After extensive negotiations with Voyager Communications, the parent
company of Valiant Comics, Jim Shooter will be making an announcement
soon regarding the acquisition of Valiant into the Defiant line of comics.

The  result of this merger will entail a name change for the merged 
companies, and the name will become Deviant Comics...not for the faint
of heart. 

If you're even a bit squeamish at the movies, than you might consider 
getting your mother to buy these comics for you. 

Some spoilers below: 



Even Tim Vigil has signed on to do one of the titles for the Deviant 
line of comics.  Rumors are flying that the working title for the Vigil
book will be called "HardCore" and it features a band of Harbingers 
brought back to life with brain implants and their mission is to satisfy
any and all latent Harbingers in order for their powers to be brought ot
the surface through erotic stimulus on a higher order then they have 
previously encountered.  

Next up on the list of new titles is "Dirtbag Dancer."  Amazingly enough, 
Shooter is a big enough man to see talent when he sees it.  After a perusal
of Dirtbag ashcan that Shooter found in a trash can at the latest Miami 
comic convention, Shooter immediately tracked down Johnston and offered
him a contract for life employment at Deviant Comics.  Shooter feels 
that the synergy of Johnston's hate for Shooter will enable Johnston
to produce even "better" work on Dirtbag then previously hinted at  from 
casual perusal of the now super-limted Dirtbag ashcan that is now 
fetching triple digits at the dealer tables at comic shows around the
nation. 

After some serious re-working of the Valiant and Defiant lines, there 
will of course be numerous crossovers and guest shots.  Deviant Comics
will aim to out-Marvel Marvel and out-Marvel Image as well.  The first
planned crossover will build on the Chaos Effect of Valiant and be called
the Chaotic Crossover To End All Time.  This will be combined with the 
planned Defiant crossover called Schism.  The preliminary name under 
consideration for this soon to be super-hyped crossover is: The Schismatic
Chaos Culmination of Deviant Universe.  August 15...Be There!   

Many titles of both line of comics will be combined so that the talent
base of the company will be well utilized as Shooter has noted that
the Valiant talent based keeps shrinking as the years go by. 

Here are some projected title changes: 

1. Eternal Good Guys - A group of kids that never grow up.  It's sort 
of Peter Pan meets the Little Rascals, with a little hell thrown in. 

2. Dark Harbingers - will tie into HardCore in an extreme way. 

3. Magnus' Dominion - A title set in the year 4004 where Magnus develops
powers to see/exist into the sub-stratum and finds that the monsters in 
there are more fun to "Squee" than robots. 

4. Warriors of Rai - Will showcase the story of the dillution of the
Blood of Heroes into 5 warrior from Plasm.  Since they were the survivors
of genetic experiments on Plasm, Mrs. Johnson, Nudge, Shooter, the Reverend,
and Rick embark on adventures that will tantalize the average comics
reader into buying 5 copies of each since every issue will have almost
visible 5th day-glo colors.  There will be additions the the team and
the most likely addition will be Bloodclot since he can handle the Blood 
of Heroes with nothing more that a hiccup. 

There are other titles in the works and when they get finalized, look for
them in the latest Marvel comics (since more people still read Marvel
comics at this point in time, it seemed the logical thing to do).  And 
with the strong backing from Marvel Mart, Deviant Comics seem to be
here to stay! 

One more big spolier: 



April Fools!

--- 
"I checked over the ComicFest Debate rules, and I can't find anywhere 
that it says, 'Loser gets to debate John Byrne."  -- John Byrne's 
response when asked by Dragon Con to consider debating McFarlane this year.