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Post by jason on Dec 3, 2023 15:50:09 GMT -5
I think I read that Marvel was trying to work with Thomas Nelson to release Christian or at least Christian-themed comics (of course, it's not the first time, in the 80s they put out comic book biographies of St. Francis, Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa).
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Post by commond on Dec 3, 2023 18:53:34 GMT -5
Tom DeFalco Year Five
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
Marvel was under pressure to top the sales from previous quarters and the strain was beginning to show. Within the company, there were plenty of people who disagreed with the direction the company was heading in, but there was little they could do to convince upper management that the company's strategy was flawed and their warnings were ignored. DeFalco's buckled down and produced more comics. Through a combination of price hikes, crossover events, special issues and gimmick covers, Marvel continued to dominate the market despite an increase in competition from independent publishers. Internally, DeFalco appeared frustrated that the company hadn't produced a huge seller as it had done in previous years, but the market was given a boost at the end of the year when the death of Superman received unprecedented coverage from the mainstream media. The release of Superman #75 sparked the biggest sales day in comic book history with comic book stores bringing in $30 million in a single day. Marvel's biggest selling books were published during the same time period and clearly benefitted from the attention that Superman drew.
Creatively, Marvel was being stretched thin by the pressure to pump out more books. There were a lot of books being created by inexperienced artists. If older fans thought the likes of McFarlane and Liefeld had been bad, they were Ditko and Kirby-esque compared to the imitators they spawned. Marvel was able to scramble and secure decent talent for their best selling titles, and Marvel UK employed a lot of young, up and coming British talent, but the art on a lot of secondary books was rough.
Despite concerns about the books Marvel was putting out, there were plenty of mercenary types who were only too happy to chase a dollar. Many of the company's core titles remained in a constant flux of crossovers and multi-part storylines. Certain editors were shameless when it came to guest appearances. Books started appearing with gimmick covers on regular issues that had nothing to do with a milestone.
As with previous years, there were pockets of good work here and there but the number of interesting releases was beginning to shrink. Epic had struggled to become commercially viable and its releases were limited. Graphic novels tended to focus on popular characters, and there were less oddities being published.
These trends would continue throughout most of 1993 until a wave of cancellations hit at the end of the year.
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Post by commond on Dec 3, 2023 18:59:28 GMT -5
I think I read that Marvel was trying to work with Thomas Nelson to release Christian or at least Christian-themed comics (of course, it's not the first time, in the 80s they put out comic book biographies of St. Francis, Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa). Marvel actually put out a modern reworking of John Bunyan's religious allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, in December of '92. |
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Post by commond on Dec 4, 2023 17:51:17 GMT -5
January & February 1993
That best-selling book of '92 I was talking about was Venom: Lethal Protector #1 by David Michelinie and Mark Bagley. It was the third best selling comic of '92 behind Superman #75 and Wild C.A.T.S #1, and would kick-start a series of Venom limited-series and one shots that lasted through to '98. Each series featured a different creative team with Ann Nocenti and Kelly Jones being the oddest pairing of the '93 books.
Amid the Thomas Nelson books being published, we have The Illuminator. a Christian superhero whose powers are dependent on his faith. We got three issues of this. There was supposed to be a fourth but it was never released.
X-Factor #87 is everyone's favorite issue of X-Factor. It's the issue where Doc Sampson psychoanalyzes the team. I remember being super excited about this issue and new penciler, Joe Quesada, but PAD quit the book a few issues later. He was allegedly frustrated at his stories constantly being interrupted by crossovers. PAD's initial run on X-Factor only lasted for 19 issues with 3 annuals, but he returned in the 2000s for a long run on the title.
Thor #459 was the end of Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz's run on Thor, though they would continue working on the Thunderstrike series that spun out of their run. Some observers have noted that DeFalco's handling of Thor matched his EiC tenure as a whole -- namely that it was retro, corny at times, but featured a Thor with more of an attitude. Thor wasn't one of the books I was buying off the racks at this point, but I'm sure it was tailor made for readers like me who were halfway caught between the old-school and the new-school.
Marvel Age celebrated its 10th Anniversary. Plenty had changed in the 10 years since its inception. God knows what some paperboy buying Marvel Age in 1983 would have thought of Marvel comics from 1993.
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Post by commond on Dec 5, 2023 7:17:50 GMT -5
March 1993
Interest in the Superman books remained high after his death as fans, retailers and speculators anticipated how and when he would return. This helped boost the sales of other books as well, such as Amazing Spider-Man #375, which sold in large numbers thanks to the interest surrounding Superman and a rub from the Venom series.
