Is there industry envy/hatred of Valiant universe?

Maxim St. James · Post by **Maxim St. James** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 10:41 pm

I was recently talking to a couple of Comic shop owners and the topic of Valiant books came up. They basically thought the entire industry holds Valiant up as the poster child for what was went wrong during the Comic boom/bust. Thats right he said Valiant not Image. I was shocked. He said that he was surprised that nobody had bought the rights to the Valiant characters, especially considering now that everything old is new again (GI Joe/ Transformers). He gave credit to valiant for good stories and well written characters, but he also said that Valiant fueled the speculator market by inserting cameo first appearences in books. (I told him that was one of the things I enjoyed about the books). They used Bloodshot six for an example. I asked them what there thoughts of a Valiant Universe comeback and they said it would be a tough sell to many of the comic retailers and that the wounds were still very fresh although they did admit a recent pickup in demand for recogized valiant names, solar,x-o, magnus and harbinger.

I asked them if valiant was offered today as comic books would they order them, and they basically said without out doubt no, that they would view it as a short term fad and although the books might offer a short pop of interest they didn't think the Valiant characters could hold an audience for a long period of time. Especially without an established writer on board for a long term deal. Quite simply they didn't see that happening.

So my question is now is their an industry blackball of the valiant characters?

betterthanezra · Post by **betterthanezra** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 10:46 pm

Those are interesting responces but none that really suprise me. I have been doing shows for some time and Valiant is always brought up and in many terms in a negative light.
I have a show next weekend the first one this year for me selling. I'll see what the mood is there on Valiant.
-Brian

dave · Post by **dave** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 10:52 pm

i have run across many shop owners that know other owners who went out of business because of the collapse of the market, but anyone who is going to blame valiant for that is crazy. bob and steve didn't hold a gun to anyone's head demanding them to order a gazillion copies of turok #1.

i still remember that just when i started getting into valiant (bloodshot 1) my favorite lcs started a closeout on valiants. i ending up sampling every title because they were so cheap. i ahdn't bothered with some tiitles before because-i can only spend so much. anyway, this owner obviously saw soemthing that made him amke a move. i remember being surprised that ETM the company that advertised in most of those books selling shadowman 16's for $1...i nearly bought 10!!!! "why that's the first appearance of dr mirage!!!!!!!!!!"

don't put all you chickens in the oven before they hatch, is what grampa useda always say!

BodaZoffa · Post by **BodaZoffa** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 11:50 pm

Maxim St. James wrote:I was recently talking to a couple of Comic shop owners and the topic of Valiant books came up. They basically thought the entire industry holds Valiant up as the poster child for what was went wrong during the Comic boom/bust. Thats right he said Valiant not Image. I was shocked. He said that he was surprised that nobody had bought the rights to the Valiant characters, especially considering now that everything old is new again (GI Joe/ Transformers). He gave credit to valiant for good stories and well written characters, but he also said that Valiant fueled the speculator market by inserting cameo first appearences in books. (I told him that was one of the things I enjoyed about the books). They used Bloodshot six for an example. I asked them what there thoughts of a Valiant Universe comeback and they said it would be a tough sell to many of the comic retailers and that the wounds were still very fresh although they did admit a recent pickup in demand for recogized valiant names, solar,x-o, magnus and harbinger.

I asked them if valiant was offered today as comic books would they order them, and they basically said without out doubt no, that they would view it as a short term fad and although the books might offer a short pop of interest they didn't think the Valiant characters could hold an audience for a long period of time. Especially without an established writer on board for a long term deal. Quite simply they didn't see that happening.

So my question is now is their an industry blackball of the valiant characters?

If Valiant started again & it was a hot selling comodity, I garauntee this guy would sell them in his shop.

Boda

R Daneel · Post by **R Daneel** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 12:03 am

BodaZoffa wrote:If Valiant started again & it was a hot selling comodity, I garauntee this guy would sell them in his shop.

