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Post by commond on Sept 26, 2024 8:00:45 GMT -5
I've only scratched the surface of 2002-2012, but it strikes me a fertile and creative period for Marvel. Certainly better than the books that came out during my generation. If your generation was 1992-1997 I can believe that 😅 '88-95. |
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Post by rich on Sept 26, 2024 8:14:55 GMT -5
If your generation was 1992-1997 I can believe that 😅 '88-95. That was a pretty bloody weak era for superhero comics- most of the highlights of that time were mature reader books. I was a child then too, and the only superhero highlights I recall were Jim Lee's X-Men, Barry Windsor Smith's Wolverine, Dixon/JRJR/Janson on Punisher and Batman: Knightfall. A period of sad devolution, 88-95... the exact years the industry chased the collectors, valued garish adolescent art over story, and showed the world lots of guns/boobs/butts/pouches across endless splash pages. |
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 26, 2024 8:21:42 GMT -5
That was a pretty bloody weak era for superhero comics- most of the highlights of that time were mature reader books. I was a child then too, and the only superhero highlights I recall were Jim Lee's X-Men, Barry Windsor Smith's Wolverine, Dixon/JRJR/Janson on Pubisher and Batman: Knightfall. A period of sad devolution, 88-95... the exact years the industry chased the collectors, valued garish adolescent art over story, and showed the world lots of guns/boobs/butts/pouches across endless splash pages. Good point. If I were doing a list, I’d probably add Peter David’s Hulk run to the things I enjoyed. |
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Post by commond on Sept 26, 2024 8:37:11 GMT -5
That was a pretty bloody weak era for superhero comics- most of the highlights of that time were mature reader books. I was a child then too, and the only superhero highlights I recall were Jim Lee's X-Men, Barry Windsor Smith's Wolverine, Dixon/JRJR/Janson on Pubisher and Batman: Knightfall. A period of sad devolution, 88-95... the exact years the industry chased the collectors, valued garish adolescent art over story, and showed the world lots of guns/boobs/butts/pouches across endless splash pages. It was the era I grew up in, for better or for worse. In my Tom DeFalco and DC Direct Currents threads, I argue that the 1988-90 period is different from the '91-95 period. I have a lot of love for the '88-90 period. They lost me when Age of the Apocalypse happened. I was really impressed when I began reading books from the 00s, though. It feels like Marvel grew up a lot in that era. |
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 26, 2024 8:45:09 GMT -5
What I’d like to add is how, as a Brit, what I was reading might have been years or even decades old due to the reprints here. For example, from 1988 to 1995, London Editions Magazines (part of Egmont) published various reprint titles. Here’s four that they did:  The Superman title began with reprints of John Byrne’s Man of Steel. It later increased its page count and included Green Lantern and Justice League (the Giffen/Maguire/DeMatteis era). Batman Monthly began by reprinting The Untold Legend of the Batman before shifting to various 70s tales, not necessarily in chronological order. DC Action reprinted The New Teen Titans. The first issue of DC Action, which ran for a mere 6 issues, was released in 1990, so the Teen Titans stories we were reading were a decade old at that point. So, my point is, it was fairly rare for me to be reading original US comics during that period as both licensees for DC and Marvel UK were reprinting stuff that had been published years prior. That did mean some of the quality was high for me. If I’d been reading only US Batman titles between 1988 and 1995, I might have a different view on things, but 1988 to 1995 was the period where, comic stores aside, the Bat-Action I was reading encompassed everything from 70s Joker tales to “The Man Who Falls”. |
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Post by rich on Sept 26, 2024 8:48:07 GMT -5
That was a pretty bloody weak era for superhero comics- most of the highlights of that time were mature reader books. I was a child then too, and the only superhero highlights I recall were Jim Lee's X-Men, Barry Windsor Smith's Wolverine, Dixon/JRJR/Janson on Pubisher and Batman: Knightfall. A period of sad devolution, 88-95... the exact years the industry chased the collectors, valued garish adolescent art over story, and showed the world lots of guns/boobs/butts/pouches across endless splash pages. It was the era I grew up in, for better or for worse. In my Tom DeFalco and DC Direct Currents threads, I argue that the 1988-90 period is different from the '91-95 period. I have a lot of love for the '88-90 period. They lost me when Age of the Apocalypse happened. I was really impressed when I began reading books from the 00s, though. It feels like Marvel grew up a lot in that era. 88-90 definitely better than 92-95, I agree! What were your favourites from 88-90, out of interest? |
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Post by rich on Sept 26, 2024 8:50:13 GMT -5
