A history of Zellers and Batman

I recently had the unmitigated pleasure of winning a complete set of these trading cards on e-bay for a very very low price. (Either the seller underestimated the value of what they were selling, or I'm a fool who overpaid for something with relatively no monetary value to anyone in the world but me. I like to think the former.)

The Batman Returns trading card set issued by Zellers in 1992!

At first glance, this isn't a very good looking set and I can understand why a collector would dismiss this as a mere 'promotional' item — which, for all intents and purposes, it was. (I'm sure the huge 'Zellers' logo on the front of the card gave it away.) The card front featured (as far I can tell) re-used art from the 1992 Topps Stadium Club Batman Returns and/or the 1992 Topps Batman Returns trading card sets and the card back was a bilingual game piece to win a Batman jacket. Additionally, the card stock was incredibly flimsy — on par with the same cardboard used for Quebec scratch-and-win lotto tickets (which seems to be the main driving force behind Quebec's economy). Another detail that seemed to turn off collectors is that, while they the same width as your traditional non-sports trading card, they were a bit taller — so they didn't fit properly in a 9-card plastic display sleeve (a little bit of the top of the card always poked out).

These cards were offered as a promotional giveaway at Zellers' checkout counters every time you bought something in 1992. My information on this campaign is spotty; I read somewhere that one card was issued per week... but that would mean that this promotional campaign lasted 24 weeks (6 months). I remember it running during the Spring and Summer of '92, coinciding with the June release of the Batman Returns film. Once upon a time, it was a joke in my neighborhood trying to trade these away. "I'll trade you my Zellers Batman Returns Batmobile card for your Marvel Series I Mr Fantastic card. ha ha." Nobody wanted these. My neighborhood was filled with Marvel fans and I think I was the only kid who cared about Batman Returns. Not one vendor in my town sold the O-Pee-Chee Batman Returns trading cards, so as far as I knew, this was *it* as far as Batman Returns trading cards went. To make matters worse, nobody kept these (expect for me — and I only had a few) because they were usually crumpled and discarded after you didn't get that missing "B", "A", "T", "M" or "N" you were hoping for. To this day, I still have no clue what the grand-prize Batman jacket looks like. 

This trading card set holds a lot of sentimental value to me. I felt like I had missed out on 1989's Batmania (due to being too young) and really wanted to get in on the ground floor for what I thought would be Batmania's second coming in 1992, so I picked up every Batman Returns-associated freebie I could get my hands on. Zellers seemed to have had a special relationship with Warner Bros./DC comics, as I seem to recall official Batman Returns clothing (i.e., t-shirts and shorts) being exclusively available at Zellers stores. You knew it was 'official' because the clothing garment came with a hologram tag. (Yes, I have some of those hologram tags stored away, too).

Batman Returns t-shirt sold at Zellers. Loved that art! Wish I still had mine. Image from thecapatainsvintage.com

This wasn't the first Batman promotional blitz Zellers had ever run. Sometime in the late 80s, probably as a lead up to the 1989 Burton film, these animated ads appeared on local TV...

Everything except for the "Riddler reveal" is Ty Templeton's work. How about that?

...and in 1992 Zellers released an exclusive Batman comic book in which the Joker almost achieves his lifelong dream of preventing kids from Montreal, Toronto and Calgary from being able to read.

Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson illustrated the cover. Curt Swan pencilled the interiors. 

I'm remembering this comic book as being part of a promotion with some sort of loose-leaf paper company (possibly Hilroy?), and if you bought a few packs of paper you got this comic book for free. I'm also remembering that we only had French copies at our local Zellers, so nobody really took these seriously. I would've dug deeper into this story, but it just seems like DC comics decided to partner with a successful Canadian retailer to spread awareness about Batman and the upcoming films (in 1989 and 1992, respectively). A smart move on DC's behalf, since it worked on me.


Despite everything I've just recounted to you over these past few paragraphs, the most precious memories these trading cards hold for me is the memory of Zellers — a discount department retailer that no longer exists. If you don't mind, I'm going to switch gears for a minute and tell you about Zellers and what made it important. I've searched the internet and couldn't really find much about it, and feel someone owes Zellers a few words in regards to the impact it made on the lives of small-town Canadian suburbanites.

