posted
Even though some occassionally may have been guilty pleasures, there were some Sheeeeeeeee-itty comics during this era!
For example:
DC Manhunter Fate Firebrand Gunfire Darkstars Anima Aztek (I *still* think this was crap even upon rereads) Green Lantern: Mosiac Lobo (his minis were pretty funny IMO, but his series sure sucked!) Guy Gardner #1-20 (wow did that suck!) Mister Miracle FAACC (FAACC = failed attempt at classic character) Justice League Task Force
Marvel Nomad Terror, Inc. (but, hey, I bought the whole run anyway! ) New Defenders Morbius Sons of Vengeance and Excess Ghost Rider garbage Excess Punisher Garbage, including more one-shot specials this side of Batman
Ultraverse Sludge Mantra Prototype BAH!! There are waaaay too many Ultraverse comics to list!
Valiant Eternal Warrior X-O Manowar HA! Same for Valiant (Archer and Armstrong was pretty cool though!)
Image Youngblood ...like I'd even try to do the Image ones
[ March 01, 2005, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Cobalt Kid ]
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not to mention that the JLA was borderline worst ever once Supes died, Titans just sucked on through the 90’s, Bats was broken with Az-Bats in his place, Hal went nuts, Supes was dead (to be honest, the Superman books were pretty damn good IMO in the 90’s), the Legion was rebooted, Oliver Queen died and Dinah was nowhere to be found…
Hey, at least Flash, Aquaman, Robin and Hawkman were cool!
And at least DC wasn’t Marvel: were everything was pretty weak except Hulk and Avengers (up until the Black Knight left IMO), Spidey had Maximum Carnage and Clones, X had flooded the market, Cap was dying, Shell Head betrayed the Avengers, Thor reached an all-time low (with the exception of maybe 10 issues by Deodato), Daredevil was the equivalent of cow-dung and every comic had Wolverine, Punisher or Ghost Rider in it.
But maybe that’s just an overly negative view
There were islands of greatness, but in an otherwise sea of mediocrity and vomit-inducing crap!
Now tell me how you really feel about this Charcoal Age!
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: Not to mention that the JLA was borderline worst ever once Supes died, Titans just sucked on through the 90?s, Bats was broken with Az-Bats in his place, Hal went nuts, Supes was dead (to be honest, the Superman books were pretty damn good IMO in the 90?s), the Legion was rebooted, Oliver Queen died and Dinah was nowhere to be found?
Hey, at least Flash, Aquaman, Robin and Hawkman were cool!
And at least DC wasn?t Marvel: were everything was pretty weak except Hulk and Avengers (up until the Black Knight left IMO), Spidey had Maximum Carnage and Clones, X had flooded the market, Cap was dying, Shell Head betrayed the Avengers, Thor reached an all-time low (with the exception of maybe 10 issues by Deodato), Daredevil was the equivalent of cow-dung and every comic had Wolverine, Punisher or Ghost Rider in it.
But maybe that?s just an overly negative view
There were islands of greatness, but in an otherwise sea of mediocrity and vomit-inducing crap!
Now tell me how you really feel about this Charcoal Age!
You're too kind!
-------------------- "Hey Jim! Get Mon out of the Zone!! And...when do we get Condo back?"
From: Paragon City on patrol | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
It seems like DC wanted to shake up every character in their pantheon and just ended up ruining it. Their has to be fine line between telling stories that advance the mythos ("What if the Guardians go away for awhile?"), as opposed to ripping out the vital internal organs of the mythos ("What if the Guardians go away, Hal Jordan goes crazy, slaughters the Guardians and the entire Green Lantern Corps?").
-------------------- ...but you don't have a moment where you're sitting there staring at a table full of twenty-five characters with little name signs that say, "Hi, my superpower is confusing you!"
From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
We are very fortunate comic books even exist after the horrible period that was the 90s.
Comics lost hundreds of thousands of readers during this decade, when the grim and gritty steamrolled over the fun, and books like AMBUSH BUG and Giffen's JLA were gone... when DC was ASHAMED of the Justice Society (Lord help us all) and ashamed of all its classic characters, apparently... Marvel was putting out a miniseries for every single character in their stable and NONE of them were any good...
And then, the few different, really GOOD books like AZTEK (Sorry, Cobie, I liked it), MAJOR BUMMER (SHAME SHAME SHAME on you if you never have read this, hit the back-issue bins NOW. Cobie, Cramey, I'm looking at you 2 for sure-- its 15 issues of pure comic-book fun), CHASE and YOUNG HEROES IN LOVE, THE HECKLER and VEXT only lasted 10, 15, 8, 17, 6 and 6 issues respectively. *sigh*
posted
BRIGADE (and most of IMAGE's offerings) didn't have water in their buckets, that's for sure!
