The History of how Comics and
Manga/Anime Evolved and Came to be
By Avi Green
The Stone Age: prehistoric era
B.C-1937
Comics, whether the pamphlets we’ve come to know ever
since 1934, or even newspaper strips, which had been around since
the Yellow Kid in 1896,
which started the trend for daily and weekly strips like Gasoline Alley and Garfield, among others, have
many forebearers to the art, in paintings in caves by the ancient
human race, hieroglyphics, or even political satire cartoons,
something that France was particularly famous for during the 19th
century. Speaking of which, the earliest comic strip starring a
woman was Becassine, first published in France in 1905. But
when comics first really came to light in contemporary form was
probably in 1929, in a publication called The Funnies, put out by Eastman Color Printing Co.
in New York. While it was a rather mediocre product that few seemed
to appreciate, and got cancelled after just 13 issues, it did
nevertheless signal the start of the modern age comic book.
It was by the early 1930’s that publishers really began to
experiment with the ideal format for comic books, and in 1933, while
it was just a reprint series for comic strips, there came along
Funnies on Parade, which could be purchased with coupons out of
Proctor and Gamble products.
Then, in 1934, Eastman tried again, and came up with Famous Funnies, which is widely
recognized as the first authentic “comic book” and was distributed
like a magazine. It sold millions in its time, and publishers
everywhere got into action to duplicate Eastman’s success. And it
wasn’t just “funny books” that were what others were trying out;
even books and stories with more serious angles were being
experimented with, to varying degrees of success. And soon, the
business was booming, and new companies and templates for ones to
come were sprouting up.
Over in Europe, certainly in France, there were some comic strips
turning up as well, and in Japan, some of the earliest precursors
for manga, which is basically the Japanese word for comic, may have
also begun to make their debut. Japanese illustrations, for all we
know, began long, long ago too, as early as the 10th century or so,
and over the centuries culminated in some very good potential that
was developed into newspaper serial strips in their own country that
would be their own precursor to the manga that would become more
common since the 1950s. (Not only that, the template for the
doe-eyed look common in manga and anime today may have come from a
manga by the name of The Charm of
Nishiki-E, published around the 1930s.)
The
Golden
Age: 1938-1949
In 1935,
National Periodical Publications, had first launched Detective Comics as its
flagship title, and a couple years later would come to be known as
DC Comics in honor of its first book. As a business, they got off to
a rather rocky start, but when pulp magazine publisher Harry
Donenfield bought them out in 1937, that’s when they started to
rocket to success. Especially when two 18-year-olds from Cleveland,
Ohio, Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster (the latter's family may have
originally been from Canada), would come along in 1938 and present
them with what would become the world’s most famous superhero,
Superman, debuting in Action
Comics #1 in June 1938. Donenfield bought it for $130
(which yes, was considered a fairly high amount at the time), and
soon, Superman was riding to great success, creating the “superhero”
sensation for starters, and others would soon follow, most notably
Batman the following year, brought around by the 18-year-old Bob
Kane and artist Bill Finger in Detective
Comics #27. Siegel and Shuster would also go on to create
the Spectre and the Star-Spangled Kid, which they each came up with
seperately.
In fact, Action Comics #1
is also noteworthy for a short story introducing Zatara, a magician
who would later lead to the introduction in the Silver Age of
Zatanna, his gorgeous daughter who'd be known at times as the Magic
Maid. Some Golden Age classics really did help to lead to more
famous ideas during the Silver Age as well.
Then, in the
beginning of 1940, Gardner Fox would bring about some of comicdom’s
most famous characters as well: Flash and Hawkman, in Flash Comics #1. There would be
many famous characters, both big and small, who’d make appearances
in various features in this series, but Flash and Hawkman would be
the only two who’d last throughout the Golden Age in that book,
including Hawkgirl, probably the very first female take on a role
that began with a male character. Speaking of which, on a special
note, even earlier, when it was just beginning, Detective Comics featured Speed
Saunders, an adventurer who would later be written as being the
grand uncle of Kendra Saunders, the Hawkgirl of the 21st century!
