Malibu Comic Fans

I was a big fan of the original comic book (I bought every issue), and most of the other titles in Malibu Comics' Ultraverse. I liked the way this show did incorporate some aspects of the comic book, such as Johnny's origin: in the TV show he's being struck by a mysterious bolt of energy while on a tram. In the comics, he was driving a car that the tram crashed into, and ended up with a tiny metal splinter from the tram lodged in his brain (several passengers on the tram developed superpowers and became the superhero team The Strangers, while another became Nightman's supernatural ally/enemy Chalk).

In the comics, the energy bolts that were turning people into Ultras (the collective name for superbeings in the Ultraverse) were being fired from the Moon by an ancient alien that had crashlanded and been stranded there several millennium ago, and had been using the bolts to deliberately speed up human evolution so eventually someone from Earth would come and rescue it. In the TV show, it's revealed that apart from Johnny, other people around the world have also been struck by the bolts and developed superpowers, such as the villain Chrome (who appears in two episodes). I've not seen all the episodes, but I don't think the TV show ever explains the source of the bolts.

One disappointing aspect of the TV show was that some opportunities to include further links to the comics were missed. In the episode 'Do You Believe In Magic', Johnny battles against a female magician called Selene, played by Jacinda Barrett. Instead of inventing this new character, the producers and writers could easily have used Rhiannon, an immortal female magic-user who was Nightman's arch-enemy in the comics.


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