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Post by electricmastro on Nov 18, 2019 20:50:22 GMT -5
Gotta say, does anyone else here agree that the 80s (perhaps 1983-1987 in my case) is when readers saw the collective rise of various series at Marvel becoming more dramatically and emotionally compelling? I definitely think that's when they started finding more solid directions to go in and were consistent in showcasing engaging storytelling. In particular, these are some of my favorite runs:
Amazing Spider-Man - Tom DeFalco
Avengers - Roger Stern
Captain America - Mark Gruenwald
Daredevil - Frank Miller
Fantastic Four - John Byrne
Incredible Hulk - Peter David
Iron Man - Dennis O'Neil
Thor - Walt Simonson
Uncanny X-Men - Chris Claremont
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Post by rberman on Nov 18, 2019 22:06:08 GMT -5
I'd put Claremont's peak on X-Men as the run from #101 (1976, the birth of Phoenix) through #200 (1985, the Trial of Magneto). His work on New Mutants was best from #1 (1983) through the Asgard story (early 1986). Once X-Factor entered the picture, things went downhill.
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Post by electricmastro on Nov 18, 2019 22:25:48 GMT -5
I'd put Claremont's peak on X-Men as the run from #101 (1976, the birth of Phoenix) through #200 (1985, the Trial of Magneto). His work on New Mutants was best from #1 (1983) through the Asgard story (early 1986). Once X-Factor entered the picture, things went downhill. Actually, I think that of his original 16 year run, in his case, I'd narrow it down further to 1980-1985 (#129-200). The issues he wrote for from 1975-1979 definitely have good stuff in them (#108 being the highlight I'd say), but I think it was when The Dark Phoenix Saga started with #129 is when he really started showcasing a consistently great peak in his writing, during the time when I felt that series like Avengers, Iron Man, and Thor started getting more consistently good in around 1983. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 18, 2019 22:52:42 GMT -5
I'd move your dates a little earlier, personally: 1979-1984. Basically from the start of Frank Miller's landmark run on Daredevil (which finished in 1983 BTW) until the time of Secret Wars.
It's probably just my childhood nostalgia talking, but I do absolutely love this era of Marvel comics...Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man were both very, very good in the early '80s. Then you had Roger Stern & John Byrne's run on Captain America, which was followed by the even beter (IMHO) J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck era. Byrne's Fantastic Four is, from the little I've read of it, the best the series had been for some years, and the aforementioned Miller era Daredevil is excellent. I'm not an X-Men or Thor fan, but, judging from my love of other things that Chris Claremont and Walt Simonson have worked on, I'm quite prepared to believe that their respective runs on those series wholly deserve their reputations.
It's not even just Marvel's Superhero comics during this period either: Marvel's Star Wars run was at its creative peak during the early '80s, and the likes of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, Master of Kung-Fu, and The Micronauts were also very good reads between '79 and '84.
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Post by electricmastro on Nov 18, 2019 23:17:15 GMT -5
Frank Miller's landmark run on Daredevil (which finished in 1983 BTW) And also had Born Again in 1986. I suppose I should mention some of my favorite issues (from titles that started in the 60s) as well:  |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 18, 2019 23:25:51 GMT -5
And also had Born Again in 1986. Yep, of course, but to me that isn't really part of Miller's "run" on Daredevil. It was a last hurrah return for six or seven issues (which were probably even better than his 1979-1983 run, admittedly). |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 18, 2019 23:32:25 GMT -5
I was tne in '86, but luckily I'm not wired for nostalgia.
I think that a lot of the long running tiles - Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Daredevil - got better in the '80s, but....
(1) Stuff like the John Byrne Fantastic Four and the Stern/Romita Jr. Spider-man told the same types of stories that Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Romita/Thomas did, with (A) more emphasis on long term plotting, (B) more "serious" soap opera melo-drama, and (C) less humor.
