KC COLUMN: NEVER-ENDING STORY: THE final chapter

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Crisis #1

by KC Carlson

PREVIOUSLY ON NEVER-ENDING STORY: (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) The 1980s were a particularly fertile period for creativity in superhero comic books. A lot of outside aspects — changes in distribution, new formats, creators wanting new outlets to express their creativity leading to new comics publishers, and an overriding feeling that comics as a medium was growing by quantum leaps — cause this. 1986 was a particularly good year for comics, including Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Maus, and lots of other memorable projects. It felt like a new golden Age — but there was darkness brewing.

It is tough to go over in detail the so-called modern Age (also occasionally referred to as the Iron or Copper Age, in keeping with the previously well established metallic eras of Golden, Silver, and Bronze) from the mid-80s up, as there is no singular agreed-upon event to mark its beginning. In contrast, the Barry Allen Flash revival in 1956 normally defines the beginning of the Silver Age. Generally, this period is considered to begin about 1985-1986, encompassing both Marvel’s secret Wars (superhero comics’ first big event) and DC’s crisis on limitless Earths (first superhero event showing a clear transition/evolution from one thing to the next). some of the crucial elements of this era of comics include the rise of independently published comics, comic creators becoming a lot more involved in the improvement of the industry (as well as becoming a lot more well-known both for their work and as personalities), and lots of characters — both new and well-established — that are a lot more psychologically and emotionally complex.

It’s also the first era of comics where the stories of the characters, the histories of the creators, and myriad behind-the-scenes service and comics industry mechanics all combined in the minds of the everyday comics fan. That’s due to a vigorous fan press and exacerbated by the rapid development of technology past the point of some publishers to successfully control — or suppress — it. As the characters themselves got grimmer, and as industry rumors, lawsuits, designer feuds, and backstabbings became everyday fannish talking points, the era also colloquially became known by another name — The Dark Age.

Darkness Brewing…

Vigilante #1

Many of the darker elements first began to crop up in some of the best loved (and best-selling) comics of the era: Uncanny X-Men, Daredevil, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and Watchmen. even the superhero wallpaper of crisis on limitless Earths couldn’t disguise the fact that hundreds of characters died, topped by two fan-favorites: The Flash and Supergirl, both well past their prime as effective top-tier characters and floundering in meandering storylines.

At first, the growing darkness was mainly attributed to a new “realism” in comics and acclaimed as something that was long needed for the ongoing evolution of comics as an artform. lots of of the earliest stories exploring these themes are still today considered classics in the field. but as lesser creative talents began to use the same themes in their stories — to much lesser effect — “realism” began to look just like another comic book trend, something to be copied and imitated because it was trendy, but mostly because it looked like it would sell like gangbusters. few creators could manage adult themes as well as Alan Moore did, and without that underlying content, the result appeared as violence for its own sake, “grim and gritty” as a trend instead of something severe to say.

To be fair, the same things were also happening elsewhere in popular culture. Grittier films were growing away from their “cult” status into bona fide popular blockbusters. television (another medium, much like comics, that mainly took its lead from what was happening elsewhere) soon followed suit as well.

In superhero comics, what must have been the flowering of a wellspring of creative ideas — comics embracing other cultures, elements from ancient history, and genre-busting stories involving supernatural, horror, and gritty crime noir elements, mainly became the norm. The anti-hero was king, and comics’ primary colors became black, gray, and red.

It was one thing for comics to add characters like The Punisher, and then much later The Vigilante, and Deathstroke the Terminator, as brutal characters like this were a natural outgrowth of the changing times. At first, a lot of of these characters were portrayed as standard villains, but as times changed, so did the way they operated. They went after bad people who were badder than they were, so somehow that justified them using brutal force and deadly weapons to kill their enemies.

A fan who didn’t take pleasure in those type of stories, who didn’t care to see who could be a lot more brutal thanthe next guy, could neglect them. They were always a bit off to the side of the mainstream. but then “grim and gritty” began to affect the standard heroes — and ultimately change the way that they operated. For example, Batman was darkened, which makes sense for him as a “dark avenger” type. but some creators took that too far, losing the sense of his core motivations for doing what he did. Some characters must still exist to be inherently and unwaveringly good and heroic — just as there were now characters that were inherently dark and twisted and amoral.

Many fans drew the line at making every older character have some sort of hidden trauma or something that bent them into a psychological pretzel. For example, Superman was a shadow of what he must be, typically traumatized by doubt (or dreadful haircuts). a lot of of the X-Men were unrecognizable from the heroes long-time fans grew up with. As were dozens more.

Plus, it was exceptionally silly for everyone to start wearing leather jackets to make them look hard back in the ‘90s. Now, that made me laugh! We just got a flashback to that era with Jim Lee’s redesign of wonder Woman’s costume, a look that could easily have been dropped in the pages of any comic back then.

Even the service of Comics Turns Dark

Grim and Gritty was everywhere, not just in the pages of the comics themselves. In our world, comics went through a substantial public renaissance in the late 1980s, mostly due to the revolutionary evolution of comic books themselves. They began to be taken seriously as an artform, discussed frequently in magazines and newspapers, plus scholars were getting involved, suggesting that behind the juvenile trappings and origins of comics and their characters, it was now time to start taking them seriously.

Hollywood was certainly taking them seriously. but despite some early successes (the first couple of Superman films), it took a long time to get the comic book motion picture to where it would be a success not just to comic book fans, but with the general public as well. (Waiting for the proper technology to progress to capture super-powered action on film was an evident stumbling block). So there was lots of big money just waiting in the wings.

