When I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, the world of comicbook publishing was dominated by Marvel and DC. The magazines themselves were dominated by burly men in ridiculous costumes who beat each other senseless every issue. The vast majority of characters were men, as the vast majority of comicbook collectors were men, and so characters that could be related to were provided. The two great companies had lived for years unopposed, selling the masses their particular style of violent fantasies without any competition. Then, Todd McFarlane left his mark on the world of comics, and it all went downhill from there.

When Todd McFarlane left Marvel with a self-righteous humph, he created his own comicbook, Spawn. Maybe it was the hard-bitten attitude Spawn gave off (stolen directly from Wolverine), maybe it was his pact with the Devil he was desperately trying to avoid (stolen directly from Ghost Rider), or maybe it was just that Spawn was even more violent than the Punisher, but for whatever reason Spawn was immensely popular. Soon, Marvel and DC were forced to make room for a third great company, and they were none too pleased. After years of crushing companies like Dark Horse, Valiant, and Chaos! beneath their adamantium fist, the rulers of comicbookdom were forced to share their throne with an upstart. Spawn quickly became more popular than anything Marvel or DC published, and Spawn even got the first good super-hero based movie since Batman.

Mighty McFarlane's rebellion had a more important impact than insulting Image's older brothers. As America's successful rebellion against the British crown inspired the French peasants to overthrow their noble oppressors, so did Image's rise into the Marvel/DC realm inspire third-party comicbook companies to try to compete. However, these companies realized something McFarlane did not: violent men with weird powers were popular, but violent women with weird powers and big breasts were even more popular. The public seemed to agree. Suddenly, the Vampirella and Lady Death comics I had mocked while purchasing respectable Spider-Man comic books were hot stuff, comics such as Lady Rawhide, Battle Chasers, and Fathom were in vogue. It was about that time I stopped collecting comics, albeit for a totally different reason, but I still wept my lamentations for a once proud medium. No longer did comicbooks pander to men hungry for violence. Now they pandered to men hungry for sex, and it was a sad day indeed. In fact, if you listened hard enough, you could hear Jack Kirby rolling over in his grave.

Now don't get me wrong; I'm not opposed to women with giant breasts. In fact, I support them wholeheartedly. But reading comicbooks was a favorite pastime of mine, and I was saddened to see them cheapened. After all, when I was collecting them, comicbooks were, as Evan Skolnic (I may have spelled his name incorrectly, and if so I apologize) once said, "adolescent male power fantasies." That was no longer true. Comicbooks were, as Wayne Campbell (I believe this is where I heard the quote, if I have attributed it to the wrong source, forgive me) once said, "primo spanking material." There's a bit of a difference there.

I'm not the only one who felt cheapened by the degeneration of comicbooks as a medium. UGO.com recently described Joe Madureria’s Battlechasers as "boring, cliched sci-fantasy...[with] poor scripting, uninspiring plots and over-reliance on women with really big boobs." They also mention that Battlechasers is moving to Image comics and should "fit right in." We're not alone, either. pcmag.com lambasted Witchblade, noting "Unfortunately, the males who still sell the most books are the ones who put scantily-clad chicks on their covers, characters like Witchblade who are tenuous excuses to show lots of tits and ass in the context of poorly-written fantasy stories." I couldn't have said it better myself.

But take heart, True Believers (and if you know what a True Believer is, you probably are one). Captain America's mag is more popular now than it has been in my lifetime, the X-Men have not only gotten their own movie but a revitalization of the comic fan base, and the whole clone/multiple personalities fiasco with Spider-Man is dead and buried. It's not fair to blame the companies like Top Cow for their popularity. We can neither blame them nor credit them. These poor excuses for soft-core pornography rose in popularity at the same time that Marvel and DC were experiencing financial and creative problems, which made them a lot less fun to read. Now, though, they have cured what ailed them and are quickly regaining their strength, ready to retake their positions are the world's premier supplier of comicbook goodness. Soon, schlocky magazines such as Tomb Raider will go on the back shelf where they belong, and Superman and Wolverine will lead us into a new millennium full of violence and blood.

By the way, you migh have noticed that I spell comicbook as one word, rather than two. That's because Stan "The Man" Lee chooses to spell it as one word, and who am I to disagree?

Excelsior!