“Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds” looks back “at the projects that worked, the projects that didn’t,” said Phil Stokes, and unfortunately, Clive Barker’s take on an alternate superhero universe for Marvel Comics fell into the latter category. “He created something called the ‘Razorline,’ which was a planned series of 10 comic lines, of which four were published,” Stokes explained. “The remaining six were due to come out in of late ’93, early 1994, and the comics industry contracted at that point. It was more of a sales issue rather than an ideas issue. That’s my take looking back.”
Marvel has dominated the film industry since 2008 and the release of “Iron Man,” which kicked off the sprawling, intertwining film and television saga fans know as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And while many of the characters in the MCU were created long before the release of Barker’s “Razorline” series, the superhero stories of the author’s comic book existed outside of the framework of Marvel’s traditional superhero narrative. As such, Stokes said, Barker’s Marvel characters could never be a part of the MCU, nor were they ever meant to.
“The comics were to showcase Clive Barker’s imagination, not necessarily to make it fit into the Marvel universe,” Stokes observed. “If you look across the totality of what he was creating there, there’s almost a Clive Barker Cinematic Universe in there — the CBU, perhaps.”
“Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds” is new in stores and available online from Abrams Books.
“Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds” looks back “at the projects that worked, the projects that didn’t,” said Phil Stokes, and unfortunately, Clive Barker’s take on an alternate superhero universe for Marvel Comics fell into the latter category. “He created something called the ‘Razorline,’ which was a planned series of 10 comic lines, of which four were published,” Stokes explained. “The remaining six were due to come out in of late ’93, early 1994, and the comics industry contracted at that point. It was more of a sales issue rather than an ideas issue. That’s my take looking back.”
Marvel has dominated the film industry since 2008 and the release of “Iron Man,” which kicked off the sprawling, intertwining film and television saga fans know as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And while many of the characters in the MCU were created long before the release of Barker’s “Razorline” series, the superhero stories of the author’s comic book existed outside of the framework of Marvel’s traditional superhero narrative. As such, Stokes said, Barker’s Marvel characters could never be a part of the MCU, nor were they ever meant to.
“The comics were to showcase Clive Barker’s imagination, not necessarily to make it fit into the Marvel universe,” Stokes observed. “If you look across the totality of what he was creating there, there’s almost a Clive Barker Cinematic Universe in there — the CBU, perhaps.”
“Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds” is new in stores and available online from Abrams Books.