What I really like about superhero comics is the feeling of structural and conceptual innovation, and 90% of the time that's going to come from the newer and more creator driven titles. '80s Marvel really focused their energy on the best known titles and in making those titles accessible ande kid friendly. This makes them a lot less interesting to me then..
(2) The brilliantly weird '70s titles (that went away.) Howard the Duck, Tomb of Dracula, The Scarecrow (I AM THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO LOVES THE MARVEL SCARECROW BUT THAT JUST MEANS YOU ALL ARE WRONG), Onega the Unknown, Starlin's long form "cosmic" story, McGregor's terribly written but forward thinking and visually amazing titles... The offbeat, personal work just seemed to go away to be replaced by stuff that was a lot more assembly line predictable, except for..
(3) Epic, which was both a little bit too ahead of it's time and a little too slapdash in it's publishing for the "Never miss a deadline!" eighties.
(Although I am extremely poorly read in Marvel (hell, comic) magazines in general. That could be my problem with Epic.)
4) Stuff i really like from the '80s? Sienkiewicz is my favorite superhero artist ever. Mazzucchelli isn't far behind. Progressive creator rights. Born Again is a top two best Marvel superhero story, IMO. DeMatties were the one guy allowed to continue the '70s thematic/personal depth stuff that Gerber/McGregor/Starlin were doing. Team-Up books, because I love Team-Up books. The X-men titles, although I think self-serious soap operatics are a poor mix for the inherent goofiness of superheroes, were just so. well. done. Strikeforce Moritori. Infinity Gauntlet. Star Comics as a home for people who got booted from Harvey. And a lot of solid but not particularly memorable work.
5) But the books looked like ass. The production values in '80s Marvel (except Epic) were far, far worse than in decades previous. I *never* hear anyone mention this, but I've seen whole comics ruined by awful coloring. (Including Marvel Two-In-One # 75, which featured the Avengers! I was soooo excited! Then soooo sad.)
6) Overall, there was this move from scrappy little upstart company to being more corporate in feel, more editorially driven. This probably saved Marvel, financially, but it made Marvel much less interesting to me.
It's weird. Early '00s Marvel had the same kind of refocus-on-the-core titles that Shooter did, but there everything felt more experimental and challenging.
7) Still... '80s Marvel: Better than '90s Marvel. (But worse than '40, '50s, '60s, '70s, '00s, and '10s Marvel.)
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Post by electricmastro on Nov 19, 2019 0:27:13 GMT -5
4) Stuff i really like from the '80s? Sienkiewicz is my favorite superhero artist ever. Mazzucchelli isn't far behind. Progressive creator rights. Born Again is a top two best Marvel superhero story, IMO. DeMatties were the one guy allowed to continue the '70s thematic/personal depth stuff that Gerber/McGregor/Starlin were doing. Team-Up books, because I love Team-Up books. The X-men titles, although I think self-serious soap operatics are a poor mix for the inherent goofiness of superheroes, were just so. well. done. Strikeforce Moritori. Infinity Gauntlet. Star Comics as a home for people who got booted from Harvey. And a lot of solid but not particularly memorable work. Bill Sienkiewicz definitely inclined me to look at the comic covers more, as many of the previous ones started feeling too similar to me. Barry Windsor-Smith is a highlight as well:  |
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Post by berkley on Nov 19, 2019 0:40:28 GMT -5
I'm sure I've mentioned more than once that the colouring was a big turn-off for me in 80s Marvel: everything just looked bad. I had already stopped following their comics by the time this happened but it was definitely one more thing that kept me from going back to them at any point in the 80s and for long afterwards.
I really can't think of a single Marvel title that I thought had a good run in the 80s - unless you count those that had started in the 70s and continued for a short while into the very early 80s, like MoKF, and to a much lesser degree, Thor (barely, as the Celestials saga ended early in 1980, I believe), X-Men (I only read up to around #150 or so), and Miller's DD (which was already losing its lustre for me by the time I quit after #181).