From: Up a Gumtree | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
…Chase, Young Heroes in Love, Major Bummer, especially the Heckler!...all great comics! And of course, all quickly discarded! I’ll also add the Ray into that mix, which was lots of fun and excellent (well, most of the time), as well as the early issues of Superboy, which were also a blast. Of course, Superboy eventually slowed down, but remained pretty decent (it absolutely sucked at the end of its run though).
DC being ashamed of the Justice Society is almost unforgivable! The worst part of the whole era was when the ‘grim and gritty’ phase would make its way into comics in which it had really no part—like Changeling being all evil and the Outsiders relaunch quickly becoming kill fest ’97. Extreme Justice, which had Booster, Beetle and Firestorm in it, all fan favorites, was the epitome of this crap!
And Marvel…oh, Marvel. Punisher Back to School Special. Wolverine Valentine’s Day Special. Maximum Carnage. Punisher Spring Special. Avenger’s the Crossing. Heroes Reborn. It wasn’t until Busiek’s Thunderbolts that someone at Marvel woke up and said “Huh? Wow, I guess people *do* like that stuff…” (Peter David’s Hulk must always be excluded from these general comments of course).
Meanwhile, Shadowhawk is breaking backs, Valiant’s “Deathmate” crossover with Image hit a new all-time crossover low and, oh well, you get the picture
C'mon, you lived through it! You know you wanna! Bash the era!
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Pov: BRIGADE (and most of IMAGE's offerings) didn't have water in their buckets, that's for sure!
I remember being hooked on Shadowhawk and Spawn when I was about 14. My Dad would just shake his head... Now I'm scared to ever read them again!
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'll disagree about the early Guy Gardner issues. The "Guy Gardner: Year One" story, telling us about the father whose approval he was never able to win and the big brother whose shadow he could never escape even after his fall from grace, was very moving. The series was going in a clear direction until that got short-circuited by Emerald Twilight.
-------------------- Chaim Mattis Keller ckeller@nyc.rr.com Legion-Reference-File Lad
From: New York, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rob "I created X-Force" Liefeld doing Levi commercials on MTV!
Mike Deodato spicing up Wonder Woman, Thor (YUM!), The Avengers, Glory and Elektra... I *loved* Deodato! until he became a "studio" full of imitators who couldn't pull it off.
posted
I picked up a good portion of the Major Bummer run, but didn't really get into it at all. Maybe it was just the mood I was in when I started reading it - should go back to those issues and try again.
Dr. Fate & Mister Miracle - what disappointments! I read quite a few issues just hoping things would turn around.
posted
I missed most of the REALLY bad stuff. I think it's because, by then, I'd put up with the generally bad stuff for so long already, I got fed up and began dropping anything I wasn't enjoying, or when I felt betrayed by changes in creative teams.
Some examples come to mind...
DAREDEVIL -- I dropped this a few issues after Frank Miller's BORN AGAIN ended. It'd been really bad before he came back (thank YOU, Denny O'Neil!) and what I SAW replacing him... AAAAUGH! I wanted no part of it any more.
SPIDER-MAN -- I don't know how I managed to put up with the year or two that followed Roger Stern's departure (sudden disappearance, it felt more like). But the writing and the art kept plummetting, and I finally couldn't take it anymore.
FANTASTIC FOUR -- a book known for horrific bad runs by top pros who have no concept of what the book is about. I put up with JUNK from Roger Stern... Steve Englehart... even Walt Simonson was beginning to bug me... so when I heard that Marvel's worst-ever writer (at least, up to that time) was taking over, I dropped it without ever reading a single issue!
IRON MAN -- John Byrne proved how bad a writer he is when he's not drawing a book himself. I have no idea how I hung on as long as I did. I finally did drop it (IM had long been my favorite Marvel hero) and was so glad I did, as years later all I heard was HORROR stories of how bad it got AFTER I stopped buying.
There was a point where the ONLY Marvel book I was buying was a reprint-- CONAN CLASSIC. I'd never read the originals, and was really enjoying the Thomas-Smith run-- until it was cut short after about 11 issues. I'm finally getting my hands on the rest now-- thanks to DARK HORSE's TPB reprint series.
We need a thread to cover the GOOD stuff from this era!
Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Two comics that died way too early in the ninties was Chase and Chronos -Gabriel Walker.
Chase was an awesome book. You have the great JHWIII and Gray an art giving us a fully moody, stylized artwork. The writer had created a great premise in the DEO and in Chase. Canceled way too early.
Chronos - I like time traveling stories and this one is a great. Walker could be anywhere and everywhere. He was there for the greates momnets in DC history and sometimes even had a hand in them. I was so dissappointed when this went away.
From: Texas | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |