What is the next age of comics? 0

[valiantman]

16 minutes ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Not by me. That still feels like Copper. I think the Copper Age ended in the later '90s, when Marvel cancelled and relaunched most of it's long running titles, Valiant was sold to Acclaim, and many of the other super-hero universes that launched in that decade (Milestone, Comic's Greatest World, Ultraverse, etc.) died out.

Copper Age definitely includes the 1980s, but how far into the 1990s does it go?  Debatable.

You know what's not debatable?  "Comics from the 1980s" and "Comics from the 1990s"   Seriously, let's just forget the imaginary 4th place Olympic Copper Medal. 

[Gatsby77]

18 hours ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Not by me. That still feels like Copper. I think the Copper Age ended in the later '90s, when Marvel cancelled and relaunched most of it's long running titles, Valiant was sold to Acclaim, and many of the other super-hero universes that launched in that decade (Milestone, Comic's Greatest World, Ultraverse, etc.) died out.

I get what you (and Greg) are saying.

But both Overstreet's and eBay now count the "Modern Age" as starting in 1992, dating to Image's debut (or, alternatively, the release of Spawn 1 - which was the first significantly *successful* Image title).

I'd agree with that, because the combination of Unity (not the first Valiant, but when it started to "matter") and Image was easily more important to the comics industry than the B+W explosion (and subsequent implosion) of the mid-80s.

Between Image and Valiant's Unity, the summer of 1992 led to:

• Two new significant comic companies that continue (in some form) to this day
• A slew of 1992-93 creator-owned copycats (Ultraverse, Comics Greatest World, Lightning, Bravura, even the formalized MIlestone and Vertigo imprints).
• Marvel responding to the increased competition by 1) buying Ultraverse and 2) pulling out of Diamond, which led to Cap City's demise and a Diamond monopoly.
• Take this even further, and its - the '92 success of Image/Valiant lead to the '93 comics bubble and burst, and eventually to Marvel's '96 bankruptcy filing, which leads them to sell off the film rights to Spider-Man, FF, and X-Men - the aftershocks of which are still being felt today.

All of this started the summer of 1992.

[littledoom]

Millennium Age

[valiantman]

On 5/5/2020 at 9:01 AM, Gatsby77 said:

I get what you (and Greg) are saying.

But both Overstreet's and eBay now count the "Modern Age" as starting in 1992, dating to Image's debut (or, alternatively, the release of Spawn 1 - which was the first significantly *successful* Image title).

I'd agree with that, because the combination of Unity (not the first Valiant, but when it started to "matter") and Image was easily more important to the comics industry than the B+W explosion (and subsequent implosion) of the mid-80s.

Between Image and Valiant's Unity, the summer of 1992 led to:

• Two new significant comic companies that continue (in some form) to this day
• A slew of 1992-93 creator-owned copycats (Ultraverse, Comics Greatest World, Lightning, Bravura, even the formalized MIlestone and Vertigo imprints).
• Marvel responding to the increased competition by 1) buying Ultraverse and 2) pulling out of Diamond, which led to Cap City's demise and a Diamond monopoly.
• Take this even further, and its - the '92 success of Image/Valiant lead to the '93 comics bubble and burst, and eventually to Marvel's '96 bankruptcy filing, which leads them to sell off the film rights to Spider-Man, FF, and X-Men - the aftershocks of which are still being felt today.

All of this started the summer of 1992.

That's true, but you also had Spider-Man #1 as a major hobby event in 1990, X-Men #1 even bigger in 1991, and if there's an age that "starts in 1992" then it should "end in 1996" because the rise and fall of the comic industry was about 3 or 4 years... and that's too short to be an age.

The term "1990s comics" not only tells you everything you need to know, it's a really accurate description of Spider-Man #1 (McFarlane) and X-Men #1 (Jim Lee) being big enough to start Image Comics.  Jim Shooter (1980s Marvel Editor-In-Chief) starting Valiant in 1990-1991 also starts the "1990s comics" and the 1990s literally gets us right up to the "Ultimate Marvel" - particularly Ultimate Spider-Man starting in 2000.  "2000s comics" are really Ultimate Spider-Man and the moves the other companies made to match that success.  "2010s comics" coincide with the movies, Iron Man 2008 wasn't the MCU by itself, it just got it started and the "2010s comics" were a reaction to movies, shows, options, Walking Dead on HBO started... in 2010.

