Finally: The book that started the Bronze age...

[wolveroach-migration]

Definitely conan 1, for sure, coz

(1) Bronze age hearkens to a primitive era>homage to conan, that became so hot with the Frazetta's bks 2 years before, that it had to be called Bronze and not laser ( star wars), nor X-age (x-men).

(2) conan the barbarian #2 won the award for best comics title of 1970

(3) comics later experimentations with the start of many non-supes/pulp/ kung fu/monsters/Sword vs sorcery types ongoing series begun with the immense & rapid success of this title.

(4) conan became the hottest selling marvel title that it spun 3 series , more than spiderman in the mid 70s

(5) (and according to one post) concept of gritty heroes took root from the hard-edged hero themes of conan (Isn't wolverine a mini-conan with super claws.)

(6) conan is one big reason why REH became so popular in America and no longer just a cult fave among a small group of old time weird tales readers.

(7) check out CrossGen 's Sojourn & Dark Horse's hellboy stuff> strains of REH's conan themes ( & of course HPL's ) are so obvious.

(8) you see the orcs in Lord of Rings movie, heck,designed influenced by REH's barbarian themes, not quite Tokienistic, know what i mean

(9) even Kirby's 70s work could not outlast the conans done

and the list goes on & on...

all begun in 0ct 1970

[osborn_fr]

For me, bronze age started with amazing spider-man #121. It' s a major breakdown in the world of comics. the silver age loose his naivete here...

 

[Kevin Boyd]

I agree about Conan 1... I see ASM 121 as the "end" of the Silver Age.

 

About your points re: Conan:

 

(1) about of a stretch, but the early 70's saw a real resurgence in fantasy - Howard, Moorcock, Tolkein, et al. were capturing the imaginations of most teenagers and young men.

 

(2) interesting

 

(3) I agree... the loosening up of Comics Code restrictions also played a big part.

 

(4) Conan was hot... but Spidey did have three books in the 70's - Amazing, Spectacular and Marvel Team-Up. Where Conan triumphed was on the magazine racks with Savage Sword... Spidey's magazine the Spectacular Spider-Man, was not successful enough to merit continuation.

 

(5) Conan was definitely an anti-hero...1970's popular culture was very much focused on anti-establishment anti-heroes (movies, books, comics, rock and roll).

 

(6) Well, the Conan revival really began when the stories were released in pocket book anthologies in the sixties (in those numbered paperbacks that were regularly reprinted for twenty years). Roy Thomas saw Conan as a means to reach this new fantasy revival audience (mostly guys in high school and college)- and since Marvel was very popular on college campuses the company was the perfect fit for the character. Despite Stan's misgivings....

 

(7) Don't forget Moorcock... Elric and the various eternal champion stories were very influential. There's a lot more Moorcock than Howard in Crossgen. Howard was much more visceral... his stories are about larger than life wild men living life by their own personal codes.... Conan has less to do with Sojourn then you might think. Hellboy is more Lovecraft than anything else, but Mignola was very much a Moorcock fan (heck First published Corum because he wanted to do it) and he says as much in the latest Comic Book Artist. The whole right hand of Doom and fighting your nature/instincts is very much a Moorcockian hero trait. Elric rebelled against his aloof sorcerer heritage, and he carried a hellish soul-sucking sword that often disobeyed his wishes.

 

(8) Where do you see orcs in Howard's work? It's peppered with primal monsters and evolutionary throwbacks not orc armies. The supernatural in Howard's work is something that hides in the shadows or lurking in the unexplored areas of the world... they never spoke, and almost always were pathetic and easily destroyed. Maybe the LOTR orcs look like something designed by John Buscema, I'll give you that.

 

(9) Much as I dislike Kirby's Fourth World stuff and like Conan... where has Conan been over the last few years? Regrettably, someone is always trying to rehash the Fourth World characters at DC.... but like a bad rash they keep popping up and get cancelled. And we regularly see toys, trade paperbacks, even cartoons featuring the Fourth World characters. Conan is slated to return this year at Dark Horse, but it remains to be seen whether or not the property can successfully return to comics. Despite the fact that there are probably more Conan comics in print, at this point they are pretty much on par as sellable comic book concepts.

