>>> There are a lot of workable ideas to be found in the Ultraverse characters, but as I understand it (I believe it got covered during a “Cup a’ Joe” at a convention last year), the rights are really tangled up, so it’ll be a long time before we see those characters again - if ever.

It's worth noting that the Ultraverse characters aren't the only Malibu characters Marvel might have access to - in theory, they should have also gained the rights to the Malibu versions of the public domain Centaur Publications characters (the Genesis line), along with any new characters created for that particular line. Not that they'd necessarily WANT to use those characters...

>>> I liked that title Mantra, although until very recently I had totally confused her with Ultra-girl or whatever from the New-Warriors.

I quite enjoyed Mantra when the book was basically a study in a male warrior forced to live in the body of a female sorceress, along with the added complication of child custody issues. After Marvel obtained the property, they just sort of turned it into a more traditional - and less interesting - book.

>>> I wonder if anyone knows where I could get a full fun of Mantra? Couldn’t cost me much, could it?

From what I've seen, most price guides suggest they're only worth slightly more than cover price now ($2.50).

As for where one could get a full run... no idea. I've only got #1-9 myself, as post-Break-Thru is more or less when I started to lose interest in the Ultraverse.

>>> The reason it doesn’t work is that the word for “foot lover” is PODOphile. The admiration of feet is called “podolatry” and people who treat feet are called “podologists”.

"Ped" is used for "foot" as well, though, as can be seen in words like pedometer, pedestrian, and pedestal.

For that matter, the word "pedology" means either the study of child behavior or the study of soil, depending on the context.

I don't believe I ever said that Mike was "working on" PUNISHER when he died, as I knew he was doing a WHAT IF? In fact, he sent me some of those pages while we were on the phone for the last time. In that same conversation, he also told me that he had been *offered* a PUNISHER arc, but wasn't sure how he felt about it. We also talked about maybe getting my studiomate Karl story to ink it, as he had some time in his schedule coming up.

I did say, though, that I thought he would have found a way to pull it off, mainly because Mike was an endlessly creative and resourceful guy.

The Supreme Court ruled said laws unconstitutional.

"SPIDER-GIRL was cancelled and brought back after a fan letter from a little girl."

After a quick search of the archives, I could not find coverage of this. Didn't I hear that it wasn't a little girl, but rather an adult male that happened to be a fan of Spider-Girl?

I didn’t run it before, but yo go re did bring it up before on the comments to a different piece, so that’s probably what you’re remembering.

Ah - That must be it.

And is sodomy really illegal in some states of America? What century are those states living in???

Perhaps Alan Moore has a thing against New Orleaneans...or really like's his Bourbon Street visits.

For more on Yats, visit your local library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat_(New_Orleans)

The reason it doesn't work is that the word for "foot lover" is PODOphile. The admiration of feet is called "podolatry" and people who treat feet are called "podologists".

However! On the next page, the box partially appears again, and the 'Pedo' part of the name remains clearly visible. So DC did remove the name. But made quite a mess of it..!

Just looking at it and hearing someone say it was a hidden naughtiness, my first thought was "So damn yat? What's yat?"

On a similar note, for Brian: I seem to recall Ennis saying somewhere that Baytor (of Demon and Hitman fame) was so named because the last line of Ennis' last Demon issue was to be "All hail our new Master, Baytor!" until the editor nixed it. True?

He also has 3 or 4 novels, a couple of short story collections and he worked on such tv shows as LA Law, China Beach, CBS' 1985 Twilight Zone and the recent revival of Outer Limits. The guy is good; really good.

When creating the Ultravese titles, Malibu made a deal with various creators where it would retain copyright of all the characters in exchange for paying royalties to them whenever they were used. A very small amount, I hear.

Marvel did buy Malibu for both its printing system and the characters, who were surprisingly popular back then. When they did, they also bought the royalties arrangement. It didn't stop them from publishing Ultraverse comics for a while. However they changed them so much, their appeal was lost and sales plummeted (that and the market in general was falling in the late 90's.) So no, it isn't a matter of entangled rights; Marvel just doesn't want to have to pay royalties to the original creators anymore, not even very small ones.