The Unofficial History of Zellers (as told by someone who lived it)

I don't know when Zellers first appeared in my small hometown of Aylmer, Quebec.  I moved there sometime in 1984, and it was already here when I arrived — so I'm going to guess it appeared sometime in the late 1970s. The actual date it appeared isn't that important. What *is* important is how this discount department store became the center of our community in a very short amount of time.

If you're still reading by this point, it's either because you were a Canadian suburbanite who grew up with a local Zellers of your own, or you grew up in Aylmer, Quebec around the same time that I did (in which I applaud you — maybe you can help corroborate my story.)

In the 1980s, Aylmer was still a relatively small suburban town which was gradually growing. Nearly everybody who lived in Aylmer worked in Ottawa, Ontario (which was about a half an hour drive away).  To paint you a vivid picture, Ottawa was akin to Aylmer the way New York City was to Poughkeepsie — unless you lived in Aylmer(or knew someone who lived there), you really had no special reason to visit.

I wouldn't call Zellers a 'magical place', but it was the only place in town where you could purchase a new pair of Levis jeans, a vinyl record, laundry detergent, an Atari video game and a picture frame all under the same roof. If I had to compare it to something modern, I'd point you towards Kmart, Wal-Mart or Target. Funny story about those Atari games being sold at Zellers in the 80s: apparently they were knock-offs manufactured in Taiwan of "real" Atari games and sold without permission from Atari. Atari eventually made them cease-and-desist. You can read more about it in this AtariAge.com article. I think I may have bought one or two with some of my allowance money at the time. The cartridges looked like this:

I'm trying to go as far back as my memory will allow me. I first remember the Zellers in Aylmer being part of a small strip mall. The strip mall contained at least a grocery store [Super C, I think] and a TD Bank. I vividly remember the TD Bank because my mom worked there. Back in the early-to-mid eighties, the strip mall briefly had a small arcade. I remember this because my mom put up an AMBER alert when I wandered off from her side to go watch kids play at the arcade for several hours. [I think my parents bought me a leash after that incident.] Despite all of the diverse businesses within the strip mall, the most prominent signage was the Zellers logo which could be spotted like a big red beacon from a good 800 yards away. I guess that's why that strip mall, who I had no clue had a real name until about a decade ago, was colloquially known as the "Zellers mall" among us Aylmerites. Located beside the 'Zellers mall', there was a Canadian Tire (basically a department store that sold auto supplies, home and garden accessories, sporting goods, and a few other things that Zellers didn't). About two blocks down from Zellers was the only McDonalds restaurant in town. You can quickly see why the 'Zellers mall' became the nexus of our universe.

To my pre-teen self, Zellers was one of the funnest places you could visit in town. During the late 80s, when Saturday morning cartoons and action figures were in their heyday, Zellers always had the latest toys and action figures in stock. We're talking two or three aisles of floor-to-ceiling action figures, vehicles and playsets. My earliest memory of Zellers involves seeing the Super Powers Collection Batmobile on a shelf and being mesmerized with the box art. A trip to Zellers with a generous aunt or uncle could yield you a new G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe or Transformer action figure. The Zellers toy department was an event in itself, and they put a lot of effort into promoting their vast selection of toys and low low pricing (as evidenced by the aforementioned Batman animated TV spots). Even after I 'outgrew' toys, I would take a quick trip to the toy department and see what I had been denying myself. Zellers was infamous for it's employees not really giving a crap; I remember one outing during my elementary school lunch hour where two fellow classmates decided to test the limits of a display model Stretch Armstrong toy. [Did you know that Stretch Armstrong is filled with a green lubricant-type goo? Well now you know.] As the nineties rolled through, and interest in action figures began to diminish, the toy department started shrinking and the electronics department began growing.

Still mesmerizes me to this day. Image source: www.actiontoys.com

The front entrance to Zellers also had a nice assortment of gumball vending machines — but not the ones that sold gumballs or peanuts (who wanted those?), I mean the *good* ones that, for 25 cents, provided you with slime, a super ball, a dinosaur that grew when you put it in water, or the greatest prize of all... the sticky hand. It was a good spot to waste some quarters for a diversion that would keep you entertained for the afternoon. I was obsessed with these things at one point in my young life, which was one more thing that drew me to Zellers like a magnet.

