History
CyberComics were created by Marvel in the summer of 1996 as a part of a promotional deal with America Online. The CyberComics were placed into the AOL/Marvel Zone and were exclusively available to AOL users.
From 1996 till 1998 there was a run of the Spider-Man Cybercomics.
In 1997 Marvel built their own website at MarvelOnline.com and the CyberComics were freely available to all users through registration on MarvelZone.com (due to the contract with AOL).
On September 17, 1999 NextPlanetOver.com (NPO), a now-defunct online comics store, announced a one-year marketing and content licensing deal with Marvel Comics. Terms included a year of run-of-site advertising on Marvel.com. In addition, NextPlanetOver.com was sponsoring monthly CyberComics created exclusively for them by Marvel. NPO was bought out less than a year later and went bankrupt in 2000; the CyberComics were renamed into "Webisodes" and made available at Marvel.com for free without any registration.
The first characters to star in CyberComics were Spider-Man and Wolverine, soon followed by several others. The comics were not only canon to the mainstream but also tied in directly with Marvel's newsstand offerings. They came out on a monthly basis, in four parts consisting of eight pages each.
Using Macromedia's Shockwave software, readers guided the action by clicking through word balloons and following panels complete with animation, sound effects and music. CyberComics were still very much in the comic book or strip genre - the result was a cross between comics and animation.
The Cybercomics were made by taking penciled pages and transforming them through a program called "Electric Image Painter" and form-Z into the digital comics, colored in digitally in Adobe Illustrator. Simple animations were created in Macromedia Shockwave, and Garry Schafer of grimmwerks created the soundscapes which drove the animations. Done at a time previous to mp3 compression as common as it is now, only 4 channels of small, short soundscapes could be used at one time.
Due to financial reasons, the production of new CyberComics ceased in 2000 and Marvel removed them from their website.
Having a huge back-issue archive, Marvel decided to save money by replacing Marvel CyberComics with Dotcomics. This successor would eventually become Marvel Unlimited.
Marvel's Excelsior Theatre
Scoop:
The only "movie" in this "theatre" was called The Secret Adventures of Captain America - Far Flung in the Far East and came out in five parts in 1999-2000. It was conceived by former editor and Stan-hattan Project founder James Felder and co-written by James Felder, Ben Raab and Joe Kelly with art/designs by John Cassaday and overseen by John Cerilli; sound effects, music, animation and even the voice of Captain America was provided by Garry Schafer. The idea was to do a Flash animated series with actors and writers contributing the characters' voices - all involved recorded parts - John Cerilli was Nick Fury, for example. Sort of a retro-modern version of the old movie serials with a bit of the Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre radio show vibe. It was discontinued after the fifth episode without bringing the story to an end for unclear reasons.
Story:
Chasing down a mysterious phenomenon in East Asia during the WWII, Cap confronts the nefarious Mandarin! A certain Sergeant Fury is present and accounted for as well, but with allies like these...
Other appearances include Dum Dum Dugan and Sgt. Fury's Howling Commandos, composed of Dino Manelli, Reb Ralston, Gabe Jones, Pinky Pinkerton and Izzey Cohen.
- Episode 1: Valley of Death
- Episode 2: In the Clutches of the Mandarin
- Episode 3: The Valley of Lost Spirits
- Episode 4: The Road of Frozen Hells
- Episode 5: Fireworks
Review:
The adventure featured numerous "firsts", including a new first meeting of Captain America and Nick Fury; one that is decidedly different than the one featured in the pages of Sgt Fury comic. Much more advanced than the CyberComics, it had music and actors performing their parts and more advanced animation. Oddly the story seemed to take the stand that Nick Fury was somehow opposed to Captain America beforehand, seeing him as some kind of glorified piece of propaganda.
X-Men, also known as X-Men: The Animated Series, is an animated superhero television series which debuted in the United States on October 31, 1992, on Fox's Fox Kids programming block. It was Marvel Comics' second attempt at an animated X-Men television series after the pilot X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men was not picked up.
