Welcome to CBH, today we're talking about the 8 ages of
comic books including the:
Platinum Age
(1897-1937)
Golden Age
(1938-1947)
Atomic Age
(1948-1955)
Silver Age (1956-1969)
Bronze Age
(1970-1984)
Dark or Copper Age
(1985-1991)
Extreme Age (1992-1998)
Movie Age (1998 – Present)
How does defining these ages help us? I think it creates some sort of structure or framework within which we can talk about other comic book events or people. How do we define an age? These ages really tend to focus on the presence or absence of superheroes, and if present, then what flavor of superhero the mainstream is paying a lot of money to see more of. What are the cons of focusing too much on ages? They don't address comic newspaper strips, romance comics, international comics, independent comics, underground comics, and other genres.
Read below and/or click on video:
Theoretically sequential art goes back to the ancient Egyptians,
but for the sake of simplicity it’s good to start somewhere. In 1897, we have
our first real comic book called "The Yellow Kid" which is a reprint
of the Yellow Kid newspaper strip.
Something special here is that it actually says its a comic book on the
back, so this is thought to start off the pre-Superhero Platinum Age.
There are many more examples of platinum age comic books
like this 1911 reprint of the Mutt and Jeff newspaper strip.
Fast forward even more comic books to 1937, we have Detective Comics 1 which is comprised of comic short stories with content based on old pulp magazines.
Fast forward even more comic books to 1937, we have Detective Comics 1 which is comprised of comic short stories with content based on old pulp magazines.
This 40 year period from 1897-1937 is marked by different
attempts to reprint newspaper strips with expensive licenses or create new pulp
inspired comics at cheaper rates from new young artists and writers. There were many attempts to make a profit
during this time, with many failures and success.
Ultimately there was 40 years of comics before the Comic
Book that heralded the Golden Age (1938-1947) which was Action comics 1, 1938,
the first appearance of Superman.
This comic, based on circus gear, capes, and Douglas
Fairbanks type heroism was so successful it heralded many other me-too
characters like Batman in Detective comics 27, 1939,
and the first appearance of Wonder Woman in All Star comics
8, 1941
as well as Captain
America Comics 1, 1941.
These are only a few examples in an explosion of Golden Age
Superheroes that would do well in these World War 2 years, into the early to
mid 50s.
After WW2, Superhero comics would start to trickle out of
the mainstream and their books would mostly transition to non superhero
genres. In 1948, All American comics
102, 1948 would phase Green Lantern out of the top left corner and rename the
title into All American Western 103.
The same thing happened to the Human Torch, who was famously
on the cover of Marvel Comics 1. He
would get phased out of his comic by issue 93 with a complete renaming of the
comic book in 1949.
Although Batman and Superman would continue to exist through
this time, Captain America did not fare so well. His book was renamed into Captain America's
Weird Tales and was completely phased out of the comic in the same year as the
human torch and replaced with horror genre material.
By 1951 most Superhero books were discontinued for other
genres, and this brief hiatus of the mainstream from Superheroes is currently
called the Atomic Age (1948-1955).
Roughly around 1950, Horror comics became very popular, and
the most successful publisher producing those books was EC Comics' Bill Gaines.
These stories visually depicted beheadings of women, murders, and other crimes
so eventually there was some pushback from more conservative groups in America
especially Dr. Fredric Wertham who felt these books were encouraging juvenile
delinquency. Whether those claims were
true or not, the accusations were enough to bring some congressional oversight
which led comic companies to regulate themselves with the comics code
authority. The comics code authority set
up a series of rules that narrowed down the type of creativity that could be
used in comic books. There was a period
of stagnation where publishers were trying to figure out what to safely publish
and still make a good living. Bill
Gaines couldn't produce good Horror comics under the code so discontinued EC
Comics and started Mad Magazine.
Over at DC Comics, Carmine Infantino applied his art to
various genre of comic books, and one that struck a cord with the mainstream
and did well under the comics code authority was Showcase 4, 1956 which
introduced the modern Barry Allen Flash and started off the Silver Age
(1956-1969). This story written by
Robert Kanigher about an average guy gaining superpowers under a bizarre
science fiction event would be the template for a lot of character creation for
the next 14 years.
In 1959, Gil Kane and
John Broome created Hal Jordan Green Lantern for Showcase 22, again about
another guy who gained a super powered ring under a bizarre science fiction
event.
The groundwork for the DC Silver Age was roughly established
in the later 1950s, but many events came together in 1960 to accelerate the
coming changes. Rawhide Kid 17 was Jack
Kirby and Stan Lee's first collaboration on an ongoing character, Cassius Clay
would win the Olympics in boxing, the first issue of Justice League of America
debuted, JFK was elected president, and the Beatles formed their group.
In 1961, the age of the astronaut would officially
begin. Alan Shephard flew above the
atmosphere and back down establishing the USA's first step into space. John Glenn was the first American to orbit
earth in 1962, and Neil Armstrong would step on the moon in 1969.
These men were true heroes of the decade and 4 months after
the 1961 mission, Fantastic Four 1 by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee was published
about 4 astronauts who became superheroes in keeping with the Silver Age theme
of ordinary humans gaining superpowers in a bizarre science fiction event.
Marvel would create other characters such as Spider-Man by
Steve Ditko and Stan Lee in Amazing Fantasy 15, 1962.
By the time it was 1969, both DC and Marvel had created a
whole mythology of heroes who gained their powers and stories through bizarre
science fiction events.
