Parties Weren't Meant to Last - The Road to (X-Men) Revolution

Before stepping into the strange, distant land of early 2000, I thought it best to examine the context of the times.

In the year 2000, a president has emerged from a sex scandal with his highest approval ratings, the pop charts belong once again to actual pop acts, cable TV is attracting mainstream audiences with content too extreme for network broadcasts, and the average American has taken AOL up on those trial discs and ventured online.

The overall culture is recovering from the world-weary, ironic distance of the 1990s and embracing…mostly garbage, it seems. Or, at the very least, material that would’ve been deemed too vulgar for polite society only a few years earlier.

The Kids Wanted It Limp Bizkit Style

This ad from Wizard (taken from Augie De Blieck Jr.'s Twitter) reads as galling today. Twenty years ago, trust me, barely anyone noticed. Looking to comics, you wouldn’t have recognized any real cultural shift inside the pages of a Marvel title. Still big, mainstream, Code Approved, with plenty of ads for candy bars inside.

Online, there was plenty of talk about the new millennium, on how comics had to take this opportunity to evolve. (The Top Ten books are barely selling over 100,000 copies now!) The industry had been in decline for around five years, with comics disappearing from newsstands and few new fans venturing into comics shops. The industry leader, Marvel, remained mired in bankruptcy. The books were still coming out, still outselling most everything, but no one would tell you Marvel was reaching new readers in this era. Just doing their best to hang on to the fans remaining from the ’80s and ’90s booms.

Some creators drew inspiration from the shifting culture, hyping the idea of “Pop Comics.” Just as music had been taken over by quick, easy hooks and flashy visuals, comics should evolve into quick, easy reads with flashy visuals. I think that was the idea, at least. The catchphrase didn’t last long.

In this era, libraries remained indifferent to comics. (Particularly superhero fare.) “Digital comics” meant you were a thief, choosing to read a pirated comic on a bulky computer monitor for some reason. Fans bought their comics from the shops…and more and more readers found their local spot disappearing.

Anecdotally, I’ve come across barely anyone who discovered comics between 1996 and the early 2000s manga boom. Plenty of nostalgia remains for the early 1990s…virtually none from the days of “Onslaught” and beyond. In 2000, there was a sense that things couldn’t go on like this; that bold ideas had to be implemented.

Those Bad Old ’90s…and Their Outrageous Sales Figures

A point I’ve made repeatedly is that the stereotypical “’90s comic” is truly a product of the opening years of the decade. Most of the jokes about mullets, bulging veins, and ridiculous guns don’t apply to the standard mainstream comic published after 1995.

Not that the bulk of the material being published in the latter half of the ’90s was exceptional, of course. It was, I would guess, a pretty typical mix of good and bad, with a large portion of material reaching the heights of mediocrity. There was already a sense that the rather unheroic heroes of the era, along with their accompanying fashions, were an embarrassing fad and really should be forgotten.

I believe it was comics historian Peter Sanderson who dubbed this backlash the “neo-classical” movement. Many of the beliefs associated with this effort are articulated by Kurt Busiek in a March 1996 Wizard interview. (Not that Busiek himself ever chose to attach the label to his work.) The idea is to take the wonder of the Silver Age, the lessons learned from the Bronze Age deconstruction, and…really nothing of the Chromium Age and get back to telling entertaining stories about these wonderful archetypes.

The critics of the era (who, naturally, were never vocal Rob Liefeld partisans) embraced the backlash. Truthfully, it was a quite polite and classy rebuke, as far as those things go. The best superhero comics of the late 1990s? Even today, you’re likely to hear Busiek’s Astro City and Untold Tales of Spider-Man, and Alan Moore’s Supreme cited. Earlier in the ’90s, the only contemporary superhero book you’d likely hear the comics elite praise was the initial run of Batman Adventures, thanks to Mike Parobeck’s brilliantly “simple” art and Kelley Puckett’s experimentations with single-issue storytelling.

