Lest we forget the 90’s
If you type just “90’s” and “comics” into Google you’ll find a search page overflowing with negativity. Article after article about “why the 90’s sucked” or how the 90’s almost ended it all.
The 1990s certainly were an experimental time in comic’s history, it was also an era that set the stage for an entirely new industry dynamic. The rise of the independent brought an enormous amount of freedom and creativity to the medium that would shift the mindset of the publishers and the readers. Additionally, this time allowed the characters who traditionally filled the pages to flourish in other mediums, outside of comics.
Many of the issues that people seem to have with comics in the 90’s is the carelessness publishers seemed to embrace that disconnected them from their readers. Instead of giving readers the best stories they could, publishers instead opted to go the extra distance just for a quick buck. Crossovers, events, and variant covers filled the racks all with the sole intention of selling. It didn’t matter what filled these pages, just so long as people bought all of them, including the five variants of each.
This mentality can be seen within any market, as it is a product of decline and an attempt at immediate solutions. Why replace the foundation when you can just repaint the walls. Characters that found success during this time were run mercilessly into the ground, repeatedly, and then given their own series, which often lacked any weight or sincerity. Both of which are of course key factors in any successful story.
Take for example Carnage; a new Spider-Man villain created in 1991 who was given his own event in 1993, “Maximum Carnage”, one of the most convoluted and lifeless stories to take up an issue, let alone fourteen. The problem here wasn’t the character, the art or anything else that can drag a series down. Rather, it was the blatant exploitation, as everyone knew it, from the authors to the readers.
If it weren’t for this mentality on the part of the publishers though it is hard to imagine that Image comics would have found the success that they did. Frustrations mounted for both creators and readers to the point where everyone felt neglected. Image certainly had the talent and the drive to succeed, but without the corresponding decline in publisher/reader relations the loyalty and familiarity would have gotten in the way of the burgeoning Image comics.
That said, as much as people complain about the quality of comics in the 90’s there truly were some gems that were not just great stories but great additions to their respective universes. Some well-established characters flourished during this time thanks to the tone of the industry. While some were doing their best to remain relevant, others were given the freedom to explore boundaries that had never been conceived of prior to the 90’s. Not because the talent wasn’t there before, but because these ideas would have been impossible to examine during the 60’s, 70’s and most of the 80’s. It wasn’t until the end of the 80’s that we saw the medium explore the darker directions that would permeate the 90’s. Darker themes filled conventionally “fun” books, which in some cases were for the better.
Grant Morrison’s work on the JLA would go on to inspire the fantastic animated series. The cartoon itself built upon the successes of Superman the Animated Series, and Batman the Animated series in their direction and style, but used Morrison’s progressive, entertaining stories as a template. The first mini-movie that introduced the series even featured Morrison’s White Martians, who he had created in his first arc as an alternative to the Martian Manhunter’s compassionate nature.
The 90’s also gave us one of the most successful and influential comic runs of all time, Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s X-Men, which featured diverse casts in some extremely intricate story lines. Just as JLA influenced the JLA cartoon, so too did X-Men with it’s animated series that involved some pretty high brow concepts for a show meant to be followed by kids. Having re-watched the show recently I wonder how the hell I kept up as a 7-year-old. At the time though I think I found most enjoyment in just seeing these characters’ adventures on a weekly basis, even if I couldn’t fully grasp the continued pertinence of the Age of Apocalypse, or the Phoenix saga. The same can be said for Spider-Man’s animated series that was just as influential. The significance of these cartoons is monumental, as their inspiration was crucial to understanding the weight these stories carried.
While the 90’s were marred by certain philosophies in publishing, and exploitation for mainstream success it is important not to overlook the positive aspects of this time that made way for new readers by establishing the source material in other mediums. The animated series’ helped define the era and attract an entire new generation that otherwise may have missed out on these essential components to the overall development of many of these characters.
