When did the Silver age begin, title by Title?

[Hepcat]

I dont know why but for me Silver Age Archie kicks off with the introduction of Captain Pureheart (later Pureheart the Powerful) in Archie Comics #42 (1965)

 

It was the Archie comics response to the re-growth in super hero popularity ( which was what the silver age was all about) so it makes sense to me....

 

Anyone have a better milestone for Archie for the Silver Age?

 

Yes, the June 1959 issue of the Double Life of Private Strong which imtroduced both the Fly and a new Shield. Here is a scan of my Adventures of the Fly 1 which was cover dated August 1959:

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

Their premier artist, Joe Maneely, was killed in a subway accident on June 7th and the next month Kirby walks into the Timely/Atlas office.

 

So would Jack Kirby have still been hired had Joe Maneely not been killed? What would Marvel have looked like had Joe Maneely still been alive in the sixties? I'm guessing that Fantastic Four 1 would still have been published but it may have looked different.

 

 

Here's one scenario:

 

Joe Maneely - What If?

 

 

 

 

 

[Marty Mann]

Sorry...but I think the whole look of Comics changed with the CCA introduction.

 

mm

[Hepcat]

Yes!

 

mm

 

I disagree. If you're drawing a line, it has to be done on a title by title basis.

 

[Marty Mann]

As I said...I think the FIRST ISSUE of ANY TITLE bearing the CCA LOGO should mark the

beginning of the Silver Age for that Comic Book.

 

mm

[rjpb]

Their premier artist, Joe Maneely, was killed in a subway accident on June 7th and the next month Kirby walks into the Timely/Atlas office.

 

So would Jack Kirby have still been hired had Joe Maneely not been killed? What would Marvel have looked like had Joe Maneely still been alive in the sixties? I'm guessing that Fantastic Four 1 would still have been published but it may have looked different.

 

 

Here's one scenario:

 

Joe Maneely - What If?

 

 

 

 

 

i keep hoping one of the more talented graphic designers on the boards will update a 1950s Maneely cover to look like a Marvel superhero cover - although the covers he did for the Atlas revival of Sub-Mariner give some idea.

[rjpb]

As I said...I think the FIRST ISSUE of ANY TITLE bearing the CCA LOGO should mark the

beginning of the Silver Age for that Comic Book.

 

mm

 

That is the ease of organization view, with a similar alternative being the OSPG view that all comics with a cover date of Oct. 56 on are SA books. Defining all code books from 1955 into the 1960s as Silver Age leaves out Dell and Classics Illustrated though. The advantage is that all pre-code books can then be defined as Golden Age, eliminating the confusion caused by the term Atom Age. Using Oct. 56 puts all earlier CCA books in limbo, and seems even more arbitrary than using the start of the code, which while it may not have effected each individual title, definitely had an overall impact on the medium. Outside of the aforementioned Dell and CI books, the one requirement comics do have to be considered "Silver Age" is a CCA stamp on the cover.

 

At the other end of the spectrum is the idea that the terms Golden Age and Silver Age should only refer to costumed hero books and not even all of them, with the Golden Age ending as early as 1945 and the Silver Age for Marvel not starting until 1961.

 

I'm guessing many are somewhat flexible in their own definitions when boxing their comics or organizing them for sale, even keeping post-code "hangover" books like the last issues of Sub-Mariner and Plastic Man with their Golden Age comics, but for arguments sake using a more nuanced view when it comes to a given genre, publisher or even title. The beauty of these less rigid definitions, is that even if one doesn't want to use the rather amorphous "Atom Age" category for books that fail to be easily defined as Gold or Silver, one can can choose a Silver Age start for a given title without having to define what age the previous issue belongs to (if there is one). The same would go for ending the Golden Age of a particular title.

[Marty Mann]

I started collecting in '42...so anything after "54 is different than what I started with!

 

mm

[frozentundraguy]

I've only read a smattering of Batman stories from the late 40s through the early 60s, but I'd be curious as to when Batman fans feel the Golden Age ended and the Silver Age begins for him.

 

While there is a clear and abrupt change with the "new look" in 1964, it does seem a little late for his Silver Age to begin - more like a SA reboot in the middle of the era.

 

It appears there are some obvious, but overlapping transitions before then.

 

The late GA Batman seems to have even more interaction with his personal rogues gallery than he did in the early - mid 1940s, with The Joker, Catwoman, Two-Face and The Penguin making regular appearances, and the Riddler being introduced. This continues until the mid fifties when except for the Joker these characters disappear for a number of years.

 

In the early 1950s we start to see stories that are a hallmark of the decade- alternate Batman and costume storylines -Bat-Hombre, Jungle Batman, The 1st Batman, etc., culminating in the late 50s with Rainbow colored and zebra-striped suits.

