Thoughts on Marvel's "experimental" early 2000s?

[dreamglide]

A lot ink has been spilled analyzing the impact and importance of the books of DC Comics in the mid-to-late 1980s, and rightfully so. Buoyed by the so-called "British Invasion," DC was probably as experimental as a high-profile publisher could be, with notable books like Sandman and Animal Man, as well as lesser-known oddities like Angel Love and Wasteland.

As far as I can tell, decidedly less time and effort has been devoted to talking about Marvel's "experimental" period in the early 2000s. Certainly some individual material gets talked about a fair bit, such as New X-Men and The Ultimates, but further down the line you have stuff like the Milligan/Allred X-Force and X-Statix run(s), the Startling Stories imprint, the Bruce Jones Hulk run (which generally focused far more on Bruce Banner than his green alter-ego), and the provocative early MAX stuff.

Again, a lot of this material isn't exactly "unknown," per se, but, when taken together, it really paints a picture of a publisher trying to stretch its wings. Adding to the mystique of this era, several of the creators involved in this era weren't exactly Marvel stalwarts. Case in point: James Sturm, whose miniseries Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules won an Eisner, never did anything else for Marvel. Granted, given the nature of his bibliography, I'm not exactly sure if he would have wanted to do more work for them, but the point still stands.

I'm curious to see what others' opinions are on this interesting period

[charliehustle415]

This was one of my favorite eras, the Marvel Universe felt fresh and exciting.

There was also diverse titles and there was something for everyone. Legendary writers and artists came up during this time and luckily there was no "house style" yet so every book looked different and they all had unique identities.

New Avengers were right around the corner that completely revitalized the series and it felt like Marvel was willing to take chances to get lapsed readers back especially after the disastrous 90's.

I think the titles you mention are not as talked about is because the smaller titles were eclipsed by the behemoths of the time, but they were loved and there was small devoted audience for them.

[Username taken]

Probably my favorite era of Marvel.

That was when Quesada really started the “Vertigo-fication” of Marvel by bringing in a lot of Vertigo creators. And a lot of Indie ones too. That was when Marvel started the deliberate policy of bringing in guys that are not necessarily “superhero writers” to guide their universe.

There was a lot of experiments then, some of them didn’t work (like Rawhide Kid) but there was amazing stuff like X-Statix, Daredevil, Runwaways, Fantastic Four (Waid/Wierengo), Truth: Red, White and Black (a book that would be EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL TODAY), The Ultimates line, Supreme Power, Punisher (Ennis) and Morrison’s X-men. You also had some curious titles like Captain America by Cassady and Nieber which was a really gritty interpretation of Steve Rogers that’s largely been forgotten to be honest. And then there was some really crazy stuff like US War Machine, the aforementioned Startling Stories: Banner (which directly influenced Bruce Jones run on Hulk) and Eternal.

It’s unfortunate that a lot of that work has now been viewed through the lens of Quesada hating “mutants” (by re-launching X-Statix and Morrison’s X-men drastically reducing the number of mutants in the world) or hating traditional Marvel but after everything that happened to Marvel and the collapse of the direct market, I think they made the appropriate moves at the time. It was also a notable period because there were NO EVENTS whatsoever at the time.

That IMHO was the last time Marvel was truly experimental and I actually got back into comics during that era (although i dropped out again later).To me it just seemed that a lot of titles were a lot more mature than they were before which wasn’t a surprise because guys like Morrison, Milligan, Vaughn, Bendis and Millar (before he lost nuance), JMS, Ennis and Ellis were working on the books.

[charliehustle415]

Probably my favorite era of Marvel.

That was when Quesada really started the “Vertigo-fication” of Marvel by bringing in a lot of Vertigo creators. And a lot of Indie ones too. That was when Marvel started the deliberate policy of bringing in guys that are not necessarily “superhero writers” to guide their universe.

There was a lot of experiments then, some of them didn’t work (like Rawhide Kid) but there was amazing stuff like X-Statix, Daredevil, Runwaways, Fantastic Four (Waid/Wierengo), Truth: Red, White and Black (a book that would be EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL TODAY), The Ultimates line, Supreme Power, Punisher (Ennis) and Morrison’s X-men. You also had some curious titles like Captain America by Cassady and Nieber which was a really gritty interpretation of Steve Rogers that’s largely been forgotten to be honest. And then there was some really crazy stuff like US War Machine, the aforementioned Startling Stories: Banner (which directly influenced Bruce Jones run on Hulk) and Eternal.

It’s unfortunate that a lot of that work has now been viewed through the lens of Quesada hating “mutants” (by re-launching X-Statix and Morrison’s X-men drastically reducing the number of mutants in the world) or hating traditional Marvel but after everything that happened to Marvel and the collapse of the direct market, I think they made the appropriate moves at the time. It was also a notable period because there were NO EVENTS whatsoever at the time.

