VH1 Does Not Have The Market Cornered

Seeing as how it is now a full twenty-five years since 1980 began, I think now would be as good a time as any to revisit the trends and ideas that made comics in the 80s memorable, and in some instances, infamous.

1. “Hi, I’m fourteen.” “I’m for teens, as well!” That little exchange comes courtesy of Toyfare’s Twisted Mego Theatre, and it is a reference to the relationship in the early 80s between Colossus (who has to be 18-19) and Kitty Pryde (who was 13-14). There was not a physical relationship (so far as we saw), but it was still a slight bit on the creepy side.

It did not come close to the creepiness, though, of Terra, who, in 1983, we were treated to some serious implications that Terra was engaging in romantic pleasantries with Deathstroke the Terminator. Now that was seriously creepy.

Steve Englehart basically split the baby with his treatment of Arisia in Green Lantern Corps in the latter half of the 80s. Arisia was an alien who appeared to be a young woman. She was in love with Hal Jordan, who rebuffed her as being too young. Arisia then used her ring to make herself look more mature, and Hal Jordan fell for her. She is an alien, so I do not believe she necessarily should be judged by the same standards as the previous two, but it is still a bit creepy “I cannot date you, you’re too young! Oh, you appear older now? Cool!”

2. The Replacements. People make fun of the 90s for being the decade of heroes being replaced, but really, the 80s was the forebear of this practice. Hal Jordan was replaced as Green Lantern by John Stewart. Tony Stark was replaced as Iron Man by James Rhodes. Steve Rogers was replaced as Captain America by John Walker (quick aside…they named him after ALCOHOL!). Dick Grayson was replaced as Robin by Jason Todd. Barry Allen was replaced as Flash by Wally West.

3. Cover Combos. This one I am mentioning only because I am honestly curious, was the 80s the first time that the whole “two covers put together to form one image” routine happened? I cannot recall an earlier example, but I would love to hear of one. So fill me in, comic history nuts!

4. Super Continuity. In the early-to-mid 80s, Chris Claremont, Walt Simonson, Roger Stern and John Byrne were all writing most of Marvel’s most notable titles, namely X-Men, Thor, Avengers and Fantastic Four respectively. As they were all familiar with each other, the continuity on these titles was remarkable. Roger Stern even went so far as to reference a Thor storyline during a West Coast Avengers MINI-SERIES!



While this really worked well at the time, I think a problem was that some people decided to view the situation as working well because of the continuity, and not because of the fact that they were all strong writers. Therefore, a bad side-effect is that the same type of strict continuity continued even after most of these writers had moved on, and the later writers just were not able to keep up the quality, and the continuance of the strict continuity did not help matters any.

5. Misunderstanding Miller. This is probably one of the keys to the decade, as Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns is, ultimately, an optimistic story…yet it is remembered not for the ending (i.e. the POINT of the story), but for the grim and gritty nature of the story leading up to the ending. THAT is what later writers ended up copying, and that is, well, a shame.

6. “Let’s Cripple the Bitch.” I just wanted to point out that this was DC’s response (according to Alan Moore) to his request to have the Joker cripple Barbara Gordon. If this was the attitude of DC towards their characters in the 80s, I do not think anyone should be surprised by the recent mention of a “Kill List.”

Those are my contributions, now the rest of you, share your memories of the 80s!