 

Before most would consider the Silver Age to have begun, Kathy Kane is introduced as Bat-woman in an improbable yellow and red outfit in 1956, followed by Bat-girl and Bat-mite and kicking off an era of ridiculous stories often with fantastic creatures or aliens appearing in them.

 

The Batman/Superman teamups in World's Finest also start to become more absurd, increasingly indicating the general uselessness of Batman and Robin in such an arrangement.

 

By the early 1960s Batman appears to be a regular victim of bizarre mutations; toddler, ape, alien, two-dimensional, and the like.

 

The one thing I'm not quite clear on, is when giant props and the trophy room started appearing in Batman stories, but it seems to me this was largely a 1950s thing.

 

The upshot being that the Batman comics of the early 1960s are very different than those of the late 1940s, but the changes are gradual and even the transition of Sprang being the predominant artist on the character to Shelly Moldoff is slow to realized. It makes it difficult to say when one era ends and another begins.

 

 

I checked the Detective and Batman books for the 56 to 60 timeframe and came up with the following. If someone has the books of the 56 to 59 era, I would be interested to hear their opinion.

 

For Detective comics the first book that truly looks to be Silver Age is #252 from February of 58. The cover has a green dinosaur like monster with a purple "mane", known as the "Creature from the Green Lagoon". This does sound a lot like the movie, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, though. The very next issue #253 features the "The Fox, the Shark, and the Vulture". Skip an issue and #255 has another dinosaur cover, titled "Death in Dinosaur Hall".

 

For the Batman title the timeframe is nearly identical. Issue # 115 from April of 1958 has "The Batman in the Bottle", with the cover depicting two large cavemen with oversize clubs holding Batman, who is coincedently trapped in a bottle.

Issue #117 has the "Man hunt in outer space", again a recurring theme after Sputink, which was launched into space in 1958.

 

Many DC titles then switched to stories set in outer space to take advantage of this new development, Adam Strange and the Space Ranger come to mind.

 

One example of an early Silver age Detective Comic, from May of 1960.

 

 

Getting back to the definition of the Silver Age. Wiki defines it as "period of artistic advancement and commercial success" primarily for superhero titles.

 

The Silver Age, also mean a lot of new cover and story concepts. For Batman, it was some bizarre cartooney monsters, the Bat Mite , but also Clayface who began in December of 1961. I guess the Silver Age is also a state of mind, hard

to put a finger on exactly, but recognizable nonetheless.

 

For a title like The Adventures of Bob Hope, it is hard to find any substantial difference from the later 50s until the 1963. Most issues have Bob and a "babe", until # 82 in September of 63, where Bob shares the cover with Leonardo Davinci and Mona Lisa.

 

For "Archie Comics", the comic runs from 1942 until September of 1960. Archie, then sheds the "Comics" and continues in November of 1960 with issue #114. Does anyone know, why "Comics" was dropped from this title?

[Silver]

This is not silver age:

 

 

and this is?

 

[rjpb]

Jimmy Olsen is one of those tricky ones, as the first three issues come prior to the code - putting them in Atom Age territory, but the tradition of JO in absurd situations and bizarre metamorphisis starts pretty quickly, and that was a hallmark of the title well through the SA. Issue 12, sports a cover with "The Invisible Jimmy Olsen" - an early example of JO in some freakish form, and issue 20 has him as "The Merman of Metropolis" - and unless it was just a gimmick this has a definite SA feel to it. The clincher is issue 22 which has a "big brain" JO on the cover - few things say DC Silver Age like having a character with a huge bald noggin to hold a newly acquired massive brain. Eventually Lois Lane, The Flash and Batman would all share this mutation at some point during the SA, and probably others I'm unaware of. One can argue about the status of the title prior to this, but JO #22 is most definitely Silver Age. It may even be the first "big brain" story in a DC book.

 

[rjpb]

frozentundraguy

 

The Silver Age, also mean a lot of new cover and story concepts. For Batman, it was some bizarre cartooney monsters, the Bat Mite , but also Clayface who began in December of 1961. I guess the Silver Age is also a state of mind, hard

to put a finger on exactly, but recognizable nonetheless.

 

For sure.

 

Regarding Detective Comics, # 251 - with "The Alien Batman" fits in with the SA sci-fi direction of the book as well. Where the title's SA really begins would depend on whether one thinks of Batwoman as a Silver Age character or an odd transitional character who continues into the Silver Age ( as late as 1965 in non-reprint form from what I can tell).

[frozentundraguy]

frozentundraguy

 

The Silver Age, also mean a lot of new cover and story concepts. For Batman, it was some bizarre cartooney monsters, the Bat Mite , but also Clayface who began in December of 1961. I guess the Silver Age is also a state of mind, hard

to put a finger on exactly, but recognizable nonetheless.

 

For sure.

 

Regarding Detective Comics, # 251 - with "The Alien Batman" fits in with the SA sci-fi direction of the book as well. Where the title's SA really begins would depend on whether one thinks of Batwoman as a Silver Age character or an odd transitional character who continues into the Silver Age ( as late as 1965 in non-reprint form from what I can tell).

