Malibu Ultraverse ULTRA MONTHLY Magazine #2 Aug 1993

Malibu Ultraverse ULTRA MONTHLY Magazine #2
August 1993 

  Book is in VF-NM

 Auction Opens at just $0.59   

I will combine Shipping on this special sale with any of my other single book sales going on now!
All auctions you win within a 5 day window can ship together 1st class mail  for these special rates shown: 
(If you live outside of the US, please contact me for shipping charges before bidding)

1-2 books = $1.50     3-4 books = $2.25    5-6 books = $2.75     7-8 books = $3.25    

9-10 books = $3.75     11-20 books  =  $5.00  (by media mail)

Books ship within 2 business days after I receive your payment by PayPal. I expect payment within 72 hours of auction close.

I have a 100% satisfaction rating on Ebay and have been buying and selling Ultraverse comics here for the past four years.  Every book is guaranteed to be in at least VF condition, most are Near Mint. 

If you are unhappy with a book your purchase, mail it back to me and I will send you a replacement (or alternate book of comparable value).

If you have particular Malibu Ultraverse Books or Issues you want, let me know and I will list them for auction.

About the Ultraverse:

Malibu comics had been around since the 1980s, publishing primarily old superheroes whose copyrights had expired, along with some newer materials such as Star Trek.

In 1992, Malibu brought together a team of some of the top writers in the industry, Mike W. Barr, Steve Enlgehart, Steve Gerber, James D. Hudnall, Gerard Jones, Larry Niven, James Robinson and Len Strazewski and charged them with creating a brand new, cohesive comic book universe from the ground up and populating it with a host of exciting, brand new characters.

In 1993, the new Ultra-heroes, or "Ultras," came to life, in a brave new world called "The Ultraverse." (They could not be called "Super-heroes," because believe it or not, Marvel and DC Comics jointly own a copyright on that label.)

Malibu became the darling of the industry, in many ways far ahead of its Big-Two competition. Malibu had Mac computers on the desks, they were using a much higher grade of paper for pages and covers, which coupled with advanced computer-coloring, produced far superior art and graphics.

Malibu was experimenting – Issue #0 of Firearm came in a bubble package with a 35 minute vhs cassette tape. The first half of the story was on the video, the second half continued in the book. Malibu was into games and was even producing their comics on CD-Roms to be read on a computer.

The UltraForce Team up had its own animated TV show for several seasons, and there was also a Night Man TV show, based upon their Night Man comic book. For years, there was an effort to bring PRIME to the big screen, a movie that was still being discussed as late as 2002.

Ultravese Trading cards were very popular, and are also still actively bought and sold on Ebay.

Malibu publisher, Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, ultimately brought the Men In Black titles to the big screen in one of the first mega-successful comics-to-movies franchises.

In 1994, DC Comics began negotiations to purchase Malibu, with the Ultraverse and other successful titles such as The Protectors. Marvel Comics got wind of the negotiations and panicked – they were afraid that if the purchase went through, it could ultimately relegated them to the number 2 comic company, instead of their long-standing position as number 1.

Marvel did an end run around DC and was successful in purchasing Malibu. And then they immediately began to screw it up, first with pointless crossovers bringing Marvel characters into interactions with Ultras. As fans began leaving the titles, Marvel ultimately discontinued many of the characters and re-booting others with an event called Black September.

Marvel junior editors began pushing more T&A into the books, hoping to make them more appealing to teenage boys. The worst example was when they took the incredibly complex Eden Blake / Lukasz / Mantra character, and substituted as Mantra Eden’s former babysitter, 16 year old Laura Sherwood, who apparently attended Bimbo High School for Strippers.

Fans left the titles in droves, and letters columns were filled with complaints. Marvel by this time was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy and decided to simply close down the Ultraverse and let the characters disappear. The very last book published under the Malibu / Ultraverse banner was ULTRAVERSE FUTURE SHOCK, in 1997. After that, the Ultraverse was no more.

Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, meanwhile, served as part of the Marvel creditors group during the Marvel bankruptcy (for more, read "The Comic Wars," by Dan Raviv), and then went on to found Platinum Studios which has a number of comic book properties in early stages of transformation to the big screen, most notably, the graphic novel "Cowboys and Aliens."

Today, the Ultraverse still draws fans – just check out the auctions on Ebay and other auction sites, although Marvel for some strange reason practically refuses to acknowledge that the Ultraverse ever existed, although Marvel still owns the rights to the characters.

Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada, when asked about bringing back some of the characters, simply says he is on orders from on high not to even discuss the matter.

In its brief lifetime, roughly 1993 - 1997, I have identified approximately 500 different publications, promotional books, ash cans, alternate covers, gold and silver holograph covers, most of which are available for reasonable prices on Ebay, at www.MileHighComics.com, www.MyComicShop.com, or in the dollar bins at local comic book retailer, making them fun and interesting to collect for everyone.

For those interested, leave me a message on E-bay and I will E-mail you my own collector checklist, with the approximately 500 titles and variants I have identified to date, or E-mail Michael@ArrowpointRealty.com . In the meantime, remember The Ultraverse.