were the mid 90s really as bad for comics as they say?
>>153532279It was at it's peak and then chose to nose dive.I was so hard into X-Men and then got turned off within the year. They had so much potential.They ruined it.I don't know why they had to make everything into a convoluted soap opera when it was already good.My complaints are unresolved plot lines, ending entire arcs, changing the race of Psylocke for some reason, and turning 4-5 of the new mutants into one because the writer was too lazy to write multiple characters and decided they were just holograms of M.
>>153532279A lot of it but some parts were better than others. The more extreme something got, the worse it was. And the 90s got very extreme.
>>153532317>I don't know why they had to make everything into a convoluted soap opera when it was already good.Wasn't that a thing since the 80s with Claremont?
Is Cable the most 90s creation?
>>153532317>It was at it's peak and then chose to nose dive.Except Marvel was at its peak in 1990/1991 before they put all their chips on EXTREME POUCHES.
>>153532279Yes. What they don't tell you is the early 2000s were even worse.
how fucking edgy did ghost rider get in the 90s?
>>153532598The practical leather phase of comics was pretty bad
>>153532598>>153533180
Its when I got into comics as a lad, and it wasn't bad at all: few very good years of triangle era supes, then superboy and steel, azrael, elseworlds, legends of the dark knight, hellboy, madman, grendel, the batman/dredd crossovers, good times
>>153532336>A lot of it but some parts were better than otherthis
>>153532382along with his variant X-MAN and also ADAM X THE X-TREME
>>153532382The original looks pretty 80s
>>153532279Not even close. There was some really bad shit but there always is. There was also some really good shit.
>>153532279The 90s was basically a 2nd Silver Age in that it was rife with radical changes to established characters and new inventions all geared toward attracting young readers. The only difference was that the old boomers were around to loudly complain about it all.
>>153532598There's nothing particularly egregious about new x-men and astonishing. 400s uncanny was pretty edge though.
>>153532279i don't remember Cable being 25 feet tall.
>>153534720The other difference was that those changes and inventions in the silver age were all mostly good. In the 90s all the new ideas were shit
>>153534864It’s just for emphasis
>>153532279I think it’s because of Sonic
Only Marlel, DC was cooking, of course nobody wants to admit it these days
>were the mid 90s really as bad for comics as they say?The industry literally crashed.>Superstar artist period.>Image revolt.>Some old comic books sold really well.>Big series pumping out books (Death of Superman).>So many copycats companies pouring in.>Rapid expansion of comic book shops.>Marvel financially overexposed themselves buying a distributor and trading card companies (they might have weathered the storm better). >Other people copy Marvel in buying distributors.>Speculator boom.>Crash happens.>Over 50% of the shops closed.>Diamond became sole distributor.>Comics ceased to be a great American past time.>At the same time video games, especially at home video games were increasing.>Traditional trading card games were dying and being replaced by new games.>The best manga was being imported as was Japanimation (what they called anime). >Were there some good books coming out? Sure, Vertigo etc.>Crash lead to the 00s and the superstar writer period almost as an antithesis to the superstar artists, ushering in people like Bendis as an overcompensation to help bring relevancy no matter the cost.>Industry has limped on ever since.Imagine your industry
>>153535079Nope
>>153532279There were some real bad ideas, like, Heroes Reborn was stupid, but as >>153532598 pointed out, with what came later, it's hard to appreciate how relatively bad things were at this point.At least you still got a lot of stuff that fit the Rule of Cool in the 90s.>>153535079Didn't DC even do one of their infamous reboots with Zero Hour? And for how long was Supes dead?
>>153532279The worst aspect of 90's comic is style over substance. To the credit of the arts of the time, the art was really nice. Even the shit people joke about like Liefeld's Captain America has a certain middle school cool appeal to it. However rhe bulk of what was being printed was just shit. There was a horrific dearth of good writing and an abundance of solid artistic talent. Occasionally you'd land some sleeper hits like Power of Shazam, Adventures of Superman, Batman Adventures, etc, but more often than not it was alot of cynnical efforts to trendchase. At the veryleast the trendchasers knew their audience. For all the kvetching oldfags do over the 90's and the following crash, I'd still take the ECKSTREEM age of comics over the post-9/11 push for edginess, gore, and violence or the 2010's nightmare. There's a time and place for that stuff, but once you're forcing it into titles like Spiderman or Superman shit just goes south fast.
