As many of you know, the 90's is a time that marvel would like to forget but recently I've been rereading or finding some of those stories and. Hit and miss I guess...
I remember reading X-Cutioner's Song and Fatal Attractions as a kid and enjoying them a lot. My Fatal Attractions trade was lost when I sold it for a DS-1 Distortion Pedal so I don't remember much about the writing other than some memorable panels.
Now I got HUUUGEE into Daredevil as some of you know. Recently I've been picking up some of the comics that haven't been collected from that time period. Ann Nocenti's run was awesome as was Last Rites (called Fall of the Kinpin in trade form), a wonderful sequel to Frank Miller's Born Again. However, I recently purchased the TPB for Fall From Grace. Wow. This thing was kind of saved from the shitcan cause it was Daredevil but both story and the art were impossible to follow. And not in the cool Frank Miller/Grant Morrison let's reread this a couple of times kind of way. This shit was a convoluted mess that was nearly impossible to follow. I'm almost afraid to try to read Tree of Knowledge, Fathoms of Humanity, Over the Edge, Divine Comedy, FEar, and Flying Blind, the other major stories before Kevin Smith gave that book a kick in the ass.
I had the same experience with X-Cutioner's Song. Rereading it, it just seemed like this awful, convoluted mess.
Does anyone else feel like between 1992 and 1998 Marvel was using bad color schemes and that they just put their books together by cutting up panels, throwing them up in the air, adding Gambit or Venom, and then barely patching them up before selling them?
Discuss...
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Well I think the general attitude was quantity over quality in the nineties. Foil covers and saturating the market with no 1 issues. And it worked for the best part of a decade. I joined comics with the Spider-man clone saga.
I think for the most part the stories were bad, however there were a few gems. I'm forever partial to Ben Reilly, who got me into comics.
Now for all his mistakes, Quesada has a lot of strengths. When he became Marvel's top dog, he decided to have quality over quantity. Stories became good again, interesting. A bigger variety of art and writing styles was introduced through the Marvel Knights line and half of those titles (2, Daredevil and Punisher) were very well written and very successful. Sales dipped as not every comic looked like a foil issue with interiors by Jim Lee or Rob Liefield.
However, other factors like the movies saved Marvel and now we have entered a new era of comics, the one we are still in, where the emphasis is unfortunately not on content, nor (fortunately) on having a gimmick like a foil cover. Nowadays creative teams rule the roost. When this period is looked back upon in the history of comics, it will be seen as the period after the gimmicky 90's, just past the age of foil covers and into the age where the writer and artist ruled and dictated which comic fans should spend money on. It's a step in the right direction but comics haven't peaked yet, IMO.
I find myself buying alotta comics from the 90's I think half or maybe over half of my spiderman collection is made up of issues from the 90's, that includes the clone saga. I gotta say though I enjoyed the ultimate clone saga storyline very much and it was one of the best storylines I've ever read Unfortunately most of the ultimate universe got killed off which I was dissapointed with since I thought the storylines were pretty good.
Lets not forget that DC also had the storyline that came as quite a shock to not only DC fans but I'm sure marvel fans as well, January 1993 the death of superman...doubt there's ever been a death quite as big as that.
Say what you will about Joey Q, but yes, Marvel's doing lots better than it was a decade ago. Lots. He's been good for business, at least.
Death's Head II was a 90's child, and the aura of testosterone throughout the entire decade actually worked for his title, so I can't hate the decade too much.
I've just been noticing, and granted I'm not the most reliable critic because I do have protanomoly, that from about 1990-1994, Marvel was using these really ugly dark colors, lots of dark browns and blacks which worked will initially but later on just becomes a hard to follow mess where all the panels seem to meld together. Then around 95, things get glossy, disgustingly bright, and cartoony. Plus everyone thinks that just because they have a higher color budget that they should use all these bright cartoony, primary colors to the point where Daredevil, Spider-Man, and even the Punisher look like something out of Lion King. It's a color theory John Kricfalusi angrily called "candy cane lane". The characters' faces get really weird, ugly and angular too with lots of out of place prominent chins and generally, weird blobby body proportions. It's like the Dark Knight Strikes Again theory of comics but not ironic. Oh, and all the male characters decided that wearing bright colors is the best thing for camouflage while all the female characters decided that the only parts of their body that needed protection even from the elements were their butt cracks, pubic triangles, and nipples.
