beginning of the modern age?

[OldSchoolTerry]

why don't we just say that MH Chuck ushered in the modern age of comics?

 

Just thought I'd start up the discussion again.....

[shadroch]

 

 

I'm going with Ninja Turtles#1. That book forever changed the market and crossed over into mainstream America, as did Action 1 and FF 1 at the start of their ages.

[UnrulyAppendage]

My take is a new age started in 85,86. More specifically, I would not have Crisis as the start of the modern but the end of the bronze. 86 had had some very important books that came out and new starts, namely the DCU.

 

The books that started it would be Watchmen ar Dark Knight. It is interesting to read comments from readers just starting out(there are a few) and say they don't see anything that matches the hype around those stories. The point being is current writers emulate those two books so much that those books are still influencing the current lineups. I think Image didn't start a new age, just took the slick styling of Dark Knight to new heights. Their books became more like graphic novels.

 

However, I think JLA 1 with Morrison may have started a new style within DC. Of course, my comments are coming from someone who missed most of the 90's and just got back in 2 years ago. I think within the last year we have entered the decompression age. Ultimate Spidey being the example and I think Johns on JSA and Titans being another. I think with JLA started a new trend, but I would not characterise it as the start of a new age.

[Zanarkand]

Well, we can't keep calling new ages Modern, Post-Modern, New Modern, Ever So Modern, etc forever, that's for sure. I vote we call nothing Modern, because "modern" implies recent and up-to-date. This whole new Age discussion started because it was starting to sound a little odd calling 20 year old books "modern".

 

I like Dark Age! I think that says it all. Technically then, it would've started with May 1979, which kind of crops Bronze so we'll probably just say 1980. No big deal. Nobody can figure out when exactly the Bronze Age started either, just that it was around 1970 or so. (I personally lump all 15 centers in Silver though.)

 

Dark Age should also encompass the chromium crash of the early 90s, which is the last real big thing to change comics. Everyone had to shape up or get out.

 

So then the Dark Age is already over. RIP Dark Age b. 1980 d. 1993. Not to say that there's no dark left in comics, just that we're now in a sort of post-crash recovery/redirection period. These years will probably end up a "sub-age", like the not universally acknowledged Atom Age.

 

I do not think that any of the following qualify as Ages:

 

- Advent of chrome/special/holofoil/multiple cover comics. Pure greed and deserves no recognition beyond the resemblance to a certain asteroid that visited the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, figuratively speaking.

 

- Image starts. So what?

 

- Indie comics become big. And now they're not. Again, so what?

[OldSchoolTerry]

kevthemev made a good point on the preceeding page, where maybe a turning point was the company-wide crossover, first used in Contest of Champions, and then really used successfully in Secret Wars. Maybe we can debate that aspect in a little more detail.

We do need to divide the post Bronze Age a little more. I think 23 years now is too long to call the "Modern Age"......

[Aman619]

It seems to me thta once Ages names get stuck...they stay for good. There was a lot of discussion of moving the Bronze age date around a bit, but no dice. No argument could sway anyone from what the Bronze age always was: early Seventies.

 

And since we have been calling everything after Bronze the "Modern Age", Im thinking it wont be possible to now invent a new name for it. Rather, in 10 or 15 years, a new name will have emerged for the period AFTER the Modern age. Also, Modern can be used for the past as well as the present, as in architecture: Modern and Post-Modern.

[Zonker]

And since we have been calling everything after Bronze the "Modern Age", Im thinking it wont be possible to now invent a new name for it. Rather, in 10 or 15 years, a new name will have emerged for the period AFTER the Modern age. Also, Modern can be used for the past as well as the present, as in architecture: Modern and Post-Modern.

 

Another example: Modern philosophy, which is generally agreed to have ended in the late 1800's (usually Kant is thought of as the last of the "Moderns.") Since then, it's been called "contemporary" philosophy.

[dolphinsrwj]

to me i always looked at amaz spidey#200 for the start of the modern age