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 ]
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
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!
Posted by Vee on :
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! Posted by doublechinner on :
Yeah, what a wall of shame.
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?").
Posted by MLLASH on :
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*
Thank goodness THAT period's over with. BLEEEAH!
[ March 01, 2005, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: MLLASH ]
Posted by Pov on :
BRIGADE (and most of IMAGE's offerings) didn't have water in their buckets, that's for sure! Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
Ah…
…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!
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
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!
Posted by Chaim Mattis Keller on :
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.
Posted by MLLASH on :
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 by Fat Cramer on :
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 by profh0011 on :
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!
Posted by profh0011 on :
Wasn't that MISTER MIRACLE run by Kevin "Parallax" Dooley?
Posted by MLLASH on :
Yes, iirc, all 6 issues of it.
Posted by RTVU2 on :
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.
Posted by Pov on :
I just got BATMAN 550 out of the back-issue bins yesterday-- introducing Chase! JHW3 & Mick Gray split the art chores with regular Bat-artist at the time, Kelley Jones... welp, at least their pages were a feast for the eyes.
Now I have to track down the CHASE series! I know there was a DC 1,000,000 issue, but how long did the series itself last?
Posted by Star Boy on :
quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: Even though some occassionally may have been guilty pleasures, there were some Sheeeeeeeee-itty comics during this era!
For example:
DC Justice League Task Force
JLTF's on the list? You go to Hell! You go to Hell and you DIE!
Once Priest took over writing this one, I loved it. The last issue, wherein Ray, Gypsy and Triumph finally work out their feelings, only to have the scene (indeed most of the comic)retconned out of existance by one of Neron's candles was truly heartbreaking. One of my favourite issues of all time - seriously. Triumph never worked when he wasn't written by Priest; elsewhere he was an annoying prat, but in Priest's hands, he was an annoying prat for a reason. And an entertaining one at that...
[ March 01, 2005, 03:42 PM: Message edited by: Star Boy ]
Posted by profh0011 on :
"You go to Hell! You go to Hell and you DIE!"
Don't you have to do those 2 things in the reverse order?
I could hear the voice of Mr. Garrison when I read that line... (heehee)
Posted by MLLASH on :
I think CHASE lasted 8 issues, Povvins, including the 1 Million issue, but I may be 1 off in either direction.
My favorite idea from the Chase series was the creation of the JUSTICE EXPERIENCE, a super-team created to exist in the 1960s/70s to "fill the gap" between the 1950s JSA and the formation of the JLA in the 1980s. What a concept, I loved it and stll to this day want a 1-Shot featuring the team!
Posted by Pov on :
Well, I found 1-3 on milehigh.com, and got 'em for around $2 each... also soaked up all teh miscellaneous one-shots I was missing to JSA RETURNS for roughly $1.25 ea; all of them in VFto NM condition. Also got several Batgirl and/or Harley appearances in the various animated Batbooks, and Astonishing X-Men #1 for $5. Good night for a little comics shopping... inspite of my crummy dial-up! Posted by DrakeB3004 on :
JLE was pretty horrible.
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
Chase also had a cool story that brought the Suicide Squad back after a few years of limbo. Besides Deadshot, not many traditional members, but a good story nonetheless.
StarBoy-- I was really referring to the issues before Priest took over, but even then, I never really enjoyed JL:TF as much as his run on the Ray. Triumph just didn't do it for me, and L-Ron in Despero was just a character I didn't like. And the young Asian girl character introduced in The Ray (name slips my memory) was killed to quickly in JL:TF!
I also left out Damage, which absolutely sucked too! C'mon, no one can say they really liked that one...
And Steel was pretty much crap straight on through after an initial few good issues, all the way up until Priest's run. Then it got really good and was promptly cancelled...
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
quote:Originally posted by DrakeB3004: JLE was pretty horrible.
Oooooh yeah.
Actually, I liked the series briefly once the new team came out after Breakdowns, with Aquaman, Flash, GL (Hal), Batman showing up, Metamorpho showing up and then joining and Dr. Light II, who I really enjoy. But the stories were pretty weak, and the title slowly grew more boring. Once Hal went nutso in his own book and Aquaman joined, the series got relatively worse to the point of borderline crap.
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
And at the risk of people thinking I have no love for the independents of the 90's, I did like these:
Archer and Armstrong Solar: Man of the Atom (Dan Jurgens run)
Firearm Night-Man (although it got weak) The Strangers (ditto)
Posted by Outdoor Miner on :
quote:Originally posted by RTVU2: Two comics that died way too early in the ninties was Chase and Chronos -Gabriel Walker.
Much agreed, Chase in particular. I should dig those issues out and re-read 'em someday.
I'll add the Challengers of the Unknown relaunch from that period as well. I liked it anyway.
Posted by Pov on :
It -had- to be better than Chaykin's recent attempts, surely... Posted by Outdoor Miner on :
It was. Which isn't saying much, I know....
The new characters were interesting. The originals weren't napalmed to make room for them, but were instead "put on a bus" in an interesting way. The cases they investigated were intriguing and odd. Heck, one even revolves around Hypertime before it was called Hypertime (well in advance of the Kingdom), which makes me wonder if the Challs' writer just didn't beat the Kingdom crew to the punch.
Posted by lancesrealm on :
quote:Originally posted by DrakeB3004: JLE was pretty horrible.
Really? I liked JLE. Although, to be fair, they never explained in the story why the dying man said "braces" in the first issue. At least they did explain it in the lettercol. All the JL titles went downhill after Breakdowns, though.
Posted by Kent Shakespeare on :
Luckily, I was more discriminating Vertigo-head by this point, as well as relatively broke, so I missed almost all of these. Glad to know my gut feelings at the time were right.
Posted by Star Boy on :
quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: StarBoy-- I was really referring to the issues before Priest took over, but even then, I never really enjoyed JL:TF as much as his run on the Ray. Triumph just didn't do it for me, and L-Ron in Despero was just a character I didn't like. And the young Asian girl character introduced in The Ray (name slips my memory) was killed to quickly in JL:TF!
And Steel was pretty much crap straight on through after an initial few good issues, all the way up until Priest's run. Then it got really good and was promptly cancelled...
Hehehehe - Mr Garrison quotes always guarantee a response. RE: JLTF... I really liked Triumph. If I was a founding JLA member that got trapped in a poxy timefart and no-one remembered me, I'd have a chip on my shoulder too. L-Ron wasn't a high point for me, but I really like the J'Onn, Ray, Triumph and Gypsy interactions. And I agree, Mystek's death was sudden, annoying and somewhat unnecessary. I always wondered if there was an editorial push behind her death.
Steel was crap under Louise Simonson (highlighting the problem of hiring a little white woman to write about a big black man); but once Priest took over, it ascended to wonderful complexity... until it was cancelled. Loved Dr. Villain, Boris & Natasha, and the mildly surreal nature of the stories that Steel often found himself in...
Sigh... Why is Priest so unnappreciated? Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
quote:Originally posted by Star Boy: Sigh... Why is Priest so unnappreciated?
You got me
Was Dr. Villain the same doctor that worked with Steel at the hospital? If so, that was a GREAT character. I remember almost always pushing Steel to the back of the pile as one of the last comics I'd read, but then not being able to wait for it once Priest took over.
As for JL:TF, I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of the Ray (I love these 'shining stars' characters that almost come to represent an era, like Firestorm of the 80's and Ray of the 90's), and I love Gypsy and J'Onn, so it wasn't all that bad . And Mystek, that was her name! That death was a total waste of a cool character...I wonder if you're on to something in terms of an editorial push.
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