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Post by commond on Nov 25, 2023 5:19:56 GMT -5
April & May 1991
It must have been pretty exciting to be a kid and walk into a comic book store in March of 1991. You were greeted by Jim Lee's cool wrap around cover for Uncanny X-Men #275, New Mutants #100, Erik Larsen's Venom story, and Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X. Or you could have bought Marvel's new Toxic Avenger book, which somebody must have.
The following month saw another round of annuals trying in with each other. The previous year's annuals must have sold enough that they repeated the trick in '91.
Don McGregor has a new Black Panther limited series out, continuing his long association with the character. I usually find McGregor to be a difficult read, but from what I've heard, his return to Black Panther under DeFalco was handled better than a lot of the Bronze Age reprisals -- Gerber doing Man Thing, Moench doing Master of Kung-Fu, Wolfman and Colon doing Dracula, etc.
Simonson is about to cut short his run on Fantastic Four and Starlin is about to finish up on Silver Surfer, cutting the number of good books by two.
In the pages of Thor, a major change is a foot as Thor is banished and Eric Masterton takes his place. This lasts for about two years, which I appreciate. Too many times they reverse these things a few issues later, but this was a significant upheaval. Tom was about to turn another book on its head as well, albeit in much more controversial fashion.
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Post by commond on Nov 25, 2023 18:13:48 GMT -5
June & July 1991
In the underrated gems department, we have a four issue limited series called Deadly Foes of Spider-Man. I'm a sucker for villain-focused series, and this was a fun one. It was created by Danny Fingeroth and Al Milgrom (with help), who were pretty much the opposite of everything that was cool in 1991, but in a way that was refreshing.
Returning to the stands for a third limited series is Damage Control, though I believe this effort was a little weaker than the previous two.
Epic is beginning to release some odd stuff around this time. It's beginning to feel like the post-Goodwin era has fully arrived. In the June solicitations, we get Car Warriors, a series based on a roleplaying game that is most notable for giving us some early Steve Dillon artwork.
On the new series front, we have Sleepwalker. Folks used to rag on DeFalco for saying this was Sandman done right. What he actually said was that it was Sandman done the Marvel way. Either way, it was a flawed concept and a sign that Marvel's 1991 offerings didn't have the staying power of 1990's efforts. Part of the problem was that they kept trying to create a Spider-Man for the 90s by having all of these series about teenagers who become superheroes.
Tom DeFalco and John Buscema give us a Wolverine graphic novel. What is the editor in chief doing writing a graphic novel at this time? I dunno, but now that Chris Claremont's ass is out the door, everyone seems hell bent on putting their spin on Wolverine's origins and taking the character in different direction from the Claremont version. DeFalco heavily implies that Wolverine has a brother named Shiv. but the idea is quickly dropped and I don't think we hear from the character again unless some modern writer has dredged him up. This book is part of a trilogy of Nick Fury/Wolverine stories and features a cool fight scene between them.
Speaking of Wolverine, the cover to Wolverine #41 is so 90s... Cable! Wolverine! Sabretooth! Marvel was going hard with the guest appearances at the time. Ghost Rider, Wolverine and The Punisher were everywhere. Literally everybody seemed to know Wolverine or have a past connection with him.
In another sign of the times, Silver Surfer #50 had a special embossed silver metallic ink cover. That kind of made sense at the time as it was a milestone issue, but boy oh boy, what a can of worms that opened. It may have started off as being for milestone issues, but at the height of the boom every single issue had some sort of gimmick cover.
The issue was also hype for The Infinity Gauntlet, which debut with a cool looking regular cover from George Perez. I collected this series as a it came out and have never revisited it. The thing I remember about it most was being disappointed that Perez didn't finish it, though I quite like Ron Lim's art these days. It kickstarted a franchise for Marvel. I never read any of the stuff that followed, but for a while cosmic books were as prevalent on the shelves as the mutant books and the Batman stuff. Later on, Marvel Studios would successfully mine the material for their films. I should probably read this again as I thoroughly enjoyed Thanos Quest when I read it last. It also strikes me as an alternative to offerings like Wolverine #41.
