Wednesday 28 October 2009

70 Years of Marvel - 1991


Having been pretty much solely responsible for turning Wolverine into the biggest star Marvel Comics had, Chris Claremont must have been delighted when, deciding to give the feisty Canadian some sort of origin story, Marvel decided to ask someone else to write it. That it was comics legend Barry Windsor-Smith who was tapped to write and draw the book may have been of some comfort, as it at least guaranteed that the book would look beautiful. Thankfully, BWS turned in one of the best X-Minis ever, certainly the best one of the decade, and for a few brief months, Marvel Comics Presents - generally the home of inventory stories and worse - became the most exciting book on the shelf.

1991 also saw the debut of annoying wisecracking assassin, Deadpool, as Rob Leifeld and Fabien Nicieza transformed the cute and fluffy New Mutants into the grim and gritty X-Force. Darkhawk, currently enjoying a revival as part of Marvel's cosmic line, made his first metal-armoured appearance, as did Sandman-lite, Sleepwalker. X-Factor got a new line-up, the X-Men got a second core title, and mutant from the future, Bishop, showed up to kick arse and take names.

In the real world, Operation Desert Storm was kicking off in Kuwait, Boris Yeltsin was taking charge in Russia, and another Gandhi was being assassinated. Everyone was going to see Terminator 2 at the pictures, while on tv, Dallas was limping to a conclusion.

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