Unfortunately, Fantastic Four was fighting an uphill battle since not only had Warner Bros. This cross-pollination between the titles bore some fruit and bumped up sales as well as produce memorable stories like Scott Lobdell’s “The Return of the Bombastic Bag-Man” where a crisis forced Peter Parker to don his humorous alter ego to rescue the Fantastic Four from the Mole Man (no joke!) While it did not placate fans of Peter Parker as “the one, true Spider-Man,” it at least gave him a prominent role the Marvel universe while Ben Reilly headlined the comics and video games. Similarly, Johnny Storm frequently crossed over Ben Reilly’s Spider-Man titles as member of his supporting cast. Marvel went to great lengths to make the title its flagship title once more, even integrating the retired Parker Parker into its supporting cast as Reed Richards protege. Meanwhile, Fantastic Four was riding on the hype generated by both “Heroes Return” and upcoming film. The consequences were far reaching for the X-Men franchise because Wolverine’s actions splintered the team into two camps: Xavier/Cyclops faction, which advocated a peaceful coexistence and cooperation with humanity, and Wolverine’s, which took a militant stance against mutant extremism. When Xavier’s resolve falters when he momentarily neutralizes Magneto, Wolverine decapitates the longtime X-Men foe in revenge for killing Storm. "The Magneto War" is significant in itself because of the final confrontation where Magneto threatens to intervene with the X-Men/Avengers plan to use Polaris and Magneto’s clone, Joseph to realign the poles. The premise was a relatively simple one, Magneto reverses the Earth’s magnetic poles and issues an ultimatum to the UN for a mutant homeland, which forces the X-Men and Avengers to team up to stop him while Fantastic Four and Spider-Man dealt with the consequences in their self-contained episodes. However, the success of the X-Men film and upcoming anime was the impetus behind the Magneto War, which evolved into a company-wide crossover that included Avengers, Fantastic Four, and (believe it or not) Spider-Man. Sales of X-Men saw a noticeable bump, though not to as great a degree as Green Lantern since Uncanny X-Men was Marvel’s best-selling title. Both arcs ended with the restoration of both the Green Lantern Corps and Central Power Battery on Oa was well as the revelation the power behind the yellow rings was Mongul who made reference to an “Emotional Spectrum.” An idea pitched by then production assistant, Geoff Johns, who would briefly take over the main title four year later. The second title Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors written by John Acrudi and pencilled by Doug Manhke focused on Kyle’s then-love interest Jade and John Stewart who became Earth’s new Green Lanterns after Kyle’s departure. Additionally, with Hal Jordan dead in the aftermath of Zero Hour, Kyle learns that he inherited the power of Central Power Battery, which he uses to recover the souls of Kilowog, Tomar-Tu, and other Lanterns murdered in “Emerald Twilight” from Nekron’s realm. In the year-long “Torchbearer” arc, the last Guardian of the Universe, Ganthet charged Kyle Rayner with the task of restarting the Green Lantern Corps when a new Corps using yellow rings appears.
Green Lantern’s narrow victory saw a dramatic increase in sales of the comic as well as the launch of a second title in October in conjunction with a new story arc. and Marvel/20th Century Fox would duel each summer in the oughts to see which property ruled the roost. The releases of both Green Lantern and X-Men started Hollywood’s “Superhero Wars” in earnest the previous year where DC/Warner Bros. Though states that 1998 was the greatest years in video gaming accord, 1999 was a benchmark year for comics industry in the wake of the speculator market collapse, Marvel’s bankruptcy, and subsequent accquisition by NewsCorp.
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