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How red circle will truly be revived

Started by terrence12, May 25, 2017, 07:18:54 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

terrence12


You know the superhero characters in Archie comics? Well, They were originally the comic book creations which are superheroes until Archie and his gang gain their popularity during their debut.And was the reason why MLJ was renamed as Archie comics.


The superheroes who are then formed as mighty Crusaders had short term revivals in the secondary  Archie Comics brand called the 'red circle' in the 60's,70's, 80's and the early 90's before being sold to Dc comics to revive them as 'IMPACT comics 'a DC sub-brand.However due to low sales that brand was canceled.DC tries this again by adding the characters into the DC universe but that didn't catch readers attention so they canceled it.


Archie comics gained back their characters from Dc and revive them as New Crusaders in their revived 'red circle'  brand but it was short lived so they cancelled it living a cliffhanger though they made a continuation sometime later as New Crusaders: Dark Tomorrow.


So Archie comics change the red circle into 'Dark Circle' where they make stories about the dark reinterpretation of the Archie superheroes.And you know the rest.




So if Archie Comics decided to revive their superhero brand maybe they should include them in their newly Archie action brand (in case if Sonic is canceled) or rebrand Dark Circle as Red Circle and here how they will do that. By rebooting the characters like valiant during its revival but make the tone be like the current Marvel comics and Dc rebirth.


Have the superheroes be heroic and villains be villains but don't let them include the dark tones like the Dark Circle, Make the tone be like regular superhero comics  Also Give them event story arcs much like most superhero comic books in the industry and that's all I can say.


What do you think?

DeCarlo Rules

Actually, DC never owned the ACP superheroes. They just licensed them from ACP, like they've licensed other characters over the years for comic books.

The 1940s incarnations of those superheroes are known as the MLJ superheroes (which all more or less ended by the time the company changed its name to Archie Comic Publications in 1946).

In 1959, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby created a couple of new superheroes titles for ACP, The Adventures of THE FLY and the Double Life of Private Strong. The latter title featured a hero named Lancelot Strong, who became an entirely new version of The Shield (completely unrelated to the earlier, 1940s version in anything but name). In 1964 ACP added a comic book adaptation of THE SHADOW, which by the third issue changed into a superhero version of that character who had super mental powers (kind of like Professor X crossed with Batman). During the early 1960s these titles all bore a corner cover box which declared them as part of the Archie Adventure Series. Around the same time The Adventures of THE JAGUAR was also added to the line. The new Shield's comic only ran 2 issues. The Shadow's comic ran 8 issues. The Jaguar's comic ran 15 issues, and The Fly's comic, having debuted several years earlier, ran 30 issues to 1964. The indicia to all these comics stated that they were published by Radio Comics, as opposed to Archie Comic Publications.

About 6 months passed without any superheroes, and then in 1965, all of a sudden The Fly was back... but now he had changed his name to FLY-MAN (with issue #31, which continued the numbering of the previous Fly series). With issue #35, and new cover corner box on FLY-MAN identified the comic as part of the Mighty Comics Group. In the issues in between, the Black Hood, the Shield, and the Comet had teamed up with Fly-Man and Fly-Girl,  to form THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS, which then spun off into its own comic book. FLY-MAN ran from #31 to #39 (with backup stories added featuring more revived MLJ heroes like the Hangman, the Web, and Steel Sterling), before changing into an anthology title called MIGHTY COMICS PRESENTS, which ran from #40 through #50 (one issue longer than Fly-Man's run). The MIGHTY CRUSADERS comic only ran 7 issues, and there was a one-shot giant-sized reprint comic called SUPER-HEROES VS. SUPER-VILLAINS. Together those 28 comics represent the entire output of The Mighty Comics Group.

The Red Circle name was originally used by in the 1970s for a short-lived series of horror comics, then lay dormant again for years until the 1980s. when the ACP superheroes were once again revived. THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS' 1980s series only ran from 1983-1985 for a total of 13 issues, but a number of the individual characters also got their own short-lived titles during this same time.