Everything in comics didn't happen on January 1st, Some-year-that-ends-with-zero, but since 1980 (if not 1970) the decades have been an "unofficial" we-are-ready-to-try-something-new for both publishers and collectors/readers.  We don't need to hide the meaning behind "Unrelated-Metal Ages" where the first words after "Age" are "What does that mean?" and the answer is always: Comics from the _insert_years_here_ (usually decades).  

People keep asking about ages, and like a broken record, I keep saying 1980s means 1980s, 1990s means 1990s, the rest is a waste of time.  I don't mind repeating it because Ebay, Overstreet, CGC, and every other comic book "reference" is still disagreeing about what the ages are called and when they start and end.  You know what doesn't need to be solved?  When the 1980s started and ended. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by valiantman

[Gatsby77]

12 hours ago, valiantman said:

That's true, but you also had Spider-Man #1 as a major hobby event in 1990, X-Men #1 even bigger in 1991, and if there's an age that "starts in 1992" then it should "end in 1996" because the rise and fall of the comic industry was about 3 or 4 years... and that's too short to be an age.

The term "1990s comics" not only tells you everything you need to know, it's a really accurate description of Spider-Man #1 (McFarlane) and X-Men #1 (Jim Lee) being big enough to start Image Comics.  Jim Shooter (1980s Marvel Editor-In-Chief) starting Valiant in 1990-1991 also starts the "1990s comics" and the 1990s literally gets us right up to the "Ultimate Marvel" - particularly Ultimate Spider-Man starting in 2000.  "2000s comics" are really Ultimate Spider-Man and the moves the other companies made to match that success.  "2010s comics" coincide with the movies, Iron Man 2008 wasn't the MCU by itself, it just got it started and the "2010s comics" were a reaction to movies, shows, options, Walking Dead on HBO started... in 2010.

Everything in comics didn't happen on January 1st, Some-year-that-ends-with-zero, but since 1980 (if not 1970) the decades have been an "unofficial" we-are-ready-to-try-something-new for both publishers and collectors/readers.  We don't need to hide the meaning behind "Unrelated-Metal Ages" where the first words after "Age" are "What does that mean?" and the answer is always: Comics from the _insert_years_here_ (usually decades).  

People keep asking about ages, and like a broken record, I keep saying 1980s means 1980s, 1990s means 1990s, the rest is a waste of time.  I don't mind repeating it because Ebay, Overstreet, CGC, and every other comic book "reference" is still disagreeing about what the ages are called and when they start and end.  You know what doesn't need to be solved?  When the 1980s started and ended. 

You may ultimately be right.

One can only ice-skate uphill so much with logical arguments about *actual* epochal movements in the comics industry that deserve to denote start of a new age, before folks just revert to "No - Bronze Age = '70s; Copper Age = '80s, etc."

But what you did above is simply curve-fitting. You want the ages to coincide with decades, so you found found timely events to fit that desired conclusion.

*Especially* with Ultimate Spider-Man 1 - it didn't change Marvel Comics, let alone the industry - in fact, its print run was embarrassingly low for a Spider-Man book. Moreover, it could just as easily have been published in 1998 - or 2002. At best, the legacy of the entire Ultimate line is just two things:

1) Miles Morales' introduction (not even in Ultimate Spider-Man)

2) Giving us a black Sam Jackson-Nick Fury

And Spider-Man 1? Sure - it sold 3 million copies - but it had *far* less long-term impact than Spawn 1- hell, the title didn't even make it 100 issues, and barely anyone was reading it by issue 40. To claim it is important as leading to Image is correct - but the successful 1992 launch of Image as a viable and sustained competitor to Marvel + DC is itself the key - not any random comic book print rum precursor.

By that logic, New Fun Comics # 6 is more important than Action Comics 1, since it enabled Siegel and Shuster to eventually publish Superman.

[valiantman]

Of course I'm "curve-fitting" to make the decades work.  The only way to answer the question of "What is the Blahblah Age?" is to answer with decades.

Besides Action Comics #1, there's no single seminal event in any of these ages that does anything "age-worthy".  Even the start of the Silver Age is somehow two separate events 5 years apart... Showcase #4 in 1956 and Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.

What is the Silver Age?  How does that question ever get answered without someone talking about Marvel in the 1960s?  All our ages are just discussions of decades. 

