I don’t know if it’s because it’s been twenty years or because I’ve been seeing so many books from the Nineties sitting in my local comic store’s back issue bins but I have been in a mood to read some Nineties comics lately.  Okay, let me clarify:  I have been in the mood to read some Nineties comics lately.

We’re closing out 2013 today and I’d say that this was as weird a year as any when it came to comics and trying to come up with something to post on New Year’s Eve that was a sort of “year in review” type of post, I took a look at my current pull list and realized that I’m definitely not the type of person to be doing a “year in review” for 2013 because I have only read a handful of titles from the Big Two comics publishers and even those aren’t the Big Main from the Big Two.  For instance, I have not been reading Batman or its associated titles since the New 52 relaunch.  Yes, I have been checking out the Year Zero storyline digitally but for the most part I don’t feel like I connect with this version of Batman so I haven’t been reading him.  In fact, I got so tired of DC this year that I dropped Nightwing and Batwoman within a month or two of one another and the only New 52 titles that I’m still holding onto with a tenuous grip are Earth 2, Wonder Woman, and World’s Finest.  My Marvel reading is even slimmer with the upcoming reprints of Miracleman and the Ultimate Spider-Man all-ages title being the only books on my pull list (though for the record I have picked up an issue or two of Hawkeye and may grab a few more before deciding if I want to add it to my pull list).  I have been reading more independent titles as of late, and while I don’t know what that says about me, I can at least say that they’re entertaining and worth the money (seriously, buy Rachel Rising and Herobear and the Kid.  Do it now!), but an expert at “what’s current” in comics I am not.

What this year has made me think about, if you haven’t gleaned yet from the introduction to this piece is, 1993, because it felt so much like that.  I started off this year with quite a number of DC books on my pull list and it dwindled down to what I just stated, mainly because I’ve been getting sick of the story-light, gimmick-heavy stuff that’s been going on.  Oh a crossover that spins into a billion books … again and look … variant covers and 3-D covers and all sorts of covery coverness!  You guys grab and fight over that, I’ll be over here with Scooby-Doo Team-Up.  And a quick scan of Mike’s Amazing World in January 1993 and December 1993 shows kind of a similar path.  At the beginning of 1993 I was buying all of the Batman, Superman, and X-Men titles.  By the end of 1993 I was down to Batman and the Titans.

So … what was the reason for the drop in interest twenty years ago?  I’d say money more than likely, but I remember that 1993 was the year that I became more discerning as a comics reader and collector.  I had started collecting three years prior and looking at the end of 1990 I was reading the Batman titles, New Titans, and would pick and choose from whatever Superman and Green Lantern were doing.  By the end of 1992 I was grabbing the latest HOT Image books and stuff like Venom: Lethal Protector #1.  Because I liked Venom?  Not really.  Because that was what people were buying?  Probably.

Oh God, I owned this at one point.

Plus 1993, when it comes to comics, was one of those years that was important because by the end of the year the bloom had definitely come off the rose as far as the comics speculation market was concerned with 1994-1995 being the time of the rather infamous market crash (I may be misremembering things and the market crashed in 1993 but things were still going strong at least at the beginning of the year).  I remember that my loyalties, which were already to DC anyway, strengthened as a result of feeling burned by various crossover events and big number one comics, and by the time I started my senior year of high school in September 1994, I was eschewing most gimmicky books and sticking to my guns, even if I still bought crap like R.E.B.E.L.S. ’94 (and as to why I was buying that title, well, some things are better left unexplained).

But aside from my becoming more finicky, what makes 1993 so important?  Why not choose 1992 (the birth year of Image, the Death of Superman) or 1996 (Kingdom Come, Marvel vs. DC) as the most Nineties year of the Nineties?  Well, here are fifteen reasons based on what I was reading (so even though “Emerald Twilight” started in the Green Lantern books in 1993 I never bought the issues–in fact, I have never actually read the story–and I never got my free copy of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #1).  I’ve placed them in a particular order with the first item being something that is pretty awesome and still holds up well to the last one being best described as something I am embarrassed to actually have paid cash money for. (more…)