Deathlok gets his own ongoing series, which I wanna say is the best new series of '91 or at least the series where the creators were trying the hardest. The problem was that it cost $1.75 and that was always gonna make it tough to draw new readers.
As for your curiosity -- The Transmutation of Ike Garuda. Another Elaine Lee story from Epic. Looks pretty cool, actually.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Nov 26, 2023 18:13:05 GMT -5
Gerry Conway is gone from Spectacular Spider-Man, presumably because of the Father Dowling Mysteries TV show, but possibly for other reasons as well. I liked Conway and Buscema's Spidey, but for a lot of people it was the epitome of boring Bronze Age Marvel house style, especially in the era of McFarlane and Liefeld. Once J. M. DeMatteis takes over with Bill Sienkiewicz inking Sal, it becomes one of the best Marvel books of the DeFalco era and produces at least two classic Spidey stories that deserve to be still talked about today. Sal Buscema was still inking his own pencils during DeMatteis' classic run. Tom DeFalco was the writer by the time Sienkiwicz joined as inker. |
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Post by commond on Nov 26, 2023 18:35:56 GMT -5
Gerry Conway is gone from Spectacular Spider-Man, presumably because of the Father Dowling Mysteries TV show, but possibly for other reasons as well. I liked Conway and Buscema's Spidey, but for a lot of people it was the epitome of boring Bronze Age Marvel house style, especially in the era of McFarlane and Liefeld. Once J. M. DeMatteis takes over with Bill Sienkiewicz inking Sal, it becomes one of the best Marvel books of the DeFalco era and produces at least two classic Spidey stories that deserve to be still talked about today. Sal Buscema was still inking his own pencils during DeMatteis' classic run. Tom DeFalco was the writer by the time Sienkiwicz joined as inker. Wow, I could have sworn it was Sienkiewicz. Thanks for the correction. Gotta say I love the way Sal's art looked during the DeMatteis run. |
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Post by commond on Nov 26, 2023 19:40:15 GMT -5
August 1991
X-Force, baby! Don't tell me you're not excited. This book sold in the millions. Anywhere upwards of 5 million if you believe Uncle Rob. Now how much of that was in pre-orders and how many copies were actually sold is anybody's guess, but the fact is the book was a big deal and Marvel's marketing team had cottoned onto the fact that having multiple versions of a first issue led to massive increases in pre-sales. Whether the direct market could absorb these pre-sales was of growing concern, but Marvel wasn't about to slow down.
Other appealing books on the shelf that month were Infinitely Gauntlet #2, Amazing Spider-Man #350, Spider-Man #13, and two X-Men crossover events in both the annuals and between Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor. These were amongst Marvel's best sellers that month along with Ghost Rider and Wolverine.
Uncanny X-Men #279 marked a sad milestone for me as it was Chris Claremont's last issue, and he didn't even finish it. I believe he scripted the first 10 pages or so and Fabian Nicieza handled the rest. Chris did get to go out with a swan song and a huge royalties check for X-Men #1-3, but there were so many dangling plot threads. Knowing Claremont, he probably would have created a dozen other dangling plot threads before resolving one or two, but as a kid, I wasn't happy about Claremont leaving. I stuck with the X-Men for a few years, but it was never really the same.
Looking at the books this month, I wonder how Punisher and Wolverine fans kept up with the releases of their favorite character. Random stuff like a summer Punisher special written by Pat Mills, a Peter David Wolverine graphic novel, and a random Starlin/Wrightson Punisher limited series. I knew they'd done Batman together, but had no idea they did a Punisher story too. Trying to pay off the mortgage? Put their kids through college?
John Byrne is starting to grow bored on Namor, as he often did in the second year of a new series. He'll soon bring back Danny Rand because John Byrne do whatever John Byrne want to.
