DISQUS

Mike Buechele · 5 months ago

It drives me nuts when I'm trying to pick up a new comics but the characters are spread out in four different titles doing different things. Where do I start? Is this following the other story line? And I am so tired of Wolverine in 20 different ongoing series. I'm loving the Vertigo line more every time I'm in the shop.

I don't know about the character age thing. I look at it like the Simpson. It's been on for 20 years but they don't age. Bart should be doing hard time for a crime during his late teen years already. I'm looking at it like the icon or mythology of the character being timeless which allows for stories over decades, and makes it okay for Robin to age but not Batman. Anyway, I'm okay with the age thing.


Secret Wars I FTW!

Daniel M. Clark · 5 months ago

When I started getting into X-Men, back around issue #200, it was just Uncanny X-Men and the occasional mini-series. New Mutants may have been around at that point, too, I don't recall. Then X-Factor started up, and that was okay, too - having two or three X-titles was manageable, especially since you didn't have to read all three. Then, a year or two in, they did the Mutant Massacre crossover, and that started the X-titles down a slippery slope that led into Wolverine, Excalibur, X-Force, Cable, more minis than I can count, Jim Lee's X-Men title... and by the mid-90's everything was so convoluted and tied into each other that you *had* to buy a dozen books a month to keep up. That was when I migrated over to Vertigo, and later, back to DC.

The character aging always bugged me a little bit, mainly because it was too random. Why did the Teen Titans grow up, but nobody in the JLA aged? Why did the New Mutants grow up, but Power Pack didn't (comparatively)? To me, that was a continuity problem, which is why I decided to include it. It's not a huge problem, so I get where you're coming from, Mike... but it still kinda bugs me lol

trobinson79 · 5 months ago

Great feature here, man. Continuity is always a delicate issue amongst any mediums, but comics books in particular don't seem to gel with it at times. I think the mid 90's was what made the bubble burst for comics overall because not only were you getting so many titles with so many of the same characters being in two places at once, you had artists putting up numerous variant covers of the same issues and it got to a point that no one can afford any more.

And what's interesting as of late is the tie-ins are more appealing than the actual events. I enjoyed Final Crisis: Revelations more than I did Final Crisis and I enjoyed New and Mighty Avengers more than I did Secret Invasion. A lot of other people did too - might be a sign that more self-contained stories are being considered more than the actual events (Blackest Night excluded, of course). Something for Marvel and DC to take a look at if they want readers to stay engaged without emptying their wallets.

Daniel M. Clark · 5 months ago

The mid-90's were a pretty dark time for comics, but you know... I see many of the same things going on now. After a period of sanity following the bubble burst, we're now seeing a lot more variant covers, multiple books featuring the same character in multiple places at once (I'm lookin' at you, Wolverine), and hell, even Rob Liefeld is starting to gain a bit of notoriety after seeming to largely disappear for a while.

Mike Buechele · 5 months ago

Is there a chart showing the Rob Liefeld : crappy comics industry ratio?

Sam Harrelson · 5 months ago

You're insane! Rob Liefeld comics were awesome (if you didn't read the dialogue or care about them coming out more than once a quarter).

Fantastic post and ideas, Daniel.

Daniel M. Clark · 5 months ago

Thanks, Sam!
I confess to reading the New Mutants/X-Force stuff that Liefeld did in 91-92, but even then, I was hoping that the style was just a phase, and he'd mature as an artist. He never did. His recent art looks damn near identical to what he was doing then, but with slightly fewer guns and random pouches attached to characters' bodies. I cringed when I saw the art he did for Teen Titans a few years ago.