"Your 90s Comics Sucked!"

Did They Really? Come With Me, Junior...

Man, oh man, it seems like every outlet, channel and twitter account coming across my feed lately has been touting this “90s Comics Sucked” chant over and over and over again.

Sure, some of them absolutely sucked. I mean absolutely. There were no shortages of some terrible comics, stories and even terrible storylines in good comics that just made no sense.

One in particular that I remember was this love affair between Storm and Forge in The Uncanny X-Men only for it to end one issue later when Forge bailed on Storm for Mystique which made absolutely no sense to me. Seems like if the bailing was inevitable, it should have taken some time, not just drop one issue later.

We all know about how speculators killed the market, companies overprinted issues and even entire runs and in the end, the bubble imploded and the market collapsed. We all know that the art styles showed us the human form that would even make chiropractors cringe in abject horror and the gear belts and load-bearing vests that many wore were completely out there.

But really, how bad were 90s comics?

They weren’t. It seems like people today aren’t understanding what exactly is going on. Many of today’s entertainment franchises such as X-Men, Deadpool, and others were based on comics from the 1990s. If comics in the 90s sucked so badly, then explain this one, published in 1993…

I mean surely, this little gem from Kitchen Sink Press really just didn’t go on to do anything at all right? Who cares about a character coming back from the dead to avenge both himself and the love of his life after they were both brutally murdered?

Oh, my bad, that’s right, starring the son of Bruce Lee in what would have been his breakout role had he not died during the production of the film in a horrible prop accident.

You could write that one off as a fluke if you like but we also had Spawn, The HBO Animated Series, the movie with a pretty killer soundtrack, WildC.A.T.S. The Animated Series and even The MAXX on MTV back in those days.

I realize that the trend was this dark, edgy and often brutally violent type of storyline that was the trend for those days, however, also remember that this was a time where the independents were killing it. Marvel was in deep trouble after they tried to go nearly completely in-house with their distribution and had to re-write five years worth of Spider-Man because of the clone saga which really didn’t fare very well.

These comics were fun and action-oriented. Sometimes, all we needed was some blood, guts, fingers and toes. Let’s not forget Deathmate which was wildly popular at the time but suffered due to squabbles between Image & Valiant.

Yes, the dark, brooding and edgy stories of those independent comics were trying to be copied by the mainstream and, at the time, the Comics Code Authority, a group of judges who appointed themselves censors, would not allow any comics with those very elements into news stands without charging them fines that they were not legally allowed to levy, nor were the news stands legally-obligated to pay.

The 90s comics that did start this trend and later tried to be copied by the mainstream were a key force in telling the CCA that they had overstayed their welcome and were summarily dismissed.

In case some of you in your “current year” euphoria hadn’t noticed, that paved the way for stories that you’re currently telling because those weren’t allowed back then either. Superman’s son wouldn’t be all about his Tinder account scoping for other dudes to rail. Lesbian relationships wouldn’t have been a thing either. There might be some palpable tension every once in awhile but nothing at all concerning your current “social issues” would have ever been allowed to be explored as they are now and let’s talk about that for a second.

If you’re in this “Current Year” thing with comics, then perhaps it’s time that you admit that your problem with 90s comics is that the self-appointed censors were shown the door.

Did the realization that you’re soon to follow just grip your brain in terror, Whisper Network? I surely hope so.

While 90s comics had some glaring problems, they weren’t certainly some dark age where gatekeeping was ever-present. It was a dark age in terms of tone and storylines. It appealed to Gen-X for the reason that we didn’t see a lot of hope. For us, in our teenage years, this was as good as it was going to get and we watched even that fade out pretty quickly.

In comparison to this batch of current year garbage we’ve been handed and told to like it or else…some of us have looked back and realized that many of the issues in society told in allegory in those comics were better in that they left the decisions up to the reader. They weren’t heavy-handed, preachy, pulpit-pounding shit that we’re being told is so popular that it will “own the chuds” because, according to Tim Sheridan, that’s why he writes his titles today…and they’re selling about as well as, well, they’re not selling. At all.

Comic shops are bucking this new version of the CCA and so are independent artists, writers, etc.

Did the 90s era of comics suck?

Not for me. I have fond memories of many of those titles. That’s when I got into them and loved them.

You can have whatever opinion you want but if the majority of voices cry this chant. I’ll be the one to stand completely against that blanket bullshit.