1992 is the year where it all goes to poop for me, but you can feel the slow creep setting in.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 26, 2023 21:20:23 GMT -5
You could find dozens of copies of unsold X-Force in comic shops, at that time. Speculation was pretty damn heavy, though not as bad as X-Men #1. No numbers to prove it; but, I think the percentage sell through on Spider-Man was way higher. It would tend to be born out by the low back issue prices, over the subsequent years, until the more recent era, though 5 million copies, in an era of declining readership, means that there were a ton of copies available. More and more of that was going on and it caught up with ships within a couple of years.
Me, I was over at Innovation, buying the first issue of the new Quantum Leap series, plus the Sentry special, from the Hero Alliance. Also, Christopher Moeller's Rocketman: King of the Rocket Men first issue, as well as the launch of the Impact line of the MLJ/Archie heroes. Not sure the latter ended up as a better result than buying X-Force, from an investment standpoint; but, they were better reading material. Tom Lyle could draw feet, too! Also........Valiant! Solar #1 came out, same time; I was all over that!
I was buying Infinity Gauntlet and liked it, for the most part. I revisited it for my Thanos thread and felt it still held up pretty well. Reading that whole progression, from Captain Marvel on up to IG, you could kind f see that IG was like a third draft of Thanos attempts to destroy the universe and Starlin finally got some real depth to it, not that it was lacking in it in Captain Marvel; but, he had really matured, as a storyteller. The Warlock redo was a better epic story, as the Captain Marvel attempt felt a bit disjointed, by the latter stages. Warlock, with the Soul Gems (if memory serves, rather than Infinity Stones/Gems), made it a bit more of a quest, for Thanos and this time, it was plotted out to a better length and more detailed story.
I also kind of hated that Perez didn't finish; but, I had liked Ron Lim's stuff, since seeing it on the Hero Alliance graphic novel, aside from his women having stick legs and being rather top heavy.
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Post by commond on Nov 27, 2023 7:26:38 GMT -5
September & October 1991
Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan take over on Fantastic Four with issue #356 for a run that would continue for long after my Marvel reading days were over. According to DeFalco, Chris Claremont was approached to take over the Fantastic Four (a book he'd always want to write and later would), but he turned the offer down. John Byrne was also asked if he'd return to the FF, but he'd only do it if he could erase everything that had happened since he left. DeFalco says that newsstand sales on the FF were so bad that they were considering taking it over the stands. I don't know if I believe that, but I suppose it's possible that Simonson's run, as fantastic was it was, didn't sell very well. DeFalco didn't want the book pulled from the stands on his watch and so he took over the reigns. Originally, he tried to get his partner-in-crime, Ron Frenz, on board, but Frenz declined and Paul Ryan came onboard. Despite DeFalco's reputation for wanting to return everything to the Silver Age status quo, his FF run was notorious for tapping into 90s excesses. The thing he did well was tap into the soap opera nature of classic Marvel. I read this book off the stands for around 30-odd issues and was clearly hooked. I was excited to be reading a book off the stands instead of having it set aside for me in my pull box. Apparently, it drew horrible reviews in the comic book press. It was panned month after month, and finally when DeFalco asked one of the reviewers why he kept reading it, the guy responded: "I've gotta find out what happens next."
I don't know how I would feel about this run today, but I have to say, I didn't hate it at the time. I was also into Harras' Avengers, fwiw.
There's a Captain America limited series with art by Kevin Maguire that intrigues me, but it looks like Maguire couldn't keep up with the deadlines and didn't finish the series.
J.M. DeMatteis has begun his run on Spectacular Spider-Man. As you'd expect from DeMatteis, there's plenty of psychological explorations of characters' motives. He puts his characters through the ringer, and his version of Peter Parker acts like a jerk towards his loved ones, much the way that DeMatteis' Steve Rogers was at times. Harry Osborn is set up as Spider-Man's main antagonist on the book and DeMatteis' Green Goblin stories are just as strong as the Red Skull issues during his Captain America run. Issue #189 and 200 are among the greatest Spider-Man stories ever told. Peter David was probably the best writer Marvel at during this time, but DeMatteis would be a close second with Starlin third.