 

Kev

 

[Zonker]

So, Conan #1 (in October 1970) can be reasonably argued as Marvel Comics' first participation in the Bronze Age.

 

But if you take a less Marvel-centric approach, you have to go with either GL/GA #76 (super-heroes with a social conscious; both heroes and villains not quite as black-and-white as the Silver Age; the Ollie Queen-Diana Lance more-or-less adult relationship) in April 1970, or my personal fav, Detective 395 in January 1970 (first O'Neil/Adams collaboration; first "dark" Dark Knight). This has been argued exhaustively (and entertainingly) in the "What Book Started the Bronze Age" thread below.

 

But there is just one factual error: Conan #2 was nominated as best story by the ACBA in 1970. The winner was (you guessed it) GL/GA #76 for best story, and the GL/GA series as Best Continuing Feature. Denny O'Neil won for best writer and Neal Adams and Giordano for best artists (penciller and inker respectively).

 

Conan did eventually win for both Best Continuing Feature and for Best Story for "The Song of Red Sonja."

 

Oh, and I assert the Silver Age ended with Jack Kirby's last (consecutive) Fantastic Four, #102, in 1970.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[COI]

"if you take a less Marvel-centric approach"

 

Why would you want to do that? The comic world revolves around Marvel. DC is just the token alternative.

 

But seriously, good point about the GL 76.

 

And for me, the bronze age began Jan. of 1970.

[wolveroach-migration]

yep, agree with AndrewKnight that officially, the age began in Jan 1970, to make it easier to categorise the comics eras.

[wolveroach-migration]

Hi, thanks for all the highly valid points and arguements but

when we talk Bronze age, marvel comes to mind, not dc.

with regards to kevthemev's certain comments, i have these to say:

 

 

(7), Moorcock is very highly influenced by Howard, for instance, the theme of the eternal champion comes from the James Allison concepts, etc... otherwise, why why would many readers hail our dear late Mr. REH as the father of Sword & sorcery.

 

Look at the arch villain in Sojourn, does he not remind you of certain undead sorcerer from "Hour of the Dragon". And the origins of the heroine, the winged race, the shape changing dragon, all reminiscent of conan movies & comics, and mayhaps that's why dark horse is interested to bring conan back to comics again.

 

(8) i never say orcs was found in REH's stories, the way these creatures were portrayed in the movies made them look like muscular barbarians , though with beast like looks, a la conan the barbarian (movie)

[Zonker]

Yeah, there's something powerfully symbolic about starting the new age with a book cover-dated January 1970. And as I've mentioned before, that book is Detective 395.

 

Detective 395, January 1970, first O'Neil/Adams Batman

Green Lantern 76, April 1970, first GL/GA by O'Neil/Adams

Conan 1, October 1970, the Bronze Age comes to Marvel (for all the reasons others have mentioned)

Fantastic Four 103, October 1970, first non-Kirby FF (yes, the Silver Age is really over now).

 

Just my opinion,

Z.

 

[Kevin Boyd]

I was unaware of Alison, but while Moorcock was perhaps influenced by REH, I would say he was even more influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs, as he got his start editing a Burroughs Tarzan magazine in England.

 

REH's stories are very much like ERB's... muscular hero living by his own code, lost cities, primal monsters, etc. and quite a few of those stories predate the REB Conan stories by over a decade.

 

Aside from the Weird Tales stories, REH was not hugely recognized as much of anything until the sixties. REH was not an influence on Tolkein, and I would say that there more Tolkein in those Moorcock stories than anyone else.... right down to the names themselves. Elric and Elrond have more in common than Elric and Conan.

 

The first Moorcock short stories are more like what would happen if you took the exact opposite of a Conan or a Tarzan - he's a frail, albino sorcerer king from a dying (or dead) race reliant on his soul-sucking magic sword - and threw him into a Tolkein-esque fantasy-world of humans and other races.

 

------

 

The sorcerer from Sojourn reminds me of over half a dozen REH sorcerers from the Conan comics and stories, all the way through to the Marvel co-opted sorcerer Kulan Gath that appeared in Spider-Man/X-Men/Avengers stories. BUT he also has echoes of Ming the Merciless and a zillion other villain kings to appear in sci-fi/fantasy fiction over the last century and beyond into myths and fairy tales.

