Dennis Mallonee

Dennis Mallonee (born January 22, 1955)

Career Dennis Mallonee entered the comics profession by suggesting story ideas to writer Bill Mantlo. Mallonee and artist Rick Hoberg developed the format for Marvel's Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series.

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.

Shortly thereafter, Mallonee sought a comic book licenses to the Champions characters at reached out to Hero Games who owned Champions. 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. 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. Marvel later re-acquired rights to the trademark, publishing a new The Champions series in 2016.