Did DC emerge from the '90s unscathed?

[Sacred Knight]

The 90s gets more hate than it deserves. Yes there was that whole "extreme" thing but in the end it created a lot of good stuff. And the bad stuff was gotten rid of. Really the worst thing to happen in the 90s was the speculator crash, and that had nothing to do with the actual creative content.

[HandofPrometheus]

I've been reading old DC runs/stories the past couple years and I gotta say that DC's 90s was so good.

Peter David's Supergirl
O'Neil's Azrael runs
Post-Zero Hour Legion of Superheroes
The Power of Shazam
Priests' The Ray
Milestone Comics

[Confuzzled]

All the BTAS/TNBA/DCAU comic adaptations did a great job introducing 90s kids to the comics too. For all the gloom and doom surrounding the 90s, don't think it really affected DC to a noticeable extent.

[Electricmastro]

I think that Marvel had more of a dark age in the 90s than DC due in part to their bankruptcy issue and arguably capitalizing more on the excess of variant covers and just all these sorts of gimmicks they did in attempting to make as much money as possible at the risk of lower quality material.

[sunofdarkchild]

Creatively the 90s was a golden era for DC. Marvel was terrible, but DC had some of its best material ever.

The triangle-era Superman - probably the most 'real' and fleshed out version of Superman to ever exist. 48 issues a year of the sort of world-building and character development we'll likely never see again in comics.

Batman under Dixon and O'Neil. Not as amazing as the Superman run, but still amazingly consistent over the course of the decade. They are two of the most respected names among Batman fans for a reason.

Robin under Dixon and Supergirl under PAD - spinoffs that were even better than the already great Batman and Superman books.

Morrison on JLA.

And that's not covering things like Vertigo, Kingdom Come, ect and so many other stories and runs that define who many of these characters are to this day despite the hard and multiple soft reboots over the years.

[Dr. Ellingham]

The argument made is that while DC did have the "dark age" character types with Lobo and Azrael, however they were more of a commentary of them rather than a straight example.

A part of it was the "kewel" and "extreme" nature of the 90s, sure, so DC did a lot of that.

But if you look back just prior to 1990, it was clear DC was having a mid-life crisis with its superhero line. After Crisis they tried to Marvel-ize their line, nerfing Superman and removing as much scale and fantasy as they could. They were after "grounded", "relatable". Doing it mostly poorly, too.

But by the time Image hit, DC had a real business crisis, being in 3rd place for the first time. So the extreme kewel stuff had to be applied to Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, etc. too.

But by 1999/2000? I think they got the ship back on track. In large part because they'd brought in writers that understood DC and its appeal. Especially writers like Mark Waid, James Robinson, Grant Morrison, and some new kid named Geoff Johns. And there were great books that "felt" like DC stories again - Flash, JLA, Kingdom Come, JSA, Starman, etc. And most of the faux extreme stuff was long gone.

[Ascended]

I don't think I'd say DC came out of the 90's *completely* unscathed, because a chunk of stuff did go off the rails during that time and there were tons of 90's characters who ended up collecting dust (like the Spawn rip off version of Manhunter, among many others).

But for DC the 90's were largely a golden time, with tons of great books from nearly every corner of DC, and all the crap we bitch about in the 90's; the excess, the giant guns and countless pouches, were rarely ever a issue with DC and more an issue with Marvel and Image.

The worst parts of the 90's didnt hit DC until 2011.

[Gaastra]

Well dc gets blamed for the comic crash a lot due to death of superman. They more or less started the "comics are collectors items and you will be rich if you buy all covers to the death of superman!"


Then there was image. After image pretty art pages beat out story. Avengers vol 2 (heroes reborn) half the issues are huge pin ups with little story. Marvel and dc both did this plus "extreme" heroes started showing up.

With that said both marvel and dc had some really great titles and stories in the 90s. Yeah there was crap but there really was some great stories also.

[iron chimp]

There had already been a speculator crash with indie books in the comic shops in 1980s so when DC and Marvel entered the shops too i guess it was inevitable they were create another boom and bust.

[scary harpy]

The 90s were the Age of GrimDark.

If you enjoyed The Dark Knight Returns, they you would enjoy the 90s. Every issue of almost every comic was The Darker Night Returns Again: The Series.

There was no joy. There was no light. There were still heroes in underwear.

Characters were crippled, ignored or killed; some were simply erased from existence.

Levity was forbidden. Extreme Violence was the norm. If the Watchmen were cool, then the 90s were cooler. Absolute Darkness makes for better stories apparently.

I found the 90s depressing. I don’t know if DC was scathed or unscathed by 90s. I don’t think the GrimDark is finished yet.

[K7P5V]

The 90s were the Age of GrimDark.

If you enjoyed The Dark Knight Returns, they you would enjoy the 90s. Every issue of almost every comic was The Darker Night Returns Again: The Series.

There was no joy. There was no light. There were still heroes in underwear.

Characters were crippled, ignored or killed; some were simply erased from existence.

Levity was forbidden. Extreme Violence was the norm. If the Watchmen were cool, then the 90s were cooler. Absolute Darkness makes for better stories apparently.

I found the 90s depressing. I don’t know if DC was scathed or unscathed by 90s. I don’t think the GrimDark is finished yet.

I agree with everything you wrote, except the "forbidden levity" part.

If you knew where to look, you could still find a fair amount of it (especially, if you're a fan of Peter David).

[married guy]

The 90s were the Age of GrimDark.

If you enjoyed The Dark Knight Returns, they you would enjoy the 90s. Every issue of almost every comic was The Darker Night Returns Again: The Series.

There was no joy. There was no light. There were still heroes in underwear.

Characters were crippled, ignored or killed; some were simply erased from existence.

Levity was forbidden. Extreme Violence was the norm. If the Watchmen were cool, then the 90s were cooler. Absolute Darkness makes for better stories apparently.

I found the 90s depressing. I don’t know if DC was scathed or unscathed by 90s. I don’t think the GrimDark is finished yet.

While this is certainly true, there was also some great stuff in the 90s that wasn't grim & gritty clenched teeth and trauma.

Young Heroes In Love
Major Bummer
Starman
The Ray
Superboy
Robin
Power of Shazam
The Flash

Some wonderful stuff!

[kingaliencracker]

I wouldn't say they came out unscathed, because I think the sins of the 90's reverberate today.

Having said that, Batman, Superman, Flash, JLA, Elseworlds...so many of my favorite DC stories came from the 90's.

[Agent Z]

The 90s were the Age of GrimDark.

If you enjoyed The Dark Knight Returns, they you would enjoy the 90s. Every issue of almost every comic was The Darker Night Returns Again: The Series.

There was no joy. There was no light. There were still heroes in underwear.

Characters were crippled, ignored or killed; some were simply erased from existence.

Levity was forbidden. Extreme Violence was the norm. If the Watchmen were cool, then the 90s were cooler. Absolute Darkness makes for better stories apparently.

I found the 90s depressing. I don’t know if DC was scathed or unscathed by 90s. I don’t think the GrimDark is finished yet.

Young Justice
The Ray
Wonder Woman
Superboy
Batgirl
Robin
Green Lantern

This just off the top of my head of books were levity was very much allowed.

[DavidRA]

I enjoyed DC in the nineties.