Story begins with The Golden Age and The Silver Age

Bronze Age

A pantheon of new gods in capes and cowls were introduced in the Golden Age (pre-1950s). Bigger business and the Comics Code refined and cultured the industry into superhero escapades during the Silver Age (1950s and 60s). In the Bronze Age (1970s and 80s), comics got real with darker story lines, shady elements—clearly not just for kids anymore.

Realism and relevance invaded the comic world as heroes fought less against aliens and more against drugs, racism, and death. More and more titles were dealing with real world issues instead of just caped adventurers battling beings from other galaxies. Green Lantern stopped policing the universe to go cross country with Green Arrow to help ‘regular people’, and in the process found out that Arrow’s own sidekick Speedy had become a heroin junkie. The X-Men faced off against Magneto, but had more trouble dealing with mutant prejudice and racism.

Events beginning the bronze age

• Jack Kirby left Marvel for DC. Arguably, the Silver Age ended with the breakup of one of the most mythic combinations of talent ever, Lee and Kirby. Though almost all rights for the comics ultimately belonged to the company, pencil artists were allowed to keep their originals, and they usually sold them on the open market. When a number of Kirby’s key works mysteriously vanished, it began the feud that caused Kirby to leave the House of Marvels that he himself had helped build.
• In 1970, Marvel published the first comic book issue of pulp character Conan the Barbarian, a reintroduction of 1930s pulp elements in comic books. Combined with an established ‘underground’ comic community, great talent could be found in a variety of books from many different places.
• In 1971, Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Stan Lee was approached by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to do a comic book story about drug abuse. Lee agreed and wrote a three-part Spider-Man story, Amazing Spider-Man #96-98, portraying drug use as dangerous and unglamorous. Banned by the CCA, he ran it anyway without the CCA seal of approval.
• DC Implosion: In the mid 1970s, with Carmine Infantino at the helm, DC flooded the market with numerous new titles such as Jack Kirby’s New Gods and Steve Ditko’s Shade the Changing Man. The company referred to this as the DC Explosion. DC greatly overestimated the appeal of so many new titles at once and it nearly broke the company and the industry. Marvel eventually gained 50% of the market and Stan Lee handed control of the comic division to Jim Shooter while he worked with their growing animation spin-offs.
• For many, the most significant event of this age was the murder of Spider-Man’s long-term girlfriend Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin in 1973′s Amazing Spider-Man #121-122. A villain killed not just an innocent, but the woman Spidey loved. The scene in question is one you’ve seen in Raimi’s Spider-Man movie, on the bridge. Our hero is given a choice. Whether Goblin killed her or Spidey broke her back trying to save her is a moot point. In the book, she died. For real. Comics would never be the same.

The death of Gwen Stacy

The very industry that was saved by the code in the 1950s was being stifled by its censorship and its resistance to change and evolution. The great revolt against the Comic Code Authority began with the best intentions (and government backing), and thus they were forced to revise the code in 1971. The revision to the Comics Code allowed drug use (in a negative light) and also relaxed the rules on the use of vampires, ghouls and werewolves in comic books, allowing the growth of a number of horror-oriented titles, such as Swamp Thing, Ghost Rider, and The Tomb of Dracula.

Following trends of Blaxploitation and Kung-Fu movies, minorities became more common. “Sweet Christmas” Luke Cage was the first black hero to star in his own title, and Shang Chi was the master of martial arts (and bore an uncanny resemblance to Bruce Lee). While some criticized reinforcement of ‘stereotypes’, the end result was a more diverse and realistic comic universe.

New Gods of the Age:

• Writers: Archie Goodwin, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Jim Shooter, and Roy Thomas
• New realism was reflected in art styles of John Byrne, Frank Miller, George Perez, and Howard Chaykin
• Chris Claremont helped revive the X-Men back into their own books in 1975, becoming a new mainstay of the Marvel universe and one of the biggest franchises of the 1990s
• Steve Gerber’s work on Man-Thing and Howard the Duck was also very influential with its philosophical impact of questioning society

Some new innovations saw two heroes sharing half a book each in double feature comics, or popular heroes teamed up with lesser selling heroes in full length stories—Green Lantern & Green Arrow, Marvel Team-Up—and even cross-company crossovers between DC and Marvel, such as Superman Vs Amazing Spider-Man in 1976. Reprints and Reissues of old books, as well as resurging independent comics, led to the creation of the ‘Graphic Novel’ and the ‘mini-series.’ Comics had again returned to a variety of sizes and formats.

