Has "The Modern Age of Comic Books" ended?

I admire and respect Spiegelman, but he does have a bit of a prejudice against superhero comics. He continually claims super heroes were just a "fad" which is dismissive and a mite disingenuous. Not that he's wrong about Donald Duck in this instance. Just sayin'...

The Code was certainly the death knell for the great EC stuff, which was certainly the most sophisticated comics work being produced in the US at the time. Oddly, it wasn't that the artists who drew Superman, Batman, et al were NOT sophisticated cartoonists themselves, it's that editorial decree demanded that they draw in "house style." And quickly.

I suppose when the "Golden Age" ended depends on whether your just talking about Super Hero comics or not. For Super Heroes, the decline started in '45 and culminated in the early '50's. For the rest of the industry, it was '55. Hell, the Code wasn't even aimed at super-hero comics, per se, but mostly at EC's stuff and the Charles Biro books.

Apparently the kids who beat him up in school read superhero comics. The same was apparently true of Crumb.

Superheroes may have been at their lowest point in the early 50s but as I said, they must have had some sort of popularity for Wertham to rant about them in his book.

The Code was the death knell for everything EC did except Mad, which was arguably the most influential thing they ever did.

You can't really ignore non-superhero comics. Superheroes were just one of a vast number of genres in the diverse comics industry of the past. It was that way up till the 70s or 80s, and superheroes dominated by the 90s.

edited 17th Jan '15 1:05:32 PM by Aldo930

Let's be clear.

If you're talking about the metal ages, you're talking about American superhero comics. The terms Golden/Silver/Bronze/Dark/Modern/Iron Age specifically refer to popularity, sales, themes, and tone of American superheroes and American superheroes only. They do not apply to other genres, nor to comics from other countries.

Also, while Wertham did talk about superheroes, he only addressed them for a small part of his book, mainly accusing the perennially popular Batman and Wonder Woman of promoting homosexuality and sexual deviancy (which, OK, Wonder Woman kind of did). The majority of his complaints were about the lurid violence and frank sexuality in horror and crime comics, which were the big sellers at the time due to lurid violence and frank sexuality.

Again... You can't discount other genres of comics. If you focus only on superheroes you only know part of the story. That's why the Golden Age of Comics, in my view, lasted to the Comics Code.

I will note that the best horror comics are still reprinted because there is more to them than their lurid violence.

Quite right, while for instance, Charles Biro's Crime Does Not Pay was downright insipid and boring outside of it's lurid violence (at least the ones I read were).

I'm not sure you can link "Golden Age" and "Silver Age" just to Super Hero comics. The rest of those terms, yes, but those two terms were invented by collectors to refer to specific eras in American comics history. I'll grant that they don't mean anything in terms of comics from anywhere else, but the prevalence of humor, horror, science fiction, and a variety of other genres in the US(even sports comics, which did exist in the US believe it or not) or lack thereof can also be described by what are seen as the trends in those eras.

I don't know what they'll eventually call the era we're in now, but there's a wider variety of stuff being published in the US right now then at any time since the Golden Age.

I wonder if Japanese comics artists complain about the prevalence of giant robot comics...

edited 17th Jan '15 6:21:18 PM by Robbery

You see what I mean?

I honest to God don't know at the moment. There seems to be a hell of a lot more diversity in manga than there is in American comics.

It may be more diverse... but I ain't seeing it. We don't have anything approaching the diversity of, say, Europe at the moment.

edited 17th Jan '15 7:19:02 PM by Aldo930

Not denying comics are more diverse in Japan and Europe, just that right now the American market is more diverse than it's been in decades. There's lots more than just super heroes out there.

I just want New 52 to die a horrible death. Is that so wrong?

edited 18th Jan '15 6:29:11 AM by AnotherGuy

Mind telling me how it's so diverse? I still don't see it...

No, no it isn't.

Well, I'm not going to provide a list; that'd just be too much work. Over at DC, you have, over and above their super hero line, Vertigo and their Looney Tunes and Scooby Doo comics. Archie does humor. Image has a wide variety of comics being published. There's Disney Comics, IDW, and a large number of smaller publishers.

