Dennis Mallonee (born January 22, 1955)[1][2] is an American writer and publisher of comic books. He is best known as the writer of the Champions comics and the founder of Heroic Publishing.
At a 1985 San Diego Comic-Con panel featuring Champions RPG creators Steve Peterson, George MacDonald, and Ray Greer, an audience member asked when the Champions characters were going to be adapted into comic book form. The RPG creators had no plans for such a translation at the time. Mallonee, however, who was already writing several Champions supplements, was in the audience and spoke up that he would be willing to write a Champions comic. Following the panel, Mallonnee, Peterson, and MacDonald discussed terms for the series; among the key points were that all the characters would remain fully creator-owned, and that Mallonee would have creative control of the comic book.[5]
Shortly thereafter, Mallonee sought a comic book licenses to the Champions characters at reached out to Hero Games who owned Champions.[6] Hero Games was only licensing the characters from the original players who created them for the role-playing game, and Hero Games was able to make an arrangement with the creators of the characters for the permissions Mallonee needed and he was able to publish a Champions (1986-1987) comic book series through Eclipse Comics.[6]
The Champions series by Eclipse was successful, so Mallonee published additional Champions comics series using his own imprint, which he first called Hero Comics and then Hero Graphics,[6][2] and finally Heroic Publishing. Heroes Comics published roughly 100 comic books involving several series over the next six years, especially titles featuring the Champions and focused on the Guardians team from Hero Games and their popular member Flare.[6]
Hero Games grew increasingly unhappy with changes in tone as the publication run of the comics continued (including an increasing focus on pinup art), so some of the owners pulled the licensing rights to their characters, although Gleen Thain and Stacy Lawrence allowed Mallonnee to continue using their characters Icestar and Flare.[6] Hero Games removed the creator-owned characters from new editions of the Champions game while Mallonee was using them for Champions comics, to avoid confusion. Mallonee at the same time changed the names of Champions comics characters when the licensing was removed, so for example with the characters owned by Bruce Harlick, Marksman was changed to Huntsman and Foxbat was now called The Flying Fox.[7][6] Mallonee created many original characters for the comics over the years as well, distinguishing his comics universe further from the Champions universe owned by Hero Games.[6]
Marvel Comics published a Champions comic book series from 1975 to 1978. Since 1986, Mallonee and his publishing entities have used the name "The Champions" for various comic book series adapted from the Championsrole-playing game series. In 1988, The United States Patent and Trademark Office ruled that Marvel abandoned its trademark of the name and could no longer use "The Champions" as the name of a comic book series.[8][4][9] Marvel later re-acquired rights to the trademark, publishing a new The Champions series in 2016.[10]
^ abOffenberger, Rik (May 2, 2010). "Publisher Profile: Heroic Publishing's Dennis Mallonee". Firstcomicsnews. Archived from the original on April 9, 2012. Rick Hoberg and I had been working under license from Marvel to put together an illustrated history of the Marvel Universe (which was much less complex in the late 1970s), but for various reasons that project never came together.
^"Publishers Can't Use Certain Characters". NewsWatch. The Comics Journal. No. 154. Nov 1992. pp. 20, 22.
^"Marvel Loses Champions Trademark". The Comics Journal. No. 125. Oct 1988. pp. 7–8.
^Cronin, Brian (January 28, 2010). "Comic Book Legends Revealed #245". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on March 20, 2013. Retrieved January 20, 2013. Marvel did seek and was granted registration of the trademark it was using for that title. That registration, however, was not granted until several months after the title had ceased publication. In the mid-80s, on the basis of that registration, Marvel contested registration of the mark Hero Games was using at that time for its Champions role-playing game. The trademark board took notice of Marvel's abandonment of their earlier mark, and cancelled that registration.
^Griepp, Milton (August 16, 2016). "ICV2 Interview: Marvel's David Gabriel – Part 3". ICv2. Archived from the original on August 21, 2016. Retrieved August 20, 2016. I think I probably said to Tom Brevoort, I think this book should be called The Champions. And he, of course, got a tear in his 40-something year-old eye, and said, 'it'll never happen.' And I said, 'someone told me I would never get a million unit sales of Star Wars, so we're going to make this happen.' I badgered our legal guys and we got everybody who needed to be involved in getting the name back, and we got it back.
