The New Year is here, and well, we are in a new decade too. I’m not a huge New Year kind of guy, but it’s already been 20 years that we have been in the new millennium. I still remember the mass hysteria we were surrounded by in December 1999. Who can forget the notorious Y2K scare and conspiracy theories?

But the 2000s also marked the start of the comicbook to movies revolution! The X-Men movie saw the beginning of a successful formula of making superhero content for the big screen. And in the 2010s, comic-content was established as a mainstream genre for entertainment. In a way, this decade has taken comics as a medium to a whole new level, not just as a source material for movies and TV shows, but also as a highly interesting playground for storytelling. 

In the period from 2010 to 2019, we saw some important comic landmark events. The DC had a number of reboots and soft-reboots, with the New 52 and Rebirth Event, connecting to the larger picture which was the Doomsday Clock series. The Doomsday Clock is a direct sequel to the Watchmen mini-series of the ’80s, something nobody thought was possible to come up with. It was instrumental in changing the DC landscape, bringing characters from the Watchmen universe into the main DC timeline. Geoff Johns definitely couldn’t do another Alan Moore here, but he provided a completely new canvas for these characters. The series was too slow to unfold, missed deadlines with the release dates extended for each issue. But all seems well, since it ended on a very interesting note. 

With the New 52, DC had done the unthinkable...cancelling most of their titles and ‘restarting’ 52 series from issue #1. This gave new origin stories to almost all the characters (you can call this move stupid, daring or daringly stupid). They merged many of the alternate Vertigo characters into the main DC universe, giving us a fresh, new version of DC comics. The folks at DC claimed this move was to make sure new readers didn’t have to struggle with old back stories and issues. They could just pick up the new editions and enjoy the stories. It did give us some great new story-arcs, especially the Batman tales.

Marvel too made several changes and updated their characters. Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American, became the new Ms Marvel. Comics have become inclusive over the years, what with the conscious inclusion of African American characters as equals to the White heroes back in the 1960s. So, it really was a big deal seeing a Pakistani American teenager donning the costume of one of Marvel’s frontline characters. 

Marvel also decided to give one of the least-liked Avenger, Hawkeye, a solo series in its comics universe. Matt Fraction and David Aja’s unique take on the bow and arrow slinging superhero got a lot of praise and fans were glad to see the character in a different light. Meanwhile, Thor got a little update! We saw Jane Foster become the new Thor, Goddess of Thunder in what was seen as the character’s biggest twist-in-the-tale since the debut. We also saw a female don the title of ‘Wolverine’, with Laura Kinney taking over slashing duties from Logan. And the list is incomplete without mentioning Mark Waid’s terrific take on Daredevil! 

This decade also saw the passing of Stan Lee, the man who has given us the iconic characters at Marvel. His contribution to comics is priceless, leaving behind a pair of shoes too big to be filled by anyone else.

Generations old, yet the eternal chocolate hero, Archie Andrews saw a whole lot of experiments, especially with series like Afterlife With Archie, where the entire Archie universe turns into a bunch of zombies. There was also the ‘Death of Archie’ event that took place in the Life With Archie series. Imagine! Killing off Archie! Phew! Fans were relieved to find that the ‘main timeline’ of teenage Archie was still on, and the Life with Archie series was based in an alternate future. Or so it was explained.

And in India, we finally had our own Comic Cons, starting off in 2011! The last decade saw the comic creators and geeks unite and have a good time over the Comic Con weekends in various cities in the country. We now thankfully have our own pop-culture event where fans can get their fill of everything they follow or love. 

We hope the new decade has a lot of fun and geekiness in store for all of us! We have already marked our calendars for the movies and sequels coming our way. It’s a good time to be a comics fan! Happy 2020 y’all!
(The writer is a comic creator, illustrator and animator)