You see, all that prosperity was just a bubble. What had happened was that speculators got involved (speculators being the people who have mint, signed issues of 'Witchblade #1' squirreled away in safes with the intention of funding their childrens' college educations) and inflated the market by buying obscene numbers of comic book issues on the grounds that, hey, they'll be worth a lot some day, right? Well, that only works when things are RARE, see. Supply and demand, and all that. But the companies saw a market and pumped up their print runs, and fed the speculator demand for more crossovers and Events, however contrived, until finally (through no direct fault of Marvel's) DC killed and ate the goose that was laying the golden eggs, by having a big ol' "Death of Superman" Event, which was a bit spoiled when Superman promptly came back to life. Whereupon specultors started getting cold feet and the market imploded.
There's a classic example of a bubble inflation economy that often gets used, involving tulip bulbs and crazy people in the Low Countries. You see, tulip bulbs became a fad in the Low Countries (for the geography impared, Holland and the Netherlands) at one point around the turn of the century, due to the fact that people had been fiddling with the things to create rare colors and such. And as demand grew for this limited supply of cool-looking tulips, prices shot up, and up, as the natural human urge to keep up with the neighbors, born from some ancient instinct to advertise your virility to attract a mate (which somehow had been twisted by modern society from being extremely buff and manly into being extremely skilled at flower arranging) until people were paying out obscene sums of money for, well, smegging flower bulbs. There were price indexes showing the daily valuation of various strains, there was a market, and speculation, and... eventually some schmuck paused in the midst of a transaction and said, "hey, wait a minute, what the HELL am I doing?!" and walked out, whereupon other people started realizing how stupid this was, and the market imploded, leaving a lot of people feeling extremely stupid for having liquidated their family fortunes to pay for flowers.
The motto of this story is, in a bubble economy, don't be the idiot left holding the tulips when the thing goes boom. Or, alternately, don't be the idiot left holding 1,000 issues of the 'Death of Superman' issue.
Anyway, having sealed their fate, the comics companies realized their impending doom. Marvel's debts increased, until they had to declare bankruptcy, sell off Fleer for a fiftieth of what they paid for it, and eventually get bought out by Toy Biz, which was a mere pawn of their vast empire in the glory days. And resort to lots of crossovers in the hopes of driving up sales. Which worked, because people were idiots. But with every crossover, more of the people who actually liked the books, as opposed to saying "Gosh! Wolverine! Must... buy..." shrugged and left. Until the companies started getting really desperate. And turning to people like John Byrne and Rob Liefield.
For those of you who have lives, John Byrne is the Amazing Retroactive Continuity Boy. Few concepts can survive the horror of being 'Byrned', which is what happens when he takes a look at them and says, "You know, all this stuff that was done in the past, well, it just sucks. Let's do it my way." which lasts for about a year until someone at the company in question realizes what they've done and hurls him out the door. Until they get desperate for sales again and say, gosh, that Byrne guy has name recognition... Lather, rinse, repeat. Now, I can stand people making a mistake, but, really, making the SAME mistake, over and over and over again? I know these comic companies change head editors like most people change underwear, but you'd think they'd take a look at the errors of their predecessors. Byrne hates coincidence, see. It's not enough that, for example, the Hulk was created by a Gamma Bomb accident caused by commie traitors while his alter ego, Bruce Banner, was trying to save some idiot kid from wandering onto the test range. Nope, nope. It was all a conspiracy. (As if having commie traitors wasn't enough of a conspiracy.) Nope, they were all Skrulls (Marvel's shape-shifting aliens). Skrulls pretending to be commie traitors pretending to be lab assistants. Skrulls pretending to be a kid to lure Bruce Banner onto the test range. Why? Because they're stupid, that's why.
And then there's Rob Liefield. He can't write. He can't draw. He can't even properly run the comic book company he helped found. And yet, Marvel, desperate for name recognition (the same company that's willing to try and cash in on the name recognition of characters like Ka-Zar. I mean, Ka-Zar for crying out loud. Who the hell is Ka-Zar?!) is willing to summon up the amazing Liefield, despite the fact that he, too, was hurled out the door for being an idiot. Perhaps they're thinking that the impact of his head on the pavement knocked some sense into the poor boy. The mind boggles.