From the page to the screen and back again, the stories went cross-media. Comics were big business, and becoming part of the big Hollywood money machine. Cartoons based on comics were followed by a surge of comic adaptations from other media like movies or even toys, from Star Wars to GI Joe and Transformers. The 1978 Superman movie is one of the biggest of all time. Saturday morning cartoons were flooded with Spider-Man and Superfriends.

The Bronze Age was a return to Golden Age sensibilities, non-superhero books and pulp fiction with pictures, and a coexistence of mainstream icons both on the page and on the big screen. Crisis on Infinite Earths at DC, and Marvel’s own Secret Wars were huge multi-issue, multi-title events bringing each side of the industry into a cohesive whole. Alan Moore’s The Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns heralded the end of the Age by deconstructing the mainstream comic book form and taking it to a new level, creating a new dystopic reality for our beloved heroes. It wasn’t just escapist media anymore. It could also be intelligent literature—a harsh look at ourselves and our own ideals.

Dark Age

The Dark Age (aka Iron Age, or to some the Adamantium age) brought the best and the worst that comics had to offer, polarizing the industry. The rise of such Anti-heroes as Wolverine and Punisher saw them becoming two of the most popular mainstream ‘heroes’ of the time. This ultimately led to unsavoury protagonists like Venom, Cable, a new darker Daredevil, and Spawn, who became the norm rather than the exception as people became too cynical to trust in the squeaky clean Old Gods. On the other side of the fence were fantasy, horror and “sophisticated suspense” as comics became works of fine literature with imagery.

Unfortunately, one of the most identifying characteristics of the Dark Age was the involvement of teams of lawyers, as comics became entrenched in the courtroom rather than the newsstand.In the UK, American comics like Captain Marvel were reprinted in black and white until Fawcett Comics ceased publication due to a lawsuit from DC comics in 1954. Mick Anglo was called in to help revive/continue the series and Captain Marvel became MarvelMan. Similar in concept and premise to its predecessor, it ran until 1963. In 1982, Alan Moore took over the series that he grew up reading and adoring and in so doing touched on many themes of his later work (including the superhero as a source of terror, the sympathetic villain, and exploring the mythology of an established fictional character). Neil Gaiman took over the book at issue 17, and began three new arcs: Golden Age, Silver Age, and Dark Age (though it never progressed past issue 24 in the midst of the Silver Age). One of the most groundbreaking and trailblazing comics ever printed was eventually mired in a heap of legal woes and disputes over who really owned the masterpiece, a legal quagmire that continues to this day.

In the 1980s comics were finally allowed to be imported into the United Kingdom in their original form, and a new surge of talent from overseas began the British invasion of the American comic industry. Seemingly not entirely trusted by the comic publishers, the Brits were usually given ‘worthless’ properties and freedom to create. Alan Moore took over and reinvented Swamp Thing in 1982, turning the protagonist from a scientist disfigured by accident and seeking revenge to a plant elemental with a deep mythology he described as “a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland.”

Please, Sir, I Want Some Moore
The lazy British genius who transformed American comics.

In 1989, Neil Gaiman was given the reins to reimagine the 1970s character Sandman, originally drawn by Jack Kirby as a gas-masked crimefighter with a sleep-gas gun. Together with long-time collaborator artist Dave McKean, Gaiman wove a profound and expansive mythology about Morpheus, the King of Dreams and his Endless siblings. Like dreams themselves, each book was a series of semi-related ethereal stories, usually drawn by different artists, which added to its dreamlike quality, capturing the imagination and enrapturing the soul. McKean’s cover art was stunning—thought-provoking mixed media representations of paintings and sculptures more likely to be found in an art exhibition than in some ‘funny book.’ Sandman would eventually be the cornerstone of DC’s Vertigo imprint, comics for ‘mature readers’ focusing on a whole new audience. While the series lasted only 75 issues, its effect on not just the comic industry, but the realm of fiction and storytelling itself, are still felt today.

Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean

The Sandman issue #19 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” won the World Fantasy Award in 1991 for Best Short Fiction. It was believed the award was given reluctantly to a work that clearly wasn’t a ‘real book’, and the committee changed the nomination criteria the next year to prevent such nonsense from happening again (though they have since denied any such change of the rules).

This helped inspire an infusion of fresh, brilliant talent from overseas—writers such as Jamie Delano, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Warren Ellis, and Garth Ennis, and artists such as McKean, Brian Bolland, and Dave Gibbons. Not to be outdone, ‘local’ artists such as  Jim Lee, Todd MacFarlane, Rob Liefeld and other creators also began to embrace celebrity status as fans began following their favourite artists and writers rather than particular titles and characters. It didn’t matter what (or where) Frank Miller was creating. Ardent fans would find and buy his work, be it Batman (DC), Daredevil (Marvel), or Sin City (Dark Horse). This superstar fanbase based on creator talent, as well as the seemingly endless legal battles and disputes over ownership, helped launch a new wave of independent and creator-owned publishing.

