Pick Your Favorite Comic Book Era

[goldust40]

For me it was the '70s ('72 onwards), and DC horror, followed closely by super-hero and war. I wanted every book DC published at that time (I got into Marvel a couple of years later). I bought the books solely to read, although I did take care of them, and still have every single one.

 

Certain books were read many times (there were only three T.V. channels in the U.K. until '82). Even now if I get a stack of B.A. books in I'll read at least a couple of them. Absolute magic.

 

As far as collecting is concerned, I love the Silver and Bronze Ages but I picked Gold as it's more exotic and rare (and in many cases, very odd). I find it more interesting to see a comic I never knew about previously, especially pre-code horror and Timely / Nedor / MLJ war covers.

 

I do tend to read moderns mostly.

[heinlein99]

I grew up in Bronze and love them, but it seems like at one time or another I've owned so many comics from that era that they've grown less interesting to me. So, I voted for silver.

[Norrin_Radd]

Seems to me that most collectors are interested in the era they grew up in, then when they get older, they move to the preceding era (or eras). For most of us that's BA/CA and SA, respectively. Just an observation.

 

I'm getting more and more into reading Silver.

[Silver Surfer]

How about 1977 to 1983. I was a kid then but I haven't had that much excitment reading comics off the newsstand ever since. All those great artists and up and coming ones at their peak. Hard to find a period (say other than the early 60's) when you could say the FF, Spidey, Avengers, X-Men, Thor were all oustanding at the same time.

[Zonker]

I chose Bronze, and specifically the period from January 1970 to December 1974. I've gone on and on and on about this before, but as a DC fan, this really was the tops-

 

Batman by Denny O'Neil & Neal Adams starting in Detective 395 (Jan 1970)

Green Lantern/Green Arrow by the same team

Swamp Thing by Wein & Wrightson

The Shadow by Kaluta

Jack Kirby's Fourth World (New Gods, Mr. Miracle, Forever People, Jimmy Olsen)

Superman drawn by Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson

JLA written by Denny O'Neil, Mike Friedrich, and especially Len Wein

Lots of cool little mini-series like Hot Wheels, Sword of Sorcery, Weird Worlds

The pre-X-Men Legion of Super-Heroes by Dave Cockrum

Tarzan by Joe Kubert

Classic issues of House of Mystery/House of Secrets/Witching Hour etc

The Spectre series in Adventure Comics by Fleischer & Aparo

Great Aparo art also in Phantom Stranger and Brave & Bold

Manhunter by Archie Goodwin & Walt Simonson, ending in Detective 443 (Dec 1974)

 

[BradleyX2]

I think the greatest era for comics (being the Marvel Zombie that I am), is the period from 1976-1986.

 

You had Fantastic Four by John Byrne.

Thor by Walt Simonson

Hulk by Bill Mantlo

Spider-Man by Roger Stern

Daredevil by Frank Miller

Captain America by J.M. DeMatteis

Avengers by Jim Shooter and then Roger Stern

Iron Man by Denny O'Neil

 

 

[shrunkenhead]

I picked Gold, my favorite stuff being the pre-code horror (basically for the reasons goldust already mentioned) and the golden age spectre stuff, which I'm just starting to get serious about this year. Also have a thing for the EC crime books, but most other GA crime doesn't do it for me (with a few of the classic exceptions).

 

Runner-up is definitely bronze DC horror, though. Someday I'll own 'em all in NM! (only about 880 more to go... )

[blowout]

I think the greatest era for comics (being the Marvel Zombie that I am), is the period from 1976-1986.

 

You had Fantastic Four by John Byrne.

Thor by Walt Simonson

Hulk by Bill Mantlo

Spider-Man by Roger Stern

Daredevil by Frank Miller

Captain America by J.M. DeMatteis

Avengers by Jim Shooter and then Roger Stern

Iron Man by Denny O'Neil

 

 

 

You missed X-Men by Claremont & Byrne.

[Darthdiesel]

grew up reading late bronze and copper; now I collect and read moderns and just collect bronze - can't read it since it'd totally mess up the continuity for me

[Silver Surfer]

I think the greatest era for comics (being the Marvel Zombie that I am), is the period from 1976-1986.

 

You had Fantastic Four by John Byrne.

Thor by Walt Simonson

Hulk by Bill Mantlo

Spider-Man by Roger Stern

Daredevil by Frank Miller

Captain America by J.M. DeMatteis

Avengers by Jim Shooter and then Roger Stern

Iron Man by Denny O'Neil

 

 

 

You missed X-Men by Claremont & Byrne.

 

Ah the memories. I have been rebuying these raw and slabbed in high grade lately, what a treat.

[chrisco37]

My pick was for Modern's. Based on the date 1980 and up, I couldn't pick anything else.

 

I love the Silver Age (especially the FF), but the stories have become cheesy/goofy. From 1980 on, you get so much: Alan Moore's everything, Gaiman's Sandman, Miller's DD & Dark Knight, Crisis, Claremont/Byrne, Vertigo, and on and on. Just way too much good, thought-provoking stuff for me to vote otherwise.

[hobbes]

I was tempted to pick the Bronze Age since my back issue purchases are dominated by that time period. However my thoughts are pretty much the same as Chrisco's so I picked the Modern Age. I started buying comics in the early 80's so that time period will always be special to me.

[Peter_Parker59]

Seems like SA and BA are tied up in this poll...

 

I presonnally discovered comics in the mid-seventies, but through (french)reprints of Marvel SA material. This is why SA is my favorite era, whereas I started buying "off the newstands" in 1982.

SA comics sure have less "mature" material than moderns, but they've set up a whole universe, as long as Marvel comics are concerned.

The problem is that the stories from the SA Marvels are so well-known now that we tend to disregard their quality.

[tilleycs]

I discovered comics in the late 70's, so I chose the Bronze Age. I started collecting DCs (Green Lantern, Flash, and the JLA) and later switched to Marvel (FF, mainly, with Cap, DD, and Iron Man sprinkled in here & there). Once I started buy back issues, I got into the SA.

 

Now that I'm back into collecting after more than a 10-year hiatus, I've got issues from the GA to moderns.

[rjpb]

Sign me up for the "reads Moderns, collects GA" club. As skybolt broadly defines the eras, I love the look of the comics and history behind the Golden Age, and the relative scarcity makes books from that era fun to collect, but while there is some good reading from that era, as there is for all eras, I find the writing in comics over the last 20 years to be far more inventive and mature than in the past - not to say that there isn't tons of crapp out there, but that's always the case, whether you are talking about comics, movies, fine art, or music.

 

I started reading comics towards the end of the Silver Age, and was a dedicated collector during the early years of the Bronze Age. The BA is probably my least favorite era for both reading and collecting. While there is some cool stuff from the early 70s, especially undergrounds, the declining quality of both art & story for Marvel & DC during this era is what caused me lose interest in mainstream comics for a number of years.