Oh, and Thunderbolts. The Busiek Thunderbolts was good enough to leave me very attached to the characters, even when they passed inevitably into the hands of lesser writers.

Maybe it wasn't so bad, because I really started to get into Sandman, Preacher, Starman, Astro City... And even Marvel still had a few readable stuff in the 90s, when you think about it (New Warriors, Excalibur, X-Factor, Hulk, Guardians of the Galaxy...)

David said:
How many issues of Superman post Byrne have you read? Neither Death of Superman or Panic in the Sky were bad.

I believe I have read just about everything that was published in the titles "Superman," "Action Comics," "Adventures of Superman," and "Superman: Man of Steel" (once it joined the others) from the time of the Post-COIE Reboot in the 1980s all the way up to around 2002. (And, of course, Byrne's "Man of Steel" 6-part mini which jump-started the entire thing by laying the foundations of the new continuity for many years to come.)

It was roughly two years ago that I finally read "Panic in the Sky" at one sitting and decided I hadn't been missing much by not getting my hands on a full set of it years earlier.

I think the material actually collected in the TPB "The Death of Superman" is downright lame. It did a remarkable job of failing to impress me, the first time I read it. Several years ago I posted an online review of that TPB collection; the review is still available at:

http://www.epinions.com/content_50972888708

Of course, when you mention "the Death of Superman," you may have meant to include the follow-up material with Superman dead and buried, and then with several different people with S-shields flying around competing for attention in "Reign of the Supermen," and so forth.

Sure, I think the people at DC did significantly better with the material collected in "World Without a Superman" than they did with the actual story of Doomsday's first appearance and the final slugfest that "killed" both Doomsday and Superman, and I think they did even better (most of the time) in the issues collected in "The Return of Superman" -- but that doesn't redeem the rest of the Superman stories of that era. I was buying those "Reign of the Supermen" issues as they came out, and shortly after that situation was finally over and done with (Clark Kent being officially "rescued" from where he'd been "trapped underground," and Doctor Occult running Lois and Clark through a quick seminar on how Superman came back from the dead this time and why he really shouldn't count on it ever happening that way again!), I found my interest flagging fast at the mediocre storytelling, now that it no longer had the rare circumstance of featuring lots of people trying to sort out which of several contenders was entitled to really call himself "Superman."

So I dropped the Superman titles for several years. With the result that years later I finally started trying to fill in what I had missed, if I could pick things up for about fifty cents apiece at sales, and that's about all most of his subsequent material from the 1990s was worth, I'm afraid. (As I verified after I filled in gaps until I could read years' worth of the triangle-era stuff in sequence without missing any chapters.)

I think what I love about that time is that there was NO STATUS QUO WHATSOEVER in Uncanny X-Men, which was the best-selling comic book on the planet. It amazes me that they were able to go off on such bizarre tangents, given such a spotlight, and it says a lot that it was still such a consistent success.

As a tangent, if it weren't for what Grant Morrison did with Jean Grey, Forge would still be my favorite X-Man.

Excalibur had a different type of humor!

Silvestri came after JR Jr, who's work I normally like, but his X-Men didn't work for me. Silvestri felt very similar to that, which was good for Marvel since apparently a lot of fans dug both these styles. I've since really dug some Silvestri art, esp his recent return to the characters.

Excaliber.... Davis' stuff is way more hit than miss, and I love Rachel Summers, Kitty (horrible costume though - ugh), and Kurt, but somehow something just didn't click for me. I think Brian nailed the humor aspect. I'd never thought of that, but it was just slightly askew; kinda whacky. That's ok, but it just didn't seem to fit this group. Right church, wrong pew. Didn't work for me.

Wait. I think I lost my train of thought. What was I trying to prove, again?

I was only 8 by the time the 80s were over. And I say it was the best time for comics, overall. (And aren't we all just glad the 90s are over.)