The 2010s have replaced the 1990s as the worst period for Marvel Comics?

[jwatson]

The worst thing about the 2000's in general is marvel was America where we are now. I feel like what i saw happen with the Avengers and x-lines after marvel sold the rights is exactly what i'm seeing now in real life and the parallels are interesting. Hopefully there is no civil war or war of kings or registration acts.

[FFJamie94]

Not only do I disagree, but I think the 10’s (excluding 16/17) was one of the strongest decades from Marvel.
The Marvel Now era alone gave ys Superior, Hickman’s Avengers, Young Avengers, Aaron’s Thor, Death of Wolverine and Remender’s Captain America. Even before that we had hit after hit with Hickman’s Fantastic Four, Uncanny X-Force and sone decent Ultimate Stuff including the introduction of Miles Morales.

Yeah it wasn’t all good, the inhumans push was misguided and the X-Men titles were weak, but overall, we got a pretty strong decade.

If anything, the 90’s is more comparable to the 70’s where they took what worked from the prior decade and tried to build off it.
The 60’s had the excuse that it was bejng crafted by a handfull of People and the 70’s tried to run with those ideas.
90’s took the grit of the 80’s without the needed commentary.

The 10’s was mostly following its own ideas and experimenting with them. There is some overlap between then and Bendis era Marvel.

[jwatson]

Just to be clear i think 2000-2010 was the WORST period.

more 2005-2012 to be exact.

[ARkadelphia]

Just to be clear i think 2000-2010 was the WORST period.

more 2005-2012 to be exact.

This right here. I was waiting for some one to bring up the oughts. The early oughts were good though. So for me, the weak decade might be in the 2005-2014 range.

[gurkle]

To show how tastes differ, the late 2000s/early 10s is probably my favorite period for modern Marvel. Quesada finally allowed more diversity of style that was banned in the Bill Jemas era; even thought balloons were allowed again (in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day"). Bendis's new take on the Avengers ran side-by-side with the more nostalgic "Young Avengers," and there were under-the-radar writers like Jeff Parker along with the new superstars like Ed Brubaker.

It really feels like there's something for every taste in that period, that got lost in the later Alonso era and even more in the Cebulski era, which has not (in my opinion) had much diversity of approach.

[mathew101281]

That Garfield book went 36 issues with 4 specials.

Peanuts went 32.

They can't target an audience if they are NOT sold in comic book stores. So you get two series that lasted a good 3 years being sold in the few stores that carried them.

Same with Regular Show, Steven Universe, Gumball, My Little Pony and Lumberjanes.




Not really because I don't have to go to a comic book store to buy a manga. I can do that almost anywhere.




Because certain folks took issue with him being Inhuman and HOW DARE Marvel try to do what so many seem to be screaming-"introduce a new character without taking someone else out".



Well those creators wanted ownership of what they created.

Also we saw so much toxic backlash to so many new folks for just existing. Before books came out for some of them.

Gatekeepers at their WORST.

It’s close but I feel the 90’s were worse because the company almost died. I don’t feel Marvel is any where close to going out of business right now.

[strathcona]

It’s close but I feel the 90’s were worse because the company almost died. I don’t feel Marvel is any where close to going out of business right now.

But they went bankrupt because of business dealings that had absolutely nothing to do with the comics published or the stories being told. People seem to treat the bankruptcy as if it was because the comics were bad, but they had no impact on what happened.

And while I'm at it, Marvel also pulled itself out of bankruptcy before Joe Quesada was EiC. Again, not that the publishing had anything to do with it, but people always attribute him with saving the company when it had been saved before he was in the position.

[Anthony W]

Hmm...YOU gave me food for thought....Indeed in addition tot he quality of individual artist, there is the artistic continuity..that for comics being a sSyncretism of art and writing could seriously influence the story and how it flows
<most banal exmaple lot of artist DO NOT know how to draw Beast...to the point they turned him in the most easy tod raw shape, a literally blue emoticon>

::Looks at various pictures of The Beast::

Oh my god I can't unsee it.