None of these titles topped the charts, but they seemed to be steady sellers. While the mainstream didn’t rush to embrace neo-classical, the average Top 20 comic did seem perfectly okay to fall back into the arms of a late Bronze Age aesthetic. Possibly now with some manga-inspired art, thanks to wild success of Joe Madureira on Uncanny X-Men. And not as many narrative captions and thought balloons, overall. Text-heavy comics were falling out of favor, perhaps fitting for a generation accused of a microscopic attention span.

The Comics You Were Supposed to be Buying

Outside of the superhero mainstream, authors who likely would never confess to buying a Rom comic were building an audience under the banner of DC’s Vertigo line. And even if one of their ilk by some fluke found his early success at Marvel, you can bet the Warren Ellis-es of the world were lured over to Karen Berger’s neighborhood by 1996. (If they didn’t have a Vertigo title, then look for them at any other non-superhero, non-Code Approved line launched by DC, still high on Vertigo’s fumes.)

Perhaps those iconoclastic creators would’ve enjoyed a Jamie Delano-level of success had they emerged a decade earlier. Two elements had arisen in the early 1990s, however, that would situate these creators perfectly within the mainstream.

The first—Wizard magazine. Don’t laugh. The same hype machine that propelled Rob Liefeld to the height of Levi’s 501 success was also desperate to sell you Garth Ennis’ face (literally). Wizard knew it had to evolve past its juvenile, hype-filled origins…and the burgeoning backlash against the early ’90s. What better way than to embrace the new wave of subversive (mostly) British creators; to convince an audience of fourteen-year-old X-fanatics that it was time to grow up a bit?

Mid-1990s Wizard maintained a decent amount of its adolescent persona, and was more than willing to help Marvel hype its latest crossover event, but, darn it, don’t assume these guys don’t read the good comics, too! And, hey, notice how there are a few jokes at Liefeld’s expense every issue now. Pee-yuu! Who ever thought that guy could draw, huh?

The second element—Image Comics. Very likely inspired by Wizard hype, Image’s founders certainly found a home for any Vertigo freelancer looking to pick up some extra gigs. Actually, for all the grief he was already getting, it was Rob Liefeld who beat his now ex-partners at this game. They had Steven Seagle—he had Alan Moore. After taking jobs from various Image founders, the bulk of Alan Moore’s superhero output was for Liefeld; and he likely would’ve stayed there, had Liefeld’s financial issues not caught up with him. (Moore then went with Jim Lee, unaware he was in the process of selling out to DC.)

The desire of the Image founders to still publish superhero comics (or, in the case of Top Cow, urban fantasy that looked an awful lot like superhero comics), but now with that seditious Brit edge brought us…dozens of comics that have been largely forgotten. Not that they’re terrible; I’m sure someone picking up an Ennis/Silvestri back issue of The Darkness will at least be entertained, but it’s hard to deny the book’s largely an artifact of a strange era.

One title emerged from this trend, however. A late-in-the-game revamp of the helplessly generic Stormwatch evolved into The Authority in 1998. And, within weeks of its release, The Authority would shake the industry.

Leather Jackets and Cigarettes and Everything

The Authority was cynical, brutal, and written with no apparent affection for the medium. Not that readers cared. The dark humor, detailed art, and “widescreen action” spoke to the aging audience. Earnestness was not destined to become the New Cool.

Well, perhaps not everyone was so shaken by The Authority. Ol’ mainstream Marvel Comics barely seemed to notice. (There’s a story of Chris Claremont picking up the first issue at his office at Marvel, digesting it, then asking some of his coworkers if “readers really wanted stuff like this.”) Although Marvel was bowing to some pressure, granting Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti of Event Comics a floor of their building and larger budgets to revive interest in several secondary properties. Boasting of a daring new approach, their Marvel Knights line raided any “name” writer they could pull from DC (along with director Kevin Smith), pairing them with solid artists and state-of-the-art production values.

