While Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s reinvention of the DOOM PATROL had begun in the manner of a more traditional super hero title, it swiftly morphed into something a lot more strange and wonderful, while never entirely throwing off its super hero roots. This issue is another step in that direction, as Robotman’s new more advanced body develops sentience and wants to eliminate Cliff Steele’s brain. The situation is further complicated by the reappearance of the founders of the brotherhood of Evil, The Brain and Monsieur Mallah. The two threats effectively neutralize one another, with the Brain and Mallah wonderfully declaring their long-concealed love for one another, all while Steele’s brain sits there in a jar, an impotent bystander. It was stories like this one that led to the creation of Vertigo as a specific imprint delivering a specific sort of story.
The short-lived Piranha Press imprint from DC was also trying to expand the boundaries of the medium in revolutionary ways, but few of their projects made any long-lasting impact. One that did was Kyle Baker’s WHY I HATE SATURN, his second stand-alone graphic novel after THE COWBOY WALLY SHOW. Having begun his career as a journeyman artist and production person at Marvel, Kyle had developed some serious cartooning chops and had created an approach to storytelling that drew influence from editorial cartoons and comic strips such as Prince Valiant. Which is to say, his copy tended to sit at the bottom of his panels rather than in traditional balloons and captions. The book tells the story of cynical writer Anne Merkel, whose life is thrown into chaos when her long-lost and utterly crazy sister re-enters her life. No super heroes to be found here, just a wonderfully told story with exceptional artwork.
1990 was a year in which comic books continued to evolve forward, with new and innovative approaches to traditional material. Grant Morrison and Chas Truog’s ANIMAL MAN started out much as Morrison’s DOOM PATROL run had–as something more akin to a typical DC release. But by the final issue in their run, #26, it had evolved into a compellingly self-referential bit of meta-fiction. In this final installment, memorably, Animal Man seeks out the architect of his troubles in the hills of Glasgow, coming face -to-face with Morrison himself and learning several harsh truths about the reality of his existence–that he’s simply a generic super hero with blond hair and good teeth–before receiving one last gift of grace from the departing author.
I’ve already written a lot about ZOT! #33–and you can read that write-up here:
But suffice it to say that the issue by Scott McCloud is a meticulous and sensitive portrayal of a person’s discovery of their own sexual identity and the manner in which that journey shatters and transforms their life. It also features one of the best “card trick” uses of the medium ever done, in which the story appears to conclude one way, but an extra, final page is concealed by the backmatter which provides a more satisfying ending–allowing the reader to experience both. At the time of release, it was almost unheard of to depict an LGBTQ+ character in comic books, but ZOT! does so with care and compassion–making the next depiction perhaps a hair easier to come by.
There was no comic book series that was more on the cutting edge than THE SANDMAN. And by this second year, author Neil Gaiman had largely cast away the tenuous connections to the DC Universe of the day, pushing the envelope to tell stories that were more personal and inventive any lyrical than anything else being done at the time. There are a number of issues that I could have placed onto this list that came out in 1990, but my selection for the best is this one, #17, “Calliope”. Paired with moody illustrator Kelley Jones, Gaiman delivers the horrifying story of a writer whose success is the byproduct of having captured, imprisoned and sexually assaulted a mythological Muse. It’s a horror story that would have fit in perfectly with any of the “mystery” titles that DC had published years before (though the graphicness of the material would never have passed muster) and Morpheus’ vengeance upon the rapist is poetic and memorable.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Five alternate choices (in no particular order):
–BIG NUMBERS #1
–HATE #2
–EIGHTBALL #3
–CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #4 (MOBY-DICK)
–CAGES #1
LikeLike
Let me add that I do like the five choices in the post, but there was a lot being published that was worthwhile back then.
LikeLike
I’ve read the Doom Patrol, Animal Man and Sandman stories, all excellent selections, although I got them in the TPBs rather than the floppy originals. I’d mostly stopped collecting comics by 1990. Missed Zot & Why I Hate Saturn but based on your descriptions of them, they certainly sound intriguing enough to make me want to check them out. The comics world had become a very different place by 1990 than it had been in 1980, and these comics were just some of the outstanding examples of that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oddly, a lot of what made Morrison’s innovative work actually work was his obvious love for the old John Broome stuff (which had its own quietly trippy nature).