There's a topic somewhere on this board with the start and stop of the Bronze Age described by about 24 different "events" covering a wide range of years.  What's the summary of those 24 different opinions on the Bronze Age?  The 1970s.

Every age discussion is full of arbitrary "events", depending on whether you're a Marvel (FF #1) or DC fan (SC #4), whether you see some black and white publishers as "greater impact" than others (Albedo? TMNT? Cerebus? Comico?).  Whether Conan #1 is a big deal or not.  Whether the fact that Image barely survived the crash of the 1990s means they were "viable and sustained" or that they were just a single logo on unrelated books for different creators to do whatever they wanted without any continuity or universe-building and if titles failed, so what, there are other titles.  Where are the titles that started Image?  Youngblood?  Brigade?  Shadowhawk?  Cyberforce?  Savage Dragon found "success" in porn.  Wow, that's worthy of... what?

Spawn worked for Image, with Spawn #1 (1992) being nearly a direct copy of the cover of Spider-Man #1 (1990) and Spider-Man #13 (1991) by the same artist.  "If you loved Spider-Man by McFarlane, you'll love Spider-Manawn by McFarlane."

Edited May 7, 2020 by valiantman

[Gatsby77]

2 hours ago, valiantman said:

Of course I'm "curve-fitting" to make the decades work.  The only way to answer the question of "What is the Blahblah Age?" is to answer with decades.

Besides Action Comics #1, there's no single seminal event in any of these ages that does anything "age-worthy".  Even the start of the Silver Age is somehow two separate events 5 years apart... Showcase #4 in 1956 and Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.

What is the Silver Age?  How does that question ever get answered without someone talking about Marvel in the 1960s?  All our ages are just discussions of decades. 

There's a topic somewhere on this board with the start and stop of the Bronze Age described by about 24 different "events" covering a wide range of years.  What's the summary of those 24 different opinions on the Bronze Age?  The 1970s.

Every age discussion is full of arbitrary "events", depending on whether you're a Marvel (FF #1) or DC fan (SC #4), whether you see some black and white publishers as "greater impact" than others (Albedo? TMNT? Cerebus? Comico?).  Whether Conan #1 is a big deal or not.  Whether the fact that Image barely survived the crash of the 1990s means they were "viable and sustained" or that they were just a single logo on unrelated books for different creators to do whatever they wanted without any continuity or universe-building and if titles failed, so what, there are other titles.  Where are the titles that started Image?  Youngblood?  Brigade?  Shadowhawk?  Cyberforce?  Savage Dragon found "success" in porn.  Wow, that's worthy of... what?

Spawn worked for Image, with Spawn #1 (1992) being nearly a direct copy of the cover of Spider-Man #1 (1990) and Spider-Man #13 (1991) by the same artist.  "If you loved Spider-Man by McFarlane, you'll love Spider-Manawn by McFarlane."

?

Show me where's it's anything but 100% rock-solid settled that the Silver Age started with Showcase # 4 in 1956.

To state otherwise, that it began with FF # 1, definitionally means that Showcase # 4, Showcase # 22 and Brave and Bold # 22 (released in December 1959) are all Golden Age books.

Good luck with that.

As to the later ages, again - it's not just me - eBay and Overstreets have both extended the Bronze Age through 1983 for years now, dating the start of the Copper Age with TMNT # 1.

This holds even more when the bulk of both Miller's Daredevil run and Byrne's X-Men feel distinctly Bronze, despite the post-1980 cover dates of many of the books.

[Gatsby77]

And for the record, Youngblood # 1 started Image (duh!) and was (at the time) the most successful indie book in at least 30 years, selling 750k copies.

But Spawn # 1 is the book that made the company a force to be reckoned with, and not just because it actually lasted more than 200 issues and 25+ years -- but because it routinely was the best-selling comic in the country.

Corollary here is Youngblood # 1 = Detective Comics # 1, where Spawn # 1 = Detective Comics # 27.

cf Nintendo / WWF valiant vs. Magnus # 1 vs. Unity # 0.

Which is the most significant of these books?

I'd go with Unity # 0 - which is why, by the extended Copper Age definition, early Magnus and Solar runs belong in the Copper Age.

Incidentally I passed on the pre-Unity Valiant books initially because they struck me as sci-fi titles rather than superhero ones. Early Magnus and Solar - like their Gold Key antecedents, felt (and were) sci-fi titles. It wasn't until Harbinger 1 and X-O 1 that Valiant transitioned to more of a traditional superhero feel.

