Early post-Crisis Appreciation

[Dataweaver]

I've done Appreciation Threads for the Bronze Age and for the 90s; this thread is for the period between the two. Starting around the Crisis on Infinite Earths and ending somewhere between the Death of Superman and Zero Hour in the early 90s, this was an era of transformation as DC began to build a singular DC Universe.

John Byrne rebooted Superman, the first explicit reboot of a DC character since the start of the Silver Age, and opened the floodgates for new takes on DC's biggest names, with Batman and Wonder Woman following closely behind. Some worked out better than others; Hawkworld was a great reboot of Hawkman's origin story, but it created no end of problems when it was decided to follow it up with an ongoing series featuring Hawkman's arrival on Earth in the present.

The Detroit-based Justice League disbanded; and in the Legends crossover event, Justice League International was founded, composed of heroes that had previously inhabited different Earths; it was a team that literally could not have existed before the Crisis.

Speaking of Legends, this era also was defined by the annual crossover events of which Legends was but the first. It was followed by Millennium, Cosmic Odyssey, Invasion, War of the Gods, Armageddon 2001, Eclipso: the Darkness Within, Bloodlines, and finally Zero Hour. (There were more after that; but even the last few that I've named are potentially beyond the scope of this era.)

Over in the Batman books, the Joker murdered the recently rebooted Jason Todd and paralyzed Barbara Gordon, the recently retired Batgirl; this lead to the arrival of Tim Drake as the third Robin and Barbara taking on the identity of Oracle in the pages of Suicide Squad, which was itself a creation of the 80s. (There had been an earlier Suicide Squad; but this new one was a radically different concept.)

This era also featured the Wolfman/Perez New Titans run, the team dropping the “Teen” from their name as they were now in their early 20s. Wally West started his career as the Flash during this era, too. By the end of this era, the New Titans had basically fallen apart.

There was more that happened during this era. But frankly, I missed most of it; so I'll leave it up to others to fill in the blanks.

[HandofPrometheus]

My favorite era. I grew up reading the new 52 but after going back and reading these stories I just can't help but feel bad. So much good things were cast aside.

John Byrnes Superman is my favorite Supes ever. They way he was drawn and written made me love him even more.

Ostrander's Suicide Squad was the first and last time Suicide Squad was ever written interesting and good. I discovered my love for Bronze Tiger here. It was also interesting to learn about Oracles first appearance took place in this title.

JLI is my favorite iteration if the JL next to Meltzer's/McDuffie's. It had so much personality and used the "underdogs" of the DC Universe so well.

I loved William Payton as Starman. I don't know too much about the others but I first saw Payton in Metal and I wanted to see what he was like.

These mini crossovers were also good and felt like each and every part of the DCU was interconnected. I liked seeing very hero join together and not just the popular ones.

[Dataweaver]

Ah, yes; thanks for reminding me of Will Peyton, a sadly underappreciated Starman.

This was also the last era of the original Legion of Superheroes, the longest holdout of the pre-Crisis DCU. It survived mainly because it was set in a different time period, and rarely had to make concessions to changes taking place elsewhere at DC — with one monumental exception, namely John Byrne's Man of Steel and the removal of Superboy from his history.

[Thor2014]

It's a shame WP Starman didn't take off. I thought Roger Stern did some fine work on that series.