I admit that I haven't read much if anything of the books that are most often cited as highlights of 80s Marvel - Byrne's FF, Miller's later DD runs, Simonson's Thor, Claremont's X-Men post-Cockrum/Byrne, etc - but I also have to say that the little I have seen of them doesn't look very enticing to me.
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Post by rberman on Nov 19, 2019 1:11:11 GMT -5
I admit that I haven't read much if anything of the books that are most often cited as highlights of 80s Marvel - Byrne's FF, Miller's later DD runs, Simonson's Thor, Claremont's X-Men post-Cockrum/Byrne, etc - but I also have to say that the little I have seen of them doesn't look very enticing to me. Do you like superheroes at all? |
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Post by tarkintino on Nov 19, 2019 1:25:17 GMT -5
Marvel in the 1980s....not a lot of good memories, but the (short list) standouts were:
The Amazing Spider-Man #207-#249. After a Marv Wolfman run from the late 1970s that continued until his full departure for DC and The New Teen Titans in 1980, the series was not long in realigning itself as the title of the serious Spider-Man/Parker, who--in my estimation--had titles too influenced by being a real world licensing/media icon. It just felt like a character going through the motions of "Heeeeree's Spider-Man!" The often historic, weighty momentum of the early 1970s was nowhere to be found by the late 70s, with 1980 having one great (Wolfman-penned) moment in #200's "The Spider and the Burglar...A Sequel".
Ah, but in the wake of Wolfman's run, Denny O'Neill and eventually Roger Stern were in full-on restoration mode, with a run of stories that catapulted Spider-Man back to his rightful spot as the top Marvel character again. Impossible to overlook is the rapid ascent of John Romita Jr. on the title of this era (with Jim Mooney and on occasion, his father), and this is arguably the last great run of the title. In short, Spider-Man was...Spider-Man again.
Star Wars #31-#38 / #51 - #69. Archie Goodwin and Carmine Infantino more than managed to fuel this series beyond what was then that one, first film, into a genuinely exciting space-saga never lacking in capturing the fantasy George Lucas put into the original movie.
In the short few years before 1980, the creative team did not fall into the "relive the movie!" problem suffered by almost every post-movie comic adaptation up to that point. No, despite certain character/event restrictions ordered by Lucasfilm, the comic was not held back from creative winners such as the threat/tragedy of the half-cyborg known as Valance the Hunter to the Tagge family drama, this title proved Star Wars had a universe to build on--and that's all before 1980.
The arguable 1980s high points were the aforementioned era of Goodwin (who also adapted The Empire Strikes Back in issues #39-#44), then the Walt Simonson / David Michellinie run from #51-#69, where a comic was as close to the movies as anything before or since. If not for the Williamson/Goodwin newspaper strip running at the same time, one could call Marvel's Star Wars a damn near perfect continuation of film to page.
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Post by berkley on Nov 19, 2019 2:35:50 GMT -5
I admit that I haven't read much if anything of the books that are most often cited as highlights of 80s Marvel - Byrne's FF, Miller's later DD runs, Simonson's Thor, Claremont's X-Men post-Cockrum/Byrne, etc - but I also have to say that the little I have seen of them doesn't look very enticing to me. Do you like superheroes at all? Not any that I can think of from Marvel from the 80s onwards, though I might be forgetting something. Everything I can bring to mind right now was from other companies - e.g. Alan Moore's Miracleman or Watchmen or Top Ten, Morrison's Seven Soldiers, Ellis's Planetary, ...
And I still feel a lot of affection for the Marvel superhero comics that I grew up reading in the 60s and 70s.
