Kickers, Inc.

Created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, the series featured a group of former professional American football players for the fictional New York Smashers team who became a group of heroes for hire, calling themselves "Kickers Inc." They were led by Jack Magniconte, a Smashers player who gained super-human strength and endurance from a combination of exposure to radiation from the "White Event" and an experimental muscle-enhancing device.

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz created the series, then titled "Mr.

Frenz explained: They were going to have a vehicle called the Ultramobile that could travel all-terrain and it was much more broad adventure, à lá the Challengers of the Unknown.

As things started to form, there was more information about what the New Universe was going to be trickling down from [editor-in-chief Jim] Shooter.

When Tom saw that Shooter wanted things more grounded in realism, he tried to take the strip back.