"I'm thinking of stepping out, Carol. This new age seems to be an age for killers — the Punisher, Wolverine, U.S. Agent. I've only killed one person in recent times. Flag-Smasher manipulated me into it. I didn't like it. I'm not a killer anymore."
Magazines
After a long absence, the original Thor returned to his own magazine, only to discover that comics in the nineties were very different to what he remembered. But Thor quickly fit right in by going violently insane.
1993 was the year Superman died and Venom got his own series. Just keep that in mind.
1993 was the year Superman died and Venom got his own series. Just keep that in mind.
— Both quotes from Marvel Year in Review 1993
Web Animation
"These characters are Mary Sues in the truest sense of the word: a fixed point in their fictional universe around which the entire narrative spins. They are complete and total assholes to everyone around them and tolerated solely because they are the Designated Hero for the narrative. These power fantasies have no redeeming qualities other than the fact that they win all the time because the writer will accept no other outcome. Characters like these are responsible for the idea that anti-heroes are better than regular heroes because they don't have any of their 'qualms' or 'morals' and the idea that you can get a lot more done if you just don't care about dumb things like 'principles' or 'other people'. People who like these characters are also usually the people who think Batman's job would be a lot easier if he just used guns or that it doesn't make any sense for Superman to not just use his godlike strength to murder all of his enemies."
"It seems that Ubisoft decided that emo culture was 'in', so they went around the office one morning and fired everyone who was smiling. The Prince was suddenly staring out from under a black Robert Smith fringe and growling angry threats at supercilious badass action girls showing off more flesh than a surgeon's convention."
"But we're here to talk about a specific type of antihero. You know the one: the cool one. Brooding, dark, alone, antiheroes are way cooler than normal heroes because they posses a special power that marketers desperately seek: edginess! Being edgy is the secret to making a good character, at least I think it is? It must be given how everyone keeps going on about it."
Web Original
ALL GRIMACING ALL THE TIME.
— ProgressiveBoink.com
"Yeah! Doesn’t that make you want to go out and read a million Kaine comics right now? I mean what could be more interesting than scowling on a rooftop and then slapping around all of the interesting characters before offhandedly killing the bad guy? I'm sure at the time Marvel wrote the issues they were dreaming of a Kaine ongoing series and Kaine underoos and Kaine video games."
"It has been said of Cable that no gun has been found to be too big for him. A fitting summary of his character."
— Curt Franklin
, "Comics, Everybody!: A History of Cable"
, "Comics, Everybody!: A History of Cable""...Maverick, who threatens to replace Shatterstar, Cable and ADAM X THE X-TREME as the most '90s dude of all time. Maverick! Those others may have more legitimate claims to the throne, but between the cybernetic leg armor, the crotch harness, the bee-pattern mask that lets his hair flow free, a gun so improbable that two banana clips feed into a single rectangular lazer barrel and ties to Wolverine's Mysterious Past™, I'm shocked that he didn't just wink out of existence on January 1, 2000."
"Instead of serving as the deliciously targeted critique of fascist superheroics that it was, Rorschach got adopted as the iconic and default form of comic book vigilante for, basically, the next twenty years. The only major developments in the Rorschach concept were basically to add guns and robot arms."
— Dr. El Sandifer on Watchmen
on Watchmen"Attack of the Cybermen ends with the distinct impression that Lytton is the true hero of the piece and the Doctor is a narrow-minded fool who made little or no difference in the grand scheme of things. It feels like a total rejection of the optimistic ethos of Doctor Who."
"Despite being the antagonists in the WCW vs. nWo story, they still carried themselves like anti-heroes; too cool for school bad*sses with a lot of swagger. [...] [I]t also made fundamental changes to the business and cut the heels (no pun intended) out from under other bad guys whose traditional tactics no longer held the same weight, as well as doing detrimental damage to the babyfaces who were opposing them."
— Brad Hamilton, "10 Reasons Why Everyone Hated Kevin Nash in WCW"
, "10 Reasons Why Everyone Hated Kevin Nash in WCW"Teenage reaction: Once I got him, Vincent never left my party. Ever. He's like Shadow, Magus, and Trent Reznor all rolled up into one! So cool!
Twentysomething reaction: Oh my god would you please just put a sock in it already.
Twentysomething reaction: Oh my god would you please just put a sock in it already.
— Pat R., "This Game Are Sick"
This is yet another example of people interpreting stoic and tortured with bored to tears. The normally fired up [Antonio] Banderas is hunched over with a sleepy glaze over his eyes and he droooooonnnnnes out his lines like he drank NyQuil and stuffed his mouth with cotton balls before his shots. [Lucy] Liu similarly just walks around with a deadpan stare and gives a rare three word response to someone like "I’ll kill you" or "Pain don’t hurt".
"I smolder with generic rage."
Web Video
Yahtzee: 3D Realms of Duke Nukem Forever "fame" released a new trailer for a new game they're making called Bombshell... It looked like a character by someone with a game design degree to show that they're doing some work; their first piece of concept art.
Gabriel: A fifteen year-old who just watched Tank Girl.
Yahtzee: [struggling not to laugh] A lady in a bikini top with a punk hairstyle, and a cyborg arm. We have gone nowhere, 3D Realms, have we?
Gabriel: We've regressed!
Gabriel: A fifteen year-old who just watched Tank Girl.
Yahtzee: [struggling not to laugh] A lady in a bikini top with a punk hairstyle, and a cyborg arm. We have gone nowhere, 3D Realms, have we?
Gabriel: We've regressed!
— Let's Drown Out Alien³ (SNES)
Natalie Stack: The Fixer is a gentle soul, but when he gets riled, well, he's been known to hurt people.
Linkara: Oh, yeah, he's as calm and gentle as a frickin' old lady bakin' cookies! I especially noticed that about him when he was shooting people in the head and kicking them off buildings.
Linkara: Oh, yeah, he's as calm and gentle as a frickin' old lady bakin' cookies! I especially noticed that about him when he was shooting people in the head and kicking them off buildings.
— Atop the Fourth Wall, review of Holy Terror
"At the time, when I was doing Watchmen, somewhere in my head I got this vainglorious notion that Watchmen would be the absolute deconstructionist last word on the superhero... which was completely stupid and a completely misplaced hope. What you really got afterwards was a kind of more pretentious superhero comics, often with a lot more nasty, gratuitous violence."
"That's a character that Mark Waid invented that was really just put to me, like, 'come up with the most God awful, Rob Liefeld sort of design that you can'... the scars, the thing going on with his eye, the arm, and what's with all the guns?"