Soon afterwards, Green Lantern would come along later in 1940,
followed by Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Captain Marvel, and even Green
Arrow in 1941. Plus, over at Timely Publications, now known today as
Marvel Comics, there would come the Sub-Mariner, who made his debut
in Marvel Comics in 1939,
becoming the first official superhero style protagonist in their
history, and soon afterwards, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon would create
one of the most popular freedom fighters in all Marvel history,
Captain America! Kirby and Simon would also create the original
Sandman for DC shortly afterwards.
And, just as important, the 1940’s would also see the publication of
history’s very first successful team title, All-Star Comics, featuring the
Justice Society of America. It would enjoy a memorable run for 11
years.
European comics began to develop post-WW2 as well. One of the most
notable in the late 1940s was Alix the Intrepid, set during
the Roman period and its conquest of Gaul (France). There was also Lucky
Luke, a parody of the western genre. Not all of what was
produced at the time had an easy, however - censorship laws came up
around 1949 that prevented Alix from having girlfriends because this
was supposedly bad for children's media (yes, they actually
categorized it that way then). Fortunately, the following decade,
these laws were eased up, making it easier to work on that part, and
made it easier to develop more comic strips that grownups could
enjoy better.
Over in Japan, there too, in the post-WW2 era, manga was starting to
gain a following, and it may have been courtesy of how some artists
and writers at the time were inspired by American comic books, some
of which had been provided by US soldiers stationed in Japan in the
post-war years.
The
Atomic
Age: 1950-1955
After WW2 ended, superhero comics began to fade in
popularity for a time. In 1949, Flash
Comics was canceled and Captain America was reduced to
something like a TV show host in his own book (Weird Tales), and then shoved
out altogether. The time when the Golden Age really came to a close
though, was when All-Star Comics
was replaced at issue #58 in 1951 with All-Star Western. With that, publishers began to
try out difference genres for a time, including westerns, romance,
teen humor, and even horror comics along the lines of what Bill
Gaines, EIC of the soon-to-come MAD
magazine would do with its predecessor, Entertaining Comics (Tales from the Crypt was one
example), originally titled Educational Comics by his father.
Frankly, they were considered too violent and grisly for the times
(actually, I'm not sure they would work at any time; they really were quite disgusting), and
after a senate hearing that came following the publication of Dr.
Frederick Wertham's Seduction of
the Innocent, which such companies as DC, Marvel, and even
Archie took advantage of in order to get some, if not all
competition out of their way, leading to the Comics Code Authority,
leading to the demise of Gaines’ EC publishing, and the only
survivor of that closure is MAD,
which was changed to a special magazine format in order to avoid the
code, but which has kept it able to enjoy the luxury of the
bookstore sales all these years. Make no mistake, I don't condone
censorship, and it's regrettable the CCA had to come about, but at
the same time, I do think some publishers at the time screwed up in
terms of taste.
Other than that, EC and its clones were put out of business by all
that, and it remained to be seen what the future of comics would
hold in store for the next decade. There would be some interesting
developments within that time though, such as the debut of the
Martian Manhunter in Detective
Comics towards the end of this specific era, in 1955.
And, I think it could be said that it was characters like that who
helped pave the way very soon to what was to be in the era to come.
Also at that time, manga was just starting to get underway in Japan,
with various artists beginning their talents at the time, and in
Europe, there too, comics were slowly beginning to take off. Special
magazines like Spirou and Pilote were published in
which to syndicate some of these bande desinee, and for reprints,
there was the "album" format books.
The
Silver
Age: 1956-1969
When
this famous era began, what kicked it off with a bang was the very
adept talents of DC’s late famous EIC, Julius Schwartz, who made his
surprise debut in the world of comics during the mid-1940’s, and
while until then, he hadn’t any official experience with superhero
comics, he proved that he understood a lot about what could make
them work. He was quite a sci-fi expert, having worked with sci-fi
writing for starters, and also helped to establish the first
official sci-fi convention in New York City during that time, which
could also be seen as a precursor to the comics conventions that
would come to be during the late-60s, early 70s.
