Indepenent – EHT Comics

X-O Manowar began as an original character by Valiant Comics with issue #1 with a cover date of February 1992. Less than a year after it began, with the Unity crossover and quality storytelling bringing attention to Valiant books, back issue prices rose dramatically due to limited early print runs. With comic book speculators buying multiple copies of each issue, sales reached as high as 800,000 copies for X-O Manowar #0 (August 1993) before dropping off. This original series ran for 68 issues before being canceled after the Sept. 1996 issue, of which only approximately 14,000 were printed.

The comic book studio MVCreations produced numerous Masters of the Universe comics during the promotion of the 2002-2004 toy line. MVCreations is a studio headed by Val Staples, originallly publishing through Image Comics. Following their success with the Masters of the Universe license, the two companies parted ways. MVCreations soon partnered with CrossGen Comics. Despite obtaining the license of two Don Bluth properties, as well as publishing a horror comic by Rob Zombie, the studio failed to off-set financial problems, in part due to CrossGen’s own financial downturn. The studio parted ways with CrossGen and became a full publisher on their own. As Hasbro’s enthusiasm in the Masters of the Universe property faded, MVCreations returned to publishd under Image Comics.