Quarter Bin 84 "Spider-Man, Starman, Superman, '90s edition"

This penultimate edition of a series covering comics found in an actual quarter bin is no indication that this feature's title can always be taken literally.

Sensational Hornet #1 (Marvel)
(Sensation Spider-Man #27)
From May 1998.
This was part of a storyline in which Peter Parker felt his Spider-Man persona was becoming more trouble than it was worth, and so he adopted several new superhero identities.  Clearly a nod to the Superman replacements of a few years earlier (although as far as I know none of these identities made it past this arc, in any form), this was '90s Spider-Man once again taking a direct page from DC, as anyone would easily argue that extended Clone Saga was created to do, to the chagrin of readers who had absolutely no interest in it.  For me, I had a look at the issue for the Mike Wieringo art, which if you'll remember was also the intent with the Flash comic I read earlier in this series of Quarter Bin columns (follow them alphabetically, or just root around the recent ones).  Ringo was a big part of my enjoyment of '90s comics, whether in his Flash or Robin runs.  Like every other creator that decade, he went on to launch a creator-owned series, Tellos, except fate played a cruel trick on him, and his fans, and comics fans in general, when he died unexpectedly in 2007, at the far-too-young age of 44.  His was a playful, expressive style that proved incredibly adaptable, and he was a natural to draw Spider-Man's adventures.

Spider-Man: Blue #4 (Marvel)
From October 2002.
The magic team of Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale produced a series of stories for Marvel's superheroes, each of them featuring narration directed at the biggest influences in the characters' lives.  For Spider-Man, they chose Gwen Stacy, whose untimely death in a 1973 comic forever altered the destiny of Peter Parker, again.  Interestingly, both this and the above issue feature one of Spider-Man's most intriguing, and oldest villains, although the Vulture takes the latter title pretty literally.  I would almost say that the melancholy Sandman of Spider-Man 3 might almost have been better replaced with Vulture, who still has yet to appear in the movies. 

Starman #45 (DC)
From August 1998.
For a lot of fans, James Robinson's Starman was the comic that redeemed '90s DC as something that wasn't merely reacting to the scene around it but producing something new, a commentary on the superhero tradition.  Which admittedly, for me, already existed in the pages of Mark Waid's Flash, but Robinson's efforts were perhaps easier to spot because he began them in a fresh title, with a fresh, new character in Jack Knight, who as of this issue launches himself into space, which someone observes in the issue is only appropriate for someone calling himself Starman.  His task is to locate one of his predecessors in the role, and he's accompanied by another of them, an alien who happens to also be gay.  For me, I always kind of saw Starman as being perhaps a little too impressed with itself, although its role as the DC equivalent of what had previously resulted in the birth of the Vertigo line remains a unique achievement, duplicated in brief by such efforts as Chronos and Primal Force, and most recently by Tom King's Omega Men, but on the whole a lasting testament to what's possible when a creator is allowed truly free reign in a mainstream comic, has the talent to pull it off, and seizes the opportunity.

Superman #57 (DC)
Action Comics #667-668 (DC)
From July, August 1991.
The truly sensational thing about the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman was that it was allowed to break all the rules.  Superman reveals his secret identity to Lois.  Lex Luthor dies.  The death.  The wedding.  And now, because of the Convergence rebirth, even a child.  There was also the time Superman executed some of his foes, and the Eradicator, a Kryptonian menace that presaged Doomsday, and in fact was incorporated in the monster's aftermath.  The first two of the three comics above feature the end-battle with the first humanoid version of the Eradicator, who originally appeared as a robotic relic with a mission similar to what later played out on the big screen in Man of Steel.  The replacement Superman with the visor?  That was the Eradicator, too.  First, Superman engages in mortal combat with this foe, and is probably the moment this generation of creators first dreamt of going all the way with such a scenario.  The last issue features the specter of Lex Luthor, who had died, ironically, due to Kryptonite exposure, having worn a ring embedded with a chunk of the stuff.  Later, the clone would be introduced, and later still, be magically reborn following a lethal clone illness back into the familiar bald form we all know (the clone, "his son," had the youthful look of the vision of the villain's father as portrayed in Smallville).  The issue is fascinating, because it opens the door to the perception that among ordinary citizens of Metropolis, Lex Luthor really was seen as the good guy, which is usually impossible in comics that relentlessly feature his war against Superman.  The creator involved include Roger Stern and Dan Jurgens, both classic members of the '90s generation, Stern near the end of his career and Jurgens near the beginning.  I'd known the post-Doomsday comics I enjoyed the rest of that decade were a direct continuation of material I hadn't read, and so every now and then I like to have a look at the earlier stuff.  And now, this period gets little respect, but it deserves it.  For anyone who started reading at, and only ever cared about, Doomsday, the lasting impression probably makes perfect sense.  But it really doesn't.  This was truly a rich vision, an impressive tapestry, a whole era that saw some of the best-ever Superman stories told, a cohesive, comprehensive story that didn't end until the end of the millennium, when DC started looking at ways to "make Superman relevant again."  The stories changed, the vision changed, but it took a while for anyone to even approach getting better than what had come before...