That IMHO was the last time Marvel was truly experimental and I actually got back into comics during that era (although i dropped out again later).To me it just seemed that a lot of titles were a lot more mature than they were before which wasn’t a surprise because guys like Morrison, Milligan, Vaughn, Bendis and Millar (before he lost nuance), JMS, Ennis and Ellis were working on the books.

Me too!

But I couldn't have said it better than myself.

This time you can tell that this was a natural progression of the Marvel Universe.

Not only that but people who wanted a new jumping on point had the Ultimate Marvel Universe to get into, I mean Quesada was on fire during this time - what a genius move.

You had evolved titles from the original 616 and then all new stuff from Ultimate Marvel; unlike nowadays where there must be a status quo reset every 2-3 years.

But I really like the term "Vertigo-fication" because that is exactly what was happening in Marvel.

There were some amazing stories coming out at that time and I find myself revisiting titles from that time more and more nowadays.

[Username taken]

Me too!

But I couldn't have said it better than myself.

This time you can tell that this was a natural progression of the Marvel Universe.

Not only that but people who wanted a new jumping on point had the Ultimate Marvel Universe to get into, I mean Quesada was on fire during this time - what a genius move.

You had evolved titles from the original 616 and then all new stuff from Ultimate Marvel; unlike nowadays where there must be a status quo reset every 2-3 years.

But I really like the term "Vertigo-fication" because that is exactly what was happening in Marvel.

There were some amazing stories coming out at that time and I find myself revisiting titles from that time more and more nowadays.

Yeah, I still go back and read some of those titles and it’s sharp contrast to what we have today.

[ed2962]

Me too!

But I couldn't have said it better than myself.

This time you can tell that this was a natural progression of the Marvel Universe.

Not only that but people who wanted a new jumping on point had the Ultimate Marvel Universe to get into, I mean Quesada was on fire during this time - what a genius move.

You had evolved titles from the original 616 and then all new stuff from Ultimate Marvel; unlike nowadays where there must be a status quo reset every 2-3 years.

But I really like the term "Vertigo-fication" because that is exactly what was happening in Marvel.

There were some amazing stories coming out at that time and I find myself revisiting titles from that time more and more nowadays.

Around this time, there was talk about them bringing back the Epic Line which was sort of their Vertigo before Vertigo....but it fell apart before it got going.( The only title that was released was "Trouble" which everyone wants to forget...)

[charliehustle415]

Around this time, there was talk about them bringing back the Epic Line which was sort of their Vertigo before Vertigo....but it fell apart before it got going.( The only title that was released was "Trouble" which everyone wants to forget...)

LOL, those covers!

I feel dirty just thinking about them and that the FBI will break down my door.

[gurkle]

I appreciate that Marvel was very old-fashioned when Quesada and Bill Jemas took over and needed some shaking up. They made some changes that were needed, modernized the writing style (including mostly full scripts instead of Marvel-style writing) and went for more sophisticated storytelling without those endless thought balloons and captions and continuity references. All of that was necessary.

But I can't say I think most of the comics hold up for me. Maybe it's just the "trade-ification" of the writing style, where you can tell that every story is stretched out a little longer than it should be to fill a six-episode trade. And then there was the tendency to have a lot of generic covers that didn't tell you what the issue was about and looked more like pinups. More than that, though, I just find that there's an attempt to be edgy and deconstructive that I think doesn't wear as well as the more traditional Marvel runs. Some exceptions of course -- Morrison's X-Men certainly holds up, and Bendis's Daredevil is excellent though not really my personal thing, but I don't find as many must-have runs.

I personally prefer the era that started around 2005, just after Bill Jemas left, which you can recognize because most of the comics switched back to ALL-CAPS LETTERING (Jemas had insisted all the comics go to mixed-case lettering whether they wanted it or not). Around that time I think Quesada allowed for more diversity of style, so some of the comics were in a more traditional superhero style, and some were both. Brubaker's "Captain America" is sort of the defining run of that era because it's both a traditional Captain America comic and a more sophisticated version of that type of comic, and then you have Bendis's "New Avengers," with its new take on the franchise, running alongside "Young Avengers," which is like a reconstruction of the traditional Avengers style.

But I don't think we'd have gotten to that era if they hadn't gone through the early 2000s era first.

[dreamglide]

That was when Quesada really started the “Vertigo-fication” of Marvel by bringing in a lot of Vertigo creators. And a lot of Indie ones too. That was when Marvel started the deliberate policy of bringing in guys that are not necessarily “superhero writers” to guide their universe.

To me, this is the key point in this, and I'm glad you brought it up. There was a strong Vertigo-style vibe on a fair amount of the material at the time, which is pretty much unavoidable when you employ Morrison and Milligan (and later on, Neil Gaiman).

The "indie" creators also gave a huge edge to this period as well. Like, I still can't get over that James Sturm wrote a Marvel comic. It's just crazy to me.