Pre-Formation
Having achieved great success by relaunching Marvel Comics's Iron Man in the 1970s (with co-writer David Michelinie), Bob Layton had gone on to considerable acclaim in the early-to-mid 1990s at Valiant Comics, where he worked "first as co-architect of the Valiant Universe, and then, as Editor-in-Chief and Senior Vice President." Layton left Valiant, his home in New York City and the comics industry itself in 1996, and moved to Florida for a short retirement.
Layton returned to comics in 1998, working on a couple of Elseworlds for DC Comics with Dick Giordano, before returning to Marvel (and Iron Man) for a mini-series with frequent collaborator David Michelinie. His experiences at Marvel, however, left him disillusioned with mainstream comics and its post-slump "glut of inferior products," caused in large part by an inability in publishers to focus on "quality content," rather than "superficial elements and ancillary products development."
Realizing that "as much as people love the 21-page monthly comics," an over-reliance on "product is being written exclusively for a niche audience... comics are not attractive to a mass market readership," Layton joined with Giordano (who also lived in Florida) and Michelinie to create a company which would produce "more mainstream—stuff that could be read by the 'Average Joe'."
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