Shooter's Defiant stuff?

Valiant OCD · Post by **Valiant OCD** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 4:56:15 pm

Anyone know where I could find a list of the Defiant books published?

I have a few of them, but I've always wondered what happened to "Charlemagne". I Had the pleasure of going to lunch with Janet Jackson (and a group of people) after a siging of " plasm #0" book inserted in previews. And I've always thought that whole group of artists was extremely talented.

greg · Post by **greg** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 4:59:32 pm

Here's one:
(Excel file) http://www.forgottenuniverses.com/defia ... ntlist.xls

Forgotten Universes - Defiant Cover Scans
http://www.forgottenuniverses.com/defiantlibrary.html

riftt · Post by **riftt** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 5:06:16 pm

can someone go through the defiant timeline? Did Shooter leave that too or did it go belly up first?

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:10:41 pm

riftt wrote:can someone go through the defiant timeline? Did Shooter leave that too or did it go belly up first?

Here is a messageboard which specializes in Shooter's Defiant & Broadway comic lines. There are boards for Valiant & Neal Adam's Continuity comics also:

http://defiant1.proboards27.com/index.cgi

Defiant basically ran out of money, & had problems with The River Group, who produced their cards.---Steve

RyanMcLelland · Post by **RyanMcLelland** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 12:06:29 am

They also got sued by Marvel which zapped their funds and also subsequently killed a HUGE toy deal that Defiant had.

It's a shame really...but then came Broadway Comics which I personally found superior.

Man I miss Star Seed...

justin · Post by **justin** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:25:34 am

RyanMcLelland wrote:They also got sued by Marvel which zapped their funds and also subsequently killed a HUGE toy deal that Defiant had.

It's a shame really...but then came Broadway Comics which I personally found superior.

Man I miss Star Seed...

What was the lawsuit about?

-justin

graybola · Post by **graybola** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 4:29:14 am

"Warriors of Plasm" was supposed to be just "Plasm". I guess marvel had a character or something with the name plasm and sued them with the result being that the title was renamed. Thats just from memory, so anyone with more info please post.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:45:54 am

I think you are right about the Plasm name. The Plasm character Marvel had was very lame and did not resemble in any way what Defiant was doing. I always thought that it was a very petty and ignorant lawsuit myself, but Marvel must have been scared to death that Jim was going to do what he did with Valiant.

RyanMcLelland · Post by **RyanMcLelland** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 7:30:01 am

It was a Marvel UK book called Plasmer that got the panties in a bunch.

From a Shooter interview at CBR:

We also, when we first started out, were sued by Marvel Comics. When we announced Plasm, they claimed they had a character that that infringed upon. What they actually had was a name registered in the U.K. trademark with intent to use. They ended up suing us. We ended up fighting that out in court. It cost us over $300,000 in court. We won, hands down. The judge scolded them at the them, because he knew they were just using it as a business weapon. Trying to use the court to squelch a competitor.

Especially since, to them, I was a dangerous competitor. The last time I had started a company, I had taken a chunk out of their market share. They lost and lost big. But when you're a small company and somebody bleeds $300,000 out of you -- also 120 hours of my time, a similar amount of time for Winston [Fowlkes] who was the publisher.

The sidebar to that story is. [We] created Plasm. When their lawyers came after us, our lawyers said, we'll change the name, what do you want? They said, if you just add some words to the name, so that it doesn't seem like one character, that'd be OK. We offered them Warriors of Plasm. and they said, give us a couple of them and we'll pick from them. We offered them Warriors of Plasm and a couple others and they didn't reply.

This is May. They didn't reply. Our lawyers said, we can't get them to reply, so here's what we'll do. We'll do the change unilaterally, because as far as we agreed, if we do the change, we'll be OK. Warriors of Plasm had worked for me.

What they did was they waited for the day the book was shipping and they waited for a temporary restraining order. Well, we anticipated that. My publisher at Quebecor had arranged for our shipment to be interlaced with Marvel shipments. they couldn't stop their books unless they stopped theirs. So our books shipped. We went to court and fought it out. It was ugly.

Here's the biggest casualty. I had gone out to Mattel and sold Warriors of Plasm to Mattel as a toy. Half a million dollar advance, $1 million a year guarantee for three years. They were predicting a $50-$60 million toy line. Now if you have a major toy with Mattel, that's a master license and you can expect ancillary licenses.

The formula goes like this: Whatever you get from Mattel, you get the same amount from all the ancillaries combined. And you get roughly the same amount again all from all the international licensees combined. So, U.S. equals ancillary equals international. So, basically, that was $9 million. When Marvel sued us, that deal went on hold. And it took so long to resolve that we missed our window.

When we missed our window, the deal fell apart. We missed to have the toy on sale when Mattel wanted it. Then they said, maybe we can renegotiate. Since we're not sure Marvel isn't done suing yet, we want indemnifications [assumption of responsibility for legal exposure, i.e., you pay if somebody sues]. We're a little company, we're not indemnifying Mattel. We finally just walked away. We tried a couple other places, nibbles, bites, here and there, but never managed to. Not only did they cost me $300,000, but $9 million [in money never made].

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 8:41:15 am

Good job Ryan, & thanks for taking the time to reprint that part of the interview.

Defiant could have been a huge contender, & so could have Broadway. (I have cool pics of my Fatale jacket posted on Defiant1's site)

Even though both companies ended with unresolved storylines, both are worthy of reading & collecting. Some people think that Defiant was better than early Valiant. I invite those who are unfamiliar to pick up some of the titles & try them. Most can be found cheaply, if not in quarter bins. They are better read in continuity, but even if you pick up a later issue, you will be able to see the quality that went into these comics.---Steve

Valiant OCD · Post by **Valiant OCD** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:44:38 pm

Thanks for the info guys! Now I have more books to find.....

justin · Post by **justin** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 4:21:35 pm

WOW, I remember something along those lines, but reading the interview is wild!

-A