 

Flying horses, winged races and the other fantasy elements would have made REH cringe. A winged horse in his stories would have been tied up in a tomb and made into a murderous creature bound to the whim of some mad sorcerer. Winged races would be veangeful ape-like creatures with wings devolved from a proud race brought low by the ravages of hubris, disaster and/or time. For REH, those fantasy elements were ALWAYS the obstacle... in the end, it was people (usually big muscled loners accompanied by some half-naked babe) that triumphed over the magical elements (i.e. the past). They didn't fly off on their winged horses, or with their pals from winged races.

 

and mayhaps that's why dark horse is interested to bring conan back to comics again.

 

That's quite funny. I'm sure they want to bring back one of the biggest selling comic characters of the 70's and 80's, the central character in dozens of successful books and two motion pictures because of some low-selling, but critically well-received fantasy books published by Crossgen.

 

Marvel squandered those rights and companies have been trying to get them ever since Stan Lee Media purchased them (as a rub to Marvel) and then tied them up for years in the bankruptcy suit. All of which happened when Crossgen was just a glint in Mark's Alessi's eye.

 

Kev

 

 

 

 

[Kevin Boyd]

I'm not sure I agree that we can pick a particular month as the start of the Bronze age. The whole point of these "ages" is that they signify an important shift in the attitude or look of comics.

 

Hence the floating start dates, and the interim periods that have been identified.

 

If we want to start identify the ages by specific dates, it might be easier yes, but a lot less satisfying. I would not categorize FF 94 (Jan 1970) as being any different from FF 93 (Dec 1970)

 

Not to mention that cover dates are usually three months ahead of time - Jan 1970 books would have been published in October 1969 - which I'm all for because that's the month and year I was born in. Actually, I kind of like that, the bronze age started when I was born.

 

No, Conan 1 and FF 103 represent major changes for Marvel. Kirby left, new type of Marvel anti-hero. ASM 121/2 may be bronze age books, but Gwen's death as the symbolic death of the innocence inherent in SIlver and Golden age super-hero stories (just as Green Lantern lost his innocence in GL/GA 76).

 

And while I can see the argument for Detective 395 what does it signify? A fan-favourite artist taking the existing Batman costume and putting a spin on it. The elements Adams chose to emphasize were already there... nothing new was added to the mix except for Adams' style. Don't get me wrong, it's a great style and they are great comics, but was there a major shift in attitude or design on the Batman series as a result of Adams coming on? There were Adams comics before then - are they considered silver or bronze?

 

GL/GA is a great choice for DC because it really does bring something new to DC. It completely changes the perspective of the DC hero from the simplistic one-solution fits all attitude to the dilemmas that every decision made did have consequences. Not just tacking America's social ills, although that was the gimmick, but whether or not the hero was in fact doing the right thing - that he could be wrong and make a mistake.

 

Kev

 

 

 

 

[Zonker]

Yes, I have a lot of sympathy for the floating start of an age, and posted my thoughts on the matter in the earlier thread.

 

And while I accept that Detective 395 sounds like a stretch, it was not just Adams' artwork. It was Denny O'Neil's contribution, and the entire shift in tone of the series (IMHO, a "major shift in attitude" indeed). Now stories took place at night, the super-villains were de-emphasized, the Batmobile/cave/phone/etc were (temporarily) retired. The day-glo Batman TV was put to rest once and for all.

 

True, Adams had done work in the Sixties (Silver Age) on Brave & Bold with the Batman. But with Detective 395 that style became the definitive Batman for the next several decades. O'Neil and Adams showed Frank Miller the way to the "Dark Knight Returns." I also think their successful (and well-received) collaboration on those early Batman stories prompted Julie Schwartz to put them on the Green Lantern/Green Arrow re-vamp. Denny originally thought he was writing "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" for Gil Kane to pencil.

