It came from the 90's

What's that you say? You long for the good ol' days when terrorism was a situation best left to law enforcement, and the country had a fever for which the only prescription was -- more impeachment? If that's the case, then it sounds like you're pining for a return to the 90s. Judging by the 2006 elections, so do many of your countrymen.

Since we're turning back the clock to the days of American retreats in the face of Islamic terror and Democrats getting credit for a booming economy they had nothing to do with, now is a good time to review the canker sore that was 90s comics.

True, just as the entire political history of the 90s wasn't a complete waste (1994, anyone?) so it was that not all 90s comics were bad. Gems like "Marvels" and "Kingdom Come" as well as Mark Waid's runs on "Captain America" and "Flash" come immediately to mind. There were some unsung titles like Milestone's "Static" and DC's "Sandman Mystery Theatre" that count in my book as classics. I'm sure if pressed, there are a lot of great reads I could name. But, again like the politics of the same era, when 90s comics were bad, they achieved depths of vapidness and shoddiness hitherto unimagined.

This week, Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort is dedicating his blog to focus on a handful of 90's four-color, partial-birth abortions. And Tom should know... because he's talking about comics he wrote.

Brevoort's self-deprecating posts this week are worth a read if you were a comics fan growing up and want to be reminded of why you quit reading them. An example:

Continuing on with this week's theme of BAD COMICS I WROTE, let's take a look at the SPIDER-MAN: FUNERAL FOR AN OCTOPUS limited series.

FUNERAL came about as a "budget-buster", a project that was created in order to make certain that a particular financial benchmark was achieved in a given quarter. At the time, the Clone Saga had just begun in the Spidey books, and was generating some heat. There was a new character who'd come onto the scene, a villain by the name of Kaine--and as part of the ramp-up for this character, to make him seem cool, the decision was made to have him kill Doctor Octopus--permanently.

Emphasis mine. That second paragraph is such a window into everything that was wrong with comics of this that era.

Project conceived to pad financial reports for investors before company crashes and burns in bankruptcy (scroll down for story)? Check.

Poorly conceived plot where we ret-con the origin of a famous hero so that the character our company has spent decades building good will for turns out to have been -- oh, I don't know, let's go with something both cliche and stupid -- a clone? Check.

Introduce a new 90s EXTREME!!! villain to replace the classic villains that no one has the intellectual energy to make fresh? Check.

Have said 90s EXTREME!!! villain kill classic villain in order to "seem cool"? Check and mate!

Sometimes I wonder if as comics go, so goes America. Many 90s comics were big on looking cool -- typified by the fetish for gimmick covers with embossed foil and holographs -- low on substance, even by comic book standards. I think the same could be said about the Clinton years when the times seemed good, but looking back through the lens of 9/11, we see how frivolous it all was. Hube's noted the leftist, America-hating tilt in today's comics. And now we have a Democrat Congress that, in its heart-of-hearts, probably does see America as the problem.

Excelsior!

Bonus, Mildly Disturbing Factoids! Good Lord. Found while putting in the links: Michael Jackson almost bought Marvel Comics. And Fabio was once considered for the roll of The Might Thor in a movie. And yes, both of these atom-smashing ideas happened in the 90s.

Posted by JakeM at November 9, 2006 09:50 PM | TrackBack