Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,202 
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Post by Confessor on Dec 11, 2023 23:25:08 GMT -5
Also released this month was Marvels #1. I've often wondered why Busiek didn't have a steady gig around this time. After he was fired from Iron Fist and Power Man, aside from the independent work he did, the only real freelance work he got was short stories, or the odd annual or fill-in issue. He did write the Darkman limited series in '93, but it appears to have been Marvels that kickstarted his writing career. Marvel could have done with him on their books earlier than that, if you ask me. Busiek and Ross' Marvels is simply one of the best things Marvel put out in the '90s. In fact, I'm sort of struggling to think of anything better from the House of Ideas in that decade off the top of my head. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 12, 2023 23:35:29 GMT -5
Also released this month was Marvels #1. I've often wondered why Busiek didn't have a steady gig around this time. After he was fired from Iron Fist and Power Man, aside from the independent work he did, the only real freelance work he got was short stories, or the odd annual or fill-in issue. He did write the Darkman limited series in '93, but it appears to have been Marvels that kickstarted his writing career. Marvel could have done with him on their books earlier than that, if you ask me. Busiek and Ross' Marvels is simply one of the best things Marvel put out in the '90s. In fact, I'm sort of struggling to think of anything better from the House of Ideas in that decade off the top of my head. I wouldn't say better; but, Avengers Forever had a similar strong narrative that delivered both nostalgia and something new built upon it. It was also Busiek (and Roger Stern). |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 13, 2023 12:15:23 GMT -5
I forgot to mention the Gambit limited series. Even as a kid, Gambit felt like an under-developed character to me. I have no idea what Claremont's original intentions were for Gambit, but I had no faith in the backstory they came up for him after Claremont left. EDIT: So, I just researched Claremont's original plans for Gambit and now I'm dizzy. No Gambit for me, please. While it was not under DeFalco, I found the Age of Apocalypse Gambit far more interesting than 616. For one, him being the opposite love interest to Rogue, and bitter it was Erik she choose was a better build of his character. Especially since AoA just rehashed the same tired old Jean/Logan/Scott love triangle in an alternate universe. And it did help that Victor relentlessly gave him $hit about it too. Not everyday you get to see Victor with a sense of humor.  |
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Post by commond on Dec 16, 2023 21:06:12 GMT -5
February & March 1994
The comic book market had well and truly crashed by this point with 1000 accounts closing in January, 1994. Refusing to shoulder any of the blame, Marvel execs were convinced that it was the distributors that were to blame. This would lead to Marvel's disastrous decision to buy Heroes World Distribution in the last week of the year.
One of the consequences of the shrinking investment market was that retailers began paying more attention to the stock they ordered, preferring to under order and sell through than be left with boxes of dead stock. With the bubble burst, Marvel regained its spot atop the sales chart, albeit with lower sales numbers. Not surprisingly, the endless glut of over-priced, low-quality comics had driven away a chunk of Marvel's loyal readership. I would stay with the company until the end of the year when a comic book story guy I was friendly with had the goodness and decency to cancel everything on my pull list and go through the back issue boxes pulling out stuff I should read instead, such as Nexus and Grendel Devil by the Deed.
Gruenwald had already warned fans in Marvel Age that Marvel would be cancelling some titles over the coming year. The first majority casualty was Marvel UK. In late '93, Marvel UK announced that it would be cancelling five titles and pulling the rest from the schedule to be reworked and released in '94. Marvel tried to spin this as a consolidation effort, but the books were never published and sadly much of the original artwork was dumped in a skip when Marvel UK switched offices. Later on, this would be commonly referred to as the Marvel UK implosion.
Epic's Heavy Hitters line was also cancelled. There were rumors that Epic itself was not long for this world, but Marvel continued to deny it at the time. Somehow the Clive Barker line of books survived the culling.
In the comics themselves, Elektra returned from the dead with a white costume and a completely shaven head. Elektra's return was controversial and Miller himself spoke publicly about it at the time, claiming that Marvel had promised him that no other creator would use her in their stories. Personally, I still find it weird whenever modern day Elektra shows up in a book I'm reading.
The X-books were still Marvel's biggest seller with the wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey being the main focus of early '94.