 

So the way I see it, Conan almost single-handedly opened up the Sword&Sorcery genre to comics. But it was the O'Neil/Adams Batman that first took a revisionist "darker" approach to the old super-heroes genre, leading the way towards GL/GA, Kaluta's The Shadow, Wolverine, Miller's Daredevil, then Dark Knight etc. My inclusion of Wolverine in that list may surprise some folks, but I see Wolverine as less "Conan with claws," than "the Batman minus a strong moral compass."

 

Cheers,

Z.

[comicinvestor-migration]

So the way I see it, Conan almost single-handedly opened up the Sword&Sorcery genre to comics. But it was the O'Neil/Adams Batman that first took a revisionist "darker" approach to the old super-heroes genre, leading the way towards GL/GA, Kaluta's The Shadow, Wolverine, Miller's Daredevil, then Dark Knight etc. My inclusion of Wolverine in that list may surprise some folks, but I see Wolverine as less "Conan with claws," than "the Batman minus a strong moral compass."

 

You're free to have your own opinions, but even the most naive would find that a serious stretch. It's more like having an opinion, and then shaving off the sides of the square pegs to fit them into the round holes.

 

Using this logic, Wolverine could be "any superhero minus a strong moral compass", since Batman doesn't look/act feral, doesn't slice and dice opoonents regularly, isn't into "beserker rages" (check out Conan when he's pissed), doesn't carry/wield a razor-sharp weapon and is not a murdering anti-hero who kills anyone or anything that gets in his way.

 

In a more general sense, Conan incorporated slash-and-dash killing, horror overtones, death-dealing and was the first popular anti-hero that rode the line between hero and murderous villain. Conan was also the best-selling Marvel book of the early 70's and this success was the blueprint for a ton of dark Marvel heroes (and villains), such as Wolverine, Punisher, Deathlok, Ghost Rider, et al.

 

If this isn't readily apparent, then you probably weren't a huge Marvel fan from 1970-77, or you've got a serious case of Bat-based tunnel vision.

[Zonker]

OK, fine, at least we've got CI back as an active participant in the boards again!

 

It's less a question of who was the bigger badass, than who was the first to start the trend of Bronze Age characters down that direction. So ok, Wolverine has more similarities to Conan, and certainly became much more of an anti-hero than the Batman. I was just trying to identify the initial starting point of the trend. For me, January 1970 marks that first fork in the road. IMHO, what O'Neil and Adams did at DC (including GL/GA), combined with the subsequent success of Conan, led both Marvel and DC to a more mature take on super-heroes. That's all. I see the January 1970 cover date as the identifiable turning point. You see October 1970 as that turning point. Others may choose June 1968 for Steranko's Nick Fury or the first Deadman in 1967.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[comicinvestor-migration]

Dates are irrelevant to me; I just know that once Conan started heating up the sales charts, Marvel did what they do best, and duplicated the same basic premise in their subsequent books and characters.

 

I think it really is as simple as that, and (at least on the Marvel side) had absolutely nothing to do with the stories in Detective.

 

Conan new, Conan rough, Conan kill, Conan outsell everything on the shelf. Stan make more Conan.

[Kevin Boyd]

The whole thing about Adams and O'Neil's run was that they were attempting to return Batman to his roots - which is why I'm not convinced it was terribly original.

 

If understand my Batman continuity didn't the shift in attitude occur a month earlier than Detective 395 anyway with Batman 217 (Dec 1969) with the story "One Bullet Too Many" art by Novik/Giordano, story by Frank Robbins wherein Robin heads off to college and Bruce and Alfred ditch Wayne Manor in favor of the Penthouse atop Wayne Towers? The story takes place at night and is a true mystery story, Bruce even says he want to be more of a "creature of the night" at some point to Alfred.

 

The only thing is that while it is an OK story, it doesn't strike me as being unique. The O'Neil/Adams stuff is very good, but again... other characters had done the same sort of territory. The Adams Deadman stories from 1968 were just as strong and very similar in tone.

 

Kev

[Zonker]

But are not dates precisely the relevant point is determining when something "started?"

