The 10 Worst '90s Comic Character Revamps

By Ethan Kaye in Comics, Daily Lists
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 8:05 am
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The '90s were a great time for the Amercian comics industry. Well, let us specify that -- the '90s were a great time for comics' popularity and sales. In terms of content, the '90s were a cruel mistress, who demanded long hair, manly stubble, and many, many pouches on even the most traditional of superheroes. Thus, we got revamp after revamp of our favorite Marvel and DC characters. Were any of them necessary? Nope. Not a one.

Why did editors decide that well-worn heroes needed to update their image? Were they copying Image Comics heroes? Trying to increase sales? Hidden fetishes for big guns? Payola from the leather industry? Probably all of them. Here are 10 completely unnecessary character revamps from that tragic decade.

10) Nomad
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Nomad was never anyone's favorite character when he teamed up with Captain America and wore his little blue suit. When he got his grim n' gritty '90s makeover he was still no one's favorite character, but he got stuck with a kid and the obligatory '90s trenchcoat. His hair got long, he got an ever-present sawed-off shotgun, and the badge of the gritty '90s hero, the stubble. Did it make him interesting? No. It just made him look like a hobo who stole clothes off a cowboy and carried a baby around.

9) Fate
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You can't improve on the classics, and when you try it's just sad. Take a look at the original cover of All-Star Comics #3, the first appearance of the Justice Society. All those guys still wear those costumes today! And Dr. Fate's costume is so iconic it's making an appearance in the JSA Smallville special. So how do you improve on it? If you're working in the '90s, the answer is to give him a set of full-body, maroon tights, shoulderpads, a whole bunch of useless belts to drape over his chest, and a bunch of weapons instead of magic. Obligatory '90s long hair? Check. Epic fail? Check.

8) Thunderstrike
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No self-respecting Norse god would even think of walking around with a sleeveless leather jacket on, so Marvel gave us Thunderstrike, an image of what Thor would look like if he hung out at biker bars. Goatee, jeans, and that pesky long hair made for an "edgier" take on a classic character. Thunderstrike still has his fans these days, but we can only hope that he stays gone, lest he usher in another era of shitty fashion and double-gatefold-spectro-holo-graphix-foil covers.

7) The Punisher
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The early '90s were a tough time for Frank Castle, but the later part of the decade was worse. The Punisher's original M.O. was killing bad guys; simple, basic, hard to fuck up. But in the '90s writers forgot that the mob and serial killers existed and had Frank go after techno-punk soldiers all the time who were more robots than Mafia bosses. Plus he was always saddled with some other hero like Spider-Man or Daredevil, so they always forced him to sheath his gun and let the bad guys get arrested. LAME. What was worse was the series Punisher: Purgatory where Frank killed himself and came back as a supernatural avenging angel with holy guns. Thank God we have Garth Ennis to give us back the Punisher who liked guns and bombs again.

6) Superman
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We could live with the long hair. Really, if the worst thing they did to Superman was give him a mullet, we could handle that and move on. It's hair, everyone in the '90s grew it long. But when they made him into the "electric blue" Superman, that's when we called foul. Truth, justice, and the American way made way for a blue- (then red-) skinned freak who had completely different powers than our favorite hero. And that was supposed to be permanent! Thankfully, DC realized you can't change what's familiar and changed him back, but did it in one issue without any fanfare, just to sweep it under the rug.

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