Although I think as I kid I bought most of my comics from comic book shops, I distinctly remember my twin brother bought Uncanny X-Men #248 when we were at the supermarket. I was so blown away by Lee's art and the story. Not too long after (maybe the supermarkets comics were a little older), I went to a comic book stall and picked up Uncanny #249, 250, 251. Though the art was by Silvestri rather than Lee, I was really caught up in the story. This was when I actually began buying X-Men pretty often.


My twin brother was more of the Wolverine fan, so I think he was the one who bought this. But he bought all 4 issues, and I read them a lot. This was another big factor in getting me interested in X-Men. Even though Wolverine was the focus, that necessarily involved imparting a lot about X-Men stories. Like Marvel Saga, Wolverine Saga had panels from prior comics interspersed with explanatory text describing the characters' histories. On the last page of each issue, it listed all the comics by issue number that were sources for the included material, but it didn't specify which issue corresponded with which panel of art. So in those pre-internet days, there was a lot of detective work trying to match these issues up. This made me really interested in the Brood Saga, and it was so cool when I got Uncanny X-Men #166 for Christmas one year.

October 1989

June 1989 was an incredibly important month for the comic book industry as a whole as Tim Burton's Batman became the smash hit of the summer and the direct market fully embraced the Batmania that ensured. Comic retailers had been aware of the film and its potential to be a success long before the film's advertising campaign began in May and merchandise had been shipping in large qualities prior to the film's release. However, nothing could have quite braced retailers for how popular the film would become. Batman vaulted past Uncanny X-Men in sales, and the film adaptation, which had a difficult production history and almost didn't make it onto the stands, matched X-Men for dollars earned. Legends of the Dark Knight #1 would go on to be the biggest selling book of the year with pre-orders so high that shipments had to be broken up over several weeks with different variant covers. This revival in the direct market led in no small part to the speculator boom of the early 90s.

Marvel, interestingly, did little in the way to counter the film's success. To be fair, Marvel still published the vast majority of the top 50 selling books, but they appeared to pay much more attention to the direct market when they launched Spider-Man #1 the following year. In June 1989, Uncanny X-Men #250 wasn't even a double-sized spectacular. It was part of a bi-weekly storyline that didn't even have a name. It was called Dissolution and Rebirth in advertisements, which I believe was used for a collected edition later on, but the covers and the issues themselves didn't feature a name.

Marvel's creators were certainly interested in the Batman film as they referenced it in comics throughout the year.

The launch of Mark Gruenwald's Quasar series goes a long way to highlighting the difference between Shooter and DeFalco. Gruenwald had long desired to write a Quasar series, but Shooter had been adamant that there wasn't an audience for it. DeFalco not only greenlit it, but brought over the entire D.P. 7 creative team from the defunct book. Granted, Gruenwald was his right hand man, but DeFalco published virtually anything during this period. In this same month, there's a Shadowmasters limited series spin-off from Punisher War Journal, which itself had only just spun off from the main Punisher book. Quasar was the type of book I enjoyed whenever I stumbled upon it as a kid, but it was basically Gruenwald exploring the obscure corners of the Marvel Universe, ploughing through the handbook for ideas, and mixing it a little New Universe realism. There was also the legacy of him screwing over Roger Stern and his Captain Marvel character in favor of Quasar which leaves a bitter taste n the mouth. 

The biggest curiosity from this month, however, is the Nightmare on Elm Street magazine (with a story by Steve Gerber, no less) that was cancelled after two issues because people like Martin Goodman and Jim Galton were opposed to it morally. There was a backlash against violence in comics at the time, and Freddy toys, but my question is, were Goodman and Galton reading the other comics Marvel were putting out at the time?

Claremont has left Wolverine at this point and Peter David writes the bi-weekly storyline. After that, the book is shuffled through a few different hands, Archie Goodwin and Jo Duffy most notably, before the beginning of Larry Hama's run. You have to wonder why no-one was interested in landing one of the highest selling books in the company. Curious. 

Directly, yeah, pretty much.  V For Vendetta made more people aware of the original comic work and sales of it took off, as a result, despite the box office not being that spectacular.  Political events helped, too.

Tom DeFalco Year Two

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

DeFalco's second year in charge was another year of expansion. The Andrews Group bought Marvel in January of 1989, and their operating profit soared from $2.5 million a year when Andrews took over to about $20 million by the time they went public in '91 thanks to big increases in advertising and licensing revenue. There was a concerted effort within the company to elevate Wolverine and The Punisher to franchise level characters on par with Spider-Man and the X-Men. Judging by sales, they were largely successful. DeFalco also oversaw the lunch of several other titles, but none of them can be said to have been as successful as the Wolverine and Punisher spinoffs, and none of them made a lasting impact. More worrying, perhaps, was the lack of originality. Most of the new titles were reboots of previously cancelled series, and there weren't a lot of successful new characters.

Marvel finally pulled the plug on The New Universe, and Archie Goodwin left Marvel for DC due to his dissatisfaction with DeFalco insisting upon more superheroes in the Epic line. Goodwin's departure wasn't immediately felt as his right hand man, Carl Potts, took over the line, but the Andrews Group made it clear from the get-go that they weren't happy with the sales on Epic books. 

DeFalco kept the door open for anyone who'd left due to Shooter, and the most high profile returnee was John Byrne. Even though he opted to work on relatively minor titles instead of one of the big name books, both She-Hulk and West Coast Avengers became two of Marvel's top 10 selling books in the direct market thanks to Byrne's star power. DeFalco made it clear that when it came to creative differences, he would always side with editorial, which led to some creative strife during year two and veteran talent like Simonson and Byrne quitting books in protest. Other vets like Mantlo and Englehart would eventually be forced out. 

There were still a number of solid Marvel style books being produced. The talent struggled at producing mature readers material that was as good as DC books, or even the reprints of foreign material that Epic book out. One of the biggest positives, IMO, were the much maligned Image creators, who produced a lot of solid work doing guest spots on books. That was largely due to the fact that they were working within the Marvel system with experienced writers, inkers, and editors, but their artwork was extremely exciting for young readers such as myself. I can imagine an alternative reality where the Image guys never leave and comics continue as they always had without a speculator boom. I'm not sure about the impact on the comics industry as a whole, but I think Marvel would have been much better off through the course of the 90s if the young artists had stayed. 

The Ugly part had to be the Punisher movie, especially when they saw what happened with Batman. 

I liked how the cover of that Wolverine issue was signed "John never say never again Byrne"!

Did Martin Goodman retain much influence at Marvel after he ceased to be publisher in 1972 and went on to launch the short lived rival company Atlas/Seaboard?