The Mid-Late 90s DC Mini-Explosion

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This post on the Newsarama blog:

http://blog.newsarama.com/2006/11/20/ten-really-good-series-that-ended-way-too-soon/

- crystallised a nostalgic something for me: that odd, OMG the speculator market is crashing what do we do, green-light EVERYTHING era at DC when series would last 8, 10, 12 issues and vanish forever and almost any idea seemed to get backing. Stuff like:

Chronos
Hourman
Young Heroes In Love
Chase
Xero
Superboy and the Ravers (!!!)
Aztek
..and no doubt a few others.

This stuff had almost zero impact on DC (financially or in 'shared universe' terms) but is plainly remembered with fondness by some, and almost all of it looked nice too, with that smooth-line, all-ages style cartoony art that was the trad DC response to manga/Image I guess.

What do you think? And is it time for a reappraisal of the late-90s as a mainstream 'era'?

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 20 November 2006 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

The only titles (from above) that seem to have any real cult vibe nowadays are Aztek (because of Morrison & Millar), Xero (PRIEST), Hourman & Chase. Chase seems to be the queen of the buried treasure heap, in terms of blog post fawning.

Wha bout stuff like Anima & The Ray (MORE PRIEST)? Is that too post-Zero-Hour to qualify?

Marvel had this sort of death-knell, too, right?

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah definitely, but with Marvel the response to the crash was a bit different - lots of series for established but B-List properties like Heroes For Hire, Ka-Zar, Quicksilver, Alpha Flight, I seem to recall a Namor run around this time too. And of course a billion X-Books. God only knows what their strategy was, but it wasn't identical to DCs. Marvel's weird phase was a couple years later, under Jemas.

The Anima, Ray etc stuff would slightly fit I guess. The Ray was more the upward sales curve of the boom. Anima came out of the "must create as much kewl IP as possible" 93-94 era when DC (and everybody else) was scrabbling to get a million events, books etc on the market and hoping they'd strike gold.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

Chase = written by an old Usenet patron in rags-to-riches story (up to a point). Though not very injokey at all - I'm trying to remember who originally named the Parademon, last seen in Villains United, after a Usenet personality (let's face it, the odds are it was Peter A David).

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

Nope, that was Priest.

― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

I was about to say. I completely forgot we had a thread about Let Us Celebrate - Mike The Parademon!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:28 (nineteen years ago)

I was still on my comics "break" (from about 1995 until "Formerly Known as the Justice League") around this era, but I remember picking up the Superman titles at the time and liking the manga-fied art.

Hourman looks fun. Was Aztek actually any good?

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

Aztek was....quite good. It never really found its feet. The problem is that Morrison and Millar, while great mates (are they still?), never really mesh together as writers - they were on different trajectories, Morrison towards using thrill-power to bring a new Silver Age, Millar towards using thrill-power to strip the pomposity out of grim-n-gritty and leave a core of exciting nastiness.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:34 (nineteen years ago)

Whattabout Cloak & Dagger? WHERE IS THE LOVE.

Add also: Human Target

― c('°c) (Leee), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

Also Aztek seems to have been dying from day one, like Chase there was a continuous stream of guest stars. Though in both cases it's when the books have two continuous issues of its own cast that you can feel the shadow of the angel of death (or Kyle Rayner, as he's known).

Human Target is later?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

Cloak & Dagger was OLD SCHOOL! That was back in the day of Baxter paper and Beyonder perm!

And Human Target is Vertigo; ergo, it don't count.

YES LEE YOU ARE WRONG.

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

and HT ran for over two years - a fabulous success in this company!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

Wasn't DC also experimenting with non-shite crossovers during this period as well?

Young Justice (if you ignore the later 2/3rds of it)!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:43 (nineteen years ago)

DC took a scientific approach to crossovers and would rigorously alternate good ones (Final Night, One Million) with horrendous ones (Genesis*, that awful one focusing on...Wonder Woman was it?)

*srsly this is the worst ever, what were they thinking.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 20 November 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

Genesis was pretty bad. War of the Gods was pretty bad. The worst stuff was in the annuals where new characters were introduced (Bloodstorm?), apart from the Demon annual introducing Hitman, most were awful. And was that before or after Marvel had the new characters appearing in annuals? Now that was bad.
Are any of those characters still around?

Heeyyy! I just remembered! Major Bummer, which I admit I was drawn to because of the Mahnke artwork. And I really enjoyed Resurrection Man (at first)...

― Eyemelt (Eyemelt), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

Resurrection Man - there's another! Mainstream DCU character, completely new property, pretty much doomed. Editorial seemed to have a really creditable commitment to letting creators pitch and run with new ideas, all of which had pretty much zero chance of success. (Though if Priest's experience on Xero is anything to go by the actual editorial processes month-to-month were awful).

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:26 (nineteen years ago)

Err ah, maybe I should read the thread instead of the thread's links!

― c('°c) (Leee), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:02 (nineteen years ago)

I guess I should remind myself before I let myself get too obsessed with this oasis of ill-fated creativity is that at the time I had the opportunity to read all of this stuff free and I thought it was all a bit lame - Chase and Chronos were boring, Hourman obtuse, Young Heroes In Love didn't have the characterisation chops it needed to work, Resurrection Man was more into its sexy wummen assassins than its title character, Superboy And The Ravers was a WTFLOL guilty pleasure. The only ones I enjoyed were Aztek, with reservations, and Xero, without (Xero is also one of the hardest to find on cbr, grrr).

