test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Another Article on Comic Book Ages
canadascott
Posts: 1,257 Arc User
Some interesting stuff here, particularly little things like 50s DC supporting the comics code as a way to squash the competition.
http://comicsalliance.com/dc-comics-marvel-golden-age-silver-age-comics-history/
http://comicsalliance.com/dc-comics-marvel-golden-age-silver-age-comics-history/
/
Post edited by canadascott on
0
Comments
One thing I have -heard-, but never confirmed is that DC was a partial contributor to the standards of the Comics Code and used it to strangle its competition.
Also, I thought Teen Titans was older than the 1980's.
The Teen Titans team certainly was, as old as the mid sixties, but "The New Teen Titans" comic by DC and created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez specifically as an answer to the success Marvel had found with Angst and Drama in the X-Men comics, came along in 1980, and found great success of it's own far beyond anyone's expectations.
That comics' tone was far more serious like the recent "Young Justice" cartoon than the silly Teen Titans cartoon. Oddly enough, the silly Teen Titans cartoon was actually much more like the lighter-hearted Young Justice comic had been. The two swapped tone on the way to cartoon adaptation.
No joke, The New Teen titan comic featured the first time ever depiction of a young unmarried couple in bed together in American mainstream comics [Robin and Starfire], and helped break a lot of old stereotypes and taboos about what could be in comics.
Oh, I'm well aware-
And the thing about Starfire? I wasn't really thrilled with her in the cartoon, but I said 'Well, she fits the group dynamic for a kid's cartoon, I guess'. Oh, but if the kiddies only knew what she was really like...
Arrogant, for one. Girl was a princess and didn't let people forget it when she wanted to assert herself. Had no qualms about showing skin, but thought there was something wrong with YOU if you couldn't handle seeing some side-boob, because 'grow up'. She outright vaporized Deathstroke's wife while everyone sat around slack-jawed and confused at the 'difficult' decision of ending a suffering, nigh-unkillable woman's life while she was literally begging to die.
I extremely dislike how the New 52 has reduced her to a sex doll. I'm of the mind a lady can have 'recreation' and not be 'of ill repute', so long as she can be a strong and classy lady as well- which the original Starfire was. This new one is like 'Hey, I just met you- and this is crazy. But let's get naked- and make some babies'... rinse and repeat.
I always admired how she could be a positive and loving person, and still be strong and fierce... and New 52 just said 'Hey lol boobz!'.
I'll be sure to remember this one.
That was quite brilliant.
How so?
Back to the topic at had. I find the article an interesting read and I can certainly see where the author is coming from.
Personally, I feel Marvel has trailed DC in many creative ways: the transition to the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and even the Modern Age. Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams took over Green Arrow/Green Lantern in 1970, three years before Marvel caught up with the death of Gwen Stacy in 1973. While Adams had worked on the failed X-men series in the 70's for Marvel, O'Neil did not work for that publisher until 1980.
DC pretty much launched the mini series that kicked of the Iron Age, Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, leaving Marvel playing catch up with what sure reads like a hastily cobbled together, Secret Wars. From that moment, probably up until now, I believe DC held a quality edge. Throughout the 90's Marvel had no Vertigo line, no Dark Knight Returns, or Man of Steel. Marvel did have The Incredible Hulk, a rapidly declining in quality and expanding line of X-Men titles capitalizing on name recognition, and the New Universe.
Marvel's update on Daredevil the introduction of "hard" characters like Cable, and four separate titles of Punisher, didn't really help the company. While DC was expanding Vertigo line, publishing Kingdom Come, and Batman: The Long Halloween, Marvel was filing for bankruptcy protection. (To it's credit. Marvel did release Marvels in 1995, but I think it could be argued the book was a catch up response to DC's The Golden Age in 1993.)
Saying DC needed to collapse their universe and launch more "adult" titles to or follow certain tropes of a largely failing enterprises seems disingenuous to me.
To a certain extent, I see DC currently following Marvel's track from the 90's: A proliferation of titles to capitalize on certain characters and a seemingly endless series of crossovers. I've found some gems in the New 52, but not many. I find the quality of most DC books just passable, while quality over at Marvel has increased with the launch of Marvel Now (another catch up move to DC, methinks).
TLDR, I think there's evidence to suggest DC has been a consistent trendsetter in comics, identifying itself independently of the efforts of Marvel Comics.
An aside. The New 52 seems like a winner for DC, with sales keeping them on top of the market more often than not in the last quarter if not the year. As much as I disagree with editorial direction with regards to writers leaving books and other poor decisions, Forever Evil is a pretty good read. At least for a few more months until I see how Batwoman and Green Lantern shake out under their new teams, I will still be buying more DC than any other publisher (But Image is catching up fast.)
a
Not disagreeing with anything else in your post but... Secret Wars came out a full year before Crisis on Infinite earths.
So..they weren't really trying to catch up...they just made a mulitpart superhero vs villain crossover brawl! The first of it's kind and what I'd consider the last great hurrah of the Silver Age! It was nothing as ambitious(or disasterous!) as killing off the majority of their characters and starting over, it was just a good ol fashion bash up told in 12 parts.
Thank you very much. You are right. Secret War was released in May of 1984 and Crisis on Infinite Earths in April of 85. I completely switched the dates. Thank you for the tactful correction.
