Is this the official timelines for when the Marvel and DC lines officially died?

[the blob]

yup, i dropped out of following new marvels right at onslaught, i might have bought a couple of issues and that was it (I had never really followed DC).

 

so we're talking about 10 years here.

 

mind you, i think i can get myself figured out on the Spideys I have missed despite the 3 million titles, maybe, up through BND. when i see them i've been picking them up and one day I will try to read them.

 

But X-men and all these frigging X-Men titles and Wolvie... I've picked them up cheap when I see them and would like to flesh out the run, but I don't know if it's ever going to happen. I think I picked up most of the X-Treme X-Men run out of my LCSes 50 cent box...does that tie into anything?

 

Back in olden times I bought my ASM, UXM, XM and Wolvie on a monthly basis and scattered in an occasional additional 2-3 books a month.

[Loki]

For me the Marvel timeline ends around the time they started routinely launching universe-wide crossover events every few months in order to shake things up. I'm thinking about the Atlantis Attacks / Inferno / Evolutionary War / Acts of Vengeance era.

 

There seemed to be too much focus on trying to market the Marvel Universe "en masse" rather than building interest in individual characters. That was pretty much when I stopped buying new comics and just decided to collect the books from the "good ole days". Frankly, I'm glad I got out when I did because ret-cons seem to be springing up every few months now.

 

It's been almost 20 years since and I think I've bought 4 or 5 new issues in that time. I've got absolutely no interest in anything that's happened at Marvel since the mid-80s.

 

But everyone is going to have their own opinions on this. I'm sure there are plenty of fans who find the ret-cons and universe wide events to be exciting. But to me, the glory days of Marvel are long gone.

[cheetah]

I'm into the books for the long haul. Stories come and go in cycles. Some are well written, some are drek. But the main titles I enjoy now are roughly the same that I enjoyed as a kid. I see the same story line come up with different characters involved and can compare it to how well it was handled in the past. I don't take the variations in a single character as too big a deal. They morph, grow and retract but it's still fun to read.

[Scrooge]

And all this is why my current pull list consists of a lot of Vertigo books and a lot of other franchises such as Conan, Criminal, the European reprints by Soleil, Usaji Yojimbo, the Spirit, Jonah Hex, Top 10, ... all series unfettered by incomprehensible continuity The only book with serious continuity I buy is JSA and it's been sucking rocks for the last year or so.

 

 

I'm a huge Marvel nut, but the only new books I still read and enjoy are not from the big two...

 

In all fairness to Marvel, they do a better job at insulating some series from the wreckage of Universe-wide events. I do read (though I don't buy) Captain America and sometimes Daredevil. Captain America is thoroughly enjoyable on its own and is not spoiled by Marvel events. On the other hand, the X-Men franchise is screwed up by the events. Once you contrast this to DC where EVERY book is affected, you shouldn't be surprised that in the recent sales results Marvel is trouncing DC ...

[Ogami]

right now reading (Marvel and DC, the thread in question)

 

Amazing Spidey (good)

Daredevil (better)

FF (- hate Millar)

Avengers (good)

Ultimate Spidey (reboot- doesn't really count- but better)

 

 

 

[Designer Toast]

Continuity is overrated.

[Aman619]

thats pretty ironic, because it was Marvel's continuity that made it #1. DC was satisfied to churn out 7 page standalone stories until Marvel cleaned their clock.

 

 

[Aman619]

... but yeah, now, with the weight of almost 50 years of continuity in both universes its a lot too much to deal with or keep track of.

[Kevin Boyd]

The DC Universe I grew to love was born in 1986 after Crisis on Infinite Earths with Byrne's Superman, Miller's Batman, Perez's Wonder Woman, etc. Before that DC Comics generally sucked --- with a few rare exceptions like Moore's Swamp Thing. The DCU I loved was critically injured when Mark Waid and Grant Morrison first tried to revive the DC multiverse with Hypertime in The Kingdom 1-2 - but it was officially killed at the end of Infinite Crisis two years ago with the "52 realities" multiverse. Now it's just the occasional good story by a creator whose work I enjoy.

 

The Marvel Universe I loved since I first started reading Marvel Comics in the early 1970's got really sick and never really recovered when they published Secret Wars II and the overall line went to heck in a handbasket. However, every so often there's a flash of the old Marvel Universe - just enough to remind me why I liked their characters --- and then it is gone. Like a blown out match.

[MR.COMICBOOK]

The DC Universe I grew to love was born in 1986 after Crisis on Infinite Earths with Byrne's Superman, Miller's Batman, Perez's Wonder Woman, etc. Before that DC Comics generally sucked --- with a few rare exceptions like Moore's Swamp Thing. The DCU I loved was critically injured when Mark Waid and Grant Morrison first tried to revive the DC multiverse with Hypertime in The Kingdom 1-2 - but it was officially killed at the end of Infinite Crisis two years ago with the "52 realities" multiverse. Now it's just the occasional good story by a creator whose work I enjoy.