However, a book like AMS #375 was emblematic of Marvel's short term thinking. Richard Rogers had been pressuring editors to not only make milestone issues double-sized spectaculars, but to create giant-size 96 page issues so they could drive the price up even higher. AMS #375 basically contained a regular issue of Amazing Spider-Man and a collection of backup stories of similar quality to Marvel Comics Presents or Marvel Superheroes. Rogers had them slap on a gold foil cover and priced the issue at $3.95.
$3.95! for a comic that was usually $1.25.
Iron Man #290 was another good example. It was a double-sized issue that celebrated 30 years of Iron Man, a full two issues after a double-sized issue that celebrated 350 issues of Iron Man (including Tales of Suspense and the Iron Man/Sub-Mariner one shot.)
Editor Mike Rockwitz tells a story in Sean Howe's book about how he was working on "that piece of sh-t book Secret Defenders" and thought it didn't make sense at all, but on the first book he made seven grand in royalties.
That said, Marvel was losing its foothold on the market. Not necessarily in market share because it published so many titles, but in terms of top selling books. The 2099 books sold well initially but struggled to retain readers. The X-books still sold well, but were no longer the hottest books on the market. Direct market sales were about to peak and Marvel were caught without a hot book or hot artist.
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Post by commond on Dec 5, 2023 18:52:07 GMT -5
April 1993
The Sensational She-Hulk #50 is John Byrne's last issue and it's a pretty interesting one. He writes himself out of the book by killing himself off. Then a bunch of new creative teams are auditioned. We get pages by Dave Gibbons, Frank Miller, Wendi Pini, Howard Chaykin, Terry Austin, Adam Hughes, and writer Howard Mackie. Unfortunately, none of those creators take over the book, but it's fun seeing Byrne's pals mess about. Byrne's reasoning for leaving (a second time) is that the gags have become repetitive and the formula its course. Sure enough, the book would be cancelled 10 issues later. Say what you like about Byrne, and in particular his return to Marvel in the late 80s, his departure from Marvel is symbolic of the passing of the old guard.
Marvel continues to pump out content. Someone gets the idea to bring back Giant-Size specials, so there are now quarterly books to go along with everything else they expect you to buy. Marvel UK continues to roll out new titles. Daimon Hellstrom returns with an updated look for the 90s. Jim Starlin writes and pencils a Silver Surfer/Warlock series, but the art is disappointing compared to Starlin's Bronze Age work.
It's worth noting that readers were finally over Ghost Rider and the Punisher. Sales on both characters began to sag throughout the year. There were only a handful of Punisher books that sold well in '93 -- Punisher 2099 #1, Punisher #75 (with gimmick cover), and Spider-Man, Punisher, Sabertooth: Designer Genes (betcha wanna read that one.)
On a more fun note, sales on Ren and Stimpy steadily rose throughout the year, possibly because the TV show was growing in popularity. The first issue had a fairly low print run, which made it fairly collectible for a time.
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Post by Chris on Dec 6, 2023 19:25:17 GMT -5
DC did very well with licensing, but not so great with publishing. Some Superman titles and New Teen Titans were among the very few high selling books. Marvel did very well with publishing, kicking tail on the newsstands and in the direct market, but not so great with licensing. My personal recollections from the 70s to early 90s is that Marvel did do some successful licensing, but it was mostly t-shirts and posters and the like. DC was producing all those but also had success with action figures, movies, TV shows, cartoons, hobby items, and more. Marvel had the Hulk TV show (let's ignore the Captain America TV movies, even though I liked them as a kid) but that was about it.* DC licensed products were all over the place. The live action Spider-Man TV show did decently enough, but reportedly CBS, which already had Hulk and Wonder Woman, killed it because they were worried about becoming pigeonholed as "that superhero network." Didnt the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon do decently enough? It was successful enough to get Firestar into the Marvel Universe proper at least. That cartoon did decently enough, it lasted 2 or 3 seasons, and yeah Firestar did move over to the comics a few years later. I also seem to recall that Spider-Man had another solo cartoon show in the mid-80s. So anything Spidey-related did very well. But outside of the actual comic books themselves - which generally sold far better than any other publisher including DC (with the possible exceptions of Superman and the Archie comics line) - back then Marvel just never had the licensing presence outside the comics that DC had. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 7, 2023 0:07:24 GMT -5
