Comic books in the 90s: Part 1

There are some diamonds in the rough in a decade that wasn't the best for comic books
On
March 18, 2009
The 80's were a great decade for comic books."Crisis on Infinite Earths", "Watchmen", "Superman: the Man of Steel" mini series, "Dark Knight Returns" and "the Killing Joke" all came out in the 80s alone.

So needless to say, the 90s HAD to be good, since most of the talent in the 80s still were working in the trade at the turn of the decade. Well... not so fast.

It turns out that the 90s were a decade best forgotten when it comes to comic books. This decade had the WAY overhyped Todd Macfarlane "Spider-man" series.


"Spider-Man" #1
Just because it sells over a million copies kids, doesn't mean it's a good book.


Not to mention the Chris Claremont and Jim Lee run on "X-Men", which was ok but did not live up to expectations.


One of the many covers to"X-Men"# 1


And the event fans would rather forget-"DC vs Marvel" .



"DC Vs Marvel"

However, despite the low quality books that came out in the 90s, there were some diamonds in the rough that still stand the test of time.

The first story I will showcase is the "Knightfall" saga in the Batman books. It spanned almost a year and a half, which is very long for a storyline. This is the story where the Dark Knight gets his back broken by a ruthless villian that goes by one name... Bane.



"Batman" #497

After Batman gets his back broken, Bruce finds a new person to take over the mantel of Batman while he heals, named Jean-Paul Valley.


Not only did Jena-Paul Valley become Batman, he also got a new costume too.


While Batman, Jean-Paul Valley goes kind of insane- becoming more and more violent as Batman, to the point where he acts more like a villain than a hero! Then a healed Bruce Wayne, Nightwing (the first Robin Dick Grayson) and Robin (Tim Drake) team up to defeat Valley.
After the story ended, Valley went on to star in his own book "Azrael".

Another notable event that occurred in the 90s was the death and eventual return of the last son of Krypton, Superman.



Cover to"Superman"# 75.

In this story, Superman faces a new villain named Doomsday, whose sole purpose was to kill all living life. He was born on Krypton, made by a scientist named Berton. Berton created a life form, but kept killing it, so the life form would develop a natural immunity to environments. After many many tests, Doomsday was the result.



Doomsday, the thing that would kill Superman.

After Doomsday landed on Earth, he first attacked the Justice League. He easily defeated them.


Doomsday smacking the Justice League around.

After he made his way to Metropolis, that is when things really picked up. When Superman and Doomsday battled, they nearly destroyed the city. The battle lasted four issues. What was interesting about those four issues is that in each issue, the panels got bigger.

For example, In the first book that Superman and Doomsday battled, there were five or six panels per page. By the last issue in the story, it only had splash pages, or pages with only one panel.

This was an excellent story. It brought Superman back into the spotlight again. This story also introduced some new characters like Steel, Cyborg Superman, the Eradicator, and Superboy.


Steel


Cyborg Superman



Eradicator Superman



Superboy, who would become really popular when he joined the Teen Titans in 2003.

This concludes part one. Part 2 will be up soon.
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