Rob Liefeld and the Deathmate Incident, plus a Brief History of Valiant and the 90s Speculator Boom

Comments · 725

• WI

  @williamjosephdunn5879 · 5 years ago

  I worked at Valiant back in the day (ruined a lot of Rags Morales art with my coloring) and I can say I didn't know anyone in Knob Row who didn't get paid by the page. Most of us were fresh out of the Kubert School and Valiant was our first paying art job. There were plenty of things wrong about that place, but making comics with free art wasn't one of them.

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• TH

  @TheChadTI · 5 years ago (edited)

  Jim Shooter was done dirty by so, so many. Most creative types are precious and sensitive and they like to think everyone is holding them back

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• DE

  @DemoSonicScreamer1 · 3 years ago

  This entire story is heartbreaking really. &nbsp;I know of several comic shops in Louisville that went under during that 1994 time period, stores like Squeeze Play or Triple Play, which you can guess started as baseball card shops. &nbsp;Squeeze Play had a chain of stores in the area and I remember around the time of Deathmate Black the guys there being pissed at what was going on with the lateness of Red. &nbsp;Other stores like Comic Book World or The Great Escape never quite fell for the speculator thing (or had other stuff like music) and they survived. &nbsp;<br><br>I actually quit reading comics during that time period. &nbsp;Some of it was simply losing interest as I was in high school now, but I also felt like all I was doing was buying wacky gimmick cover issues like a lot of other people. &nbsp;My entertainment wasn&apos;t worth the money being spent. &nbsp;In fact I never read Red or the Epilogue until 15 years later. &nbsp;When I did it was like &quot;That was it, huh?&quot; &nbsp;Red was at least better than Black though. &nbsp;Black was actually Marc Silvestri&apos;s book more than Jim Lee, though I guess WildCATS are in it. &nbsp;The bottom line is this: &nbsp;People don&apos;t have to read crap. &nbsp;When faced with getting bad comics or buying various CDs of bands I still like to this day, the choice was pretty easy.<br><br>Valiant was my favorite comic company. &nbsp;I loved those books at the time, although the early issues were so ridiculously costly I couldn&apos;t buy them at the time. &nbsp;Eventually circa 2006 I managed to get Harbinger #1, Magnus #12, and all that. &nbsp;I think one dilemma Valiant had is they hotshotted sooooo much in their issues. &nbsp;When you kill off major characters in like issue 6-7, it tends to leave you without anywhere to go long term. &nbsp;Books like Harbinger or the original Rai were really better off as limited series, since the style of storytelling just didn&apos;t lend itself to 300 issues.

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• LE

  @leekaisheongjames89 · 2 years ago

  DEATHMATE BLACK was so touching on the first read... when everyone i know in Image died just so the Gen13 would live... and here was my first love for Fairchild grow!

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• JO

  @josephbarbera9220 · 5 years ago

  I did recently purchase a ton of Valiant and Malibu Comics for 15 cents each, I was amazed to see almost all of them have never been read. I also got a lot of multiple copies

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• TE

  @terrygordon5542 · 5 years ago

  I love rob liefelds take on his podcast where he just rambles on how &quot;i just wanted to draw some valiant guys, Jim was the one who pushed it too far&quot; lol

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• TH

  @thejokerstyle100 · 9 days ago

  Well this was excellent!

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• BR

  @BraxtonWages · 1 month ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmY_cdGfQNs&amp;t=2334">38:54</a> lol you’re absolutely right about that

• AF

  @afrosf-m5e · 5 years ago

  Great video. One thing that most people fail to notice is that the DEATHMATE crossover was obviously the template for Marvel&apos;s successful AGE OF APOCALYPSE. The DEATHMATE prologue was obviously where the X-Men Alpha idea came from and the DEATHMATE Epilogue was obviously the template for X-Men Omega. The futuristic violent dystopia timeline of the DEATHMATE universe with heroes turned into villains and villains turned into heroes is the same premise seen in AGE OF APOCALYPSE.

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• WO

  @wolfprime · 5 years ago

  ‘I missed it’ is a chorus right now with some of us. I remember wanting Deathmate so badly. Image’s superior art paired with Valiant’s writing was gold, printing money. I can’t remember anything about it and I remember being supremely disappointed. Let’s get into it!

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• LA

  @Lanier2369 · 5 years ago

  Gah. The ninties were crazy times for comics. Especially living thru it.

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• GA

  @garymack2069 · 5 years ago

  I remember being so excited for Valiant comics and also being bummed when the crash hit. This is a great walk down memory lane! You should be doing this in person as a college tour or at least a guest lecturer.

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