* ...Seriously, what's with all the spanking?
** It's fun!
** [[HehHehYouSaidX Heh Heh...]] [[WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead "Spanking"...]]
* How come most silver age comics tended to have it with the characters or narrator explaining everything we can quite clearly see for ourselves by looking at the art in the very panel?
** Just mosey on over to ViewersAreMorons.
** Erm, not quite. In reality it's because during the Silver Age it was assumed only young children read comics. So really it's like that for the same reason a Berenstein Bears book will have the narration explaining everything you can clearly see happening in the pictures.
** Also, the way those stories were usually written, the entire script was written before the art was drawn, and there wouldn't be time to make script edits after the art came in. If the artist's storytelling was vague or unclear, tough luck, there's little time to add in some explanatory dialogue. So add in the explanatory dialogue beforehand, because you never know when the artist will have an off moment and make it look like Hero X is doing the jitterbug when he's supposed to unleashing a ninja kick.
* What's with all the [[NostalgiaFilter lingering nostalgia?]] People who work in the comic industry keep trying to reach back to it, even parts that were really stupid. Don't get me wrong, the Modern Age has its fair share of stupid, stupid moments, but some people, like Alex Ross, seem to think the Silver Age was the era of "Greatest comics ever." And sometimes the reversions to the Silver Age work out nicely, other times they blow up in someone's face.
** I think it's more the ''themes'' of the Silver Age that people are trying to hearken back to, not the insane/stupid moments. There's something to be said for the pure, unambiguous heroes and villains of the Silver Age. After so many years of moral grey areas, grim&gritty anti-heroes, and sympathetic villains, a lot of people have been yearning for a return to the good-ol-days when heroes were unambiguously good and villains were AlwaysChaoticEvil.
** What's slightly annoying about this nostalgic viewpoint is that the best silver age creators weren't the guys just repeating the last generation's efforts but also experimenting and bringing new ideas to the medium, Like Lee, Kirby and Steranko.
** Because the comics from that era tend to be SoBadItsGood.
** Few if any creators yearn for the actual writing style the Silver Age. It's specific characters and concepts that they try to bring back, not the style of writing.
** It's not about actually wanting to bring back the Silver Age so much as it's a deliberate reaction against the [[TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]], which kept comics mired in a stew of pointless grimdark for far too long, and was in large part an attempt to distance comics as a medium from the silliness and fun of the Silver Age.
** I consider it a giant case of "failure to launch." The Dark Age of Comics was like an unsightly adolescence that comics first had to go through to break out of its aesthetic childhood. It was often unappealing--kind of like a teenager's cheesy first attempt at a mustache. But it seemed that once comics got the ridiculous levels of GrimDark out of its system, it could maybe try embracing ''genuinely'' adult themes and concerns. But on the cusp of adulthood, many of the man-children in charge (and in the audience) decided that a SECOND FREAKING CHILDHOOD was the ticket instead. Aesthetically speaking, they've moved back into mommy's basement.
** I personally don't think that comics are reverting back to the Silver Age; I think that recent comics add references to Silver Age occurrences simply to acknowledge that that era still exists and has not been retconned out. The only purpose for this is to establish a straightforward continuity for each comics universe. I find that DC does this more than Marvel because Marvel never retconned out their Silver Age, but DC previously did shortly after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Now, DC has begun to regret that decision.
** Brainwashing, of a sort. People who grew up reading those comics were heavily influenced by them, indoctrinated really, into believing that comics should be one way and never change. The Dark Age, as much as people hate it, was an attempt by "outsiders" to break from that. A lot of the hate against the Dark Age is people who were indoctrinated under the "old regime" now pushing back against the new, so you get the Modern Age, an overly ironic attempt at both haranguing the Dark Age and stroking the Silver Age's withered manhood, while confusedly trying to explain the "silly and fun" parts of the Silver Age...things that would never make sense in any kind of story outside of Lolita or a horror-comedy. Also so much time has passed now people forget about the rampant pedophilia, the oversexualization of children, the overt racism, sexism and classism and horrifically flawed morals that drove the Silver Age. Remember this was a time when showing what amounted to a prepubescent boy stroking a lightning bolt between his legs in a manner that suggests nothing else if not a massive penis was considered to be not just commonplace but entirely normal. But few people really remember that, they think it was "silly and fun" not a horrible mishmash of racist diatribes, sexism and pedophila...which it was. So yeah...
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