X-Factor managed to make it to issue #100. Alpha Flight was mercifully cancelled with issue #130. Captain America had been a rut for about two years so Gruenwald came up with the unprecedented idea of running a 12 part storyline where Steve Rogers is Captain America no more!
Scrolling through the comics released during Jan and Feb it feels like Marvel is lost at seas. Behind the scenes there seemed to be disagreement about what to do with low-circulation titles. Editors of said books were fighting to keep their books published and DeFalco was very much in their corner. Ultimately, it would be part of the reason why he was replaced as Editor in Chief.
There was very little in the way of new books being published at the time. Much of what was released sold poorly like Mort the Dead Teenager. There were random projects -- Roy Thomas and Rich Buckler doing a Captain America story set during the Golden Age, a random Shroud series, and reprints of the old Marvel horror stories. Scrolling through the Marvel Age issues from this era is odd as there is almost no enthusiasm for any of the upcoming projects. It's mostly fringe stuff like Marvel continuing to try to mix comics and music with a KRS-One project. The biggest success they had with new books at the time was the licensed Beavis and Butthead comic. Other titles like the Cosmic Powers limited-series with a Thanos one shot story failed to attract much of an audience.
I was still happily buying titles like Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four and The Avengers at the local magazine and stationary shop, unaware of the sales pressures that some of these titles were under. In retrospect, I think I enjoyed buying comics from the local stationers like I'd done as a kid as opposed to the bombastic, in-your-face hype of the typical comic book shop. Regardless of how good the books were, they were comics for reading's sake and not the hottest releases of the week. Fortunately, Marvel ended up making the decision to release regular versions of their gimmick books for people who didn't want to splurge on expensive covers. I'm sure I picked up a few of these reading copies from the local stationers.
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Post by commond on Dec 18, 2023 7:32:18 GMT -5
April & May 1994
Marvel continued supplying the market with expensive double-sized issues, die-cut foil covers, and first issue spectaculars, and retailers continued ordering them, just in few numbers.
One of the biggest jolts that rocked the direct market in 1993 was the blowback from The Adventures of Superman #500. When Superman #75 was released, it sold out so quickly that there were stories of it selling for ridiculously high amounts on the back issue market. There was even a story about one comic book owner who received his shipment of issues a week late and was selling copies for 75 bucks each. When it came time for his return, retailers ordered the amount of books they wished they'd ordered when he died, in some cases up to five times the amount of copies. However, because there were so many pre-orders, and because the media didn't get behind Superman's return as much as they did his death, a large number of copies went unsold. Many of the bigger investors, fearing a repeat of the trading card collapse, saw the writing on the wall and cashed in their collections. This triggered a selling spiral among investors. The summer of '93 was a fairly volatile period where retailers were still trying to kept track of speculator interest, but having been dealt blow after blow, such as that Turok #1 that sold over a million copies being shipped without the solicited enhancement cover, retailers finally decided it was better to under-order than over-order.
So, you essentially had less comic book shops ordering less comics. Books that sold through did so in modest numbers compared to the dizzying heights of the speculator boom.
Marvel offered up new books like War Machine, North Star and Night Watch.
War Machine lasted for 25 issues, but as far as I'm aware the character had staying power. Night Watch was the Spawn rip-off we've discussed previously. His solo series lasted for 12 issues. Notably, in '94, X-Men and Spawn vied back and forth for the best selling title on the market. The curiosity is the North Star book. This book was created by the same creative team that had handled Alpha Flight in its dying days and was presumably an attempt to keep Alpha Flight alive through smaller projects. It reminds me of the way Avengers West Coast branched off into several limited series starring members of the team. My question is, if a book is selling so poorly that it's cancelled in the DeFalco era, what makes anyone think that a limited series starring one of its characters is going to do any better? You may as well relaunch Alpha Flight as Alpha Force.
There was a new Fury book, though I can get behind that one as Fury seems like a character that ought to have a constant presence. Ghost Rider 2099 also launched, however the 2099 books were dead in the water, and I think I can safely say that nobody cared about the rebooted Ghost Rider anymore.
At least Peter David was having fun during this period. The wedding of Rick Jones was a great three-issue storyline featuring a bachelorette party, a bachelor party, and a classic Marvel wedding. He even had fun writing a silly Hulk vs. Venom one shot. Marvel could have handled things better with his Sachs & Violens book since it was David and Perez, two of the best creators in their employ, but they never knew what to do with their Epic stuff.