[OopsIdiditagain]

I see too much of the 2010s comics in the MCU to fully agree with this.

[skyvolt2000]

It’s close but I feel the 90’s were worse because the company almost died. I don’t feel Marvel is any where close to going out of business right now.

Much like we just saw with DC-those money related issues were not created by the comics.


It was outside factors that caused it. Bad investments in other projects that came back to bite them.

Most folks want to blame the comics because they don't like who is on the covers or who the writers are.

Because we are now in the era of certain books are not welcomed because SOMEONE view them as a threat to what I grew up with 40-60 years ago.

We know that by the books that keep getting attacked.


This is FICTION-where anything is suppose to be possible.

We have 10 black billionaires (who did not play sports or RAP) in the world.

Yet if someone was to write about a black billionaire doing what Bruce Wayne did-the line starts to the left who have an issue with. Saying that isn't real.

Neither is Thor, GOTG and 95% of what is running around at Marvel.


All Marvel is doing is what they have been doing-if it is on tv or movies-it has to have reading material. Every single movie and tv show caused a boost in trade and digital sales.

[regg215]

Would have to absolutely agree that the 2010's were the single most damaging decade for marvel comics in so many ways. The 90's has its faults, but in terms of the actual comics that came out, the lack of creativity, abandonment of continuity, the endless events that reduced any meaning that events actually had, meaningless character deaths, the petty dismissal of classic characters because of studio bickering, the in some cases permanent division of fan bases, the complete takeover from manga in terms of sales and antagonistic relationship between creators and fans due to malicious disrespect of classic characters and the unacceptable overreaction of some fans the 2010's is easily the worst decade for comics.

The 90's had a lot of bad ideas but at least they seemed to fully commit to those ideas and those ideas were at the very least fleshed out, Age of Apocalypse had time to breathe, there was significant time given to build the world, commit to the changes in characters and those variations of the characters became so popular that 20-30 years later we still see figures being released and crossovers with those character. Same thing with the clone saga, whether you like or hate that story for spidey, it was fleshed out, Ben Reilly and Kaine were given room to grow and became a fan favorites still being used to this day. When reading those stories the changes were extreme but never seemed malicious towards characters like Peter Parker. Characters in the 90's like Cable, Deadpool, Gambit, Domino, The Thunderbolts, all built original stories that didnt exist to trample existing characters. The 90's were extreme and the art was wacky at times but the stories never seemed aimed at the audience with ill intent, and while character deaths did happen at the very least they seemed to be more rare and events were given some time to breath and were not direct copies of one another. Replacement characters like Thunderstrike, Scarlet Spider, US Agent, were given separate titles to grow and were not accepted immediately in Universe as the same as their counterparts, they had to from a story perspective earn respect, they were not instantly added to the avengers and praised as better than their predecessors. And characters like James Rhodes were given new roles like War Machine to have chance at solo titles and roles of their own.

