Back in the 90’s, if we wanted to read comics, who did we get them from? Marvel and DC immediately come to mind. We had our choices of Spider-Man, Batman, The Avengers, Justice League, Wonder Woman, so on and so forth. All great characters and teams no doubt, but what if we wanted something more than what the heavy hitters had to offer us? Well, we didn’t really have a choice. That is, until the likes of Dark Horse and Image started to gain ground. During that boom in comics, for one brief moment, another company had the chance to shine. That company was Malibu. Malibu got its start back in the late eighties by a couple of guys by the names of Dave Olbrich and Tom Mason. They started off by publishing mostly black and white creator owned comics but started to gain ground by also publishing comics for classic literary characters like Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. They also published titles that tied into some television programs, movies and games. With all of this going on though, they still needed the help of Steve Rosenberg to get the finances going. Once all the money troubles were out of the way, Malibu was off to a running start. With Steve’s help and money, Malibu was able to purchase Eternity Comics (the biggest claim to fame they had were the Robotech comics) and Aircel Comics, a Canadian company that put out alot of independent comics. For the next few years, Malibu stayed mainly under the radar, that is until Image was formed.
Image formed when several key writers and artists frankly got fed up with how Marvel did business with them. Leaving key titles like X-Men and Spider-Man open, the talent pool formed their own company, a creator owned company. As with all new business ventures, rich or not, you need someone to help you along until you can get on your feet. Image sought out Malibu and it soon become the Publisher of Record for Image. Take a look in some of your first issues of Spawn or Savage Dragon. Inside you’ll see Malibu’s logo in there. Pretty neat, huh? Anyway, during that time, while Image became the hot new comics company on the market, Malibu got to revel in that too. Together, they took the #2 spot of the market for a short time, grabbing almost 10% of the market share effectively pushing DC to #3. Finances got better for Image, obviously, so they parted ways with Malibu. The guys at Malibu had a taste of the superhero field though, and with Image gone, they had a huge hole to fill.
Malibu started with the Bravura Line of comics. It was all creator owned, and even some characters that had fallen in to public domain made their way into the line. The Protectors, Ferret, Amazing-Man, just to name a few. That wasn’t enough however. Malibu had to have more. That’s when they brought to us the Ultraverse.
With Image gone, and the Bravura line not living up to expectations, a brand new universe was formed. It was the late 90’s now, and comics collecting was at an all time high. Everybody was making comics and everybody was buying. Image was fresh, Valiant was on it’s way, and Dark Horse had Comics Greatest World to compete. Malibu brought out the Ultraverse. With lots of fresh new writing and artistic talent, they created the likes of Prime, Hardcase, Prototype, Mantra, Rune, and a slew of other characters. What happened in one issue of Prime was finished in the next weeks issue of Mantra. Crossovers between characters were a major part of Malibu’s strategy at not only keeping tight continuity, but also getting people to pick up the other issues in the line. It worked for a while. Trading Cards came out, video games were made… and even a movie or two (Men in Black anyone?) But as with all good things, so they must come to an end.
With the purchase of Malibu, Marvel quickly took over the coloring studio and cancelled all Ultraverse titles. A short time later, with Black September, Marvel relaunched a few of Malibu’s more popular titles, but that didn’t last long either. Not long after the restart, those too were cancelled. Marvel did do something cool and what I thought was unexpected. In the Marvel Multiverse, the Ultraverse still lives on as Earth-93060. At least there is the possibility of them being used… right? Well, maybe.
Malibu had a short, if not very bright history. For a short time, they were almost on top. They helped Image get off their feet, and when Image left, they put out the Ultraverse. The Ultraverse grabbed quite a bit of attention, but like the comics boom for which it came out during, it was not meant to last. Poor writing had a factor, that can be said, but I think people just lost interest. With so much to chose from, why take a chance with something new when you know the tried and true are still there. Well, aren’t the Ultaverse characters part of that now? I think they are for me, but with everyone else, I’m not so sure. This much can be said though… there were some talks about bringing the characters into the regular fold of Marvel story lines. Here’s what Joe Quesada had to say about it back in 2005:
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Nice article, Tim! I’m glad to see Malibu getting some props.
I agree, Malibu’s coloring process was superior to Marvels. Unfortunately, when I was still buying new comics, I never really saw Marvel take full advantage of it after they bought it.
When discussing spin off media ventures, there was another one you didn’t mention, the Night-Man tv series that actually lasted a year or two.
I’m still hoping they bring Prime back someday!
You know, I got so caught up in writing this aticle at, as huge as that was for Malibu, that totally passed me by! I remember watching episodes of that when I was younger. Glad you mentioned it!