Warren Ellis began his run on Hellstorm with issue #12. I haven't read it but sometimes hear good things about it. Apparently, Hellstorm was going for a bit of a Constantine thing from the beginning, so I guess they thought it was better to get a Brit to write it.
There's a bunch of X-Men stuff from this year that I've blocked out of my memory, but I thought it was interesting that Gene Ha drew The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix.
Biggest curiosity? That's easy. Marvel continuing to push the fusion of music and comics with Marvel Music Comics. The first offering? Alice Cooper's The Last Temptation, written by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael Zulli and covers by Dave McKean. No, I'm not kidding.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on Dec 18, 2023 8:47:40 GMT -5
One of the biggest jolts that rocked the direct market in 1993 was the blowback from The Adventures of Superman #500. When Superman #75 was released, it sold out so quickly that there were stories of it selling for ridiculously high amounts on the back issue market. There was even a story about one comic book owner who received his shipment of issues a week late and was selling copies for 75 bucks each. When it came time for his return, retailers ordered the amount of books they wished they'd ordered when he died, in some cases up to five times the amount of copies. However, because there were so many pre-orders, and because the media didn't get behind Superman's return as much as they did his death, a large number of copies went unsold. Many of the bigger investors, fearing a repeat of the trading card collapse, saw the writing on the wall and cashed in their collections. This triggered a selling spiral among investors. The summer of '93 was a fairly volatile period where retailers were still trying to kept track of speculator interest, but having been dealt blow after blow, such as that Turok #1 that sold over a million copies being shipped without the solicited enhancement cover, retailers finally decided it was better to under-order than over-order. In many respects, the industry still hasn't recovered from this moment. Nice analysis, commond! |
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 18, 2023 11:29:54 GMT -5
April & May 1994Marvel continued supplying the market with expensive double-sized issues, die-cut foil covers, and first issue spectaculars, and retailers continued ordering them, just in few numbers. One of the biggest jolts that rocked the direct market in 1993 was the blowback from The Adventures of Superman #500. When Superman #75 was released, it sold out so quickly that there were stories of it selling for ridiculously high amounts on the back issue market. There was even a story about one comic book owner who received his shipment of issues a week late and was selling copies for 75 bucks each. When it came time for his return, retailers ordered the amount of books they wished they'd ordered when he died, in some cases up to five times the amount of copies. However, because there were so many pre-orders, and because the media didn't get behind Superman's return as much as they did his death, a large number of copies went unsold. Many of the bigger investors, fearing a repeat of the trading card collapse, saw the writing on the wall and cashed in their collections. This triggered a selling spiral among investors. The summer of '93 was a fairly volatile period where retailers were still trying to kept track of speculator interest, but having been dealt blow after blow, such as that Turok #1 that sold over a million copies being shipped without the solicited enhancement cover, retailers finally decided it was better to under-order than over-order. So, you essentially had less comic book shops ordering less comics. Books that sold through did so in modest numbers compared to the dizzying heights of the speculator boom. Marvel offered up new books like War Machine, North Star and Night Watch. War Machine lasted for 25 issues, but as far as I'm aware the character had staying power. Night Watch was the Spawn rip-off we've discussed previously. His solo series lasted for 12 issues. Notably, in '94, X-Men and Spawn vied back and forth for the best selling title on the market. The curiosity is the North Star book. This book was created by the same creative team that had handled Alpha Flight in its dying days and was presumably an attempt to keep Alpha Flight alive through smaller projects. It reminds me of the way Avengers West Coast branched off into several limited series starring members of the team. My question is, if a book is selling so poorly that it's