Last night I was flippping through Marvel 80 for 80. If tou are unfamiliar with it, it is a book, released in late 2019 for Marvel's 80th anniversary, which chooses a single comic book or story to represent the company for every year of its existance from 1939 through 2018. As I was reading, I discovered that, once I got to a certain point, I had something to say about most of Marvel's choices, but not enough to fill an entire discussion each. So I thought why not start a thread discussing each of Marvel's choices? Going forward, I will post one year at a time, slowing my roll enough to allow everyone who wants to comment the opportunity to do so before moving on. Again, these are Marvel's choices, not necessarilly mine. but what about you? Agree? Disagree? What are your thoughts on Marvel's choice? Which series/storyline might you choose instead?
Replies
1996 - "Heroes Reborn"
I was even less enthusiastic about "Heroes Reborn" than I was about the "New Universe" (if such a thing is even possible), but far more trepidatious. This wasn't a case a populating a "new universe" with unknown characters; it was removing a host of Marvel's best-known characters from the MU proper and shunting them off to a new universe. Before looking at the results, let's look at the status quo of the titles in question at the time of the "Onslaught" crossover which led to the "Heroes Reborn" universe.
HEROES:
Fantastic Four: I stopped reading Fantastic Four after the Simonson run (and stopped buying it with #400). The series came to an end with #416.
Avengers: Avengers was even worse. Remember "The Crossing"? What about "Timeslide"? The series came to an end with #402, but I found it to be virtually unreadable for at least 20 issues before that.
Iron Man: Iron Man was the worst of the lot. (I'm sure I don't have to convince anyone who has read "Teen Tony" of that.) The series ended with #332, but even I, completeist that I am, could not read (or buy) beyond #327.
Captain America: Captain America was the biggest travesty. After ten years of lackluster stories by Mark Gruenwald, Mark Waid and Steve Garney finally put the series back on track with #444. But that didn't stop Marvel from cancelling it with #454 when the Image hotshots (Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee) wanted to include Captain America in "Heroes Reborn." To this day I am thankful that Waid and Garney agreed to return after the year-long fiasco.
Hulk: Peter David's Hulk was arguably Marvel's best series at the time of "Onslaught" (except for maybe Waid and Garney's Captain America). The hotshots wanted to use the Hulk in the "Heroes Reborn" universe as well, but Marvel was able to "split" the character so that he could be used as a supporting character in the HRU without having to cancel his MU series.
HEROES REBORN:
Fantastic Four: Jim Lee's Fantasic Four was probably the best of the lot, yet it was clear that he used the opportunity to cherry-pick 35 years worth of FF stories to topload the series with such characters as the Mole Man, Sub-Mariner, Dr. Doom, the Black Panther, the Inhumans, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, etc., all drawn in Lee's distinctive style.
Avengers: I don't recall much about this series.
Iron Man: I don't recall much about this series.
Captain America: "Heroes Reborn" Captain America by Rob Liefeld was inarguably the worst of the lot. The art was inept, far below professional level. Liefeld removed the classic "A" from Cap's mask and replaced it with a "rock star" eagle emblem. Liefeld left the series after only six issues, under circumstances I no longer recall. Just to prove how generic his plots were, he took them back to his own "Awesome Entertainment" and turned them into Fighting American stories. Captain America was the biggest travesty all around, replacing the best of the cancelled series with the worst of the replacements.
I don't have much to add. Your comments mirror my own thoughts pretty well, and that cover, I think, shows just how bad Liefeld's art was. I do remember one thing about HR Iron Man: He had big, ungainly exhaust pipes sticking out of his back.
Yes, that he did.
1997 - "Justice... Like Lightning!"
I always felt a little "cheated" by Thunderbolts. I'll explain why. I the lead-up to "Heroes Reborn," Marvel announce not only that a new group would arise to fill the gap left in the MU proper by the departure of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, but also that the new team would stick around after the heroes returned. Hulk was probably the best comic Marvel was publishing at the time, and I was there for the Thunderbolts' debut in #449. "Okay," I thought. "So far so good." I'll try the debut issue. Marvel introduces new characters all the time. I assumed these new "Thunderbolts" were simply players who, while the Avengers and th FF were around, felt they weren't ready for prime time. after the heroes, disappeared, however, they decided to step up. Then I read the first issue, got to the last page, and I still remember my exact thought: "Oh, that makes sense." I was surprised, but I wasn't shocked. Then the news spread and fandom exploded! I always felt a bit cheated because it never occurred to me going in that there was some big "mystery" to solve. I would have liked to have taken a crack at it; I'm sure I would have figured it out. But now I'll never know. I bought/read only the first few issues, but years later I collected/read the entire series in tpb.
Harrold and Thomas chose the final page of #1 as their image, but the cover of #1 was their secondary image. Here's mine.
I had much the same reaction and for much the same reasons. I didn't know there was a mystery to be solved, so the Big Reveal was a surprise, but like you, I wasn't shocked. I knew all the players, so my comic book brain grasped who was who and what was what right away. I thought it was darn clever. Nobody "cheated" by using powers they didn't previously have, so bascially they all just changed clothes. (And Zemo exchanged one full face mask for another.) So I could have guessed if I had been trying. But I wasn't trying, and I don't think I was supposed to. (Because then I wouldn't have been surprised.) Busiek pulled off a slick trick, and I was well satisfied -- and curious what Zemo's endgame was.
As to the cover above, Hulk in blue pants always makes me do a double take. It's ... it's ... wrong.