[valiantman]

Your solution to the problem of defining "ages" is to complicate them with arguments about the bulk of writers' outputs and x-feels-like-y-don't-it?

Uh, have you met the people who ask the question "What is the Blahblah age?" 

They are the same people who think "mint in unopened bag and board" is a correct description of... anything.

The solution to a problem can't be more complicated than the confusion that's causing the problem.

For the record, I don't consider anything that Valiant did as worthy of any consideration in the definition of the "ages", but I do consider them "1990s comics".

Edited May 7, 2020 by valiantman

[valiantman]

22 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

Show me where's it's anything but 100% rock-solid settled that the Silver Age started with Showcase # 4 in 1956.

100% rock-solid settled?  Showcase #4 is dated Sept/Oct 1956.

So, I guess that means that Journey Into Mystery #37 is Golden Age and Journey Into Mystery #38 is Silver Age?  Rock-solid settled.  

Thanks for that not-confusing-at-all factamundo.

[valiantman]

Here's what I suggest to sum up about 80 years of comic books in a way that everyone can understand:

The Golden Age of comic books began in 1938 when Action Comics #1 introduced Superman.  There were a few comic books earlier, but they were mainly compiled newspaper comic strips.  Batman arrived the year after Superman and the Golden Age basically goes through the 1940s and 1950s.  Toward the end of the 1950s, DC launched a new version of The Flash (the all-red suit we recognize today) in 1956 as a big change from the first Flash with a winged metal helmet during the Golden Age.  Other DC titles like Batman and Superman didn't really change much in the 1950s but the "Silver Age" is said to have started with DC in 1956. 

Marvel really got started as a universe in 1961 with Fantastic Four #1, the Hulk, Thor, and Spider-Man first arrived in 1962, and the other household name Marvel titles were around by 1964.  For Marvel, the Silver Age basically means "the 1960s".  What is called "The Bronze Age" is basically comics from the 1970s.  In the 1980s, small publishers with black and white books gained popularity, specifically Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984, but there were others before and after which make "black and white independents" their own thing in the 1980s.  Spider-Man got his black suit in 1984 and it became Venom in 1988. 

In the 1990s, comics got really big and most comic book collections today are still full of overproduced comics from 1993.  Marvel, DC, and Image produced millions of some issues, Superman died, Batman got his back broken, and publishers realized they could put a #1 on a comic pretty much every month... so lots of collections full of 1990s comics are also full of "#1 issues".  Those are, sadly, usually not worth much at all.  In the 2000s, limited variants became the "must have" items and there are examples where comics that are worthless in their regular editions are worth thousands in their "limited variant" forms. 

By the 2010s, the limited variant idea became so common that every issue has two or three (if not thirty-three) variants and there are some Marvel books printed in the 2010s that are worth more than the first appearances of those Marvel characters from the early 1960s.  The 2010s comics started reflecting the excitement of movies and television series, but the variant cover is the one thing that every publisher had to do for pretty much every issue, rather than just special occasions (in the 1990s) or not at all (before the 1980s). 

The 2020s are starting with no comic books at all during the COVID-19 crisis, so it will be interesting to see how the decade plays out for printed books only found in comic shops, since newsstand issues were stopped by Marvel and DC during the 2010s.  Digital comics are not collectible... yet... but that's probably coming next since sportscards have collectible digital cards and the now-unavoidable variants in comics followed the "chase card craze" of the sportscards that did it ten or twenty years earlier.  Terms like "Copper Age", "Chromium Age", "Modern Age", and similar may be applied by some collectors or websites, but they don't agree on what dates to use, so it's easiest to recognize the Golden Age up to 1956, the Silver Age until 1970, the Bronze Age until 1980, and comics in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, etc., are exactly what it sounds like, whether another "Age" label is used or not.

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

P.S.  The never-ending discussions and dissertations on the themes and styles of artists and writers for genre-changing shake-weight complexities are fine for The Ages In Sequential Art And Graphical Underwater Basket-Weaving 101 at the collegiate level, but the whole exercise seems a lot like... well... shakin' a shake-weight.

