Now that I have against all expectations ( including mine ) found all the colour pages I needed for the post on ULTRAFORCE 6 by George Perez we're back to Norm Breyfogle's PRIME series ( no pun intended here ).
Now in our last PRIME post I included some black and white pages from the ashcan edition ( if you don't know what that is go back to that post because I explained it there ) for the first issue of PRIME but in this post we are back to our regular scans of the original black and white artwork.
And speaking of ashcan editions, since I wrote the first PRIME post some of my readers might have sought some of them out and might be a bit confused but remember that I was writing about the very first ashcan editions when I wrote that they were printed in black and white. Later on they naturally also included pages in colour and all kind of behind the scenes stuff like character sketches and material from upcoming issues.
Like I also mentioned in our first PRIME post back when I was still living my best life in Germany I had a lot of free promo material that came in comicbook magazines like the now defunct WIZARD magazine which for a very long time was at the top of the comicbook news publications food chain ( until it had the brilliant idea to include less of what made it unique in favour of articles about pop culture stuff that was already covered by bigger magazines of higher reputation that were in the game for decades - in short they decided to become a small fish in a bigger pond instead of being a big fish in a small pond and got eaten by a bigger fish ) or comicbook catalogues like ADVANCE COMICS or PREVIEWS.
Those included ashcan editions but also zero issues or 1/2 issues, other promo issues and trading cards. I don't know if trading cards are still a thing since I can't imagine how virtual or electronic trading cards would work but back when Malibu Comics started its ULTRAVERSE trading cards were the hottest thing ever. Now you might ask yourself why I am crying in my ( only figuratively speaking ) beer ( which would probably be a lemongrass radler beer without alcohol ) about some stuff I got for free.
Well, you see, as weird as it may sound the free comicbook stuff can be the most valuable to a serious collector. Because you can't just buy it.
Okay, you can buy it if you find it but what I mean is that the promo issues of Spider - Man fighting against illiteracy of Captain America going to war against drugs are not available in all of the comicbook shops, they are usually not for sale - which makes deciding on a price a question of what you are willing to pay for it - and unless it are NEW TEEN TITANS issues about drug abuse they are not reprinted and included in collected editions. Likewise the trading cards that came with those magazines and catalogues had a limited print run and were very hard to get. So yeah, while I had to give all of that material away for free if I wanted to avoid having to throw it into the trash bin I burned a lot of money - reasonably hundreds of EUROS - so I am allowed to feel a slight sting because of it.
Coming back to PRIME, I should probably write a bit what the series was all about and the best that I can describe it is Captain Marvel but with a 90s genetic experiment twist. And I am talking about the original Captain Marvel from Fawcett Comics and not about Marvel Comics kree warrior who goes by the name of Mar - Vell nor one of my favourite Avengers ever Monica Rambeau nor when Miss Marvel Carol Danvers took up the mantle of Captain Marvel so they could use the name Miss Marvel for fan pandering Kamala Khan ( I never understood her character because her power is to make parts of her body bigger and there is one part of the female anatomy women would definitely make bigger if they could and that is the one part of her body she never used her powers on ) because they can't let the copyright to the Captain Marvel name languish ( which is the reason why DC Comics - which bought the rights to all of Fawcett Comic's characters when printing comicbooks stopped being profitable so they sold their intellectual properties load stock and barrel - has to call their series with Captain Marvel SHAZAM or THE POWER OF SHAZAM ) otherwise their biggest rival can use the name of Captain Marvel again.
Now the concept of Captain Marvel - by speaking the name of the wizard young boy Billy Batson transforms into the world's mightiest mortal - has influenced a lot of comics or has been outright copied by dozen of other comics from lame Doctor Donald Blake hitting his cane on the ground and possessing the power the nordic god of thunder Thor to the meek scientist Bruce Banner changing into the incredible Hulk in times of stress or rage to everybody's favourite superhero sidekick Rick Jones exchanging places in the negative zone with kree warrior Mar - Vell.
In the case of Prime we have thirteen year old Kevin Green who was subjected to secret genetic experiments by the government and gained the ability to transform his body into the form of adult superhero Prime who has many super powers. Kevin does so by projecting organic liquid flesh from his torso and reverting to his normal teenage form by turning that body into a mess of protein goo and has to pull out of these remains or risk suffocating which adds a certain body horror aspect to the series.
With Captain Marvel - the original - there has always been a big debate if Billy Batson himself does become Captain Marvel or if he just exchanges places with earth's mightiest mortal and if he becomes Captain Marvel how much does Captain Marvel remember of his adventures when Billy Batson is in control of his body and if Billy Batson exchanges places with Captain Marvel where is Captain Marvel when he is not being summoned by Billy Batson and when he does where the frag does Billy Batson go ?
Likewise there have been different approaches to this dynamic in other characters like Marvel Comics version of the mighty Thor ( which is very different from the god of thunder in the nordic legends ) for instance where at the beginning Doctor Donald Blake just did find Thor's magic mallet Mjolnir and gained his powers because he was worthy while later on it was explained that Donald had always been Thor and to teach him humility his father Odin transformed him into a feeble, lame mortal, wiped his mind and dropped him off on the backwards planet Midgard.
Over the years there have been various variations of this dynamic like under Walt Simonson where Thor gave up on secret identities altogether or under Dan Jurgens famous " Superman with a hammer " run where to save the life of Jake Olson Thor had to merge with him ( which for me didn't make sense since Thor's mind was still n control when he was Jake Olson so that practically Jek was remained dead for all purposes only that now an impostor was living his life and banging his wife ) so that now the thunder god had to figure out and experience life as a mortal.
Last but not least they went the exact opposite way when the original Thor was banished to parts unknown and mortal Kevin Masterson became the replacement god of thunder and had to figure out how to balance his life as a single father with being an Avenger and filling the shoes of an asgardian during my favourite Thor run by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz .
Coming back to Prime, here we have Kevin Green in control of the hero form but still being a teenager at the core who is faced with a lot of adult situations which for the most part he has no idea how to handle ( like when another superhero comes out as gay but we will cover that in an upcoming PRIME post ) and that leads to a lot of problems. As those who have read my last post know he later on joins Ultraforce where he often butts heads with the other heroes but that will be a subject for an upcoming ULTRAFORCE post. But for now I have bored my readers long enough ( if there are still any left reading this ) so it's about time we get to some more cool PRIME artwork by the late, great Norm Breyfogle .
in his prime
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secrets of the ultraverse
the captain marvel prime connection
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I can't remember the last time I featured kate upton
kate upton videos with an age restriction
ultraforce episode six
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