Oooh! Shiny!

The mid-90s saw the comic speculator boom reach its crescendo, as a whole bunch of stupid people decided that, because Amazing Fantasy #15 and Detective Comics #27 were worth a fortune, then all comics would eventually be worth a fortune. These stupid people went forth and bought a shedload of comics, which they then either bagged and tagged, to sell in the future once said comics had become valuable, or, hilariously, sold them to even more stupid people, who believed that because the comics were being bought in large numbers, they must be worth lots of money NOW. Before anyone could realise these spectacular profits, the bubble burst, the speculators went on to the next big thing (pogs, probably, or trading cards), and comic sales dropped like a stone, taking most of the comic shops with them. Before you laugh, bear in mind this sort of "logic" is pretty much exactly what caused the house-buying boom of the last few years, and you saw how well that turned out.

The rise and fall of the speculator market can be symbolised by looking at the use of foil covers in comic books. Bear with me.


In 1991, Silver Surfer #50 came out. This book featured a battle between Surfy and the reborn dark titan, Thanos, and was a prelude to the Infinity Gauntlet, a cosmic event which touched on most of the Marvel Universe (except the X-Books, which for some reason managed to dodge such things). Some bright spark at Marvel decided to celebrate this milestone issue, by issuing the book with a silver foil cover.

I imagine it did well, I recall friends being excited by the (really not done justice by scanners) cover. In any case, Marvel followed this up the very next month with a glow-in-the-dark cover on Ghost Rider #15.


Nice enough, I'm sure you'll agree, but, really, why the need for a gimmick cover? This issue did feature a confrontation between the 90s Ghost Rider and his 70s equivelent, but it was the concluding part of a three parter, and not even a particularly good three parter at that.

1992 saw Marvel issue a few more books promotional covers Most of them seem justifiable enough:
Amazing Spider-Man #365, Spider-Man #26 and Spectacular Spider-Man #189 all celebrated Spidey's 30th anniversary with neat little holographic panels.
Hulk #393 commemorated the Hulk's 30th anniversary and revisited his origins.
Guardians of the Galaxy #25 featured the 31st century heroes battling Galactus.
Spider-Man 2099 and Ravage 2099 introduced the world of tomorrow.
And, er, Silver Sable #1 celebrated the bounty hunting blondeshell getting her own book at last.



In 1993 , Marvel were churning out the gimmick covers, on, by my count, 44 comics. Some, such as the Avengers and the X-Men's 30th anniversary, were reasonable. Then there were such "essentials" as Namor #37, which celebrated Subby getting a new costume. Or Fantastic Four #371, in which the Human Torch accidentally set fire to Empire State University. Or Venom: Funeral Pyre, in which the world's most overrated supervillain takes on the Punisher (spoiler: nobody dies). By 1994, just about every comic had a gold, silver, platinum, 3D, die-cut, prismatic cover, or it felt like it. Every anniversary, no matter how trivial, every first issue, every "landmark" issue, had a pretty cover, and an inflated cover price to match. Sales were spiking all over the place, based not on how good the books were, but on the relative "buzz" generated by Excalibur #75 or Nova #1.


By 1995, the speculators were getting tired, and by 1996, most of them had vanished off in search of the nearest shop selling Magic: The Gathering cards. Other than a couple of Marvel 2099 books, the foil cover phenomenon vanished without trace virtually overnight.


It would be a good long while before Marvel would try another attempt at getting those speculator dollars, through the use of variant covers on books. A glance at the shelves of your nearest comic shop will show that Marvel doesn't really seemed to have learned any lessons from the 90s speculator boom, as just about every comic out at the moment is available with at least two covers. Disaster lies ahead...

70 Years of Marvel - 1992

1992 started out as a good year for Marvel. They had a bunch of superstar artists working on their biggest X-Books: Whilce Portacio on Uncanny X-Men, Jim Lee on the Adjectiveless X-Men, and of course, Rob Liefeld on X-Force. Over in the Spider-Books, Erik Larsen had just taken over the writing and drawing on Peter Parker: Spider-Man, replacing Todd McFarlane, who'd gone off in a bit of a strop. They even had a successful relaunch of Guardians of the Galaxy, produced by Jim Valentino. Good times, eh?

It wouldn't last. Turns out that strop that Todd was having was a bit more serious than expected. Rather than going over to DC, or coming back, cap in hand, McFarlane persuaded Portacio, Lee, Leifeld, Larsen and Valentino to go start up their own company with him. Thus was Image Comics born. And while the Image boy's departures did allow new talent like Andy Kubert to get a regular artistic gig, there wouldn't be the superstar mentality of the early 1990s for a good long time.

1992 also saw the Rise of the Midnight Sons, in which Marvel decided to make a group out of all of its darker books. Since, at that point, it only actually had one "darker" book - Ghost Rider - that meant launching a whole line of new books:
Darkhold: Pages From The Book Of Sins - in which dark forces take an ancient grimoire, cut it up, and give pages out of it to unsuspecting bystanders, unleashing all manner of evil.
Spirits of Vengeance - a team-up book between the 1970s Ghost Rider and his 1990s replacement.
Morbius The Living Vampire - the not-quite-a-vampire occasional Spider-Man foe.
Nightstalkers - former Tomb Of Dracula stalwarts, Hannibal King, Frank Drake, and Blade, who teamed up to fight evil. Imagine Angel Investigations, but with less hair product.
Eventually, Dr Strange would be brought into the Midnight Sons fold, but by that time, (1994), the line was dying on its arse, and Marvel would be moving onto its next good idea. More on that later.

