Sperg about comic books here

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

Eh, that’s Meltzer for you. Dude knew comics and loved the medium, for sure, but he’ll always be an airport newsstand novelist at heart.

Hopefully his Ghost Machine book will be good

 

[strumpets exeunt]

I've always thought the 1990s until 2011 (New 52, nerd culture shift) would be called the Dark Age of Comic Books.
Unironically though, the Modern Age from 1990s until 2013-ish should be called the Digital Age, where the current age we're in would be called the Inclusionary Age (2014-present)
I'm not above calling our current era from 2014-present the Homo Age though as @OutInTheRain said.

“Inclusionary Age” is probably the nicest way you could classify whatever this shit is.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

I feel like post 9/11 comics to 2014 should be its own era. But I'm not sure

 

[Stab You in the Back]

I feel like post 9/11 comics to 2014 should be its own era. But I'm not sure

In terms of writing, you had the:
90s-era Rule of Cool
2000s-era Post-Modern Grittiness
2010s-era Post-Modern Apologetics
2020s-era Diverse Tourist Writers Churning Out YA Bullshit

 

[Dan of Steel]

View attachment 7859177
The "modern age" of comics has lasted 40 years. Why?

Like others have said, this is kinda bullshit. I've always considered 1986 (Post Crisis on Infinite Earths, Watchmen, TDKR) to around 2000 the Dark Age. Double meaning to that because it's when comics got darker and edgier, sometimes to a really goofy and sophomoric extent, but also because the 1990s wasn't a great time for comics and I still don't think the industry has fully recovered from the crash in 1996/97 along with Marvel going bankrupt. A lot of people look back fondly at the 90s (as I do too since I got into comics back then) because of how bad a lot of the YA-tier writers and webtoon artists today are, but there was a lot of dogshit in the 90s we forget about. Like does anybody really look back fondly at Azrael replacing Bruce as Batman in his stupid edgy Iron-Man suit only because Bruce was out of commission from Knightfall?

Probably not, and there's plenty of other examples of trash from the 90s too. As well as the effect of the shift from newstands, being able to buy comics at the 7-Eleven or Walgreens to only being able to get them at LCSs, I think that period is rightly codified as the Dark Age.
I'm not really sure what you would call this current era post-90s though. Digital Age feels wrong because buying comics digitally is a clusterfuck, and most comic readers I know still prefer print.
A viewer to Comics By Perch brought up an interesting argument for this to be called the Gilded Age in reference to late 1800s America because with how profitable capeshit movies are, some might think that trickles back down to the comics making money when we all know that's not the case and comics as an industry continues to shrink in a lot of ways:

So I look at the historical timeline as this:
1700s-1900: early cartooning, newspaper political cartoons
Late 1890s-1938: Platinum Age
1938-early 1950s pre-code: Golden Age
Mid 1950s-1970: Silver Age
1970-1985: Bronze Age
1986-2000/01: Dark Age
2001-Today: Gilded Age/Clusterfuck Age/whatever

 

[strumpets exeunt]

Say what you want about Azrael's bat-suit, but it's wildly sincere in its own way. I can't put it into words, but it's a phenomenon that comes around once in a while. Maybe it's that soul v soulless argument. It's the exact opposite way I feel when I look at Jim Gordon's weird Bat-bunny mech suit that he wore for 5 minutes. Yeah, now you remember how that actually existed - good luck getting that image out of your head for the next half hour.

Think of it like costume unlockables. I would smile if I randomly unlocked the Azbat armor in a Batman game. Would I smile if I unlocked Ben Riley's Chasm suit in a Spider-man game? Probbbbbably not. But that silver spider armor suit that they kept trotting out in the 90s? Hell yes.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Like does anybody really look back fondly at Azrael replacing Bruce as Batman in his stupid edgy Iron-Man suit only because Bruce was out of commission from Knightfall?

I do, actually, yes -- Knightfall ruled. Well, outside of the "Crippled Bruce & Alfred's Globe Trotting Adventure" bits, which even DC apparently hated so much that they refused to reprint those sections for years. Azrael is a funny character. Him taking over for Batman was O'Neil and the other writers going, "This is what an over the top edgy, gritty Batman would be like. Stupid, right? No one really wants this." Ironically, fans said, "yeah, we do like him," leading to DC to give him his own on-going for nearly a decade.

