Use it or lose it, and that may be why CrossGen returns to Marvel in November. They have to make sure they keep those sweet sweet trademarks. The publisher hasn’t put together new material; CrossGen Tales reprints the first issues of four titles from the year 2000: Mystic, Ruse, Sigil, and Sojourn. As noted by Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool, those logos appear prominently on the back cover of this $8.99 semi-trade paperback. There’s no promise of more, but with a title like CrossGen Tales, Marvel could group another four of the original titles together. There were many, and though some of the concepts could use a refresh, most of CrossGen’s output was solid. Let’s get to the history.
When CrossGen first launched in 1998, it was truly groundbreaking. The brainchild of businessman Mark Alessi, the company treated its creators as full-time employees, not work-for-hire. CrossGeneration Comics, as it was originally known, unleashed a deluge of titles by some of the top talent in comics, including Barbara Randall Kesel, George Perez, Mark Waid, Greg Land, and Paul Pelletier. The company also brought up and coming creators into the spotlight. Most of it took place in a multiverse that was connected by a mysterious sigil, influenced by various genres. Eventually CrossGen created the Code 6 imprint to attract independent creators, including Christian Gossett’s The Red Star, as well as licensed comics such as John Carpenter’s Snake Plissken Chronicles and even Masters of the Universe.
Mark Alessi had an eye on the future. CrossGen pioneered digital comics. They were moving into motion comics, with full spoken dialogue as part of a school literacy project. He wasn’t wrong, even when he shared with me what he thought Marvel was doing wrong in a conversation that lasted an hour and a half. It wasn’t an official interview; he’d just met me and started talking. He was that passionate about comics. In 2001, he was also kind of right about the then-floundering ship of Marvel.
As they say, the candle that burns twice as brightly burns half as long. Six years after launching, CrossGen folded. Disney Publishing bought its assets, because it desperately wanted a fantasy title called Abadazad by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Ploog, a concept desperately ripe for an animated film. The team released four YA novels expanding the brief comics series, and then Disney turned their attention elsewhere. Perhaps ironically, by buying Marvel. (Alessi did live to see it, though he passed away in 2019.)
In 2010, Marvel announced reboots of the CrossGen titles, and three even made it to stores. Ruse, Sigil, and Mystic all got mini-series. Joe Quesada announced Route 666 and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang would return, but poor sales of the original three meant editorial didn’t go through with it. And that’s all we’ve heard since. Though omnibus editions would be great — because there are some great comics there — the market may just be too saturated without a huge name attached to goose sales.
Still, those four titles taunting us in November were eclectic and interesting. Sigil started a star-spanning space opera. Mystic mixed science fiction and fantasy, featuring two sisters caught in a cold war of magic guilds. Sojourn was a straight up fantasy, different in that the sigil-bearer was the villain. And Ruse? One of my favorites of CrossGen’s offerings, it was a Holmesian pastiche set on an alien world. Except the alien world part didn’t matter at all.
We can dream of more. 2022’s market is not the same as 2011. In the right hands, Route 666 would kill. If Mark Waid could be lured back, a few more stories set in the world of Ruse would be terrific. There’s life in these concepts; it’s time to help them move ‘cross a generation.
