70 Years of Marvel - 2001

Fans of parallel universes got a boost in 2001, with the introduction of the Exiles. Dimension-hopping mutants from various different worlds, the Exiles were led, mostly, by Blink, who was a throwaway character from a mid-90s X-Crossover, who, after being killed off, had proved unexpectedly popular with the readers. The Exiles, although a standalone book, had enough ties to the Marvel Universe proper, to keep the fanboys happy, at least until the book was killed off earlier this year.

2001 also saw the Powers-What-Be at Marvel decide to tell the origin of Wolverine, apparently in order to prevent the X-Movies from beating the books to the punch. Although, some might argue, that since Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada and Publisher Bill Jemas each got a writing credit on the book, it might just have been in order to make them some ready cash, helping to tell a story that some fans had been waiting 30 years for.

Finally, it was all change at the X-Books this year, with Grant Morrison taking over the reigns of the Adjectiveless X-Men, henceforth renamed New X-Men, and Peter Milligan relaunching X-Force with an entirely new, entirely bonkers, set-up. Chris Claremont found himself turfed off Uncanny X-Men, again, but got a new book out of it: X-Treme X-Men. Most other titles found themselves facing the axe, as part of a plan to reduce the number of X-Books to a manageable level.

Incidentally, for those of you who care, in January 2001 there were 12 ongoing X-Books (Bishop, Deadpool, Gambit, Generation X, Mutant X, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, X-Force, X-Man, X-Men, X-Men: Hidden Years, and the quarterly X-Men Unlimited), whilst December had 8 (Deadpool, Exiles, Uncanny, Wolverine, X-Force, New X-Men, X-Treme, and Unlimited). The solicitations for January 2010 show the following regular X-Books: Dark Wolverine, Uncanny, X-Force, X-Men Legacy, Cable, New Mutants, Deadpool, Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth, Deadpool Team-Up, Wolverine: Weapon X, Wolverine: Origins, X-Factor, Uncanny X-Men: First Class, X-Men Forever. 14 in total. So much for progress.

In the real world, of course, 2001 was the year the World Trade Centre came down.

70 Years of Marvel - 1990

In 1990, Jim Starlin was back with a vengeance. Starlin had been out of the superhero game for most of the 80s, concentrating on his science-fiction work, but his killing off of Robin over in the BatBooks had brought him back to the attention of Marvel Editorial, who hired him to take over the Silver Surfer book. Within a couple of issues, Starlin had brought his most famous creation, Thanos, back from the dead, along with Thanos' nemesis, Drax the Destroyer. For the next couple of years, Starlin would take Marvel Comics in a more cosmic direction, with the Infinity Trilogy, the return of Adam Warlock, and the formation of the Infinity Watch. The cosmic revival didn't last long after Starlin lefr Marvel for other shores, and it would be a long time before we'd see Marvel do "cosmic" again.

In other comics, 1990 saw the introduction of Gambit, terrible accented cajun thief, and Cable, the mutant with the most complicated secret origin ever. I'd explain what was so confusing, but Quarter Bin, a much-missed comics website from ages past, did so much more consisely.


In the Avengers, Spider-Man nearly joined the team, whilst Sersi the Eternal and Rage the street vigilante did so. Danny Ketch became a new Ghost Rider, and Sub-Mariner, Nomad, and the Guardians of the Galaxy all got a new series.

Meanwhile in 1990, Nelson Mandela was out of jail, the USSR was coming apart at the seams, and Mrs Thatcher was being turfed out of her seat. On tv, we were being baffled by Twin Peaks, and Paul Merton and Ian Hislop began taking shots at those making the news, while at the pictures, Macaulay Culkin was becoming a child star.