led off with a seven-page King Kull story by Thomas and artist Bernie Wrightson. The book then became all-reprint until issue #16 (March 1972), when writer Thomas and the art team of Gil Kane and Bill Everett introduced the series “Gullivar Jones, Warrior of Mars”, starring an interplanetary Earthman created by author Edwin L. Arnold in his 1905 book Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation. Following another issue by Thomas and one by Gerry Conway, science fiction novelist George Alec Effinger wrote the final three installments.
Effinger continued as writer for the series that immediately followed, in issue #22 (March 1973): “Thongor! Warrior of Lost Lemuria!”, adapting asword-and-sorcery barbarian character created by author Lin Carter. Following writers Tony Isabella and Gardner Fox, Carter himself co-wrote (with Steve Gerber) the final two installments.
Thomas, Marvel’s associate editor at the time, recalled in 2007 that Thongor had been the company’s first choice when Marvel decided to published a licensed fantasy character, rather than the eventual hit Conan the Barbarian. Publisher Martin Goodman “authorized us to go after a character. I first went after Lin Carter’s Thongor, who was a quasi-Conan with elements of John Carter of Mars, partly became editor-in-chiefStan Lee liked that name the most … I soon got stalled by Lin Carter’s agent on Thongor (he was hoping I’d offer more than the $150 per issue I was authorized to offer), and I got a sudden impulse to go after Conan”.
Spawn began a resurgence in popularity as the title approached its 300th issue, with the title once again becoming a fixture in Diamond’s Top 100. This 300th issue also made Spawn the longest-running independent comic book series of all time.
In 1978, DC Comics intended to revive its science-fiction anthology series Strange Adventures. These plans were put on hold that year due to the DC Implosion, a line-wide scaling back of the company’s publishing output. When the project was revived a year later, the title was changed to Time Warp and the series was in the Dollar Comics format. The first issue was published with an October–November 1979 cover date. Michael Kaluta provided the cover art for the entire run.
The title featured a mixture of both established comics creators and new talent. The writing team of Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn made their comics debut in issue #3 with the three-page short story “On the Day of His Return” which was drawn by Steve Ditko.
Time Warp was canceled with issue #5 (June–July 1980) and unused inventory originally intended for the series was published in a revival of the Mystery in Space title. Other Time Warp stories appeared in the mystery anthology The Unexpected.
A one-shot was published by DC’s Vertigo imprint in May 2013. It included a Rip Hunter story by writer Damon Lindelof and artist Jeff Lemire.
The first Wolverine series was a limited series written by Chris Claremont with pencils by Frank Miller, inks by Joe Rubinstein, letters by Tom Orzechowski, and colors by Glynis Wein. Marvel Comics published the series from September to December 1982. This story arc covers the events leading up to Wolverine’s engagement to Mariko Yashida.
Tank Girl is a British comic created by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin. The eponymous character Tank Girl (Rebecca Buck) drives a tank, which is also her home. She undertakes a series of missions for a nebulous organization before making a serious mistake and being declared an outlaw for her sexual inclinations and her substance abuse. The comic centres on her misadventures with her boyfriend, Booga, a mutant kangaroo. The comic’s style was heavily influenced by punk visual art, and strips were frequently deeply disorganized, anarchic, absurdist, and psychedelic. The strip features various elements with origins in surrealist techniques, fanzines, collage, cut-up technique, stream of consciousness, and metafiction, with very little regard or interest for conventional plotor committed narrative.
The strip was initially set in a stylized post-apocalyptic Australia, although it drew heavily from contemporary British pop culture.
The initial Justice League lineup included seven of DC Comics’ superheroes who were regularly published at that time: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder Woman. Rarely featured in most of the stories, Superman and Batman did not even appear on the cover most of the time. Three of DC’s other surviving or revived characters, Green Arrow, the Atom, and Hawkman were added to the roster over the next four years.
The title’s early success was indirectly responsible for the creation of the Fantastic Four. In his autobiography Stan Lee relates how in 1961, during a round of golf, DC publisher Jack Liebowitz mentioned to Marvel-Timely owner Martin Goodman how well DC’s new book (Justice League) was selling. Later that day Goodman, a publishing trend-follower aware of the JLA’s strong sales, told Lee, his comics editor, to come up with a team of superheroes for Marvel.
In May 2015, Marvel published a new Secret Wars miniseries, written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Esad Ribić, that picked up from where the “Time Runs Out” storyline running in Avengers and New Avengers at the time had ended. The storyline involved the Marvel Universe combining with other alternate universes, including the Ultimate Universe, as well as the 2099 Universe, to form Battleworld, a world which exhibits aspects of the various universes. The core limited series was nine issues long, and ran for eight months, ending in January 2016. One of the core miniseries, Ultimate End, had ended the Ultimate Marvel imprint after 15 years at the time. Ultimate End is written by Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley, the team that began the Ultimate Marvel universe with Ultimate Spider-Man.
Created by album and book cover designer Dean Motter, Mister X was developed for a year in close collaboration with comic artist and illustrator Paul Rivoche, whose series of poster illustrations stirred up great interest in the project. The series published early work by comic artists who would later emerge as important alternative cartoonists, including Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez, Mario Hernandez, Seth, Shane Oakley and D’Israeli.
A highly successful promotional campaign with posters and ads followed for the next year, while Motter and Rivoche struggled to produce an actual issue of Mister X. When Rivoche quit, Vortex Comics president Bill Marks became more skeptical than ever that Motter would be able to produce the series on time, and decided to turn the work over to the Hernandez brothers. The first four issues were written and illustrated by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, with additional writing by Mario Hernandez. The Hernandez brothers quit over payment delays from Vortex. Issues 5 through 14 of the series were then written by Motter, with issues 6 through 13 illustrated by Seth.
Mister X’s influence can be seen and was acknowledged in films like Terry Gilliam‘s Brazil, Tim Burton‘s Batman, and Alex Proyas‘ Dark City.