Schwartz was given the task for starters of revamping the Flash,
which he did with Robert Kanigher, John Broome and Carmine Infantino
in Showcase #4 in 1956,
with instant, fantastic success. It began as a simple anthology
series, and very quickly became a starting ground for many other
popular characters, with Green Lantern, Hawkman and the Atom coming
soon afterwards. Plus, even underrated characters like Adam Strange
would get their starting chances in Showcase, and go on to make
appearances in titles like Mystery
in Space. And when it came to teaming up, the Justice
League of America would make its fantastic debut in the Brave and the Bold in 1960,
another anthology title that would later go on to become mainly a
team-up title for Batman, and would feature some really entertaining
moments there too (it became an ideal title for Batman to team up
with heroes whose own adventures were more sci-fi oriented than his
own books actually were). Put another way, Schwartz reinvented the
Golden Age with brand new characters in the roles of their previous
counterparts. And, simply put, sales were booming once again for
comics – and superheroes.
Then, in 1961,
comics went another step in advancing, when the great Stan Lee,
together with Jack Kirby, would launch the Fantastic Four over at the former Timely
Publications, which has since taken on the name of Marvel Comics. As
they said at the time, it would be like no other superhero team
before. In this case, what they meant was the fact that these
particular ones would have an emphasis on personal problems and
personalities being featured. Like the Flash, this too was an
instant success, and soon, Stan Lee would be launching such other
famous characters as the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Daredevil and Iron
Man, with Kirby also contributing on those, and then Spider-Man,
with Steve Ditko as the artist.
As of today, Spider-Man has since become Marvel’s leading flagship
title, and paved the way for various other teenaged superheroes,
such as the X-Men, which began the following year. Following that,
Lee would also give birth to Sergeant
Fury and his Howling Commandos, the very first place where
Nick Fury, later to become the lead of Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D as well,
would make his debut. Plus, there was Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and
the Silver Surfer, who made his debut in a cameo role in Fantastic
Four, would soon go on to get his own starring role as well. And
there also came along Marvel’s very own major team title, the
Avengers, which would feature several already established
superheroes from earlier books - along with a few new ones - now
joining forces to battle the super-foes no single superhero could
withstand.
Thus, DC and Marvel together rebuilt the fad
for superheroes during the Silver Age. One downside though, is that
during this time, a lot of other genres like romance and westerns
were all but phased out as the superhero genre took over, and it
took years until they ever came back, if at all.
During this same era, Steve Ditko helped develop the Question and
the Blue Beetle for Charlton Comics, 2 characters, if any, who'd
later become part of the DC universe in the 1980s.
In Europe, comics were also gaining ground in places like France,
Italy, Britain and Belgium, and while the comics of those times may
have first appeared in newspaper strip format, they did eventually
start to appear in book format too, in what they often refer to as
the "album" format. Asterix
is one of the most famous of the comics coming from Europe, debuting
in 1959 by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, and there's plenty of
others too. In 1962, the space adventure Barbarella by
Jean-Claude Forest debuted, to much controversy at the time, as a
comic strip for adults that also championed women's freedom. There
was even a humor strip debuting around 1957 called Gaston
LaGaffe, about the misadventures of an office drone. And in
1967, there came a notable sci-fi adventure by Pierre Christin and
Jean-Claude Mézières called Valerian and Laureline, teaming
a guy from the 28th century who was in charge of dealing with
space-time conundrums with a brave girl from the 11th century who
readjusted to his era as partners together. This strip is
particularly famous for inspiring set designs used on Star Wars
over a decade later, and at least 21 stories were written up to 2010
before the cartoonists decided it was best to write a conclusion.
Over in Japan, there too, the manga industry
was continuing to grow, and some artists even graduated to cartoon
productions, usually called anime. Tatsuo Yoshida, for example, was
one notable manga artist and writer who graduated to working in
animation, and after working for a while at Toei, one of Japan's
oldest and most famous cartoon companies, went on with his two
brothers to form Tatsunoko in 1963, another famous company that
produced anime mainly for television (and in the mid-80s, they'd
also begin working on what are now known as Original Video Anime,
OVA for short, special anime productions made for video viewing on
home systems). And their third production, the legendary Speed Racer (titled Mach Go Go Go in the original
Japanese), was based upon a manga book Yoshida first published in
1962. Even today, there are plenty of manga books that made their
way from paper to screen as the popularity of both genres has
increased and even gone together.
