[Comics] Are We in the New 90s?

[Scowling Dragon]

Now after talking with JayngFet for a while I realized that so many characters in comics are getting grittier, but not in the 90s OEGXTRM way but in a more general way.

Characters seem to be loosing their families, and everything is just darker and there is this general feeling of comics taking themselves too seriously.

Ok maybe its just a stupid thought from my side and I just really want to see batmite brought back (And not just as imagination).

Why not! The guy is awesome!

[Closet_Skeleton]

We never really left the 90s. On the upside, there was good stuff in the 90s too.

[erikun]

It is likely due to comics coming back into mainstream thought (Batman: Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers) and people writing comics wanting to vehemently avoid the old 50s-camp stereotype. Mind you, going extreme in the other direction isn't the way to go, but I certainly never accused writers of having amazing writing.

I haven't read comics since the 90s, so I don't fully know what you are referring to.


And I agree with Closet; the 90s had some awesome stuff.
Poor Spider-Girl.

[Ravens_cry]

God, I hope not.
I want more stuff like the Power Girl solo series.
Is it so wrong for superheroes to actually enjoy having superpowers?
To think "I can fly, lift buildings, and that's awesome!"?

[Eldan]

Well, the Avengers went in that direction pretty clearly. Or at least, more than the supergritty one.

[Jayngfet]

Just look at Captain Marvel for an example.

Really just look at him.

He's always been all about just being a good guy and getting rewarded for it, helping people when he can and doing it with a simple but cool looking outfit.

Now, New52 made him into a total jerk(because Geoff Johns claims he can't understand the idea of a nice child), gave him an overly elaborate costume that has none of the old one's charm, and pretty much removed every redeemable trait he had.

[Whoracle]

Well, I'd guess that the writers today were the fans in the 90s, so, that's kind of a given there, isn't it?

[Dienekes]

I think we have mostly tempered the 90s. Comic books have tasted grittiness and I don't think that will go away. But neither is it all pervading, actually as much as the 90s gets tossed around as the age of gloom grimdark and big guns that was hardly a universal standard. As someone who rather likes grittier story telling I rather like this, so long as the heroes themselves are not butchered or neutered to make the stories darker.

Of course, as with all things comics some times this works sometimes it does not. Now I haven't read much of New 52, but looking up what has happened to Captain Marvel (and no, I will not call him Shazam), that's just, wow, that's terrible.

[Aotrs Commander]

Actually, I would say we are far worse than the ninties, and this exact moment in time.

Or at least Marvel and DC are. I'm literally about two issues away from giving up altogether with the former (I gave up my limited DC stuff when they did the reboot) - and I started reading Marvel in the ninites (well technically, I started with Transformers generation 1 in the 1980s, but the late 90s was where I started getting X-Men and such.)

I am just fed up of the "gritty" which reads "kill off characters, derail/screw over or make unrecongisable the rest and/or remove from the series." My favourite character has been depowered, turned into a vampire and then written out, my remaining favoured X-Men are either dead, or have quit, and they've appeared to have neatly derailed the new Cyclops into a villain (which was one of the few characters left I liked, because of his and Emma's interactions (especially with Wolverine)); Rogue is completely unrecognisable from the character I was introduced to by the 1990s X-Men cartoon; Nightcrawler's dead, Colossus pretty much insane (and I didn't like him much to begin with) I've no idea what's going on with Beast, and with the upcoming death of his solo title and somewhat ropey stories leading up to the moment, even Wolverine can't hold it all himself. The only other character around I like is Pixie, but Marvel have already taught me not too like any characters, because they'll either kill/remove/do something horrid to her I'm sure fairly shortly (if for no other reason than she's ridiculously useful, as long-range teleportation is one o' them plot-breaking powers. I fear her time is limited).

Seriously, like a good half of the characters that were around when I started are all dead, often knocked off in some dreadfully contrived manner to show how "realistic and gritty" it all is. The 90s may have been XTREME and very silly, but at least in the X-Men is wasn't y'know, bored and apathetic because it's not worth connecting to any characters because they are likely to just off 'em.

