The 90's....worst decade for comics?

[Saved]

The 90s weren't as bad as everyone thinks. I think it's just that the stuff that WAS bad sucked so much, it left a bad taste in everyone's mouth for years to come.

Batman was pretty classic in the 90s, what with the early stuff and then Knightfall a little later. A lot of the Captain America Comics from the 90s I've enjoyed reading. Thunderbolts also began in the 90s.

EDIT Spider-Man 2099 and Deathstroke's series were also favs of mine.

 

[yenaled]

Awesome decade for comics.

Lackluster decade for the big name Superheroes.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Man, I loved just about the entirety of the 2099 line.

 

[Saved]

Yeah, Doom 2099 was pretty good - I'm still trying to collect more of that. Ultimate Hulk was good too.

 

[JewishHobbit]

My favorite was X-Men 2099, but I think I equally loved all the 2099 titles up through the Fall of the Hammer crossover about a year and a half in. My reading became a bit more spiratic after that. The President Doom thing by Warren Ellis was interesting though. My favorite 2099 issue was the oneshot after Doom was toppled called 2099 A.D. Apocalypse. It was a very good, sad issue.

 

[Saved]

I never finished collecting that Fall of the Hammer crossover. Was it worth getting?

 

[JewishHobbit]

It was good, but not the best storyline of the 2099 line. There are some good things that came out of it though, so it had lasting repercussions. And it was cool to finally see Doom, Spidey, Ravage, Punisher, and some of the X-Men (Meanstreak, Skullfire, Krystal, & Bloodhawk) together for the first time.

 

[roach]

Spidey 2099 was awesome...im surprised nothing was really done with him

 

[JewishHobbit]

Yeah, I was excited to see him join the Exiles, but then it turned out to be an alternate 2099 Spider-Man.

There were actually quite a few really cool X-Men, and with the whole time travel/alternate dimension thing the X-Men like touching on I was hoping to see a few of them brought to the 616 but they never were. I thought Skullfire and Bloodhawk specifically could have been interesting. They did bring Halloween Jack to the 616 for one issue of X-Force and then he was forgotten about. He could have been a great character if continued.

 

[Chris Wallace]

The 2099 books I could have done without overall.

 

[Heretic]

The worst ten year period would have to be the mid-40's to the mid-50's...not that this would be considered a "decade" by the standards of this thread.

Superheroes declined to the point where by 1950 the Golden Age was over, and superheroes were all but dead.

Then, controversy over Horror comics spread and eventually led to Seduction Of The Innocent and Congressional hearings. This led to the adoption of the Comics Code Authority, and the raping of EC Comics.

This unethical and shameful act basically forced superheroes back into prominence, and I don't particularly celebrate this. The quality of superheroes did improve after though by the late 50's.

 

[powers1]

The 90's were a great decade for comics. Your just looking in the wrong place.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I'm glad someone brought up the 1950s being the true low point in comics history. I liked the 1990s fine, and I think the 2000s will come to be recognised as a great decade in comics history.

 

[roach]

actually I thought the 50's was a boom for the industry...many of the troops in WW2 read comics to pass the time and kept on when the got home. Pretty much all kids were reading them and thats why it was big thing when people said they were causing juvenile delinquency

 

[Heretic]

actually I thought the 50's was a boom for the industry...many of the troops in WW2 read comics to pass the time and kept on when the got home. Pretty much all kids were reading them and thats why it was big thing when people said they were causing juvenile delinquency

The 50's were big for non-superheroes...until the hammer came down and ruined the industry. Superheroes were dead in the water...and like I mentioned, the congressional hearings, ridiculous accusations about comics endangering children...and then the other comic companies who were getting dominated by EC decided to screw over the readers and their competition. Unable to win on a level playing field, they betrayed their own industry in order to make themselves dominant. These are the actions that led to the Silver Age of superheroes. Why is the Golden Age considered over when people stopped buying superheroes, and the Silver Age started when superhero companies forced their way back into the spotlight? Why is a great period of comics considered a dead period just because superheroes weren't dominating? It makes no sense, but I believe that when you add the near-death of superheroes with the travesty of the Comics Code, then you have a terrible decade that has been unmatched in all the years since.

 

[Bruce Malone]

edit

 

[SoulManX]

The worst ten year period would have to be the mid-40's to the mid-50's...not that this would be considered a "decade" by the standards of this thread.

