"}Platinum Age \u2013 wastebasket term for everything before the\ninvention of the true comic book form in 1933. Lots of false starts, examples\nthat might actually be picture books, newspaper reprints in wide variety of\nformats, and earlier examples of things that could be said to be \u201ccomics\u201d and\neven \u201csuper heroes.\u201d \u00a0The key is\nhistorical continuity, which these examples lack.
Pre-golden Age \u2013 1933 Funnies on Parade invents comic book\nformat. \u00a0The next few years show accrual\nof additional features including introducing and escalating new material, 10\ncent cover price, multi page stories, evolving page format to be less like\nnewspaper strips. Very similar content to newspaper strips, though more slanted\ntowards action/adventure.
Golden Age \u2013 1938 the superhero emerges as a historically\ncontiguous thing with Action #1\u2019s Superman. \nThis starts a revolution as comics have a \u201ckiller app\u201d of their\nown. \u00a0A lot happens, but it is helpful to\nlook at this in phases. \u00a01938-41 is the\nexplosive/experimental phase where most of the lasting golden age superheroes\nwere introduced, with an often pro-am feel and variation in approach, gradually\nbecoming more professional and style synchronized. \u00a01941-45 is the patriotic phase, as there is\nan overriding common enemy to focus on, and the scope gets bigger. \u00a01945-1949 is the commercial peak-and-bust of\nthe superhero, where post-war superhero worship is extremely high, but gives\nway gradually to boredom with the sunny optimism and attention focusing on more\ndiverse genres. \u00a0Westerns, war comics,\ncrime comics, sci-fi, \u201chorror,\u201d etc. existed throughout comics history, but the\nsuperheroes lose their dominance. \nDifferent endpoints can be drawn but since DC continues unabated, I tend\nto draw the line at the 1949 rebranding of Captain America Comics as Weird\nTales as the end of the era or the start of EC\u2019s new line the same year.
Atomic Age \u2013 it is controversial as to whether we need an\nage between Gold and Silver, and not having this would make some lines easier\nto draw. \u00a0But since comics history seems\nto like 10 year chunks, I tend to want a 50\u2019s age. \u00a0Starting in 1949 we have a series of\ntrends. \u00a0The straggling non-DC superhero\nconcerns fold, leading to genre proliferation which is a bit pulpier than it\nwas in the 1930s. Optimistic adventure tales become less common than morality\ntales, paranoia, superheated melodrama, and a kind of fatalistic life or death\nstruggle. \u00a0EC comics, beginning its new\nline in 1949 is the paradigm example, but all publishers (other than squeaky\nclean outfits like Dell and Archie) did this. \nThe development of the romance comic by Jack Kirby in 1947 as\nessentially a crime comic about lust instead of money is a sentinel event that\nprefigures the tone of this era. \u00a0The\nimportant sub-eras are pre and post \u201ccode.\u201d In 1955 the comics code authority\nwas formed as a reaction to senate hearings on comics as a cause for juvenile\ndelinquency, creating strict and often capricious restrictions that \u201cdefanged\u201d\nthe output. \u00a0This led to a shift from\nnoir and gore to a more B-movie morality tale, with a lot of monsters and flying\nsaucers and Twilight Zone style gotcha-plotting.
Silver Age \u2013 here lies my big heresy. \u00a0The silver age is broadly agreed to begin in\n1956 with the first appearance of the Silver Age Flash. \u00a0This works especially well if you like to go\nstraight from the golden age to the silver age as the Comic code cuts in, then\nyou get a kinder output and a new DC universe to herald the next age. \u00a0I have two issues with this: the previously\nmentioned \u201c10 year\u201d bias and the fact that I\u2019m Marvel-o-centric. \u00a0DC was clearly developing a distinct Silver\nage identity which evolved through the 50\u2019s and their silver age aesthetic\nsurely includes the Legion of Superheroes first appearance in 1958. \u00a0But there are issues with this. \u00a0The appearance of Flash is arbitrary as a cutoff\nas, though so clearly visible, no one can agree as to when Superman, Batman, and\nWonder Woman become their Earth 1 (Silver age) versions. \u00a0Google this, it\u2019s insane. But Superboy, who\nhad his own comic from 1949, everyone seems to believe is an Earth 1 thing and the contingenti work to convolute history around this fact. \nAdditionally, DC\u2019s timeline does not really fit what is happening at any other publishers. \u00a0My heretical solution\nis this \u2013 DC\u2019s superhero atomic age was a stepwise development of the Silver\nage starting with Superboy #1 and finishing with the first appearance of the\nJustice League of America in 1960. \u00a0This\nact prompted Martin Goodman to tell Stan Lee to create a superhero team book,\nthe Fantastic Four, which started Marvel\u2019s Silver age. \u00a0This seems to me an elegant solution. \u00a0Ages are arbitrary, but this fits best to me\n\u2013 DC is unique in publishing superheroes throughout the 1950s and so\npostulating a 10 year gradual fade from golden to silver age when no one else\nwas doing anything related seems appropriate.
