Keep reading. See if you still feel that way when the Clone Saga is all over. I think Death of Superman and Knightfall both beat it because they had a clear ending and both stuck to their original plans. Clone Saga spins wildly out of control, the original writers/planners eject from the aircraft mid-flight, and the panicked passengers who climb into the cockpit have no idea which airport the pilot had been heading toward, and no idea in which direction it is anyway. So a lot of circling until all the fuel ran out, still couldn't find a flat place to land, so they just ditched it into the water. That's what Clone Saga is. It starts so promisingly, but it ends in horrific disaster. Knightfall and Doomsday might not be the greatest stories ever, but at least they stuck to the flight plan and landed safely.

 

And your reading of Bane is ignorant at best. Bane is a mental AND physical threat. He's a genius and a tactician on par with Bruce. Knightfall starts with him manipulating everything to weaken Bruce mentally, emotionally, and physically so that he can completely break him.

Clone Saga suffers extremely from both marketing and editorial interference. Marvel was hemorrhaging cash, the Clone Saga was selling so Marketing demanded it be extended. DeFalco was fired as EIC, Bob Budiansky took over as EIC of the Spider-books only and didn't know what to do, and then Bob Harras decided to impose edicts like Aunt May needs to come back to life and Harry can't be behind everything it needs to be Norman back from the dead.

 

Ah, but then that means Bane is NOT a physical threat to Batman if he has to use others to tire him out.

 

Bane was pretty smart actually. He’s a direct physical threat but decided to make sure he won by exploiting Bruce’s biggest weakness: his need to go it alone. Batman hunts down and fights his whole rogues gallery in Knightfall, and only when Bruce is fully weakened does Bane finally swoop in. That’s remarkably well done as a story and makes Knightfall worth reading.

The problem is Bane brought nothing new to the rogues gallery. Specifically he seemed like a pale shadow of Ra’s Al Ghul who is both a strong tactician and a direct physical threat. There’s just not anything about Bane that makes him stand out or let him saying anything about Bruce you couldn’t also say with Ra’s, or Joker, or Two Face, or Penguin, etc. They all play off some aspect of Bruce and could have just as easily came up with the same plan.

And then on top of that he’s dispatched almost immediately by AzBats and drops off the face of the Earth until much much later when he shows back up as a protege of Ra’s making his inferiority even clearer.

 

Oh I know, I read the entire saga in all of its terribleness. Though to be fair, as a child it seemed cool at the time. God I wonder how I managed to get into comic books given that I grew up on the 90s crap.

 

The 90’s aren’t all bad. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. Early Valiant, Bone, Morrison’s JLA, Waid’s Cap, Busiek’s Avengers, Long Halloween, Superman for all seasons, Kingdom Come, Age of Apocalypse, the Ultraverse...

And even the stories we’re giving a hard time (Knightfall, Death of Superman, Clone Saga) all have moments of greatness in there where you can look back fondly.

There’s a lot that goes wrong spectacularly in the 90’s and the industry nearly collapsed, but in that big mess there’s stuff that is worth a look. And some of it has some long term legacy. Planetary and Authority at Wildstorn, Ghost and X at Dark Horse, Hellboy, etc.

 

I did not realize The Long Halloween and For All Seasons came from the 90s as I didn't read those until 2006.

Still have yet to read Kingdom Come though.

 

Why is everyone talking about Batman and Superman in the Marvel thread, not on the DC thread.

 

Stemmed from the debate that Death of Superman and Knightfall were better 90’s stories then the Clone Saga.

 

Well the Clone Saga itself was a big mistake since Marvel in the 1990's try to recon that Peter Parker was the clone, and Ben Reilly was the real deal with changes to make Ben being the new Spider-Man before quickly de-recon that Ben was the clone whole time, and Peter was the real deal, but compare to Death of Superman and Batman: Knightfall is just wrong since Superman died from the hands of Doomsday before have 4 Supermen to try replaced him and he come back for the dead, and Batman got he's back broke by Bane, and had someone new to being the new Batman, did things that Bruce never done and later on the real Batman returns to defeat the evil Batman.

 

Yeah, the 90s get a bad rep for the outside business stuff that made the mark collapse, but there was a lot of good stuff. I'd add 90's Ghost Rider up til post midnight sons as one of the highlights. Savage Dragon was the big highlight of image. Much as I hated it, Emerald Twilight and Kyle Rayner GL were great. Zero Hour. Also the return of Kitty, Collossus, and Kurt back into the X-Men.

Plus the negative really led to that awesome period of 99-2005 where the market really rebounded until both companies re-embraced crossover madness. If they had stayed the coarse comics would look totally different today.

Not really following you here. Those were actually good stories with set beginnings and endings. The aspects incorporated into them actually meant something.

And Jean-Paul wasn't evil, he was a victim of his programming and took the mantle of Batman to a place it shouldn't have gone. Bruce had to reclaim it, but it wasn't out of the need to stop an evil Batman, but a Batman that he always feared that he himself could become.

 

My comment was that I felt Ben Reily has had far more development than Jean Paul Valley of what I have read so far while Jackal is a much more credible threat than than Doomsday who was just a single minded gimmick.

 

Is it true that Christopher Priest’s run on Black Panther almost single handedly saved the industry? Or is that just hyperbole.

 

Very much hyperbole. If anything it was Ultimate Spiderman. But generally, it was a plain focus on letting writers tell good stories unencumbered by editorial and crossover mandates. Not being tied down to a franchise to get every aspect of a story was a huge breath of air that allowed people to purchase what they wanted without feeling beholden to unnecessary titles they otherwise wouldn't have otherwise bought.

I came back to comics at the start of it, and my reading list went from fives or six generally X-Men books to around 30 multiple company books by the time of House of M happened. Just a ton of variety and that really encouraged picking up new titles and getting hooked on them.

 

I worked in a comic book store from 93 to 98. There was something every single week I could recommend whole heartedly. There’s a lot of hidden gems in there to go back and read from all the publishers.

 

I worked in one during the early 2000s, and it was amazing how much readership picked up. Like me, so many people went from a few titles to dozens cause everything was pretty much self-contained. I really thought the industry was gonna rebound to around late 80s numbers, but fucking Bendis kicking off the crossover resurgence...which is hugely ironic cause his USM, Daredevil, and Powers were huge aspects of that period.

 

Ben Reily, and to a lesser extent Khaine, have become much beloved parts of the Spider-Man lore. There’s a prestige format “Lost Years” mini about Ben I really like.

It doesn’t help that Ben was going to be the new Spider-Man, full stop, until Marvel chickened out and gave Ben about the cheapest death possible to clear him off the stage.

I thought of another good thing to come out of the Clone Saga: Untold Tales of Spider-Man by Kurt Busiek. For a while there it was the only Spider-Man book a lot of the regulars at the comic book shop would buy. It was a ray of sunshine during the worst of the Clone Saga.

 

Yeah it was a good time. Which I sadly had to get ahold of later. About 2000 I cut my comic book buying because of grad school costs and dating. I got back in again around 2005 or so, but I missed a big period for the industry.

 

Damn, that sucks. I like to call it the 2nd Bronze age. If it had continued unencumbered, would have been the 2nd silver age. Like, it was comic industry finally embracing what makes other countries aspect flourish. I dunno, it really felt like a true resurgence of the medium that looking back it makes me really resent the reversion that happened around 2005.

 

How Captain America Died (and Marvel Seemed to Forget About It)

Anyone here know about this?