DC Comics in the ’90s was an interesting place. Marvel and Image were doing massive numbers by making comics that excited teen boys with extreme, violent heroes and scantily clad woman, selling millions of comics with flashy art. Meanwhile, DC went a different way. The publisher decided that writing was still paramount, and created one of the greatest corps of writers in the history of the comic industry. The publisher put out the best-written comics of the decade (Marvel did have some well-written comics in the ’90s, but they couldn’t match DC’s output for this fan), and mostly sidestepped the mistakes that would define the ’90s for most fans. Mostly.
DC wasn’t immune to playing into Marvel and Image’s foolishness at times, and embraced some of the worst aspects of the ’90s comic industry. Over those years, the publisher would debut some character that were of the time and honestly cringe nowadays. These seven ’90s DC characters are pretty cringe, even if some of them survived the decade of extreme and are still around today.
“Knightfall” is a DC classic, a story that saw Batman broken and a new character take his place as the Dark Knight. Azrael was introduced in Batman: The Sword of Azrael, and the character played into the grim and gritty violence of the era. He was a soldier created by the Order of St. Dumas, a religious organization that brainwashed soldiers with the System. Azrael was DC’s attempt at an Image-style grim and gritty superhero, with an over designed costume, blades, and drawn by a “hot” artist (Joe Quesada, working with Jimmy Palmiotti). He made the Batman costume into a cyber-monstrosity, all armor and sharp blades. It was all so ’90s, and it was all so cringe.
Bloodlines was a story that ran through the 1995 DC annuals, with each one introducing a new character. Most of these characters were kind of terrible, but there are some who are so cringe that it’s honestly kind of funny. The Psyba-Rats are one of these. This team of teenage hackers gained powers from the aliens who attacked the Earth, and would become a team of superheroes, using their powers and computer skills to battle evil. They were stereotypical ’90s hacker teens, and they had as much to do with actual hacking as they had to do with being good characters. They had their own three-issue series, showed up in Young Justice, and even made an appearance in Infinite Crisis in the ’00s.
Gunfire was yet another Bloodlines-introduced hero. He was given the power to agitate particles, channeling energy through objects and firing them off in explosive “bullets” of particles. He could also transform objects without a “focal point” (basically anything with some kind of face on it or a tip that he could fire energy out of), like spheres, into grenades. The hero was ’90s to his core. Everything became a gun or a grenade in his hands, and he was yet another high-tech armor-wearing hero. He was DC’s attempt to make a “cool” ’90s character, and was a huge failure.
Impulse is a cool characters nowadays, but that doesn’t mean his ’90s debut wasn’t cringe. Impulse was Mark Waid’s way of writing a video game-obsessed teen with ADHD (although back then, it was called ADD). He was a stereotype of why ’90s teens didn’t pay attention and couldn’t stay still, raised by his video games (in his case, quite literally since he came form a future with amazing VR technology and spent all of his time using it). Impulse was a good comic — Waid was working with the legendary, dearly departed Mike Wieringo and it was awesome — but the character was way more cringe than you remember.
I love Superboy, but there’s no doubt that he was extremely cringe back in the day. The clone of Superman was a mouthy, arrogant ’90s kid with a earring and a leather jacket, always ready to smack around anyone in his way. He was girl crazy, hitting on any girl he could see and was all about being “cool”. He was a cliche in every way and, speaking as someone who was 12 at the time, he was the coolest thing ever. There have been several Superboys over the years, each of them exemplifying their generation, and this one was no different. Kon-El was the ’90s version, and going back to read his comics will make you cringe.
What are your favorite cringe ’90s DC characters? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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