There was a period of social relevance that started in
1970. Green Lantern Green Arrow 76 by Neal
Adams and Denny Oneil premiered, the first Friday Foster Strip was introduced,
The Kent State Massacre had occurred, Mort Weisinger left DC comics as Editor
of the Superman line of comics with Superman 231, Jack Kirby left Marvel for DC to introduce New
Gods in Jimmy Olsen 133, Janis Joplin and Jimmie Hendrix died, Paul announces
the Beatles break up, America was worn
down by the unsuccessful Vietnam War, NASA lost its funding for furthering
space travel, and Conan 1 by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith starts as the
Comics Code Authority loosens its grip.
At this point the Silver Age innocence was lost and the hardened
realities of the Bronze Age begins. I
have reason to agree that Conan 1 started off the Bronze Age in 1970. The Silver Age was characterized by a burst
of new superhero creation. However the
Bronze Age appears to be a similar movement with the industry creating more
pulp-era vengeful anti-heroes.
There was also Wolverine in Hulk 181 who carried a similar
theme of being a good guy type of killer who got the job done.
Both Punisher and Wolverine came out in 1974, With that,
there were many anti-heroes that burst onto the scene during the 1970s defining
the Bronze Age.
The Bronze Age continued until 1985 when we have the birth
of the Copper or Dark age.
This age was more ambiguous, but there were certain industry
triggers like the growth of the direct market with competing independing
publishers, which did not require comics code authority approval to produce
dark, psychologically complex stories.
The Big 2 companies, DC and Marvel were likely nudged by this trend to
break their superheroes that came before into something new, dark, and
psychologically complex for the latter 1980s.
1985 Crisis of Infinite Earths by Marv Wolfman and George
Perez essentially accomplished this, continuing into Dark Graphic novels like
the Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
and the Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
Marvel also had their fair share of Dark, psychologically
complex stories like the Morlock Massacre, Scourge murdering villains, and the
Punisher being a hero compared to dirtbags like Nuke or Sabretooth.
The Dark Age continued until late 1991 when comics would go
EXTREME!!!
There were many comics in the late 80s and early 90s which
would trickle into this Extreme Age, but for over simplification sake I would
say the issue that heralded this type of comic and defined the new trend was
X-Force 1 by Rob Liefeld. Shortly after
X-Force 1, he would go on to make Youngblood 1 when he and other artists would
leave Marvel comcs to start Image Comics.
DC Comics also started the Death of Superman story arc that
went on for a few years.
This Extreme Age would continue til 1998 and would define
itself by the need to feed into Extreme over the top aesthetics, stylistic
sensational multiissue crossover storylines which maxed out consumption as much
as possible where plot or even basic anatomy didn't matter as much as the
visual gimmicks, die cut hologram covers, and swimsuit specials that were used
to sell to a collectors market that busted up pretty bad. Eventually people got tired of this type of
comic book storytelling and it just sort of went away.
In 1998, a movie came out named Blade which was the first
successful Marvel attempt and making a movie,
which led to later films like X-Men
and all of sudden we have a whole slew of successful comic
book movies.
This ends my introduction to the comic book ages. Remember, these are generalizations since
there are a lot of comics made during these ages that have nothing to do with
superheroes or movies, etc, but once we define the Golden and Silver Ages by
flavor of specific Superheroes, then that starts to define the other ages. How does defining these ages help us? I think it creates some sort of structure or
framework within which we can talk about other comic book events or people in
future episodes of CBH. Stay tuned and
we'll talk to you later.
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Use of images are not intended to infringe on copyright, but merely used for academic purpose.
Mickey Mouse ©Disney, Detective Comics ©DC, New Fun Comics ©DC, Action Comics © DC, All-Star Comics ©DC, All-American Comics © DC, Flash Comics © DC, Marvel Comics ©Marvel, Captain America Comics ©Marvel, All-American Comics ©DC, Marvel Tales ©Marvel, Weird Tales ©Marvel, Sub-Mariner Comics©Marvel, All Star Comics ©DC, Crime SuspenStories ©Gaines, Showcase Comics©DC, Rawhide Kid ©Marvel, Justice League America ©DC, Green Lantern ©DC, Fantastic Four ©Marvel, Amazing Fantasy ©Marvel, Hulk ©Marvel, Tales of Suspense ©Marvel, Youngblood ©Liefeld, Spawn ©McFarlane, WildCATS ©DC, X-Force ©Marvel, Journey Into Mystery ©Marvel, Strange Adventures ©DC, Green Lantern Green Arrow ©DC, Supermans Pal Jimmy Olsen ©DC, Superman ©DC, Conan ©CPI, Amazing Spider-Man ©Marvel, Marvel Preview Presents ©Marvel, Ghoster Rider ©Marvel, Strange Tales ©Marvel, The Son of Satan ©Marvel, Crisis on Infinite Earths ©DC, Batman ©DC, Watchmen ©DC, The Mighty Thor ©Marvel, The Punisher ©Marvel, The Uncanny X-Men ©Marvel, Captain America ©Marvel, Daredevil ©Marvel, X-Factor ©Marvel, Movies: Blade ©New Line, X-Men ©20th Century Fox, Avengers ©Marvel , Guardians of the Galaxy ©Marvel Entertainment, Fantastic Four ©twentieth Century Fox, Deadpool ©twentieth Century Fox, Man of Steel © Warner Brothers, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice ©Warner Brothers
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