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:38 (nineteen years ago)

You could drop about $15US (shipping not included) and get it on eBay, Tom.

Tho I'll probably earn LOTS of love by saying that Xero didn't do much for me.

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, shipping to the UK is, what, $20? A pittance!

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

I refuse to do that because I'm convinced I still have them in a box somewhere! (Or rather, Vic Fluro does)

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:42 (nineteen years ago)

VEXT

― occasional mongrel (kit brash), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

VOT IST VEXT

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

& where the eff is the love for that aborted DARK HORSE DOES HEROES thing? (Comic's Greatest World?) That was some, um, stuff!

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:52 (nineteen years ago)

Vext is great!!. Another one of those Giffen ideas too original and off the wall to work. I assume he thought "six issue miniseries".

Martian Manhunter?.
Stars And S.T.R.I.P.E.S.? (who gave us Geoff! Johns!)

― Amadeo (Amadeo G.), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 01:23 (nineteen years ago)

Vext was definitely structured as an ongoing, it set up loads of stuff and got cut off in the middle of all ongoing subplots. And wasn't very off-the-wall, totally could have survived in a healthier climate. Though as I recall the second issue was genius and the next four fell off hard (and had shitty covers with screaming captions pleading to be noticed, like a lot of DC stuff from this time)

Comics Greatest World is, again, a post-Image boom cash-in attempt, not a mid-late '90s thing - every fucker and his cousin were trying to bootstrap superhero universes at the time, cf. Valiant and Malibu and Tekno and that thing you did with your cousin.

Chase deserves its rep, and really should have been allowed to struggle longer - the '80s Suicide Squad got six years or so (yeah yeah in a healthy market), and this was smarter, better written, and 1000 times better drawn.

― occasional mongrel (kit brash), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 02:29 (nineteen years ago)

I grew up on this shit, old man internet nerd tastes in superhero comics at a tragically young age. Vext is the only series I have a complete run of.

― Adrienne Begley (sparklecock), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 06:23 (nineteen years ago)

Chronos was boring but I liked the art. That goes x1000 for Chase and I'll go to the mat for the Morrison lite of Hourman. I had limits though and Superboy and the Ravers was just beyond it.

― Adrienne Begley (sparklecock), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 06:25 (nineteen years ago)

I have the first few issues of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. and they are kind of a hysterically misconceived attempt at a DC superhero comic with appeal for young girls. The zero issue is "sassy" "butt kicking" "high school" "field trip" superhero action intercut with flashbacks to some JSA trivia shit rendered in stiff olde tymey Jerry Ordway style art. Even the regular artist, underrated late 90s DC penciller #1 Lee Moder, has his shit ruined by a bad inker or a stroke or something so the whole book is pretty visually unappealing.

Old golden age comic dorks don't wanna read about bratty sassy teenage girls to the point of being moved to creepy internet rage about it and NOBODY else let alone 12 year old girls wants to read about Skyman so basically this comic had no audience beyond Geoff Johns and was doomed to failure from issue #0. Sincere points for trying though!

― Adrienne Begley (sparklecock), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 06:58 (nineteen years ago)

Aaaargh. Comic's Greatest World. Apart from Ghost and Barb Wire were there any more 'successes'? I do recall a lovely Mignola cover on what I think was called 'The Machine'. DH were trying to establish a universe like the big two, but it seemed a lot more like a number two. There was a Predator issue in there somewhere (Motorhead?)...

― Eyemelt (Eyemelt), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

Does Birds of Prey fall under this EXPLOSION?

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 19:12 (nineteen years ago)

It def came out around the same time, although they tested the waters with a few miniseries at first rather than "RESURRECTION MAN ONGOING SERIES WHY NOT IT CAN'T FAIL"

Also I can't speak for the current run but the early issues of Birds of Prey that I have are so so SO so bad, they're like TBS syndicated action shows rewritten to include banter about guys' butts and eating chocolates. However they do feature hott art by Greg Land either before he lost all his talent or before I knew what a lightbox was.

― Adrienne Begley (sparklecock), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

AB, the current run is solid fun w/ talk about butts and chocolate A) kept to a minimum, and B) written by a GURL. (I'm pretty sure Cuhck D!xon wrote BoP the first few years, which, if you think about it, makes PERFECT F*CKING SENSE.)

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 01:01 (nineteen years ago)

I think same batch might include Nightwing ongoing and Peter David Supergirl, which - as slightly better known characters probably lasted for longer for a reason. Young Justice as well was never really cancelled, it just became rubbish Titans.

Actually does Dan Jurgens Teen Titans fit in here?

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe TEAM Titans?

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think Nightwing and Supergirl fit exactly because those were known brand names and safer bets for the company - though they do show that the strategy wasn't ALL about new properties. The Jurgens Titans was a known brand name with all-new characters, based on the idea I guess that Dan J was a hott name that could sell books, rather than just being in the right place (Superman) at the right time (1993).

BoP definitely fits, though.

Team Titans was MUCH earlier - that was the Rob Liefeld project that never was, which dates it.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

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