70 Years of Marvel - 2000

One of DC Comics' biggest names took his first step into Marvel waters this year, with Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy, a Kree soldier who fell to Earth and fell out with pretty much everyone he met. Morrison would make a bit more of a name for himself in the years to come, whilst Noh-Varr would vanish without trace for the next few years, until he was recruited to work for Norman Osborn, adopting the Captain Marvel identity. But, you may ask, what happened to the previous Captain Marvel, the one who was Mar-Vell's son? Well, in 2000, he was just being launched in his own title, bonded with Rick Jones, and being written as a comedy drama by Peter David. His book would last a few years, and on its cancellation, he'd join the Thunderbolts, change his name to Photon, and be killed by Baron Zemo. Oh, the indignity.

The British were coming in 2000. In addition to Morrison's debut, 2000 also saw Warren Ellis take control of several of the X-Books, and Garth Ennis start writing the adventures of the Punisher. Additionally, fellow Brit Paul Jenkins' introduced the Sentry, his amnesiac hero from the dawn of the Silver Age.

It also saw the release of Marvel: The Lost Generation, an interesting, misdirected, and fairly futile attempt to bridge the ever-growing gap between the end of World War II and the start of the modern age of superheroes. Presented by Roger Stern and John Byrne, the characters introduced in the book vanished without trace as soon as the last issue of the series hit the stands.

Somewhat more long-lasting was Ultimate Marvel, another new brand, this one existing solely to relaunch the adventures of Spider-Man, the X-Men, and others in a new universe, unbound by all that annoying continuity. In time, these books would become as convoluted as the mainsteam Marvel Universe, but for a while there, new comic fans could dive into comics without needing an encyclopedia.

In other news, 2000 was the year we lost Charles Schultz and gained George Bush Jr. I'm sure there was some good news, but buggered if I can find any.

70 Years of Marvel - 1998

By 1998, Peter David had been writing the adventures of the Incredible Hulk for over a decade. In that time, the character had gradually evolved, from a character which no-one was really interested in, to one of the company's most complex books, with a main character whose motivations we could never really be sure of, and whose next move we'd rarely be able to guess. The book being a big success, Marvel editorial naturally wanted to tamper. Unfortunately, by 1998, Peter David was nearly as big a success as the Hulk, so when he was asked to alter his plans for the character, restoring the Dumb Savage Hulk who'd been so preeminent before his takeover, he walked off the book. It wouldn't be the last falling out PAD would have with Marvel Editorial, but it would be the biggest, with the Hulk wandering undirected for the next few years.

1998 also saw Marvel experiment again with outsourcing their work, this time to Event Comics, a little company run by an up-and-coming writer / artist called Joe Quesada. Rather than handing over their prime properties to Quesada and co, Marvel instead gave them free reign with some of their second-tier titles: Black Panther, Daredevil, the Inhumans, and the Punisher. The Marvel Knights books, as they were branded, were aimed at an older readership, 15 up, and, other than redefining the Punisher as a fallen angel, didn't miss a beat. In particular, Daredevil's fortunes took an upswing, transforming a character that no-one had known what to do with in years, into a grim and gritty street vigilante, under the authorship of first Kevin Smith, then Brian Michael Bendis. As with every successful idea in comics, the first idea of editorial is that more of what is successful, will automatically be more successful. Which is why pretty much every book this decade has been aimed at older readers. Comics aren't for kids, folks, not anymore.

Or maybe they are. After all, 1998 was also the year in which Spider-Girl gained her own title. Created as a one-off for an issue of What If?, May "Mayday" Parker is the daughter of Spidey and wife former bidey-in, Mary Jane (a daughter never born in the "real" Marvel Universe), and her adventures, provided by Tom DeFalco, have been ongoing ever since, despite numerous well-documented attempts to kill the title off. Let's hear it for the little book that could.

Elsewhere in 1998, Bill Clinton was denying having had relations with "that woman", whilst George Michael was admitting trying to have relations with "the man".

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 - 1989

The X-Universe was getting busy by 1989, with 5 full-time books: Uncanny X-Men (under the control of Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri); Excalibur (Claremont and Alan Davis); Wolverine (Claremont, again, and John Buscema); X-Factor (written by Louise Simonson, and drawn mostly by husband Walt); and New Mutants (Simonson, again, and mostly Bret Blevins, although the issue above was drawn by John Byrne). Of course, had we known what was ahead of us, in terms of the apparent exponential expansion of the X-universe, we'd have counted ourselves lucky to just have five books.

The New Mutants themselves were pretty busy too. They started 1989 by being embroiled in the Inferno saga, with Magik going crazy and turning into a demon. They lost the school and their headmaster, Magneto, turned back into a villain, and they finished the year stranded in Asgard, trying to save the 9 Realms from Hela. By this point, the book had abandoned any of the notion of being a story about school kids who just happened to be mutants, in favour of standard superhero stuff. We weren't quite at the annual "event" stage yet, but we were getting there.

Speaking of events, 1989 saw the "Acts of Vengeance" storyline, where some of Marvel's biggest bad guys decided the best way to beat their foes was to trade opponents. This led to such fights as Doctor Doom versus the Punisher, Daredevil versus Ultron, and the Fantastic Four versus Plantman. That storyline also saw the introduction of the New Warriors, another team of teenage superheroes, whilst, back over at the X-Books, future X-Woman, Jubilee, made her first appearance. Thor had a new secret identity, in the person of Eric Masterson, who'd later become the pseudo-Thunder God, Thunderstrike.

The real 1989 saw author Salman Rushdie get into a spot of bother, the introduction of the somewhat unpopular Poll Tax in the UK, and the decline and fall of the Berlin Wall. Yay!

70 Years of Marvel - 1974

1974 saw Jim Starlin at the height of his cosmic powers, as writer of the Captain Marvel comic books, in which Mar-Vell was taking on the evil titan, Thanos, who would haunt most of Starlin's Marvel work for the rest of the century.

Other comics-related events included the first appearance of The Punisher, Gerry Conway's assassin to the stars, hired to kill Spider-Man, and at this point, lacking any sort of defined origin. We also so the debut of Iron Fist, Marvel's attempt to combine the superhero and martial artist genres, as well as Doug Moench and Rich Buckler's cyborg sensation, Deathlok. 1974 also saw the Marvel Universe being brought a little bit closer, as ex-Avenger, Quicksilver, married ex-Fantastic Four member and full-time Inhuman, Crystal. Oh, and I suppose it would be a sin not to mention that Incredible Hulk #180 and #181 saw the debut of everyone's favourite shortarse Canadian.

In the real world in 1974, Tricky Dicky finally gave in and resigned. Fortunately, his immediate successor pardoned him for any crimes which he may have committed. It's a good life, eh?