Cause of the 90's Dark-Age/Tinfoil-Age/Shock & Awe era, it's what sold the most creating the Speculator market boon: People not buying for characters, but for
events, and particularly around "
Death-Events".
Mid 80's
Bronze Age ended with Crisis (death of Allen) 1985, and the Bronze-Age "Relevancy" taken to it's dramatic end - Watchmen, Dark Knight, where comics were now commentary on Superhero themselves, vs. Vigilantism.
What followed was the
Dark Age or Shock & Awe age, the most shallow aping of those ^ books, with none of the "Relevance".
Instead replaced by banal, shallow, cynical glorification of violence, mindlessly aping those two books with eXtreme deaths! And events.
Death of Todd (complete with torture, a gruesome 1-(1900 #money generating number, so the "fans" could participate, and vote in the Death), Death of Superman (where it was solidified as a money generating Event), Breaking Batman, blowing up Green Arrow so Conner can take over, crippling Batgirl, Insane Jordan Killing the Corps etc... drove the industry and the creation of the speculator or tinfoil-age, as speculators started buying for supposed "key-issues" meaning anything with
shocking crippling, character heal-turns, deaths, and events, they bought multiple of copies of.
Pitched marketed and sold as "Key-Issues" =
"in this issue _____ is Crippled, goes Insane, Dies! ...etc! " The character or their history didn't mater, what mattered was now any mindless shocking violent, easy hook, which they bought in droves.
As long as the same people still buzz and buy into the same crap, they will continue try to market to that same mentality, whenever they can.