I think the "gritty" phase of the 2000s and into this decade is every bit as stupid and silly as the worst excesses of the 90s or the camp of 60s or 70s. Heck, I wouldn't mind some camp; a decent comic series would have a good mix of both.

At the moment, Marvel have not got any good comic series... While I've riden out some crap before, because it has gotten better, as time has gone on, there's been more crap and less good. The Age of Heroes stuff I really liked, but now that's on the out, I think the last vestidges of the fires are going out.



I strongly blame the Ultimate Universe, because I swear that piece of purile nonsense has had an affect perculating through to the main universe; instead of the character death idiocy being confined to the UU, it seems as though that mentality has caught hold of the writers, and, encouraged by Ultimate to play out their wildest Stupid character-murder fantasies, they've appear to be trying to make the regular Marvel universe very almost as bad.

The thing that REALLY gets me, though, is that the heroes get screwed and screwed and screwed and screwed, but the bad guys NEVER, EVER, get equally fracked over; they just get beaten and if they're unlucky killed for a bit (because death always sticks, don't it...) I wanna see some of the bad guys get really, reallt broken in defeat for a change!



There is a certain ominous irony inticipant. If the My Little Pony comic doesn't last long, or is not very good, there is a very real possibility than Transformers Regeneration One - the continuation of the storyline that was my very first comic of any kind - may also end up being the last series I end up getting. It would be rather sad, after about a quarter century of comics of one stripe or another, to give it up if it comes to that, but if I did, at least there would a be certain symmetry to it all...

[Avilan the Grey]

Yes.

Which is something I started complaining about already over a year ago.
The fact that Rob Liefeld is back drawing mainstream comics AT ALL proves it.

[Sinfonian]

My first thought on seeing this thread: what might be the analogue to Image Comics?

[Avilan the Grey]

My first thought on seeing this thread: what might be the analogue to Image Comics?

Well since DC bought Image...

[Dienekes]

Well there's your problem. You're reading X-Men. X-Men is insane. It's always been insane as far as I have been able to tell.

This is a bit of a joke, and not really meant to be dismissive. But what I've read, hasn't really been that bad. Admittedly I tend to lag a few years behind what is actually happening in comics as I don't do monthly subscriptions.

[Ravens_cry]

Yes.

Which is something I started complaining about already over a year ago.
The fact that Rob Liefeld is back drawing mainstream comics AT ALL proves it.

It is a Sign of the Apocalypse! ! !

[Jayngfet]

It is a Sign of the Apocalypse! ! !

What's even worse is that Rob Liefeld voluntarily left.

Because their editorial and artistic practices weren't good enough for him.

Not only that, but he's only one of like a half a dozen people who left in just the past 12 months over the same thing.

The thing about the 90's is that they had some respect for the creators if nothing else. Even if your stuff wasn't that great most of it wouldn't be retconned out of existence the minute you left, and you weren't expected to do huge amounts of work just to get by or stay in good graces the way some artists, including Liefeld, are now.

Now though, look at say, the last Hulk run. It completley destroyed all the character development and removed all the new additions from the decade or so before it just to bring the Hulk closer to basics and do something based off that instead of continuing the work done since then.

[Smart_alec]

Now, New52 made him into a total jerk(because Geoff Johns claims he can't understand the idea of a nice child), gave him an overly elaborate costume that has none of the old one's charm, and pretty much removed every redeemable trait he had.

Yea... He does that. (Wonder Woman, Wally West and a large sub-section of the JSA. And post reboot we have, Superman, Aquaman and indeed Captain Marvel.)

[Aotrs Commander]

Well there's your problem. You're reading X-Men. X-Men is insane. It's always been insane as far as I have been able to tell.

This is a bit of a joke, and not really meant to be dismissive. But what I've read, hasn't really been that bad. Admittedly I tend to lag a few years behind what is actually happening in comics as I don't do monthly subscriptions.

