Personally, I think about the mid-90s, the audience was completely numbed to it and the fallout of speculators revealed how few were actually buying this junk, particularly as lighter material gained bigger and bigger audiences, like Waid on Flash, or Jeff Smith's Bone, or Astro City, once it comes along.  Similarly, we had Marvels, where Busiek and Ross celebrated heroism and altruism, not anti-heroes looking for bodycounts.  I probably sated far earlier than the majority, with my job as a supply officer in the US Navy, in the middle of a shooting war, kind of sickening me of the bloodlust I was seeing on CNN, in comics and entertainment and in my own building, as our commodore was itching to be in the fighting, because it would give him combat points towards making admiral.  After seeing people in the Pentagon get Silver Stars, without ever setting foot in a combat zone and a ship's captain, who ignored a surrender and slaughtered an Iraqi position get the same award, which is supposed to be for valor, not murder, I had enough of grim violence in entertainment.  I used to read espionage and technothrillers and found, apart from more literate writers, like John Le Carre, I couldn't stomach that stuff anymore.  I had my fill of action movies, with gun toting heroes and ammunition flying across the scream, with big explosions.  It's also part of why the Marvel movies, as a whole, rarely rose to more than just "okay."

With the specific examples, I think Punisher and Batman was just more of the same, while Archie Meets The Punisher was something much different, much lighter in tone and actually very well done.  Archie didn't get grittied up and the Punisher wasn't turned into Mr Weatherbee; but, he was affected by being in Riverdale, that violence wasn't necessarily the answer to the problem he faced.  It remarks that Riverdale was a special place, that needed to be protected and I think the audience responded to that and the more they got a return to heroes who tried to rise above, the more they supported that.  Starman is a good example.  It is born out of Zero Hour, which was another bloodfest crossover, as they offer up failures as casualties and try to kill off most of the Justice Society.  Then, here comes this book, about the heroic legacy and a new generation trying to live up to the accomplishments of the previous one and fans took to it and it was critically acclaimed.  Jack Knight goes from reluctant, cynical smartass to a true believer and a real hero, fighting to protect the innocent, rather than just responding to attacks on himself.  DC slowly followed suit with more books celebrating the legacy of past heroes and building a new generation of protectors, rather than a darker bunch of maniacs.  Kingdome Come made it a central theme, that these darker, more violent figures were destroying society and the classic heroes had to show them the way to a better future.

So, yeah, somewhere in the middle, I think the audience had enough and started looking for something lighter; and, slowly, the publishers gave it to them and it was successful.  I think, by the 2000s reflect that trend in full swing.  That's not to say there weren't shifts back, with things like Identity Crisis, or Infinite Crisis, with Blue Beetle getting murdered and Wonder Woman murdering Max Lord.

Now that you mention it, early 90s' Punisher was perfect as inventory material: until Suicide Run he had virtually no ongoing continuity and very few recurring supporting characters.

November & December 1994

DeFalco was credited as Editor in Chief up until the October releases (cover date December). These are the final books of his tenure:

Generation X debut to positive reviews. Ironically, it was closer in spirit to Louise Simonson's New Mutants than Liefeld's X-Force, the difference being that Lobdell was able to tap into the zeitgeist more convincingly than Simonson. Lobdell and Bachalo would stay on the book for three years, during which it would become both a fan favorite and a best seller. Marvel scores a hit right at the end of the DeFalco era, but don't learn any lessons from it. More on that in a sec.

Fantastic Force makes its debut. Teenage Franklin Richards from the future, his aunt Huntara, Vibraxas the Wakandan, and the Deviant, Devior, with the Black Panther on hand in case anything goes wrong. I feel like you could do an entire Classic Comics Forum In-Depth about Force Works vs. Fantastic Force. Technically, Force Works lasted longer with 22 issues.

Bob Harras brought the world a Vision mini-series that I suppose was meant to bring him back to his status quo, or somewhere close to it. There's a strong case to be made that Vision was the most abused character of the DeFalco era. I type that with him pleading, "Help me... please..." on the forum wallpaper.

There was a Punisher one shot by Mike Baron and Bill Reinhold that had to have been inventory as those guys were long gone from the Punisher at this stage. The DeFalco era came full circle with a Ghost Rider/Wolverine/Punisher one shot that was about four years out of date. Interest in the Punisher seemed to be renewed for some reason as there was also a Punisher: Year One series greenlit. I'm not sure if they were in a mad rush to publish all of this Punisher stuff before his ongoing titles bit the bullet, or if they were trying to save the line, but the Year One series actually has a decent reputation.

In the wake of Marvels' success, people were trying to create other Silver Age themed prestige books such as Peter David's Tales to Astonish. There was also the first issue of a Prince Valiant limited series that Charles Vess and Mike Kaluta worked on.

Hulk got his own 2099 series with a god awful cover. Marvel also inexplicably published a Nightmare limited series by Ann Nocenti, after she'd become the first Vertigo writer to have their book cancelled. Poor Ann.

Wolverine had his first ever meeting with Deadpool, which I'm sure was important to some folks.

Then there's the series I was referring to above. In DeFalco's final month, a "long-awaited" Bishop limited-series finally appeared. Now, as far as I remember, interest in Bishop peaked in the months after his debut when Uncanny was still being drawn by Whilce Portacio, but the interesting thing about this series was that it was the first Marvel work by John Ostrander, and the first work for Marvel outside of Marvel UK by Carlos Pacheco. You have these two talented individuals and what do you do with them? You put them on a Bishop limited series? This was the kind of thing that made me quit Marvel. If more editors had taken note of the success Harras had sticking Bachalo on the X-books, they could have swept up DC talent and created some solid mid-90s work instead of hiring back the Image guys and hitting rock bottom. Who knows, maybe Ostrander could have saved the Midnight Sons line? 

For the last year of DeFalco's run, I've been counting down how many issues of G.I. Joe were left. Fitting, they ended in the same month. DeFalco was against cutting books like G.I. Joe, and considering there have now been more issues published outside of Marvel than there were at The House of Ideas, perhaps he had a point. 

And with that, DeFalco was out, replaced by separate group editors for different areas until Bob Harras took over as Editor in Chief in '95. 

Next time: Why was DeFalco ousted, and what exactly is his legacy? 

I still remember reading this miniseries back then and being amazed that it was actually good, especially compared to the character's regular series. The art was good. The story was good. The script was good. There was this lovely 70's noir feel that was a pleasant surprise. Indeed, some parts were used as the basis of the Punisher film with Thomas Jane.

I've been enjoying this thread, thanks for the history lesson!

Thank you for this survey! You gave good context for this pivotal era in American comics.