Marvel's Faith in the Nostalgia Cycle Is a Huge Miscalculation
Marvel Comics has a distinct 90s problem — and if they're not careful, the could lose most of their readership before they've even realized their critical mistake. The company is over 50 years old and thus has plenty of nostalgic properties, from Spider-Man to the X-Men to the Incredible Hulk and more. But recently, the company is seemingly laser-focused on bringing back very specific properties — the stories from the 1990s — and this is unfortunately a grand mistake.
The classic «nostalgia cycle» is simple to understand and very easy to notice: a belief that audiences will consider a piece of media nostalgic if it debuted 20-30 years ago. The 1970s saw a resurgence of works set in the 1960s; the 2000s, the 80s, and so on. From 2015 onward, the 90s were seen as nostalgic, and thus films like Captain Marvel took place in the 90s (complete with references to Blockbuster, RadioShack and dial-up internet). Marvel comics are guilty of the practice as well, but unlike the films, entire storylines from the 90s are brought back, and therein lies the problem.
Related: 90s Iron Man Was So Unpopular, He Was Left Out Of Marvel vs. DC
2021 alone has seen three separate revivals of 90s storylines: Darkhawk, Heroes Reborn, and the Spider-Man Clone Saga (others still, like the X-Men Legacy series, appear; it's no accident that the 90s X-Men animated series revival is also planned for Disney+). Darkhawk was a 90s hero that received a cult fan following, but he wasn't particularly memorable or stood out from the crowd (his disappearance after the decade proved the fandom was only fleeting). A new Darkhawk appearing in 2022 (after the old one was killed in 2021) did not suddenly fan the flames for a Darkhawk resurrection on par with the
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