In fact, I'd say MOST of what's getting published in the US right now are not super hero comics. There is a preponderance of science fiction and horror comics, but super heroes, while not exclusive to DC and Marvel, are mostly a DC/Marvel thing. Again, doesn't have a patch on all the different kinds of stuff done in, say, Japan, but clearly not limited to super heroes.

If you take out the stuff that's marketed to kids, though, it's still less than the total of superheroes.

I'd dispute that, but I'm not gonna take the time to research it. And even so, whether something is marketed to kids or not, it counts as variety. Not in so far as audience, but definitely in material.

I never really liked the term "Modern Age of Comic Books." The best I'll do is "the current age of comic books." Using a term like "Modern Age" to refer to everything post-Ultimate Spider-Man #1 only works until we look back and say "no, that stuff is a different type of comic entirely from what we have now. Now the Modern Age started with New 52/the beginning of simultaneous digital release/whatever."

yeah, "Modern Age" is pretty useless as a categorical term. Surprised that didn't occur to whomever coined it.

Platinum Age of Comics? :p

I honestly don't think the The Dark Age Of Comic Books has ended yet.

edited 7th Feb '15 6:11:04 PM by AnotherGuy

I'd say that the pre-New 52 and Marvel NOW would be the Modern Age...I call it the Mercury Age, from the late 90s-2010 was the Titanium Age, and the Dark Age was 1986-1998.

I'm kinda talking outta my ass as I haven't read much Comic Books (which can be said for a LOT of people...one of my stream friends has not heard of Deadpool)

I'd say that we're now in the Postmodern Age of superheroes. The colorful anti-heroes of the 90's talked a big game, but are quaint next to the truly cynical jerkasses that most mainstream heroes have become. It's a reflection of the culture; take a quick glance at TV. Now, count out how many characters AREN'T mean-spirited snarkers to some degree. They didn't used to be the default; the snarky outsider used to exist to contrast with better adjusted characters.

Consider Ghostbusters, made 30 years ago. Contrast Peter with the other three. Ray and Egon are both idealists, reflecting the emotional and rational aspects of idealism respectively. Winston is the neutral pragmatist ("If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say."). Peter is the one who has to be dragged along on the plans, against his better judgement. He's the one full of putdowns who seems to feel he's better than everyone around him.

Most characters are written like Venkman nowadays. Idealists like Ray, or like the classic Superman, come off as naive and would only be included in fiction to be mocked. If you go back and read "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?" and then pick up a New 52 comic, or watch Supes snapping Zod's neck in Man of Steel and standing there letting his dad die in a tornado, you'll come to realize that ultimately, Superman lost the battle and the Elite's mindset now rules him, comics and mainstream culture. Postmodern heroes for a Postmodern age.

I rather like that.

Although, it's not all that different from the Dark Age, either. There were lots of stories back in those days with Superman being told off or mocked by more "pragmatic" heroes. It was the whole thing that Kingdom Come was created to address.

The superman in man of steel hated that he had to kill Zodd and will likely never do so again, because it was awful.

You can maybe argue the situation was contrived or overly cynical, but I think that it was honest. The entire thing is based on the idea that killing= always bad or the worst option. Fact is there isn't always going to be a contrived way to make sure the hero is able to avoid killing.

Okay? But Man of Steel was a process of so many Idiot Balls being held that it becomes more and more obvious with repeated viewings that the entire story was bending logic to force Superman into that position. For example, Clark, knowing that the plan is to suck all the Kryptonians into the Phantom Zone, chooses to crash the pod ship that Zod is flying rather than direct the ship (and Zod) to the mothership, where the portal will open. This is the decision that basically causes Zod to be the last Kryptonian standing. What, exactly, was Clark's plan to deal with Zod after this?

It's fine to present the idea that heroes may not have any choice but to kill, but it's significantly difficult when you have a character that's got as many abilities (and thus option), as much intelligence, and active desire not to kill as Superman.

Yeah, I recognize that the situation could have probably been conceptualized better to stand up to scrutiny and actually make sense.