X-Men #1 becomes the highest selling comic of all-time, in large part due to Marvel releasing a new variant cover each week. The X-books get an overhaul (aside from X-Force.) Little commond buys into it, but even he recognizes that X-Factor is more interesting than the main books. I didn't read the Alan Davis Excalibur stuff until decades later, but that was also better than the main books
Byrne returns to She-Hulk and pokes fun at himself on the cover by trying to replace the issue number with #9. Probably wasn't as cute if you were a Marvel editor. I don't think I mentioned the prestige format She-Hulk book that forced Byrne to quit in protest, largely because I didn't notice it when I was going through the monthly releases.
Roy Thomas returns to Savage Sword of Conan, and produces stories that are better than Conan the Barbarian but still a far cry from the book's Bronze Age peak.
Wonder Man has his own ongoing series. For some reason, I was really into this book as a kid. I think it was a residual thing from having gotten hooked on Byrne's Avengers West Coast, but I really liked the Wonder Man book. It would only last 29 issues. I can't remember when I tapped out.
DeFalco continues to bring back 1970s Marvel books. This time it's Tomb of Dracula. The magic isn't there.
Starlin and Bill Reinhold produce a Silver Surfer graphic novel that not a lot of people know exists. Kind of weird considering how much attention the Infinity Gauntlet drew. It doesn't appear to be either man's best work, however.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 27, 2023 16:58:16 GMT -5
September & October 1991(...) There's a Captain America limited series with art by Kevin Maguire that intrigues me, but it looks like Maguire couldn't keep up with the deadlines and didn't finish the series. That was a crying shame. The first three issues of that miniseries are among my favourite Captain America comics of all time. (The fourth not so much). I admit it, I did buy all the variant covers, idiot that I was, not trying to guess which one would some day be worth more than the others. (Answer: they're all equally overprinted, so not worth a lot). I was pretty excited by the revamping of the X-line at first. It took a few months to realize that for all the spectaculat artwork by Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio, this was a lot of fluff with little substance. I didn't stay very long after Claremont left. From the peak of, say, Red Nails or the Tarim War, I would have to agree... But at long last, SSoC was finally presenting proper Conan stories. The mood of the mag was also back to what it had been in the '70s: more scholarly, with letters by nown Robert Howard experts, and with text pieces. I was in Hyborian heaven. I admit I forgot about that entirely, if I ever knew that graphic novel existed. But then I bever cared for Starlin's Silver Surfer. (Nor for the various Infinity series, for that matter). |
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Post by commond on Nov 27, 2023 17:43:59 GMT -5
What was it about Starlin's Surfer that you didn't like?
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Post by commond on Nov 27, 2023 19:19:26 GMT -5
Tom DeFalco Year Four
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
DeFalco's modus operandi is pretty well established at this point:
* A couple of big crossover events per year
* Blocks of annuals that tie into one another
* Books go biweekly in the summer with numbered storylines
* A handful of new series launched each year
* Older series brought back to boost the amount of intellectual property the company has
* Flood the market with as many one shots, graphic novels and prestige format books as possible
* Guest stars galore
Marvel has tremendous success with X-Force and X-Men, and cool books like Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Ghost Rider continue to sell well. The rest of the line gets a shot in the arm by the market responding well to The Infinity Gauntlet, proving that non-mutant books can also sell if the interest is there. Much of the interest in this books is artist driven. The books with popular artists sell well, and the likes of McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee become the new wave of superstars. More traditional books begin to languish -- Captain America, The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Thor, etc. DeFalco appears to compartmentalize these books as traditional newsstand books as opposed to hot direct market books, however with the steady decline in newsstand sales, editors are forced to make some radical changes to keep up with the times. Enter the gimmick cover. In an effort to stand out as collectible in the direct market, Marvel begins introducing gimmick covers for its more overlooked titles. DeFalco's Fantastic Four book goes nuts with it in an effort to drum up sales. In fairness to Marvel, the market has an enormous appetite for gimmick covers, but there's not a lot of restraint shown and you can feel the bubble squeezing as its about to burst.
