In the early to mid-1990s, the pop cultural landscape was changing. Music styles such as grunge and hip-hop, which had once been seen as dangerous and obscure, were now regularly heard on Top 40 countdowns. The likes of Quentin Tarantino and other young filmmakers were creating movies as notable for their body count as their sharp dialogue and innovative storytelling techniques. Television, in turn, was becoming more cinematic, with a number of series leading the charge away from the standard half-hour formulas. And comic books, for so long a marginal art form, were enjoying a renaissance in popularity. The stories had become darker and weirder; the line between hero and villain blurred. Artists such as Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld were selling millions with their cruder, ‘in-your-face’ linework, which occasionally ran up against the boundaries of acceptable editorial content. And speculators were buying up foil covers and variant editions by the box load, hoarding them away as if they were gold
or illicit substances.
Amidst this milieu, some of the older heroes, such as the Avengers, began to look distinctly behind the times. The new breed of ‘hot’ characters, such as Wolverine, Punisher and the Ghost Rider, were urban warriors that were willing to resort to extreme measures to keep the streets safe. The Avengers, meanwhile, were still off fighting underground or off-world, relying on their superpowers rather than any street-smarts or aggression. Their modes of operation remained based in the Comics Code era of the 1960s, in which blood and gore were mostly absent. Closing in on their 30th anniversary, the Avengers were now well and truly the establishment; the adult-orientated rock of the superhero set.
The threat of irrelevance affected not only the Avengers’ mainstays - Captain America, Iron Man and Thor - but also most of Marvel’s other icons, including the Fantastic Four. One exception to this trend was the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, who continued to remain high in popularity into the early 1990s. Being both a street-level character and an outsider (and drawn by Todd McFarlane) helped Spidey to adapt to this new environment. The contrast with the Avengers is seen when Spider-Man briefly joins the line-up, only to realize that he doesn’t fit into a group that deals with cosmic menaces on a regular basis. By mutual agreement, Spider-Man and the Avengers go their separate ways, with Spider-Man going back to fighting ‘the Kingpins of this world’.
The next regular member, a young African-American codenamed Rage, also picked up on the difference between the Avengers and the ‘average’ hero on the street. Turning up on their doorstep one day, Rage criticised the Avengers for spending too much time in alternate realities or defending their headquarters from super villains, none of which mattered to ‘some kid in the inner city’. Coincidentally, not long after, the Avengers agreed to a charter with the United Nations that essentially limited them to dealing with just these types of threats. This eventually led to the resignation of another new member, the former criminal known as Sandman, who was cautioned by Captain America for calling in the core line-up to deal with what was essentially a domestic disturbance. Rage also left soon enough, going on to join teen group the New Warriors. It seemed at this point as if the Avengers and the more urban heroes of the Marvel Universe would remain, for the most part, in separate worlds.
Indeed, the two new members that would have the longest stints during the 1990s, Sersi and Crystal, were as far removed from everyday life as you could get. Both hailed from hidden races in which every person was super-powered. Sersi would go on to become the main supporter for a change in the Avengers’ fighting methods, arguing that the Avengers should kill if ‘necessary’. But, given that she was tens of thousands of years old, her sense of justice seemed less like a reaction to the realities of modern society than an ancient code of conduct reasserting itself in the civilized age. In any case, her change in attitude, in part driven by madness, also proved untenable and she too was forced to leave.
Another trend of the 1990s was to replace the iconic heroes – Cap, Iron Man and Thor – with younger, more aggressive counterparts. The Captain was replaced by John Walker, a stronger, more zealous patriot, who would go on to become the US Agent. Iron Man was replaced by his best friend Jim Rhodes, who would go on to become War Machine, who resembled nothing more than a walking tank. And Thor, the Norse God of Thunder was replaced by a native New Yorker, Eric Masterson, who would go on to become the leather jacket-wearing Thunderstrike. In each case, the original version would eventually return to the mantle, and the replacement would take his new identity into his own series. The introduction of these newer heroes was marketed as a sign of generational change, but it was probably more a case of Marvel trying to outdo their rivals for shelf space. Marvel never really put the resources into these titles to suggest that they saw them as anything other than ‘second-tier’.
As it turned out, when the market crashed in the mid-1990s all these series were cancelled, along with the series of many of the characters, such as the Punisher and the Ghost Rider, that had been ‘hot stuff’ only a few years before. When the rubble cleared, the Avengers actually moved up the sales charts (although they did not necessarily sell any more copies) by returning to a ‘classic’ line-up and creative approach (and better stories). The members that joined in the late 1990s, Justice and Firestar, were in the mould of their predecessors – white, super-powered and eager to do the right thing. The battle of the generations was over, and the old hands had won by attrition.
Ironically, the Avengers would find greater popularity with a ‘street level’ group in the 2000s, but it would be with a set of characters that had been introduced to the Marvel Universe in the 1970s. Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, Iron Fist and Wolverine, along with Spider-Man, would form an ‘underground’ group of Avengers that faced off against less powerful but more insidious foes. Yet far from simply replacing the older heroes such as Captain America and Iron Man, the New Avengers’ actions were in large part determined by them. Cap and Iron Man had now become the Lennon and McCartney of the super-hero community, the twin peaks of a legacy that no-one who put on a cape could escape.
What then of the ‘90s generation? Thunderstrike passed away long ago. The US Agent and War Machine, neither of whom appears likely to replace their predecessors for good, have re-appeared in lesser-known titles. Sersi, like Mantis before her, was taken to the boundaries of her character during her time with the team, and may not be a regular Avenger again. Crystal has (now tenuous) familial ties to some of the Avenger stalwarts, none of which appear in the current books. Others like Rage, Sandman, Stingray, and Darkhawk pop up every now and then, but are generally forgotten nowadays. The best hope of carrying the torch may lie with Justice and Firestar, who could one day usher in a changing of the guard for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. But generational change is a thing that seems destined never to happen in the Marvel Universe, as characters are continually brought forward in time. Still, most of the second-tier heroes from the ‘60s and ‘70s – Hercules, the Black Knight, the Black
Widow, the Falcon, Ms. Marvel – eventually returned for longer stints. As new creators emerge who grew up with the ‘90s generation, these characters could return. This time though, they will be the old guard, remnants of an era in which, for a few years at least, the established heroes were given a giant kick in the butt.