Boda

Agreed. Sounds like a guy who got burned the first time around - whos fault is that? Order what people place pre-orders for plus one or ten and see what happens?

DOES ANYONE ELSE HEAR SOUR GRAPES?

dave · Post by **dave** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 12:04 am

yeah, i was gonna say that too in my thread-only a fool would "refuse" to sell something that was selling on principle (not that you shouldn't have principles-you should-just not this kind!) what a dunce! i don't like that guy wolverine either-so i'm not carrying anything with him in it or on it!!

COMICKINGS · Post by **COMICKINGS** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 12:18 am

Unfortunatley these days...to get a tired old book to sell again you HAVE to put a hot artist or writer on the title to get interest.I guarantee you those dealers are stuck with more copies of the latest Jim Lee run on Batman than they really need.It's hard as a dealer to not get caught up in the action.But,you have to be smart and think...if I order these 50 extra copies...are there really going to be 50 new people coming in to buy them?And don't you think that there are 1000 other dealers around the country thinking the same thing?So when the new people don't come in....what happens? These days its...look out .50 bins, or Ebay.Just like the old days except no Ebay.Everybody wants to throw the blame on somebody else for their ordering mistakes.Almost every hot modern age book out right now is print run driven.Nobody is ordering extras on almost anything.So I guess it's time to blame Marvel for the current expensive prices on Ultimate Spider-man #1?Because they didn't make 100,000 extra copies in case somebody needed some later.These companies print close to order.Marvel didn't just pick a number of 7 million for the print run of Xmen #1 in 1991.It was the dealers.How did Valiant creat the crash when Marvel was printing 100 times more copies of their core titles than any first year Valiant book?The problem is too many dealers out there reading Wizard without knowing what they are selling.

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 3:56 am

I have to admit it, I was one of the dreaded Valiant collectors who speculated on pre unity Valiants and ruined the comic market. Please apologise to all your LCS owners for me.

Actually though, I was in my late 20's early 30's and had a $30-$40 a week comic habit and although I had a good job I also had a new house and child so was speculating on comics to make money to support my reading/habit. During that period the average comic price jumped from .75 to $1.95 over the course of a couple years or so, and Marvel, in their infinite wisdom at the time was publishing their most popular comics (x-books, wolverine, Macfarlane spideys)which were then the most popular books with the hottest artists (original image guys) 15 times a year plus annuals, one shots etc. I remember Magnus had a decent core of readers, but when Solar came out, with the BWS artwork, there just weren't enough issues to go around and things got a little crazy in the shops as there were no newstand copies coming out in 2 weeks or so to placate the built up demand, as with the marvel, dc, dh, malibu and even the continuity comics by Neal Adams. I remember calling my LCS back after reading Solar 1 and requesting that he put 5 more copies in my subscription box. He didn't care as he was putting away Macfarlane Spideys for later sale in lots of 200 or so books at a time, and because I was busy and there was no internet at the time he knew I would sell my extra copies through him on consignment.

There wasn't a lot of big money in the comic book market at the time,and the flea markets and weekend shows were 75% trading card guys and 25% comic guys trying to make a buck. The trading card market was 2-3 times as big as the comic market and the dealers were making big money but it was drying up fast and they saw the incredible money pre-unity valiants were going for (everyone was trying to find a Harbinger 4 w/card to send in for a Pink 0) and jumped in the market during the big Unity campaign. Now every card dealer had a box of post unity valiants with multiples next to their 14 different brands of Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards, and where did they get these you ask? From the LCS guys because there was no other way to get valiants.

On top of this the LCS guy are now waking up because they have all these worthless marvels, the image guys are bolting the big books, so they start hoarding Unity and post unity valiants looking for the magic to happen over and over again. It didnt' happen because although the Valiant stories were great, the kid wanted sexy art and pinup girls, and they got those in a big way from Image.

