The Modern Age of comic books is a period of time beginning in 1986 and ending sometime in the early 2000s.
Two things redefined comic books, specifically super-hero comic books in 1986.
- Watchmen was published
- Superman was re-booted in Man of Steel.
The first event opened the door for super-hero comics to explore mature themes in an even more graphic way than they had been in the 1970s. The second event stripped away much of the Silver Age hokum that had attached itself to Superman, bringing even the most iconic Super-hero down to a more relatable level. Both events would work together to make super-hero to increasingly dark places in the 1990s, as exemplified in The Dark Knight Returns and the plethora of Punishertitles, and would eventually meet up in 2004.
Beyond those two elements, there were three interrelated things that happened in the early 90s that really define the Modern Age:
The replacement of traditional distribution channels with the direct market. Comic book specialty shops had existed as early as the 1960s, and that number grew through the 70s and 80s. Due to several factors, including declining sales, traditional distribution channels like convenience stores and drug stores, comic books stopped being carried in those stores, driving more traffic to comic book stores. More and more comic books were being distributed exclusively through the direct market, to the point today where the only place to find most comics is at a comic book store.
The speculator boom. Due in part to the successes of event comics,Watchmen, Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Returns, people began to see comic books as an investment property, like coins or first edition books. But instead of buying older comics that may increase in value, speculators were buying new issues in the belief someday the new comics would increase in value as much as, say, Giant Size X-Men #1.
The publishers took advantage of this mentality by producing a lot of content that may be of questionable quality. Many publishers inflated their sales by publishing titles with two or more incentive covers or other gimmicks designed to entice a customer to buy more than one copy of an issue. for many modern fans, this era is considered to be one of the low points of super-hero comics.
The speculation bubble burst in the mid 90s, which may or may not be connected to the debut of eBay and speculators being able to quickly see what their collections were selling for. Many publishers went out of business by 2000, and even Marvel filed for bankruptcy and reorganized in 1997.
The creation of Image Comics. In 1991, seven of Marvel Comics’ most popular creators (including Rob Liefeld, who was recently asked to apologize for his part in the decline of quality in the 90s) demanded that they be given ownership and creative control for the characters they were creating for the publishers. When Marvel refused their demands, they left and formed Image Comics, a publisher that gave each creator complete creative control over each of their creations. Image, along with Dark Horse Comics, were the largest two publishers to distribute solely through the direct market, and many of the most notorious cover gimmicks belonged to Image Comics.
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