Didnt the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon do decently enough? It was successful enough to get Firestar into the Marvel Universe proper at least. That cartoon did decently enough, it lasted 2 or 3 seasons, and yeah Firestar did move over to the comics a few years later. I also seem to recall that Spider-Man had another solo cartoon show in the mid-80s. So anything Spidey-related did very well. But outside of the actual comic books themselves - which generally sold far better than any other publisher including DC (with the possible exceptions of Superman and the Archie comics line) - back then Marvel just never had the licensing presence outside the comics that DC had. Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends was on NBC. The 1981 series that preceded it was in syndication. It was CBS that broadcast the live action Spider-Man, Hulk, New Adventures of Wonder Woman and the tv movies for Dr Strange and the two Captain America pilots. |
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Post by commond on Dec 7, 2023 8:08:23 GMT -5
May 1993Amid all the second-rate material Marvel was putting out, J.M. DeMatteis and Sal Buscema managed to produce one of the best stories of the year with Spectacular Spider-Man #200, the culmination of DeMatteis' Harry Osborn storyline. If you're a Spidey fan and you've never read DeMatteis' work on Spectacular Spider-Man, I highly recommend checking out the key storylines. Divorced from the craziness that was going on in the market, they're an extension of both the work he was doing on Captain America and Kraven's Last Hunt, and some of the more thoughtful superhero comics you'll read from early 90s Marvel. At the same time, Web of Spider-Man was centered around this guy:  Looks familiar, but I can't quite place it... He'd get his own book before the year was done because everyone got their own book in '93. Web of Spider-Man #100 also had this:  This doesn't get brought up as much as it should in bad 90s costume re-designs because it was short-lived, but it should. John Romita Jr returned to the X-Men with Uncanny X-Men #300. I was excited about this as a kid as I was a big Romita Jr fan, however this was during his blocky period where all of his characters were extremely wide. It worked for me on Punisher War Zone, but it didn't fit that well with the X-Men. I was still bummed when he left, however. Cable got an ongoing series month, and I'm ashamed to say I bought the first issue and God knows how many issues afterward. Bob Harras was writing Namor, which seems weird in retrospect, but I didn't care because I thought Jae Lee was so freaking cool. In fact, at this time I tried to draw like him whenever I did my own comic stuff. Epic was making one last attempt to be commercially successful but introducing its Heavy Hitters line. Some folks have speculated that this was an attempt by Marvel to make Epic look like it was a new line of comics similar to Image, Malibu, Dark Horse and Valiant. It ended up producing a few interesting books and gave us some Joe Kubert Tor, so it wasn't a total waste. Alien Legion is still plugging along. I'd have more to say about this if I had read more Alien Legion, but I've just started at the ground level and have no idea what it was like through the DeFalco era. Roy Thomas brings the Invaders back for a four issue limited series. The art on this series is pretty much the embodiment of the 1993 house style. The artist is Dave Hoover, who came from an animation background and could clearly draw, but made the characters look stereotypical 90s superheroes. The Giant-Size, Unlimited Spidey thing begins the Maximum Carnage storyline, a sprawling 14 part story-line across all of the Spider-Man books. I don't know if this was a response to the Death of Superman story, or an attempt to compete with the Return of Superman, but the timing is a bit sus. Marvel actually apologized when people complained about having to collect all of the different Spider-Man books to follow Kraven's Last Hunt and Mad Dog's Ward, but that was 1987 and Marvel was a lot more brazen in '93. Besides, if you thought this was something, wait until you see the Clone Saga.
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Post by zaku on Dec 7, 2023 11:47:04 GMT -5
May 1993Looks familiar, but I can't quite place it... Even as a Kid I thought it was embarrassing |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 7, 2023 13:44:59 GMT -5
At the same time, Web of Spider-Man was centered around this guy: Clones in Spider-Man??? Well, I never! As Zaku said, this is embarrassing... Was it done as some kind of joke (like S'ym, which was a parody of Cerebus initially)? And wat was that character's name? |
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Post by commond on Dec 7, 2023 17:39:36 GMT -5
Nightwatch!
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 7, 2023 17:41:09 GMT -5
Nightwatch. He first appeared in Web of Spiderman and had a role in the Maximum Carnage crossover within the various Spiderman titles at the time. He had one mini-series. Mostly typical 90's eXtreme! super-hero  |
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Post by commond on Dec 7, 2023 18:14:49 GMT -5
He was also African-American, died as part of his origin, and had powers that revolved around a shape-changing cape.
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Post by berkley on Dec 7, 2023 18:19:52 GMT -5
They should have gone with the name and claim that he was inspired by the Rembrandt painting and designed his costume accordingly, which would have made him look more like one of the Three Musketeers.
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