What The--?! works that spoof some of their all-time greatest successes. For example, in issue #2, Byrne creates a tale pitting his work on the Fantastic Four franchise against his work with Superman. The issue goes so far as to have the Lex Luthor character complain about the changes Byrne made to the Superman legend after DC Comics' "Crisis on Infinite Earths". Though it carried the Marvel Comics label on the front left corner, "What The--?!" touted itself as being published by "Marble Comics". "What The--?!" parodied Marvel institutions such as the legendary Marvel Comics fan mail page, with staged articles called
Superhero comics the "Captain America" story arc of the superhero's political disillusionment by Steve Englehart. This was eventually supplanted by more sophisticated character driven titles of "The Uncanny X-Men" by Chris Claremont and John Byrne for Marvel and "The New Teen Titans" by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez for DC. Anti-Hero becomes popular with appearances of the Punisher, Wolverine, Ghost Rider and a 1980s revival of Daredevil by Frank Miller. Superhero Comics became darker with the release of landmark deconstructive works such as "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns", which led to many imitations. In the 1990s, Image Comics released successful new