Just my historical perspective...

greg · Post by **greg** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 12:45 pm

I recently asked "What caused the crash?" over on the CGC message boards...

I listed a few possible causes, including Valiant (Bloodshot, Turok, Ninjak),
since those particular titles seemed to be everywhere at the time of the crash.

I was surprised to see the variety of responses.

While Valiant books may have had a part in the "crash"...
It's hard to blame Valiant altogether.

Mr. Fantastic · Post by **Mr. Fantastic** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 1:02 pm

Here' s my opinion concerning the crash of the comic books market in the 90s.
There were multiple factor:

- the begin of the speculation, people who buyed more copies of a comic in order to sell them at higher price and in my opinion for this factor is to blame th Wizard price guide.

-the multiple covers and the other gimmicks of the various publisher, in this factor the Valiant has the fault of having followed the footsteps of the other publisher.

- the lack of creative ideas and the very bad art (the big part of the penciler copied the horrible "rob liefeld" art).

In Italy we had a crisis similar to yours in the late 90s beacuse of the saturation of the market due to te high offer of comic books and due to the lack of quality that plague the USA comic books in the early 90s.

ciao ciao, sorry for the english

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 1:39 pm

To answer the original question: yes, there is an industry blackballing of Valiant, in particular. Why not so with Image? Because Valiant and Image are two entirely different company concepts, which I won't go into here, as we all know the story.

But...as far as Valiant goes, these shops got what they deserved, both the good AND the bad, but the bad was so very bad for so many that it has, with the perspective of time, left a very bad taste in the mouths of these guys.

So who's fault is it, really? Anyone who's ever bought a new comic at any time for the express purpose of reselling at a profit at a later date, instead of simply buying the comic for the sake of the art and story inside AND...anyone who's bought a back issue for more than cover price. That pretty much includes every one of us. AND...anyone who's published more copies of a book than the market can support (and yes, Valiant DID end up with warehouses of unsold crap by 1995.)

If you're an idiot shop owner (gosh, I sure rag on shop owners a lot.

) and you fell into the hype (there's that word again) and ordered more copies of anything than you could reasonably support, on the HOPES that it would sell for a mint later....then yes, you would have gotten INCREDIBLY burned in the process, and likely would carry those feelings around (though they were almost ENTIRELY your fault...a fact almost always neglected) for many years after.

Blame everyone else. It's not MY fault.

As I've said before, unfortunately, this industry is dominated by folks (to quote Frank Miller and Alan Moore) who never grew up, who live their lives vicariously through brightly colored superheroes who dish out vengeance to all those who have done them wrong.

This is, of course, going to create a vacuum of professional, responsible people to say 'hey....wait a minute...don't look at this in the short term...think long term health and growth. Don't just be in this for the quick $1, because for every quick $1 you make, you'll slowly lose $10.' Basically, there was no one to put the breaks on when everyone got too excited for their pants and started printing gobs of crap.

And how often have gobs of crap been too terribly stable?

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 1:41 pm

Thanks for the info Greg.

I don't really think the Valiant books were to blame for any reason at all.
The retailers were just filling orders that they had and Valiant was just printing what was ordered. I mean someone mentioned cameo appearances were a problem, why? There have been cameo's throughout the history of comics. Incredible Hulk 180 (wolverine on last page), Fantastic Four 48 (Silver Surfer). I always thought these were called first appearances and made books collectable.

There were some bad books and gimmick at the time, and I own several copies of a lot of them so I know what they are, not just X-Men 1 which at least had several different covers with pretty good art. This all started with Spiderman 1 and people out trying to find the sacred
"Platinum issue with no UPC symbol" or something like that, then X-Force 1 with 5 different cards, etc, etc, etc, I could go on and on. Marvel figured out a way to get fanboys to buy more than one copy of a book, actually at the time it was a stroke of genius for them and they kicked DC's butt all over the place.

So I guess if any one company started the crash it was Marvel chasing sales, and then flooding the market with product because they were *SQUEE* off about the image startup.

