Wizard #9 (May 1992)
By far, the most interesting issue of Wizard I've read yet, in that it actually contains (gasp!) news, the most significant of which is the duel interviews with the Image and Valiant staffs, published one after the other.
The duel interviews are extraordinarily telling. In the Valiant interview, they're articulating their long-term plans (at least as far as the end of Unity, the Magnus/Predator crossover, and trading cards), whereas the Image staff is literally hearing about each other's projects for the first time during the interview, asking each other questions about them. The only one they know anything about is Youngblood because it's already had two issues published. More telling still, for Image, is that Todd McFarlane simply will not stop talking (at one point, the interviewer even jokes about trying to get McFarlane to let go of the tape recorder) and is adamant about not working for Marvel or DC again and about sending a message, whereas the other creators clearly go on record as saying they've had no complaints with how they were treated but simply want to champion creator owned comics, as well as create their own characters. They then take turns assuring Wizard that their comics will come out on time each month
. There's also a joke made during the interview (and I can't tell if they're serious or not) that one of them was the anonymous artist who sent the infamous letter to the Comics Buyers Guide arguing that writing a book was far easier than penciling one, and that readers didn't care about the writing.
For Valiant, the most telling detail is the absence of Jim Shooter. This was right around the time he was unceremoniously fired from Valiant, and that's clearly either just happened or is about to. All the other big idea men of the company are there, and Shooter gets mentioned often, but only in the past tense.
Also, Valiant fans might be curious to know that the one detail they weren't set on yet was whether they were going to be killing one of the title characters during Unity. They had clearly decided on which, but hadn't clearly decided that they were going to go through with it yet.
And Image fans might be curious to know that the original planned lineup included, "
The Spawn by McFarlane, Youngblood by Liefeld, Wildcats by Lee,
The Pact and
Klone by Valentino, Cyberforce by Silvestri, and
The Dragon by Larson." A few title tweaks aside, The Pact wouldn't be released for two more years, and whatever happened to "Klone"?
Also, in a classy move, Patrick Daniel O'Neill, now an editor who doesn't have to write any features unless he wants to, provides a five page write-up on Gaiman's
Sandman, a nice contrast to the hype surrounding Image and Valiant on the earlier pages. This is now the second time Gaiman and
Sandman have gotten focal attention in Wizard. It's become clear to me over the past few issues that O'Neill was the wisest, most respectable person on staff at Wizard...possibly the ONLY wise and respectable person on staff at Wizard.
Additionally, Patrick McCallum previously offering such sagely advice as to collect comics with gimmick covers, especially second printings, is now sanely cautioning in his Collecting Comics in the '90s feature about investing in overly hyped comics, particularly emphasizing Alpha Flight #106 (the issue where Northstar announces that he's gay).
Hindsight glimpses into the comic industry: Image, Valiant, and Dark Horse were all mutually exchanging ad space to help promote one another.
DC's Impact line was on the way out.
Patrick Daniel O'Neill impresses me once again as his editorial warns about comics no longer playing to pre-adolescents nor to the indirect market.
Batman: The Animated Series is first mentioned in passing in an article reporting from the 1992 Toy Fair.
Toy collecting was clearly on the rise. This issue features two different articles about the news from Toy Fair, with even a second staff member writing in addition to Brian Cunningham. In fact, they even give Toying Around its own letter column as of this issue because Wizard was receiving so many letters about the column and about toy collecting in general. It's a bit surprising, in hindsight, that it would take Wizard five more years to launch Toyfare as a separate sister publication.
Marvel is still holding 57.1% of the market, DC has 17.6%, Dark Horse has 5.6%, Malibu now has 2.7%, Valiant has 1.6%, and 12.2% is "Other"
Industry news:Ghost Rider is getting a second title: Spirits of Vengeance
Alpha Flight #106 is getting national attention over Northstar coming out.
DC is expanding the Green Lantern franchise to three titles: Green Lantern, Mosaic, and Corps Quarterly
The Marvel 2099 line is first announced, but it's 2093. The early conceptual art looks VERY different:
John Byrne is in talks to write a Superman reboot film. Considering his relationship with DC at this point, I find this to have been extremely unlikely.
Rumors are circulating that Sam Hamm's black Robin has been cut from Batman Returns because Warner was uncomfortable with the idea.
Marvel Universe Series III trading cards are about to come out. Additionally, Marvel has just announced a significant expansion of their action figure line with X-Men Series II, X-Force, and more Marvel Universe figures as well.
According to Brian Cunningham, there are a lot of fans demanding more (and better) female action figures.
My personal favorite piece of news in this issue:
Now being sold to local television stations around the country is
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This series will take place
100 years after The Next Generation (the same way TNG takes place 78 years after the original show) and will feature the crew of a space station that sits near a wormhole, instead of following the crew of a starship.
There's also mention of the first Next Generation film beginning production.
The Marvel UK imprint is being launched in the US. In fact, while Marvel hasn't taken out an ad in Wizard for several issues now, Marvel UK does have a one page ad featuring their product line.
Marvel has removed Liefeld from Cable and X-Force, allegedly in reaction to the release of Youngblood and his involvement with Image (this proved not to be true).
Fan response to Robin II: The Joker's Wild was very negative
Wizard shaping the comic book market?Though Wizard was late, very late, in addressing Image at all, putting their interview right next to Valiant's (and, in fact, in front of Valiant's) clearly sends a message that these are equal companies. You like all that's been happening with Valiant? Well here's their sister company. In fact, it's abundantly clear in the interview that Image had absolutely no idea what it was doing yet and was flying by the seat of its pants. Youngblood was already getting plenty of attention, but Wizard is certainly helping to elevate the company and offer it a stature in this issue that it wasn't ready to deserve. Even the creators in the interview (well, all but McFarlane) articulate repeatedly that Image is an experiment that could easily fail. It's even worth noting that, while the Valiant folks provide countless reasons in their interviews why their universe is special and different, all the Image guys are able to keep falling back on is that they're creating their own characters. Liefeld even laments that Marvel won't let you create a new character who too closely resembles an existing character of theirs.
Of course, let's also be clear that Wizard and Gareb Shamus had a very clear personal interest in promoting both companies. Valiant was taking out a minimum of four full page color ads each issue (Wizard's biggest advertiser by far), and McFarlane and Liefeld had now flown Shamus out to LA at least twice by this point. Clearly, if Wizard could help these two companies succeed, Wizard would benefit from their success. Meanwhile, Marvel hadn't taken out a single ad in Wizard since issue #3, and DC and Wizard had never shown evidence of a working relationship beyond Denny O'Neil doing a single interview for the magazine. Wizard had every incentive to promote the heck out of these new companies in contrast.
Wizard Comic Watch:Uncanny X-Men #184: 1st Forge (I find that pick surprising. Yeah, he just got a cover where he was kissing Storm, but...)
Amazing Spider-Man #265 1st Silver Sable (well she
was about to her her own ongoing)
Wizard Top 10
1. Uncanny X-Men #201
2. New Mutants #87
3. Uncanny X-Men #248
4. Uncanny X-Men #266
5. Uncanny X-Men #268
6. X-Factor #24
7. Uncanny X-Men #282
8. Ghost Rider (1990) #1
9. Amazing Spider-Man #361
10. Darkhawk #1
Final Thoughts:
I feel like I learned more about what was happening with comics in the 1990s in this issue than in the first eight combined.
. There's also a joke made during the interview (and I can't tell if they're serious or not) that one of them was the anonymous artist who sent the infamous letter to the Comics Buyers Guide arguing that writing a book was far easier than penciling one, and that readers didn't care about the writing. 