The Silver age - dominated by Marvel, which had an explosive\ndecade of Lee/Kirby/Ditko fueled creativity, full of melodramatics and dynamic\nart. \u00a0DC had its own distinct aesthetic\nof superheroes acting like their audience (young children), being gullible,\nplaying pranks, all rendered statically, which it had honed in the 50\u2019s and\nwhich it sustained nicely. The sub-eras are Marvel based since DC was pretty\nconsistent. \u00a01960-63 was the\ndevelopmental period with Marvel figuring out how things worked and introducing\nall of its really big characters. \u00a0This\nends with the simultaneous publication of Avengers and X-Men number one, and\nLee/Kirby finally finding their footing with the Marvel method with the\nintroduction of Tales of Asgard. \n1963-1966 was about improving quality, establishing a brand, giving some\nalready existing characters their own books, but not that many big new\ncharacters (Daredevil is the big exception). \nThis was a period of adjustment, and when Marvel was born as a concept. \u00a0In 1966 several things happened. \u00a0Marvel hired Roy Thomas, who would help birth\nthe Bronze Age, as a writer, Steve Ditko leaves Marvel, and Lee and Kirby\nfinally hit their stride and do peak work, yielding a new age of concept and\ncharacter creativity. \u00a01966-70 is\ncharacterized by the best silver age work with everyone peaking, Thomas\nbeginning to guide books Lee never quite got, and prime periods of Johns Romita and\nBuscema. \u00a0This is the great era that\neveryone remembers.
Bronze Age \u2013 there was a whole lot of change between 1969\nand 1972, with 1970 being the peak year, leaving a very different output. \u00a0Kirby\u2019s moving from Marvel to DC basically at the decade devide is probably\nthe best mark to give as the moment of the shift as he is so crucial in\ndefining the Silver Age at Marvel, but this is only one of many shifts. \u00a0After Kirby leaves, Roy Thomas begins the\nprocess of taking over running Marvel ending with his formally taking over as\neditor in chief in 1972. \u00a0Starting in\n1968, Thomas scaled up trying new things in his own domain starting with the first\nBronze age progenitor book Captain Marvel, the introduction of the Vision the\nsame year, the completely unique (look and \u201cfeel\u201d) at the time run with Neal\nAdams on X-Man in 1969, and hiring Barry Windsor-Smith with whom he would\nintroduce Conan in 1970. \u00a0With Kirby\ngone, Lee began to eye moving out to the bigger entertainment leagues, allowing\nThomas to increasingly set the tone for the company. \u00a0Thomas\u2019 tone was looking both forward, with\nmore realistic and daring art and more sophisticated and relevant storytelling,\nbackwards, by tying in Marvel\u2019s golden age history and bringing in pulp and\nfandom classics (such as Conan), and sideways, by proliferating genres and\nMarvelizing non-superhero concepts. \u00a0This\nwas the tone for the bronze age as a whole \u2013 relevant, diverse, muddier, less\ncartoony, and conceptually omnivorous. \nOther shifts of the time include hiring new writers that were of the\nyounger generation (Englehart, Gerber, etc.), Neal Adams moving to DC and working\nwith the young Denny O\u2019Neil to create more grittier/relevant stories, and a new\nage of anthology titles with B-list stars acting as a platform for creative\ntry-outs.
Divisions are arbitrary, but the decade divides somewhat in\nhalf as the intro of Wolverine, the Punisher, and Moon Knight in 1974 set the\nstage for 1975\u2019s X-Men revival and Thomas, the guiding force of Marvel for the\nfirst half of the decade, stepping down as editor-and-chief the same year, leaving\nthe Marvel offices to years of chaos. \nThe second half decade yields to sees a proliferation of new talent on\nthe art side gaining momentum and Jim Shooter eventually stepping in and\nstarting to create order, resulting in 1980\u2019s culmination of the Dark Phoenix\nsaga, Elektra saga, introduction of the New Teen Titans, and the Legion revamp, all star-art driven affairs.