Marvel Knights is an imprint of Marvel Comics that contained standalone material taking place inside the Marvel Universe (Earth-616). The imprint originated in 1998 when Marvel outsourced four titles to Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti's company Event Comics; Event hired the creative teams for the Knights line while Marvel published them.
Ultimate Marvel, later known as Ultimate Comics, was an imprint of comic books published by Marvel Comics, featuring reimagined and modernized versions of the company's superhero characters from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, later known as the Ultimate Universe. Those characters include Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Ultimates, the Fantastic Four, and others. The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of the series Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men in 2001, followed by The Ultimates and Ultimate Fantastic Four in 2002 and 2004 respectively providing new origin stories for the characters. The reality of Ultimate Marvel is designated as Earth-1610 as part of the Marvel Comics Multiverse.
Marvel Masterpieces is the name of several subsequent sets of trading cards, printed during 1992-2008, depicting characters and events from Marvel Comics. Featuring large, vividly drawn card fronts and backs detailing trivia, each card showcased a different personality from Marvel's body of work.
Panini Comics is an Italian comic book publisher. A division of Panini Group, which also produces collectible stickers, it is headquartered in Modena, Italy. The company publishes comic books in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as manga in several non-English-speaking countries through the Planet Manga publishing division.
Secret War is a 2004–2005 comic book storyline published by Marvel Comics, consisting of a central, five-issue miniseries written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Gabriele Dell'Otto, and a number of tie-in books. It is loosely based on classified operations told to Bendis by an anonymous high-ranking officer in the United States Intelligence Community during Bendis' childhood.
Lee Weeks is an American comics artist known for his work on such titles as Daredevil.
Steven McNiven is a Canadian comic book artist. He first gained prominence on CrossGen's Meridian, before moving onto books such as Ultimate Secret, Marvel Knights 4, New Avengers, and Civil War, illustrating storylines such as "Old Man Logan."
The Mighty World Of Marvel was a British comic book series published first by Marvel UK and then by Panini Comics. Debuting on 30 September 1972, it was the first title published by Marvel UK and ran until 1984. The series was revived in 2003 by Panini Comics, who are licensed to reprint Marvel US material in Europe, and was published monthly until November 2019.
Richard Isanove is a French artist and painter working in the American comic book industry.
Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader "Dum Dum" Dugan is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is an officer of S.H.I.E.L.D. and is one of the most experienced members of Nick Fury's team, known for his marksmanship with rifles and trademark bowler hat.
Ron Garney is an American comic book writer/artist, known for his work on books such as JLA, The Amazing Spider-Man, Silver Surfer, Hulk, Daredevil and Captain America.
Daniel G. Chichester is an American comic book writer. His credits include Daredevil and Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for Marvel Comics.
Frankenstein's Monster is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is based on the character in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The character has been adapted often in the comic book medium.
"Secret Invasion" is a comic book crossover storyline written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu, that ran through a self-titled eight-issue limited series and several tie-in books published by Marvel Comics from April through December 2008. The story involves a subversive, long-term invasion of Earth by the Skrulls, a group of alien shapeshifters who have secretly replaced many superheroes in the Marvel Universe with impostors over a period of years, prior to the overt invasion. Marvel's promotional tagline for the event was "Who do you trust?".
S.H.I.E.L.D. is a fictional espionage, special law enforcement, and counter-terrorism government agency appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, this agency first appeared in Strange Tales #135, and often deals with paranormal activity and superhuman threats to international security.
Since his debut in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1, the Marvel Comics superhero Nick Fury has appeared in many different forms of media, including films, television programs and video games.
Marvel SuperHeroes: What The--?! is Marvel Comics' self-parody stop-motion animated web-series. The series uses superhero action figures to create the stop motion animation. The series began in 2009.
Captain America: White is a six-issue Marvel Comics limited series written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Tim Sale. An homage to Captain America comics from the Golden Age of Comic Books, the series focuses on the relationship between Steve Rogers / Captain America and his sidekick Bucky. It is the fourth and final comic in Loeb's and Sale's "Color" series, following Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Gray. The series is noted for its extensive production delays, with seven years elapsing between the release of the first and second issues.