The
Bronze
Age: 1970-1985
As the 1960s
came to a close, and the 1970s began, comics began to slowly grow
up. What does that mean? Well, while the Golden Age’s featuring WW2
was something to that effect, with the Bronze Age now beginning,
they began to add more of the sort, by featuring “human interest
stories,” which could be focusing on problems with racial
discrimination, the drug problems that were cropping up with teens,
unfair trials in the ways of McCarthyism, and even the problems
caused by the Nixon Administration. Stan Lee broke the mold – and
the Comics Code – by doing a story in Amazing Spider-Man on drugs, which led the CCA to
reevaluate its standards, so that then, when Denny O’Neil, who was
working wonders with bringing Batman back to his more serious mode
at the time, wrote a similar story in Green Lantern/Green Arrow, it was already possible
to work on it without having to worry about the Code’s restrictions.
Other great stuff within that time saw the Kree-Skrull War in the Avengers come to be, the Celestial Madonna storyline a
few years later in same book, and even the introduction of Black
Lightning, the first black superhero to headline his own solo book.
Plus, there were also team-up anthology books, such as The Brave and the Bold, which
became a largely Batman co-starring fill-in-the-blank title since
1967, DC Comics Presents,
the Superman team-up title produced to match BATB, which began in
1978 and ran for about 9 years, Marvel
Team-Up, which headlined Spider-Man co-starring alongside
various other notable characters in the MCU, and even Marvel Two-In-One, which
headlined the Thing of the Fantastic
Four in similar co-starring adventures. Plus, there was
George Perez, making his fantastic debut in penciling on Fantastic Four in the mid-70s,
from where he would go on to work wonders with the Avengers and even
the lovely Scarlet Witch in the latter title.
Comics based on toy products were also beginning to show up at
around this time. Micronauts
was one of the first, debuting in 1979 from Marvel, and was soon
followed by G.I. Joe and Transformers, among others.
One of the biggest
achievements during the Bronze Age though, was the revival of the
X-Men, whose title had been cancelled in 1970 and had been mostly
filled in for with reprints until 1975, when Len Wein and Dave
Cockrum revitalized the series for starters with Giant-Size X-Men #1 (Marvel had
produced quite a bundle of those giant-sized issues at the time),
starring the All-New, All-Different X-Men, such as Storm, Collosus,
Banshee and Nightcrawler. The series would continue with Chris
Claremont and John Byrne in 1977, and Claremont himself introduced
one of the best ladies of our times, that being the adorable Kitty
Pryde, who first took on the name of Sprite, but soon changed it to
Shadowcat. Then, in 1980, DC would follow through on the success of
that series from Marvel with their very own relaunching of the Teen
Titans with Marv Wolfman and George Perez at the helm, in The New Teen Titans, which
introduced three new starring characters, those being Starfire, the
sexy alien princess who was an exile from the worn-torn planet of
Tamaran, Cyborg, the black teen superhero whose life had been hit by
tragedy when he was badly mauled by a strange alien creature that
entered his scientist father’s laboratory, and had to be refitted
with cybernetic equipment to save his life, and Raven, a mysterious
girl described as an empath, who was born out of Rosemary’s
Baby-type circumstances, the demon Trigon being her father, and a
woman named Arella, whose background was also shrouded in secrecy,
being her mother. It would continue for at least 16 years with
Wolfman at the helm, and with many other memorable artists
contributing their talents to it as well. In fact, during that time,
the Legion of Super-Heroes would also find their time in the
spotlight, as Superboy was given his own relaunched title and the
Legion took over in the title he’d had until 1980, which was changed
to the Legion’s own name at around that time.
The latter part
of the Bronze Age would also see Roy Thomas write a special revival
of the Justice Society, that being the All-Star Squadron, which would later be changed to
Young All-Stars in 1987.
