[4] Because the time period encompassing the Modern Age is not well defined, and in some cases disputed by both fans and most professionals, a comprehensive history is open to debate.

[citation needed] In rough chronological order by the beginning of the trend, here are some important developments that occurred during the Modern Age, many of which are interrelated: The late 1970s saw famed creators going to work for new independent publishers.

These creators were brought in by DC editor Mike Gold to create defining works such as Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters by Grell, Blackhawk by Chaykin, and Hawkworld by Truman.

With Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Art Spiegelman's Maus (which would later receive the Pulitzer Prize), this period marks the summit of the artform per comics expert Scott McCloud.

1970s horror anthology series merely continued what had already been established during the late 1960s, and endured into the 1980s until they were markedly transformed into new formats, many of which were greatly influenced by, or directly reprinted, "pre-Code" content and styles of the early 1950s.

[citation needed] Starting with Alan Moore’s groundbreaking work on DC's Swamp Thing in 1984–1987, horror comic books incorporated elements of science fiction/fantasy and strove to a new artistic standard.

This also led to an avalanche of other movie adaptations which included previously lesser known Vertigo titles, notably Constantine (based on the comic book Hellblazer) and V for Vendetta.

[citation needed] In the mid-1980s, Marvel antiheroes such as the X-Men's Wolverine, the Punisher, and writer/artist Frank Miller’s darker version of Daredevil challenged the previous model of the superhero as a cheerful humanitarian.

They featured morally ambiguous characters such as the cynical John Constantine and the violence-loving Lobo with graphic violence and adult content that differentiated them from other mainstream titles.

For example, the Joker, Batman's nemesis, was portrayed less as an evil criminal and more as a mentally ill psychopath who cannot control his actions, Marvel Comics' galactic planet-eater Galactus became a force of nature who means no personal malice in his feedings, and the X-Men's nemesis Magneto became more benign and sympathetic as a man who fights for an oppressed people, albeit through means that others deem unacceptable.

Within the decade, Wolverine would switch to a brown and yellow costume, Thor would be replaced by Thunderstrike, Archangel would emerge as the X-Men's Angel's dark counterpart after serving as one of Apocalypse's Horsemen, and many other Marvel characters would have complete image overhauls.

In addition to individual character or franchise/family-wide makeovers, Crisis on Infinite Earths ushered in a popular trend of "rebooting", "remaking" or greatly reimagining the publisher-wide universes every 5–10 years on varying scales.

These reinventions could be on as large a scale as suddenly retconning seminal story points and rewriting character histories, or simply introducing and/or killing off/writing out various important and minor elements of a universe.

Crisis on Infinite Earths resulted in several miniseries which explicitly retconned character histories, such as Batman: Year One, Superman: Man of Steel and Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals.

This trend of publisher-wide reinventions, which often consists of a new miniseries and various spinoff storylines in established books, continued for decades, with DC's New 52 in 2011 and Marvel's Secret Wars in 2015.

Propelled by star power and upset that they did not own the popular characters they created for Marvel, several illustrators, including the above three formed Image Comics in 1992, an umbrella label under which several autonomous, creator-owned companies existed.

This led a market boom, where retail shops and publishers made huge profits and many companies, large and small, expanded their lines.

Companies began expecting a contraction and Marvel UK's sales director, Lou Marks, stated on September 29 that retailers were saying there was "simply no room to display all the comics being produced".

[10] The resulting comic market crash devastated the industry: sales plummeted, hundreds of retail stores closed and many publishers downsized.

[16]: 15  In 2015, Polygon highlighted that "though this was far less common a decade ago, pretty much every monthly comic out there right now is eventually collected into trade paperback or hardcover edition that prints several issues in one package".

Due to this, many writers now consider their plots with the trade paperback edition in mind, scripting stories that last four to twelve issues, which could easily be read as a "graphic novel."

In addition, the publishing format has gained such respectability as literature that it became an increasingly prominent part of both book stores and public library collections.

[18][19] Attempts to catalog and circulate single-issue comics can pose difficult problems[20][21] and the durability of the trade paperback format is an important consideration for longevity and collection development in public and school libraries.

The Essential Marvel line of trade paperbacks has reprinted heroes such as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four and has been able to introduce these Silver Age stories to a new generation of fans.

[citation needed] In 2018, Screen Rant highlighted, "publishers and retailers traditionally ignore the sales of trade paperbacks when it comes to deciding whether or not a specific title is doing well.

Novelist Brad Meltzer saw success in the comics field with the controversial miniseries Identity Crisis, as well as runs on Green Arrow and Justice League of America.

In the aftermath of the bankruptcy of Marvel and DC and the languishing of American comics after 1996, and with the rise of the alternative media boom of the decade, interest in manga greatly increased by the 2000s.

The consensus by both older and newer fans of manga often spoke of how manga's lexicon of works ranged greatly than the often restricted variety limited to superhero stories on the American market, and provided better quality by not subjecting themselves to the censorship and oppressive standards such as the Comics Code Authority or highly conservative; predominantly white American influence that was prominent years before.

In October 2019 industry analyst Milton Griepp presented data at an ICv2 conference in New York showing that for the first time in decades, the market was dominated not by traditionally American monthly comics of the superhero genre, but graphic novels and trade paperbacks of other genres, particular those aimed at younger readers, such Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man and Raina Telgemeier’s Guts, and Japanese manga and manga-inspired books.

According to data by Bookscan, child-oriented comics and graphic novels accounted for 41% of sell-through at bookstores, and manga is 28%, while books of the superhero genre constituted less than 10%, a drop of 9.6% year-over-year.