War of the Gods was pretty "meh" to me, though it brought back the JSA (but continued George Perez' streak of unfinished projects). The Fly and the WEB, though, were nice books. The Fly greatly benefitted from Mike Parobeck's lighter art style, which people didn't truly appreciate, in large number, until Batman Adventures. Len Strazewski was the writer here and they were also paired up on a couple of issues of the JSA mini-series, then would be the team for the regular JSA series that followed, for its brief, but entertaining life.

I already mentioned my love of Tom Artis' work on The WEB (it was an acronym, for the group, rather than a single hero), but Strazewski was also the writer on it and he came up with a nifty concept, where the group had several agents, whose battle armor would be remotely charged up for missions, enhancing their physical abilities. They were a diverse group, who handled thing differently, when powered up.

Strazewski was a highly under-rated writer, for DC, who also did work for Malibu, on the Ultraverse line (Prime and Prototype), as well as Speed Racer, at Now Comics. He was another of the Chicago bunch (Tom Artis was also from the Chicago area and then lived in Springfield, where I ended up, after the military and I ran into him a few times), with a degree in journalism, from the Univ of Illinois-Chicago. I met him at a local convention, in Springfield, where most of the pros were from Chicago or the surrounding area (including Doug Rice and Clarke Hawbaker, who I believe was living in the Midwest, at the time, and Steve Leiber, who was the exception). By that point, JSA had been cancelled and he spoke of fights with editorial, despite the popularity of the series, with a hardcore audience. It sounded like office politics had a lot to do with his relatively short career at DC (about 5 years, total). He became a professor of journalism, as I read online.

I picked up The Psycho, on the strength of Dan Brereton's work on The Black Terror, at Eclipse. Loved his painted, moody art and this series, about a physically enhanced agent, continued those themes. James Hudnall, who had done ESPers, at Eclipse, was the writer and he is another great writer, who never got major attention. DC actually marketed this, somewhat, as I got a Psycho pin-back button, for the series, at my local comic ship, based on the button the character wears, in the story.....



I also had the Watchman smiley face button, for several years, before someone stole it off my jacket. I later added a Bone pin, with the characters, the Archie Meets the Punisher pin, with Archie's face imposed on the Punisher skull; and the Jack Knight Starman badge. A friend later gave me a pair of Prisoner buttons, she found at a convention, with Number 2 and Number 6, with the penny farthing logo on them, like in the series.

Brereton would build on this, with his own Nocturnals and the Batman Thrillkiller Elseworlds books.

John Byrne said, "DC initially solicited OMAC at the same price as a color series. When I heard, I insisted they re-solicit, not charging fans for color that was not there. At first, they protested, saying re-soliciting would require rescheduling. The book would ship three months later than planned."

Somewhere around this timeframe, they also put out the Sandman Special, with the story of Orpheus and a glow-in-the-dark cover. That was the first actual Sandman comic I bought, after glancing at the first issue, while in college. I bought the first two trades. I had forgotten about the Death watch, but I saw one of those in the comic shop. I think they had done the special as a jumping on point and built a whole campaign around the series, as they were getting a lot of great press on it. It was a while before I got it regularly, after the Special, as I kept missing the latest issue and when I would find one, they'd be in mid-storyline.

The Griffin was from Slave Labor founder Dan Vado and Norman Felchle. They had done 3 issues as SLG (I had the first); but I don't think they were making enough to continue it, or something, but they either pitched it to DC or they had talked to Vado about it and he brought it there. He was soon writing other books, including one of the Justice League titles, while still running Slave Labor. They had covers by Matt Wagner, which were really nice and did it in Prestige format, finishing the story. The basic premise was a young Earth man (a football standout) is recruited by aliens to become a super soldier, in their war with an enemy and he proves to be one of their best fighters. He is called The Griffin and his uniform has a griffin crest on it. He and a subordinate defy orders and return to Earth, to visit his family and the alien military dispatches a warship and agents to bring him back, whether he wants to go or not. Some really nice art, great action and a rather different take on a super-powered character, who was a bit of a dumb jock, but a good soldier. It was different than the usual fare, which made it a nice fit, with The Psycho, from the previous listing.

I also picked up the Generation Zero album. It was originally done for Epic Illustrated, with Archie Goodwin writing the story, and Moreno's art. Previously, he had written his own stuff. It's a really intriguing dystopian future story, where a group of young adventurers are sent on an exploration to locate other enclaves of humanity. They are from a city that is built into the ground, on an island and eventually encounter a fascist army, in the desert, which is tapping the oil from a beached tanker. They travel in a levitating vehicle and run into various groups, before finding their own city under attack by the fascists. The leader of this group may have a connection to the lead explorer's missing father. Pretty good stuff and some of Moreno's best line art. I believe it is a bit easier to find in the Epic illustrated issues than the graphic novel. Between that and Digital Justice, I ended up tracking down his two other works, from Catalan Communications, Rebel and Zeppelin. Rebel was serialized in Heavy Metal, about a gang in a dystopian New York, while Zeppelin was a collection of short tales, some of which appeared in Heavy Metal. That run in Epic Illustrated also coincided with their publication of Deam Motter and Ken Steacy's The Sacred and the Profane (also published in Star*Reach and collected into an album, at Eclipse) and, if memory serves, some of the Young Cerebus pieces that Dave Sim published in Epic Illustrated.

(EDIT:  I looked it up; the Sandman Special comes out in October, so definitely a big push for the series and a chance to grab new readers.)

The Flash was on tv!  The best GL had managed was an occasional appearance on the Super Friends.  Seriously, GL had been kind of a mess, for a long time, with nothing really working for very long and Alan Moore's handful of stories turning out best.  He did just have Emerald Dawn, which was getting a sequel.

The Black Hood was the only Impact series I completely skipped (aside from The crucible, but that was their last-ditch attempt to salvage the project and the writing was on the wall).

Sadly, Clash was not about Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon.  Besides, Mick was too busy with this......


(I swear that video played before every movie I saw that year, in the theater.  )

I bought Robin II; but only one copy of each issue and it damn sure wasn't because of any stupid card.  I was pretty fed up with dumb gimmicks like that and we were just getting started with that nonsense.  Is it any wonder that my memories of the 90s are of variants, holograms, pogs, bags, and chromium....and the comic book stunts, too.

I got that Warlord trade, later. Unless something has been put out recently, I believe it was the only collection the Warlord ever got, aside from the trade collecting the Warlord: The Saga, from 2009. If ever something deserved and omnibus, it is Warlord...for at least the first 50 issues. I got my copy signed by Grell, some years back. At one point, I owned a signed copy of the second issue of the series, that I bought from a store. By the time I met Grell, the trade was all I still owned, of that series.

As twisted as that Lobo cover looked and the special actually was, it was like Rankin-Bass compared to that bizarre comic from The Ultimate Warrior (the pro wrestler), in the late 90s. That guy was certifiably nuts and so was the comic.

There was also a Showcase volume in 2009, which collected up to #28 in black and white.