DC early 90's changes:Good,Bad or Ugly?

[The no face guy]

The 90's were my senior high & party years, so comics were touch and go for me but...

The Good:

Early 90's Legion of Super heroes
Robinson on Starman
Waid on the Flash
Dixon on Birds of Prey at the tail end
Mosaic (Can't vouch for it today)
The Arsenal mini series with Vandal Savage was fun

The Bad:

Turning my favourite Legionairre into a giant fur ball

The Ugly:

The Character Nihilism that went on to boost sales, or bring in younger versions of heroes. I'm sort of mellowing on the whole character replacement...too old to care, but Hal going insane, Ollie getting blown up in a helicopter, Batman Knightfall ect, pretty much just drove me away from comics.

[married guy]

It took me a while to get to Starman, but you're right. It was exquisite.

And the Peyer/Morales Hourman was fantastic. As I recall it spun out of Morrison's JLA and the Robinson/Goyer/Johns JSA, both of which I loved a lot. But that was very late 90s wasn't it? Maybe I'm wrong but that feels like a very different era than Bane/Doomsday.

It WAS late 90's! 97 or 98 I think....

[Buried Alien]

90s DC is my least favorite DC. It's the only time I took a couple years off of reading comic books.

A big part of that had to do with where I was at in my life, in my early-mid 20s, living and working in a punk club, and beginning my career as a playwright and theatre director. But an equally big part of it was that, whenever I checked in, I found almost everything both bad and ugly. Death of Superman/Doomsday, Bane breaking Batman's back (and just the fact of Bane, as boring to me as Doomsday was), the JLA that was neither JLA nor JLI, what they did to Hal Jordan... Apologies to those that are fond of those years, but I found it all to be banal and bankrupt of ideas. And I really didn't like the EXTREME! art, across the line.

I remember how excited I was when I heard about JLA #1 by Morrison. That brought me all the way back and I've been back every New Comic Day since, until, well, you know...

I'm sure there was a lot of great stuff mixed in with the stuff that didn't interest me. If I were to read this thread I'd probably find out about a lot of it. Since I have DCUniverse and the comics library there, perhaps I will.

So much of our DC fandom patterns coincide that it's slightly unsettling.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Jon-El]

The early 90’s was the last time I bought a lot of comics. I’d continue reading until 2002 but my interest wasn’t there. I will say the 90’s were a weird time. I was finishing college and not able to get to the comic store much do I started buying mail order. I can’t remember what service I used but they provided a catalog with that month’s books. I was blown looking at the descriptions. “It’s all our war as A fights B! Ultra violent issue!” “Double sized bloodfest! Major death issue!” “Blood & guts from cover to cover.” I’m not exaggerating!! Every solicitation talked about how violent a book was. Admittedly this was more of an Image thing but I saw it with DC & Marvel. I was fairly young and into Mortal Kombat but I was like “geez what’s with all the blood talk?”

[Jekyll]

Two series that I haven't seen mentioned yet, Impulse and Power of Shazam! Both of those series are in my top 5 DC runs as well.

[K7P5V]

Power of Shazam!

To the utmost, I agree. Definitely, Ordway's The Power of SHAZAM! is a pleasantly good read:

[BohemiaDrinker]

Early 90's was pretty bad, which is funny because late 90's was probably the best DC has ever been, and the transition from early 90s suckness to late 90s greatness was almost unfelt.

It's like they continued on a bad path and eded up in a good place.

[Buried Alien]

Early 90's was pretty bad, which is funny because late 90's was probably the best DC has ever been, and the transition from early 90s suckness to late 90s greatness was almost unfelt.

It's like they continued on a bad path and eded up in a good place.

The early 90s did offer us some good stuff: I enjoyed THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN and KNIGHTFALL storylines, and of course, the early 90s was the era of Waid's FLASH. The mid-90s were rather dire, but I think KINGDOM COME was the turning point.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[mathew101281]

[BohemiaDrinker]

The early 90s did offer us some good stuff: I enjoyed THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN and KNIGHTFALL storylines, and of course, the early 90s was the era of Waid's FLASH. The mid-90s were rather dire, but I think KINGDOM COME was the turning point.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I, too, enjoyed both, but I don't think that I'd continue to if I had the courage to re-read them. That said, there sure was some good stuff, but what I remember from the early 90s is stuff like Extreme Justice, JL Task Force, DeathWing and so on, not to mention things like the Justice League "kinda sorta" keeping Giffen's line up but ditching the humour (I mean, what's the point?) and even Emerald Twilight. (I hate Hal Jordan, but that story was a low blow regardless).

I think that, as you said, KC was a turning point (thematically), and Zero Hour, as irrelevant as it seemed at the time of publication, made a good job of setting the stage for the later half of the decade - BY FAR my favorite DC period.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I've only quit reading DC comics twice in my life. Once was around 1995, and the next was sometime after 2011. This isn't to say that good comics weren't produced during that time, but the general thrust of the creative and editorial direction just wasn't something I was particularly interested in.

[Lee Stone]

It's Julie Strain as Catwoman!

[SJNeal]

Aside from the early issues of Cooke's run, there hasn't been a good Catwoman solo book since this series ended, IMHO.

That's not to say that this series didn't go completely off the rails as the end, but the less said about that the better...

[DrNewGod]

I actually LOVED the 90s DC comic book landscape.
Yes, there was a ton of over the top crap, but mate, there was some fantastic stuff out there too!

The Superman, Batman and Flash titles were at heights not reached since.
Green Lantern and Green Arrow were an absolute blast.
Morrison on JLA.
David on Aquaman.
Robinson on Starman.
Dixon on Robin and Nightwing.
Smith on Guy Gardner.

Then there was left field stuff like Young Heroes in Love, Major Bummer, Chronos, Hourman.

Yup. Loved me some 90's DC

To crib a Marvel Movie, "You and I remember The 90s very differently."

[DrNewGod]

The early 90s did offer us some good stuff: I enjoyed THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN and KNIGHTFALL storylines, and of course, the early 90s was the era of Waid's FLASH. The mid-90s were rather dire, but I think KINGDOM COME was the turning point.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

KC was a turning point for me, and brought me back for a while. Of course, it's hard to say how much of that was because the comics were better and how much of that was the birth of the online fan communities, and these forums in particular. The Early-Mid 90s were a bit of a sweet spot between previously isolated fans all over the world finding each other, and the trolls running amok. Mind you, it wasn't perfect, but it was pre-death-threat posting.