Actually, the coloring process had absolutely nothing to do with Marvel’s purchase. Tehir staff was used to doing things traditionally, and were unfamilair with Malibu’s system. According to Tom Mason, Marvel’s sole purpose in bying the Ultraverse, was to keep it away from DC. They thought a DC/Ultraverse union might bump them down to a number two publisher slot. So they jumped in and grabbed the property in order to prevent it. (oh, what could have been….)
Hi Tim – an interesting version of Malibu Comics, but some of your facts are not correct.
Malibu Comics was funded by Scott Rosenberg (not Steve) from day one. Dave Olbrich had the original idea for the company and pitched it to Scott, who was running Sunrise Distributors at the time. Wikipedia has a pretty good version of events.
Malibu didn’t purchase Eternity Comics. Eternity (based in New York) was another company funded by Scott Rosenberg. He simply merged Eternity into Malibu and moved the titles west.
Eternity didn’t start publishing Robotech until the company merged into Malibu.
Bravura was creator-owned but it was started after the launch of the Ultraverse. Ultraverse started in June 1993, and Bravura launched in the fall of that year. There were no Protectors characters involved in Bravura. Bravura and Protectors (which did have public domain characters) were two separate things.
As stated in a previous comment. Marvel had no interest in the coloring department. Marvel bought Malibu to keep it out of the hands of DC.
Hope this helps to clear up a few things!
@Tom:
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my article. My sources while writing the article were wikipedia, a San Franscisco newspaper article( I can’t exactly recall which one) and a few other sites that attempted to write up a history of Malibu.
The whole reason for writing this article was I was not happy with just how little people had put into articles about such a great company. I decided to take the time to write up what I thought was the most honest approach that I could come up with without an exact copy from wikipedia. I thought my ducks were all in a row, but as you pointed out, I missed some very improtant things.
Thank you very much for clearing them up for me!
I hope you enjoyed the rest of the article though, as the comics put out by Malibu were some that I tresured ( I still have my original copy of Prime #1!).
If you’d like to talk a little more about it, I’d love to corespond via email, or maybe get you on a podcast to talk about it! Hit me up here: timmorse@stashmycomics.com
Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to read this!
Excellent article Tim. It’s nice to read about some of the other comic companies that have existed over the years. I’d love to see you do more spotlights on other companies, like valiant, defiant, oni press, dark horse, image, WARP graphics, and so on. The more you know… And knowing is half the battle! 🙂
Awesome article Tim!
All I can say is Joe/Marvel, c’mon guys ULTRAVERSE needs to come back to the masses no matter what, its got to be sorted out… ULTRAFORCE was a cool Superhero team and a lot like me :p are still waiting for that PRIME movie! ; D
Look DC has now got WILDSTORM truly into the DC Universe, its now time MALIBU was back and home straight into the Marvel Universe!
So many rich and wonderful characters that its truly a crime not to use them, MARVEL/DISNEY can work this out, also PRIME as a Disney movie, a no brainer!
Lee
Some important corrections and comments on the article are in order:
1) It was not “Steve Rosenberg,” but rather Scott Mitchell Rosenberg who financed Malibu and became the publisher.
2) The article states “With Image gone, and the Bravura line not living up to expectations, a brand new universe was formed. It was the late 90′s now, and comics collecting was at an all time high. Everybody was making comics and everybody was buying.” Your timeline is considerably off. The Ultraverse was put together in 1992 and the first issues were released in 1993 — not the “late 90s.” Marvel bought Malibu in 1994 and did the reboot of several of the titles in in an event billed as “Black September.”
3) Tom Mason, one of the principals has stated numerous times that the coloring process was not the reason Marvel purchased Malibu and The Ultraverse. The word was going around by the 1994 Comic Con that DC was about to pruchase Malibu. Marvel panicked because they were afraid they would lose the ranking of number 1 comic book company in the world with the DC and Malibu titles combined. Marvel did an end run around DC and bought Malibu out from under them. Tom has also said that even after the purchase, Marvel was still using the same printers and did not employ the Malibu coloring processes.
The actual reason why Marvel won’t touch the characters has been speculated about periodically, but one thought seems to hold a lot of water. Marvel today is all about movies — the comic books really seem to just fuel the film business. Someone speculated that when the sale of Malibu came about, certain development rights to using the characters in films was retained by one of the principals. There was discussion of a Prime movie as late as 2002, but it never got off the ground. Marvel would not want to resurrect these characters, have one or more of them become popular enough to be cinema worthy, and then have to pay royalties to someone resulting from an agreement from nearly 20 years ago. That makes infinite sense to me.
4) Finally, you write: Poor writing had a factor, that can be said, but I think people just lost interest. Actually, the original founders of the Ultraverse were some of the top talent around. Mike Barr, for example, is a legend in the industry with works such as his Camelot 3000, which is considered by many a classic in the industry. James Hudnall’s writings have been published for many years, and Steve Gerber brought us Howard the Duck, and until his passing was a giant in the industry — these to name just a few.