I think the X-Men actually got away with being some of the better 90s stuff, to be fair (and I started after the worse excesses *cough*Liefeld*cough* had started being toned down), and at least it was still about advantures happening to the characters, and not a unending stream of Bad Things Happening, punctuated by character deaths.

And at least in the 90s, the massive crossover events were, y'know about the fighting the bad guys and not each other, Marvel, (which, when I think back on it, has pretty much been the impetus for the most of the more recent big events (House of M (where X-Men really started to go wrong), Civil War, AvX (I mean that's just blatent!) 'Cos I really don't care, Marvel, whether Ironman can take Wolverine in a fight or not, I just want to see them gang up and being the living snot out of Sabretooth and Mandarin or something! Is this too much to ask? Apparently so. (Certainly is if I'd like a group of consistently alive characters as well...)

[Scowling Dragon]

This past decade has been the decade of destruction.

It just seems to be destroying decades of continuity in quick swathes.

[Aotrs Commander]

This past decade has been the decade of destruction.

It just seems to be destroying decades of continuity in quick swathes.

That may be the most accurate summary of the past few years in comics that I think I've ever heard.

[GloatingSwine]

The thing about the 90's is that they had some respect for the creators if nothing else. Even if your stuff wasn't that great most of it wouldn't be retconned out of existence the minute you left, and you weren't expected to do huge amounts of work just to get by or stay in good graces the way some artists, including Liefeld, are now.

Not really. That's why the '90s saw the birth of Image comics, which was essentially a mass creator revolt because the real meat of "respect for creators", having any rights to control what you created, was all but completely absent in the '90s.

(It's also worth noting on that point that despite his abject inability to draw feet, people holding things, perspective, or anything not covered in pouches, Rob Liefeld really does stand up for creator rights in comics, his own and other people's)

Whereas now we have much more creator control over copyrights, and Vertigo is dedicated to publishing creator owned comics.

[Jayngfet]

Not really. That's why the '90s saw the birth of Image comics, which was essentially a mass creator revolt because the real meat of "respect for creators", having any rights to control what you created, was all but completely absent in the '90s.

(It's also worth noting on that point that despite his abject inability to draw feet, people holding things, perspective, or anything not covered in pouches, Rob Liefeld really does stand up for creator rights in comics, his own and other people's)

Whereas now we have much more creator control over copyrights, and Vertigo is dedicated to publishing creator owned comics.

Which is nice, but Vertigo has a very small share of the market and does way smaller numbers on average.

Meanwhile, look at what DC has done in the last ...six months to a year? About have a dozen people who quit have outright stated it was due to editorial controlling them too much, and at least the same amount has left but not said as such simply to keep up good appearances.

[Burner28]

*After reading this thread*

Wow, are things really that bad in the comic book world?!

[Scowling Dragon]

Don't worry. Animated versions (Dcs mostly) are doing everything in their power to tell interesting, fun and awesome stories.

And then CN is doing everything its power to shoot it in the kneecaps.

[GloatingSwine]

Which is nice, but Vertigo has a very small share of the market and does way smaller numbers on average.

True, Vertigo sells less because people are idiots who follow particular costumes whether the writing is any good or not, rather than making intelligent decisions in their comics purchasing.

I mean go to any comic related website and read all the pissing and moaning about how terrible something like Avengers Arena is, and then realise that it's coming from people who are going to buy it anyway, because their pavlovian conditioning means they can't do anything else, it's an Avengers book so that means they have to buy it, because they buy those books.

And that's only the latest one. Not only is the number of people who hate the **** out of One More Day but still reliably buy Spider-Man books nonzero, it's pretty much everyone who hates One More Day, or Civil War, or Infinite Crisis, or the DC reboot, or any of the other stupid stories that supposedly "shake up" the property but actually just kill off a few characters no-one cared too much about (frequently temporarily) and then leave everything an even more convoluted mess and even more impenetrable to anyone outside the loyal brandslave market.


