Monkeyman and O'Brien is an American comic book series created by artist Art Adams in 1993. The series was published from 1993 to 1999 by Dark Horse Comics in various types of installments including short features in anthologies, backup stories in other series, a three issue limited series, a two issue crossover series (with the WildStorm team Gen13, published by Image Comics) and a comic strip in the promotional newspaper Dark Horse Extra .
In 1997, a trade paperback collection of four issues (the three issue limited series and a special consisting of the Hellboy: Seed of Destruction backups) was published.
The series follows the story of Ann O'Brien, the daughter of a missing scientist, who at the time of his disappearance was working on experiments in interdimensional travel. When one of her father's experimental machines was accidentally activated by Ann, it teleported from another dimension Axwell Tiberius (also known as "Monkeyman"), a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) super-intelligent gorilla-like being that Adams conceived as "the Reed Richards of the gorilla world". [1] The same accident also bathed Ann in a mysterious radiation which caused her grow to seven feet tall and endowed her with superhuman strength, endurance and speed. [2] Axewell quickly became Ann's friend and the two went on to face numerous Silver Age–style threats including the "Shrewmanoid" and the "Froglodytes". [3] The duo also encountered the Image Comics super-team Gen13. [4] In the last Monkeyman and O'Brien stories published to date, humorous situations arise between the pair such as O'Brien growing to colossal size after being hit by one of Monkeyman's experimental devices. [5] Monkeyman's brother Nonny O'Brien also features in the series.
Villains the series include:
On January 1, 2000, it was revealed that producer Jeff Kline was awaiting a pick-up order from the Fox Kids Network for a cel-animated Monkeyman and O'Brien series. While the production had gotten as far as scripting (with significant input from creator Art Adams), [6] the show was ultimately never produced.
It has never been publicly confirmed why the network passed on the series, but the underperformance of Kline's previous production, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot , may have been a contributing factor.
Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon, comic book shops known as Pegasus Books and founded in 1980.
Fray is an eight-issue comic book limited series, a futuristic spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, the series follows a Slayer named Melaka Fray, a chosen one in a time when vampires are returning to the slums of New York City, and the rich-poor divide is even greater. Volume one is drawn by Karl Moline (pencils) and Andy Owens (inks).
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Arthur Adams is an American comic book artist and writer. He first broke into the American comic book industry with the 1985 Marvel Comics miniseries Longshot. His subsequent interior comics work includes a number of Marvel's major books, including The Uncanny X-Men, Excalibur, X-Factor, Fantastic Four, Hulk, and Ultimate Comics: X, as well as books by various other publishers, such as Action Comics, Vampirella, The Rocketeer, and The Authority. Adams has also illustrated books featuring characters for which he has a personal love, such as Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Gumby, the latter of which garnered him a 1988 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue.
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Scott Allie is an American comics writer and editor, best known as an editor and executive at Dark Horse Comics from 1994 to 2017. During this time he edited works including Hellboy and related series, and The Umbrella Academy. He continued editing for Dark Horse as a freelancer, until the company severed ties with him in 2020 amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
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Ann O'Brien is a comic book superheroine created by American comic book artist Art Adams. Along with Axwell Tiberius, she is one of the two primary characters in Adams' Dark Horse Comics series Monkeyman and O'Brien.
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