cancelled in the DeFalco era, what makes anyone think that a limited series starring one of its characters is going to do any better? You may as well relaunch Alpha Flight as Alpha Force. There was a new Fury book, though I can get behind that one as Fury seems like a character that ought to have a constant presence. Ghost Rider 2099 also launched, however the 2099 books were dead in the water, and I think I can safely say that nobody cared about the rebooted Ghost Rider anymore. At least Peter David was having fun during this period. The wedding of Rick Jones was a great three-issue storyline featuring a bachelorette party, a bachelor party, and a classic Marvel wedding. He even had fun writing a silly Hulk vs. Venom one shot. Marvel could have handled things better with his Sachs & Violens book since it was David and Perez, two of the best creators in their employ, but they never knew what to do with their Epic stuff. Warren Ellis began his run on Hellstorm with issue #12. I haven't read it but sometimes hear good things about it. Apparently, Hellstorm was going for a bit of a Constantine thing from the beginning, so I guess they thought it was better to get a Brit to write it. There's a bunch of X-Men stuff from this year that I've blocked out of my memory, but I thought it was interesting that Gene Ha drew The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. Biggest curiosity? That's easy. Marvel continuing to push the fusion of music and comics with Marvel Music Comics. The first offering? Alice Cooper's The Last Temptation, written by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael Zulli and covers by Dave McKean. No, I'm not kidding. Neil Gaiman was a music journalist before writing comics and fantasy prose. Plus, Marvel had a history with Cooper, in Marvel Premiere. McKean was doing covers for just about everything that Gaiman did and Zulli either had done or was about to work on Sandman. So, it was likely a package deal. |
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Post by zaku on Dec 18, 2023 17:07:17 GMT -5
Night Watch was the Spawn rip-off we've discussed previously. His solo series lasted for 12 issues. I just read how the character's origins were retconned into She-Hulk and it sounds really hilarious!!!  |
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Post by commond on Dec 19, 2023 5:34:09 GMT -5
June, July & August 1994
Things were getting pretty ugly at this point. Not only were a strew of new books being released by creators you've never heard of, but the covers and logos were becoming increasingly ugly. Whenever I look at comics from my dark years, the covers are unbearably ugly.
New releases included Blackwulf (a spinoff from the pages of Thunderstrike and the Avengers), Rocko's Modern Life (an attempt to cash in the success of Ren and Stimpy), Blade: The Vampire Hunter, Force Works, Conan: The Adventurer, Felicia Hardy: The Black Cat, Annex, and Galactic Guardians. There was also as second Deadpool limited series (written by Mark Waid), and an Iron Man 2020 one shot that tied into a reprinting of Barry Windsor-Smith's Machine Man.
Marvel seemed to be trying to expand the Spider-Man family of books beyond the monthly Spidey books as Black Cat, Annex, and Shroud were all connected to Spider-Man, as well as the ongoing Venom books. Plus there were other random Spidey projects popping up. Remember Kurt Busiek, author of the critically acclaimed Marvels series? His next published work after Marvels was Spider-Man/X-Factor: Shadowgames. Apparently, this is the one book Busiek apologizes for when people ask him to sign it, but my question is why didn't an editor snap him up for a major book?
There was hype around the upcoming Spider-Man animated series in Marvel Age and a report on the February "Spidey Summit" where the writers got together and hashed out what would come to be known as the Clone Saga. Before anyone gets up in arms, the original plan for the storyline was for it to conclude in Amazing Spider-Man #400. Also, even though it was born by pressure from the higher ups to deliver something as sensational as the Death of Superman and Knightfall, the writers were initially excited about it.
Conan: The Adventurer is basically Marvel cancelling Conan the Barbarian and trying to drum up some sales by starting from issue one again. Sounds vaguely familiar.
Marvel loved reprinting old material during the DeFalco era, but the one that makes me laugh out loud is Sabretooth Classic. C'mon! I'm sure early appearances of Sabretooh fetched a hefty price on the back issue market, but an entire series based around classic Sabretooth appearances? Get out of here.