Superheroes declined to the point where by 1950 the Golden Age was over, and superheroes were all but dead.

Then, controversy over Horror comics spread and eventually led to Seduction Of The Innocent and Congressional hearings. This led to the adoption of the Comics Code Authority, and the raping of EC Comics.

This unethical and shameful act basically forced superheroes back into prominence, and I don't particularly celebrate this. The quality of superheroes did improve after though by the late 50's.

Here here!!!

 

[Mario_Galaxy]

Spidey 2099 was awesome...im surprised nothing was really done with him

I think/hope Shattered Dimensions will raise some new interest in him

 

[TimBisley]

Peter David's whole Spider-Man 2099 run was fantastic. It was the only 2099 book I liked, aside from Ellis on Doom 2099. That line had a lot of potential, but a lot of those comics are junk (Punisher). It'd be nice if Marvel brought back the PROPER 2099 universe though.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Spider-Man 2099 and X-Men 2099 were equally good in my opinion. Doom 2099 had great moments and some crappy moments, making it a bit less than those two. Ravage 2099 was just good but consistently good, so it's about the same level as Doom for me. I liked the first year of Punisher 2099 but lost interest after that, and I lost interest in Ghost Rider 2099 after a few issues. Hulk 2099, Fantastic Four 2099, and X-Nation 2099 were all kinda crappy to be honest. 2099 World of Tomorrow was alright but a sad sendoff to the 2099 universe.

Granted, I know that 2099 Manifest Dynasty was the send off of the 2099 Universe but it was so bad that I don't even acknowledge it. You had Steve Rogers found in ice in 2099 and take up the hammer of Thor and that looked ******ed. You have tons of dead 2099 characters appearing in the background left and right. And the story overall just sucked really. It had pretty much no tie to anything that came before it so it's just a what if to me.

 

[kguillou]

Its funny because, the 90's are so maligned yet if you look at sales between now and then it tells a completely different story. I mean im not saying sales correlate with quality, but damn in the 90's, comics were selling millions of copies. How many people bought Spiderman #1, or X-men #1 or Spawn #1? Nowadays, the top selling book barely breaks 100,000 copies.

I grew up in the 90's and as a kid i ate all of those gimmicks up, but hey it got me into comics. Granted it was more the marvel and DC cartoons that got me into it, but i think if you were a kid growing up in the 90's all of those gimmicks worked in the sense that it brought you into comics. I mean lets be honest, if your a kid and you see Todd Mcfarlane's awesome Spiderman #1 cover or Jim Lee's X-men cover, your gonna think thats freakin awesome. Nowadays, comics don't have that same attractiveness that bring in young kids and make them wanna read comic books. Granted the writing quality these days is a million times better than it was in the 90's but its because the industry has focused on tailoring their books towards their older audience rather newer, younger ones.

All in all, say what you will about the 90's but it brought in boat-loads of new readers. It just went waay overboard on gimmicks and endless crossovers and trends that it self-destructed i think.

 

[Tron Bonne]

No, it really didn't bring in boat-loads of new readers. It brought in boat-loads of spectators that had no interest in comics outside hoping X-Men #1 would help pay for their kid's college in 10-20 years time.

I defend the '90s a lot, because their is plenty of great stuff, but market and readership wise it was only doing well on the surface. Past that, it was a bomb just waiting to go off. I'm sure it pulled in some readers, but once that spectator market fell, it was all she wrote.

 

[kguillou]

There's an interesting short editorial i just read that compares the 90's to now and shows that...really not much has changed at all. He makes some good points i think, variant covers, grim and gritty characters, cheap shock value they're all still very prevalent in modern comics: http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2010/05/28/looking-back-at-comics-the-90s-era-of-excess/

 

[Chris Wallace]

The 90s weren't as bad as everyone thinks. I think it's just that the stuff that WAS bad sucked so much, it left a bad taste in everyone's mouth for years to come.

That may be true. There is some stuff from the 90's that I still love; among them the Age Of Apocalypse, Spider-Man: The Child Within, Knightfall (but NOT Knightquest), Batman ditching the trunks, Perez returning to Avengers, and the launch of the MK Daredevil & BP titles.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Spider-Man: The Child Within... by far one of my favorite comic book stories of all time, if not THE favorite.