Poll: DC Comics In The 90s: Actually More Optimistic Than The 2000s And 2010s?

[Cicada 5]

It's pretty common to view comics in the 90s as being excessively dark, gory and sexually exploitative. And this is certainly true for a lot of the content of that time, particularly from Marvel and Image. But I don't think this applies to DC comics. This was the era of DC that gave us the Young Justice comic and John Henry Irons aka Steel and the Connor Kent Superboy. Tim Drake got his solo series and reconstructed the Robin persona as a light-hearted character and we got lots of great legacy characters like Cass Cain, Kyle Rayner and Connor Hawke who were arguably more idealistic than their predecessors.

If anything, the 2000s and 2010s can be considered a far uglier time for DC with stories like Cry For Justice, Identity Crisis, Amazons Attack and Flashpoint.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Flashpoint's grimdark setting was at least more interesting:

Thomas Wayne is a more vigilante Batman. Martha Wayne is the Joker.

Superman was found by government agents.

Wonder Woman and Aquaman had a romance that turned ugly which resulted in War between Atlantis and the Amazons.

 

[Natemans]

Flashpoint is pretty shit imo.

I will agree with DC being too overly focused on grim dark though I think the current run of Rebirth is trying to go back to that fun or optimism. Also good storytelling which was really lacking from the abysmal New 52

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I can see what you're saying. I am working my way through Geoff John's Green Lantern run right now. I'm in the middle of Blackest Night and like Sinestro Corps war before it it is relentlessly violent and dark. That's not to say they're bad, I'm having a blast as a matter of fact, but I think that whatever decade or era you're talking about is going to have a healthy dose of both styles.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Flashpoint is pretty shit imo.

I will agree with DC being too overly focused on grim dark though I think the current run of Rebirth is trying to go back to that fun or optimism. Also good storytelling which was really lacking from the abysmal New 52

Just explain in detail why its so shitty because most people I have seen say its good. And I have seen the animated movie unless the movie was better than the comic?

 

[Kolby Jack]

I voted no, mainly because nearly everything since Rebirth that I've read has been legitimately great and not-at-all grimdark. The examples you listed, TC, were mostly in the 2000's and the setting that Flashpoint started has been largely undone/patched up. I hated the new 52, but Rebirth has finally turned me into a true DC Comics fan. If Rebirth didn't happen I'd have voted yes, though, because holy shit was the new 52 terrible.

 

[Souplex]

It wasn't so much the 90s as the late 80s/early-mid 90s that were grimdark, with some final gasps all the way into the 00s.

 

[Tanis]

Not sure, when did Wasp get eaten again?

 

[Natemans]

Not sure, when did Wasp get eaten again?

Ultimatum was 2009 I think. Worst comic I've read imo.

 

[Souplex]

Not sure, when did Wasp get eaten again?

That's Marvel, and that's a special case of Jeph Loeb being the worst. Now he's an executive producer on every Marvel/Netflix thing, and I'm pretty sure on the movies as well.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I don't think it was that the 90s were any more or less dark so much as that they were dark in a very stupid way.

The comics of 00s and 10s also tried to be dark, but were generally somewhat more mature about it. It was a slightly more subtle approach than just having everyone carry guns and like twelve bandoliers while grimacing menacingly. I mean, it was hit-and-miss, but they were generally getting better at working mature themes into comics than they were in the 90s.

For example, I remember a Spawn comic where a woman walks down an alleyway, gets raped, stumbles out with her clothes half-on, gets hit by a car, gets picked up in an ambulance, gets raped by the paramedics, the paramedics get pulled over by the cops, the cops then rape her (assuming that she's dead), then they realise she's alive, beat her to death, cut up her body, and dump her in the river, where a wandering insane hobo pulls out her various parts and sews her back together so she can be his undead Frankenbride, at which point she kills the hobo and that's her origin story.

Yeah, Identity Crisis doesn't seem too bad in comparison. It had, like, one rape?