If my reaction helps with your sense of being cheated, there it is.
1998 - "Guardian Devil"
I like to think that Marvel took what it learned from "Heroes Reborn" and applied it to "Marvel Knights." This time, when they farmed out some of their most popular characters to a pair of hotshot artists (Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti rather than Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld), they kept the series in the Marvel Universe proper, "separate but equal" so to speak. i said everything I have to say about "guardian Devil" over on the Marvel Knights Daredevil discussion.
Agree/Disagree: Disagree. If anything, I would have given the nod to the "Marvel Knights" line in general instead of one title/storyline specifically. Besides, there's a much more worthy endeavor I associate with 1998.
Alternate 1998 - "Heroes Return"
There was a time in the '90s I didn't think Marvel would ever recover from the loss of the Image hotshots... not that I personally thought they were so great, but most Marvel titles reached their nadir after their departure. But in 1998, the heroes returned, and all four of the series were better before they were "reborn." It's funny... one day months before the heroes returned, a Marvel rep stopped by my LCS at the time. It was a Wednesday after COB, so the store was crowded. One of the questions I remember him asking was whether Marvel should resume the legacy numbering (although that was not a term that was used then) or restart the four affected series with a "new number one." there were six or eight of us in the group, and the opinion was unanimous that the series in question should return to the legacy numbering. The rep said that that was the consensus of the stores he had visited across the region. I guess I don't have to tell you what decision Marvel evemntually made. I'm sure the sales figures of Spider-Man #1, X-Men #1 and X-Force #1 were more convincing than fan polls. So much for the concept of readers being the "true editors."
I ranked the four titles before and after the heroes were "reborn," so here's how I rank them after their return:
*I would have ranked Fantastic Four higher, but Scott Lobdell and Alan Davis stayed on the title only three issues before Chris Claremont took over and tried to drive a Fantastic Four-shaped peg into an X-Men-shaped hole.
1999 - "Marvel Knights: Inhumans"
Here is Harrold & Thomas fudging it once again in order to include both Marvel Knights Daredevil and MK Inhumans. The first four Marvel Knights series (Daredevil, Inhumans, Black Panther and Punisher) were released over the course of the same month, November 1998. Inhumans was a twelve-issue limited series, so techically the bulk of it fell in 1999, but the MK itteration of Black Panther lasted 62 issues, and of Daredevil 119. (This particular four-issue Punisher series was a joke.) Dealing with DD & Inhumans as individual series rather than collectively as "Marvel Knights" allowed Harrold & Thomas to have their cake and eat it, too. Otherwise, what would they have chosen for 1999? Let's take a look.
Both Hulk and Spider-Man were given "new number ones" in 1999. (Actually, Spider-Man was given two, Amazing and Peter Parker.) Other new series that year include Gambit, Earth X, Black Widow, The New Warriors and X-Men: The Hidden Years, but I'm not sure any of those warrant hanging an "image of the year" on. OTOH, I'm not real wild about Inhumans, either. I do re-read comics featuring the Inhumans from time-to-time. There are two Marvel Masterworks volumes, plus there is a tpb, The Origin of the Inhumans, which features all of their early appearances in chronological order. But I always stop short of the MK series. I read it once, and I remember it as being dark and not at all fun.
If it were up to me (and I was willing to fudge the release date), I'd've probably given the nod to Christopher Priest's Black Panther. That's the one which has had the longest-lasting impact over the years.
2000 - "Spider-Man for a New Generation"
The so-called "Ultimate" line struck me as a mash-up of the "New Universe" and "Heroes Reborn," so you can imagine how thrilled I was. I gave it two years, tops. I was wrong about that (it ended up lasting 15), but it was incorporated into the MU proper, at least parts of it, after a fashion. Guys our age are always complaining that not enough young people read comics, yet someone was buying these comics for a decade and a half, and I suspect it was them. I read quite a few of them early on and stuck with USM for about 30 issues or so before I finally gave it up, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the Lee/Romita era was "my" Spider-Man and I didn't need this replacement; for another, all of Brian Michael Bendis' characters spoke in the same odd dialect, a dialect I had never heard an actual human being speak. (In this respect, it is much like Chris Claremont's X-Men.) When Bendis and Bagley were closing in on surpassing Lee and Kirby's record for most consecutive issues by a single writer/artist team, I became interested again. (They eventually lasted 111 issues, breaking Lee/Kirby's record by three issues or so, depending on how you count.) I dropped it again soon after.
2001 - "Stand Tall"
For this section, Harrold & Thomas chose two full-page interior panels of Spider-Man #36 to represent 2001, and although they did mention Heroes and A Moment of Silence, those are the images I chose for this post (because this is my discussion and I can post whatever I want). I bought both those books, but I must admit I haven't looked at them since. Although I have read Spider-Man #36 from time-to-time since, I am more likely to re-read Captain America #200, in which the terrorists are defeated.
2002 - "Ultimates Assemble!"
The Ultimates is Mark Millar's version of the Avengers set in the "Ultimate" universe. It is not only dark, but dark and depressing. Captain America is a testosterone-fueled bully. I don't even like to think about it. The only bright spot is that it wasn't titled The Avengers.
My choice for 2002 would be the rebooted Captain America by John Ney Rieber and John Cassaday. This "new number one" was rebranded as "Marvel Knights," which is also dark in comparison to mainstream Marvel, but I think it was the right idea at the right time. Honestly, this new direction didn't quite click with me, but it was far better than the dystopian Ultimates.
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