The first team of New Mutants characters was created by Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod. They first appeared in 1982’s Marvel Graphic Novel #4 and are subsequently featured in their own title from 1983 until 1991. Like its parent title, The New Mutants highlighted interpersonal and group conflict as well as action and adventure, and featured a large ensemble cast, including the introduction of cult figure Deadpool. With the end of the first series, the characters were relaunched as X-Force in a new, eponymous series.
“Fantastic Planet”. The Surfer has taken Dawn Greenwood to the end of the universe, and now he’s going to show her the most fantastic planet of them all: Earth! It’s your homeworld like you’ve never seen it before: with monsters, magic and…a secret that will change everything!
The title series began with Chuck Dixon’s one shot Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey (cover date 1996 / published December 1995). Initially, the two heroines featured were Barbara Gordon (formerly “Batgirl“) and Dinah Lance (currently “Black Canary”). From the beginning, Canary was written as passionate and idealistic. In an interview with Comics Bulletin, Dixon described this choice as a fertile clash of values: “Dinah’s more idealistic approach is at the heart of this book.
In the aftermath of an apocalypse which wiped out nearly all magic from a once-wondrous fantasy world, a former bard named Hum (a man of few words, so nicknamed because his standard reply is “hm”) seeks a way to save the soul of his wife with nothing but a foul-tempered mutant unicorn and his wits to protect him…but is unwillingly drawn into a brutal power struggle which will decide forever who rules the Weird Wasteland.
Vigilante was an ongoing series published from November of 1983 to February 1988. The series featured the honorable Adrian Chase, who was first introduced in the pages of New Teen Titans Annual #2. Spanning a total of fifty issues and two Annuals, the series ended with the death of the main character.
Charles Lippincott, Lucasfilm‘s publicity supervisor, initially approached Stan Lee in 1975 about publishing a Star Wars comic book prior to the film’s release to appeal to the film’s most likely audience. However, Lee declined to consider such a proposal until the film was completed, and was only persuaded otherwise in a second meeting arranged by Roy Thomas, who wanted to edit the series. Considering movie tie-in comics rarely sold well at that time, Lee negotiated a publishing arrangement with no royalties to Lucasfilm until sales exceeded 100,000 at which point legal arrangements could be revisited.
Marvel Comics Group published a series of Star Wars comic books from 1977 to 1986, lasting 107 issues and 3 annuals. According to former Marvel Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter, the strong sales of Star Wars comics saved Marvel financially in 1977 and 1978. Marvel’s Star Wars series was one of the industry’s top selling titles in 1979 and 1980.The only downside for Marvel was that the 100,000 copy sales quota was surpassed quickly, allowing Lippincott to renegotiate the royalty arrangements from a position of strength.
With only two witches left, one of them takes her own life rather than fall prey to her enemies. With her dying breath, she summons Dawn, the Goddess of the earth, of birth and rebirth, and protector of the witches. Lucifer, prince of lies, and Ahura-Mazda, master of Heaven, may try to bar her path with treachery and swords, but neither Heaven nor Hell is safe from Dawn’s quest for answers – and for bloody vengeance.
The low sales of the various Justice League spinoff books by the mid-1990s prompted DC to revamp the League as a single team (all the various branch teams were disbanded) on a single title. A Justice League of America formed in the September 1996 limited seriesJustice League: A Midsummer’s Nightmare by Mark Waid and Fabian Nicieza. In 1997, DC Comics launched a new Justice League series titled JLA, written by Grant Morrison with art by Howard Porter and inker John Dell. Morrison stayed as writer for the series through issue #41, though several issues had fill-in writers. JLA #18-#21 and #33 were written by Mark Waid. Mark Millar, Devin Grayson and Mark Waid, and J.M. DeMatteis wrote issues #27, #32 and #35 respectively.
This series, in an attempt at a “back-to-basics” approach, used as its core the team’s original and most famous seven members (or their successors): Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash (Wally West), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), and the Martian Manhunter. Additionally, the team received a new headquarters, the “Watchtower“, based on the Moon. JLA quickly became DC’s best-selling title, a position it enjoyed off and on for several years.
As with Superman: Red Son, Millar claims that the concept for the series occurred to him when he was a child. In this case, it came to him after his brother told him that there were no superheroes any more because they had all disappeared after a great war with their respective supervillains. It was modified from a pitch by Millar for a Secret Society of Super-Villains series.
1986, the year of the aforementioned war in which the supervillains took over and made their world “darker and grittier”, has real world significance to the world of comic books. It marks the publication of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and the completion of the 1985-86 Crisis on Infinite Earths series.