 

 

It is interesting to read the old Conan lettercols. According to Roy Thomas at the time, the book was almost cancelled during its first year or so. As I recall, Roy claimed it was only the Gil Kane fill-in issues (#17, #18 August, September 1972) that really started selling well, and only after John Buscema permanently took over for Barry Smith (#25, 1973) did the book become the monster seller and huge comics success story of the decade. Now I believe Roy was telling these stories to ease the blow of Barry Smith leaving the book, so maybe the story was embellished a bit. But if basically true, that would mean lots of the early 1970s Marvel anti-hero experimentation, including Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, and Ghost Rider, was launched despite of Conan's then-lack-of-success, rather than because of its then-current sales.

 

But overall, my suspicion is that in that period there was a lot of looking over the shoulder by the creative people at Marvel at what DC was doing and vice-versa . The formation of the Academy of Comic Book Arts facilitated this. And frankly, DC was forced to take a hard look at what Marvel was doing, because by this time I'm pretty sure Marvel was leaving them in the dust sales-wise. So whether or not sales immediately drove the experimentation, my take is there was an awful lot of creative one-upsmanship between the O'Neil/Adams Batman and GL/GA, the Thomas/Smith Conan, the Thomas/Adams Avengers, Stan Lee's non-CCA ASM "drug books," Kirby moving to DC, etc.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[Zonker]

2 Good points, Kevthemev.

 

First on "originality..." yes the Bronze Age Batman was an attempt to return to the roots of the character. But Showcase #4 was an attempt to return to popularity super-heroes in general and specifically the Flash. And Fantastic Four #1 was a self-conscious attempt to duplicate the first Justice League of America. So in my view, orginality is less a requirement than impact and influence.

 

Which brings me to your second point... yes Batman 217 preceeded Detective 395 by a month on the stands, and set up the changes in the strip we've been talking about. But without those classic O'Neil/Adams stories (starting with Detective 395), the "New/Old Look" would have had much less impact, IMHO. If I'm right about the creative ferment of the times, the one-upmanship I believe was going on between Marvel and DC, then it took those classic stories from O'Neil & Adams, Thomas & Smith, Wein & Wrightson, Goodwin & Simonson, among others, to define the Bronze Age.

 

Said another way, we've all gravitated to an idea of the Bronze Age as something special and distinct from the Silver Age. It's my opinion (which I cannot prove) that we never would have perceived the 1970's as Something Really New if they simply had the Batman by Robbins & Novick, Green Lantern / Green Arrow by O'Neil & Gil Kane, and if they had started right off with Conan #1 by Thomas and John Buscema.

 

As always, your mileage may vary.

Z.

[Kevin Boyd]

Re: Showcase 4

 

The first Flash story wasn't just a revival of super-heroes, it was an attempt to merger the superhero concept with science fiction elements that had populated the Atom age DC's (in the popular Mystery in Space, Tales of the Unexpected, and Strange Adventures). If the Flash was a straightforward superhero revival would it have been as popular?

 

Marvel had tried a straight forward superhero revival a mere three years before and failed miserabley, you have to ask yourself why were DC's books so different?

 

It took Marvel a full five years to revive superheroes after the Flash revival in Showcase. What took so long? And if you look at Marvel's titles, they were more of an evolution of the monster comics that Marvel had been successfully selling years before. Just as DC's heroes evolved from science fiction in the silver age, Marvel's evolved from the monster story.

 

So basically, when it all comes down to it, you are saying that it was an art thing? That the Neal Adams Batman story in Detective Comics was radically different than anything before and set the tone for everything afterwards, which I guess I could but for Batman ALONE, but for the entire DC line? Nope, sorry. I don't believe that. Adams was hired to do what he had already been doing on Deadman, Brave and the Bold, the Spectre and whatever other DC books he worked on before Batman/Detective. I see the O'Neil/Adams Batman stories as being the prelude to their real groundbreaking work GL/GA which was something completely different than anything DC had published before.

 

If I were to accept the argument for Adams/O'Neil's Batman then I could pick any significant change of creative teams on a single title at any given point in time as being the start of a new age.

