Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Suprisingly *Good* comics of the 1990's!

As all comic fans know, the late 1980's - early 1990's were a hard time for DC and Marvel (and Image ). However, there were some diamonds in the rough (sp?)! Some that come to mind:

- The Ray - this was a *great* series. Priest's stories were tight, great characterization and one of the best visually appealing super-heroes since Firestorm. I'm very fond of this character because of this series.

- Guy Garnder: Warrior #21-finish - I didn't really like this series at all, and actually hated the character until about #21 when things started changing for Guy. They made him more likeable, made his motivatons much clearer and had a lot of good stories. Plus, a great supporting cast and a fun setting at the Warriors Bar. I distinctly remember the Phil Jimenez drawn issue where nearly all of the DCU was at Warriors (including Brainy having a beer). Of course, there were some bad stories (after all, this was the 1990's, so bad crossovers were the rage), but I liked this series. Kudos for good use of one of the Metal Men, stern dissatisfaction for poor distateful death of Arisa.

I completely gave up on Marvel Comics in the early 1990's. Until a good friend of mine told me about HOBGOBLIN LIVES!, a 3-part mini Roger Stern was writing. I gave it a shot... and was blown away. After Stan Lee, Roger Stern was BY FAR the single best Spider-Man writer to ever come along (and do more than a handful of issues). He had 2 nice runs on the character-- on SPECTACULAR (mostly with Mike Zeck, if memory serves) and then on AMAZING (with J.R.Jr.-- damn shame J.R.SR. didn't ink ALL of them!). He brought back the "balance" the book had been mising since about 1970, when "real life hassles" got replaced with "never-ending HELL". There's something really delightful, funny, and RELATABLE about Pete accidentally leaving his suit to soak in the tub and finding out the colors faded... or having to wait MONTHS for a specific fabric to come in so he can replace the long-missing underarm-webbing.

Stern had an almost Agatha-Christie-type mystery going on concerning the identity of The Hobgoblin... and then abruptly LEFT before he finished the "story". And, in my view, the book PLUMMETTED in quality immediately after. And KEPT getting worse! Geez...

So, when Roger came back-- about 12 YEARS late-- to "finish" his story, and actually TIED UP every single related plot-thread-- it was an astonishing thing to read. Along with Steve Englehart, he really is one of the best writers when it comes to "working with what's there".

(Of course, when I gave the Spidey books another try afterwards, I was HORRIBLY disappointed... AGAIN. Like... why did John Byrne even BOTHER???)

Fans of RILLLLLLY fun 90s comics aren't caught dead without full runs of:

THE HECKLER

MAJOR BUMMER

VEXT

YOUNG HEROES IN LOVE

Not classified as fun, but excellent nonetheless:

CHASE

"Shade the Changing Man" -- When Chris Bachalo started to really hit his stride (y'know, before his artwork got way stylized and his panels way too crowded) it was one of my favorite books out there.

"The New Warriors" was straight forward fun superhero comics

How did we get this far without mentioning James Robinson's Starman? Fantastic series with beautiful artwork.

Amen Sollie. One of the best series ever done, bar none. Period. Another period.

It's suprising (or maybe not so suprising) how few titles come to mind when you restrict your choices to comics whose life-spans were contained entirely within the 90's.

El DIABLO comes to mind.

I really enjoyed the second, short-lived ALPHA FLIGHT series.

Can't think of many others that haven't already been mentioned.

HITMAN was pretty good for a shoot-'em-up.

PRIMAL FORCE was good but never got the chance to really take off.

SCARE TACTICS was certainly unique.

You guys have named some great ones! I agree about Starman and Hitman, two of the best I've ever read in any era.

And Lash is absolutely dead-on about the much beloved Heckler, as well as YHiL and Vext which were fun.

Prof - you're discription of the Hobgoblin Lives mini literally made me smile. I'm equally fond of it and am a very big Spidey fan.

TMK was during the '90s - I loved that run and it's what brought me into the Legion!

I confess to really enjoying this series at the time. But then I liked the Augustyn/Rags BLACK CONDOR series too...

I totally forgot about that series Amentep, but I liked the Black Condor series myself.

My favorites were Preacher, Starman, Sandman, Bone, Cerebus, Strangers in Paradise, Stray Bullets, Wolff & Byrd, and the Ennis run on Hellblazer.

The first 24 issues of Mike W. Barr's Mantra, before Marvel bought Malibu and ruined the book.

I'll second New Warriors up to a point; I thought the first 25 issues were the best; after Mark Bagley left, Fabian Nicieza didn't have the same chemistry with Darick Robertson.

Nicieza also wrote the kick-ass Soviet Super Soldiers one-shot; great art by Angel Medina before he changed his style later in the decade. This book is super-cheap, and worth searching for.

Books which were already up and running and had good runs during the early 1990s:

- PAD's Hulk, X-Factor, and Dreadstar

- Bob Harras & Steve Epting's Avengers

- Alan Davis's Excalibur

- Mark Waid's Flash

- Alan Grant's L.E.G.I.O.N.

- Mark Gruenwald & Ron Lim's Captain America (Gruenwald, IMO, should have left at the same time as Lim)

- Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four

Hulk--Banner's brain in Hulk's body. Marlo. Rick. Betty. The Pantheon.

X-Factor--Stroman's art. David's sidesplitting humor. Multiple Man. Guido. At times the only really good X-Title.

Starman and Sandman almost go without saying. History will put those two series as THE comics of the Nineties, while the crap X-Men turned into will be universally denigrated. At least, that's my dream....

Wasn't JSA relaunched in the late 90's? Also, wasn't JLA, which wasn't really my cup of tea but did signal the return of a credible flagship team, relaunched in the late 90's?

JSA was relaunched, but was pretty much shut down as it left the gate. It had some really great art by Mike Parobek, before he passed away. I believe that series is when we were first introduced to Jesse Quick!

And you guys are right, X-Factor was the only good X book out there during this decade!!!

The short-lived series with Mike Parobeck (such fun, such fun!) was called JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA. I understand there was an editorial decision to cancel it EVEN BEFORE the 1st issue came out!!! What th'...???

The later relaunch as JSA (clearly following in the wake of the very successful JLA relaunch) finally managed to overcome the long-term resistence of certain "powers-that-be" at DC (perhaps they weren't there anymore) and has been pretty successful since (barring a FEW real stinkers of fill-ins).


Most of my favorite Dc books in the 90's were related in some way to the Golden Age "AA" characters-- SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE, THE SPECTRE, and STARMAN. So when JSA finally came along, it was a natural for me...

I followed the new HAWKMAN for about 3 years, but then just got bored (and when they changed creative teams, I figured it was time to go).

I've always heard that it was Mike Carlin who didn't want a series featuring a bunch of old guys running around. He tends to get the blame for it, at any rate.

The latest relaunch got around that my mixing some of the old guard with revamped oldsters and newer characters. It's been a good mix overall.

Personally, I think it was good that Hawkgirl was included in the line-up, since both Wonder Woman and Black Canary would have been re-imagined following CRISIS and later, ZERO HOUR

huh? care to elaborate LAM because your comment dosen't make sense to anything said above.

My vote goes to STARMAN. Best series ever. The early issues that featured Tony Harris on the art were incredible. And I liked the way Robinson ended the series too, his way.

What no one likes Youngblood?

Starman was great but got to be pretty heavy around issue 0. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I really like Jerry Ordway's Power of Shazam Graphic Novel. Haven't read much of the series that came out of this but the tone and even the art is retro but fun.

Was Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman ever a bonafide JSA member after CRISIS or did she retire her career after Hector was born? If so, then all is good - but if not, I apologise if my query was not relevant. I was responding to a comment made by Outdoor Miner which related to the "old guard" still active in the JSA at the time. Again, sorry for your confusion, RT.

The Power of Shazam series started off good and reintroed my favorite character of all time, but it kinda lost direction somewhere in the middle, IMO. I still enjoyed it, but I think it was flawed.

I have to throw my votes behind "Starman" and "Sandman Mystery Theater" as well - those were awesome series that gave great depth and rich characterization to original and well plotted stories as well as paying homage to DC's past.

Speaking of paying homage, wasn't there a mini-series which had covers based on the titles of the1940's comics (like SENSATION, ALL-STAR, etc.) which spotlighted the JSA?