October 3: Written by Grant Morrison with painted art by Dave McKean, the 212-page Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth graphic novel arrives in stores. October 5: The Punisher, starring Swedish muscleman Dolph Lundgren as Marvel Comics’ resident vigilante, opens in movie theaters… in West Germany. The movie would not be seen in the United States until March 1990 when it is shown at the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention. In 1991, the movie is released in the U.S. video market.
August 8: Co-creator of the Green Arrow and 1950s Superboy artist, George Papp dies at the age of 73.
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OCTOBER October 10: Billed as “The First New Batman ‘Solo’ Book Since 1940!”, Legends of the Dark Knight #1 arrives in stores with five different covers.
August 24: Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti bans Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose from Major League Baseball for gambling.
autumn crossover focus, The X-Men, were at the center of the event which spanned over twenty titles. The main thrust of the story involved Loki attempting to defeat the Avengers by manipulating Doctor Doom, Magneto, Kingpin, Wizard, Mandarin, and Red Skull (a.k.a. the “Prime Movers”) into the confrontation. Their plan involved engineering a super-villain jailbreak and then shuffling up the villains to attack the heroes, so that the heroes would be caught off-guard in battles against foes they’d never faced before. As such, the event was essentially a series of unexpected match-ups between heroes and villains (including the Fantastic Four being attacked while appearing before Congress to argue against a Superhero Registration Act) with no real immediate impact on the Marvel Universe as a whole. “Acts of Vengeance” did, however, feature the first appearance of Psylocke in the body of Kwannon, transforming her from the twin
October 17: Just minutes before the start of a World Series baseball game at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale hits the San Francisco Bay area, causing $7 billion worth of damage and the death of 67 people.
November 6: The Batman newspaper strip is revived with an opening story by Max Allan Collins and Marshall Rogers. November 9: The Communist government of East Germany collapses. For the first time in decades, travel between East and West Germany is unrestricted, and Germans begin to tear down the Berlin Wall. November 22: Captain Marvel creator C.C. Beck dies at the age of 79.
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December: Alan Moore finishes his run on Miracleman with issue #16. He transfers his 30% share of ownership in the character over to new Miracleman writer Neil Gaiman. December 20: U.S. troops invade Panama in order to capture that country’s ruler, General Manuel Noriega, for his role in international drug trafficking. Noriega seeks political asylum with Vatican officials in Panama City but eventually surrenders to U.S. authorities in early January 1990.
D E C EM B E R December 22: A pro-democracy revolution causes Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu to flee from power. He and his wife Elena are eventually captured and executed.
November 14: Written by Brian Augustyn with art by Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell, Gotham by Gaslight: An Alternate History of the Batman imagines the Batman as a Victorian-era detective.
sister of Captain Britain into an Asian ninja assassin. Also appearing for the first time were The New Warriors in the pages of Thor #412 (Dec. 1989). One aspect of Perelman’s takeover came to light as these crossovers developed, particularly during “Atlantis Attacks.” According to Dan Raviv, author of Comic Wars, “[w]riters and editors of the various books inevitably clashed when trying to coordinate the stories, and the staff ultimately felt that the Atlantis series was way more trouble than it was worth” (36).
Better to Byrne Out Than Fade Away! John Byrne had returned to Marvel in 1988 to take over and revamp the failing Star Brand title in Jim Shooter’s New Universe, but sales weren’t improving so the title was eventually cancelled with issue #19 (May 1989). Byrne’s tenure at DC had been controversial, to say the least, and his return to Marvel brought controversy, and sales, as well. 249
The multi-chapter/multi-title “Acts of Vengeance” story arc included Avengers #313. The Avengers TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.