Plenty of good stuff in the '90s: Starman is one of the greatest comic series ever, start of Hellboy, JMD's Spectacular Spider-Man run, Death of Superman (and a lot of good Superman stuff in general during the Triangle Era), Dangerous Habits in Hellblazer and later Paul Jenkins' run, Batman was consistently great from Death in the Family up until about the end of No Man's Land, and plenty of other stuff.

 

[Dan of Steel]

I do, actually, yes -- Knightfall ruled. Well, outside of the "Crippled Bruce & Alfred's Globe Trotting Adventure" bits, which even DC apparently hated so much that they refused to reprint those sections for years. Azrael is a funny character. Him taking over for Batman was O'Neil and the other writers going, "This is what an over the top edgy, gritty Batman would be like. Stupid, right? No one really wants this." Ironically, fans said, "yeah, we do like him," leading to DC to give him his own on-going for nearly a decade.

Plenty of good stuff in the '90s: Starman is one of the greatest comic series ever, start of Hellboy, JMD's Spectacular Spider-Man run, Death of Superman (and a lot of good Superman stuff in general during the Triangle Era), Dangerous Habits in Hellblazer and later Paul Jenkins' run, Batman was consistently great from Death in the Family up until about the end of No Man's Land, and plenty of other stuff.

Oh I agree Knightfall is great, I just never found Azrael to be all that compelling of a character. And even though I think Bat-Azrael is dumb, I can appreciate the sincerity of it in a "this is what a 10-year-old boy would think is badass" kind of way. And I agree all the other things you listed are great too, there's plenty of really cool shit that was made in the 90s, my only point being is that I generally agree with it being considered the Dark Age of comics for the reasons I listed. There's still heaps of 90s comics that are great and I enjoy. And if I'm being honest, I would still rather read something like Youngblood over whatever the fuck is going on with X-Men currently. Both are unreadable, but at least I get dynamic poses and cool action pictures with Youngblood.

 

[Neuropol]

70's and 80's, the loosening of the Comics Code to allow for at least classic monsters, and the rise of the direct market, led to an Age of creativity and access and excess that's rarely seen. It was the age of Cerebus and the Turtles, Marvel's Epic line and Dark Horse. The Rocketeer and Nexus stood on the shelf next to Byrne's Man of Steel and Miller's Dark Knight.

It was also the Age of the crossover event. Not just the company-wide wallet-drainers like Secret Wars and Crisis, but the brief run of intercompany crossovers that ended with the X-Men meeting the New Teen Titans.

I'd put Tomb of Dracula #1 at the start of this age. Youngblood #1 could be the end of an era, what with the speculator bubble kicking off around that time.

Then comes an Age so short it's probably more on an interregnum: boom times. Everything's selling like hotcakes, especially if there's a gimmicky cover. Bad Girl characters become a trend. Diamond starts buying up the competition. The annual Overstreet Price Guide gets replaced by the monthly Wizard Magazine. Everyone gets a superhero universe, Jim Shooter gets like three to his name. Lasts until Marvel buys and shuts down Malibu.

After that? A Dark Age that we're still in, marked by a consistent wave of bad decisions on all fronts, creative and corporate. There are bright spots here and there, but few and far between.

I think about this stuff way too much.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

I recall Azarel dying and then coming back to life. Starman was great. Mikhail is interesting but they never use him anymore.

Crimson Fox dying by the female Mist was and still is crazy to me. Like it was twin sisters and the other one also died previously. I kind of hope they return.

 

[Humble Architect]

The 90s uptick in alternate looks (which black suit Spider-Man caused) is great. Some sucked, but some are not only iconic but the character kept them as in-universe backups.

Like Superman’s black suit, love that he had it for his Dadman era, probably the closest Clark ever came to just outright being Mr Incredible. They even drew him like a brick shithouse during that brief era.

 

[Anonitolia]

Okay, I think I've finally run out of patience with other places for comic recommendations. May as well try my hand here.

Any must-read series people here would recommend? Heavy emphasis on Marvel here, especially pre-2010s. I know there's a lot of questionable stuff in the 90s and 00s too, but I've managed to find way more decent stories in that time period than anything from like 2010 onwards.
I'm willing to read DC, too, but I'm far less enthused about it. Even though I grew up on DC animated stuff (Super Friends and Teen Titans to be specific. I think some other series, too, but to nowhere near the same extent) I've always found their universe inherently less interesting in many ways.

