Kevin W. wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2019 10:45 pm
Another example: The conclusion of the Clone Saga in the 90's, along with Marvel's bankruptcy and the "Onslaught" story-line, and the "Heroes Reborn" debacle, I always thought that was the end of an era (or "season" or "phase") and "Heroes Return" (or maybe "Heroes Reborn") was the start of the new era.
*1)The Clone Saga lasted from October, 1994 to December, 1996. Ben Reilly died in "Spider-Man" vol. 1 #75 (December, 1996). The Saga concluded with bringing back Norman Osborn, and revealing that he was secretly manipulating everyone for several years.
*2) Marvel Entertainment (and its subsidiaries) filed for bankruptcy in December, 1996, and did not fully recover until 1998. But the background to the bankruptcy can be traced back to the late 1980s.
From 1968 to 1986, Marvel was a subsidiary of Cadence Industries. Cadence had bought out Marvel's original publisher (Martin Goodman) and had taken over Marvel's previous parent company (Magazine Management Company). In 1986, Cadence was liquidated, with its assets sold to various companies.
Marvel Entertainment was sold to New World Pictures, a film production company company which had been established by Roger Corman. New World remained Marvel's parent company from 1986 to 1989.
In 1989, New World and Marvel were both sold (with two different deals) to the Andrews Group, Ronald Perelman's holding company. Under Perelman's management, Marvel performed several ambitious corporate acquisitions in the early 1990s. It acquired Fleer (a trading card company), ToyBiz (a toy company), Panini Group (a sticker-maker company), Heroes World Distribution (a regional distributor of comic books), and SkyBox International (another trading card company). Most of these purchases backfired, with Marvel's operating costs increasing and the sales of its products decreasing.
By January, 1996, Marvel was already in trouble and fired 275 employees. Perleman tried raising more the sale of Toy Biz stock, and establishing a new film subsidiary for Marvel (Marvel Studios). His efforts did not rescue the company. In 1997, Marvel was taken over by a new owner, the conglomerate Icahn Enterprises. It was controlled then by businessman Carl Icahn.
In late 1997, a legal battle began for ownership of Marvel. By 1998, Marvel was acquired by ToyBiz. "ToyBiz and Marvel Entertainment Group were merged into Marvel Enterprises to bring it out of bankruptcy in June 1998."
3) The original Onslaught Saga only lasted for a few months (June-October, 1996). The storyline was concluded in "Onslaught Marvel Universe" #1 (October, 1996), with the apparent deaths of most of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Dr. Doom.
4) "Heroes Reborn" featured the "dead" characters from the Onslaught Saga reborn in an alternate Earth. It lasted from November, 1996 to December, 1997. It was an interesting experiment, with rather mixed results.
Basically, Marvel "farmed out" the "Fantastic Four" and "Iron Man" titles to Jim Lee's WildStorm Productions, and "The Avengers" and "Captain America" titles to Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. They came up with modernized origin stories for the characters involved. Lee's titles sold well, Liefeld's titles underperformed and his contract was terminated early. WildStorm took over production of the other titles as well, and hired new writers to replace Liefeld.
While Marvel was satisfied with the increased sales, Lee declined the offer to continue working on these titles beyond their 13th issue. "Heroes Reborn: The Return" served as an epilogue, to bring most of the characters back to Earth-616.
