The History of Gargoyles in Comics

 Hey everyone, I'm back with the final post of the day. This time I'm diving into the history of Gargoyles in comics. There will be some spoilers for the 2006 comic book revival of the series, but that can't be helped since I need to talk about particular things as part of this history. So just be aware of that as you read this post. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Gargoyles was an animated series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and created by Greg Weisman, who, as I mentioned in my review for the first issue of the current comic book series, was the co-creator of Star Wars Rebels, along with Dave Filoni, creator of Young Justice and The Spectacular Spider-Man, among many other animated series. It aired in syndication on The Disney Afternoon from 1994 to 1996, and then got moved to Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC from 1996 to 1997 under the title, Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles, which Weisman had very little involvement with, aside from writing the season premiere, which he would later go on to adapt into comic book form in 2006. But we'll get into that. The series focused on a clan of Gargoyles, led by Goliath, who wake up in 1994, in New York City, after having been in stone sleep for a thousand years having been cursed by magic during medieval times. The show had lots of references to Shakespeare and Mythology and it was pretty cool, very different from the other cartoons on The Disney Afternoon.

Like most animated shows in the '90s, Gargoyles had toys, books, VHS tapes, and other merchandise. Naturally this included a comic book series. 

In 1995, Marvel Comics, who had had the comic book license for Star Trek, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Transformers, and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero in the '80s, gained the comic book license for Gargoyles as they also had the comic book license for Aladdin: The Series, another animated series that aired on The Disney Afternoon, as well as the comic book license for the 1991 movie, Beauty and the Beast. Unlike the later comic book series, this series is not canon to the TV series. With it being out of print for as long as it has, I've never read the series before.

The series ended with issue #11 as Marvel backed out of its deal with Disney, effectively canceling both the Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast comics as well as this one. Apparently though Dynamite is planning on re-releasing facsimile editions of certain issues of this series, along with trade paperback collected editions of the series as well, similar to what Boom! Studios did with the Power Rangers comics a few years ago.

While the Marvel series was coming out, Disney Adventures Magazine was publishing comic book stories based on Gargoyles in their Comic Zone section. These comics were a mix of ongoing stories and one and done stories, though they stopped publishing them once the TV show was over, after a total of nine stories were published.

The year was 2006. Gargoyles had been off the air for nine years at this point, though reruns still aired on The Disney Channel and Toon Disney at this point, and Greg Weisman managed to convince Disney to let him do comic book stories that continued the plot of the series, where season 2 ended as he was not pleased with what Disney had done with The Goliath Chronicles after kicking him and his team off the show after the season premiere. 

A spin-off, called Gargoyles: Bad Guys, was in publication at the same time. This series focused on the bad guys in the Gargoyles universe, though they aren't the ones you would think they'd be. Rather than it be about Xanatos, Fox, Demona, and Macbeth, it's more like the Suicide Squad, with Dingo from the Pack, Robyn Canmore a.k.a. the Hunter, Matrix (a computer program created by Fox's Earth mother, long story), Yama, a Gargoyle from Japan, and Fang, a former member of Talon's Mutate clan. Talon was originally Elisa's brother, Derek, but was transformed into a Gargoyle like being by a mad scientist under the employ of Xanatos. He and others like him formed a clan known as the Mutates.

After the first two issues of the main series, which were an adaptation of the season 3 premiere, which Weisman had written, the new series, published by Slave Labor Graphics, or SLG, went off in its own direction, expanding on the mythos of the TV show in the way that Weisman had planned to do during the third season, but obviously never got to since Disney went in a different direction with the third season. Aside from the first issue, I never owned these comics, though I did read the whole thing in trade paperback form that I borrowed from the public library. 

However, due to Disney increasing the licensing fees, SLG couldn't afford to renew the license for the Gargoyles comic. The president of the company was still interested in the property, they just couldn't afford the increased cost of licensing it from Disney, despite the fact that Disney wasn't doing anything with the franchise themselves at the time. So the series was abruptly ended, as was Bad Guys.

 The remaining issues of the "season" were published in volume 2 of the trade paperback collection, Gargoyles: Clan Building, and the remaining two issues of Bad Guys were published the trade paperback for that series as well.

Dynamite picked up the license for Gargoyles in either 2021 or early 2022. Aside from the "fourth season" comic book series it's publishing, and the re-release of the original Marvel Comics run, Dynamite is also planning on reprinting the entire SLG run, both in single issues and in trade paperback, which will make it easier to read the "third season" of the series in full before diving into the new series. Hopefully this series will continue to be published beyond the 11 or 12 issues that the previous comics based on Gargoyles were.

And that's the history of Gargoyles in comics. It's also it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow though for some pre-series thoughts on That '90s Show before I watch it at my sister's place on Saturday. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.