Marvel is the bestselling superhero comic producer in the United States, and the most well-known purveyor of superhero media in general in the entire world. Marvel has a lot of great eras of comics, but in recent years, many fans agree that the ’00s were the best of the 21st century. Marvel entered the ’00s in a bad place. While there are some great ’90s comics, very few of them were from Marvel. The publisher went all in on style over substance in the ’90s, and they suffered for it. 2000 would see Joe Quesada brought in as editor in chief, promoted after the success of the Marvel Knights line he edited. Tom Brevoort would become his second in command, and the ’00s would go on to create some of the best Marvel comics of all time, at least in the minds of many.
The ’00s gave readers the Ultimate Universe, Brian Michael Bendis’s Daredevil and New Avengers, Planet Hulk, Civil War, House of M, Secret Invasion, Morrison’s New X-Men, Rucka and Millar’s Wolverine, the Red Hulk story, “Dark Reign”, “The Winter Soldier”, and so many other stories that allowed Marvel to become the most powerful entertainment force in history. The Marvel Universe of the ’00s is the Marvel Universe that birthed the current conception of Marvel. However, I’m here to say something that is somewhat controversial — the ’00s are mostly overrated, and did as much damage as they did good.
I’m not going to sit here and completely give the history of Marvel in the ’00s, because no one has time for any of that. However, I can describe the vibe of ’00s Marvel, because that’s much easier. Joe Quesada had one goal in mind when he took over Marvel — fix the Marvel Universe. Despite some great sales in the ’90s, most of Marvel’s most important characters were in very bad places. Quesada was able to inject new blood into Marvel, bringing in creators like Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, J. Michael Straczynski, Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Greg Pak, Kieron Gillen, Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, Rick Remender, Jonathan Hickman, and many, many more to revitalize their comics. Marvel under Quesada was all about pushing Marvel forward, and there are a lot of examples of that. The Marvel Universe was a very exciting place in the ’00s, with a top down control of the publisher — Marvel editorial taking a very strong hand with the stories and creating narratives across the line — that made Marvel into a special publisher. While DC was obsessed with its past, Quesada was using the past to move the Marvel Universe forward.
However, there are a lot of problems with this era. For one thing, the edginess. Go back and read a lot of the Marvel comics of the ’00s and you’ll find a publisher that makes the edgelords of today look tame. The end of the Comics Code Authority’s over the Big Two, cemented by the death of the newsstands, gave Marvel more freedom, but they used that freedom in extreme ways. Creators took the violence and darkness too far, and that’s before you even get into Mark Millar and the Ultimate Universe. Then there was the event cycle. Event comics were always important to the Big Two, but Marvel in the ’00s created an entire story cycle out of them. It all began with Secret War, a heavily delayed event book that changed SHIELD forever. From there, we got House of M, which led into the build-up for Civil War. Civil War led to “The Initiative”, which led to The Illuminati one shot, which led to “Planet Hulk”, which led to World War Hulk. New Avengers — or any book written by Bendis or Millar — would set up the events, and those events would influence Marvel’s entire line. There are definitely a lot of good stories from this period, but they often led into the events that annoyed fans. Marvel’s event cycle quickly became a series of diminishing returns, as did the heavy editorial control that marked the ’00s. However, Marvel still holds onto these things as if they haven’t annoyed readers for years.
The ’00s was an exciting time to be a Marvel fan. There are a lot of Marvel stories that I love from this period. Marvel was finally able to match DC when it came to story quality, and we got to see some of the greatest creators of all time at Marvel. However, Marvel learned the wrong lessons from this time; it’s easy to see that the bigwigs at Marvel thought that their moves and ideas were more important than the creators on the books. Grant Morrison talked about the end of their tenure at Marvel in ’04 being exacerbated by weekly shouting matches with Marvel editors. The success of Marvel in the ’00s taught the publisher one thing — hubris.
This hubris became a hallmark of Marvel. Fans complaining about editorial decisions? Make editorial even more powerful. Fans tired of the event cycle? Diversify it across the line, so there’s not only a big event, but multiple smaller events across the line. Reboot everything. The ’00s at Marvel were great, but they aren’t as great as people like to think. So many things that fans complain about right now have their beginnings in the ’00s. It’s easy to look back with rose-colored glasses, but there are a lot more problems with the ’00s, and those problems intensified over the years as general comic sales fell and Marvel scrambled to get readers back.
What do you think of ’00s Marvel? Sound off in the comments below.
Marvel is the bestselling superhero comic producer in the United States, and the most well-known purveyor of superhero media in general in the entire world. Marvel has a lot of great eras of comics, but in recent years, many fans agree that the ’00s were the best of the 21st century. Marvel entered the ’00s Read More