Was 1986 the most important year for superhero comics since 1938?

[DrNewGod]

Yes, I fell for the clickbait, but the author of this post on Nerdist makes a good point. A lot of seismic shifts hit all comics in 1986. Outside of the superhero explosion spanning 1939-40, has there been as big a single 12-month span for superhero comics, ever?

[Jim Kelly]

It seems mostly important to D.C. and mostly important to super-heroes. Even there, I can think of things that happened in 1985 and 1987 that were as important to the company Superman built.

Why fans of the comic book medium believe it begins and ends with super-heroes, I don't know. Once you let go of that bias, there are other periods in comics just as significant for what happened to the art form--as far as stuff like crime, horror, humour or adult fantasy are concerned.

[Mister Mets]

Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, Daredevil Born Again, Man of Steel, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Mutant Massacre, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Elektra Assassin, Punisher: Circle of Blood

Yeah

[Zauriel]

1986 was not only an important year for comics, but also an important year for politics. Challenger exploded on on January 28, 1986, Chernobyl had a nuclear accident on Saturday 26 April 1986,

Ronald Reagan was in charge. Soviet Union was still fighting in Afghanistan and slowly decaying from within. Berlin still had a wall there. Charles and Diana were still married. Iran–Contra affair was still embroiling the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986

[seismic-2]

One could argue that 1956 (the start of the Silver Age) was the most important year for the superhero genre, because sales of superhero comics had been in decline since the end of WWII as other genres (crime, Western, horror, and romance) had become increasingly popular and were taking their place. The introduction of the new Silver Age superheroes (along with the collapse of the horror market following the Kefauver hearings and the introduction of the Comics Code) revived the popularity of the superhero genre.

[MajorHoy]

One could argue that 1956 (the start of the Silver Age) was the most important year for the superhero genre, because sales of superhero comics had been in decline since the end of WWII as other genres (crime, Western, horror, and romance) had become increasingly popular and were taking their place. The introduction of the new Silver Age superheroes (along with the collapse of the horror market following the Kefauver hearings and the introduction of the Comics Code) revived the popularity of the superhero genre.

Aside from the Barry Allen version of The Flash, how many other Silver Age superheroes were introduced that year?

Remember, the beginning of Marvel Comics with Fantastic Four #1 wouldn't happen until five years later in 1961.

[From The Shadows]

Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, Daredevil Born Again, Man of Steel, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Mutant Massacre, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Elektra Assassin, Punisher: Circle of Blood

Yeah

Basically this. These especially left an impression on me. That was definitely a good year for comics.

[Powerboy]

Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, Daredevil Born Again, Man of Steel, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Mutant Massacre, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Elektra Assassin, Punisher: Circle of Blood

Yeah

A Catch-22 year. On the one hand, sort of a banner year for comics no longer being for kids albeit that had already happened. But also a year that pulled comics out of the basement in terms of sales and reinvented them as a market that lasted a few years before they were right back where they started. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't that era just about the last heyday of big comics sales?

[BeastieRunner]

The return of the horror comics in the 70s was pretty big for me.

But other than a few blips in the 90s (AC 700, Spawn, & I want to say a Maximum Carnage issue), I think 86 was the last year comic books out sold magazines by a majority share of the market.

[tib2d2]

Its hard to argue against 1986 being the big one. The beginning of the Silver Age in 1956 was a watershed moment, it essentially created the comics and industry we all grew up loving.

They are equally important and both were dealing with publishers trying to figure out lagging comic book sales. Its a fun discussion to have, I'm going back and forth in my head as to which year was more important!