Howard the Duck #1 was one of the earliest comics affected by speculators.

Not that comics were exactly lacking for money in the 80s and early 90s. The comic evolution certainly generated a bunch of artistic media praise, but it also spawned a raft of POW! ZAP! COMIC books worth big BUCKS! coverage. newspaper and magazines reported that old comic books — especially first issues and origins of popular characters — were going for thousands and thousands of dollars! and approaching millions! This was the birth of the modern comic book speculator, getting comics for their monetary worth (which was bound to go up, right?) instead of their content.

X-Men #1 featured four covers that connected to form a single image.

Of course, the big bucks angle was just the headline and the lead of the story. You had to read deeper to discover that only certain comics were worth crazy money — and normally only because of their age, scarcity, and condition. but a lot of folks just saw the dollar signs and didn’t bother to read onward. So, while publishers were delighted to have the substantial influx of sales during this period, it was very tough for them to get a sensible accounting of whether these sales were brand-new readers attracted to the stories and creators, or what percentages of sales accounted for speculators (or retailers) getting multiple case quantities (either 200 or 300 copies, depending on a book’s page count and thickness). I suspect that even today, a good percentage of merchants from that time still have unsold cases of Jim Lee’s X-Men #1 in their backrooms or warehouses. (I personally know several.) who knows how may individual comics “hoarders” are still sitting on theirs, waiting for the day their four-color horse finally comes in.

Enhancements? What Enhancements?

Eclipso featured a “gem” on the cover.

Bottom line, a lot of publishers didn’t really care who was getting their comics, as long as they kept selling. a lot of of them greatly encouraged speculation by frequently canceling long-running comics series just so they could start them over with new big-selling #1 issues. Or adding special “enhancements” (“speculator bait” according to at least one comics executive of the day). These enhancements included multiple “variant” covers drawn by different artists, special fluorescent or “sparkly” inks, fold-out gatefold covers, foil or “holo-graphics” covers, polybagged books (usually with extras), holograms, die-cut or embossed covers, and even one-time only covers with “colorforms”-like plastic stickers or plastic jewels (which damaged a large percentage of the print run of the comics).

[Aside: Back in the day, while walking down the hall at DC Comics, a marketing executive pulled me into his office,trying to find new ideas for cover enhancements, because they were running out. I sarcastically suggested that they might try a cover based on the old “Magic Screen” toy, where you draw a picture on a piece of plastic and then when you lift up the plastic, your picture disappears. fans wouldn’t be able to resist pulling up the cover (and erasing the art), I suggested, so that they would have to go out and get another copy if they wanted the cover. Damn if he didn’t actually think about it for a few seconds…]

By the mid-90s, a lot of of the speculators finally wised up, realized that there wasn’t going to be much return on their investment, and bailed on the comics industry. With so lots of people getting the same “collector’s editions” in substantial quantities, there was never going to be any scarcity to create the rise in value they were seeking. They left behind millions of unsold comics in comic shops (leading to the closing of thousands of comic and card shops) and forced the comics publishers to greatly minimize their operations (or go out of business). around this time, marvel was publishing over 200 comics a month — a lot of of which disappeared practically overnight — and the company ended up declaring bankruptcy. even today, a lot of comics fans don’t fully realize how close the company pertained to disappearing completely, mostly due to a lot of behind-the-scenes service and stock market shenanigans.

Many other publishers either disappeared or scaled back greatly. The loss of so lots of comics publishers (and comics) started a domino effect in the direct Market comics distribution system. When the dust finally settled, only diamond Comic Distributors survived, because of lots of exclusive distribution deals with crucial publishers. All this greatly affected the comic book service at the time, and lots of industry watchers report that the industry has yet to fully recover — and may have actually settled into a new, albeit tentative, status quo.

But before all that industry badness happened, other aspects made the 1990s a very interesting decade to watch.

Image of the 90s

Savage Dragon

Everybody knows the story by now. several artists working for marvel unexpectedly got white-hot and started feeling like there was something out there beyond working for the house that Stan and Jack Built, especially after enjoying what happened to Jack. people like Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and their friends were moving millions of marvel books every month based on their talents — and for only page rate and royalties. who wouldn’t want a bigger piece of that? So, off they went and created image Comics, an indy company where they were the bosses — and the creators owned what they created. (This only applied to the founders, considering that they swiftly put into place the same kinds of work-for-hire contracts they had previously chafed under.) They created comics like Spawn, WildC.A.T.S., Youngblood, and savage Dragon (the only one still running by its original creator, name Withheld, er… Erik Larsen) and for a while, they were the new kings of comics.

Image sold a ton of comics — lots of of them multiples to speculators — and probably not quite as lots of comics as they were selling for Marvel, but considering that they were now getting a bigger percentage of the profit, that really didn’t matter much to them. Suddenly, there were new young fans just as rabid for the new image books as the so-called “Marvel Zombies” were a fan-generation previous.

And here’s where something interesting happened. lots of of the image books were being written and drawn by artists, lots of of whom did not have much prior experience in writing comics. It was pretty evident by checking out them that a lot of image comics favored art over writing. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with that sort of approach, a lot of folks that have read comics for a long while, including people like me who look at them in a cultural/social/artistic, quasi-scholarly way, will tell you that a lot of of the terrific comic book stories