I also love the analysis. I think Secret Wars does quite nicely as "the last great hurrah of the Silver Age!"
a
Shucks, with moments like this what's not to love?
It would have had to come out over ten years earlier to be a nice "last hurrah of the Silver Age", but really what you're looking for here is "Precursor to the Iron Age", which was a lot less Crisis on Infinite Earths, and a lot more about Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen.
Those two comics ended the Bronze age with a bloody series of bullets and broken bones.. and a lot of murder. :biggrin:
Easy dates [roughly]
1939 - 1949 = Golden Age
1950 - 1956/62 = Atomic Age / Age of EC
1956/62 = Beginning of the Silver Age
[Second Flash at DC in 56, Amazing Fantasy 15 / Spider-Man first appearance at Marvel in 62]
1970 = Start of the Bronze age
Marvel came on a touch later, but were in general leading the charge to it anyway.
1986 = Early Iron Age crashes in with the Watchmen
1991 = Steel / rust age although some just consider this a longer maturing of the Iron Age.
1999 - ? = "Neo-silver age"
a time when the tone of mainstream comics had returned to a stronger morality stance and upbeat tales, but kept detailed and deeper characters, closer to the Bronze age than anything else despite the name.
2004 and later = "Modern Age"
this age keeps sliding back and the eras it passes are retroactively named by comics historians.. in it's time, Iron age Was the Modern Age, and the previous age had then been "Bronze"
It probably won't be long now before this last ten year era after the Neo-Silver age is named by some wag as the Neo Bronze age or some such. Possibly tie it off at the launch of New 52 and Brand New Day as the end of that frame. That's my guess.
The Rust Age sums up the 90's really well, I think. There were some great, great books in the time, and a lot of money to be had for a while. But it all disintegrated before too long.
a
Well in tone it definitely felt more akin to the comics of the 60s than stuff like Crisis on Infinite Earths!
I also like to keep it simple...Golden, Silver, Bronze, Iron, Modern. I know there is a gap between the golden and silver ages. We'll just call that the dark age...or simply the 1950s.
And when the modern era isn't modern anymore we'll have to come up with something else...Platinum Age maybe? after all this is the age of the mainstream big budget comic book movie!
I've actually heard a few names for it. People keep going for metals, but the 'Iconic Age' or the 'Heroic Age', or even the 'Renaissance Age' since things have (mostly) returned to some sense of sanity similar to the Bronze Age.
I name it the "Pretty Picture Age" because so much of comics I've seen recently is all about the art and so little about the story. They try to tell one issue's worth of story in four issues so they can sell them as trades. So many pages now of just artwork and no reading... a whopping 8 minutes of entertainment.
Git off m'lawn!
I would think this has even added relevance with Time/Warner's continued disinvestment from the world of print media. They will keep DC, but more as a foundry from the creation of characters to put in other media, I fear.
a
That's actually manga influence in western comic books, and the one I do (for a change) like. Shift from writing about action to actually showing it. As comic books are visual and sequential art and really, text shouldn't be needed outside of speech bubbles.
Though western editors are frequently missing one thing. Japanese comic books have more pages and can afford telling stories that way without being separated into too many tiny pieces.
Also EU comic books are larger on default, approx 48-50 pages A4, with more panels per page. They also can do things that way.
US standard comic format has not enough pages for telling stories that way. So, actually buying anything makes little sense, unless you are skipping original releases and waiting for paperbacks.
I dislike it. I like a narrative, I like people talking. Ironic, I know, as an artist, but I do read comic books for the story. When I've gone through 22 pages of fluff and repeated panels just to kind of get a little bit of story in, it's absolutely disappointing.
If they want to set up mini-arcs for trades, that's fine, but I think each issue should have lots of content.
And I don't think it's an issue of page number and paper size - they used to put out content-rich books decades ago in the same format they use today.
I remember seeing each panel from older comic books, with at least a quarter to half of the total space filled with text, so I think I know where you're coming from.
But those older comic books were largely text based. In comparison, newer comic books are closer to modern movies, with more bang-bang and exploding bayformium.
That's the difference like between Star Trek Undiscovered Country and Chronicles of Riddick.
But also too much splash panels taking half of a page doesn't help.
I'm fine with more visuals-heavy comic books, but then, I'm reading comic books at least half of the time for visuals. I do think they should change editorial format and keep longer stories for prestige releases and visual novels. Twenty two pagers could be filled with shorter stories.
There's no comic book from the old days that you couldn't reproduce in today's word-free format. Spider-Man could have saved Aunt May from Doc Ock's weird wedding and nuclear installation inheritance with zero words, and just a lot of fancy pictures with punching and lots of glowy costume bits and explosions with Photoshop layer styles, and Gwen Stacy could have died without the narration and all the life-threatening going on.
Personally, I miss the actual writing. Some people enjoy an author's way of writing, not just the overall story. For the most part, I don't get that in modern comics. It all feels sparse and stale. I hate the fact that there's no Roy Thomas for me to hate in modern comics, because (and this is just based on the limited amount of books I've read) there's hardly any actual writing.
Internally, none of this makes sense because I'm an artist who appreciates good artistic talent and I'm also a person who dislikes reading, but when it comes to comic books, I want the whole experience, and when it's just a picture book, I'm absolutely not satisfied.
Not really. The same stories told in a modern manner would take at least twice as many pages for close ups and splashes. :biggrin: