I haven't opined about this in awhile...but that actually makes these thoughts even more relevant:

Marvel/Disney is sitting on a crapton of intellectual properties that they're simply not using.

Both the Malibu "Ultraverse" and the Crossgen universe, and their dozens of heroes, are simply lying fallow.

Now, there very well may be reasons for that. Marvel bigwigs have, several times over the years, vaguely hinted at mysterious "contractual reasons" and "dirty laundry" that prevents them from utilizing the Malibu IP.

But that didn't prevent Marvel's pretty strong attempts (discussed in the first half of this post) to integrate Malibu into their multiverse.

The claim that Marvel bought Malibu merely to absorb their coloring technology has been pretty much debunked. And even if it were true, that's no reason to just toss all of these characters into some deep memory hole, never to be seen again.

And obviously, Disney now owns Marvel, and therefore all of Malibu. And of course, Disney has all the lawyers and the money in the world, and so should be able (if they so desired) to untangle these issues (or even pay the allegedly required outrageous royalties to the original creators, which is what some claim to be the issue).

I mean, given Disney's success with the Marvel movie franchise, it seems odd that they wouldn't try to do something with these properties--especially since, by this point, they must be vulnerable to losing the trademarks.

As far as I know, the Ultraverse stuff has never even been collected--even the stories crossing over with Marvel that were, at least at the time, considered canon.

Of course, Marvel did re-purpose some of the names/trademarks (Exiles).

And the did use Topaz (seemingly a version of the one from Ultraforce) in Thor: Ragnarok. Testing the waters, perhaps?

And then there's Crossgen.

Disney wanting to license some of Crossgen's properties for books/movies, but when the company went bankrupt, The House Of The Mouse just bought them lock, stock and barrel for an even million dollars. That's how Disney rolls.

And again, the vast, vast majority of these properties are just gathering intellectual dust.

Back in 2011-12, Marvel tried a faint revival, with mini-series for Ruse and Sigil. Allegedly more were planned, but those were dropped after the first two didn't sell very well.

But man, there is a huge panoply of diverse and exciting characters at Marvel's disposal. But unused, they wait...

Now, I'm no lawyer, But my understanding is that if you don't actually use a trademark--that is actually publish something using that trademark, in the case of comics--you can be declared to have abandoned that trademark, and it's available for others to use. See Captain Marvel, for example.

So, if they're still feeling salty about SHAZAM, DC should try to put out a comic titled Rune, or Prime, or Ultraforce, or Scion, or Sojourn--if for no other reason than to tweak Disney/Marvel. (Then again, DC doesn't seem interested in using a large percentage of the IP they already have. So IDW, maybe? Dynamite?)

If nothing else, it might motivate Marvel to clean out the attic, as it were, on the two universes worth of IP they're just letting fester.

Today I found these two book in the Quarter Bin:


So, what are the odds that I would find two books, right next to each other, that had the hero calling the bad guys "owlhoots" on the cover?

 As it turns out after a little research, it wasn't that unlikely...

Now, it should be noted that I'm sure I missed some. Marvel had an awful lot of damned Western titles, and some of them ran forever. Did you know that Kid Colt Outlaw ran for 229 issues?!?! The Action Comics of Westerns!!

So, yeah, lots of covers to look at, some titles I'm sure that I forgot about, and I was mainly skimming word balloons, so I almost certainly missed some.

It should also be pointed out that the majority of "owlhoots" come from the 1970s reprint covers. Timely/Atlas didn't usually have a ton of word balloons on their covers, and the '60s Marvel titles preferred "coyotes" or "varmints" or "polecats" or just plain "outlaws" as their cover sobriquets.

I'm not sure why that was. The term owlhoot was certainly around long before the 1970s. Was there a recent movie or TV series that made the term particularly popular at the time? Was whoever was editing these mags just especially enamored of the term?

(This is also a good time to mention that man, Marvel had a lot of Western anthology titles at the time. They were pretty much all reprints at the time, but they were obviously still popular enough to justify repackaging into a "giant-size" format to suck up kids' quarters.)

No, I didn't look at any DC western titles. I'll leave that for someone else.

Look, there's a rare example of an owlhoot in a cover caption!!

Anyway, why, exactly, did "owlhoot" come to mean outlaw/bad guy? Why not "falconscreech" or "pigeoncooing"? This website presents a couple of theories:

Outlaws were referred to as “owlhoots.” “Riding the owlhoot trail” referred to a man who had left the straight and narrow to become an outlaw.

One explanation of origin came from a man living in the Indian Territory of eastern Oklahoma around 1870. He claimed the name came about from the Indians in the area using owl hoots to signal danger or someone’s approach.

Another tale goes that outlaws were called “owlhoots” because, when they were getting ready to ambush somebody in the dark, they would imitate the hooting of owls to signal to each other.

Go figure. And don't ask me to explain this one:


Nope, I'm not going to scour comic book covers for the word "crawfish." You're on your own there.

BONUS: What if Peter Parker were raised in the Old West?

Man, if you're an uncle and your name is Ben--CHANGE YOUR NAME NOW!!!

DOUBLE BONUS: Wakanda forever?

T'Challa's great-great-grandfather, no doubt...

Trivia time, true believers!! (Click to embiggen):

Now, I won't say this is obscure stuff, but even I got an extremely poor score on this.

For what it's worth, this was published in June of 1987, so take that into account when considering "heroes and events that have been in prominence over just the last year or so."



And your answers!

From Marvel Age Annual #3 (1987)

Do you know what I hate almost as much as Asgardian font?

I hate the fact that not only do you have to write out speech balloons that show characters from the American South speaking phonetically...

...but you also have to show them thinking in a spelled-out drawl, as well.

Seriously, does Rogue actually think "Ah" every single time she she thinks "I"?!? Does anyone?

It's not as though we don't have plenty of other X-Men who doubtless have accents--Kurt, Piotr, Ororo, just off the top of my head--but does Marvel feel the need to phonetically spell out their accents? No, we never hear Nightcrawler say (or think) "ve haff to go to der store." Nope, we'll just get an occasional Claremontian drop of a German word into an other perfect English word/thought balloon.

Also note the relative rarity of "phonetic accents" for other Americans--Boston, Chicago, Gotham, whatever--they are all allowed to speak "normally." Does Kitty Pryde ever get to speak with a Chicago accent (Ditka!!)?

So why the "special" treatment for Southerners? Why only them, and not Russians, or Kree, or Inhumans, or Latverians, or Minnesotans?

A) Marvel believes the reader is too stupid to remember that Rogue and Gambit et. al. are southern unless they constantly rub our noses it in.

B) Stereotypes are OK for southerners, especially when written by non-southern writers. Why give them the same respect we'd give German/Russian/African characters? The foreigners may be able to learn perfect English, but not people below the Mason-Dixon line!

C) Southerners are all just dumb hicks, anyway. Who cares how we make them look?

I'm from Michigan, so I really have no dog in this fight. But it is kind of lazy and borderline offensive, Marvel. Back off.

 Deep breath.

Geez, that kind of came outta nowhere. The reason I really wanted to run that is, it's a house ad in this week's Marvels, and it's (one of?) the covers for Rogue & Gambit #1.

Now, I'm doubtful that those thought balloons will end up on the final cover.  But I think it's significant is that someone in Marvel's marketing believes that thought balloons are not only appropriate in comics, but a better way to sell comics than multi-colored, turgidly written self-narrative captions.

So keep fighting the fight for thought balloons. But, can we do it without the "Ah's" and the "Dis's"?

Friends, sometimes I miss the boat on reviving old Golden Age heroes for fun and profit. Sometimes, modern creators beat me to the punch!!

Case in point:

So wait, what's the premise here?

You have to admit, that's a pretty cool concept.

When we first meet The Challenger, he's protecting a nice young woman from a thug!


Yes, his mask looks like a Starro is controlling him.

But, as the splash blurb told us, Challenger is a master of all weapons, and he can beat you at your choice!



OK, that's at least one weapon he's mastered.

But who is this guy?

Hey--you're breaking the fourth wall--with thought balloons!! I knew I liked this guy...

Anyway, young Bill Waring is, well, kind of the before panel in the Charles Atlas ads:

In a bit of really over-complicated plotting, his father is killed and he is wounded by crooks working with the corrupt district attorney!

And then Bill begins what I've always imagined young Bruce Wayne's journeys must have been like:












Let's face it--that's a killer concept!!

Once he finds Joe Chill his father's killer, it's time once again to prove his mastery of all combat!




Seriously, I love this concept to death!!!

Like many other Timely heroes, The Challenger faded away, and was never heard from again--until Dan Slott brought him back in an issue of She-Hulk!!


It was a throwaway little bit, and they never explained what the hell this "time bounce" was. Post-Civil War, he turned up in Montana's team in the Fifty State Initiative. And that was it--he's been missing in action again for nearly a decade.

But man, this is such an insanely wonderful concept. This guy could be Marvel's Batman--he's already got the origin. A man who sees his father killed, who has no powers but pushes himself to master every weapon and form of combat there is!! Throw in the ludicrous but brilliant gimmick: he'll let his opponent chose any weapon they want--and he'll beat them with it!!

And now you can add in the "found himself in an era not his own" spin. Think of how outdated his knowledge and mastery must be now. He'll have to relearn everything, and master new skills from tasers to computers to paste guns to krav maga to...because you damn well know that he's going to continue his crusade against crime.

So, OK, Marvel, you beat me to resurrecting this guy. But take the next step!! You're sitting on a gold mine here!!! This could be the sensational character (re)find of 2017!! And he fits in swell with the Legacy theme!! Bring back The Challenger!!

From Daring Mystery Comics #7 (1941) and She-Hulk #11 (2005)