Sticky Hands! Image source: www.amazon.com

A lot of my fellow elementary school classmates learned how to shoplift at Zellers. A lot of them got caught shoplifting at Zellers, too. Zellers was the only place in Aylmer to shoplift where there weren't enough staff to keep eyes on every corner of the store, and the knickknacks were small enough so that you could potentially pocket something quickly and keep walking. (This would all change when dollar stores started to pop up in the early nineties, btw). I don't think anyone under the age of twelve who ever shoplifted at Zellers ever thought out the consequences of their actions. Our Zellers in Aylmer had a "Six Degrees of Separation" thing going on where there was a good chance that either your neighbor, a relative, or a good friend of your parents worked there (and it would be mortally devastating if you were caught). I think to many pre-teens, shoplifting from Zellers was just a proving ground to see if you had what it took to join a guild of thieves. The management was most likely aware of this and just gave the young offenders a good scaring and a call to their parents, never actually pressing charges. In a way, we can thank the staff at Zellers for scaring Aylmer youth straight and sending them on a righteous path.

Zellers' main competition seemed to be SEARS. Thankfully, there was no SEARS in Aylmer, so our local Zellers had nothing to worry about. SEARS' most effective marketing tactic was a gigantic Christmas Catalog they mailed out every October which contained a whopping 400+ pages of gift ideas for Christmas. SEARS was really trying to secure the 'we have the best selection of toys' title and shamelessly made sure the Christmas Catalog told you so. When I think back on it, mailing out something like that couldn't have been cheap. I have the feeling that Kenner's Return of the Jedi action figures (1983) were exclusively sold at SEARS — so that would be one advantage SEARS had over Zellers.

1987 Canadian SEARS Christmas Catalog. image source: wishbookweb.com

In the early 90s, thanks to progress and the expansion of Aylmer, another mall was built beside the 'Zellers mall'. This mall was known for it's large IGA grocery store and would thus become christened the 'IGA mall'. The IGA mall was popular with the Aylmer youth for a while, since it had a video rental store which had a very small arcade. This didn't last very long, however. Arcades were on the "out" since home video game consoles [i.e., Nintendo, Sega] were now "in". Within half a year, the 'Zellers mall' had regained its throne as the most happenin' place in Aylmer.

As far as a community rallying point, I seem to remember a stroll through the 'Zellers mall' being a pretty eventful occasion on a Friday evening. You literally couldn't get through the mall without running into another classmate from school with their parents. (This was while I was in elementary school, don't forget, so it was still cool to hang out with your parents on a Friday evening.) Off the top of my head I can't remember which community events our local Zellers sponsored, but since Aylmer was big on league events for youth [hockey in the winter, baseball in the summer], I'm sure Zellers had a huge hand in that, Once a year, always during the summer, a traveling carnival would pass through town and set up for one week in the massive joint Canadian Tire/Zellers mall parking lot. In retrospect, it was a pretty slipshod setup (i.e., a Tilt-a-Whirl, a Gravitron, a Swing Ride, a really unsafe-looking roller coaster, etc), but this was a pretty big deal to anyone under the age of 10.

I don't have any legacy photos of the 'Zellers mall' circa late 80s/early 90s, so this photo from ici.radio-canada.ca will have to do. This was sometime in the last decade. Probably 2010.

Throughout the end of my elementary school days, the 'Zellers mall' had begun expanding. A new wing was added and more stores had begun to fill out the place. Despite all the cool stuff Zellers sold (ex: Nintendo games, action figures, board games, cassettes and CDs), they never sold comic books. They had a 'book section' that contained French hardcover collected editions of Tintin, Asterix & Obelix, Spirou, Lucky Luke, Safarir (and whatever else young Francophone children grew up reading), but no DC or Marvel. Thankfully, the 'Zellers mall' always had at least one dépanneur or avant-garde bookstore (and later a dollar store) where you could get your 'comics fix'.

As time went on, and I became a high school student with a bus pass who wasn't afraid to travel to Ottawa, our local Zellers became less significant to me. (The fact that I was no longer interested in action figures and board games may have also played a factor in that.) While I may have lost touch with it, the Zellers in Aylmer seemed like a 'lock' — something that was always going to be there — it was a part of the town. You could always count on that big red Zellers logo smiling down on you.