Just as you might learn something useful or interesting in a Schwartz/Broome Flash story you could have gotten a good quick introduction to Chaos Theory in his last DP arc..
Morrison was sort of built on things that were subtended..
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m one of those rare people who, as much as I like Gaiman’s fiction, (prose or comics), I prefer his essays.
LikeLike
I missed out on most of Vertigo (and “pre-Vertigo”) series. While I enjoyed Moore’s Swamp Thing, a lot of the books that came out in its wake struck me as being kind of cynical and mean-spirited…simultaneously riding Moore’s coattails, while being contemptuous of previous iterations of the characters. “Look, I took a corny old character and made them hip and edgy! Aren’t I a genius?” I now recognize that there was a lot of good work done in that vein, but I liked Vertigo better when they did original material.
Zot! and Why I Hate Saturn are fantastic, though, no qualms there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Have to agree there.
LikeLike
I enjoy all the arguments for the various nominees here, and both the ANIMAL MAN and SANDMAN stories are general favorites, but my fave pick for 1990 is the four issue BOOKS OF MAGIC. I’ve read differing accounts as to whether MAGIC began as a project launched by DC editors or as a proposal by Marc De Matteis, but I can’t imagine the original choices of writer and artists coming out with anything as good as the published serial.
LikeLiked by 1 person
the proto-Vertigo books started right when i got to college and hit right in my sweet spot, especially Animal Man with its mixture of metatext and continuity. I photo-copied Coyote Gospel and put it on my wall.
it’s such a good time for books you could have a dozen other choices. My Sandman choice of that era is the Cat issue, and I got a letter printed in the LOC for issue 22or 23 about it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sandman was so hyped by comics fans at the time, that it turned me off of it. Several years down the road, I would read the series, and certainly enjoyed it. I haven’t been much of a Morrison fan. I tried Animal Man, maybe I didn’t give it enough time, but I didn’t really like it. The art for Doom Patrol looked too ugly to me and not sure if I even tried it. His JLA was okay for the time, but not my fave either. Vertigo did have some entertaining stories though, Moore’s Swamp Thing (and just about anything by Moore that I could get my hands on), Sandman, and there seemed to be quite a few one shot or limited series books that I don’t remember the names. They might have been indie titles though. Another fave of mine from the time was DC’s Milestone line.
LikeLike
Ah, since the first 4 were DC, I had sort of assumed this was a best of DC in the 90s! There was a lot of good stuff from other companies. Miller’s Sin City,
the beautiful Storyteller by BWS, Valiant’s Archer & Armstrong, Solar, etc. So many…
LikeLike
I used to shop at Rory Root’s comic book store, and he had a standing money-back guarantee on Why I Hate Saturn. I don’t know if anyone ever took him up on the offer: I can only say that I sure didn’t.
LikeLike
Morrison and Case’s Doom Patrol pulled me back into superhero comics when I thought I was done with them. No one’s been able to recapture the essence of the team since that amazing run, though I keep holding out hope.
Kyle Baker is a comedy genius, and his dry wit was perfectly utilized on The Shadow until a year before this. (Obligatory comment here about the tragedy of that series not getting a proper ending.) I like Why I Hate Saturn, but I’ve always been partial to The Cowboy Wally Show. I don’t remember another comic making me laugh out loud as much as that one did.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Piranha Press was polarizing, to put it mildly, but ‘Why I Hate Saturn’ is likely its (sole?) greatest publication. Whatever became of Piranha editor Mark Nevelow?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve re-read Why I Hate Saturn more times than is probably healthy. As a bit of a curio, Baker’s self-published reissue from 2017 (in a “Double Deluxe Edition” with The Cowboy Wally Show) was reformatted from the original 8.5×11 to 6×9, and as part of that he actually moved all the copy above the panels and added word balloons.
LikeLike