Count me as interested, there is a lot of 90's material I love, look forward to following this thread.

Plenty of good 90s material out there.....some of it with feet!



Seriously, plenty of great indie material, DC has many noteworthy books, Marvel has a few (to my tastes, but others might find more) and Image had some winners and even the stuff that did nothing for me had something for others, when you look at the objectively.

You’re a brave man.

What baffles me is how many people think that the 90's comic book industry is an absolute dumpster fire and utterly refuse to touch it, especially when a lot of good stuff came out that era. Stuff like Marvel's New Warriors, Mark Waid's Flash, Peter David's Aquaman, Sam Keith's The Maxx, Alan Moore's 1963, Bongo Comics' Radioactive Man, Valiant Comics, and the Malibu Ultraverse

There is a period where that dumpster fire is burning rather hotly.  In the middle you get a lot of people trying to jump on the speculator craze and you get some real junk in that, much like the black & white boom, in 1986.  I think that, plus all the stupid gimmicks that everyone was producing, color a lot of memories.  You get stuff like the lame parody comics that were churned out, briefly, stuff light Lightning Comics, where their ad copy was aimed squarely at speculators, Neal Adams Continuity either barely put out anything or dumped some horrible comics out there, with bad gimmicks, then disappeared completely.  You got some really bad imitations of the Image style, some of that stuff done under Bill Jemas, at Marvel, a lot of the "events," Deathmate going off the rails because of Liefeld's inability to produce his chapters, etc.

A lot of that falls into a short period of time that tends to stand out more then the early and later parts of the decade, plus it had more comic media coverage.  On top of that, Marvel touched off the Distributor Wars by going exclusive with Heroes World, leading to the demise of Capital, which takes several small publishers with it, including Kitchen Sink.  Eclipse went under in the mid-90s, Comico's 2 demises, First Comics goes under.  Shooter is ousted from Valiant, then tries and fails with Defiant and Broadway Comics.

It was a very turbulent period for the industry, which factors a lot into how it is remembered, depending on your age and interests, at the time.  Plus, a lot of really good stuff wasn't necessarily promoted as heavily as some of the drek; so, you kind of stumbled into them.  The Flash is an example.  It had some word of mouth and good reviews in CBG; but, the Return of Barry Allen is where I seem to recall it suddenly getting a lot more attention.  Ultraverse was relatively short lived, thanks to the buyout of the company.  You get this big launch, plus a revamping of their other titles, like Protectors and Dinosaurs For Hire, then, boom, they are done.  Similar to the launch of Dark Horse's Comics' Greatest World.  A lot of noise at the launch, then most of them are gone a few months later, with Ghost the only real survivor, though Dark Horse chugs along with Star Wars and other material.  Valiant gets all of the noise from Unity, then Shooter is pushed out the door and there is an obvious shift in quality and integration and sales drop.  They sell to Acclaim, because they want properties they own, for video games (based on the success of Turok, which Valiant only licensed).  Their losses in the video industry kill the company, by the end of the decade.

So, yeah; there's a lot of good and great material, but, people tend to remember a period of time like that based on events that stand out and the more negative, like ther speculator fallout, or the Marvel bankruptcy, tends to stand out more strongly.

For me, the 90s starts with superhero stuff and a select bunch of indie material and then reverses the numbers, as it progresses, until I am getting more indie material than superhero. I still sampled DC and Marvel, but my trend at DC was mainstream into Vertigo and Marvel was almost non-existent, until the end of the decade, with Busiek and Perez back for Avengers. There are a few things in there, like Marvels, but not many. I picked up Ultraverse, at the start, but Prime and Strangers were the only ones I kept up and Strangers was the only one I thought much of. Comics Greatest World was a complete flop, for me, and I stuck to things like the Legends bunch, some Star Wars and some other Dark Horse books (like The Shadow).

I started getting more from companies like Caliber and Fantagraphics, some Kitchen Sink (before they went under) and such. I started to discover stuff like Terry LaBan's Cud (especially Eno & Plum) and started looking at stuff like Hate, after we got The Bradleys trade book, in our bargain section, at B&N. I was also getting a lot of the small press/self publishers, including Cerebus, Hepcats, A Distant Soil and Bone (after the first trade came out).

I was an early supporter of Valiant, but that petered out after Shooter was pushed out. I didn't care for his new ventures, after sampling them.

At Image, after sampling the initial releases, The Maxx and Mike Grell's Shaman's Tears were my only regular titles and I thought Shaman's Tears was not up to Grell's previous work, though it had moments. The Maxx was one that I came close to dumping, because I had trouble understanding what was happening, until the cartoon came out, with fewer digressions from things. I had kept it going because of Keith's art and Loeb's ability to make this weirdness mean something.

The events got worse and worse, as they progressed into the 90s; and, thankfully, DC and Marvel dropped them, for a time. Stuff like Armageddon 2000 had a chapter here or there that was interesting; but, the payoff was a big thud. I hated Zero Hour and how it treated the JSA and the ONLY good thing that came out of it was Starman.

The 90s were a great decade for James Robinson. Firearm (one of the other Ultraverse titles I really liked), was one of the few to do something different with things, latching onto the hardboiled PI genre and transposing it into a superhero world. His 67 Seconds (with Steve Yeowell) was a great little thriller that just kind of slipped by people. His Grendel: Four Devils, One Hell, was great stuff and then he did Witches, for Vertigo. There was Illegal Alien and The Golden Age; and, then, his crowning glory, Starman, with Jack Knight. Plus, Jerry Ordway was giving us a Captain Marvel that was GOOD.

Thunderstrike issue one makes no mention of Thor on the cover. It says "First EXPLOSIVE" issue in true '90s fashion, and of course even more '90s fashion is displayed with Masterson's new jacket haha. We get the foil lightning gimmick as well. But the main thing is, it says ThunderSTRIKE. This was a confident issue one, it was "in your face" (as much as DeFalco and Frenz can be haha), it showed "attitude". Sure, the Thunderstrike outfit obviously has that Thor iconography still, and a mace, but the words "Thor" do not appear on the cover.

Besides the more subdued (in my eyes) darker color palette (which pops less for me, ignore my bad lighting photo quality I took of Thunderstrike issue 1, I mean comparing them in person), and the lack of the foil lightning , the main difference is that it says The Mighty Thor Thunderstrike. There is no more confidence to the cover. Marvel realizes they can't sell Thunderstrike without the Thor name plastered bigger than the Thunderstrike logo. I am sure that is true, I mean, they clearly cant sell Thunderstrike even with the Thor name now haha (or there would have been a collection two), but still. I just miss the '90s bravado. The point of issue one is Eric Masterson has become THUNDERSTRIKE, not The Mighty Thor Thunderstrike. Okay, I know this reaching because it really only has one issue of Thunderstrike collected, so I guess they needed to put the Thor title on it instead since most issues are from Thor, but I would have just gone all-in on the Thunderstrike title.  Oh well haha.

I hope this first comic choice did not chase too many readers away. I plan to look at a wide range of titles, so if stuff like this does not interest you, please check in from time to time when I update. I may eventually pick something you will find interesting, hopefully.

Thank you for your time.