After four posts about Malibu Comics various ULTRAVERSE it is time to either switch things up or rename INDEPENDENT COMICS MONTH to MALIBU COMICS MONTH or ULTRAVERSE MONTH and since I try to keep things real on this blog I have decided to do the latter and thus we are returning to the CrossGen Comics universe - after almost two years.
Originally I just wanted to write one - two posts tops - about Malibu's Ultraverse but with so much good material I could not help myself.
Especially in light of the fact that there are no collections of those books available so that aside from finding copies of these comics in the wild that is your only option to see this artwork. Now it is always difficult to decide what to post next because on one side you don't want to fall into a rut and always write about the same things. On the other side there is the problem that it can be difficult or near impossible to find any good material if the comicbook series you want to showcase are too obscure.
Like with Malibu Comics Ultraverse where it was a real battle finding good stuff. The same goes for CrossGen Comics where there are some series where I could not find anything and the ones where I could find something a lot of the scans were oversaturated with colour or they had watermarks or lettering obscuring the artwork so I could not use them.
But don't worry, even with all of that there is enough for various posts.
Now the only question was which CrossGen series should I choose to start this ? Ever since I wrote the post about Jackson Guice's ACTION COMICS issues during the triangle era of the Superman books and subsequentially the posts on his excellent RESURRECTIONMAN series the idea of writing a post on what might be his greatest achievement - CrossGen's amazing detective / adventure series RUSE - has been rolling around in my head.
Likewise it has been almost two years since my last CrossGen posts - the first one an introduction to CrossGen Comics and the second one my first post about Paul Pelletier's NEGATION - so the most logical thing would be to continue that. Additionally Paul Pelletier also worked on other books like CRUX, MYSTIC or SIGIL so that we could make that a series of posts.
And then there is George Perez. There is always George Perez. My first impulse was to finally do a solo post on his SACHS & VIOLENS series with Peter David ( so far I have only used a few pages here and there and in some of my George Perez tribute posts ) thus killing two birds with one stone but seeing as that comicbook appeared under Epic Comics HEAVY HITTERS label which makes it technically a Marvel Comic I decided to save it for the next Marvel Comics month. Or a George Perez month.
Whatever happens first. But coming back to George Perez on CrossGen Comics, here he worked on two titles - first CROSSGEN CHRONICLES and later on SOLUS - but seeing as I have next to nothing where the original artwork is concerned from the first one and not enough from the second one for a full post I have to either wait until I do or take a third title on board like the SIRENS series which was the last book George worked on.
As for this post, since I already wrote about the history of CrossGen's comics extensively in my introduction to the NEGATION I don't want to repeat myself so if you have never heard of CrossGen Comics you might want to go back and check out that post. My first idea for this post was to do the alphabet like I had done for Gil Kane's horror comicbooks for Marvel Comics but the problem was that there were not enough books.
Granted, if you include all of the mini series and one - shots you may get to that number but even with some inventive reschuffling you can't cover all letters in the alphabet while with some others you have three or four titles for the same letter. So while I am going to put the various titles in alphabetical order - for the most part - there are some where I will be grouping them according to their connection to a particular universe.
the best there was
crossgen stuff
crossgen links
crossgen videos
barbara kesel
well it seems marvel comics did print two crossgen omnibuses this one and mystic
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
normie stuff
normie links
normie videos
secrets of the ultraverse
the captain marvel prime connection
the story so far
I can't remember the last time I featured kate upton
kate upton videos with an age restriction
ultraforce episode six
its been ages since I last posted some videos of tara babcock