The fact that Vertigo is doing what it's doing at all, let alone that it has the titles it does under its imprint means that the current market is leaps and bounds above what it was in the '90s, because at least there's a reasonably accessable alternative to the **** above. (Not to mention all the other child of the '90s publishers, like Avatar Press, that are still going and have all sorts of titles that are actually worth your money.

[turkishproverb]

I strongly blame the Ultimate Universe, because I swear that piece of purile nonsense has had an affect perculating through to the main universe; instead of the character death idiocy being confined to the UU, it seems as though that mentality has caught hold of the writers, and, encouraged by Ultimate to play out their wildest Stupid character-murder fantasies, they've appear to be trying to make the regular Marvel universe very almost as bad.

...Erm...Just to play Devil's advocate, Ultimate spidey was/is significantly LESS dark for dark's sake/event for event's sake than many of the mainline spidey comics (I'm looking at YOU sins of the past) at the same time.

[Avilan the Grey]

...Erm...Just to play Devil's advocate, Ultimate spidey was/is significantly LESS dark for dark's sake/event for event's sake than many of the mainline spidey comics (I'm looking at YOU sins of the past) at the same time.

Plus the whole Jean Grey thing
(When Ultimate Spidey ran into Ultimate X-Men for the first time). Hilarious!

[Metahuman1]

Well, Ultimate Spidey was like that, before they

Spoiler

Show

Killed Peter Parker off to make the new spider-man. That was defiantly death for death's sake and event for event's sake. And the continuity in general appears to be suffering form it.

Mind you, this is from a guy who reads it all second hand these days just so he won't support this kinda crap with his dollars.


Playing Devils Advocit though, there are some things I thinkn the New 52 did right. I actually like Aquaman now. And while I admit it was a hell of a shock at first, SupermanxWonderwoman is growing on me. The current Supergirl and Animal Man comics are excellent form what I've scene.

Though yes, I do want to see more characters who can actually ENJOY there powers. What's so wrong about wanting to LIKE being able to dodge bullets? Out run race cars? Do light curls with Full sized 18-wheelers carrying a full load? Shoot lazers form your eyes/fingers? Fly? control an element (Or more then one.)?

And full disclosure, New 52 does have some things that royally piss me off, particularly in the Flash, Green Lantern, Batman and Teen titans Continuity's. (God, they've pretty much ruined all of batman's pro'tegee's except **** and Barbara, and those are only arguably not ruined, and weren't even my favorites.

[Scowling Dragon]

Its like every writer just BEGS to split Soups and Lous up and play matchmaker with wonderwoman.

So how is it going?

Cause now it reminds of all those **** elseworlds comics.

Does them banding cause volcanoes and earthquakes?

[Friv]

...Erm...Just to play Devil's advocate, Ultimate spidey was/is significantly LESS dark for dark's sake/event for event's sake than many of the mainline spidey comics (I'm looking at YOU sins of the past) at the same time.

I would say, looking back over it, that the early Ultimate stuff was (with the exception of the Ultimates, who were kind of over the line) more mature without being out-of-control; characters died often enough to have impact without being so often as to be absurd (in Ultimate X-Men, f'rex, the count of dead major characters by the end of #65, five and a half years in, was two - Beast and Gambit. Both were treated well by the story, and had lasting impacts.)

Then things started to slowly go out of control in every line except Spiderman, and it set up a crazy spiral that ended in the utterly absurd murderfest that was Ultimatum.

After that, I assume things happened, but I wasn't reading the line anymore so I can't really speak to it.

[Metahuman1]

Its like every writer just BEGS to split Soups and Lous up and play matchmaker with wonderwoman.

So how is it going?

Cause now it reminds of all those **** elseworlds comics.

Does them banding cause volcanoes and earthquakes?

It's actually being handled in a semi tasteful fashion for a change. And the idea that Lois doesn't like him all that much just sorta puts up with Clark when she must and Sups isn't THAT interesting to her makes it more logical that she hasn't figured out there the same person. She's just not paying close enough attention to either of them to catch it.