LOST UNIVERSES: Revisiting Continuity Comics

By Rik Offenberger

What is known as the Continuity Comics Universe began in 1979 with the New Heroes Portfolio. It was the introduction of the Continuity Comics’ universe. They weren’t Continuity Comics at the time, and they made a pit stop at Pacific Comics, where the original Ms. Mystic #1 garnered huge sales, before eventually launching their own comic line.

The Continuity Comics heroes consisted of Armor, Bucky O’Hare, Crazyman, Cyberrad, Hybrids (Mite, Hyperion, Shealth, Gymcrack, Cyclone, Spanng, and Horror), Megalith, Ms. Mystic, Samuree, Shaman, Toyboy, and Valeria She-Bat.

Was this a launching pad for a new comics universe for Adams?

“No, it was just a thing called the New Heroes Portfolio. I created these characters and did them. What happened was that Sal Quartuccio said, ‘If you were going to create new characters, what would they be?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘How about creating a portfolio of new characters? You can get them out there; you can protect your copyright,’” Adams said.

“So, once a month I did a new character and they did a portfolio. There were these characters that I sort of created off the top of my head and did them in the New Heroes Portfolio, never with the thought in mind of necessarily taking them any further. Things evolve, the process moves forward and the things that you did suddenly become something else. I tend to create things with lives of their own. I don’t start off saying this is simply this. I create what it’s all about. Even when I did those portfolio pieces, I wrote [little histories], where they came from, what [they’re] all about. I can’t just draw a picture. It has to have a history. So essentially that’s what happened,” he said.

These new heroes were the core of the 1984 launch of Continuity Comics, which was basically a side project for Continuity Studios. As a result, the comics had an extremely erratic shipping schedule.

“From Continuity’s point of view, it was not a moneymaker. We did the comic books when we could. We weren’t really publishers. We got into it walking backwards and we turned out our comic books when we could get them done,” Adams said.

The “Deathwatch 2000” event and the “Rise of Magic” storyline that followed were the first universe feel for the characters that were included. In the short term, it paid off for Continuity Comics.

“To be an independent publisher but still be in the mainstream was very, very difficult. It was the kind of thing you wouldn’t do. But what happened was Image came in afterward and basically took our model and used it for very, very successful publishing. So, if I look back at it, I don’t think I could have done it a different way, because I don’t think I could have blasted out there and been immediately successful. I had to sort of make the tramping grounds, then everyone else could come along and do it. I was right. Big deal. Now why don’t we do Deathwatch 2000 and really kick out with a series that is a moneymaker and is successful on a commercial basis? And it was, we sold 10 times as many comics, 10 times per title than any other comic we did before that. We were selling like 15,000 copies, we went to 150,000 copies,” he said.

The industry, though, was going through a substantial upheaval. Continuity Comics ceased publishing in January 1994. Acclaim Comics would release six issues of Knighthawk, and two issues each of Samuree and Valeria The She-Bat in 1995, but that would be it for Continuity Comics until Adams unveiled “Blood” in the pages of Dark Horse Presents #1 (April 2011).

To learn more about Continuity Comics and similar comic lines, order a copy of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide to Lost Universes Vol. 1 from gemstonepub.com.