Superhero Characters Of The Last Twenty Years

I'm fond of some of folks from the Authority and Astro City.  Unfortunately I think the former has been reinvented by DC; Midnighter seems pretty vanilla now.  Yeah, most suck though.  Some attempts to add depth to existing shallow characters - like Joe Casey did with the Wildcats - were valiant but didn't last more than a year or two in most cases.

Problem with The Authority is they are "Edgy and Sexy" versions of Standard DC characters. Midnighter and Apollo are Gay Batman and Superman.

I'd say Planetery has some really cool characters, but again almost everyone they interact with is a riff off an existing Comic or Pulp fiction character.

I've really enjoyed what I've read of Invincible.

Astro City is excellent. Like many modern superhero characters they're riffing on pre-existing characters, though Busiek and co. take it deeper than just "pseudo-Superman" and "pseudo-Batman". He's basically got his own versions of every major superhero character you could think of, and they often diverge in entertaining ways. For instance, the Fantastic Four analogues, the First Family, aren't static, they have an elaborate history that begins with two brothers who were science-adventurers, then continuing through three generations of characters--actually, I believe they just added a fourth with one of the latest issues, with a couple of goofy kid characters. The "ticking clock" is an interesting aspect of it too, the characters age and change in real time, so that (for instance) the youngest member of the FF, Astra, was a ten-year-old when the series started, and in a recent issue she graduated from college. I also love the way the history of this superhero universe reflects the era of comics they're from, like in the recent Dark Age storyline which riffed on 70s comics, and showed how weirdly insightful and reflective they were of the culture of the time. And some of the character designs (mostly by Alec Ross) are choice, though admittedly there are some really crap ones in there too. I particularly like Jack-in-the-Box, who looks exactly like a Steve Ditko character without being obviously derivative, and who works just as well in the Silver Age as he does in the modern, grim 'n gritty era (he's AC's rough analogue to Spider-man). Great series, and it needs to start publishing again soon.

I've gone on and on about Supreme before, but I really can't say enough about it, it's a great series, as you would expect from Alan Moore. Actually, for all I know the character might technically predate 20 years, but no one particularly gives a shit about the character from before Moore reworked him in '96. Again, it started as a riff on Superman, which demonstrated what an opportunity DC blew by alienating Moore over Watchmen--the guy obviously had a ton of brilliant Superman stories in him. But because Supreme wasn't shackled by the need to remain static and unchanging, Moore helped evolve the character and his world in some interesting, unique directions. Really looking forward to seeing the two final issues in a month or two. Also, the predecessor of this run, "1963", which was more of a shallow riff on Silver Age Marvel, but still produced some entertaining characters who I'd be happy to see more of, and Moore's work with Tom Strong and Tomorrow Stories afterwards.

The Umbrella Academy is a very clever superhero series from Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba, it's basically a superheroic take on The Royal Tennenbaums, with a sprinkling of Edward Gorey and Grant Morrison. The art is beautiful, and I like the way they capture the characters' poignant psychological states using superhero-SF ridiculousness. Also, it's damn funny. I was really disappointed when the third series failed to materialize, I think it's finally due this year...?

There's also Runaways, of course...and Hellboy and BRPD, if you count those. I've only read a little bit of Invincible, and haven't been overly impressed, but I know that series has a strong following.

Joe Casey also did some nice work with Supreme.

The Authority had a little more going for it in its original incarnation.  Mark Millar pretty much blew it up with all his political shit.  Ennis brought a depth to Midnighter which is now gone, pretty much.

I thought Dynamo 5 showed some potential before it ground to a halt.

Starman (Jack Knight) needs to be mentioned, although it has to be getting close to 20 years now. It's why James Robinson still has a reputation as a good writer.

I liked most of the Milestone characters, Static, Icon, and Xombi especially. It's a shame that Dwayne McDuffie passed away as there probably would have been a good opportunity to use these characters in the New 52.

Atomic Robo is pretty awesome.  Not exactly mainstream, but he's got a number of collected volumes of material.

As mentioned, the Ellis/Hitch run of "The Authority" is well-worth reading, and I enjoyed at least the first bit of the Millar/Quitely run.

As for new, innovative superheroes from the last 20 years, your one-stop shot for tons of crazy, inventive heroes is Alan Moore's "Top 10", which is chock full of awesome characters.

I don't know what's been done with the character lately, but one of my favorite mainstream heroes introduced in the last decade(ish) is the Cassandra Cain Batgirl. For whatever reason, the idea of a girl brought up to be the perfect assassin really worked for me. I enjoyed the gradual softening and fleshing out of that character.

And then they did it again with Damian Wayne.  Heh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoolong 

And then they did it again with Damian Wayne.  Heh.

Yeah, only I kind of hated him.

Pretty sure a good deal of that was intentional.

Does this guy count? Because for the first twenty-to-thirty issues there, Sam Keiths creation was pretty fucking great in my opinion...

Remember the time when Grant Morrison & Mark Millar could come up with a legitimately good idea like Aztek and it didn't sell?

Does Harley Quinn count? She started in Batman: The Animated Series rather than the comics.

Can I support Batwoman here? Admittedly not exactly super-original(Hello I'm the new version of Batgirl!") and I cringed as much as anybody about DC selling her under the "lipstick lesbian" tag.

But fuck it, so far the character's been bringing a lot of good will from me and the latest series is one of the few DC titles I still find time to pick up at the moment.

On that note, the female Manhunter, Kate Spencer was a pretty good character.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilTwin 

I liked most of the Milestone characters, Static, Icon, and Xombi especially. It's a shame that Dwayne McDuffie passed away as there probably would have been a good opportunity to use these characters in the New 52.

Yep, Milestone unleashed some nice characters - I loved Static and Icon (and Rocket, too), plus Hardware. I'd say it's a shame that the fraught, New 52 iteration of Static Shock is already gone, but then again it never seemed in danger of doing McDuffie and the other Milestone founders justice.

One word: Sleeper