Ironically, the two books that appeal to me most are Punisher stories. One is an Elseworlds type story called A Man Named Frank where the Punisher's origin story occurs in the Wild West (by Chuck Dixon and John Buscema), and the other is Archie Meets the Punisher.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 19, 2023 6:31:51 GMT -5
Conan: The Adventurer is basically Marvel cancelling Conan the Barbarian and trying to drum up some sales by starting from issue one again. Sounds vaguely familiar. That's exactly what it was, yeah... Marvel was like "we had this bad idea once, and it crashed and burned in a matter of months. We should definitely do it again!" I get that when sales are too low, a company will try anything... but come on. That being said, it could have been worse. They could have made Conan an Avenger. |
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Post by commond on Dec 19, 2023 7:15:46 GMT -5
It would be remiss of me not to mention David Michelinie's final issue of Amazing Spider-Man (#388), which wrapped up the storyline surrounding the return of Peter Parker's parents. Regardless of what people think of Michelinie's work (just the other day I heard Ed Piskor casually slander him for no good reason), he had the second longest tenure on Amazing Spider-Man behind Stan Lee, and was one of the few writers to have a long run on a title during the DeFalco era. Michelinie had been working for both Valiant and DC at the same time as writing Amazing Spider-Man. He ended up switching from Amazing Spider-Man to Action Comics, a title he wrote for three years. I'm not entirely sure what prompted his departure from Spider-Man, though from the sounds of things the return of Parker's parents wasn't well received. J.M. DeMatteis replaced him on Amazing Spider-Man and wrote the classic issue where Aunt May died.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on Dec 19, 2023 7:31:03 GMT -5
It would be remiss of me not to mention David Michelinie's final issue of Amazing Spider-Man (#388), which wrapped up the storyline surrounding the return of Peter Parker's parents. Regardless of what people think of Michelinie's work (just the other day I heard Ed Piskor casually slander him for no good reason), he had the second longest tenure on Amazing Spider-Man behind Stan Lee, and was one of the few writers to have a long run on a title during the DeFalco era. Michelinie had been working for both Valiant and DC at the same time as writing Amazing Spider-Man. I've yet to read his work on Spidey, but I'll happily attest that his work for Valiant during this time was superb. The Magnus/Rai Malev War is among my very favorite guilty read runs. |
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Post by commond on Dec 20, 2023 4:24:03 GMT -5
September & October 1994
The X-books were in full crossover mode at this time. I've done an impressive job of blocking out most of my memories of the Lobdell & Nicieza era, though I do believe they deserve credit for keeping the X-Men franchise afloat. There was a bright spot that came out of the crossover. Generation X looked like one of the most promising debuts in quite some time, thanks, in no small part, to the fact that it was penciled by an established artist and not some friend of the editor's cousin.
Marvel kept pushing new Spidey-family books like Solo and Prowler. I'm surprised they didn't give Aunt May a series.
The Fantastic Four disbanded at the end of issue #392, as they're wont to do. This led to the debut of Fantastic Force. There had been a long-standing rumor in the early 90s that Fantastic Four was going to be cancelled and replaced by a book called Fantastic Force. DeFalco decided to run with the rumor and create a spin-off book ala Thunderstike. It spent most of its 18 issues living below the circulation poverty line.
There was a second Punisher vs. Batman one shot published by Chuck Dixon and John Romita Jr. This book pit the Punisher against Bruce Wayne as opposed to the first crossover where it was Punisher vs. Azrael. These were the first Marvel/DC crossovers since X-Men/New Teen Titans back in 1982. However, they didn't sell anywhere near as well as either company would have anticipated. The first crossover sold better than the second (being released earlier in the year), but considering Spawn vs. Batman was one of the hottest books of the year, the sales had to have been a disappointment for both publishers. Three or four years earlier and it would have been a mega hit.
Another bright spot -- Alan Davis' ClanDestine series. These were characters Davis had created himself for a book that was originally meant to come out under the Marvel UK umbrella. He only lasted 8 issues on the series, but you can be sure those 8 issues were better than 90% of the Marvel books on the market.
Marvel were really pushing the concept of families of books. In retrospect, it's no surprise that they replaced DeFalco with the various group editors. The majority of the new books are an effort to expand the group lines -- a Justice mini-series, a Blaze title, etc.
Web of Spider-Man #117 sees the clone revealed.
Marvel continues to brush shoulders with the music industry, publishing a Bob Marley biography with involvement from Gene Colan and a book about Woodstock.
Next: The End.
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Post by commond on Dec 20, 2023 4:49:38 GMT -5
fwiw, Marvel Age was cancelled with issue #140, prior to any announcement about DeFalco being replaced as EiC.
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Post by zaku on Dec 20, 2023 7:17:06 GMT -5
Ironically, the two books that appeal to me most are Punisher stories. One is an Elseworlds type story called A Man Named Frank where the Punisher's origin story occurs in the Wild West (by Chuck Dixon and John Buscema), and the other is Archie Meets the Punisher. In that desolation, you are quite right... |
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