Actually I just thought of a couple 80s Marvels that I like, though I wouldn't rate them with the best of the earlier stuff: the Moench/Sinkiewicz Moon Knight and the Bob Layton Hercules miniseries. Though I think I would have liked Moon Knight better if Don Perlin had been the artist.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 19, 2019 6:40:40 GMT -5
4) Stuff i really like from the '80s? Sienkiewicz is my favorite superhero artist ever. Mazzucchelli isn't far behind. Progressive creator rights. Born Again is a top two best Marvel superhero story, IMO. DeMatties were the one guy allowed to continue the '70s thematic/personal depth stuff that Gerber/McGregor/Starlin were doing. Team-Up books, because I love Team-Up books. The X-men titles, although I think self-serious soap operatics are a poor mix for the inherent goofiness of superheroes, were just so. well. done. Strikeforce Moritori. Infinity Gauntlet. Star Comics as a home for people who got booted from Harvey. And a lot of solid but not particularly memorable work. Bill Sienkiewicz definitely inclined me to look at the comic covers more, as many of the previous ones started feeling too similar to me. Barry Windsor-Smith is a highlight as well: Yeah there's a lot of BWS art just burned in my brain forever. |
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Post by brutalis on Nov 19, 2019 7:52:52 GMT -5
The 80's had tons of innovation occurring and lots of fails along the way. Trying out different paper types combined with lousy colors and printing was a truly sad time and we are still discussing the horror which is Avengers 200. But on the good side we have Epic Illustrated running Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey and providing some great mini-series, the already mentioned Byrne FF and Miller DD and Moench's MOKF under Zeck and Day artistry. Michelinie and Layton's Iron Man was going strong, Marvel UK gave us the best Transformers/Death's Head as Simonson's Thor gave Sal Buscema a jump start in his career while Stern showed that Spider-Man can still remain a vital and strong comic series. We get the introduction of the West Coast branch of Avengers even as Peter David kills off Jean DeWolff over in Peter Parker. O'Neil gives Stark a fest while his best friend Rhodey don's the armor for awhile and the Vision/Scarlet With try their hand at wedded bliss out in the suburbs.
The latter portion of the 80's saw though the cancellations of many series from the 70's and early 80's. Finally taking their curtain call was MOKF, ROM, Thing, Powerman/Iron Fist, GI Joe and others as a New Universe is born and dies. Meanwhile Spidey and MJ finally walk down the aisle together before Kraven's Last Hunt and Venom arrives. We have Stern's Avengers which gets even better once John Buscema and Tom Palmer come aboard. When Simonson leaves Thor then along comes DeFalco and Frenz's run eventually delivering a new Thunderer with the name of Eric Masterson in the 90's.
So yes, I can really say that overall the 80's were a pretty good time for collecting and reading comics from Marvel because I was actually purchasing all of these fresh off the racks at the LCS's in town.
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Post by electricmastro on Nov 19, 2019 12:27:29 GMT -5
Trying out different paper types combined with lousy colors and printing was a truly sad time and we are still discussing the horror which is Avengers 200. I think that, while not forgotten, the hatchet on Avengers 200 has been buried and properly addressed with Claremont’s Avengers Annual 10, and goes to show that perhaps when someone like Jim Shooter who works in the industry as long as he did and was managing as many successes such as with Claremont’s X-Men or Miller’s Daredevil, one has to be extra careful and especially keen on their responsibilities and make sure a failure doesn’t leak through, but the rape in Avengers 200, as well as the attempted one in Hulk 23, was unfortunately a mishandled failure that was a smelly rotten egg on his face and on part of the others. I personally that the rest of the story is rather generic, but yeah, the moral irresponsibility aspect of it is a lot worse than it being called as such. I guess what I’m attempting to say is that if people are going to keep bringing it up and express their displeasure, then the least we could do is have that displeasure propel them into critically analyzing the failure in a way that we learn much more from it, if Claremont’s words are anything to go by anyway, as it certainly wasn’t the last blunder to have popped up in comics, and portrayed sensitive topics like rape in a way that’s arguably worse than how it was portrayed in Avengers 200 and Hulk 23, but that’s probably a whole other discussion entirely. |
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