>>153535258>And for how long was Supes dead?Half a year. Thereabouts. I think knightfall lasted longer
>>153532279It's one of those things like the video game crash of 1983, where the front facing north american market was bad and therefore people say that everything was bad, it was really just Marvel and to a lesser extent DC that was bad, there was great indie comics, great manga and worldwide books, really it was just capeslop that was suffering.
Are we all pretending now that Batman in the 90's wasn't completely kino?
Look, there's one of those boomers angry that his 1960s-70s capeshit wasn't preserved in amber >153535018
>>153535390But the thing is, there were good books at Marvel and DC too. The issue is more the industry imploded and then everyone blamed people copying the same style of books. Then they decided that all books at the time were the same thing.
lol
niggas be like "erm those pouches and spikes and shoulder pads are impractical" while they be jerking off to dudes wearing trunks over pants
>>153535514So?
>>153535514I don't get why people get so mad about pouches. In a medium where so many stories are solved by Some Doohicky and utility belts were present for years, why so much loathing towards something that directly expands on that. Granted, it does look a bit silly when Cable has armband pouches, but otherwise it's fine.
why do people get so hung up about pouches.
>>153532279For Marvel, yeah. That post-AoA to Onslaught period is generally pretty bad.
>>153535428The Doug Moench/Kelley Jones Batman run is peak, but Batman was basically great in-general until No Man's Land. I'm personally a huge fan of Legends of the Dark Knight, it's honestly one of the best comics ever published, just banger after banger Batman stories for years.
>>153535149>The best manga was being imported as was Japanimation (what they called anime).The shit we were getting wasn't necessarily the best as much as it was what the ultra-geeks liked because it was "mature" (more blood and guts and tits) which was the same thing that fueled the indie boom which eventually led to the EXTREME/Image era. Unless you unironically think shit like Ninja Scroll and M.D. Geist are masterpieces and not enjoyable shlock.
>>153535614What's IN the pouches, though? Like, yeah, Batman constantly saves the day by pulling crap from his utility belt, but at least we see him do it. Have we ever seen Cable or other characters actually take something OUT of their pouches? The problem with them is that they feel like they're completely for show, and that's out of character for someone like Cable who's supposed to be all business.
>>153535614>>153535633They are shit.
>>153535730Usually like, ammo and grenades and often a lot of doohickeys. That's something I definitely know at least Deadpool has whipped out and used.
>>153535730>What's IN the pouches
i'm glad he made it into marvel 2 at least
probably a really good time to be a musclefag though
>>15353472090%+ of cape comics have always been schlock, it's just about finding schlock you like, and it used to be that the audience was expected to eventually age out and move on. The early to mid 90s was probably the first time when you had a very large contingent of older fans who'd been around since the 80s or even 70s, refusing to age out and move on, and demanding the industry cater to their wants over what the kids liked.The industry's stupid business practices and inviting in the speculators led to an inevitable crash, but it happening at the time it did has left those oldfags feeling vindicated and acting like they can blame the entire crash on the stories, art, and characters of the 90s rather than on the actual causes, like they actually think one day everyone just woke up and all at the exact same time decided they hated 90s comics and stopped buying them.I think the industry in the 80s trying to do more 'mature' stories with Big 2 heroes was to blame in inducing older readers to stick around instead of moving on. And before anyone says it, I'm aware oldfags are all that's left reading comics now, the industry post-crash reacted by focusing squarely on the only audience who stuck around. The 90s kids were the last generation of kids and teens where reading comics was a widespread thing, and that's why the industry has been dying ever since.
>>153534852>There's nothing particularly egregious about new x-men
>>153534852Astonishing X-Men was basically a response to New X-Men though
>>153537558Bump
>>153532279No, the mid 90s was the best time for any media. Too bad you weren’t there.
>>15353227990s brought the collector market collapse
>>153532279Is this because of that stupid video from ComicDrake or whoever?
>>153534720>attracting young readers.Change that to collectors and speculators that didn't read comics.
>>153535730There was a pretty cool story where Cyclops actually used survival stuff from his belt pouches.Then again, it IS Cyclops.>>153539069It was an amazing time for anime.
For Marvel? Yes , outside Daredevil and some things It was a disaster. Some stuff (Spiderman , Hulk , Captain ) were declining quality wise , the new twist (Ironman or clones) didn't work and many of the manpower were lost to Image.Even things like 2099 that got some good comics were fucked because Marvel got problema with cavalieri.For DC and independent? No, It was alright , Karen/Levitz/Berger were a good Trinity that has also good of group editor/writer-editor(O'neil, Agustyn, pre-berganza Superman editors) that maintain the Lore and quality + Elseworld made them to go Creative + annual crossovers made the events less annoying
>mid 90s: funny archie comics>now: no funny archie comicsI see no issue
>>153540065lol, yeah...
