Below you’ll find our reading selections for the year of 1989, and once we’re finished reading, I’ll post the winners for hero, villain, issue, artist, and writer.
Feel free to discuss the comics and any related thoughts below in the comments!
1989 Comic Reading List
(Check out Patreon for Full List With Notes!)
| 1989 | Comic Book Title | Issues |
| 1 | Inferno | reading order. a zillion tie-ins. |
| 2 | Incredible Hulk / Wolverine | #352 to #354 / #7 to #8, #10, #14 to #16 |
| 3 | Quasar | #1 |
| 4 | Captain America | #350 to #351 |
| 5 | Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment | OGN |
| 6 | Excalibur | #12 to #16 |
| 7 | Amazing Spider-Man | #315, #316, #317 |
| 8 | West Coast Avengers | #42 to #45, #46 to #49 |
| 9 | Iron Man | #249 to #250 |
| 10 | Atlantis Attacks | Reading Order |
Reading Orders
1989 Voting Results:
Hero of the Year: Spider-Man
Villain of the Year: Doctor Doom
Support For Comic Book Herald:
Comic Book Herald is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a qualifying affiliate commission.
Comic Book Herald’s reading orders and guides are also made possible by My Marvelous Year club support on Patreon, and generous reader donations.
Any size contribution will help keep CBH alive and full of new comics guides and content. Support CBH’s My Marvelous Year on Patreon for exclusive rewards, or Donate here! Thank you for reading!
Issue of the Year: Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment
Writer of the Year: David Michelinie
Artist of the Year: Mike Mignola
Heroically Support Comic Book Herald!
If you like Comic Book Herald, and are able to donate, any small contribution will help keep CBH alive and full of new comics guides and content. Donate here! Or, support CBH’s My Marvelous Year on Patreon for exclusive rewards! Thank you for reading!
BACK IN1989 I WAS IN GRADE 6 THOS WAS THE ONLY YEAR I COLLECTED MARVEL COMICS FROMMY LOCAL COMIC BOOK SHOP IN CANADA B.C THAN IN 2015 MY MOM FOUND THEM IN MY SHOE BOX IN OUR CRAWL SPACE IN THE BACK CORNER IT WAS LIKE FINDING A TIME CAPSULE I HAD EACH COMIC BOOK IN A PLASTIC SLEEVE RITE WHEN I WOULD BUY A COMIC WITH A CARDBOARD BACKING THIS SAVED ALL MY COMICS I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT BECAUSE I HAD FORGOTTEN I HAD THESE BOOKS …..
How did we get through the 80s without Arthur Adams or Alan Davis winning artist of the year? I quit hero comics from 1988 or so until Morrison started his X-Men run, so I don’t know how or even if they contributed to the 90s. The other artist who did win are deserving, but after Sienkiewicz, those two are my favorites.
Also, I reiterate: Al Milgrom deserves a lifetime achievement award. His inks make the most mediocre artist into a da vinci.
Where’s Atlantis Attacks reading order???
There’s a list on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis_Attacks#Bibliography
I guess the reason why there is no order on this site is because h either doesn’t deem it essential (why mentioned it in the first place them?) or plain lazy. He never even bother replaying to you. It’s just incompetent on every front.
Why don’t you ask on Patreon? I mean, obviously, you ARE making a monthly payment on Patreon, right? Nobody would be such a rude prick about a site they WEREN’T paying for, would they?
I really like the Inferno event, at least as it pertains to the X-teams. It is the culmination of literally years of storytelling and loose ends. Demon-possessed New York is seriously creepy, especially with ordinarily inanimate objects coming to life and gaining eyes and teeth. My favorite Inferno issues were Amazing Spider-Man #311-313, Web of Spider-Man #47, Uncanny X-Men #240-243, Avengers #300, New Mutants #73, and X-Factor #37-39.
Quasar got a decent introduction, and he will be in better stuff later on. In the #1 issue, I like the family dynamics on display and the AIM attack.
Captain America #350 is a great issue and well worth the read.
West Coast Avengers with John Byrne is another strong series, and #50-53 are also good stories.
Iron Man #249-250 in Camelot was fine, but I was really grabbed by #248, which features Tony dealing with a paralysis that left him in a wheelchair.
