Impact Comics: The Little Imprint That Was Left Out in the Cold: Part 2: “Low Impact Re-launch”
Originally published in Back Issue #118 (February 2020). Click here to read the first part of Impact Comics: The Little Imprint That Was Left Out in the Cold, the story of DC's all-ages line of superheroes licensed from Archie Comics, which launched in 1991 and made an attempt to revamp and relaunch in 1993. It didn't go as planned...
On the face of it, it didn’t seem like it should have been that complicated a deal: to revamp and re-launch DC Comics’ failed Impact! Comics imprint. In fact, considering all the individual elements of the re-launch, it probably should have been a slam dunk. It was being overseen by James Owsley (now Christopher J. Priest), an experienced editor and talented writer in his own right, plotted and written by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn, and featured art by veterans Steve Carr, Chuck Wojtkiewicz, newcomer Gene Ha, and industry legend Dave Cockrum, creating what Owsley had earlier described in a project memo as “three or four titles, off in a corner somewhere, existing quietly and without hype” starring a line-up of known and beloved characters.
DC’s first attempt at the Impact! Comics line (distinguished here by the exclamation point in the logo) had been exhaustively researched and methodically planned to appeal to younger, entry-level readers who would as they got older, it was hoped, move on to become readers of the more “mature” DC Comics line. Impact! launched in July of 1991, but the seven titles (The Fly, The Comet, The Legend of the Shield, Jaguar, The Web, The Black Hood, and The Crusaders) struggled to find a place in the marketplace and by the end of 1992 were on their way to cancellation.
But the superheroes anchoring the Impact! line were, in effect, rentals, on license from their owners, Archie Comics. In the years before the red-headed, freckle-faced teen icon took over the company’s corporate and public identity, Archie Comics had been known as MLJ Comics and, like the rest of the industry in the early-1940s, focused their publishing efforts on superheroes like the Shield (whose first appearance in Pep #1 in January, 1940 pre-dated Timely’ Captain America as comics’ first star-spangled hero by almost a year), the Hangman, the Black Hood, the Comet, the Web, and others; the Fly and Jaguar debuted in the 1950s, during one of Archie’s several attempts at reviving their superhero line.
DC still had time to left on its contract with Archie, so it was agreed that editor Owsley would re-launch a reduced line of titles following the six-issue Crucible miniseries that would re-set the Impact Comics universe. But the initial reception of Impact! Comics had somewhat soured the company’s administrative and marketing sides on the imprint which, coupled with creative and personnel difficulties, made the entire one and a half year experience an ordeal for almost everyone involved.
Earning Its Place on the Racks
“I’m saddened by the overall lack of confidence exhibited from nearly every quarter of DC with regard to Impact. It seems most everyone around here remains predisposed towards regarding Impact as substandard work and a commercial failure,” Owsley wrote in a February 9, 1993 memo outlining the troubled Impact re-launch timeline. “Certainly, the failure of Impact has created inestimable negatives within DC, as well as in the marketplace. My experience, however, is the market has high hopes DC will improve its entry-level line, while, within DC, Impact is typically the subject of ridicule.”
No one working on the re-launch had any expectation of best-selling success. Owsley’s written proposal for Evergreen (the miniseries published as The Crucible that transitioned readers from the Impact! with an exclamation point and Impact without, named after the city that the Comet had destroyed at the end of the original run) had made that clear up front, warning his bosses it “...isn’t going to sell.” In his “Guidebook to the Impact Re-launch,” the editor clearly states he expects “the line will have to earn its place in the racks and win an audience that will support it.” But to do that, he wants to steer clear of “a major hype campaign (that) may potentially polarize this market. Only the quality and consistency of the work itself will win Impact its rack space.”
He also warned that such terms as “‘entry level,’ or ‘for younger readers’ MUST ABSOLUTELY BE AVOIDED. This is death for the line...they must not seem whimsical or cute. These are serious comics for serious readers....” But “in light of the friendless environment Impact’s being reborn into, it’s absolutely my opinion that less is more. That includes our marketing approach. Let’s get it out there and see if we make any friends.”
Crucible: The Final Impact #1 (February 1993) began occupying rack space on January 7, 1993. In a running chronology he maintained of the efforts to get first Crucible, then the re-launch—which he referred to as a “nightmare-on-wheels”—off the ground, Owsley noted that nearly three months earlier, on October 19-21, “Waid, Augustyn, Kupperberg and I blow off three days and plot the re-launch books.” I had been an editor on and writer for the original Impact! and was the “back-up” writer on the re-launch titles. Waid and Augustyn were co-writing The American Shield, Mark of the Black Hood, and Wrath of the Comet, and I was assigned the five-page back-up features that would run through all three titles, starting with the character Steel Sterling.