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 1:57 pm

wrunow wrote:Thanks for the info Greg.

I don't really think the Valiant books were to blame for any reason at all.
The retailers were just filling orders that they had and Valiant was just printing what was ordered.

Well, except that everyone in the industry, with the exception of the loyal fans who bought the books for the books' sake alone, were to blame. Valiant, the company, went nuts printing gobs, and the RETAILERS absolutely bear the brunt of the blame in this particular case...but everyone, ultimately, shares some of the responsibility....me included.

twofour · Post by **twofour** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 2:13 pm

Not Valiants fault at all. Over saturation of the big selling books ( Batman, X-Men, Spidey, Superman) and cover prices. Cover prices are ridiculous!!! I remember back in the day when I bought a double-sized Avengers book for $.75 and I was complaining. Little did I know....

twofour

x-omatic · Post by **x-omatic** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 2:48 pm

I think the main reason comic owners still have a bad taste from Valiant and not Image is very simple. Valiant is gone and stores are still making money off of Image.

I think all comic publishers were irresponsible at the time. Did they really think that there was that many active collectors to support 500,000 print runs? Did storeowners really think that they had that many customers to support 1,000 copies of a book when a month ago they only sold 100?

GREED.

They all wanted to cash in. There were many speculators buy 25 or more copies of books. Many came from the trading card market. They treated comics like hot rookies. Open a few hundred boxes pick the “hot” cards out, and dump whatever doesn’t sell in a month to buy more cards. The problems were there were not enough buyers. So then they had to compete with other dumpers. I know some stores had more 10 cent and quarter bins than “normal” back issue boxes. The losses caused many stores to fold.
Bad management.

I think Marvel & Dc have learned from what happened. They haven’t over produced books and have reprinted when needed to fill orders. Had Valiant done this I think they would still be around.

However I do see that the market is showing signs of the speculator frenzy all over again. Look at the print run for Ultimate Fantastic Four #1. Over 200,000 books! It is the highest printed book in about 7 years. Every time I am in a comic shop I see people buying more than one copy of every “hot” title. When I was buying books this weekend I over heard the following from a kid buying his books.

Store clerk
“Ultimate FF #3, what did you think of the first two issues?”

Kid
“I didn’t read them, I just put them in a box.”

Store clerk
“Then why are you buying them?”

Kid
“Cause its gonna be worth a lot of money like Ultimate Spiderman.”

I am seeing this happen more and more.

I really hope that the Valiant characters are not brought back now. I think we will be having the same kind of market we did in 1993- 1995 all over again. I would hate for Valiant to be blamed again for another crash.

Maxim St. James · Post by **Maxim St. James** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 2:51 pm

I didn't want to throw off the vibe that these folks were speculators because in all honestly they weren't. They are just your average run of the mill comic shop owners, and basically there thoughts were that Valiant because of there great marketing created such a buzz in the industry that people really begun to believe the hype. When reality meet comic book fantasy it all came down. It's not the owners that were disapointed by no means as they drove the industry for several years, but rather many comic books fans, were alienated by Valiant and they just feel Valiant felt a bad taste in the average fans mouth. Lets face if people are collecting books today more then likely there were collecting books then they just thought it would be a really tough sell to the average fan, not impossible just way to much effort, for another company to bother with.