Atlantis Attacks was not a great series, even by the standards of the Annuals events. It probably doesn’t help that I don’t like basically everybody that Namor interacts with under the sea.
I’m dreading 1990 a little bit, as I only have five issues from that year that I really enjoyed. Maybe Dave can highlight some stuff I overlooked previously.
I found 1989 to be an OK year, with mostly middling issues and a couple of big standout issues/arcs.
– I found Inferno to be utterly bizarre. It jumps focus so much, starting with the demon possession of Manhattan and a weirdly detailed feud between two demons that I found hard to care about (also, a lot of the demon possession stuff was such a blatant Ghostbusters rip-off; they finally had to acknowledge it with a throw-away line), then going to Madelyne and Illyana’s transformations, and then suddenly Mr. Sinister becomes the Big Bad of apparently the entire X-Men series up to this point. While it was all engaging, I found it messy and clearly not at all what Claremont originally intended with Madelyne and Cyclops’ origins. Still, an enormous amount got resolved with Inferno, so it’s a very significant arc.
– Patch and Mr. Fix-It are both fun but I found them to be pretty inconsequential. I love how apparently Wolverine was dense enough to think that he could return to Madripoor and just have an eyepatch and think all of his old friends wouldn’t recognize him.
– Quasar is another middling issue where I barely remember what happened despite having read it only a couple of days ago. I remember liking the artwork? I think?
– Captain America was intense, especially the end of 351! This is another case though of hugely significant issues getting negated by character resurrections. The Red Skull again so soon? Really?
– Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom was tremendous, easily my issue of the year. I’d never read it before, and it flew by. Mignola’s artwork is amazing as always (especially with the mystic temple near the beginning), and this really humanizes Doom to a great degree. I also found the way they wove Strange and Doom’s origins into the narrative to be very effective.
– Excalibur was weird for me. It felt at first like an enormous breath of fresh air, with a super fun, breezy story, and the inventiveness was so welcoming. But by the time it got to #16, I found myself getting a little tired of it simply because it felt like it was zany for the sake of zaniness and starting to lose the focus of them trying to get home. I’m a little amazed that it goes on for eight more issues!
– I love Venom in this era, and this series of Spidey issues did not disappoint. I especially enjoyed the way that Spidey defeated Venom in this, and it looks like the symbiote is more or less back where it started now, in the hands of the Fantastic Four.
– West Coast Avengers is my surprise favorite arc of the year. I don’t know what it is about this run, but I love the pacing, the craziness of what happens to Vision and Scarlet Witch, and I especially love Byrne’s artwork here, which I haven’t always loved in the past. This is the only extended run of issues this week where I was legitimately excited to go to the next issue and I read them all in one sitting.
– Iron Man and Doom together again! I’d read this before, and it was like going back to an old friend. It’s such a weird concept to go to Camelot in the future, but it somehow works perfectly, and curmudgeonly Merlin is a great character. I also love old obsolete Doom and evil Iron Man, and how old obsolete Doom remembers his younger self killing him before! I haven’t read the last part of the trilogy though, so very much looking forward to that.
– Wow, Atlantis Attacks was rough, even with so many missing issues. I mean, I guess it’s OK, but a lot of it felt redundant, and it looks like they spent seven issues on capturing the seven brides for the resurrection of Set. A lot of it felt like poor storytelling. Hey look, Namor’s suddenly not dead! Oh, my huge plan didn’t work? Let’s just use the Scarlet Witch and solve everything in three pages! Let’s just say I didn’t exactly miss not having all of the issues to read.
I can’t believe the ’80s are over. Onto 1990!
Ugh, Atlantis Attacks is a slog. And I’m really finding Claremont’s work on the X-men going downhill fast.
Iron Man, Excaliber and the Doctors Doom and Strange OGN were all great reads however.
Excalibur completely rejuvenated me. I was burning out hard and then claremont and davis just flew off the rails with fun.
I like a lot of Inferno, particularly the long con of M. Pryor and Mr. Sinister. The next two Claremont issues of uncanny are more back to the roots, with a girls night out followed by a pretty funny boys night out.