Our Story Thusfar...
The groundwork for the re-launch titles had begun being laid during the final days of the original Impact! line, leading into the bridging Crucible miniseries. According to the “Guidebook to the Impact Re-launch, “The linchpin of the re-launch effort is the total and complete breakdown of The Comet. Arguably the most consistent and focused of the Impact! titles...(it) dealt with Rob (The Comet) Connors’ progressive loss of his humanity (which had) been stripped from him by alien explorers. The Comet winds up its run (#18, December 1991) with (him) wanted for a murder he did not commit, bereft of family and betrayed by his friends, apparently sacrificing his life in a final heroic effort.
“In the final issue of The Crusaders (#8, December 1991), the team is dispatched to arrest the Comet...on the murder charge.” But before they even begin their hunt for him, the dispirited team learns the Comet is dead. “The straw breaking the camel’s back, The Crusaders decide to disband. They step into their teleportation device...and vanish from the face of the Earth.”
Crucible, written by Augustyn and Waid, with layouts (on the first four issues) by Joe Quesada and finished art by Chuck Wojtkiewicz and Jimmy Palmiotti, picked up months later, chronicling a world revolutionized by one man, kindly old Mr. Jordan, inventor of the Room Temperature Superconductor, a source of limitless, near free energy. But Mr. Jordan is not the benevolent figure he appears and, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, is engaged in a battle for world domination with the Tomorrow Men, men from Earth’s past who had stumbled onto the extra-dimensional, time-defying Crucible, a source of great, but not endless, power, that enables them to see into the future. The Tomorrow Men manipulate the relationship between the Black Hood and the Comet to bring about one of their visions of the future in which the Comet expends all his energy to recharge the waning Crucible.
An interesting story element in Crucible was described in the Re-launch document: “In the years that follow Evergreen’s devastation [at the hands of the Comet] the U.S. Congress enacts the Super Hero Registration Act (SHRA). Essentially a monitoring provision, the law provides any individual carrying out civilian police actions must be licensed by their local governments.... Project Shield becomes the official SHRA enforcement arm of the U.S. Justice Department. This provides friction between the Shield and the Hood (who refuses to comply with the legislation.” Years later, Marvel Comics, under editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, would base their 2006-07 company-wide crossover (and later major motion picture) Civil War on the conflict between heroes on the Marvel Universe Superhero Registration Act.
First Issues
In the summer of 1991, Owsley commissioned penciler Michael Netzer and inker Art Nichols to create a series of re-modeled model sheets for Crucible and the re-launch. Gone were the grinning, “kid-friendlier” looks of the heroes and their secret identities. “There’s been a lot of talk about ‘mainstreaming’ Impact. Making it as dark and edgy as typical DC books.... We are, in fact, creating the illusion of mainstream DC or Marvel, while guaranteeing product accessibility to readers on the younger end of our demographic.”
The revised American Shield is beefed up on the exterior, while his secret identity of Stephen Barnes is of a withered, scarred man, crippled by violence, barely able to stand on his own outside of the advanced Project Shield Model 87 suit, which is powered by Mr. Jordon’s RTS technology. He’s a straight up Boy Scout who quotes and follows rules and regulations to the letter.
The Black Hood is still Nate Cray, but the kid who once wore that mask has grown into a man who has embraced what the hood has turned into. The Hood is hardcore, “the best covert sneak-thief-super-hero there ever was. His resourcefulness is practically boundless. He has little but contempt for The Shield (who he refers to as ‘the Sheriff’), a government lackey who is more talk than action.
Under his mask, the Comet no longer wore a human face and has lost any vestige of his former humanity, assuming the identity of the relentless and ruthless “power broker and corporate bad boy,” Hit Coffee. “The Comet isn’t necessarily evil per se,” the Guidebook states, “he just pretty much lives for now and for himself and could care less about anybody else (and) accomplishes his goals (power, money, broads) through both illegal and legal channels. When all else fails, he’ll don his Comet outfit and simply vaporize the competition.”
First up on the relaunch schedule was The American Shield #1, written by Brian Augustyn and Mark Waid and penciled by Steve Carr and Deryl Skelton. “We sent Major Stephen Michael Barnes down in a fiery helicopter crash back in Legend of the Shield #15. The fact is that he really wasn't very good at being the Shield. Well, all that's changed,” Owsley wrote for the title's sales piece. The story opens with a costumed hero called Hotshot rescuing two children from a blazing casino hotel fire. But the fire and Hotshot's heroics are merely a cover for the Casino Raiders, a crew of high-tech, fire-resistant, suit-clad crooks who have been terrorizing Las Arenas, a fact revealed when the Shield swoops in to save the day. That day saved, the Shield teleports away, but not before taking note of a familiar looking “guy in the trench coat” in the watching crowd.
