The best parts of each comic book era

The Golden Ageof Comic Books. The Silver Ageof Comic Books. The Bronze Age Of Comic Books.

We all know them, and I've only mentioned three (there's also the Dark age and Modern Age.

For those who've read comics from all eras (not those who were alive for all those eras, cause I don't think there's anyone that old around anymore, especially for the Golden Age), what would you say were the best parts of those eras.?The thing those specific times did better than what came before or what came after (and yes, that includes even the Dark Age if it had something like that).

I've been curious about it, so I decided to start this thread to ask.

Edited by HandsomeRob on May 30th 2019 at 1:17:42 PM

One Strip! One Strip!

I don’t know if I’d clasify it as the “best of the era” or anything, but I really love Bob Haney’s The Brave and the Bold.

You get some pretty wild stories and Batman team ups, and just has this delightful Silver Age Nuttiness to it.

The one that really takes the cake though, is issue 124, where both Bob Haney and Jim Apero have to outwit a bunch of baddies who want them to change the story and kill Batman. It’s great, because the characters even Lampshade how strange it is that the universe seems to be helping them out.

Edited by megaeliz on May 30th 2019 at 1:34:04 PM

The good thing about the dark age is that it forced the genre to grow up, and stop tasting like diabetes. There was little actually good in it, but the future masterpieces of the modern age wouldn't have existed if the genre was still ruled by Jack Kirby pale imitators.

Ultimate Secret Wars

My favorite part of the Bronze Age was its updated explorations of the horror genre—for example, Marvel's Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, and the Wundagore/Chthon mythos that started running through so many titles.

The Bronze Age of comics had a lot of incredible stories and runs- the New Teen Titans, the All-New All-Different X-Men (including arguably the most seminal X-Men stories of all time, the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past), Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, the Hard-Travellin' Heroes era of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, the death of Gwen Stacy, Iron Man's "Demon in a Bottle" storyline...

But for my money, my very favourite comics to come out of that era were Walt Simonson's phenomenal run on the Mighty Thor. Beta Ray Bill, Surtur's Invasion, Skurge's Last Laugh... love it all.

As for the Modern Age? The first run of the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, hands down. First-rate characterization, fascinating plotting, solid artwork, and a supporting cast that's probably one of the best I've ever seen.

I don't think that trope means what you think it means — in any case, comics prior to the Dark Ages had already stopped with most of the Superdickery shenanigans and things like that. The Bronze Age Of Comic Books had a lot of really good and really dark material — it was the era of the first big crossovers ("Contest Of Champions," Secret Wars, Crisis on Infinite Earths), the era where Batman was written by Denny O'Neil and became the dark knight detective again (as well as a ninja, let's face it), the era where Earth-2 Superman and Lois got married, the era of Gwen Stacy's death, the era of Green Lantern/Green Arrow and social justice, the era of "My sidekick is a junkie!", the era of John Stewart, the era of Claremont's X-Men and Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans, the era of Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown, and the era of Jack Kirby's New Gods.

All of those came before the Dark Age. The Dark Age included some great comics, sure, but it was also full of a lot of muddled, poorly drawn, and poorly written stories, too. At least if a comic in the Bronze Age was poorly written, it had great artwork.

Edited by alliterator on Jul 9th 2019 at 7:20:49 AM

Can't say that much about the Golden Age. Part of it is just not having read that much of it, and for good reason. Just about everything that came after took the basic building blocks and improved on it. Still, compared to the Silver Age and even today, there was a lot more variety. True, Superhero comics were still popular, but other genres did just as well. Romance, hardboiled crime, comedy, adventure, horror, you name it. Other genres were able to thrive and compete neck and neck with Superheroes, even surpass them by the end of the decade. Hell, Flash was booted out of his own comic by a poor man's Three Stooges while the Spectre was turned into a farce. If there's anything the Golden Age did better than what came after, it's not letting one genre dominate the market.

The Silver Age was a time of wonder and innocence. It was a brave new frontier (see what I did there), full of fresh takes on old heroes as well as new ones aplenty. The biggest contribution was Marvel and their character-driven approach to story-telling. Suddenly the heroes were trying to save themselves just as much as save the day, though it took most of DC until the Bronze Age to catch up. If you put Marvel and DC during that era side by side, it's night and day. But even DC still had that sense of sheer creativity and ingenuity. Chances were you were going to see something new and off-the-wall every other month, even if it was something utterly ridiculous. It was a time where you could have heroes fighting apes on the moon and or Jimmy Olson turning into a giant turtle man and no-one would bat an eye, and there's something wonderful about that sheer unbridled balls-to-the-wall insanity.

The Bronze Age was the middle ground of what comics used to be and what comics are now. While you had a lot of Silver Age elements carrying over, the storytelling was grander and more ambitious, and arguably more adult. (At least by comparison.) Batman was retooled into the Dark Knight Detective. Spiderman killed off Gwen Stacey and the Green Goblin both. But the biggest innovator for most of the era was Claremont's X-Men. Claremont's run defined the Bronze Age, signalling an even greater focus on character-driven narratives to the point where you had entire issues focusing on their troubles, some going so far as to not have a single fight scene. Which for back then was huge. Boundaries were expanded, rules were broken, and the limits of what could be done in comics were pushed every year to the point where the Comics Code held a lot less power than it did in the Silver Age. Characters reigned supreme, as did testing what a comic could be. This ultimately culminated in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing which arguably knocked the socks off of just about every other title on the stands in terms of its' dialogue, storytelling, and level of maturity. It was ahead of its' time, and its' success was what led to Watchmen which would change the industry on a far grander and more fundamental scale.

The Dark Age for all its' faults did do one thing of note. Specifically, DC wanted to capitalize on Moore's success as well as a rejuvenate DC for a new audience. As such they brought in other writers from Moore's side of the pond and had their current staff try to modernise their books as much as they could. Dialogue became more natural. Text boxes showed up far less. Compared to before, comics started to rely more on the visuals to tell the story than anything else, as well as work in even more adult and mature themes. This was the era of Grant Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Where Punisher and Wolverine gained their own titles and became some of Marvel's most popular characters. As much as they went too far down the other road, there was a concerted effort to move the industry forward and promote a better sense of craftsmanship. Even if that didn't always work out for the best.

And I'm not saying a thing about the Modern Age until it's done. Assuming it isn't already.