As if that wasn't enough, 1992 was also the year in which Tony Stark constructed what would non-ironically be called the War Machine armour. Golly.

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.

70 Years of Marvel - 1980

Ghost Rider, the flaming-skulled motorcycle stuntman-demon, had been around since 1972, when he met the original Ghost Rider, in a time travel crossover stunt. The other Ghost Rider, the one in the white cloak and hat, had only predated the modern one by about 5 years, and was one of the later additions to the Marvel Western genre. With the arrival of his modern-day replacement, the 19th century of version started calling himself the Night Rider. Then, later, after he died, his brother became the Phantom Rider, and subsequently drugged and raped Mockingbird, before she threw him off a cliff. Who said comics were more wholesome back in the day?

All this is a long way of saying I have nothing to say about the 70s incarnation of Ghost Rider. Not really into bikes. Or Satan. Instead, let's see what else 1980 brought the world of Marvel Comics, shall we? Well, for starters, there was the disco-roller-skating Dazzler, notable for being one of the first "created by committee" Marvel characters. Then there was the Savage She-Hulk, cousin to Bruce Banner, who was the first new Stan Lee creation in a good long time, and pretty much the last new Stan Lee creation to appear. We also saw the introduction of Emma Frost, then a member of the naughty Hellfire Club. Oh, and speaking of Mockingbird, after years hanging around on the periphery of comics, SHIELD agent Bobbi Morse got her own costumed identity. Finally, 1980 also saw the first appearance of future X-Man, Kitty Pryde, and of future New Mutant, Karma.

There may well have been some male heroes introduced in 1980, but darned if I could find any.

70 Years of Marvel - 1977

Alas, the Champions. They never get the love. Everyone's all "X-Men this" or "Avengers that". People get all nostalgic for the Defenders. But the Champions? Even the members of this particular team don't seem to talk about those days. They were a bit of an odd mix, to be fair: ex-X-Men Iceman and Angel, ex-Avenger and current spy, Black Widow, the demigod Hercules, and the flaming-skulled Ghost Rider, all brought together by an invasion by Hercules' godly brethren. The Champions hung out in LA, fighting all the bad guys who preferred a sunnier climate than New York. Eventually they added Darkstar, a former bad guy, to their line-up, but that wouldn't be enough to save their book from cancellation. There was talk recently of a new Champions book, before someone pointed out to Marvel that they don't actually own the rights to that title anymore. Doh.

Elsewhere in 1977, Jack Kirby continued his revival, with the introduction of Machine Man, a new series of Black Panther, and the introduction of such foes as Arnim Zola in the pages of Captain America. Meanwhile, the Star Wars comic was wowing audiences. Dr Druid, a character from the pre-FF Marvel Universe, showed up to fight the Hulk. Film-star Godzilla was being featured in his own comic, while longtime Avengers foe, Ultron, was making himself a bride, Jocasta, who would, like all robots turn on her creator. The X-Men's universe was being expanded with the introduction of the Starjammers. Jessica Drew was making her first appearance as Spider-Woman, whilst long-time supporting character, Carol Danvers, finally got her turn in the spotlight, as Ms. Marvel. And the worlds of infinite possibility were explored for the first time, with the launch of What If?

In the real world, Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, died on the toilet. We also lost Groucho Marx. On television, the Hulk was starring in his own tv show. And at the pictures, George Lucas was releasing his adaptation of the Star Wars comic (shurely shum mishtake? - ed).

70 Years of Marvel - 1972

Spoiler: no he didn't.

Amazing Adventures had been launched a couple of years earlier, as a vehicle for the Inhumans and the Black Widow, but by 1972, they'd been turfed from the title, in favour of the X-Men's Beast, now transformed into a furry monster. Written first by Gerry Conway, then by Steve Englehart, who would later introduce him to the Avengers, the furry Beast has fluctuated between furry and human ever since. Currently he's a big cat. Go figure.

Amazing Adventures itself would shortly become home to post-apocalypse hero, Killraven, who would be the book's star for the remainder of its run. More on him later.

1972 also saw the first appearance of Werewolf By Night, the launch of a new Ghost Rider, and the arrival of Dracula in the Marvel Universe, as the 70s Horror Onslaught began. As if that wasn't enough, that year also saw the debut of (Sweet Christmas!) Luke Cage, Hero For Hire. Marvel also introduced 3 more girl heroes: Ka-Zar-wife-to-be, Shanna the She-Devil, Night Nurse, who , after a four-issue run in her own title, would vanish into obscurity for the remainder of the 20th century, and the Cat, who would become better known in later years as Tigra.

In the real world, some important stuff probably happened, but since it was also the year that I was born, damned if I'm letting anyone else share my day.