Events From The Modern Age Of Comic Books
One of the key aspects of the Modern Age of Comic Books was that it was the beginning of big events. In 1984, Marvel Comics debuted the first large crossover Secret Wars, a storyline featuring the company's most prolific superheroes, which overlapped into a 12-issue limited series and many monthly comic books. A year later, DC Comics introduced its first large scale crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, which had long term effects on the "DC Universe" continuity (see below).
In the early and mid-1990s, big events were regularly published by Marvel and DC, often leading to extra publicity and sales. These events helped fend-off competition from Image Comics and such events were more likely to become "collector's items." Some events, such as DC's "Zero Hour" and Marvel's "Onslaught saga" spanned a publisher's entire line while others only affected a "family" of interrelated titles. The X-Men and Batman franchises featured crossovers almost annually.
Some of the most significant mid-1990s events, such as Spider-Man's "Clone Saga," Batman's "KnightSaga" and particularly "The Death of Superman" caused dramatic changes to long-running characters and received coverage in the mainstream media.
These events led to significant sales boosts and publicity but many fans began to criticize them as excessive and lacking in compelling storytelling. They also complained that monthly series had become inaccessible because one had to follow a number of comics to understand the full storyline. By the end of the 1990s, the number of large crossovers decreased but were still launched sporadically.
Read more about Events From The Modern Age Of Comic Books: Crisis On Infinite Earths To Countdown, Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Marvel Vs DC, Civil War, Crossovers of The Modern Age
Famous quotes containing the words events, modern, age, comic and/or books:
“One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape ... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)
“In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while his article is still on the presses.”
—Calvin Trillin (b. 1940)
“My age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty but kindly.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A guide book is addressed to those who plan to follow the traveler, doing what he has done, but more selectively. A travel book, in its purest, is addressed to those who do not plan to follow the traveler at all, but who require the exotic or comic anomalies, wonders and scandals of the literary form romance which their own place or time cannot entirely supply.”
—Paul Fussell (b. 1924)
“The world has held great Heroes,
As history books have showed;
But never a name to go down to fame
Compared with that of Toad!”
—Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932)