And, in 1984, there came along a special spinoff for the then
Earth-2 superheroes, Infinity
Inc, starring the sons, daughters and other proteges of the
famous folks of the Golden Age, first introduced in late 1983, in
their very own adventures. And in 1983, after Marvel Two-In-One and The Brave and the Bold ended, a
special solo book for the Thing and Batman's forming of the
Outsiders would take their places.
Not only that, the Bronze Age also saw the introduction of the
miniseries, limited series that ran from somewhere around 3 to 8
issues in total, with World of
Krypton in 1979. This led to a floodgate of other
miniseries as well, such as Marvel’s own Secret Wars in 1984, DC’s Sword of the Atom, Amethyst: Princess
of Gemworld and Camelot
3000 during the same time, and most notable of all then was
Crisis on Infinite Earths,
which DC produced for the purpose of resetting their universe in
order to try and make their superheroes more on the same level as
those at Marvel, with personality more in focus. It ran 12 issues,
culminating within a year, and next to Camelot 3000 and Secret Wars was one of the first maxi-series, as
was described at the time.
Even smaller publishers like Charlton had some interesting products
to offer at the time, like E-Man, co-created by Nicola Cuti
and Joe Staton in 1973, about a lifeform that was born in space and
took up humanoid form to become a superhero and paired up with an
exotic dancer named Katrinka Colchnzski (who went by the stage name
of Nova Kane). It was mostly inspired by Plastic Man. Though it
initially only ran two years, it gained some cult status pretty
fast, and the following decade was revived for at least two more
years.
In Europe of the 1970s, there came bande dessinee
creations like Natacha by cartoonist Francois Walthery and
another guy named Gos (it's a pseudonym, and so far, I don't know
what the latter's real name is), which chronicled the adventures of
a sexy young airline stewardess and her occasional boyfriend Walter.
It was notable for having some of the sexiest artwork you could find
at the time, and later stories could occasionally be more adult.
There was also Yoko Tsuno by Roger Leloup, which was
groundbreaking at the time for introducing a star of Asian/Japanese
descent. The first few tales were drawn more cartoonishly, and later
the illustrations became bit more serious in their own way, yet
usually kept a sense of humor available. Yoko's adventures were
usually science-fiction oriented and featured a big emphasis on
technology to boot, making for one of the most impressive stories
introduced at the time the early templates for the internet were
just barely getting started. Leloup even later wrote up a novel in
1991 to expand on his heroine's background.
The 1980s saw the revival of the human interest storytelling
concept, which had all but drifted away in the latter part of the
1970s, and during this time, that's when many comics were at their
peak. And manga/anime started making a lot of inroads to western
countries during this time as well. Gatchaman and Neo-Human
Casshern were two notable anime series, the former that
helped make the real inroads to US television during the late 1970s,
with the Super Dimension Fortress
Macross, Space Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada coming
some time afterwards as Robotech.
These have since become cult favorites and have been followed by
plenty more.
The
Iron
Age: 1986-1991
With this era upon us, we saw the
relaunching of Superman in the Man
of
Steel miniseries by John Byrne and Dick Giordano (Byrne
would also write a special post-Crisis version of World of Krypton to accompany
it, and MOS would become
the subtitle of another ongoing series a few years later), more good
stuff to be seen in the Avengers,
Captain America, and in Spider-Man, there were clashes
with gangs such as the Kingpin's, and there was a memorable story in
which Robbie Robertson, the editor of the Daily Bugle (J. Jonah
Jameson was mainly the publisher), facing off against an old
adversary from his days in high school named Tombstone, who had now
become an enforcer for the Kingpin’s mob. Wally West underwent a
change in personality in the Flash,
where he'd taken over for Barry Allen, but it was initially
considered so middling under the pen of Mike Baron, that another
writer, William Messner-Loebs was brought in to make repairs and
improvements in what was done. It began to do better then. And
another famous book from that particular era, was Alan Moore's Watchmen miniseries, which
reworked the Charlton characters, since acquired by DC, into a story
of superheroes who lived in a world in which the public distrusted
them, and were portrayed in a rather negative manner from a
left-wing viewpoint.