Probably worth noting: I've been on a comics binge for the past month and a half, I've already read everything listed here:

Spoiler: Series I've read

Golden Age

• Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1

Silver Age

• Strange Tales #101-148
  • Mostly enjoyed these, though Thing + Torch kind of sucked. Just Torch/Fury and Strange were much better.
  • Planning on reading up to #168, then taking a break for a bit.
• Some offhanded Fantastic Four comics I unfortunately can't remember the numbering of.
  • I know one of them had a Dr. Strange crossover I checked out after it was advertised in Strange Tales.
• Same for Captain America. Probably going to get back to both of these two after I finish dissecting Strange Tales

Bronze Age

• What If Captain America Were Not Revived Until Today? (1984, I know there's a few of these)
• Demon in a Bottle (entire arc + 2 stories immediately after it)

Dark Age

• Marvels (1994)
  • One of the first comics I ever read. I think this is how I was introduced to Namor and the original Human Torch lol. Really liked it.
  • Looking this up to confirm the year it was published made me realize that there was an Epilogue published. Read through that while writing this. It's just as good as the original series was-- I like it a lot.
    • Probably going to read Eye of the Camera next, although I'll really miss Alex Ross' art. It's utterly gorgeous stuff, and it works perfectly in tandem with the more mundane plot.
• An X-Men comic from the late 90s/early 2000s about some X-Men in hiding getting interviewed by newspeople.
  • I can't remember the name of it. I think it was a standalone mini-series?
  • I kind of want to reread it now that I actually know who 90% of the people in that comic were. First time through was a funny experience. Probably not a good way to be introduced to Gambit, Rogue, etc.
• Bullet Time
• Marvel Zombies 1-5
  • All the series, 1-5, not the first series' entire volumes.
  • 1 was great, 2 was pretty good, 3 had some moments, 4-5 were atrocious
  • Also read:
    • Dead Days
    • The Army of Darkness probably shouldn't have without knowing the crossover material though
    • Marvel Zombies: Halloween
• Amalgam Comics (no individual side stories unless Doctor Strangefate #1 counts)
• Civil War, main plot. Also read
  • New Avengers: Illuminati (both the 2006 one-off and the 2007 mini-series)
  • Front Line #1 (disliked this, didn't read the rest)
  • Iron Man/Captain America: Casualties of War
  • Choosing Sides
  • War Crimes
  • The Return
  • The Confession
  • The Initiative
  • Didn't read anything else that technically took place during Civil War. Not the X-Men tie-in series, not the New Avengers, almost nothing that happened immediately after the event, nothing.
  • I did not like Civil War, at all. I don't think any of these comics were good.
• Fantastic Four Annual 1998
  • Most recent comic I've read, kind of. I read Marvels Epilogue while writing this and started Shadows & Light this morning (but have yet to finish it).
• All of 1602
  • save the standalone Peter Parquagh series. I did not read that
  • Enjoyed the first as a guilty pleasure (I'm a sucker for historical fiction), but everything outside of the original series sucked dick.
• Marvel's Shadows & Light
  • First series with the Marvel prefix + issues #1-2 of "Shadows & Light" (sans Marvel's). Currently reading through it, no plans to drop
• Fantastic Four (2023) #7-9, then #11-12
  • I was honestly just trying to find that story with the costumed dinosaur reality. I got lost, somehow. Read a few issues just out of curiosity. They were not particularly good.
• Lots of Doctor Strange stuff, mostly for comparison with his Silver Age depiction:
  • Doctor Strange: Strange Origin
  • Doctor Strange (2015) #1 (hated the story, didn't read any further)
  • The Oath
  • Strange (full series)
  • Surgeon Supreme
  • Death of Doctor Strange
  • Doctor Strange of Asgard #1-2
    • Dropped the series a little after Loki showed up, the dialogue got really unbearable by that point
  • Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment

None of this is in chronological order. I'm denoting the most recent and the earliest I read individually. Order means nothing.

And, frankly, probably more that I just forgot. (But if I forgot it, that means I'd have no issues rereading it! If it was that bad, I'd just forget it again.) The above list is pretty much everything I can at least look up and confirm I did indeed read.

Spoiler: tangentially-related Writer shitlist

I wrote this up after reading multiple of these guys' works and being very sick and tired of them lmao. I probably won't read anything they write. Copy-pasted from notes I made at 1am when I got really pissed after reading some Bendis shitfest. Very small because I'm incredibly hesitant to completely refuse to read any work because of a creative head involved (see: still read 1602 despite greatly disliking Neil Gaiman).

