Blackjak-
Crossfire And Rainbow did get a 4-issue spin-off mini-series called, appropriately enough, CROSSFIRE AND RAINBOW. It came out around 1985/1986 and the last issue of it also featured a beautiful Dave Stevens cover paying homage to Elvis and Blue Hawaii. That mini-series was actually the first DNAgents I ever picked up (out of a bargain bin sometime in the early 90's) and led me to discovering the main two series. The basic gist of the mini-series was that it focused on Crossfire and Rainbow teaming up on adventures together and by the fourth issue they realized they were in love. It wasn't quite as cheesy at it sounds, as Evanier's writing kept it from being too much like a romance comic, but it was good stuff. Very Moonlighting-like.

And you're right, even though the earlier issues of CROSSFIRE made plenty of DNAgent references, Rainbow was the only semi-regular in the book and the stories focused on Crossfire's adventures in Hollywood rather than as a superhero. After Rainbow's abrupt departure around issue #16 or so, the book stopped even referencing her and the other DNAgents beyond one or two times and instead became Evanier and Spiegle's vehicle to tell more noir-like stories, especially when the book went to B&W.

And yeah, those early DNAgents issues were printed on nicer paper and looked fantastic for it.

The DNAgents analogues in TTT were the Recombatants; the Titans analogues in DNAgents were Project: Youngblood. (I remembered the first one, but had to Google the second.)

Andrew: You're absolutely correct on the colour thing! The only issue never in colour per se was the 3D issue... Also, even though Crossfire and Rainbow had their little romance going , and one issue of Crossfire featured the other side of the Dave Stevens cover... I don't really recall there being any other "costumes" in Crossfire... Although I seem to remember talk about a "Crossfire and Rainbow" miniseries... I don't suppose that rings bells with anyone else???

The paper quality (particularly on the first volume) of DNAgents was actually much better than anything Marvel, DC or Dark Horse were doing at the time... These would be great in a hardcover/colour collection... decent paper, etc...

Time for a trawl on Amazon fro the Scout volumes... Hope they're available in the UK...

If you notice, in both comics the "copycat" team dies at the end of the story. Wolfman and Evanier each agreed to do this so that the copycats wouldn't live on and become regular characters in each other's universe. It was all very informal and each writer kept the subtle crossover from their editors, IIRC, so that no one caught it until after both issues had already come out.

As for the B&W thing...
Yes, there were many of the bigger indies printing books in color before DH.
Again, I stand corrected.

Wow...getting old really sucks sometimes...lol.

I *guess* the logic is that while ASM v2 (or whatever the current volume is) has "caught up" with the old numbers through artificial means, the annuals... haven't done that yet?

But, yes, it is quite hilarious that they've stuck to the reset numbers for that specific title. I wish they'd just fess up and admit "okay, we were wrong for trying to whitewash our history" with those re-numberings and return Cap and DD back to the original numbering.

Though I will say I was never happy with the way DNAgents ended so abruptly and how a major plot point dealing with Crossfire and Rainbow was never resolved. Instead, Evanier wrote the rest of Crossfire almost as if the incident never happened and pretty much ignored the whole superhero angle to the series' earlier issues.

Greg B.-
IDW has solicited Badger trades up through volume 4 (volume 3 was just released last week...), so I'm interested to see if we get anymore past that. Then again, a solicitation is no guarantee of a release, as in the case of the solicitation's for Maze Agency volumes 2 and 3 that never came out...

Blackjak-
Like Michael said, Dynamite is publishing the Scout series in trades. Volume 1 came out awhile back and reprints issues #1-7. Volume 2 just came out a week or two ago (after a long delay) and collects issues #8-16. No word yet on a volume 3.

Thank you!

Dynamite are getting interesting as a publisher... Red Sonja was their first title wasn't it? and they got a great variety of tie-ins/original series...

Sort of the way that I thought Devil's Due were originally going in... Following the sort of Dark Horse path... a couple of licensed properties holding up the more experimental stuff... (though thinknig about it, i take that back... there's not that much experimental about the Dynamite line-up really is there?)

Companies which owned the rights to what they published (which I think included First, Eclipse and Comico) have often sat on those rights after they went out of business (since they're assets which could arguably be claimed by their creditors), but many of them have been reclaimed by either their creators or by other companies. Sometimes after a lengthy procedure to repurchase those rights. I don't know all the details, but this sort of thing is why we've gotten new Nexus, Grendel, and GrimJack stories over the last 15 years - the creators managed to get the rights to the characters back.

I would guess that Mark Evanier got the rights to DNAgents and Crossfire and is publishing them through Image. I bet most of Eclipse's intellectual property is still in limbo; not a whole lot of demand for them, if the creators didn't want to fight to reclaim the rights.

It looks like Tim Truman's Scout is being reprinted in paperback by Dynamite Entertainment. I have no idea whether they expect there will be any new stories.

Like I said... At the time, I thought it was that DC were jealous... I was about ten or eleven, and had no idea which one was outselling which... Just that I thought (and all my friends did too) that DNAgents was a better "Teen" title than titans...

We still read both mind you... (actually our newsagent only got Tales of... but still...)

Also explains why Project Youngblood were so familiar...

So Image own the rights to the old Eclipse stuff? What about Tim Truman's Scout??

DC never bought the rights to DNAgents, as far as I know. The New Teen Titans story you're thinking of is this one, where some characters based on the DNAgents went up against the Titans. Steve Rude did most of the artwork. It was one of those "semi-crossover" projects similar in spirit to the Squadron Supreme.

I doubt DC was jealous of the DNAgents, since The New Teen Titans was a runaway smash hit for them.

Hang on... Who's publishing it?

It was an Eclipse title to begin with, but don't I recall DC buying the right s to the title then killing them off/canning them in some kind of lame crossover with Teen Titans?

Basically I thought that at the time, DC were jealous that DNAgents actually worked the whole teen-superhero story WAY better!

Mark Evanier was brilliant... And the last couple of issues of the second volume were some of Erik Larsen's first comics work weren't they?

If this does spin-off Crossfire as well, then even better!

Sorry, I also missed - is this S/C or H/C, B/W or recoloured?

I think Eclipse, First and Comico (and maybe Pacific, too) were all publishing most of their titles in color before Dark Horse came along. Besides which, Dark Horse Presents was a B&W title to start with. I think it basically had to do with whether the company had the capital to make the jump to color in the first place.

Dark Horse has managed to do a lot of things right while those other companies went out of business, but I don't think they deserve the credit for bringing color to independent publishers.

Anyone want to offer odds on him falling in love with a girl from Fallujah?