One of the most memorable team-based ideas being launched at around
that time however, was the relaunch of the Justice League by Keith
Giffen and J. M. DeMatties in 1987. It brought Guy Gardner, earth’s
other Green Lantern, more into focus as his own hero, and even made
way for the reintroduction of Captain Marvel/Billy Batson, featuring
him too in more team-based adventures in the DCU proper. Plus, we
had Denny O’Neil’s notable run on the revamping of the Charlton
crimefighter series, The
Question, during the time when some direct-sales titles
were using Baxter paper, sorely missed today (it was largely
abandoned by 1995), and also special relaunches of the Legion of
Super-Heroes, the cult favorite first seen in 
Superboy’s
adventures in the Silver Age, who later spun off into their very own
starring adventures and
titles in 1979, and subsequently a Baxter series in 1985, and then
another series launched in late 1989. With the years progressing the
Legion’s own adventures became more and more intelligent in its
perspective, and the version launched in 1989 would continue for
almost 12 years.
There were also more independent publishers surfacing, such as
Capitol Comics and then First Comics, which published notable
creations like Nexus, Mike Baron's anti-communist metaphor about a
superhero living on a planet that became a sanctuary for dissidents
from commie-style regimes in outer space. Other companies include
Dark Horse, and even the now defunct Kitchen Sink Press, which
helped Mark Schultz to launch the memorable Xenozoic Tales, first seen as a
short story in an anthology series called Death Rattle. At least 14 books of this would be
published over the years. DH's first series publication,
interestingly enough, was called Dark
Horse Presents and was pretty much another anthology, and
did do a pretty good job of publishing independently owned stories.
Still more advances were made in manga, with Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats, to name but some
examples, and even a notable anime movie called Akira in 1988.
The
Middling
Age: 1992-1999
As the 90s came into the chronal picture, the output became
increasingly hit-or-miss. Independent publishers were becoming more
and more numerous by now, with Image, Dark Horse, and various others
now appearing on the horizon. But while there most certainly were 
some good things to be found during
this era though, there were also some bad things, such as the
reappearance of the Spider-Clone first seen in 1975, in Spectacular Spider-Man, and
even the Zero Hour
crossover from 1994 didn’t cut it. Biggest mistake there, of course,
was in killing off Hal Jordan and a couple of the original members
of the Justice Society, who got their very own short-lived revival
in 1992-93. And the trend for "grim and gritty" was taking its toll
in some areas around the comics industry. But there were some good
things at the time, such as Peter David’s run on the Incredible Hulk, and certainly
Mark Waid’s run on the Flash,
which saw the introduction of the new teen speedster for
contemporary times, Bart Allen, grandson of the legendary Barry, who
first took on the name Impulse and now, out of nostalgic
motivations, takes on the name his cousin Wally originally had, Kid
Flash.
Most interestingly however, was that in this particular time,
nostalgia was becoming a popular trend very fast in some cases.
People took a liking to Silver Age-like storytelling and were quite
pleased with it whenever it was used. And Chuck Dixon helped to work
Nightwing and the third Robin, Timothy Drake, into their own solo
books, and towards the end of this era, gave us the Birds of Prey, starring Black
Canary and the former Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, who now goes by the
name Oracle and works as the Bat-world's infolinker with her great
talent in computer knowledge.
Trouble is, as I said, there were plenty of mistakes made,
like the production of variant covers, beginning as early as 1991
with the sans-adjective Spider-Man series drawn first by Todd
McFarlane, and also sans-adjective X-Men, which was the
beginning of too many X-titles. And did I mention combined
poster-style covers, where you put 3-4 together to form one big
picture? This was something that turned up as early as 1985, but
went completely out of control years later. It led to a situation
where people were keeping these otherwise mediocre stories bagged
and boarded without even reading them, let alone buying them for
that purpose, and this led to the market's collapse pretty quickly.