 

I went back and took a closer look at issue 251, and would agree that cover is a departure from the crime fighting Batman seen up until then, and fits in with the new sci-fi direction Batman had suddenly embarked upon.

 

Batwoman does present a bit of a quandry. If seen as a S.A. character, her debut was in July of 56, slightly ahead of Showcase #4. More than likely most fans view her as the "odd transitional character", who is removed by Schwartz along with the Bat-Mite, Bat-Hound, and the Bat-Girl when Batman dropped his excess baggage in 1964. Per the Wiki article, Batwoman was introduced to provide Batman with a "love interest" to disprove certain allegations about Batman, in response to Werthams 54 book "Seduction of the Innocent".

[rjpb]

 

Batwoman does present a bit of a quandry. If seen as a S.A. character, her debut was in July of 56, slightly ahead of Showcase #4. More than likely most fans view her as the "odd transitional character", who is removed by Schwartz along with the Bat-Mite, Bat-Hound, and the Bat-Girl when Batman dropped his excess baggage in 1964. Per the Wiki article, Batwoman was introduced to provide Batman with a "love interest" to disprove certain allegations about Batman, in response to Werthams 54 book "Seduction of the Innocent".

 

Though Robin's distress at being replaced by Batwoman would seem to undermine that intention.

 

 

And even when DC tries to hook Robin up in 1961 - they indicate some reluctance on the part of both Batman and Robin to become romantically involved with females. They really couldn't help themselves.

 

[Hepcat]

I love issue #122! I don't understand why Batman 121 seems to be more highly prized.

 

[Jeffro.]

I wonder how many collectors even realize that there is a Atom Age or Platinum Age? Those ages seem the most neglected and confusing.

 

Maybe the Atom Age just needs a snazzier name. "Silven" or "Golder" anyone?

[Dick Pontoon]

Nothing wrong with a nice Silven Saddle.

[otherworldsj33]

It can be excruciating trying to pin down one book, title by title. Maybe it could be done with some titles, I'm not sure. I do think the Showcase 4 was a definite change in editorial direction for a group of creative people at DC comics, but for a time, it was really the only book or character, that I can think of, that would fit the definition of what I would call SA. The SA en masse did not get under way probably until around 1959/1960. Before that, it was the Silmic Age, or pre Silver Age or post Atomic Age (or whatever age you want to label it), with a smattering of (true) SA books being published. In my opinion, it should not be labeled the genuine SA until at least many, if not a majority of books on the stands (for the super-hero genre, anyway) were of the SA content. Is anyone here knowledgeable about history, weren't the comic ages named/patterned after ages of man? Did the iron age start when the very first people learned how to manipulate iron, or did it only begin when the knowledge spread and a good portion of humans knew it?

[Marty Mann]

Truly one of the most interesting threads on the boards.

 

mm

[rjpb]

It can be excruciating trying to pin down one book, title by title. Maybe it could be done with some titles, I'm not sure. I do think the Showcase 4 was a definite change in editorial direction for a group of creative people at DC comics, but for a time, it was really the only book or character, that I can think of, that would fit the definition of what I would call SA. The SA en masse did not get under way probably until around 1959/1960. Before that, it was the Silmic Age, or pre Silver Age or post Atomic Age (or whatever age you want to label it), with a smattering of (true) SA books being published. In my opinion, it should not be labeled the genuine SA until at least many, if not a majority of books on the stands (for the super-hero genre, anyway) were of the SA content.

 

True enough - as fandom didn't really consider there was a "second era of heroic comics" until the Silver Age as we've come to refer to it was well on it's way. I doubt anyone picked up Flash #105 or FF #1 off the newstand and said to themselves - "Hey Superhero comics are back!", as they had never completely disappeared, but I am guessing by 1962 or so longer term comic fans would be quite aware that the lean era where only a handful of costumed hero titles were available at any one time were coming to an end.

 

Showcase #4 gets noticed because it was a clear attempt at reviving a character with an updated costume, origin and identity, and Flash was the first DC superhero outside the "big three" to get his or her own title since the end of the Golden Age ( The Challs not really being "super"). Still, at the time it was just one of many concepts DC was throwing against the wall and clearly they initially had more confidence in Lois Lane and The Challengers of the Unknown to carry their own titles. I'm sure DC would have been just as happy if Robin Hood and The Viking Prince had kicked off "The Golden Age of Medieval Heroes" in comic books.

 

 

It's telling that DC continued Flash's numbering from the Golden Age. I doubt any consideration for postal permits applied to a long defunct title, and the number of comic buyers at the time who were actually capable of remembering the original Flash were a tiny minority. So the logical conclusion is that at a time when "first issues" carried no special appeal, DC concluded that having casual readers think that The Flash was as established as Batman and Superman was a good idea..