 

And just because something isn't initially successful doesn't mean that the book is not influential. Heck. they cancelled GL/GA for poor sales, yet everyone remembers those comics as being ground-breaking and fondly remembers them. Conan was pretty much the same deal, except the sales were strong enough to ride the wave thru to big John's arrival on the book. Add to that that Conan was the book that these guys all wanted to draw! Buscema wanted to do it, but Stan didin't want to risk him. Kane wanted to do it and he went on to contribute a lot of stories. ADAMS wanted to do it... and did quite a few stories for Savage Sword in it's early days. Moorcock liked it enough to contribute to a story starring his own character. People were definitely looking at Conan in it's first year.

 

I can think of many titles that sold poorly at the start but increased as word of mouth got out that something cool was going on. For example, some guy named Alan Moore wrote a story in Saga of the Swamp Thing 21 called "The Anatomy Lesson" that no one really took notice of at the start.... months later everyone was reading Swamp Thing and Moore was on his way to being the industry's great "auteur".

 

Kev

 

 

[Zonker]

And just because something isn't initially successful doesn't mean that the book is not influential.

We're in complete agreement, initial sales are not the point. It is long-term impact that matters. I was just mentioning the early days of Conan as a slow-seller to address something ComicInvestor said.

Just as DC's heroes evolved from science fiction in the silver age, Marvel's evolved from the monster story.

That is a really cool insight. I've never heard it expressed like that, but it makes sense. I do believe however, that Martin Goodman showed Stan Lee the cover of Brave & Bold 28 (first JLA) and said "Make me one of these!" the result being FF #1.

So basically, when it all comes down to it, you are saying that it was an art thing?

No, it is a gestalt thing. The perfect marriage of words and pictures. Denny O'Neil AND Neal Adams, first on Batman, then on Green Lantern / Green Arrow. But, in truth, when I think about what is uniquely "Bronze Age," I do tend to think about a new class of artists, many of whom did little mainstream comics work before or after the 1970-75 period:

Adams on GL/GA, Batman, Avengers (though X-Men, Deadman, Spectre, B&B preceeded this period)

Barry Smith on Conan (and Dr. Strange and Avengers)

Kaluta on The Shadow

Wrightson on Swamp Thing

Ploog on Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night

If I were to accept the argument for Adams/O'Neil's Batman then I could pick any significant change of creative teams on a single title at any given point in time as being the start of a new age

What I'm saying is that without the initial few O'Neil/Adams tryouts on the Batman, Julie Schwartz might well have stayed with his original plan to have Gil Kane illustrate O'Neil's -script for GL #76. And as much as I love Gil Kane's art, it just would not have been the same.

 

Is it fair to say that you're saying GL/GA #76 is the watershed event, and Detective 395, Brave & Bold 79, and Strange Adventures 206 (as examples) are all precursors to the Bronze Age, similar to the first Martian Manhunter in Detective 225 is a precursor to the Silver Age, or the first Dr. Occult in More Fun #14 is a precursor to the Golden Age? If so, that is a perfectly valid point of view.

Nope, sorry. I don't believe that.

That's cool. That's what they make these boards for: sharing different points of view.

 

Take care,

Z.

[Kevin Boyd]

That is a really cool insight. I've never heard it expressed like that, but it makes sense. I do believe however, that Martin Goodman showed Stan Lee the cover of Brave & Bold 28 (first JLA) and said "Make me one of these!" the result being FF #1.

 

Thanks! The Goodman story is one of the great stories of the silver age. And he supposedly learned about JLA after playing golf with his counterpart at DC that told him about the successes they were having with the League.

 

So Goodman told Lee to bring back superheroes and he turned to Kirby and said let's make superheroes and Kirby revived his Challengers concept, made it more Marvel by having a hero who was a monster, Lee suggested reviving the Human Torch name and the rest was history. Then they went on to fight giant monsters and aliens until they brought back Namor in #4 and Doom in #5.

 

---

 

I do see the previous Adams work as the formative process... there have been many creative teams that were excellent on one book and then extraordinary and groundbreaking on another. I believe that is especially true of O'Neil and Adams... those Batman stories were excellent, but the GL/GA stories were groundbreaking not just for DC but for the entire industry.

 

Even though Marvel had flirted many times with socially conscious stories, there wasn't the constant ethical questioning that was inherent in GL/GA... I still say it wasn't just the issues, it was the element of self-doubt that raised those stories into another level.

 

Kev