Jack Kirby’s dispute over the rights to the work he created, as well as the influence of vocal proponents of independent publishing, helped to inspire a number of Marvel artists to form their own company, Image Comics, which would serve as a prominent example of creator-owned comics publishing. Newcomer Valiant Comics began publishing specialty comics and sold more than 80 million comic books in its first five years, becoming one of the largest companies in the American comic book market during the 1990s. Though both companies would fold by the end of the decade, even Marvel declared bankruptcy in the 1990s.

Amidst the clamour of great works coming from just about everywhere, the Dark Age also saw the Speculator Market boom and crash. With the rise of specialty comic shops, price guides, and the desire for rare and valuable special editions, publishers released an endless stream of variant or alternate version covers for ‘collectors.’ Books were no longer simply entertainment, but investments. Ultimately this lead to an overkill of foil covers, action figures and card collectibles until the market was flooded, making each ‘collector’s edition’ practically worthless.

The Dark Age saw the rise of the Neo-Silver movement, makeovers of iconic heroes and entire universe reboots. There is no defining line between this and the Modern Age, other than the passage of time. In the next installment, I’ll be looking at the current comic industry, and where it’s headed.

Follow @FLIMgeeks for more discussion, and check #Comics4Noobs with any questions you may have.

Coming Soon: A Brief History of Comics — The Modern Age, and a New Renaissance

Golden Age

The Story begins with the Golden Age, as in pre-1950s. The Great Depression and WWII helped define the super-hero archetype, as well as escapist media for such troubled times. Golden Age heroes were squeaky clean and shiny; the good guys always won and the world was saved from the brink of peril at the last minute time and time again. Hope in four colours of ink. Despite that generality, comics were still controversial. Comics were for kids and as evil as rock & roll, corrupting the youth and rotting their brains. This context is important as it would ultimately lead to the downfall of this era of comics in the 50s.

Most comics of the Golden Age weren’t in ‘comic books’ as we know them, but in serial strips, most commonly newspaper inserts or 7-8 page leaflets. The disposable nature of comics as material to be handed out to troops or in the ‘funny pages’ is important, as these were not collector’s items—they were snippets of stories told in a few panels. The Spirit, for example, is one of the most notable first generation comics, created by Will Eisner (as in the Eisner Award for comics—he’s that good). The Spirit was an eclectic mix of humour, action, drama and heroism centred around a non-powered mystery hero. His secret identity, Denny Colt, was unimportant and eventually got left out of the story entirely. The Spirit was a hero above all else, so nothing else mattered.

Frank Miller was reluctant to do the 2008 movie adaptation, fearing he’d muck it up, and I’m pretty sure he ultimately took on the project so nobody else could tank it. The Spirit film (2008), in the vein of Sin City, and 300 (other Frank Miller works) really tried to reflect that eccentricity of the newspaper comic strip, but fails as a ‘movie’ because of it.

Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel (Shazam) and Green Lantern were all created in the Golden Age, but in forms very different from what we know now. They were simple and idealistic, embodying what those at the time would define as Heroes. This new mythology needed little narrative or continuity to weave it together; these were Gods of Olympus on Earth defined by collections of ideals and not complex characterization. The audience was made up of kids who were being sold flashy heroes in tights and capes, messiahs at a moment’s notice. Captain America fought against the Red Skull and Adolf Hitler, while Superman saved the world from a meteor in one panel and deflected gunfire from a gangster in the next. The overall plot was irrelevant, and stories rarely carried forward from one chapter to the next; all that mattered was that it all took place in a new unexplored frontier. Each impressionable child was Billy Batson, speaking that magic word “Shazam!” and turning into the all-powerful Captain Marvel to save Fawcett City.

(Note that this description of the Golden Age typically refers to the American comics, as I’m sure Beano‘s been running since medieval times in the UK. Japanese manga, literally translated as ‘whimsical pictures’, has been stylistically as we know it now since the 50s, but its origins date back to as early as 18th century.)

The Golden Age established comics as mainstream media, trailblazing a new art form with new ways of telling stories. These weren’t just super-heroes in funny books. These were westerns, pirate stories, romances… pulp fiction with pictures. In Alan Moore‘s retrospective of past eras, The Watchmen (1986), one of my favourite ideas that Moore introduces is that when superheroes become real and invade our everyday life, people instinctively turn to other genres, such as pirate comics like The Black Freighter, which is weaved throughout the book. The end of the Golden Age came when people stopped believing—when they split the atom and didn’t find the Old Gods in there.