AVOID AT ALL COSTS

• Brian Bendis -- After reading I Don't Need Your Civil War, then Illuminati (2006) directly afterwards, I realized I couldn't tell his dialogue apart from the parody. Impressively, Bendis' dialogue was actually worse.
  • Spoiler: found out he sucks more than I expected

    KIND OF EDIT: as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that this motherfucker is the same guy who turned me off from getting into comics way back in 2019, holy shit lol. Apparently the Guardians of the Galaxy run I started reading with was written by him, and I disliked it so much that it turned me off from superhero comics entirely for a long while. Does anyone remember the name of it?? I almost want to reread it for fun; it's got to be impressively bad if it repulsed me way back when. I was super hyped about getting into "real" comics.
• Jason Aaron -- Like Bendis if he was more full of himself and didn't even bother distinguishing characters apart from each other.

I've also been combing this thread for some recommendations, but unfortunately it's kind of hard to find the good stuff without 1) reading the entire 388-page thread or 2) knowing which words to search for in the first place, so I'm writing this instead. Better I ask here than risk the retardation of Reddit for any kind of direction.

I'm not particularly interested in any given character, I suppose? Despite all the Dr. Strange comics on my list, I'm open to just about anyone. I just wanna read me some good comicks fer god's sake. I like me some good characters and some interesting premises, first and foremost, though execution is always important too.
I guess the only asterisk on this is that I think multiversal bullshit only works in self-contained alternate history stories, or in extremely specific contexts where they actually help contribute to character growth (dunno if FF Annual 1998 counts, but it does both of these premises pretty well). Cheesy Spider-verse-style team-ups are very much not for me, nor are multidimensional wars, and reek of bad fanfic. Pls no recommend.

Uh, anyways, I've probably written a lot more than I need to, so thank you for reading it.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

Despite all the Dr. Strange comics on my list, I'm open to just about anyone. I just wanna read me some good comicks fer god's sake. I like me some good characters and some interesting premises, first and foremost, though execution is always important too.

The Mark Grunewald Captain America run and JM DeMattis's run on Spectacular Spider-Man are good

Also Tomb of Dracula is fun.

Also the 70's Invaders book was great though art is meh.

 

[Anon88]

The X-tiles from the 70s to the early 90s are some of my favorites so I'm going to shill them here.
Uncanny X-Men 94-270
X-Factor
New Mutants

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I've made it far enough to say that the Judge Dredd stuff pre 2000s is really good. It does start off a little slow so you might just want to skip to the first major story which I think is "The Cursed Earth". If might be worth looking into if you are willing to branch a little away from the superhero stuff.

My final recommendation is going to be Frank Millers Daredevil run which is 165-233 which is the peak of the character and probably has most of his iconic storylines in it. You don't really need to bother with any of the earlier Daredevil comics if you don't want to as it kind of written as a reboot of the character and explains who any of the older characters that show up are.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

The X-tiles from the 70s to the early 90s are some of my favorites so I'm going to shill them here.
Uncanny X-Men 94-270
X-Factor
New Mutants

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I've made it far enough to say that the Judge Dredd stuff pre 2000s is really good. It does start off a little slow so you might just want to skip to the first major story which I think is "The Cursed Earth". If might be worth looking into if you are willing to branch a little away from the superhero stuff.

My final recommendation is going to be Frank Millers Daredevil run which is 165-233 which is the peak of the character and probably has most of his iconic storylines in it. You don't really need to bother with any of the earlier Daredevil comics if you don't want to as it kind of written as a reboot of the character and explains who any of the older characters that show up ar

Frank Miller's Daredevil is also legit hilarious

 

[Neuropol]

Add Roger Stern's Spider-Man to the list.

Walt Simonson on Thor and John Byrne on Fantastic Four are or should be right up there with X-Men and Daredevil from the same era.

A few years after Byrne, Simonson also has a run on FF that's worth checking out. Fair warning, though: he picks up the status quo Steve Englehart left him with and runs with it, and I cannot recommend that run.

Peter David's Incredible Hulk, plus any series of X-Factor he was involved in.

Spuder-Man 2099 is another fun David romp, and a good entry into that line. I'll admit to not having read much of them (and what I have is a mixed bag). I did enjoy the FF2099 issues by Karl Kesel as everything started winding down.

