Definition of Bronze Age ending point for purposes of the boards

[Bosco685]

For that reason I've also always believed that there is no definite "cut-off point" to an era mainly because story writers were not trying to create an age or an era. They were just naturally evolving their story telling as they progressed as creators and as their characters matured. It was the readers that decided to create the eras after the fact.

 

I agree with this for the most part. But some creative teams do try to "change things up", like Alan Moore/John Totleben/Rick Veitch and their joint work on Miracleman.

 

In the recent Poisoned Chalice articles that are tracking the ownership rights and development of the character Marvelman/Miracleman, this is a summary of the proposal Moore submitted so he could have a go at relaunching the character in Warrior Magazine.

 

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Moore’s extremely detailed five-thousand-word proposal was a revelation, and Skinn knew he had found the writer he needed to revive Marvelman. Moore’s pitch is reprinted in its entirety in George Khoury’s Kimota! , so I’m only going to quote a few short passages from it here.

 

Briefly, what I’d like to do with Marvelman runs as follows… I’d like to make some very radical changes in the basic conceit to bring what was basically a silly-arsed strip into line with the nineteen eighties. At the same time, there are some elements of Marvelman which are obviously worth hanging onto… otherwise we wouldn’t be reviving it. What are these elements? Well, firstly there’s the obvious fact of his being a superhero. [...] I know this’ll sound very pompous and ambitious but what I really want to attempt here is not just the definitive Marvelman, but the definitive superhero strip as well.

 

The second important element is that Marvelman is an old fifties superhero, so there’s a strong element of nostalgia. Nostalgia, if handled wrong, can prove to be nothing better than sloppy and mawkish . In my opinion, the central appeal of nostalgia is that all this stuff in the past has gone. It’s finished. We’ll never see it again… and this is where the incredible poignance of nostalgia really comes from. So, without deviating in fact from the naive and simplistic Marvelman of the fifties, I want to transplant it into a cruel and cynical eighties. The resultant tension will hopefully provide a real change and poignance.

 

The third point relates to both the ones above. The superhero genre is an offshoot of science fiction (amongst other things), and good sci-fi usually runs according to certain established laws. To my mind the most important of these is that the fantasy in any given story should stem from one divergence from reality. [...] If my Marvelman is going to fit logically into a gritty and realistic nineteen eighties then the character should at least have some pretence of credibility. Thus all the fantasy in the strip stems from one point… the crashing of an alien spacecraft in 1948. Everything else follows on from that.

 

So basically what I’m after is a spectacular nineteen fifties superhero in a blue costume who says a magic word and was given his power by a wise old wizard and who now operates in the nineteen eighties and who is totally scientifically credible!!!! Sounds tough, huh?

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So for Moore, he meant to drive a change in a Golden Age character to usher in new thinking and new perceptions of the superhero concept. It's to our benefit he succeeded, as this motivated many other exciting relaunches of characters like Sandman, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and some would even say Batman with the publication of Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One.

[VintageComics]

For that reason I've also always believed that there is no definite "cut-off point" to an era mainly because story writers were not trying to create an age or an era. They were just naturally evolving their story telling as they progressed as creators and as their characters matured. It was the readers that decided to create the eras after the fact.

 

I agree with this for the most part. But some creative teams do try to "change things up", like Alan Moore/John Totleben/Rick Veitch and their joint work on Miracleman.

 

In the recent Poisoned Chalice articles that are tracking the ownership rights and development of the character Marvelman/Miracleman, this is a summary of the proposal Moore submitted so he could have a go at relaunching the character in Warrior Magazine.

 

-----------------------------

Moore’s extremely detailed five-thousand-word proposal was a revelation, and Skinn knew he had found the writer he needed to revive Marvelman. Moore’s pitch is reprinted in its entirety in George Khoury’s Kimota! , so I’m only going to quote a few short passages from it here.

 

Briefly, what I’d like to do with Marvelman runs as follows… I’d like to make some very radical changes in the basic conceit to bring what was basically a silly-arsed strip into line with the nineteen eighties. At the same time, there are some elements of Marvelman which are obviously worth hanging onto… otherwise we wouldn’t be reviving it. What are these elements? Well, firstly there’s the obvious fact of his being a superhero. [...] I know this’ll sound very pompous and ambitious but what I really want to attempt here is not just the definitive Marvelman, but the definitive superhero strip as well.