Um. There was a point to all that, but I forgot it. Oh. Right. Don't buy tulips. They're evil. Evil! EVIL!!
At least, I think that was the title. It could also be "Krillan ran away , bravely ran away away; when danger reared it's ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled..."
Gohan continues pounding on Freeza while Vegeta practices his Johnny Bench impression. Finally, Gohan stops yelling and firing energy blasts and the dust clears... to show Freeza lying there, sprawled out and apparently unconsious. Vegeta gapes in shock and astonishment and other such things, complaining that there's no way Gohan could be that powerful. Gohan, meanwhile, looks around for Krillan, to see Dende has hauled the waterlogged Earther out of the water and pronounced that he's only mostly dead, not completely dead.
Vegeta, however, is smart enough to point out that there's no way Freeza is actually dead, while simultaneously not being smart enough to say, hey, the guy's down, though, so let's beat on him some more while we have the chance. Sure enough, up pops Freeza and dusts himself off.
Meanwhile, Goku continues healing.
Freeza makes the standard comment people have about Gohan, namely, "Gosh, kid, I am impressed, but you die now," and proceeds to smack down the young warrior. Vegeta blasts Freeza from behind while the villain gloats, and goes into his now-trademarked dialog about how you should never leave the mighty Vegeta an opening, only to shut up when Freeza emerges unharmed and just looks at him. Freeza ignored Vegeta for a bit to smack Gohan around more and make sure he stays down. This done, Freeza drifts back up to confront Vegeta, only to pause at the sound of Krillan unleashing one of his special moves (hey, you've all played fighting games, right? Well, the DBZ characters have special moves. It's just... genre, you know. Except for Vegeta, whose special move is to be cranky and surly.), the 'Destructo Disc'. Million-level power or not, Freeza's still vulnerable to this, and the disc lops off the end of his tail. Krillan hurls some more, and Freeza dances around dodging them.
Freeza goes into Standard Villain Mode, clenching his fists and explaining how he'll kill Krillan (who seems to be completely healed, now), only to have Krillan stick his tongue out and then, taking a page from Braveheart, moons Freeza. Freeza is so utterly astonished that he just stands there for a moment before tearing towards Krillan, which was, after all, exactly what Krillan wanted. Once more, Freeza falls for a delaying tactic as Krillan flees with the villain in hot pursuit. [Krillan: "Don't look back... don't look back..." (looks back) "Aw, crud!"]
Freeza spends several minutes chasing Krillan around, as he regains his composure and Krillan loses his. Freeza once again makes the mistake of underestimating his opponent, and just toys with Krillan instead of blowing him into teeny bits.
Meanwhile, Dende sidles up to the unconsious and battered Gohan and pulls an E.T., healing the injured warrior. "You idiots," is Vegeta's opinion on this, "If he can do that..." Then they should have used him to fix Goku. If they'd had the time. But then they couldn't drag the fight out for twenty odd episodes! Perhaps they were just too stunned at the thought of someone having powers that didn't involve beating other people up.
Krillan comes running back for help, and he, Vegeta and the newly healed Gohan face off against Freeza, who is a bit concerned at Gohan's sudden bout of wellness. Feeling a bit more confident, now, Vegeta takes command and comes up with the complex and brilliant scheme of, hey, everyone just blast at him all together. Ooo, what skill. Everyone blasts at Freeza, who just looks bored.
Gohan shrugs and simply hurls himself at Freeza, only to be interrupted by the arrival of... Piccolo, who's finally made it after being in transit for three episodes or so. The surly Piccolo mocks Freeza's suggestion that he just leave before he, too, gets on the villain's hate list, and challenges Freeza to single combat. Gohan and Krillan are shocked by the stupidity of this plan, while Vegeta seems to think, hey, better him than us.
Dende cheers on Piccolo, the Namek champion, only to be instructed by the hero to get the heck behind cover already. Piccolo also seems to know Dende's name, possibly having encountered Naihl or something in the Missing Episode.
Meanwhile, Goku, still healing, comments on the various power levels he senses.
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