Darkhorse heroes was Valiant done better.

[OmenSpirits.com]

Think about it.

Art was great. Stories were great. Interconnecting continuity of characters & origins were just as solid.

That entire run did things in comics that other comics haven't done on such a scale.

The books had individual identities and art but never got in the way of solid stories.

[Cyberstrike]

No, they are bad KO of Valiant, and waste of time, money, and trees.

If DH wants me to buy these books fire Shooter, all the artists (except for the guy doing Mighty Samson he's the only one that can draw worth a damn) and FIRE that damn cover artist, and then cancel the whole thing and start over with people who can do something better with the characters.

[jridd28]

No, they are bad KO of Valiant, and waste of time, money, and trees.

If DH wants me to buy these books fire Shooter, all the artists (except for the guy doing Mighty Samson he's the only one that can draw worth a damn) and FIRE that damn cover artist, and then cancel the whole thing and start over with people who can do something better with the characters.

Do you not like any of the covers?

[xodacia81]

Think about it.

Art was great. Stories were great. Interconnecting continuity of characters & origins were just as solid.

That entire run did things in comics that other comics haven't done on such a scale.

The books had individual identities and art but never got in the way of solid stories.

I enjoyed the CGW/DHH line but I think there were plenty of misfires. I believe the biggest knock against the line is that DH didn't stick with it long enough to really give it a chance and during the time it was at its biggest popularity, they screwed the pooch by having ONE SINGLE BOOK on market for almost 6 months. Think about it, for a moment.

CGW launches. It ends in late August, early September. Two weeks later, Out of the Vortex launches. The next book to come out is X, in early February, followed by Catalyst, in late March. The Motorhead Special and Barb Wire both launched around the same time. Then you had artist changes galore and the Titan Special in June, which led to Will to Power. The Ghost Special came out in mid July. Catalyst ended right after WTP and there were MORE artist shakeups.

Dark Horse finished Barb Wire the following January, along with the twice delayed The Machine and Division 13, both of which had unreliable artists and both of which went a mere 4 issues. Nexus: Out of the Vortex, was announced but then pulled 2 weeks before it was scheduled to arrive on shelves. Motorhead started up, Agents of Law started up and both lasted 6 issues, with Keith Giffen being fired from Agents of Law after the 5th issue. Motorhead eventually saw its final two issues released as a miniseries, King Tiger/Motorhead. This left the line with Ghost and X as the only two regular series. X was finished as of issue 25, when Ghost was around its 10th or 12th issue. Ghost lasted 36 issues, had a 6 month gap, and then another series of 22 issues. Both editions were plagued by turnover on the art side, with v.1 being unstable until Ivan Reis arrived with issue 17 and v.2 going through 3 artists, none of whom did more than 7 straight issues.

What's the point of this? Dark Horse never had any stability and seemed unable to create any. They seemed unwilling to give what I felt was a BRIILIANT set of characters and settings, with some very interesting concepts, a real chance to shine. The fact that the writing started off so wonderful and then became merely average, with Grant on X, Chichester on Motorhead and Luke on Ghost being the only writers that seemed to give a damn, didn't help matters. Delays...switches....broken promises? I love that universe but it's such a sad memory because of what it COULD have been. I do think that next to Valiant, it was the best setup to come out of the 90's, although Defiant had some really cool things, too. A sad state of affairs and Dark Horse, it appears, has learned very little.