Contrast that with the 2010's the XMen and Fantastic four are basically erased from comics because of infighting between disney and fox, going so far as to have the inhumans who were used as the replacement for the x-men literally kill off some x-men, having the x-men portrayed as outright villains in AVX so that the avengers can be superior. Instead of getting new characters we got replacement characters. Instead of Marvel committing to characters like Mosaic, they basically got cancelled before their first TPB could even be released. Spider-Man, Daredevil, Wolverine, Captain America, Iron Man, Cyclops are were killed off and unceremoniously replaced, immediately revived or forgotten. Even the characters marvel pushed in that decade were disrespected, Captain America, was replaced not once but twice by two different characters, he got killed, aged up, and then was turned evil all within one decade. Thor became unworthy for uh..reasons and his replacement immediately comes in and is better than him and was so stunning and brave that long time enemies like titania literally surrender because they are so impressed with her. Iron Man gets a huge relaunch with two solo comics, he then immediately gets killed off and replaced by character who had about 3 appearances and had been on all of about 17 panels before taking over for tony stark, jumping the line in front of characters who made way more sense like Pepper or Rhodey(Although I guess he was pointlessly killed too). Dr. Doom becomes heroic then evil again with almost no explanation, with storylines like his getting together and potentially have a child with a girlfriend of Tony Stark's completely abondoned. Crossover events happened like every 3 months and instead of them being original we literally got exact copies like Civil War 1 and 2. When creators were faced with questions for killing off characters and replacing them, instead of explaining an actual story reason it was basically always chalked up to outside factors and while yes increasing diversity is absolutely a good thing, you cant expect Steve Rogers and Bruce banner fans to be thrilled that their favorite character is killed off or replaced. And having comments that essentially sounded like "as a love letter to the character of Peter Parker,we decided to have him beat to death by one of his enemies and replaced to honor his 700th issue" did nothing to make fans feel better, kinda hard to see it as a expression of love for a character to kill them off or replace them. The main thing that seemed to drive these replacement stories was that creators had no idea what to do with the characters so they just killed them off to write different characters but kept the prestige of the characters title. Yes some fans were idiots and went way too far, and of course there are always a few racist grifters who could care less about the characters and just complained because they dont want to see representation at all but comic creators basically acted like any criticism was based on that and dismissed a lot of long time fans complaints about the story as the ramblings of racist haters. Its an era where creators heard complaints and instead of addressing them in anyway, chalk them all up to racism/sexism etc and literally come out and say "if you don't like it don't buy my book" instead of providing an actual story motivation for changes and then a few months later come out and decry a lack of sales. There are no doubt some bright spots of the 2010's like Miles Morales and Kamala Khan and pretty much anything hickman or fraction wrote but overall the 2010's were a creatively bankrupt, extremely damaging time for marvel.

I think for me what sums it up best is that the 90's were crazy and almost made marvel bankrupt but the 2010's were stupid and made marvel creatively bankrupt. In the 90's they dumbest thing they did was turn steve rogers into werewolf while the 2010's turned him into a nazi, there is a huge difference in those two things.

[Tofali]

All I'll say is I loved the launch of Marvel NOW! branding (2012 I think) until Secret Wars. I fed like a little happy pig but things went wrong after Marvel NOW! 2.0 and Marvel Legacy. I know I started checking out after these two rebranding. I hardly read that many books and these days I just follow 3 books that I previously enjoyed.

[Kingdom X]

All I'll say is I loved the launch of Marvel NOW! branding (2012 I think) until Secret Wars. I fed like a little happy pig but things went wrong after Marvel NOW! 2.0 and Marvel Legacy. I know I started checking out after these two rebranding. I hardly read that many books and these days I just follow 3 books that I previously enjoyed.

This was really the darkest of eras. While ANAD was divisive Marvel NOW! 2.0 is when I checked out. They were launching the weirdest titles (Foolkiller, Slapstick, Occup Avengers, etc.) and already relaunching their flagship Avengers book, and they couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new name for the line so they just went back to Marvel NOW! Creative bankruptcy at it's finest.

Then Marvel Legacy was the most pathetic attempt at appeasing older fans that I've ever seem, but just randomly changing the numbering of half of the books so that they could sell as many oversized anniversary issues as possible.

[Anthony W]

They couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new name for the line so they just went back to Marvel NOW! Creative bankruptcy at it's finest.

Which reminds me, Jason Aaron is doing an Avengers series and it's titled......Avengers Forever.

What?

They are just going to give it the exact same name as the series that many people believe to be one of if not the greatest Avengers stories ever?

Really?

[Baron of Faltine]

Which reminds me, Jason Aaron is doing an Avengers series and it's titled......Avengers Forever.

What?

They are just going to give it the exact same name as the series that many people believe to be one of if not the greatest Avengers stories ever?

Really?

Well we got civil war 2(Carol Danvers boogaloo) amd a new heroes reborn( most unreadable pointless stuff I have seen in ages...is it sososo urggh) they are on Hollywood level of title imagination.
hey we could see silver lining and hope it will be entertainingly bad.