>>153532279Yeah.The new wave/"independent" artists were putting out so much crap that their good stuff was drowned out.The big publishers just emulated the new guys in looks only, the books were still multi-title-boring-soap-opera bullshit.IPs were pimped out to anybody with a dollar, which led to multi-generational rights clusterfucks that are still ongoing. Only good thing we got out of that were a handful of unfinished cartoons.The sticker price of comics kept going up because hoarders would pay because they weren't smart enough to understand basic supply and demand.>ok, Timmy, you can have $50 to follow one month's worth of X-Men storyline to find out how they deal with the definitely-not-AIDS virus before the big wedding>or>video game that all your friends say is the best thing everThe best thing that happened in the 90s is publishers realizing through failure that they needed to condense their slop stories into cohesive TPBs if they wanted anyone to actually read them.
>>153532279yep>>153532366it was>>153535258conceptually there's nothing wrong with Heroes Reborn as an attempt to save the legacy IPs that were otherwise not selling; just like there was nothing wrong with keeping X-Men going as reprint and crossover appearances in the 60s when nobody gave a shit about themlikewise there are a few great ideas in Heroes Reborn, though irrevocably associated with how awful it isand it fixes a number of long-time continuity problems for good, like Old Tony/Teen Tony - when he comes back he's just Tony and they ignore everything prior while also saying it happened to himbut it suffered hard from the naivety of trusting Liefeld to turn in work on time because his name at that time still kind-of sold books, and as a result not only does it have his eye-bleed art for the first half (and more 90s shit for the second half), it comes to a crashing end before anybody has a chance to fix it up a littleif they hadn't outsourced it (which was the style at the time) it'd still be going today, or at least would have still been going in the early 2000s; no Ultimates necessary, the same basic stories would still likely have been told, just in a continuity not tied to the X-Men or mutants; House of M would have been the big sign-off for that entire side of the continuityas it stands Heroes Reborn feels more like a bloated summer event (and probably tonally informed a lot of the alt-universe events that have happened in the 2000s)
>>153532279Creatively no.Business wise yes,
If you where an adult (which was looked down upon at the time) who had been reading Marvel/DC since you were a kid, watching everything turn extreme and grim and gritty was hell.If you where a kid at the time it was really cool (for a while) up until you realized that everything was kind of the same and shallow and then it was lame and laughable.There are exceptions of course but this was the vibe at the time.
>>153532279Well considering the collector market crashed and black & white comics sans manga died out, I'd say yes.
>>153541686It's absolutely a bullshit concept because no one asked for a reboot. If it stuck, it wouldn't be the characters people knew and loved, it's nothing like rerunning old stories. And it lasted a whole goddamn year.Think about it, it they wanted to revitalize those characters, just a regular run or even an outsourced Fantastic Four mini drawn by Jim fucking Lee, back then, would have sold by the bunch.>>153541703>grim and grittyWas it really that bad in the 90s? I remember some bullshit, but nowhere close to the 2000s. And the 80s had a big share of that.
>>153532279I loved them.
>>153535390>there was great indie comicsThe indies were some of the worst offenders and hopped on or pushed some of the worst trends since a lot of it was just an evolved form of the 1980s indie boom.
>>153532279I blame Liefeld's sorry ass. He turned The New Mutants into over-pouched, twinkle-toed, edgelord shit. If he hadn't been put on that title, I wouldn't have a problem with him, but that shit hit me PERSONALLY.
>>153543849>we found the guy who was enjoying late 1980s New Mutants where they were stuck in Asgard for like two yearsIt's hard to argue against the fact that he revitalized that book
>>153542811Examples?