 

The second important element is that Marvelman is an old fifties superhero, so there’s a strong element of nostalgia. Nostalgia, if handled wrong, can prove to be nothing better than sloppy and mawkish . In my opinion, the central appeal of nostalgia is that all this stuff in the past has gone. It’s finished. We’ll never see it again… and this is where the incredible poignance of nostalgia really comes from. So, without deviating in fact from the naive and simplistic Marvelman of the fifties, I want to transplant it into a cruel and cynical eighties. The resultant tension will hopefully provide a real change and poignance.

 

The third point relates to both the ones above. The superhero genre is an offshoot of science fiction (amongst other things), and good sci-fi usually runs according to certain established laws. To my mind the most important of these is that the fantasy in any given story should stem from one divergence from reality. [...] If my Marvelman is going to fit logically into a gritty and realistic nineteen eighties then the character should at least have some pretence of credibility. Thus all the fantasy in the strip stems from one point… the crashing of an alien spacecraft in 1948. Everything else follows on from that.

 

So basically what I’m after is a spectacular nineteen fifties superhero in a blue costume who says a magic word and was given his power by a wise old wizard and who now operates in the nineteen eighties and who is totally scientifically credible!!!! Sounds tough, huh?

-----------------------------

 

So for Moore, he meant to drive a change in a Golden Age character to usher in new thinking and new perceptions of the superhero concept. It's to our benefit he succeeded, as this motivated many other exciting relaunches of characters like Sandman, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and some would even say Batman with the publication of Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One.

 

Fair enough.

 

Creations are aware of the effects they are trying to impose on their readers.

 

Something to keep in mind is that by the time the 1980's were around, we already had a Golden Age and a Silver Age and a nearly fully formed Bronze Age. Creators that tried to push the envelope (in any field) try to stay cutting edge by breaking new ground.

 

It's impressive that Moore tried to push that envelope by attempting to usher in a new era.

 

I'm not sure if Stan Lee (and respective writers like Roy Thomas, etc) had as much perspective (and if their intent was to usher in a new era) looking back into the 1950's and 1960's from the 1970's.

 

Interesting details to discuss, though. Very interesting.

[Bosco685]

Interesting details to discuss, though. Very interesting.

 

Moore definitely has a different view on life. But not everyone has to think like him to change things up. I agree with you there have been many creator teams over the decades that took a different path and are still considered Golden, Silver, Bronze, Copper or any other metal we apply. I just found it interesting how different Moore wanted to make things, and how this may have inspired many other creators to go down the same path.

[Jamie Coville]

There are many factors that people use to try to create "age cut-offs" but ultimately, I've always considered it related to story telling although the distribution perspective is an interesting one.

 

It's also very plausible that the story telling and distribution were related to each other - for example, it definitely affected Marvel's output as they went from less bi-monthly titles to more titles post 1968.

 

For that reason I've also always believed that there is no definite "cut-off point" to an era mainly because story writers were not trying to create an age or an era. They were just naturally evolving their story telling as they progressed as creators and as their characters matured. It was the readers that decided to create the eras after the fact.

 

Nobody sat up in their beds on rainy evening after reading and proclaimed "Hey, I think the Bronze Age just started officially now the Gwen Stacey is dead!"

 

I think that there was a transitional period for every era, and for the Bronze Age it seemed to be somewhere between 1968/9, where things started to change (including distributorship and story telling) and 1974 for me.

 

I agree, for the purposes of writing comic history I would start the Direct Distribution age around 1973 and would likely fill it with Indy/Self published books plus DM exclusive and mini/maxi series published by DC/Marvel until 1984. (Eg. Dazzler #1, World of Krypton, CoIE, Secret Wars, etc..) Mini/maxi-series weren't not done with the Newsstand Market, where the goal was a long running title with mass market appeal or go bust. The pre-order method with no returns and more dedicated fandom in the Direct Market would make niche books and/or short run stories profitable.

 

Underground Market would also be an overlapping age, as would a bookstore market, promotional books and digital comics.