The came DC's attempt, Impact Comics, in the early 1990s, which only lasted a few years too. The second DC revival in the early 2000s was the first to revive the Red Circle imprint again. Then it lay dormant again for another decade before ACP itself finally attempted another try at superheroes with THE NEW CRUSADERS.

And ALL of those attempts were fairly straight mainstream superhero comics, until the relatively recent change in branding to Dark Circle.

So I guess the question I'd have to ask is if none of those attempts really managed to capture an audience and result in any significantly long-running titles, then what would make you think anything has changed in the times since then? Marvel and DC really do have total market domination when it comes to the genre of superheroes, so if even DC couldn't make it work for them...

terrence12

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 25, 2017, 04:49:27 PM
Actually, DC never owned the ACP superheroes. They just licensed them from ACP, like they've licensed other characters over the years for comic books.

The 1940s incarnations of those superheroes are known as the MLJ superheroes (which all more or less ended by the time the company changed its name to Archie Comic Publications in 1946).

In 1959, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby created a couple of new superheroes titles for ACP, The Adventures of THE FLY and the Double Life of Private Strong. The latter title featured a hero named Lancelot Strong, who became an entirely new version of The Shield (completely unrelated to the earlier, 1940s version in anything but name). In 1964 ACP added a comic book adaptation of THE SHADOW, which by the third issue changed into a superhero version of that character who had super mental powers (kind of like Professor X crossed with Batman). During the early 1960s these titles all bore a corner cover box which declared them as part of the Archie Adventure Series. Around the same time The Adventures of THE JAGUAR was also added to the line. The new Shield's comic only ran 2 issues. The Shadow's comic ran 8 issues. The Jaguar's comic ran 15 issues, and The Fly's comic, having debuted several years earlier, ran 30 issues to 1964. The indicia to all these comics stated that they were published by Radio Comics, as opposed to Archie Comic Publications.

About 6 months passed without any superheroes, and then in 1965, all of a sudden The Fly was back... but now he had changed his name to FLY-MAN (with issue #31, which continued the numbering of the previous Fly series). With issue #35, and new cover corner box on FLY-MAN identified the comic as part of the Mighty Comics Group. In the issues in between, the Black Hood, the Shield, and the Comet had teamed up with Fly-Man and Fly-Girl,  to form THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS, which then spun off into its own comic book. FLY-MAN ran from #31 to #39 (with backup stories added featuring more revived MLJ heroes like the Hangman, the Web, and Steel Sterling), before changing into an anthology title called MIGHTY COMICS PRESENTS, which ran from #40 through #50 (one issue longer than Fly-Man's run). The MIGHTY CRUSADERS comic only ran 7 issues, and there was a one-shot giant-sized reprint comic called SUPER-HEROES VS. SUPER-VILLAINS. Together those 28 comics represent the entire output of The Mighty Comics Group.

The Red Circle name was originally used by in the 1970s for a short-lived series of horror comics, then lay dormant again for years until the 1980s. when the ACP superheroes were once again revived. THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS' 1980s series only ran from 1983-1985 for a total of 13 issues, but a number of the individual characters also got their own short-lived titles during this same time.

The came DC's attempt, Impact Comics, in the early 1990s, which only lasted a few years too. The second DC revival in the early 2000s was the first to revive the Red Circle imprint again. Then it lay dormant again for another decade before ACP itself finally attempted another try at superheroes with THE NEW CRUSADERS.

And ALL of those attempts were fairly straight mainstream superhero comics, until the relatively recent change in branding to Dark Circle.

So I guess the question I'd have to ask is if none of those attempts really managed to capture an audience and result in any significantly long-running titles, then what would make you think anything has changed in the times since then? Marvel and DC really do have total market domination when it comes to the genre of superheroes, so if even DC couldn't make it work for them...


Wow, you have an good accurate description  of the archie comics superheroes brand especially about its history.I guess this explains why Archie comics created the darker reinterpretation of those characters with dark circle.Though If they would revive the superhero characters with a tone of Dc and Marvel and be rebranded as Mighty Comics instead of red circlebut give a full reboot as in start over.

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