Are these characters too damaged now?

[Heath]

After a couple failed attempts with this group of characters, are they now too damaged to be incorporated into the VEI universe - even if VEI were able to purchase ownership of them outright? (I don't think that's likely, btw, just posing a hypothetical.)

They failed at Dynamite.
They failed at Dark Horse.
They failed at IBooks.*
They're still associated with original VALIANT which is often blamed for the 90's comic market boom and bust.

If VEI were to have an opportunity to license or even purchase the characters, at this point are they even worth it?


*Tentative entry - They only released a Magnus book and I'm unsure if there were every any plans for any other characters or if they even had those licenses.

[nscc]

I have the same question about them myself. I haven't read any of the books except the 90's valiant and old gold key issues, but it does seem like they are damaged by these past failures.

With 2 (or 3 counting Ibooks) unsuccessful reboots in the last few years, I would think it would make any publisher weary of licensing or purchasing them outright if it were available.

However, if for some reason they were licensed/sold, I am confident we would get some good stories out of the creative team, and maybe they would be successful here. I don't know, I don't find myself really missing them from VEI's universe, but I have been mostly happy with all their output, so I am sure they would make these characters work in the current universe.

At this point, I think it would take a big fan to want to take the risk. We know Dinesh is a big fan, so maybe they will look at moving forward on it in the future as long as it makes sense financially.

[nycjadie]

Personally, I think these characters are important to the Valiant universe that I know and love. That being said, I think they do have a negative connotation due to the Dark Horse and Dynamite runs, and I'm very interested in Valiant creating new and interesting characters that provide a similar function as the characters did in the V1 universe. In any event, for these characters to be successful in the new Valiant universe, they would need to be rethought and tweaked. I think they could make them successful, but there's no reason why they shouldn't create new versions of those characters. For me, Valiant is not Valiant without Solar.