29 Years Ago, Marvel Turned a Disastrous Event into One of Its Best in 3 Decades

Marvel in the ’90s had some of the greatest success of their existence and also almost destroyed itself. When the decade started, the House of Ideas was riding high, on the back of the amazing Marvel books of the ’80s and having cultivated numerous superstar artists. Spider-Man #1, X-Force #1, and X-Men (Vol. 2) #1 sold millions of copies and the publisher continued to dominate the sales charts. However, the collector boom that the company built burst in the mid ’90s and the publisher scrambled to figure out a way to get sales up again. This led to one of the most disastrous events in the history of Marvel: “Heroes Reborn”. This year-long publishing initiative saw the Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four given to superstar creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld.

Videos by ComicBook.com

“Heroes Reborn” was one of the worst comic reboots ever, and the company ended its contract with Lee and Liefeld (although Liefeld’s contract was ended six months in). The reboot took the heroes to another universe, and with its ending needed to bring them back. This led to Heroes Reborn: The Return, by Peter David and Salvador Larocca. This story had a lot riding on it, and one of the heaviest burdens was how much people hated “Heroes Reborn” at the time. However, I’m here to say something surprising: Heroes Reborn: The Return is amazing, and it was worth going through the lows of “Heroes Reborn” to get it. It’s an unsung gem, an example of a perfect event comic.

Heroes Reborn: The Return Is Better Than It Has Any Right to Be

“Heroes Reborn” failed for a variety of reasons. Lee and Liefeld did their best to “modernize” the characters, but didn’t really do anything new or worthwhile with them. There was really no reason to put them in their own universe, and the four 13-issue series just didn’t connect with most readers. Fans of the day wanted better stories from the heroes of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, but “Heroes Reborn” just didn’t do the job. So, Heroes Reborn: The Return had to overcome a lot to work well.

The book’s plot saw the Celestials discover that Franklin Richards had created a universe for the two groups after their “deaths” at the end of “Onslaught”. They decided that Franklin would have to choose which world to keep going and leave the Earth with them. Franklin resists this, and enters his micro-universe, warning the heroes within about the decision he’s about to be forced to make. The book jumps back and forth between the two Earths, with the “Heroes Reborn” heroes (and Doom, who was also in there) trying to figure out a way to survive as the heroes of Earth-616 try to figure out a way to stop the tumults of destruction the micro-universe has begun to cause.

The book was four issues long, which seems short when compared to events of today, but it was able to do an amazing job of telling its story, and that’s because of Peter David. David is one of the greatest writers in the history of the medium, and he had written every character in the book at some point. He knew how to build plots and give stories emotional stakes, and he does a fabulous job throughout this series. He basically just wrote the classic versions of the characters, and made it work. You didn’t need to know anything about “Heroes Reborn” to understand the book, and it still managed to hook you.

Meanwhile, Larocca’s art is pretty great. Nowadays, he has a photo-realistic style (possibly tracing, especially in his Star Wars work), but back then he was part of the “American manga” style that artists like Joe Madureira and Roger Cruz had made popular. The book’s cartoonish art actually fits the book pretty well, despite the dark stakes of the whole thing. The pages have a certain energy to them, and Larocca’s action and character work are fantastic. This definitely looks like a ’90s book, but the art still mostly stands up today. David and Larocca were able to salvage the mistakes of “Heroes Reborn” and give readers an amazing story.

Heroes Reborn: The Return Has Been Unfortunately Forgotten

Heroes Reborn: The Return can be an easy book to ignore. “Heroes Reborn” was not good in the slightest (I mean, Jim Lee’s art on Fantastic Four (Vol. 2) was great, but that’s it), so it would be easy to understand why fans would ignore this book. However, it is an example of why old school event books, especially ones written by true pros like Peter David, were so great. It’s well-paced with a great emotional core, cool moments, nice art, and a great ending, never overstaying its welcome.

The book delivers on everything that makes Marvel events so much fun. It’s one of those books that will surprise with how good it is. It’s not some comic industry-redefining event comic, and all it did was fix a mistake that Marvel made. However, it did it in such a way that it created a somewhat timeless superhero story, one about the legacy of heroism of the House of Ideas’ Silver Age greats, and did a bang up job of restoring the Marvel Universe to what it should be. If you ever get a chance to read this story, take it; you’ll be getting one of the greatest Marvel events ever.

What do you think about Heroes Reborn: The Return? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!