The Zellers franchise seemed to have seen it's best days during the eighties and nineties, and struggled financially into the new millennium. By now Wal-Mart had become Zellers' biggest competitor. Were Wal-Mart's prices lower or did Wal-Mart have more stock? I'd say they were comparable. It would seem that Wal-Mart's biggest advantage was it's marketing campaign and that it was 'new and exciting and from the United States', so it must've been better. [rolls eyes] Unironically, in 2011, the Zellers franchise was bought up by the Target Corporation in an acquisition deal that saw about 130 of the 273 Zellers stores converted to Target stores (the rest being sold to other retailers). The Aylmer, Quebec location was not deemed 'financially sustainable' enough to merit a Target. In 2013, our local Zellers closed it's doors for good. Target's acquisition of Zellers was deemed as a "spectacular failure" seeing losses of more than 2 billion dollars during it's 2 year lifespan. The last Target had withdrawn from Canadian soil by mid-2015. What was so bad about Target? Well, having visited it personally, I'd tell you that the prices were not THAT low, the customer service I dealt with were standoffish, and the merchandise wasn't as good as I had expected. GQ magazine, a US publication, had always painted Target as a place to go for affordable designer brands and 'Target exclusives', I saw no such thing — all I saw were things that Zellers normally sold, but for a higher price. Maybe these 'Target exclusives' were only exclusive to the US?

The last time I checked Les Galeries Aylmer, the empty husk of real estate that Zellers had left had been filled by a Montreal clothing and accessories retailer. The mall had become a ghost town; the comic book/gaming store and the tattoo shop had moved to a new location in Aylmer, the Canadian Tire had moved to a more prosperous part of town (next to a Wal-Mart, go figure), and about half of the retail spaces within the mall had been vacated. When Zellers left, it pretty much took away a major hub of activity within the center of Aylmer (which was now called 'Gatineau' as of 2002).

In 2009, St Paul's church was burned to the ground [some claim it was arson, but that's a story for another time].  Built in 1983, St Paul's was one of Aylmer's oldest landmarks and had a very distinct gothic look that brought character (and legacy) to our small town. I spent almost every Sunday for the first fifteen years of my life going to that church. All this to say that I don't miss St Paul's church nearly as much as I miss Zellers.

Photos of St. Paul's church, before and after the 2009 fire.

-Justin



For your interest:

• the entire history of Zellers

[Editor's note: Sometimes people around the web comment on these articles, but they only comment on the platform that linked to the article (e.g., Facebook, Google+). I will re-post the really insightful remarks in the comments section under 'Anonymous']

A gallery of house ads from the Reign of the Supermen!

1992's The Death of Superman was a HUGE event for me. Not due to all of the media hype (and yes, it *was* being hyped by the media), but because I thought this was really it: DC comics was really killing off Clark Kent/Superman as we knew it. I was one of those kids that didn't really like Superman. I found him too powerful and on the verge of being God-like - hence, not very interesting to read about. (It doesn't help that, up to that point, I wasn't reading Superman in chronological order and couldn't distinguish between his 'Schwartz era', his 'Byrne era', his Salkind films or his cartoon versions. To me, it was all the same Superman: just a powerful guy who can conquer ANY foe.) Either way, for this avid comic book collector/reader of the mid-to-late 80s, the Death of Superman was an epic moment that demonstrated that DC was willing to do bold things and was nothing like the company we had known from the previous decade.

The Death of Superman house ads happened so quickly that if you weren't collecting/reading DC comics during the months of November '92 to February '93, then you probably missed them. The entire 'Death of' event only occurred in the span of seven issues: Superman: The Man of Steel #18, Justice League of America #69, Superman #74, Adventures of Superman #497, Action Comics #684, Superman: Man of Steel #19 and, finally, Superman #75. [The event started and concluded within a span of 2 months.] Not much of a build-up or forewarning to get excited about it. I really paid no attention to this 'publicity stunt' until it was announced on TV and radio that Superman had been killed, and speculators were lining up around the block to purchase Superman #75 from their local comic book shop. After Superman was killed, however, DC really wanted you to know he was gone. The DC marketing campaign didn't miss a beat, and made sure to advertise the SkyBox Death of Superman trading card set by offering a promo card in Superman #75.

Next came Funeral For A Friend. I didn't really have a problem with a few of Metropolis' heroes picking up the slack. In my mind, that just cemented the idea that Superman was dead and wouldn't be coming back. [I mean, they did kill off Supergirl back in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and she stayed dead.] I still wasn't buying or reading any of the issues, but it was nice to know that DC was giving it's readers a sense of closure, and we can all now move on in a DCU without a Superman. Pictured in the house ad above are Waverider, the Guardian, Thorn, Gangbuster and... Iron Munroe? I really have no clue who that flying teen in the leather jacket is. As mentioned, my interest in Superman at this time was at an all-time low.

