New Solar and Magnus stories

[Daniel Jackson]

BTW, how many different "Solars" were in the *VALIANT (1991-1996)*, *Acclaim (1997 series)*, *Acclaim (1999 series)* universes?

Dr Eclipse, Solar: Destroyer, Dr. Phil, who else?

And who's to say that the 41st century wouldnt have Solar in it, rather than use him in the current time? Heroes could include:

Eternal Warrior
Rai
Solar (new/revamped)
Psi-Lords
Timewalker (intermittently)
Magnus's son (?)
XO Commando (?)

VEI doesn't need Solar in the current timeline. But he could be helpful to flesh out the 41st C. timeline.

Aside: Wasn't there a rather sparse group of villains in the 41st C. ?

What issue after the Harbinger Wars and Chaos Effect issues shows Magnus back in the 41st Century? I forget

I think any usage of anything relating to Solar/Dr Solar?Man of the Atom/ the Solar costume and derivatives is pretty much going to be off-limits.

Thus we may see a radically different looking Destroyer, Dr Eclipse should be okay (I think), Phil Seleski may be okay, but it will be tricky.

I think Dr. Eclipse would not cause a problem, but certain aspects of The Destroyer and Phil Seleski certainly would. The last thing VEI needs now is another court battle, so I imagine they will play it safe and only use what they know they can for now.

[yardstick]

BTW, how many different "Solars" were in the *VALIANT (1991-1996)*, *Acclaim (1997 series)*, *Acclaim (1999 series)* universes?

Dr Eclipse, Solar: Destroyer, Dr. Phil, who else?

And who's to say that the 41st century wouldnt have Solar in it, rather than use him in the current time? Heroes could include:

Eternal Warrior
Rai
Solar (new/revamped)
Psi-Lords
Timewalker (intermittently)
Magnus's son (?)
XO Commando (?)

VEI doesn't need Solar in the current timeline. But he could be helpful to flesh out the 41st C. timeline.

Aside: Wasn't there a rather sparse group of villains in the 41st C. ?

What issue after the Harbinger Wars and Chaos Effect issues shows Magnus back in the 41st Century? I forget

I think any usage of anything relating to Solar/Dr Solar?Man of the Atom/ the Solar costume and derivatives is pretty much going to be off-limits.

Thus we may see a radically different looking Destroyer, Dr Eclipse should be okay (I think), Phil Seleski may be okay, but it will be tricky.

I think Dr. Eclipse would not cause a problem, but certain aspects of The Destroyer and Phil Seleski certainly would. The last thing VEI needs now is another court battle, so I imagine they will play it safe and only use what they know they can for now.

In my speculation ( ) VEI would not even need to bring up Destroyer or original Solar. Just incorporate Dr Eclipse and Dr Phil together as described...

As far as Destroyer and Solar are concerned: Get rid of the symbol, orange pajamas and goggles; and anything else should be fair game

[Geomancer]

Even though the announcement was not official, it makes a lot sense from a business standpoint on the part of DK. Valiant was a force to be reckoned with for a short while. I imagine they would rather not have that kind of competition again. I'm sure they know that taking Solar and Magnus out of the picture for Valiant is a great way to the throw a monkey wrench in the works for them..

I doubt DH looked at Valiant's starting to publish again and trying to quash it as a reason, it was more likely the sales of the Magnus and Solar HCs. DH has outlasted a lot of comic companies for a reason.

-neil

Then why didn't they pursue this avenue before Ibooks got the rights to Magnus?

My thinking is that DH jumped on the reprint rights to stall for time till they could convince Classic Media to give them the rights to new material. It was just a way to have leverage over VEI as they tried to secure the rights.

I was doing a web search on Dark horse & Solar & Magnus to see if any more info was floating out there.

One thing that did stand out to me was a lengthy article (on this site) explaining [among other things] how Dark Horse was seeking to get those characters at the same time as the original VALIANT. The license ended up being granted to Jim Shooter and VALIANT was born. (Marvel & DC were as well)

http://www.valiantcomics.com/Valiant/joe/shooter/

So for Dark Horse (and perhaps Marvel and DC for all we know) -- trying to get ahold of Magnus and Solar to publish comics seems to have been a long term goal.

How ibooks got ahold of the license is a very interest story as well, and one I'd be curious to hear.

[Daniel Jackson]

How ibooks got ahold of the license is a very interest story as well, and one I'd be curious to hear.

One would think Classic would have given the rights to print new material to Dark Horse over Ibooks had DH put their hat in the ring at the time.

[yardstick]

I honestly don't view it as an issue - the idea of a relaunch allows for not being dependent on past aspects. For me, it's not an issue I'll take good stories whether include Magnus and Solar or not - from an company.

Even though the announcement was not official, it makes a lot sense from a business standpoint on the part of DH. Valiant was a force to be reckoned with for a short while. I imagine they would rather not have that kind of competition again. I'm sure they know that taking Solar and Magnus out of the picture for Valiant is a great way to the throw a monkey wrench in the works for them.

Like I said earlier, I had a bad feeling that DH would try to take the characters when those hardback GK reprints started coming out.

I'm not sure that Dark Horse is one of the non-big two companies that has to care about competition from VE. Dark Horse is insulated in a way others are not; not because of properties in general (as Boom and IDW have those as well) but specifically because of what properties. They carry Buffy and Star Wars and there is no VE related work that's stopping those trains and if you look at titles like The Goon and Hellboy - those are really books with built-in bases that probably aren't competing with a new superhero product. Nobody is going to stop getting BPRD to grab a new VE book (or vice versa).

While I'm not saying DH doesn't know VE was interested in securing those rights I have to believe spite is a secondary, at best (if at all) motivation. Now, it could have sped up their process, certainly, but I think we time get Shooter-syndrome and think everybody is out to get us! It's certainly possible - and reasonable - they just wanted the rights to make quality comics and VE's presence made them make a move sooner rather than later.

DH has developed a lot of niche market share sans competition...
DH has built a reputation of being THE independent comic publisher....

I agree, I'm just not sure why you're quoting me

Maybe this will help:

I'm not sure that Dark Horse is one of the non-big two companies that has to care about competition from VE. Dark Horse is insulated in a way others are not; not because of properties in general (as Boom and IDW have those as well) but specifically because of what properties. They carry Buffy and Star Wars and there is no VE related work that's stopping those trains and if you look at titles like The Goon and Hellboy -

[yardstick]

It still doesn't make any sense to me. Are you disputing something?

I think I was just agreeing with you