One other intersting point they brought up to me was that the Valiant universe as a whole didn't create very many "A" list Villians. Other then Master Darque there wasn't really one other then Harada that could coheadline a book per say and make a reader want to pick up a copy to see what evilness they were up to and I thought about this and really I think they are right. Don't throw things at me yet. Erica Pierce nonexistance after unity accept unity 2000 which was never finished. Docter Eclipse a crazy version of Solar, Venom like no real substance of characters. Immortal Enemy nice character but would you really by a book because of him. Same thing with AX I mean you have to admit for a major universe they could have done a better job of creating enemies for there heros.
I went back and did a little reseach and Master Darque appears in 16 of the 44 issues, that doesn't count the times his sister showed up in an additonal four. So he appeared in over a third of the run of the title, that doesn't account for the times in Eternal Warrior, X-O or Docter Mirage talk about over exposure. Most of Valiant bad guys were things ala Aliens or Robots, and those are tough for a reader to relate to, and I realize that was part of design of the Valiant universe and all but they just ever seemed to put out great villians which is half the battle. As the hero is only as great as the villian is bad. In my opinion. And certainly not have marketable villians could not help anyone trying to the buy the rights to the universe as you are missing half the equation of a good comic book.

lobo · Post by **lobo** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 6:39 pm

Maxim makes a good point.
Valiant villians or antagonists never really caught on as big as the core characters did.
Consider all the long running popular superheros in comics like Spiderman, Batman, Superman and the X-Men. They all have had/have a rogues gallery that is very cool and popular. The Joker, Green Goblin, Lex Luthor, Magneto all are names that the general public know about. Valiant never came close to this in developing their own villians.

lobo · Post by **lobo** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 6:58 pm

As for the 90s market crash I have deep disdain for the Gimmick covers that EVERY publisher at the time spit out. They were fun at first but I personally got sick of them quickly.
I Think the gimmick covers were a corner stone of the great crash. Shops closed their doors with 50 copies of any given Spiderman 30th aniversary hologram cover still in the boxes from the distributers!
They were over priced and rarely added to the story inside the comic. But the retailers bought them in droves and the fanboys/speculators bought them by the dozens knowing full well that the printruns were huge. Anyone who bought these things in quanties more than one deserve what they got.
Oh the insanity!
I can't think of one Marvel (DC MIGHT have a few) gimmick cover from ten years ago that can currently sell even at its original cover price. Look at Turok #1, Bloodshot #1, Magnus #25, and XO #0. The rest of the Valiant run has a chance of being worth something someday but those books never will.

Anywho, feel free to list your most favorite gimmick covers in the 'Top 5 gimmick covers of all time' thread...

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 7:30 pm

There's a truism about villains that has been in place almost since day 1: villains don't sell.

Now, think about this for a moment. How many DC, Marvel, ANYONE villains have had their own titles last more than a dozen or so issues?

Mini-series don't count, by the way, for obvious reasons.

It's something about the nature of the beast, villains just don't appeal as headliners of anything. Joker's book lasted all of 9 issues in the 70's, Luthor's had various one-shots, Green Goblin had, what, 13 issues? Doctor Doom's only RECENTLY, after nearly (at the time) 40 years of existence, had his own mini-series.

Now think about the larger world of entertainment...how many villains have starred in books? films? Ok, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street are the only I can come up with off the top of my head, and those are a specific genre. I can't think of ANY blockbuster film where the villain got away with it in the end.

The thing is, people like to see evil lose, the good guy win. It's innate to human nature, even while we perpetrate our own petty evils on each other day in and day out.

But you're right, there weren't any blockbuster Valiant villains outside of Harada....I'm guessing there just wasn't enough time. Remember, Spiderman had been around for over two years before the Green Goblin burst on the scene. Same with Joker, didn't appear with Batman for over a year, and Luthor..arguably the archetype for ALL comic villains....didn't appear for nearly 2 years after Superman burst on the scene.

Convincing villains are HARD to DO...and they take time to develop...time Valiant just did not have.

More popular is the 'anti-hero', the good guy who's just a hair's breadth from being a bad guy...Punisher, Wolvie, Lobo, Azrael, etc....and the 'occasionally good, occasionally bad' guys, like Magneto, Venom, etc.

Heck, for that matter, the best villain (in my opinion) to come out of the 80's, Venom, they struggled with until they turned HIM into some kind of anti-hero, too!

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Is there industry envy/hatred of Valiant universe?

Is there industry envy/hatred of Valiant universe?

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