 

[Humble Architect]

The fun thing with Peter David is that his stuff is sort of a micro-universe. So if you like his runs, there’s lots of crossover and interplay. Like Miguel meeting Maestro for example.
It was done very cleanly and not too on the nose, like what the new breed do with brands and “their characters” AKA the Filoni method.
There are some characters that only one writer has ever done justice to, Peter David was that to the majority of the characters worth a damn in Marvel

Though there was that weird dyke-drama with Rick Jones’ wife, that’s a bit of a black mark.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Doug Moench's original Moon Knight work is decent. Early publication for Moon Knight is a bit messy, though, as he before he got his own book he showed up as a guest star in various other titles, as well as had back-up stories in the Hulk! magazine. Most collected editions have all that, though. The Hulk back-up stories in particular are typically really good. Speaking of Doug Moench, Werewolf by Night is also decent.

For Daredevil, Frank Miller's work (#168 - 190, #226 - 233) remains the best. After that, Bendis, Brubaker, and Waid's runs are also good. With Spider-Man, I actually think the whole first 30 years is worth reading but that's a ton of shit and not everyone can stand the initial '60s corniness. So for individual runs, I'd recommend Roger Stern's Spectacular and Amazing runs, plus the work DeMatteis did, Peter David's stuff, and maybe Gerry Conway's Web of Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man parallel runs (they ran at the same time and were essentially one book published twice a month).

The '80s X-Men saga is also great, though becomes very sprawling and can be a pain to read in order and keep up with.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

For Daredevil, Frank Miller's work (#168 - 190, #226 - 233) remains the best. After that, Bendis, Brubaker, and Waid's runs are also good. With Spider-Man, I actually think the whole first 30 years is worth reading but that's a ton of shit and not everyone can stand the initial '60s corniness. So for individual runs, I'd recommend Roger Stern's Spectacular and Amazing runs, plus the work DeMatteis did, Peter David's stuff, and maybe Gerry Conway's Web of Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man parallel runs (they ran at the same time and were essentially one book published twice a month).

Man, late 80's Spider-Man is good stuff

 

[Anonitolia]

Oh wow, that was a lot more than I was expecting-- all at once, too. Not to say that's a bad thing, of course! These few posts will probably keep me going for another few weeks yet lol. Thank you all for the recommendations!

The Mark Grunewald Captain America run and JM DeMattis's run on Spectacular Spider-Man are good

X-Factor
New Mutants

Have you got any issue numbers for me to go off of? Might be easier to find that way (especially X-Factor/New Mutants since there seem to be a lot of those?). I'll try and find these regardless; I'm just asking for the sake of convenience.

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I've made it far enough to say that the Judge Dredd stuff pre 2000s is really good. It does start off a little slow so you might just want to skip to the first major story which I think is "The Cursed Earth". If might be worth looking into if you are willing to branch a little away from the superhero stuff.

More than willing. I've been reading mostly non-superhero comics since I was very young, so the superhero stuff is actually pretty fresh to me. Bordering on a breath of fresh air depending on the run tbh. Maybe part of why I was so curious about them way back when.

the Filoni method.

I swear I've heard this before, but I'm unfamiliar with the specifics. I'm assuming it's basically just interplay between a creative's various works, no matter the brand?

Doug Moench's original Moon Knight work is decent. Early publication for Moon Knight is a bit messy, though, as he before he got his own book he showed up as a guest star in various other titles, as well as had back-up stories in the Hulk! magazine. Most collected editions have all that, though. The Hulk back-up stories in particular are typically really good. Speaking of Doug Moench, Werewolf by Night is also decent.

Double thanks to this guy for the Moon Knight stuff. I was thinking of mentioning it in my first post, but I think I forgot to so I'll just say it here. I've been looking for some Moon Knight stuff. Thanks for bringing up Moon Knight stuff.

With Spider-Man, I actually think the whole first 30 years is worth reading but that's a ton of shit and not everyone can stand the initial '60s corniness.

Wasn't 60s Spider-Man mostly Ditko's doing? If he writes Spider-Man anything like he writes Strange or his thoughts on philosophy, it surely can't be that corny.
Anyways, I'll check it out. Thank you for pointing out specific recommendations from the 30-year sea of stuff to read.

The '80s X-Men saga is also great, though becomes very sprawling and can be a pain to read in order and keep up with.

Yeah, that's the main thing keeping me away from reading it right now. Is there someplace that properly consolidates the reading order in an easily-referenced way? I've been using comicbookreadingorders.com for Zombies and Civil War, but looking through it now reveals that it seems to be both outdated (not many comics past 2019? not that I'm complaining, just notable since the domain might expire if it's not being tended to) and a bit unwieldy. It's just huge lists, and the color-coding throws me off. Would be nice if there was an infographic or something similar instead, especially since most other reading-order materials seem to just have comicbookreadingorders' problems but worse.