Neo-classical was still around, earning a few spots on superhero fandom’s “Best Of” lists at the turn of the century. A revival of The Avengers and its related titles was a solid success for Marvel, with Avengers’ sales competitive with the main X-titles’ for the first time in years. Kurt Busiek (joined by George Perez on Avengers) held a godlike status amongst online fandom in these days. Busiek, along with creators like Karl Kesel, Roger Stern, and Mark Waid, were the ones saving Marvel from its ’90s excesses, the fans declared. This point was made to him on a podcast awhile back, and Busiek seemed bewildered anyone ever thought this. As someone new to world of internet forums and Usenet at this time, though, I can attest to just how brightly Busiek’s star shined.

Joining the neo-classical on the lists were several Marvel Knights titles; none of which owed anything stylistically to the continuity-heavy, soap opera-esque titles normally overseen by editor Bob Harras, who of course found his greatest success at Marvel overlooking its line of X-Men titles. Harras was actually responsible for launching one book the nerd hipsters adored. Deadpool, a peripheral X-spinoff that rookie writer Joe Kelly had transformed into a text-heavy, joke-fueled parody of mainstream comics. The book never sold that great, but seemingly everyone who did buy it was online, vocally demanding Marvel spare Deadpool from the axe each month. (It is odd in retrospect to see so many critics sensitive to “overwritten books” allowing Deadpool a pass.)

And, finally, the cool kids liked The Authority. They liked The Authority a ridiculous amount, really.

"Hasn’t Been Any Good Since 1980"

What didn’t the cool kids like? All those X-books, for one. The core X-Men books had a shot at critical respectability when acclaimed writers Steven Seagal, Joe Kelly, and Warren Ellis were assigned Uncanny, X-Men, and Wolverine respectively. (Ellis was always open about only doing four issues, even as Marvel publicly indicated they really wanted him to stay.) Following their departure, not even Alan Davis onboard for plots, pencils, and resolutions to several dangling plot threads could make the X-books hip again. Assigning the scripting to a writer considered by a portion of the audience to be the worst in comics perhaps indicated a disconnect between Marvel and the audience.

Also immensely unpopular online, even though sales charts had it as a respectable hit? Marvel’s new Executive Editor Chris Claremont’s pairing with Spanish artist Salvador Larroca on Fantastic Four. The forums and newsgroups of the era would lead you to believe this book carried the plague, with its manga-inspired art and stories that read like one of those gross ol’ X-books. (And, to be fair, that book did have problems.)

Marvel’s stance at the time was to ignore “net fans,” however. It would’ve been impossible to know if anyone at Marvel had even registered these complaints. (The uproar over revising Spider-Man’s origin in Chapter One certainly didn’t seem to faze editorial.) As stated earlier, Fantastic Four was selling, and they weren’t even paying Jim Lee to produce it anymore. What did Marvel care if a handful of nerds tapping away at keyboards didn’t like it?

The behind-the-scenes maneuvers that brought Claremont back to Marvel in late 1997 remained unknown at the time. Claremont acknowledged his past issues with Bob Harras, still Marvel’s editor-in-chief, in interviews, but hey, that was a long time ago. People change, we’ve all moved on. Yeah, I guess I’ll write Fantastic Four if you want me to, even though I thought Lobdell was doing it.

Sean Howe’s Marvel: The Untold Story actually devoted a few pages to Claremont’s return, revealing some new details. The return of Claremont…and John Byrne…and Michael Golden (never fully mainstream, but revered in smart comics fans circles) came at the behest of Joey Calamari, one of seemingly dozens of Marvel presidents in the late 1990s. A genuine fan of the medium, and the producer overlooking Marvel’s interests on the FOX X-Men animated series, Calamari carried with him hardcore 1980s comic nerd sensibilities. (There’s an alternate reality out there where Calamari is Marvel’s Kevin Feige.) Facing an anemic market and bankruptcy-induced headaches, Calamari thought the best path to bring the fans back was to make amends and return some legendary Marvel creators to the fold.

Chris Claremont, the architect behind the most successful superhero franchise in modern comics, would be overlooking Marvel’s content as the Executive Editor. John Byrne, the man who escorted Superman into the ’80s would be bringing Spider-Man into the…very late ’90s. And Michael Golden, the artist who inspired the biggest artists of the previous decade would serve as Marvel’s Art Director, defining the company’s look for the new millennium.

What could go wrong?