A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 21: Hillary Rises

Remember UltraForce? Role call: Hardcase! Prototype! Prime! Ghoul! Contrary! Topaz! Pixx! Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe (and Cleveland) — here in this great Hall of Justice Ultra — are the most powerful forces of good ever assembled! And they had their own critically-disdained Saturday morning cartoon! Which other superhero team can claim that?!?

Before Marvel acquired Malibu Comics in order to get the printing techniques for their ahead-of-its-time shaded coloring

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EDIT on 01/28/17: Ardent and head-shiny reader Green Luthor checked in below in the comments to correct me on the story of Marvel's acquisition of Malibu. Or, as G.L. told me...

For the record, the story that Marvel bought Malibu for it's printing and/or coloring isn't true; they actually bought Malibu to prevent DC from buying them first. (Marvel had more market share at the time than DC, but DC was attempting to negotiate to buy Malibu at the time, and Malibu had enough market share itself that the purchase would allow DC to overtake Marvel. Marvel didn't want that (for obvious reasons), so they negotiated their own buyout of Malibu.)

...and linked to Brian Cronin's always entertaining Comics Legends column on the subject. Go read for the straight skinny! And thank you, Green Luthor!

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...(note that there's three color credits for this issue) and turned the UltraVerse into the Marvel Universe's Narnia closet, there were adventures of the UltraForce that didn't involve Juggernaut or Black Knight or Ghost Rider or Man-Thing or whoever it was they shunted over to Earth-93060 in an attempt to goose the sales. I presume the UltraVerse was destroyed by smashing it against Earth-616 like a rotten tomato during Secret Wars '15, but sometimes it's fun to look back and see this proto-shared universe's differences and similarities to our own world. For example, they did have a President Bill Clinton. On the other hand, he's dressed up like Jimmy Olsen!


Panels from UltraForce (1994 Malibu series) #2 (October 1994), script by Gerard Jones, breakdowns by George Pérez, pencils by John Statema, inks by Jeff Whiting and Barb Kaalberg, color design by Robert Alvord, colors by Emily Yoder, color separations by Violent Hues, letters by Patrick Owsley
Also present behind Bill and also from the real world: Secretary-General of the United Nations Boutros Boutros-Ghali and, probably referring to himself in the third person, Senator Bob Dole. Also, apparently, Billy Dee Williams. I'm not certain if I could have picked this universe's Bill Clinton out of a line-up based on his appearance, but there's enough textual evidence to show it is indeed Mister Clinton. Doin' something slick, no doubt!


in order to provide conflict and a plot point, UltraForce's resident manipulator Contrary manipulates emotions so that alien queen Topaz blows her top and challenges the purpose of meeting with that guy who played saxamaphone on The Arsenio Hall Show. Whoa, switch to decaf, Topaz! You're Maxima-ing all over the plkace!


That is, until Pixx calls forth an ethereal vision of reason and sanity to calm Topaz down, in the form of...Hillary Clinton. Wha...huh?!


So, on this important day when women around the world are marching for justice, equality, and their voices to be heard, let's all remember that time Hillary Clinton had a really convincing other-universe speech while glowing. And I'm going to admit that the phrase "Women do get stepped on in this world, but if we stick together and don't let guys get away with too much...well, we'll get there." is at least semi-inspirational. I'd replace "too much" with "all their crap," but your mileage may vary. And don't think of Gennifer Flowers!

I give full support, two hooves up, and complete props to the women and men and children marching today, their anger, righteousness, bravery, and actions are all a strong sign of and a solid path towards true justice. Give 'em hell, women.