Back about 10 years ago, when word was passed to Todd and me about SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN’S impending cancellation, Marvel began to try to find things for us to do. Keep in mind, this was during their initial period of bankruptcy, which I’ve written about here before– so things were rather tumultuous at that time. One of the potential projects that the folks at Marvel were interested in doing went by the working title MANNITES. This was a group of characters… a team, really… that were to spin out of things that happened in the ONSLAUGHT epic that was being published around that time. My memories are pretty fuzzy about stuff happening then– but I remember my buddy Randy Green drawing a one-shot called ONSLAUGHT EPILOGUE that featured a young female character named NINA who was one of a new race of beings cloned from mutant DNA. The MANNITES would have been the evolutionary apex of these beings. The MANNITES had three different levels of ‘power manifestation’– the primary level was a humanoid form– the secondary level was an organic armored form like the one in the sketch I’ve posted today– and the final form was a more…. extreme… armored form that covered the face as well that was used in times maximum peril.

I made the suggestion that the book be called SYNTHETIX– to give it that tie to the X-universe and hopefully maximize sales potential… but I never heard back about my suggestion. Ultimately, the project never happened back then at all… so not hearing back on the name might have been a warning sign. Oddly enough, the project never completely died on the books– and ultimately saw life recently as the LIVEWIRES miniseries done by Adam Warren and Rick Mays. I’m sure the concept for LIVEWIRES was nowhere near what it was as originally planned when it was code named MANNITES … but I think it’s funny that the slot for that book never completely faded into oblivion– especially through all the upheaval that was going on from around 1996 to now.

OK… I hope you all have a great weekend.

This is Entry 304.

Mike