7 Things You Didn't Know About Marvel's SECRET Infinity Stone
2. Why Have Most Readers Not Heard Of The Ego Stone?
Comics were in such a slump during the 1990s, comic book stores and companies were going bankrupt left, right, and centre. Despite the fact Marvel seems like an unstoppable juggernaut nowadays, it was scraping by during this time. When a rival company called Malibu Comics started going under, Marvel bought the rights to their Ultraforce characters, hoping to incorporate them into their company. Marvel even made one of the Avengers, the Black Knight, the leader of the Ultraforce for a while.
Because readers loved The Infinity Gauntlet saga, Marvel decided to cook up a story about a secret Infinity Stone and insert the Ultraforce characters in it, believing the comic would sell like crazy. They hoped Ultraforce could be Marvel's saving grace. The heroes even got their own cartoon series that same year (which was beyond terrible).
Unfortunately, Avengers/Ultraforce did so poorly financially and critically that Marvel did something they rarely do; they de-canonised the series. In laymen's terms, Marvel disregarded the events in the story as if it never happened. Not only was Ultraforce cancelled one year after Marvel bought the characters, but Nemesis and the Ego Stone were never mentioned in Marvel again.