Deathmate

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Deathmate Prologue, art by Jim Lee and Bob Layton
Deathmate Prologue, art by Jim Lee and Bob Layton

Deathmate was a six-part comic book crossover between Valiant Comics and Image Comics published in 1993 and 1994. Designated by color rather than issue numbers (namely Yellow, Blue, Black, and Red) plus two book-end issues, Deathmate Prologue and Deathmate Epilogue, the four main issues were written so they could be read in any order. Created at the peak of the comic book speculator boom, the project was heavily promoted and sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but was wrought with production delays. The Image half (Black, Red, and Prologue) came out severely behind schedule and out of sequence. Deathmate Red shipped after the epilogue issue, and despite cover dates of September 1993 to February 1994, the actual publication lag was far longer than 6 months.

The plot evolved around a chance interdimensional meeting of two characters, Solar from Valiant and Void from Image's WildC.A.T.s. The two became lovers, but their joining would mean the destruction of both comic book universes.

It is notable that only half of the Image founding members chose to take part. Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, and Todd McFarlane were not involved, although Al Simmons makes a brief character appearance in Deathmate Red.

[edit] The books

Books from Valiant

  • Deathmate Prologue

"A Love to End All Time"
Story: Bob Layton
Pencils: Barry Windsor-Smith
Inks: Jim Lee

"Universal Truth"
Story: Bob Layton
Pencils: Rob Liefeld
Inks: Bob Layton with Danny Miki and Dan Panosian

Deathmate Black, the comic that introduced Gen¹³.
Deathmate Black, the comic that introduced Gen¹³.
  • Deathmate Yellow

"Jerked Through Time" (featuring characters from Archer & Armstrong and WildC.A.T.s)
Story: Mike Baron
Pencils: Bernard Chang
Inks: Rodney Ramos

"Cat and Mouse" (featuring characters from Ninjak and WildC.A.T.s)
Story: Jorge Gonzalez
Pencils: Don Perlin
Inks: Mike Manley

"The Dying Game" (featuring characters from H.A.R.D. Corps and WildC.A.T.s)
Story: David Michelinie and Bob Layton
Pencils: Mike Leeke
Inks: Tom Ryder

"Revelations and Recruitments" (featuring characters from Shadowman and WildC.A.T.s)
Story: Bob Hall
Pencils: Mark Moretti
Inks: John Dixon

  • Deathmate Blue

"Battlestone vs. Magnus Outlaw!" (featuring characters from Brigade and Magnus: Robot Fighter)
Story: John Ostrander
Pencils: Jim Calafiore
Inks: Ralph Reese

"Secret Forces" (featuring characters from Secret Weapons and Cyberforce)
Story: Joe St. Pierre
Pencils: Sean Chen
Inks: Kathryn Bolinger

"Sacrifices" (featuring characters from Harbinger, Brigade, and Cyberforce)
Story: Maurice Fontenot
Pencils: Howard Simpson
Inker: Gonzalo Mayo

"Supremely Darque" (featuring characters from Solar and Supreme)
Story: Kevin VanHook
Pencils: Peter Grau
Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti

Books from Image

  • Deathmate Black (featuring characters from Gen¹³, WildC.A.T.s, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Cyberforce, and X-O Manowar)

Story: Brandon Choi and Eric Silvestri
Pencils: Brandon Peterson, Brett Booth, Marc Silvestri, J. Scott Campbell (as Jeffrey Scott),
Scott Clark, Greg Capullo, Jim Lee, and Whilce Portacio
Inks: Scott Williams, Sal Regla, Alex Garner, and Trevor Scott

Story and Pencils: Rob Liefeld
Script: Eric Stephenson
Additional pencils: Jeff Matsuda, Rich Horie, Dan Fraga, Cedric Nocon, Dan Pacella, Anthony Winn, Marat Mychaels
Inks: Danny Miki, Jon Sibal, Marlo Alquiza

  • Deathmate Epilogue

Story: Bob Layton
Pencils: Marc Silvestri and Joe Quesada
Inks: Bob Layton and Scott Williams

[edit] Aftermath

Deathmate Red, Rob Liefeld's belated contribution to the project.
Deathmate Red, Rob Liefeld's belated contribution to the project.

As Image Comics was plagued by late, rescheduled, or cancelled publications at the time, it came as no surprise to fans, retailers, and critics that Deathmate also arrived late, although the issues published by Valiant were shipped on schedule. However, the books were pre-ordered in heavy quantities by retailers. When shipping dates were not met, distributors cancelled the original orders and required re-orders. By the time the last issues did arrive, some fans had lost interest, leaving retailers with unsold copies.

As a cross-promotion, two trading card companies also did a cross-over, Upper Deck and Topps. But, because of the deadline problems with Image Comics, Topps ended up backing out of the contract.

In a retrospective interview with Newsrama on the rise and fall of Valiant, Bob Layton (former editor in chief) lambasted the whole affair, regarding it as an "unmitigated disaster." As the Image artists were notorious for failing to meet deadlines, Layton allegedly flew out to Los Angeles, went to Rob Liefeld's residence and refused to leave until Liefeld pencilled his contribution to Deathmate Prologue, which Layton ended up inking in a hotel room.

"I literally had nothing to do with most of those projects," Layton revealed, "Deathmate was thrust upon us because (Steve) Massarsky and Jim Lee were best buddies at the time and had privately arranged the crossover."

For retailers, Deathmate was harmful, due to the tying up of cash flow with books arriving late, especially given the $4.95 USD cover price (at the time, the average comic book cover price was less than half of that). Also due to waning fan interest, the re-orders were lower than initial orders. The Valiant Deathmate books (Prologue, Blue, and Yellow) had print runs of over 700,000 copies, but by the time Deathmate Red was released, it had a print run of 250,000. Yet retailers were still left with many unsold copies. At the time, comic book distributors would only allow unsold books to be returned if they were six months late. Retailers dealt constantly with late books from Image, which indirectly caused some comic book shops to close. Partially due to the lateness of Image publications, the window was eventually decreased to two months.

[edit] External links