I actually remember liking Identity Crisis. It brought up a really salient point, which was "how do all these heroes keep their secret identities in a world with X-Ray vision and a telepathic gorilla?" And the answer was "magical brainwashing," which resulted in a memorable instance of Batman being legitimately pissed that Zatanna had mind-wiped him with magic.

Not sure, when did Wasp get eaten again?

Ultimatum was 2009 I think. Worst comic I've read imo.

Well, that's Marvel, for starters.

 

[stroopwafel]

For example, I remember a Spawn comic where a woman walks down an alleyway, gets raped, stumbles out with her clothes half-on, gets hit by a car, gets picked up in an ambulance, gets raped by the paramedics, the paramedics get pulled over by the cops, the cops then rape her (assuming that she's dead), then they realise she's alive, beat her to death, cut up her body, and dump her in the river, where a wandering insane hobo pulls out her various parts and sews her back together so she can be his undead Frankenbride, at which point she kills the hobo and that's her origin story.

Yeah, that's a Curse of the Spawn story. The character you refer to is Suture. That whole story arc was kind of a riff on I Spit on our grave. Every story in that series was kind of a different take on the Spawn mythos. The Tony Twist arc in that series was phenomenal. There was also another series Spawn the Undead that took a more subdued, psychological horror approach. Those stories were really good and handled a lot of mature themes like guilt, alcoholism, suicide and childhood trauma.

Anyways as for DC being more optimistic in the '90s I only read Batman and I think Scott Snyder's run is definitely darker than say Doug Mounch' run even if his more gothic take on Batman(with Kelley Jones' art) was definitely phenomenal as well(particularly the Elseworld Vampire trilogy). Both runs were really groundbreaking work.

As a whole I think the '90s in general was more optimistic so you'll see this reflected in popular culture in one way or another.

 

[Cicada 5]

I don't think it was that the 90s were any more or less dark so much as that they were dark in a very stupid way.

The comics of 00s and 10s also tried to be dark, but were generally somewhat more mature about it. It was a slightly more subtle approach than just having everyone carry guns and like twelve bandoliers while grimacing menacingly. I mean, it was hit-and-miss, but they were generally getting better at working mature themes into comics than they were in the 90s.

For example, I remember a Spawn comic where a woman walks down an alleyway, gets raped, stumbles out with her clothes half-on, gets hit by a car, gets picked up in an ambulance, gets raped by the paramedics, the paramedics get pulled over by the cops, the cops then rape her (assuming that she's dead), then they realise she's alive, beat her to death, cut up her body, and dump her in the river, where a wandering insane hobo pulls out her various parts and sews her back together so she can be his undead Frankenbride, at which point she kills the hobo and that's her origin story.

Yeah, Identity Crisis doesn't seem too bad in comparison. It had, like, one rape?

I actually remember liking Identity Crisis. It brought up a really salient point, which was "how do all these heroes keep their secret identities in a world with X-Ray vision and a telepathic gorilla?" And the answer was "magical brainwashing," which resulted in a memorable instance of Batman being legitimately pissed that Zatanna had mind-wiped him with magic.

Not sure, when did Wasp get eaten again?

Ultimatum was 2009 I think. Worst comic I've read imo.

Well, that's Marvel, for starters.

Identity Crisis didn't just have a rape. It had a rape that was retconned into a supporting character's backstory and turned a villain who was somewhat silly into a reject from Law and Order SVU. It also did the "women in refrigerators" thing comics have been notoriously bad at.

Most of the bad stuff in the 90s came from Marvel and Image. 90s DC never gave us the idiocy of Roy Harper beating people to death with a dead cat or Dr Light talking about how much he likes rape. By contrast, the 90s Batgirl series starring Casssndra Cain, a woman of color, had a very mature approach to child abuse.

 

[Tanis]

At times?

I think RIGHT AFTER 9/11 they got really fucking dark, and then got darker as Year 11 of a 'Mission Complete' War dragged on.