The 80\u2019s (a.k.a. \u201cmodern age\u201d) \u2013 Star artist fandom has\ntaken hold as Jim Shooter institutes a greater degree of consistency and DC\nbecomes more Marvel-like. The first half decade shows a shift as editorial\nbattles the star artists, who want more freedom. \u00a0Many things happen around 1985 \u2013 Miller,\nPerez, and Byrne leave for high profile DC projects. \u00a0Jim Shooter seizes Marvel in his image with the continuing Secret Wars and firm oversight. \u00a0DC hires their first brit, Alan Moore, to\nwrite, and eventually hire a bunch more, while they open the floodgates of\nprestige product. \u00a0For the down half of the decade: DC\u2019s better offerings\nbecome truly top notch, making Marvel look silly, leading Shooter to eventually be fired. \u00a0Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles causes a stir,\ncreating the B&W indy boom. \u00a0The \u201ckewl\u201d\ntrend, born both of a misunderstanding of what made Miller and Moore\u2019s stuff\nwork and the B&W boom fallout, leads in the later decade to a new crop of\nhot artists who are lite on fundamental\u2019s but heavy on noodling at Marvel and\nhot to tell their own not-very-sophisticated \u201cdarker\u201d tales. This is the trend\nof the late 80\u2019s.
People got tired of naming ages about here.
The 90\u2019s (\u201cboom and bust\u201d) \u2013 Easiest line to draw: this era\nbegins with the handing over of new Marvel titles to the hot artists, resulting\nin record breaking sales. \u00a0This began\nwith McFarline\u2019s Spider-Man #1 in 1990, with Lee\u2019s X-Men and Liefield\u2019s X-Force following. \nRapidly came the rise of Wizard Magazine (a cool/speculator oriented\ncomics mag that had incredible influence), the big 7 hot artists leaving to form Image\ncomics, Jim Shooter (who had been booted from Marvel in 1987) starting Valiant comics, and both\nsales and prices going through the roof. \nBy 1995, speculator/collectibility fervor had cooled, the hot artists\ncouldn\u2019t get any work out, Marvel creative had bogged down, DC seemed stuck, several highly\nordered flops had killed 2/3 of the comics shops, and the comic industry\u2019s\nprospects looked dire. \u00a0This period was\nspent flailing for everybody with the first signs of hope coming from the Marvel Knights\nline, begun in 1998.\u00a0
The 00\u2032s (rise of the synergy) - \n\n 1999 began with more earnest efforts, expanding MK, and Wildstorm (still a part of Image) doing some very interesting work with Ellis and Moore. \u00a0All of this came to a head in 2000 with the advent of nu Marvel under Jemas and Quesada and the sale of Wildstorm to DC.\n\nWith increased experimentation\nand sub-branding (Ultimate Spider-Man number one essentially begins this era),\nthe early 00\u2019s tell a story of trying everything then locking in what\nworks. \u00a0This ended when DC had a smash success\nwith Identity Crisis (late 2004), causing Marvel to begin a continuity-wide\nstream of such events, beginning with 2005\u2019s House of M. \u00a0Both DC and Marvel entered an extended period\nof crossover \u2013 they\u2019d done so before, but now Marvel\u2019s continuity flowed\ndirectly from event to event, with the whole universe\u2019s status quo determined by the\nending of the last one, while DC nakedly chased another Crisis. \u00a0They maintained this the whole late decade\nuntil 2010\u2019s Siege and Brightest Day sort of just stopped trying.
The now \u2013 Flashpoint (2011) and the New 52 sent DC in a new\ndirection: corporate mandated yet less interdependent. \u00a0Marvel kept crossover-in\u2019, but their hearts\ndidn\u2019t seem to be in it and the focus on a new female-skewing web and movie/TV based\naudience kicked in. \u00a0This parallels the rise\nof Image and a more diverse line-up of subject matter. \u00a0This year\u2019s Secret Wars seems to hold the\npossibility of a breakpoint, somehow, and several top writers have fled for\nImage. \u00a0This half decade was a dark time\nfor DC.