What I’d like to add is how, as a Brit, what I was reading might have been years or even decades old due to the reprints here. For example, from 1988 to 1995, London Editions Magazines (part of Egmont) published various reprint titles. Here’s four that they did: The Superman title began with reprints of John Byrne’s Man of Steel. It later increased its page count and included Green Lantern and Justice League (the Giffen/Maguire/DeMatteis era). Batman Monthly began by reprinting The Untold Legend of the Batman before shifting to various 70s tales, not necessarily in chronological order. DC Action reprinted The New Teen Titans. The first issue of DC Action, which ran for a mere 6 issues, was released in 1990, so the Teen Titans stories we were reading were a decade old at that point. So, my point is, it was fairly rare for me to be reading original US comics during that period as both licensees for DC and Marvel UK were reprinting stuff that had been published years prior. That did mean some of the quality was high for me. If I’d been reading only US Batman titles between 1988 and 1995, I might have a different view on things, but 1988 to 1995 was the period where, comic stores aside, the Bat-Action I was reading encompassed everything from 70s Joker tales to “The Man Who Falls”. As a fellow Brit buying comics in that period, I completely missed those 😅 Didn't realise they existed! |
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Post by commond on Sept 26, 2024 8:56:33 GMT -5
It was the era I grew up in, for better or for worse. In my Tom DeFalco and DC Direct Currents threads, I argue that the 1988-90 period is different from the '91-95 period. I have a lot of love for the '88-90 period. They lost me when Age of the Apocalypse happened. I was really impressed when I began reading books from the 00s, though. It feels like Marvel grew up a lot in that era. 88-90 definitely better than 92-95, I agree! What were your favourites from 88-90, out of interest? As a kid, my favorites were Claremont's Uncanny X-Men, Nocenti & JRJR's Daredevil, anything Byrne did, Giffen & DeMatteis' Justice League, Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four, Starlin's Silver Surfer run, Peter David's Hulk, and William Messner-Loebs' Flash. However, I was at the age where I would try just about anything through back issues provided it was in newsstand format. I could never afford the expensive books as a kid. One of my favorite things about being a kid is that you read a book because the character looked visually appealing, or because you wanted to learn more about the shared universe, and not because it was a heralded run. I had no idea what was good when I stared reading comics in '88. I wanted to read everything. |
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Post by commond on Sept 26, 2024 9:01:46 GMT -5
What I’d like to add is how, as a Brit, what I was reading might have been years or even decades old due to the reprints here. For example, from 1988 to 1995, London Editions Magazines (part of Egmont) published various reprint titles. Here’s four that they did: The Superman title began with reprints of John Byrne’s Man of Steel. It later increased its page count and included Green Lantern and Justice League (the Giffen/Maguire/DeMatteis era). Batman Monthly began by reprinting The Untold Legend of the Batman before shifting to various 70s tales, not necessarily in chronological order. DC Action reprinted The New Teen Titans. The first issue of DC Action, which ran for a mere 6 issues, was released in 1990, so the Teen Titans stories we were reading were a decade old at that point. So, my point is, it was fairly rare for me to be reading original US comics during that period as both licensees for DC and Marvel UK were reprinting stuff that had been published years prior. That did mean some of the quality was high for me. If I’d been reading only US Batman titles between 1988 and 1995, I might have a different view on things, but 1988 to 1995 was the period where, comic stores aside, the Bat-Action I was reading encompassed everything from 70s Joker tales to “The Man Who Falls”. Not to derail the thread, but another thing I liked about growing up reading comics as a kid as we had access to a lot of the British comics too. So I mixed Marvel and DC with 2000AD, the UK Transformers mag, Oink (which I loved as kid), Beano, Viz, and other British comics, as well as European comics like Tintin and Asterix. Fun times. The Aussie Phantom comics were everywhere too. |
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 26, 2024 9:05:03 GMT -5