Silver Age

Things changed in the 50s with the atomic age, and lead to The Silver Age, arguably the greatest era in comic book history. Science became the new frontier, and people looked to the skies for everything, including heroes. Each era of comics is a rebellion against the previous age and the Golden Age Gods were sacrificed for more accountable icons. The heroes had changed from deities of magic and mystery to self-doubting and flawed creatures of science. Instead of a special child saying “Shazam!”, any random teenager could be bitten by a radioactive spider, accepting great power and great responsibility.

The Silver Age began (circa 1956) with new companies delivering new space-age characters to a new combined audience of kids and adults. Amidst the clamour of moral righteousness, the government decreed the formation of the Comics Code Authority, a governing body to make sure that the youth were not exposed to lewd or obscene material. Though it may have been a question of censorship and the absurdity of political ethics, at the time, it may have saved the industry. Publishers began voluntarily controlling content to display the CCA logo in the top corner of the book, and thus being completely acceptable for upstanding nuclear families and their 2.4 children. Think the opposite process of the MPAA. One major casualty of the new code was EC comics and the works of William Gaines, master of suspense and horror.

• Chief Counsel Herbert Beaser: Let me get the limits as far as what you put into your magazine. Is the sole test of what you would put into your magazine whether it sells? Is there any limit you can think of that you would not put in a magazine because you thought a child should not see or read about it?
• Bill Gaines: No, I wouldn’t say that there is any limit for the reason you outlined. My only limits are the bounds of good taste, what I consider good taste.
• Beaser: Then you think a child cannot in any way, in any way, shape, or manner, be hurt by anything that a child reads or sees?
• Gaines: I don’t believe so.
• Beaser: There would be no limit actually to what you put in the magazines?
• Gaines: Only within the bounds of good taste.
• Beaser: Your own good taste and saleability?
• Gaines: Yes.
• Senator Estes Kefauver: Here is your May 22 issue. [Kefauver is mistakenly referring to Crime Suspenstories #22, cover date May] This seems to be a man with a bloody axe holding a woman’s head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?
• Gaines: Yes sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.
• Kefauver: You have blood coming out of her mouth.
• Gaines: A little.
• Kefauver: Here is blood on the axe. I think most adults are shocked by that.

Once comics were no longer considered a scourge of society corrupting the youth, a resurgent industry fueled DC and Marvel with more money, which meant a better publishing process, better/higher-paid talent, better industry/distribution, and better quality books. It also meant more complexity and more convoluted dynamics. Stories could now span multiple issues and, in some cases, multiple titles for the same hero. The Dark Knight could be seen in an ongoing battle with the Joker in Detective Comics, while Batman and Robin faced off against Catwoman in Batman, and Brave & the Bold featured a team-up of Bats and HawkMan.

Significant Events

• DC established the ‘Multiverse‘, various ‘earths’ or parallel realities co-existing. While it allowed writers incredible freedom to work with the characters, it also lead to inconsistency and retroactive continuity, or ‘retcons’… fixing your mistake by creating new realities. Any ‘crisis’ you may have heard of tends to deal with events affecting the multiverse. Crisis On Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and most recently Final Crisis.
• Lee & Kirby & Ditko refined the ‘Marvel Method‘, a new way for the writers and artists to collaborate together on the book—a co-operative effort of idea exchange to create the comic, rather than full script first, then complete art, then lettering.
• Underground comics, directly opposed to and ridiculing the CCA, began with Robert Crumb, Dan O’Neill and others as San Francisco became the epicentre of anti-establishment comics becoming their own expressionistic art form.

The gods of the Silver Age were Stan Lee and Denny O’Neil. Idea Men were kings and they produced a seemingly endless font of wonder. Artists Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Neal Adams defined how the books would look for decades to come.  Theirs was a blank canvas, and a fortuitous combination of the right people, the right place, and the right time often meant that random ideas became something fantastic and amazing. The most iconic versions of heroes/characters that we know and love today were almost all established in the Silver Age. Comics were no longer ‘disposable’—they were to be kept and valued and treasured as much as the creators that produced them. Of course, we would later find out that the most valuable men in the industry were not sharing in the financial success that the companies were. Cracks began to form. A series of events started leading to the next era, The Bronze Age, as the 1970s infected comics with harsh reality, and eventually to the Dark Ages of the late 80s.

Follow @FLIMgeeks for more discussion, and check #Comics4Noobs with any questions you may have.

The Story Continues — The Bronze Age and the Dark Age

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