Harras drives off Louise Simonson and Chris Claremont and takes full control of the X-Books, something that was unthinkable during Shooter's tenure. It's not clear where DeFalco stood on the decisions Harras made, but it's worth noting that this power play from Harras would lead to him taking over DeFalco's job. Simson and Claremont leaving also drove off Walt Simonson, but for all the talk about Marvel driving off the writers, they did welcome back a number of writers like Jim Starlin, J.M. DeMatteis, Steve Gerber, Don McGregor and Marv Wolfman. The door was never shut to creators. DeFalco appeared to view creator departures as part of the business, an attitude that was perhaps shaped by his own experiences as a freelancer.
Business-wise, the company was enjoying unprecedented success. From that standpoint, DeFalco's tenure has been an unmitigated success. His mandate was to increase sales each quarter, and he's been largely successful. The company goes public in July of 1991 and X-Men sells a record number of books in August. DeFalco must have been smoking some expensive cigars at that stage. However, the departure of the company's superstar artists, and the beginning of some bad press about the comic book market and Marvel's financial successes is about to take the wind out of the company's sails.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 27, 2023 21:38:44 GMT -5
The Adventures of Captain America, Sentinel of Liberty was a great little series. Maguire has talked about the inspiration being Raiders of the Lost Ark and he wanted to do something that was that action packed, in the period; but, deadlines tripped him up. In Modern Masters, he talked about co-plotting it with Fabian Nicieza, then he moved to Florida. he did mention that there were constraints to the project, because they wanted it for the 50th Anniversary, which locked them into a date, rather than getting the work in and scheduling it. Had they not done that, I think Maguire would have produced the whole thing and the end result be that much better. I still think it holds up well, even with the shift in artists, as Terry Austin gave a certain consistency, to Kevin West. It definitely influences how the origin was told in CATFA.
These were the kind of pockets that kept me interested, at Marvel; but little to nothing of their regular line, though I did follow the Streets of Poison storyline, through Captain America and stuck around for a bit, after.
I bought the gatefold X-Men #1, but found it mostly to be an incomprehensible mess and glancing at subsequent issues made me glad I called it quits with X-Men back when Paul Smith left. Claremont was recycling plots and the art wasn't my cup of tea, up through all of this. Jim Lee is fine for a pin-up, but I don't really care for his storytelling. I was schooled too much in illustrators to really respond to that crowd. As it was, I found myself drawn more and more to minimalist artists, like Mike Parobeck or Ken Steacy, where the essential lines are there and it has a clean look, but great storytelling.. There were some more detailed artists whose work excited me, like George Perez; but, Perez was kind of coming and going through the 90s and I didn't feel it was his best decade.
Editorially, Marvel was a complete Charlie Foxtrot and it just got worse. They messed around with their editorial structure several times and it never improved the situation. They expanded things beyond their ability to deliver a consistent quality and the expansion required more editors who were not experienced enough to really bring out the best in people. Marvel is the perfect example how weak or ineffective leadership can derail even the best company.
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Post by commond on Nov 28, 2023 7:13:48 GMT -5
November & December 1991
The first Image founder to leave Marvel was Todd McFarlane. Aside from the general grievances he had with Marvel, Todd immediately clashed with his new editor, Danny Fingeroth. Jim Salicrup was a hands off editor, but Fingeroth wasn't. He wouldn't OK a panel Todd drew of Shatterstar's sword going through Juggernaut's eye. DeFalco backed Fingeroth up saying that it wouldn't be approved by the Code. Todd handed in a half-assed Spider-Man #16 that looked like it was mostly done by other people and left the company under a cloud. Marvel's response was to switch Erik Larsen to the Spider-Man book and put Mark Bagley on Amazing. McFarlane saw how easily one creator could be replaced, but what if a group of hot creators left at once?
November has an Eternals special by Roy and Dann Thomas with art by Mark Texeira and a host of inkers. Proof positive that DeFalco was trying to bring back every Marvel property ever published. The cynic in me says it was because the Andrews Group was trying to corner the market on merchandising and comic book memorabilia, which meant the more characters they had in print, the more trading cards and merch they could shill. But it could have been because Marvel was creatively bankrupt.