What I’d like to add is how, as a Brit, what I was reading might have been years or even decades old due to the reprints here. For example, from 1988 to 1995, London Editions Magazines (part of Egmont) published various reprint titles. Here’s four that they did: The Superman title began with reprints of John Byrne’s Man of Steel. It later increased its page count and included Green Lantern and Justice League (the Giffen/Maguire/DeMatteis era). Batman Monthly began by reprinting The Untold Legend of the Batman before shifting to various 70s tales, not necessarily in chronological order. DC Action reprinted The New Teen Titans. The first issue of DC Action, which ran for a mere 6 issues, was released in 1990, so the Teen Titans stories we were reading were a decade old at that point. So, my point is, it was fairly rare for me to be reading original US comics during that period as both licensees for DC and Marvel UK were reprinting stuff that had been published years prior. That did mean some of the quality was high for me. If I’d been reading only US Batman titles between 1988 and 1995, I might have a different view on things, but 1988 to 1995 was the period where, comic stores aside, the Bat-Action I was reading encompassed everything from 70s Joker tales to “The Man Who Falls”. As a fellow Brit buying comics in that period, I completely missed those 😅 Didn't realise they existed! They were great. Bigger than the US comics and with some features inside, plus lively letters pages. DC Action and Zones had card-stock covers. A sample:  And some more ads:   |
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Post by rich on Sept 26, 2024 11:57:37 GMT -5
What I’d like to add is how, as a Brit, what I was reading might have been years or even decades old due to the reprints here. For example, from 1988 to 1995, London Editions Magazines (part of Egmont) published various reprint titles. Here’s four that they did: The Superman title began with reprints of John Byrne’s Man of Steel. It later increased its page count and included Green Lantern and Justice League (the Giffen/Maguire/DeMatteis era). Batman Monthly began by reprinting The Untold Legend of the Batman before shifting to various 70s tales, not necessarily in chronological order. DC Action reprinted The New Teen Titans. The first issue of DC Action, which ran for a mere 6 issues, was released in 1990, so the Teen Titans stories we were reading were a decade old at that point. So, my point is, it was fairly rare for me to be reading original US comics during that period as both licensees for DC and Marvel UK were reprinting stuff that had been published years prior. That did mean some of the quality was high for me. If I’d been reading only US Batman titles between 1988 and 1995, I might have a different view on things, but 1988 to 1995 was the period where, comic stores aside, the Bat-Action I was reading encompassed everything from 70s Joker tales to “The Man Who Falls”. Not to derail the thread, but another thing I liked about growing up reading comics as a kid as we had access to a lot of the British comics too. So I mixed Marvel and DC with 2000AD, the UK Transformers mag, Oink (which I loved as kid), Beano, Viz, and other British comics, as well as European comics like Tintin and Asterix. Fun times. The Aussie Phantom comics were everywhere too. I rather assumed everyone everywhere was exposed to Tintin and Asterix! Lovely books. UK Transformers will always be in my heart, and it was cool back in the day graduating on to 2000AD. Beano and Viz completely passed me by, but I still have a couple of mid 80s Dandy comics. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 29, 2024 22:21:05 GMT -5
I had never heard of Tintin before this forum. Asterix I saw on TV once, but had no idea it was a comic, or it's popularity. The amount which US fans get exposed to anything from Europe is shockingly little really.
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Post by rich on Sept 30, 2024 3:29:35 GMT -5
I had never heard of Tintin before this forum. Asterix I saw on TV once, but had no idea it was a comic, or its popularity. The amount which US fans get exposed to anything from Europe is shockingly little really. Wow. Did not know that! In England it seemed everyone of my generation read some of those two, regardless of whether they liked superhero comics. Even today they're in school libraries, well, except a couple of books that got 'cancelled'. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 30, 2024 10:02:38 GMT -5
I had never heard of Tintin before this forum. Asterix I saw on TV once, but had no idea it was a comic, or it's popularity. The amount which US fans get exposed to anything from Europe is shockingly little really. I vaguely knew of them from cultural osmosis, but had never laid eyes on either until Confessor started his Tintin review thread. I guess I should get back to reading them. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2024 18:03:19 GMT -5
I had never heard of Tintin before this forum. Asterix I saw on TV once, but had no idea it was a comic, or its popularity. The amount which US fans get exposed to anything from Europe is shockingly little really. Wow. Did not know that! In England it seemed everyone of my generation read some of those two, regardless of whether they liked superhero comics. Even today they're in school libraries, well, except a couple of books that got 'cancelled'. It might have been where/when people grew up as well. As a kid in the US growing up in Vermont in the 80’s, the Asterix books were everywhere. The local bookstores carried them, my school library had them, I had a set of them as did many of my other friends. I still have a full set on a bookshelf a few feet from me as I type this. Tintin was a little less popular but I certainly knew who he was. My kids grew up with reruns of the cartoon that originally aired in the early 90s and my daughter is a huge fan and has all the books. |
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