1990's

As I sat down to do the section on the 1990’s, I was concerned about having something positive to say as my recollection of the decade in comics was not a good one. I was surprised as I started to look into the 90’s more (I had to do some serious research as I was not very ‘into’ comics during this period once things really going pear-shaped) and found that there were some decent books in the 90’s. It is just unfortunate that for every good book there was several more that were not so good.

Sometimes as we get farther away from events, it is easier to see the important ones amongst the fluff. Since the 90’s are still so recent, the events and their significance to the medium are still resolving. I think that the 90’s will be remembered for the creator revolution and the creative renaissance. When Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and Rod Liefeld left Marvel to found Image Comics, there was a lot of talk about the inmates running the asylum. 20 years on, much of that was proven true. Image was a company that was poorly run by people that would have preferred making comics. As a result, the partners fell out with one another sometimes and eventually the company was absorbed by DC.

The really creative renaissance came about much more quietly. Dark Horse Comics and other small publishers led the way with top notch creators doing their own books and owning what they produced. Some of these were a resounding success (Frank Miller-Hard Boiled, Give Me Liberty, Sin City or John Byrne-Next Men) while some less so (Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz-Big Numbers). However the major players had moments of near-greatness as well. DC created the Vertigo imprint as a home for the edgier, more adult material until Karen Berger’s recent exit from the company, was the absolute model of how to do creator owned books at a major company. DC had one of the biggest hits in the history of comics with The Death of Superman and despite what many thought at the time, this story has aged very well and continues to be a strong seller.

Marvel had great stories as well. The Weapon X series in the Marvel Comics Presents anthology redefined Wolverine and brought fans closer to understanding the characters origins. Marvel also made a splash with The Infinity Gauntlet and the stories that followed. It is very likely that these cosmic stories will play a large part as the basis in the next Marvel movie cycle. Unfortunately for all these great stories, there were huge embarrassments in the 90’s both in the books and behind the scenes. After the Image guys left Marvel, a series of bad financial choices left the company filing for bankruptcy protection. Marvel also lost one of its greatest assets not long before the Image defection when Chris Claremont, who was forced off the X-Books he had written for 17 years in favor of Jim Lee, left. Both major players has some serious missteps in books like NFL Superpro at Marvel and the ‘Electric Blue Superman’ story at DC that came off as sad attempt to do something different (but not really) or cash in on a trend.

Another blow to the industry was, after years of speculators collecting comics to get rich and completely missing what it was that made a comic valuable, the bubble burst taking with it the financial fortunes of the industry and many retailers as well.The 1990’s will go down as a dark time in the industry but not one completely without hope for the future. There are a few series from the 90’s that are reminders of just how good comics can be (Marvels, Kingdom Come) and can be viewed as a celebration of the great elements of classic characters the industry had either forgotten or made gritty and grim to attract a new audience.