The Shield's teleportation device lands him in the basement of “the Barnes house, somewhere in middle America,” where he changes from his exo-skeleton armor to his civilian identity, Stephen Barnes. His wife Shari and adolescent daughter Becky are setting the table (“Good old daddy, always on time ... and never late for dinner!”) when he comes in, responding to their “How was your day?” with “Same old-same old...put a big dent in a robbery gang's operation...and shut down a phony superhero. I was supposed to register this...good guy.” The question of the mysterious man in the trench coat is still plaguing him, until he sees the deck of cards Becky is playing with. “Of course! That's who it is!” he thinks.
Here, the story becomes a little more difficult to follow, as only the first 11 pages of the penciled art were lettered before the plug was pulled on the project. But from the remaining seven unlettered pages, we see that what Barnes remembered leads him to the rooftop of a Las Arenas casino where, as the Shield, he finds the mystery man in the trench coat electronically eavesdropping on the men in an office below. The Shield knows who the man is...and who he used to be—Blackjack, another early 1940s MLJ costumed hero—and comes bearing the man's costume and an offer for them to work together.
Before Blackjack can get his pants on, a couple of thugs burst through the door onto the roof, guns blazing. The Shield holds them off easily enough until Blackjack gets his footing and joins the fight. The heroes go crashing through the skylight into the offices below, then quickly take out the gun-wielding toughs occupying it. Even as they're congratulating one another on their teamwork, Blackjack is cut down by off-panel energy blasts. When the Shield looks to the shattered skylight above, he sees the culprits: a trio of heavily armed and armored supervillains leaping to the attack...which, of course, was to be continued.
Mark of the Black Hood #1, written by Brian Augustyn and penciled by Chuck Wojtkiewicz, was next up on the schedule. “Although he no longer has super-powers, the Black Hood (Nate Cray) is the single most powerful character in the Impact Universe.... Shown an apocalyptic vision of the future by the enigmatic Tomorrow Men, a future in which the Comet is a deadly scourge, the Black Hood set out to insure that future never came to pass... Now a wealthy socialite, the Black Hood is haunted by the guilt he feels for his role in driving the Comet further into his dementia.” The Black Hood is “compelled by the mystical, ancient mask to do what he knows is the right thing—which isn't always the same as obeying the law—[and] takes special pleasure in ruining the Comet's plans.”
Following an informant's tip, the Black Hood begins his new series by doing the right thing in tracking down a shipment of stolen military weapons in the hands of a street gang. Returning home, Nate discovers his girlfriend's suitcases packed and her ready to leave, finally sick of competing with the Black Hood for his time and attention. “There's got to me more to your life than that stupid hood! All I expect is a little of your precious time. If you really loved me, you'd want the same thing.”
Perhaps he did, but not enough to get off the telephone with his police contact and follow her out the door, especially when, a moment later, the TV news in interrupted by a special bulletin about the Comet. “The Comet! Blast! Why do I have to be haunted by him... now?! Of course, he wouldn't be bothering anybody...if only I'd dealt with him when I had the chance [in Crucible].” That night, following up on the gangs involved in the stolen weapons, the Hood traces them to their hideout...just in time to get caught in the middle gang war fought with military-grade weapons. Attempting to save a little boy also caught in the crossfire, the Black Hood finds himself and the kid plummeting to their dooms in a tale to be continued.
“The systematic dehumanizing of Rob Connors results in the single biggest change in the Impact Universe—the Comet is now a villain,” the sales sheet for Wrath of the Comet #1, written by Mark Waid and penciled by Dave Cockrum, tells us. “The Comet... is struggling with the remnants of his own humanity. His choices are: (a) embrace his humanity and build on that... or (b) completely deny his humanity, giving in to the blackness that consumes him.”
Rob Connors chooses option (b), and he's in full denial as the issue opens, waging an attack on the Web surveillance drones spying on him under the protective dome that now sits over the irradiated ruins of Evergreen. “The Web can't send human agents in here! The radiation will strip the flesh right off their bones! News flash: that's why I irradiated Evergreen City in the first place! Now you want to check up on me with your pathetic flying spy-eyes!”
