Pretty much after the Infinity Gauntlet's success Marvel and DC we just like "OMG EVENTS ARE COOL" Then the rest of the decade was full of everyone fighting Onslaught and DC Crisises and Rob Liefeld single handedly ruining a generation of comic art with his influences. The comic code was also revised in 89 and almost had no power over comics so they were just giving everyone guns and stuff because they could and were overly excited about their new freedom and it ended up giving us things like this.
Have you actually read this issue? in this comic they only use the laser guns on like three pages and Johnny makes a point about the FF not needing weapons, so far from being a sincere and foolish attempt to turn the FF into 4 Punishers it's actually a friendly jab at X-Force and it's fans, this issue is a response to criticism that FF received regularly at the time that FF was too old fashioned and dated. Paul Ryan the artist on this issue (a traditional style artist) and Tom DeFalco the writer were both criticized by some of the edgier fans for being too 60s/70s and this was their light-hearted response.
the 90s was actually one of the most self-aware eras in comics rather than being out of touch.
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