The big shake-up occurred with Adventures of Superman #500. In my mind's eye, I guess I wondered why these four Superman titles [i.e., Adventures of Superman, Superman: Man of Steel, Action Comics, and Superman v2] hadn't ceased publication yet (or at least been re-titled to something else). The last 2 months of these issues had simply been Funeral For A Friend stories and I was a little eager to see this all resolved. This had been started to feel like the longest denouement ever, but Adventures of... #500 resolved with a cliff-hanger. By the end of the issue, four brand-new characters had appeared claiming to be [the reincarnated spirit of] Superman - and this had me hooked.

Much like DC's Knightfall house ad campaign, the Reign of the Supermen! house ads told a story:

[click to enlarge]

As a lover of DC comics and mysteries, The Reign of the Superman! had a lot of story-telling elements that kept me coming back for more. I was absolutely convinced that the Last Son of Krypton/Eradicator was the true Superman. The Man of Tomorrow/Cyborg Superman was a close second [Terminator 2: Judgement Day was still on everyone's collective minds, and we all imagined how cool it would be if Superman's new 'look' included half of a T-800 exoskeleton]. I had reasoned that there was NO POSSIBLE WAY that neither The Metropolis Kid/Superboy nor The Man of Steel/Steel were the real deal (for obvious reasons). I was so sure about the Eradicator that I would've bet money. As the narrative of the house ads unfolded, it was revealed that each of the four prospective Supermen would encounter each other and square off with other Superman-related characters in the DCU. Guy Gardner versus the Eradicator was just a bonus.

To the uninformed reader, Bloodlines seemed important to the Reign of the Supermen! story line and DC was marketing it as such (although we weren't sure exactly why it was important). Bloodlines turned out to be a fairly unsuccessful attempt to introduce some new DC characters into the DCU, and really had nothing to do with moving the Reign of the Supermen! story forward. [As evidence, Chris Sheehan gives a pretty in-depth review of Superman v2 Annual #5 (1993).]

The home stretch of the Reign of the Supermen! story line (also known as The Return of Superman) crushed my hopes and dreams as it revealed that the original Clark Kent/Superman had returned, and that all four of these candidates were simply usurpers to the 'Superman' name. I once had a chance to chat with Tom Grummett, who pencilled quite a few issues during the Reign of the Supermen! story line and was part of the Death and Return of Superman planning team, and he laughed at my once-youthful naivety and assured me that there was never any doubt in anyone's mind that Clark Kent/Superman would be returning to his own title.


So what came of all of this? Well... spin-offs:

Clark Kent/Superman retained his original four titles. Superboy received an ongoing series that would last well into 2002, Steel also received an ongoing series that lasted an impressive fifty-two issues, and Supergirl received a four issue mini-series (she stayed pretty active in the DCU after that and later joined the Teen Titans in 1995). The Eradicator, for some unprecedented reason, ends up joining the Outsiders in 1994, and Cyborg Superman would remain a villain and pester Superman for years to come.

All of the above images are property of DC comics, and were found/collected/curated from the internet over a span of several years. I know I'm missing a few house ads, and my never-ending search is never complete. Needless to say, I don't remember which sites the images came from, or if said sites are still active. So on that note, I'm going to assume that a lot of these images came from Michael Bailey's Fortress of Baileytude. (Even if I'm wrong, Bailey hosts a great Superman site and you will NOT be disappointed.)

You also might be interested in reading Chris Sheehan's review of the Death of Superman storyline. Chris gives a play-by-play analysis of the issues leading up to Superman's death on his Chris is on Infinite Earths blog.

-Justin

P.S. If you have any scans/images of the house ads that I'm missing, please send a link my way. Much appreciated. ;)

A collection of Knightfall house ads - 1993

If you remember reading and/or collecting Knightfall, congratulations. For anyone else who was too young or was taking a hiatus from comics at the time, Knightfall was a twenty-issue story arc from 1993 that ran through 4 different titles (Batman, Detective Comics, Shadow of the Bat and Showcase '93) that told the epic tale of the downfall [and presumed death] of Batman and the introduction of his new successor. I honestly thought that this was going to be my generation's 'moon landing', and by that I mean I really thought this was 'it' — this was going to be the end of Bruce Wayne as we knew it. What can I say? I was a pretty naive 11-year old. DC had just killed off Superman a year ago, [and I honestly thought he was staying dead] and we were living in 'extreme' times where anything could happen.