After destroying the drones, the still enraged Comet flies “home”...or to what had been home for Rob Connors in Evergreen before the Comet destroyed the city, stopping only long enough to vaporize a solitary flower that had somehow managed to grow up through a crack in the irradiated landscape. He enters his old home, calling out, “Mom? Dad? I'm home!” and is “answered” from other rooms, words spoken by the memory of his long-gone parents. In a childish tantrum, he raves, “I didn't ask for these powers. I didn't ask to be stuck in this stupid alien body. I didn't ask to have everything taken away from me. My identity.
“My humanity,” he says, as he strips off his mask to reveal his eyeless, alien features.
“Now, son,” one of the voices responds, “you're still plenty human on the inside. Deep down, you're still our Rob.” The voices suggest that rather than denying humanity, he should “spend some time with other people.” The Comet agrees. “Maybe I will go out and play,” he says. “But on my terms...”
Several weeks later, we're introduced to the former Black Hood, businessman and criminal kingpin Hit Coffee, the self-described “man in Seaside City,” although he's currently involved in a violent war with a rival gang. An impertinent henchmen is berated by Coffee for not obeying orders before being told to “Get out, but first...wipe that stupid look off your face.” The henchman wipes his entire face off his face, revealing himself to be the Comet in disguise. “I'm a shape-changer, Coffee...or didn't you read that on my job application?”
The Comet tells Coffee, “You actually impress me. You've climbed a long ladder in the rackets. From errand boy to kingpin...with only a brief stop along the way as the Black Hood.” But the Comet has no interest in the gang leader's short-lived stint as a hero. “It's about control. I'm wresting full control over your operation. And frankly, I don't expect any trouble,” he says, shapeshifting into Coffee himself, “in getting your complete cooperation.” The scene cuts to the door outside his office, where a scream brings some of his other henchmen running with guns drawn. But “Coffee” sends them away, then sits at his desk, thinking “By night... the Comet. By day... Hit Coffee, gangland ruler of the eastern seaboard. Life is good.”
Or it would have been if at that moment an assassin's bullet hadn't come through the window and shot Hit Coffee dead, with his fate left to “to be continued” that never was.
Rounding out the first issues was an ongoing backup feature starring impact strongman, Steel Sterling, written by yours truly and penciled by Gene Ha. Josh “Steel” Sterling was a construction worker who'd been rewarded for saving the beloved Mr. Jordan's life during the events of the Crucible miniseries with a job as the great man's bodyguard. But Josh has been troubled by dreams of the Crucible and his immersion into its molten core and then, one day, the effects of those dreams turn real, and Steel's body transform into a literal thing of steel.
Freaked out by the transformation, Joshua rushes to Mr. Jordan for help, despite the less than benevolent plans the construction worker thought he'd overheard the inventor make while they were trapped in the Crucible. Jordan is amazed: “You've transmuted your flesh to some sort of organic metal!” He promises to help find a cure for the young man's condition, but as soon as Joshua is out of sight, he makes a call: “Joshua Sterling's just left my office. I think he might soon become a problem for me. I believe it would be best were he erased!” That evening, Joshua arrives home...only it's no longer his home, and he no longer has the keys to the door or possesses any identification...that even his car has disappeared. Racing back to the office, he's denied entrance by the same security guard he'd earlier been bantering with but now no longer recognizes him.
Joshua Sterling has become a “non-person” and ceased to exist in his own reality, removed by Mr. Jordan utilizing the time-spanning powers of the Crucible. The only thing remaining of his previous life, including his relationship with his wife Nancy, are his memories. When he finally finds Nancy, it's through a newspaper article about her exploits as a crusading assistant district attorney currently prosecuting a high-level gangster. Having been wiped from her existence, she has no memory of Joshua when he confronts her outside the courthouse, but he's on hand to save her from an assassination attempt. And though she doesn't remember him, she knows his name now, “this man who saved my life...his name is Sterling...Steel Sterling!”
The blurb at the bottom of the last panel read, “To be continued in two weeks in American Shield #2!” But there wouldn't be a #2 for any of the Impact heroes...and those #1's would never see the light of day. Sales on Crucible had been even weaker than anticipated and the intertwined storyline that had been set up in the miniseries and was to begin to play out in the three relaunched books ended without resolution.
DC attempted one more unsuccessful revival of the licensed Archie heroes in 2007-2011, this time trying to integrate the characters into the DC Universe. After that, the Mighty Heroes reverted to Archie Comics, which relaunched them in the mature-labeled Dark Circle Comics in 2015. Editor Owsley had warned DC and the creators of the Crucible miniseries and the relaunch titles that Impact Comics was going to be a hard sell right from the start. “It... isn’t going to sell.... [it] will not, even in the long term, be a major commercial hit,” he had written in the project proposal.
It turned out that Impact Comics was more even complicated than he had imagined after all.
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