Japanese manga fared considerably better during this time. There was
Sailor Moon, for example,
which got an anime adaptation pretty quickly that ran about the same
amount of time as the manga did (while there is serial fiction-based
manga/anime, most series are usually planned with an ending of some
sort). Of course, during this time, artists and writers were trying
out more than just mecha (Japanese for giant robots), and doing more
magic-based items as well (magical girl fantasies were just one of
those sort of things, and became quite common since 1967's Sally the Witch).
The
Bleak
Age: 2000-?
As the turn of the century came around, it's sad to
tell, but things slowly took a turn for the worse. Marvel's chief
editor office was taken over by Joe Quesada, who began the
deterioration of continuity in the Marvel Universe, and even shunted
aside "homegrown" talent for the sake of Hollywood screenwriters,
and even left-wing British writers like Mark Millar, whose respect
for America, conservatism and patriotic values was iffy or none. And
Dan DiDio, who took over DC's chief editor office, subsequently
brought down the DC Universe in similar ways, worst of all by
publishing a miniseries called Identity Crisis that was slammed for
its misogynistic storytelling approach, disrespect for past
characterization/continuity, to say nothing of sensible fans. Not
only that, it contained subtle leftist propaganda and
blame-the-victim messages. There was also the outrage Quesada caused
when, in 2004, he mandated the notorious Sins Past storyline in
Amazing Spider-Man, which saw the tarnishing of the late Gwen Stacy,
and in 2007, he forcibly retconned away the marriage of Peter
Parker/Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson-Parker. Even prior to that,
there was the terrible death of Steve Rogers, Captain America, in a
story penned by Ed Brubaker.
There was also the launching of Marvel's "Ultimate" line, which
featured new takes on Spider-Man, X-Men, the Avengers (now called
the Ultimates), and Fantastic Four, among a few others.
Unfortunately, this line, claimed at first to be something younger
readers could try out, turned out to be nothing of the sort - it was
riddled with jarring violence and morally questionable actions,
certainly the Ultimate X-Men and the Ultimates. As for
Cross-Generation Comics, a most excellent independent company that
didn’t get the attention it deserved, they went under (their initial
owner was surprisingly incompetant), and there's no telling if even
now, with new owners, that they'll ever continue what they started.
Geoff Johns, a writer who first worked as an assistant to Richard
Donner in Hollywood, started out well enough on some of the books he
wrote for DC, such as the Flash and JSA, and Hawkman was probably
the best thing he did, but he too soon began to falter, and when
Identity Crisis came around, I guess that's when it became apparent
that he was no better than countless other writers with an overrated
reputation. His new version of Teen Titans went downhill just
several issues after it started. Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey, following Chuck
Dixon's departure, has proven to be a surprise sleeper success, but
that too eventually keeled over.
Another problem is that pandering to minorities at the expense of
good writing started surfacing too, certainly at DC, whereas at
Marvel, they destroyed the Avengers when their awful Disassembled
storyline took place. But worst of all, as the audience for comics
stagnates, this has apparently led both of them to resort to
short-term strategies like "events" and also crossovers.
It's a shame this had to happen, that the "big two" ended up
becoming a plethora of mindlessness and even moonbattery, but that's
apparently what happens when one lets down their guard - the inmates
take over the asylum.
As a result, there's no telling what the future of American comics
will be like, certainly not that of the big two, which is uncertain.
On the other hand, manga and anime IMO look to have a longer life,
and there were certainly quite a few gems even in this particular
era, including Full Metal Panic, which began as a light novel, as
they call them in Japan, and got an anime series too in 2003 that
ran 24 episodes and 2 sequels. Of course, even there too, they may
be running short of ideas if they're going to remake past classics
like Gatchaman, and even Neo-Human Casshan. But here's where I'd
like to make a point that, if you look in some US bookstores, you
may find that manga is much more dominant than even US comics are.
When the quality of local comics goes down, is it any wonder that a
foreign market can take over? Yes, that's right. American comics,
and possibly even European comics, are being clobbered in sales by
Japanese manga, because they're delivering the goods that most US
comics aren't willing to offer. If a local market isn't willing to
satisfy its audience, how can they expect to get back on top?
Copyright Avi Green. All rights
reserved.
