The Countdown To SDCC 2026!

I'm going to see if I can get an idea of how well Phantom Rider and Werewolf by Night sold. If they did okay we might get The Two-Gun Kid and Dracula.
Just to be clear, I love all these types of characters be it Marvel or DC. A Colan ToD style Dracula is one of, if not my top choice for non superhero outliers. But make no mistake, I want Frankenstein done on the Rage buck. I want the Living Mummy. I want Manphibian who can probably share some Triton parts. I want an old school Lilith, Santana, Damian Hellstrom, Blade, and Brother VooDoo. Add in Zombie Simon Garth and we’ve cleared the upper tier of Marvel’s supernatural types.

Then the pre FF monsters. Practically all of which were created by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Xemnu is just the tip of a very large iceberg.
 
More Hulk Villians please
Wild that we don’t have Graviton at this point
Classic Guardians of the Galaxy
Imperial Guard
Classic 2nd & 3rd team Defenders!
 
Help me out here, guys. I'm compiling a list of the most asked for groups of action figures on our boards. I want to take it with me to SDCC to see if we're any closer or if they've changed their tune at all.

Asgardians
Serpent Society
Someone keeps asking for Golden Age
Monsters, particularly Bronze Age
Cowboys
Maybe a few horses they can ride on
An X-Force guy. Starts with a "K" I think. Brandishes a sword.
Cosmic outer space guys
New Mutants in their training uniforms

What else?
ULTRAVERSE! (Okay, it’s mostly me asking, but I do ask about it a lot.)

Any plans for the Micronauts down the line?

Where’s the CrossGen characters? (Again, mostly me, but I do bring it up frequently)
 
Just to be clear, I love all these types of characters be it Marvel or DC. A Colan ToD style Dracula is one of, if not my top choice for non superhero outliers. But make no mistake, I want Frankenstein done on the Rage buck. I want the Living Mummy. I want Manphibian who can probably share some Triton parts. I want an old school Lilith, Santana, Damian Hellstrom, Blade, and Brother VooDoo. Add in Zombie Simon Garth and we’ve cleared the upper tier of Marvel’s supernatural types.

Then the pre FF monsters. Practically all of which were created by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Xemnu is just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Top-tier content, right here.
 
More Hulk Villians please
Wild that we don’t have Graviton at this point
Classic Guardians of the Galaxy
Imperial Guard
Classic 2nd & 3rd team Defenders!

I cannot believe I forgot about the Defenders. I fucking loved that book back in the day. Classic Son of Satan, Tania Belinskaya Red Guardian, Devil Slayer, a better Yellowjacket, Gargoyle ...

Egad, I'm glad I asked you guys these questions.
 
Jim Starlin

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When I think of Jim Starlin, I will first and foremost recall that he was the co-creator of Shang-Chi, The Master of Kung-Fu. Now he did many amazing and noteworthy things in his comics career and he was only on Shang-Chi for about 5 issues or so, but for whatever reason his stint on MoKF is what comes to mind for me first. But different fans will see different things. Some will recall him as the creator of Thanos, the Mad Titan. Some will remember The Death of Captain Marvel. Still others will remember the Cosmic Odyssey and A Death in the Family for DC. That was the thing about Jim. His work was eclectic and varied and as a result he touched many people with his stories and art.

James P. Starlin (born October 9, 1949) is a comics artist and writer. Beginning his career in the early 1970s, he is best known for space opera stories, for revamping the Marvel Comics characters Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock, and for creating or co-creating the Marvel characters Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, and Shang-Chi. Starlin wrote the miniseries The Infinity Gauntlet and its many sequels including The Infinity War and The Infinity Crusade, all detailing Thanos's pursuit of the Infinity Gems and his conflict with the heroes of the Marvel Universe.

For DC Comics, he drew many iconic characters, including Darkseid, and wrote the seminal storyline A Death in the Family which featured the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin, during his run on Batman. For Epic Illustrated, he created his own character, Dreadstar.

