Comics WI: No Image comics?

Lets say that somehow Mcfarland, Liefeld, Larsen, Lee, and the other Image creators are satisfied with their current state at Marvel comics, and therefore Image comics is never formed. How does this affect the state of comic books (remember, the "dark age" of comics was already in effect by the time image came out in 92, but it didnt get really "dark" until 92)? Do Dark Horse or Valiant become the dominant "3rd brand"?
 

Tovarich

Banned
My latest most ill-informed and half-baked post.

I had to quit buying comics in the early '90s, as that's when I started having children (which are bloody expensive!) and am still catching up 2 decades later, so please excuse me if this idea is a non-starter. :eek:

However, would it be possible that, as the late Robert Maxwell's empire was being deconstructed (he having become Tharg of 2000AD not long before his business collapsed) that the talent could've 'bought back' their rights and published in the US themselves under the '2000AD' brand, which would've meant something to knowledgeable* US comics buyers?

*(ie, all of them who were shelling-out serious bucks for quality product from specialist outlets, which was a heckofalot!)
 
I think Valiant has a good shot at becoming the third big company. They had a good superhero lineup, leading with the Magnus, Robot Fighter, Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom and Turok, Son of Stone.

Torqumada
 

Tovarich

Banned
I think Valiant has a good shot at becoming the third big company. They had a good superhero lineup, leading with the Magnus, Robot Fighter, Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom and Turok, Son of Stone.

Weren't Magnus and Solar perceived as opportunistic rip-offs of the Metal Men's Dr Magnus and Captain Atom/Dr Light respectively?
That's certainly how I saw them, and I was only reading old copies in the library, nevermind paying for them!
And Turok was just the latest Tarzan analogue amongst dozens.
 
mcfarland create and co. create good stories for marvel no bankruptsey for marvel.Beter marvel storylines. the spiderman clone story the reed richard stroy lines were awfull
 
Comics will get fucked over faster.

Besides the fact Image Comics broke the big two's stranglehold (which was a good thing), Image comics was also actually bad for the comics.

The image crew were the start of the superstar artist trend. A trend where the artist meant more than the writer. Acclaimed writers were reduced to glorified script writers.

these superstar artists were sending back issues that had little to nothing to do with the plot (see what happened with the X-men)

and the big two were lapping it up

people became more interested in the art than the story, the writers started to bail, comics lost some of its charm.

Original when the superstars bailed for image the rot had set in and marvel and DC found themselves without high profile acclaimed writers and their artists, which lead to the clones and the generic 90's style. it lead to stagnation and status Quo, something that in part still exists today (it's why more times than not, characters go back to their most recognisable iteration, why Spiderman will always go back to his original costume, why wolverine always wears the yellow and Blue, why psylocke will never ever be white again)

if the image crew stayed marvel and DC would still have lost the writers and the artists would be the ones plotting the books. This may mean that the characters created by the artists that eventually went on to super-stardom never get made or get introduced into the big two's universes, it may mean that the 'independent comic movement' never gets as strong

but comics will suffer. It took the image guys nearly 10 years to get semi decent story telling down and while they were limited to their own universe when they created image, in this case they would basically be in control of the direction of the big two.

The actual company that may have a chance to rise from all this is actually Malibu Comics.

They were the guys who original helped image comics start up. (It actually put them ahead of DC in the 90's)

Malibu ended up with a strong stable of writers when the image group left maybe they bring them in earlier. And without the image explosion the fan base may be less fickle.
 
Weren't Magnus and Solar perceived as opportunistic rip-offs of the Metal Men's Dr Magnus and Captain Atom/Dr Light respectively?
That's certainly how I saw them, and I was only reading old copies in the library, nevermind paying for them!
And Turok was just the latest Tarzan analogue amongst dozens.

Not that I know of, but there are similarities. However, especially in the Valiant era, it was pretty obvious that the characters were very different.

Torqumada
 
Humm the invasion of monodimensional guntoting 'dark and edgy' charaters is lessened, as the numbers of gimmick n°1 issue etc. etc.
No image as a success story and the comics producers who were born in that day is probably halved and this is a good things as very few except the already mentionated Valiant and the Malibu who fight to get the n° 3 place.
Marvel can be saved by bankrupcy saving the animated Marvel brach...and we don't get the Jamas/Quesada years, but on the other side Marvel/DC are saddled with Lee, Liefeld and co who probably will demand more creative control and begin to write (excuse me the joke) their own story
 
Since Malibu is being tossed around as the number 3 company, does this mean Marvel doesnt aquire them and the Ultraverse characters?
 
Since Malibu is being tossed around as the number 3 company, does this mean Marvel doesnt aquire them and the Ultraverse characters?

Malibu was the way that Image got their first books publushed. Would the Malibu Ultravese characters be different, though without Image characters pushing them to be bigger and badder? Would they stick with their pre-Image work of titles?

No Mantra?
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No Rune?
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No Firearm?
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Torqumada
 
it's a toss up between valiant and Malibu. the Image crew snapped up a lot of guys in their rise, and the big two brought in a lot of new people to fill the gaps caused by the Image Backstab, people who now may have no chance of getting into marvel or Dc and have yo look elsewhere, this may mean valiant and Malibu, and it could change what they put out, which in turn may stumble on that winning property that catapults them into the number three spot
 
Well, superstar artists were nothing new to the comic book world. Before the folks who became the Image crew, we had the likes of Carmine Infantino, Jonathan Jacob "Jack 'King' Kirby" Kurtzberg, John Romitas Sr. and Jr., Jim Starenko, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, Gene Colon, Neal Adams, Frank Miller, George Perez, and many, many others. And many of them supported business models that Image Comics would be built on (Kirby most especially).
 
Weren't Magnus and Solar perceived as opportunistic rip-offs of the Metal Men's Dr Magnus and Captain Atom/Dr Light respectively?
.

most comic book characters are ripoffs of others, and even they were ripoff of older sci and fantasy stories

theres very little originality in comics
 
How does no Image affect the speculator boom and bust?[/Q

Before Image we already had Spider-Man #1 and X-Men #1 which were heavily bought by speculators, so Image is hardly to blame. One wonders if this event would butterfly away the death of Superman though, since DC wasnt THAT big into that stuff until that event.
 
@Kalvan, there is a difference between the superstar artist and writers like kirby, millar, perez, romitas and the 'Superstar' Artists that became the image crew.

the difference was the influence on the editorial and the direction of the comics. there was literally no control over the artists, the big two were able to sell comics on Artist name alone. thus everything was done to stoke the 'superstar' artist's ego, at the expense of everyone else. for instance say what you want about Claremont, he should never of been treated the way he was by Bob Harras and Jim Lee at the start of the 90's X-Men launch.

@Hadley; the death of Superman may still of happened. DC's market share was so bad in the 90's that when image launched through Malibu the combine market share of 10% actually placed them ahead of DC into the second spot for a while
 
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