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Jesse Perkins
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Joined: 14 April 2013
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | 1
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In my opinion, if you're going to point to 1986 as an important year (or THE important year) for Modern Age comic books, then you have to mention Man Of Steel, The Punisher mini-series and Elektra: Assasin too. MOS for bringing the icon of comics back to greatness with great writing and art, Punisher for establishing the first real modern age anti-hero, and E:A for pushing comic book artwork to new places. I hate it when books or articles only mention Watchmen and Dark Knight. Anyone agree or disagree?
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Rich Marzullo
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | 2
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The thing with 1986 is there definitely seemed to be a clear break from the Silver and Golden Ages (personified with Crisis on Infinite Earths). At around the same time you had Watchmen and DKR, whose (negative) influence on the comic book genre shouldn't be understated. I do think you're on to something, though, as every other comic published at the time is generally overlooked in favor of Watchmen and DKR.
But, in 1986 I was a one year old, so what would I know!
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Jesse Perkins
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | 3
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I forgot to include Maus, which I only read for the first time a couple years ago, so I don't usually associate it with 1986.
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Peter Martin
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | 4
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1986 was wonderful year for me in terms of comics as I was 11 and everything seemed perfect.
In terms of someone discussing the influence of comics from that year, I would readily forgive someone mentioning DKR and Watchmen and leaving out Elektra: Assassin. The shadow cast by the former two is long indeed, Elektra:Assassin, not so much. Though the art in the Elektra book is beautiful indeed, I don' think it is a great example of sequential art. I don't know what it is about painted artwork in comics, but it somehow lacks the dynamism and fluid storytelling of ink.
Man of Steel was a BIG DEAL at the time. Lots of media coverage and a real change in the landscape for the most famous superhero of all. It definitely belongs high in the list of any discussion of comics from 1986. How much of its legacy has endured though? And how much longer could it have lasted had the top brass at DC kept their nerve and defended the reboot more robustly?
I've never liked the Punisher very much and don't have a view on his mini-series other than it was never really on my radar.
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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | 5
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When I look back at 1986 the biggest impressions were Maus, the Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Man of Steel and "Born Again" in Daredevil. Crisis on Infinite Earths was also wrapping up in early 1986, and Swamp Thing was at the height of its popularity.
Unfortunately it seems that nearly everyone in the industry wanted to write the next Watchmen, Born Again or Dark Knight Returns.
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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | 6
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I guess you could also make the argument that 1986 was just the natural progression from the groundbreaking comics of 1985 - American Flagg!, Swamp Thing (which had left the Comics Code behind in 1984), Crisis on Infinite Earths and Squadron Supreme.
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Eric Smearman
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | 7
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Wasn't Howard Chaykin's SHADOW miniseries in '86 as well?
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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | 8
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Yes it was Eric. Good call.
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Andrew W. Farago
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | 9
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Squadron Supreme's a decent enough comic, but I don't think "groundbreaking" is the right word for it.
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Bill Mimbu
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| Posted: 12 December 2013 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | 10
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I remember that Stan Sakai's USAGI YOJIMBO comic got its first collected stories issue from Fantagraphics in 1986, a year before the regular series debuted.
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Peter Martin
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| Posted: 13 December 2013 at 7:28am | IP Logged | 11
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I really like Born Again -- brilliant art, wonderful writing -- but I'm not sure it left the book in the best shape.
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Roy Johnson
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| Posted: 13 December 2013 at 7:37am | IP Logged | 12
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If this helps, for DC and Marvel in 1986:
@Andrew: "groundbreaking" doesn't necessarily mean "great".
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