Friday, May 10, 2019

Decades 1980's - Altered States!


By the 1980's  Marvel was far far away from the upstart company which had unseated long-standing superpower DC from the top of the comics publishing business. The low-points of the late 70's had passed and the economy was beginning to improve generally. Change, if not necessarily improvement was in the air and Marvel changed, or seemed to. The advent of the direct sales market for comics allowed publishers to effectively and efficiently target the fanboy in a way they'd never been able to do before, to make books just for that dedicated reader who couldn't get enough comics. Also the generation of comic book readers was on the cusp of taking full control of the industry as the original veterans continued to give way to the vagaries of time and tide. And so with the tunes and melodies of comics well established and an attentive audience in two, variation on themes became the order of the day. New spins on the classics and changes to the seemingly unalterable status quo. We got a new Iron Man when "Rhodey" Rhodes put on the armor, the Fantastic Four welcomed the She-Hulk to replace the Thing and she remained for a very long time, the mighty Thor was hurt and so wore new armor to protect and project, the incredible Hulk returned to his original color, a mopey gray which seemed more in keeping with a new dour mood, Steve Rogers walked away from the role of Captain America yet again, but this time he meant it more, and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man got a nifty new black costume in the Secret Wars, a costume which turned out to be alive and nearly killed him before becoming one of Marvel's more popular heroes. (Is Venom the first time a costume got its own movie?) Oh and Spidey got married too.  Decades - Marvel in the '90s captures this period of change with glimpses of these alterations and more.


Here are the covers of the comics in this volume.










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