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

[Guest]

>> To my mind the most important event of the 50's as it relates to comics is, without question, the 1955 Senate Subcommittee Hearing on the Impact of Comic Books on Juvenile Deliquency. <<

 

I agree, if we're talking the comics industry as a whole. If we're talking about an event that shaped the superhero genre, though, SHOWCASE # 4 seems to be the main event.

 

It could certainly be argued, though, that without the Wertham/Senate hearings furor of the 1950s, we might never have seen a rise in the superheroes because the horror and crime comics would've gone along uninterrupted. But then again, DC never relied on either of those genres other than in the most tepid of approaches (HOUSE OF MYSTERY on the one hand, GANGBUSTERS on the other), so they very well might've launched the Flash on their own anyway. Who knows?

 

>> since the superhero collectors have dubbed the period just after the fall of the horror/crime kingdom the beginning of the Silver Age, then the entire pre-hero Marvel run must be SA as well, even though Marvel superheroes basically didn't exist until FF #1. <<

 

Can't argue with any of that, either. Of course, Marvel (and Marvel collectors) refer to the Marvel Age of Comics starting in 1961, which kind of skirts the whole issue entirely.

 

I believe Overstreet actually identifies the first Silver Age issue of those late 1956 Atlas anthology titles, based entirely on their publication coming immediately after SHOWCASE # 4. The logic there is that if the Silver Age has a clearly-identified start date, then ipso facto, all comics published thereafter must be Silver Age comics as well. But you're right -- those Atlas monster comics don't have the same Silvery smell to them that an early 1960s FANTASTIC FOUR or INCREDIBLE HULK have.

 

>> So if you are going to talk about a dilution of the actual Atom Age by the citation of a DC superhero, you must also take into account the dilution of the Silver Age (for 5 years) with no Marvel heroes. <<

 

Actually, though, we're not really talking about *diluting* the Silver Age in that case; we're talking about *adding* to it, little by little, so that the Flash was eventually joined by Adam Strange and Green Lantern and the Fly and Captain Atom and Spider-Man and everybody else who followed in the wake of SHOWCASE # 4.

 

Dave

[Zonker]

Dave, I do think this is a fun discussion (as my post count on related topics will attest). But I believe needing to make a link between the Comics Atomic Age and the "real" Atomic Age (= the Baby Boom?) is missing the point a bit. No one is trying to tie the beginning of a Comics Bronze Age with innovations in metal-working in prehistoric times, or the Comics Golden Age with the pre-Homeric Greeks. (To make a somewhat absurd point...)

 

But Povertyrow also puts his finger on something related to my thoughts here when he writes...

To my mind the most important event of the 50's as it relates to comics is, without question, the 1955 Senate Subcommittee Hearing on the Impact of Comic Books on Juvenile Deliquency. The hearing that resulted in the Comics Code...

 

I'm not sure exactly how the Comics Atomic Age name got started, but as a late baby-boomer, my strongest association with the term "Atomic Age" in the world outside comes from a movie clip, I believe from James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause . Speaking about the Dean character (a perceived juvenile deliquent), his mom or dad says "Its not the boy, its the 'age'..." at which point a younger sibling pipes up "yeah, the ATOMIC age!"

 

So, in my mind (a nice place to visit, but ya wouldn't wanna live there ), the term Atomic Age does indeed resonate with the James Dean period: the early 1950s, nuclear paranoia, juvenile deliquency worries, a somewhat-subversive youth culture bubbling up beneath a placid suburban surface... in short, many of the things that come to mind when we consider the pre-Code books, especially the EC's!

 

Regards,

Z.

[PovertyRow]

I agree, if we're talking the comics industry as a whole. If we're talking about an event that shaped the superhero genre, though, SHOWCASE # 4 seems to be the main event.

 

OK - but I am not looking at things that shaped the superhero genre...I am looking at things that shaped the comic world, since this discussion is partially the about defintion of ages, and the validity of suoperheroes being the key age definer.

 

It could certainly be argued, though, that without the Wertham/Senate hearings furor of the 1950s, we might never have seen a rise in the superheroes because the horror and crime comics would've gone along uninterrupted. But then again, DC never relied on either of those genres other than in the most tepid of approaches (HOUSE OF MYSTERY on the one hand, GANGBUSTERS on the other), so they very well might've launched the Flash on their own anyway

 

Yes, that is my thinking exactly: that if the hearings had not happened, we might never have seen a rise in Superheroes (or there may have been a considerably later rise.)

 

I agree that DC may well have come out with Showcase 4, because yes indeed - they were certainly no EC, Atlas etc. What I have to wonder, though, is how that book would have been perceived if the Comics Code had not come into play.

 

Just ran out of time - more later.

[Kevin Boyd]

If you were to strictly define comic book "ages" as ones in which superhero comics were "revived" after a dormancy period then I cannot, in theory buy that there were any ages after the silver age as superhero comics have never stopped being the dominant books in the industry since the silver age revival.

 

I prefer to take the perspective that the end of the silver age/beginning of the next, (commonly accepted as Bronze) as being a shift in tone that took place in superhero comics in 1970 and beyond. That shift in tone directly led to the revisions to the X-Men concept, which didn't really take off until the arrival of John Byrne in 1977/78.

 

GSXM1 is a stand-alone book IMO, not the herald of a "new" age or major superhero revival as there is no evidence that any other concepts took off or were able to parallel the success of X-Men. While in the Silver and Golden Ages we had multiple original concepts starting with successful runs.

 

But to go with your logic, if GS X-Men 1 is the bronze start for Marvel, then what is the DC starting point? The closest equivalent to GSXM1/XMEN 94 is DC Comics Presents 26/New Teen Titans 1 (around 1980). That title was the closest thing to a superhero revival for DC after the revisions to Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman/Green Lantern/Green Arrow that took place around 1970.

 

Kev

 

[Bronty]

Hey Kev,

 

how did that Conan 1 page do?

 

cheers,

Dan

[supapimp]

hey kev,

 

what are the reserves for the sandman original sketches?

 

thanks in advance,

 

p-daddy

[Kevin Boyd]

Hey supapimp,

 

I've PM'd them to you.

 

Bronty, did you mean the Cerebus 1 splash? It went for $3500.

 

Kev

[aardvark88]

Kev, that's top dollar for a single Sim Cerebus art pg ! Way to go.

[Kevin Boyd]

Thanks. I was completely shocked.

 

Only drawback is that our wonderful Canadian banking system has put a hold on the certified check I received for payment for another three weeks and the buyer is VERY upset that I can't release the art until it clears.

 

Kev

[bronze]

For me,the original run of DC One Hundred Page Super Spectaculars(all 50 cents) was a pretty powerful part of the Bronze Age for me.

It was the one thing that 'ol Marvel just couldn't match,in terms of sheer density.

But as far as the start...I'm clueless...

[Bronty]

Yeah, I had the same problem once. New fraud regulations... seems overly onerous

[greggy]

That why Danno that you ask them to send smaller cheques. That's what I told Donut to do and my cheques went in right away!

 

Screw the 25 business day hold!

[Zonker]

Welcome!

Yes, the 100-Pagers were Great! As you mentioned on another thread, they grew out of the 80-page Giants of the '60s. But only when E. Nelson Bridwell started looking after the Super-Specs did they start reprinting the great Golden Age stuff. I have to believe DCs reprint experiments in the early 70s did a lot to turn casual comics readers into rabid collectors of the earlier material.

 

That's how they got me, anyway!

 

Cheers,

Z.