>>153541686>and it fixes a number of long-time continuity problems for good, like Old Tony/Teen Tony>long-time continuity problemAnon, that was something from just a few months before Heroes Reborn, not a long-standing issue, and it was one of the stunt storylines Marvel editorial came up with in 1995 to try and get attention on those books and try to convince execs to pull out of negotiations with Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld.Heroes Reborn wasn't driven by Marvel editorial, the execs went over their heards for it, accounts from the time talk about how angry and resentful Marvel staffers were about it (Loeb and Lobdell talked about being considered 'traitors' for working on those books). The contract was for one year initially, with the option to extend it both sides wanted to, but when Marvel's execs realized it wasn't 1992 anymore and they weren't getting the million-selling books they'd hoped for, they wanted to limit it to a year.>the naivety of trusting Liefeld to turn in work on timeHe did though. All the Image guys tended to turn their work in on time when it was for Marvel or DC, it's when they were their own bosses that they stopped caring about deadlines.>>153542645Apparently very early on in the Heroes Reborn negotiations, Lee and Liefeld thought they were just going to be revamping those books within normal continuity, then Marvel changed their minds on it and wanted it as a separate thing.
>>153545202The entirety of Image, Malibu, etc.
>>153532382And I say this as someone who loves Bloodshot, but yeah, Bloodshot is probably the most 90's character out there>mob hitman who's betrayed by his crime family and dumped onto a Japanese conglomerate (Rising Spirit) to be used to test this new operation to make the ultimate unkillable hitman with superhuman abilities thanks impart to nanites
>>153542645Grim and gritty isn't the right word for it, but a lot of mainstream superhero comics got edgy in a way that felt juvenile and embarrassing if you were an older reader.
>>153546263>if you were an older reader.And in an ideal world, should Spider-Man comics be for kids and teens who'd think that page you posted was the coolest thing they'd seen, or for older readers who'd think it was juvenile and embarrassing?
>>153546263Nigga its SPIDERMANHes juvenile as fuck on purpose. Look it would be okay if there was a more adult aimed spiderman, but teen and kid aimed spiderman comics keep the IP alive and maintains the audience. I still think there should be two marvel comic lines. One that is just the stuff made for comic shops and a cheaper kid aimed version filled with iconic versions of the marvel heros in kid friendly yet occasionally deep stories. A thick cheap anthology that has a qr code for vbucjs/robucks or other stuff. Something to tie it too the more safe IDEA of the heroes safe from both comics and the movies.
>>153546569As much as people hate Bendis, Ultimate Spider-Man appealed to younger readers in a way that wasn't too off-putting to the old.>>153546670The Night Gwen Stacy Died and Kraven's Last Hunt are far more dignified than what's on that page.
>>153546263Again, it's a process that went back to the early '80s. Newsstand sales fell off so Marvel and DC started catering to the new specialty shops leading to the creation of the direct market. The direct market fan tended to be older and thus wanted more "mature" stuff and creators who wanted to do more "mature" stuff too which led to the initial indie boom, especially First Comics' stuff like American Flagg, Jon Sable, etc. while DC got into it with things like Ronin and Moore's Swamp Thing run. Then DKR and Watchmen were like the peak of this whole thing and their overwhelming success is what solidified that gritty and mature themes, violence, overly sexualized women, guns, etc. were what the industry needed. Guys like MacFarlane and Liefeld come along and take that focus on "mature" themes with a sort of childish exuberance for and adherence to the idea of rule of cool and the whole thing gets hyper-flanderized ito an almost parody of itself as they become popular.That like 1993-1995 period is essentially the culmination of trends and moves going back roughly 15 years. Once the crash happened and most of the comic shops died causing the market to shrink the more guady excesses disappeared too but the underlying spirit of it carried on into the 2000s and arguably didn't fade away until some point in the 2010s. I think Tom King, for better or worse, is the guy still carrying that torch the hardest but aside from him it's kind of a dead thing.
>>153547091>in a way that wasn't too off-putting to the old.This shouldn't even be a consideration, anon. If older readers did still enjoy it that's a bonus, but it wasn't for them and it shouldn't matter if they didn't enjoy it.>far more dignified than what's on that page.That something as harmless as that bothered you so much and you're being so pompous about it is just odd. This is an anon who can't remember what it was like to be 13.
>>153546263I think I almost get what you mean, but this still sorta fits the Rule of Cool. Like, in the 2000s this page might have been all gory and angsty, in the 80s it might have been in a run that took itself WAY too seriously. But as it is, it's just "Supervillains... with MACHINE GUNS!". Like giving a bear kung-fu grip and a laser gun. It's almost charming in a Silver Age way.
>>153547091>The Night Gwen Stacy Died and Kraven's Last Hunt are far more dignified than what's on that page.Thanks grandma.Now tell me.Do you think more people went to see the piano, or fast and the furious X.
>>153546263How is this any worse than Ditko's Sinister Six comics?
>>153547814>popularity = betterVery Mexican post
>>153532279Yes. They really, really were.
