1990s
Together with the X-Men spin-off Excalibur (#27, September 1990), Windsor-Smith's last work for Marvel Comics came with the serialized "Weapon X" feature in Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 (1991),[27] his telling of the origin of the X-Men character Wolverine which he wrote, drew, inked, colored, and co-lettered. Though Weapon X depicts Wolverine being infused with adamantium, acquiring claws, and lapsing into his "animal state" for the first time, Windsor-Smith has denied that he intended the story as Wolverine's origin: "I didn't realize that I was doing anything that important in the Wolverine mythos or canon. ... If it's important in the Wolverine canon, if I'd thought of it that way, I probably would have had to be begged off doing it because it's somebody else's game. I was just looking for something to do."[28] In late 1991, he was approached by Valiant Comics, a new comics publisher founded by former Marvel Comics writer and editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, and asked to act as their creative director and lead artist. Valiant had obtained a number of characters originally published in the 1960s and 1970s by Gold Key Comics: Magnus Robot Fighter, Doctor Solar and Turok Dinosaur Hunter, and added their own original titles to the roster, including Harbinger, X-O Manowar, Shadowman, Archer and Armstrong, Eternal Warrior, Bloodshot, Ninjak, and Rai.[29]
Windsor-Smith was the chief designer of the "Unity" crossover storyline for Valiant Comics, and writer and artist for most of the first dozen issues of the title Archer and Armstrong. By focusing on storytelling and innovative marketing practices such as a tightly knit continuity, crossovers and send away issues Valiant quickly became a considerable success story,[29] selling nearly two million copies of premiere issues and rapidly becoming the third largest comic book publisher in the U.S., after Marvel and DC Comics. However, in 1993 Windsor-Smith once again found himself in opposition to company employment policies when Valiant decided to adopt the same work for hire practices that he had disliked in Marvel Comics, and became dissatisfied with his position in the company: "They needed me as a figurehead just as much as a creator."[30] He left Valiant soon after Jim Shooter's departure from the company. Smith has called work-for-hire contracts "a legal but unethical instrument designed to rape and plunder young talents of every possible prerogative they would otherwise possess if they had the fortune to work for more scrupulous, morally invested, publishers."
Of his work for Valiant, and the problems he encountered there over legal ownership of titles and characters, Windsor-Smith said in 2008, "In the 1970s I was constantly asked when I would 'do Conan again'. In these latter years I receive e-mails imploring me to return to Archer and Armstrong. My short reply is, 'When pigs fly to the Moon and return home safely.[31]
Since leaving Valiant, Windsor-Smith has worked for a number of companies. For Malibu's Ultraverse line he co-created Rune with Chris Ulm, including a crossover one-shot comic titled Conan vs. Rune published by Marvel Comics in 1994 after they took over Malibu. As a result he once again came up against legal ownership problems, and the Rune stories have remained un-reprinted as a result. For Image Comics he worked on the crossover storyline "Wildstorm Rising", drawing and coloring Wildstorm Rising No. 1 (May 1995), and all eleven of the covers for the interlinked series. Windsor-Smith later said that he was talked into illustrating Wildstorm Rising, and regretted participating in it, stating that in reading the story and illustrating it, he could not understand the motivations of any of the characters, even when he read earlier Wildstorm books featuring the characters. He says he altered the plot in an attempt to improve it and his enthusiasm for it, later learning that writer James Robinson was not pleased with his doing so.[32]
In 1995 Windsor-Smith created an oversized anthology series, Barry Windsor-Smith: Storyteller for Dark Horse Comics that contained three ongoing features: "The Paradoxman", a dark science-fiction tale, "Young GODS", a homage to Jack Kirby's Thor and New Gods series, and "The Freebooters", a lighthearted action series about an ageing Conan-like character grown older and heavier and now running a tavern. He cancelled Storyteller after nine issues, even though a tenth issue had been completed; since then Fantagraphics has issued hardcover collections of "Young GODS" and "The Freebooters". Each of these hardcover volumes includes supplemental features, essays and previously unseen art. Fantagraphics has published Windsor-Smith's Adastra in Africa, a hardcover starring a character from "Young GODS" in a story originally intended to be published as "Lifedeath III" for Marvel's X-Men, with the character Storm. In 1999 Fantagraphics published two volumes of BWS – Opus, a hardcover art books featuring Windsor-Smith's work from throughout his career, including an autobiographical story, "Time Rise", which features details of his experiences with seemingly paranormal phenomena.[33] He was working on a Superman story in 1999 that has not yet seen print.[34][35]