After writing and drawing stories for a number of fan publications, Jim Starlin entered the comics industry in late 1972, working for editor in chief Roy Thomas and art director John Romita at Marvel Comics. His first assignment was writing and drawing Captain Marvel. He took over the title with issue #25 and created Thanos and Drax the Destroyer. The Thanos saga spread out over several other Marvel titles and concluded with issue #31. It was, in my opinion, a Bronze Age masterpiece.

Jim went on to co-create Master of Kung-Fu with Steve Englehart, and then took over the title Warlock, starring a genetically engineered being created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s and re-imagined by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in the 1970s as a Jesus Christ-like figure on an alternate Earth. Envisioning the character as philosophical and existentially tortured, Starlin wrote and drew a complex space opera with theological and psychological themes. Warlock confronted the militaristic Universal Church of Truth, eventually revealed to be created and led by an evil evolution of his future–past self, known as Magus. Starlin ultimately incorporated Thanos into this story. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "In a brief stint with Marvel, which included work on two characters (Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock) that had previously never quite made their mark, Starlin managed to build a considerable cult following."

The 1980's found Starlin creating an expansive story titled "the Metamorphosis Odyssey", which introduced the character of Vanth Dreadstar in Epic Illustrated #3. The storyline was further developed in The Price and Marvel Graphic Novel #3 and eventually the long-running Dreadstar comic book, published first by Epic Comics, and then by First Comics.

In 1982 Starlin wrote and drew The Death of Captain Marvel, the first graphic novel published by Marvel Comics and one of my favorite stories.

Afterwards, Starlin became the writer of Batman, and one of his first storylines for the title was "Ten Nights of The Beast" in issues #417–420 (March – June 1988) which introduced the KGBeast. Starlin then wrote the four-issue miniseries Batman: The Cult (Aug.–Nov. 1988) drawn by Bernie Wrightson, and the storyline "Batman: A Death in the Family" in Batman #426–429 (Dec. 1988 – Jan. 1989), in which Jason Todd, the second of Batman's Robin sidekicks, was killed by the Joker. The controversial storyline was suggested by editor Denny O'Neil and lined up with Starlin's well-known desire to remove the Robin character from Batman's storyline. The death was decided by fans, as DC Comics set up a hotline for readers to vote on as to whether or not Jason Todd should survive a potentially fatal situation. Starlin was fired off the Batman title soon afterward.

Other projects for DC included writing The Weird drawn by Wrightson and Cosmic Odyssey drawn by Mike Mignola. Starlin wrote and drew Gilgamesh II in 1989 before returning to Marvel.

Back at Marvel, Starlin began scripting a revival of the Silver Surfer series and introduced his creation Thanos into the story, which led to The Infinity Gauntlet miniseries and its crossover storyline. Here, Starlin brought back Adam Warlock, whom he had killed years earlier in his concluding Warlock story in The Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 in 1977. The Infinity Gauntlet proved successful and was followed by the sequel miniseries The Infinity War and Infinity Crusade.

That's a LOT, and that's only a partial resume. Jim is 76 years old and he still writes and still creates. I will tell you right now, Avengers Annual #7 remains my favorite single comic book of all time. The Captain Marvel and Warlock sagas are breathtaking in their cosmic scope and epic magnitude, and yet the reader never loses sight of the fact that these stories are about our heroes and their humanity. I've spoken to Jim a few times at comic con over the years, and his humanity shines through in every conversation. That is perhaps the biggest reason why his stories are so wonderful.

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Mike
(3 Days Until SDCC 2026!)
 
Again, an artist that I was always happy to see doing one of my regular titles. He is the reason that I got into Captain Marvel. Always wanted to see at least a graphic novel featuring Mar-Vell, Warlock, and Silver Surfer.
His covers stood out on the comic racks. Male characters did not have to be "over blown" with muscles. They were often lean, with athletic build body type. And the way he depicts hanging/draped fabric is fantastic.
 
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