I wasn't able to collect/read these as they were being published — my limited financial assets were being diversified among numerous short-term investments (i.e. I was buying a lot of Marvel comics and non-sports trading cards). I did go to summer camp in the summer of '93 and another kid at camp (who was a massive DC fan) had brought his comic book collection with him. He didn't have any issues of Knightfall, but the Knightfall house ads were plastered in every second DC issue I thumbed through. They say a picture tells a thousand words, and these full-page house ads told me that something BIG was going down. I liked the way the ads created a narrative informing the reader just how grim things were getting for Gotham's dark knight. The red eclipse that was slowly starting to swallow the bat logo was also a nice touch of foreshadowing.

(click to enlarge)

This event did two major things: it introduced me to a whole slew of new Bat villains (I have never heard of Amygdala, Film Freak, or Mr. Zsasz prior to these ads), and introduced a lot of non-Batman DC comics readers to the Kelley Jones Batman — the one with the foot-long bat ears on his cowl who always seemed to be stooped or crouching. That was the Batman that would leave the longest lasting-impression on me and would be found doodled in almost every high school notebook I've ever owned (and then some). For a 19-part story arc, I realize we are missing quite a few house ads here [at least 8, by my count]. Rest assured, however, that the house ad was not original art. It was just the cover of the issue being described in the house ad, combined with a bit of enticing ad copy meant to summarize just how dire Bruce Wayne's situation was getting. These covers are real eye-catchers, but I'd like to gently point out that the cover of the issue was not always representative of the interior art.

It was interesting the way that Knightfall chapters 1 through 10 kept escalating and then... bam! denouement! Batman gets crippled by Bane! But wait, there's more! The house ads for Knightfall chapters 12 to 18 build up to the final showdown between the *new* Batman and Bane. [The house ad for chapter 18 looks downright pornographic. Please tell me Bane is wearing pants....] The Knightfall saga would become 1994's Knightquest, and then Knightsend, and would ultimately resolve sometime in early 1995. I think by this point fans had had enough, realizing that this storyline had already dragged on too long. Even the Knightquest and Knightsend house ads lacked the zeal the in-house DC marketing team had put into the Knightfall promotional campaign.

While I wasn't able to collect the issues, I was able to purchase the softcover Batman: Knightfall and Beyond novelization written by Alan Grant (I was avid book reader back then — I think I read the entire thing in one afternoon). While it filled in a lot of missing gaps, I still felt it was 'lacking' — probably because it was packaged for the young adult crowd. Sometime shortly after, a friend lent me the much thicker, much more mature-looking (and hard-cover) Batman Knightfall: A Novel by Dennis O'Neil. I seem to recall the latter being on the New York Times Bestsellers list during it's heyday, so it was a 'big deal' to finally get my hands on it. I remember it being leaps and bounds better than the Alan Grant novelization.

The final resolution of Bruce Wayne healing up, training himself to become better than before, and becoming Batman again really shouldn't have come as a surprise to me. In hindsight, one year prior to Knightfall being launched, Batman Returns hit the box office and grossed $162 million in North American sales. That very same year, Batman: The Animated Series debuted on Fox to a North American audience and is still being referenced as one of the BEST animated shows ever made. Ads for the new Batman animated film, Mask of the Phantasm, were also being heavily promoted in every DC comic available while Knightfall was in full effect. It wouldn't make sense to permanently retire a creative property that was generating so much revenue for the company. In my defense, I was a product of the 80s comic book culture and fake 'deaths' were still a relatively new gimmick in the early 90s. At least, that's how I'd like to remember it.

What Knightfall ultimately did for DC comics was to keep DC (and Batman) relevant during the deluge of X-books and Image/Malibu/Valiant comics that were flooding the market in the early 90s. Interestingly, some comic book analysts have theorized that the Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightsend story arc may have contributed to the comic book crash of the mid 90s — readers were experiencing 'burn out' from having to buy too many titles to complete a story arc that lasted way longer than it should have. Would it have been the sole cause for the comic book crash? Absolutely not. But I'm positive it wouldn't have helped anything.

Looking back on this now, I don't feel tricked or cheated. I feel like it was a good memory and a good time to be a comic book reader. Feel free to share any memories or stories you have from the whole Knightfall saga in the comments section below.