 

The Marvel Universe I loved since I first started reading Marvel Comics in the early 1970's got really sick and never really recovered when they published Secret Wars II and the overall line went to heck in a handbasket. However, every so often there's a flash of the old Marvel Universe - just enough to remind me why I liked their characters --- and then it is gone. Like a blown out match.

The Byrne's Superman, Miller's Batman runs lasted less then 2 years, in fact Miller's Batman year 1 and Dark Knight lasted a combined total of 8 issues. Was it really worth it?

[sakaridis]

The DC Universe I grew to love was born in 1986 after Crisis on Infinite Earths with Byrne's Superman, Miller's Batman, Perez's Wonder Woman, etc. Before that DC Comics generally sucked --- with a few rare exceptions like Moore's Swamp Thing. The DCU I loved was critically injured when Mark Waid and Grant Morrison first tried to revive the DC multiverse with Hypertime in The Kingdom 1-2 - but it was officially killed at the end of Infinite Crisis two years ago with the "52 realities" multiverse. Now it's just the occasional good story by a creator whose work I enjoy.

 

The Marvel Universe I loved since I first started reading Marvel Comics in the early 1970's got really sick and never really recovered when they published Secret Wars II and the overall line went to heck in a handbasket. However, every so often there's a flash of the old Marvel Universe - just enough to remind me why I liked their characters --- and then it is gone. Like a blown out match.

The Byrne's Superman, Miller's Batman runs lasted less then 2 years, in fact Miller's Batman year 1 and Dark Knight lasted a combined total of 8 issues. Was it really worth it?

What Kevin said is that the DC Universe he grew to love was born with Byrne's Superman and Miller's Batman, not that it solely consisted of those titles...

 

...As well as the aforementioned Perez's Wonder Woman (which, by the way, lasted a quite a bit more), along with Grell's Green Arrow, Jones's Green Lantern, Baron and Waid's Flash, Giffen's Justice League, and many others.

 

I love pre-Crisis DC as much as the next guy, but let's face it, the company's output from '86 to '94 (or thereabouts) was exciting as hell! I wish I could say the same about their current offerings

[Old Fashion PB and J]

Pre-Crisis DC was very confusing and the "C" word was the worst thing about DC comics. The first crisis was meant to straighten things out by condensing the 52 universes into 1. After the events of 52 the 52 universes were rebirthed. DC has made things incredibly easy to read and has not gone with sensory overload while introducing things again. I believe after Final crisis this summer things should be in permanant status (at least for awhile). The reboots that have been going on at DC right now have been great for making sense of all those goofy SA DC stories by tieing up loose ends, as well as revisiting some of those quirky characters.

 

I love the current offerings from DC comics as many of the titles have been great.

 

Marvel... They made a BIG mess with civil war, who knows what will happen now.

[Kevin Boyd]

The DC Universe I grew to love was born in 1986 after Crisis on Infinite Earths with Byrne's Superman, Miller's Batman, Perez's Wonder Woman, etc. Before that DC Comics generally sucked --- with a few rare exceptions like Moore's Swamp Thing. The DCU I loved was critically injured when Mark Waid and Grant Morrison first tried to revive the DC multiverse with Hypertime in The Kingdom 1-2 - but it was officially killed at the end of Infinite Crisis two years ago with the "52 realities" multiverse. Now it's just the occasional good story by a creator whose work I enjoy.

 

The Marvel Universe I loved since I first started reading Marvel Comics in the early 1970's got really sick and never really recovered when they published Secret Wars II and the overall line went to heck in a handbasket. However, every so often there's a flash of the old Marvel Universe - just enough to remind me why I liked their characters --- and then it is gone. Like a blown out match.

The Byrne's Superman, Miller's Batman runs lasted less then 2 years, in fact Miller's Batman year 1 and Dark Knight lasted a combined total of 8 issues. Was it really worth it?

What Kevin said is that the DC Universe he grew to love was born with Byrne's Superman and Miller's Batman, not that it solely consisted of those titles...

 

...As well as the aforementioned Perez's Wonder Woman (which, by the way, lasted a quite a bit more), along with Grell's Green Arrow, Jones's Green Lantern, Baron and Waid's Flash, Giffen's Justice League, and many others.

 

I love pre-Crisis DC as much as the next guy, but let's face it, the company's output from '86 to '94 (or thereabouts) was exciting as hell! I wish I could say the same about their current offerings

 

That's exactly what I said. DC Comics were pretty lame and were just generally not very interesting compared to Marvel and most of the independants in the late 1970's and early 1980's. There were exceptions - like New Teen Titans and Swamp Thing, but things were pretty stale at DC before Crisis and a lot more interesting after they cleaned house.

 

Not saying they didn't screw up with some characters, and relaunching the characters in the new timeline over a couple of years was detrimental to those overlapping appearances in the books.

 

But absolutely I would say that it was worth it. One continuity, without a bunch of overlapping similar earths made for an interesting universe. I liked the fact that the Justice Society of America preceded the Justice League of America. It cemented the LEGACY nature of the DCU that made their books interesting.