Story wise you've got the clone saga with the real Spidey retiring, you've got more X-Books than anyone really cares about and all of them seem to star Wolverine, Cable, or Gambit. You've got Matt Murdock bringing Elektra back to life, faking his death, and then running around in a black armored costume with Batman toys in it calling himself "Jack Battlin". Oh, and of course you've got the Punisher adopting the Steven Segal look, becoming a mob boss and later an agent of the dead, and having more Bullseye encounters over the course of the decade than Daredevil.
There are a lot of really under appreciated series that have been forgotten in the mess though. Some of Nocenti and Chichester's run on Daredevil is good. Nocenti's adult Typhoid miniseries is unbelievably good as is some of the Captain America stuff. The rest...I dunno.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Dillon? Whoever did the one issue of The Target before it was canceled? Lynn Varney in some of her work?
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Nah not Dillion. I havent seen him anymore, his style was kinda squiggly and he would make people look wack, like he would make peoples bodies disproportionate or something, like there arms were drawn to big.
__________________ Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
- General George Patton Jr
Dillon draws all faces the same, everybody has an under bite and really heavy eyelids. Just really volumetric as if making everything thick and heavy makes art good. The only comic I've read where it worked was Bullseye v. punisher. But that's about 10 years outside of when I'm talking about.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Really? Because I read what's going on with the X-men, and things like civil war and One more day... You think those are good quality stories? Seems like its just one big event after the other these days, and that's quantity over quality right there.
What you have to consider is that when you have a character, such as Daredevil (Whose comics I am looking to complete), 500 issues into their life, things can get stale.
Think of it like a band with a lengthy discography; The Cure, The Rolling Stones etc. These bands have more than 10 albums and those discographies are subject to patchiness.
By the 90s, things had already been around for ages and lots of new cultural phenomena were rearing their heads. The wave of the anti-hero picked up more pace than ever, as well as other trends.
I think new artist/writer combos just suffer from transition.
I remember reading Agent X. As soon as they changed the artist from Udon Studios to others, it felt like it was shit. Mostly because Gail Simone left too. Looking back, they aren't bad, they're just different.
However, comics with massive runs are ALWAYS gonna have filler issues. Filler issues without substance or purpose. You can't have an infinite arc, you know?
Arcs are striking when they follow a few disjointed issues.
Of course, there are some writers that genuinely can't write for shit, in my opinion. I will always hate most of what Chris Claremont has ever done, and will only ever read his stories again if he changes the X-Men bedsheets.
Ok, Mutant Massacre. Besides Mutant Massacre.
To re-iterate; it's like any decade. There'll be good and bad.
Personally, Bendis was amazing on Daredevil and I fail to see why he has such a bad reputation it seems. He lost a bit of potency on New Avengers at one point, but I think he's one of the most consistent writers right now, besides Brubaker.
Miller, Bendis, Quesada and Brubaker. In those you've got Daredevil in good hands. I also liked Kevin Smith's Guardian Devil.
Among my faved '90s runs; those, Kelly's run on Deadpool and of course, Deadpool himself being spawned.
Liefield is a horrible man, but ironically, I love his Deadpool. Anyone WITHOUT a full mask, though...no.
X-men: Messiah Complex came out a while back and that felt like a classic X-men event. Great quality and it crossed most of the X-line of comicdom.
I agree with you, OMD was travesty. Only two good things to say about it
1)The art, drawn by Quesada. Great quality
2) The Spidey-verse post OMD. Much better. Good Quality
I also suffer from event fatigue. But Civil War was fantastic. Art was great and I think Mark Millar is a genius. Plus the post Civil War MU was soooo much more interesting. Again, Good Quality. I didn't enjoy secret invasion as much but the same can be said post MU. Some Dark Reign stuff has been terrible, some has been great.
It seems to me, these days for every crappy story put out by Marvel, two good titles are on the shelf. I was sad to see Cap Britain go very recently, but it ended on high and was a fantastic quality series.
I understand that taste is subjective, but do you seriously think Marvel's quality has been dropping recently? I personally think the top two publishers especially haven't been this good for years.
But I guess it's just different strokes for different folks
Simply because I see Civil War, Secret Invasion and Dark Reign as under the same umbrella. The last two more so.
If Dark Reign doesn't pay off, though, I'll be pissed. Most exciting event in ages. I won't actually get as invested in the others if this one ends badly.
KMC Community Forums
Sep 10th, 2009 07:06 AM
Unfortunately most of the ultimate universe got killed off which I was dissapointed with since I thought the storylines were pretty good.