The Fantastic Four celebrates its 30th Anniversary with the big reveal that Johnny Storm married a Skrull. People hate this retcon, but they also hate the fact that Johnny married Alicia. That contradiction tends to lead people to reason that they had everything Marvel did after a fixed point. As a kid, it was pure soap opera.
Roy Thomas and John Buscema have a new Conan graphic novel out that I've never heard of, Conan the Rogue. It can be difficult to keep up with all of the Conan publications over the years.
Curiosity alert -- Mike Allred and Bernie Mireault doing a book for Epic in 1991. I've gotta check that out regardless of how good it is.
Sometimes you come across a license book where you totally forgot the cartoon. Pirates of Dark Water is one of those instances for me.
Ghost Rider/Wolverine/Punisher: Hearts of Darkness is a total cash grab, but at least it was JRJR on art. The problem is that it's written by Howard Mackie. Too many of these market flooders are being written by editors and assistant editors and not enough work being produced by actual writers.
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Post by commond on Nov 28, 2023 18:45:49 GMT -5
January 1992
There was a shit storm brewing behind the scenes, but it wasn't visible on the shelves yet, at least not to a young reader such as myself. John Byrne began scripting the X-Men books after Claremont's departure, which may seem ironic but it didn't last particularly long. According to Byrne, he was receiving the penciled pages via fax, piecemeal and out of order. When Byrne received pages with a plot twist that forced him to re-script the pages he'd already completed, he called Harras to complain and Harras took care of it by having Scott Lobdell finish the issue. Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza more or less became the clean up crew on the X-Men books in the wake of the Image departures and both guys were rewarded with long runs on the X-titles.
Even though the majority of the Image founders were still on the Marvel books that were being released in the first half of '92, it's noticeable how rushed the art is. In many cases, it appears they're simply doing breakdowns while a host of inkers finish the work. Even as a kid, I could tell there was something different about the art.
There was an attempt to drum up some hype around Daredevil #300, but it was half-hearted. The story was a follow-up to Born Again, something Nocenti had avoided doing during her run. Strangely, there was no special cover.
By far the biggest oddity of the month is Night Cat. It was an effort to create a multi-media pop singer/super hero. As you can imagine, Stan Lee was heavily involved. Marvel had tried to do the same thing with Dazzler, but this time there was an actual record released. Both the comic and the album did poorly and the project was axed. There's some confusion on the cover date for this, as other sites have it listed as being cover dated April '91. I think it came out a earlier as the trade reviews are from July '91. Still, a fun bit of Marvel 90s nonsense.
Another oddity -- Steve Gerber's Suburban Jersey Ninja She-Devils.
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Post by berkley on Nov 28, 2023 20:02:09 GMT -5
January 1992Another oddity -- Steve Gerber's Suburban Jersey Ninja She-Devils.
I always tried to keep track of what Gerber was doing but this is one that's escaped my notice until now. Looks like it was only one issue? I'll add it to my next online comics order.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 28, 2023 22:09:19 GMT -5
There is a more pressing reason for the Eternals special and some of the other books churned out: trademarks. You have to actually use them of they can be considered abandoned, which is why characters and titles would reappear, ever few years or so. Beyond that, Marvel's MO was always to glut the stands with titles in the hopes that enough will stick and also prevent alternatives from being seen. They did it in the 40, 50s, late 60, 70, 80 and then the 90s. The only time they didn't is when they lost their newsstand distributor and had to go hat in hand to Harry Donenfeld's Independent News and they agreed to take them on, but limited them to 8 titles per month.
MacAndrews didn't care about merch; they cared about cash, to use elsewhere and pay for acquisitions. They were about the value of the holdings portfolio, not in Marvel's dominance. When the cash started to ebb, they pushed to control Marvel's licenses and buy up those companies and get 100% of the profits.............until the markets started dropping out in those areas, like the trading card bust severely damaging Fleer's business, after MacAndrews bought them.
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