Edited May 7, 2020 by valiantman

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

8 hours ago, valiantman said:

Here's what I suggest to sum up about 80 years of comic books in a way that everyone can understand:

The Golden Age of comic books began in 1938 when Action Comics #1 introduced Superman.  There were a few comic books earlier, but they were mainly compiled newspaper comic strips.  Batman arrived the year after Superman and the Golden Age basically goes through the 1940s and 1950s.  Toward the end of the 1950s, DC launched a new version of The Flash (the all-red suit we recognize today) in 1956 as a big change from the first Flash with a winged metal helmet during the Golden Age.  Other DC titles like Batman and Superman didn't really change much in the 1950s but the "Silver Age" is said to have started with DC in 1956. 

Marvel really got started as a universe in 1961 with Fantastic Four #1, the Hulk, Thor, and Spider-Man first arrived in 1962, and the other household name Marvel titles were around by 1964.  For Marvel, the Silver Age basically means "the 1960s".  What is called "The Bronze Age" is basically comics from the 1970s.  In the 1980s, small publishers with black and white books gained popularity, specifically Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984, but there were others before and after which make "black and white independents" their own thing in the 1980s.  Spider-Man got his black suit in 1984 and it became Venom in 1988. 

In the 1990s, comics got really big and most comic book collections today are still full of overproduced comics from 1993.  Marvel, DC, and Image produced millions of some issues, Superman died, Batman got his back broken, and publishers realized they could put a #1 on a comic pretty much every month... so lots of collections full of 1990s comics are also full of "#1 issues".  Those are, sadly, usually not worth much at all.  In the 2000s, limited variants became the "must have" items and there are examples where comics that are worthless in their regular editions are worth thousands in their "limited variant" forms. 

By the 2010s, the limited variant idea became so common that every issue has two or three (if not thirty-three) variants and there are some Marvel books printed in the 2010s that are worth more than the first appearances of those Marvel characters from the early 1960s.  The 2010s comics started reflecting the excitement of movies and television series, but the variant cover is the one thing that every publisher had to do for pretty much every issue, rather than just special occasions (in the 1990s) or not at all (before the 1980s). 

The 2020s are starting with no comic books at all during the COVID-19 crisis, so it will be interesting to see how the decade plays out for printed books only found in comic shops, since newsstand issues were stopped by Marvel and DC during the 2010s.  Digital comics are not collectible... yet... but that's probably coming next since sportscards have collectible digital cards and the now-unavoidable variants in comics followed the "chase card craze" of the sportscards that did it ten or twenty years earlier.  Terms like "Copper Age", "Chromium Age", "Modern Age", and similar may be applied by some collectors or websites, but they don't agree on what dates to use, so it's easiest to recognize the Golden Age up to 1956, the Silver Age until 1970, the Bronze Age until 1980, and comics in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, etc., are exactly what it sounds like, whether another "Age" label is used or not.

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

P.S.  The never-ending discussions and dissertations on the themes and styles of artists and writers for genre-changing shake-weight complexities are fine for The Ages In Sequential Art And Graphical Underwater Basket-Weaving 101 at the collegiate level, but the whole exercise seems a lot like... well... shakin' a shake-weight.

I don't disagree with the general premise that it's easier to identify books by the date they were published, but ages generally convey a particular feeling, A book from 1990 feels a lot more like a book published in 1989 from the same company than it does like one published in 1999. I also agree with what you pointed out about the two issues of JiM. They belong to the same age because they have the same feel, regardless of whether Showcase 4 was published between them. Different titles enter the new age at different times, as people catch up with the trendsetters. The Silver Age was largely a revival of super-hero comics, after the Golden Age diversified into all sorts of genres (westerns, romance, science fiction, etc.). The Bronze Age was largely defined by pushing the boundaries of the content and testing the limits of the CCA (initially, anyway, and then generally books became more mature). I think the Copper Age was largely about a few things, with creator rights and changing distribution systems at the core. It's a little earlier than most people suggest, but I think the catalyst for the Copper Age was the DC implosion. That led to many departures from DC, the most important amongst them probably being Archie Goodwin and Larry Hama. They both ended up at Marvel, where Goodwin helmed the launch of Marvel's first (mostly) creator-owned imprint (Epic), and Larry Hama's work on G.I. Joe led to an explosion in licensed material.

I see the formation of Image as being a relative midpoint of the Copper Age. Sure, the fight over creator rights culminated here, but the first few years showed a lot of the problems with having a line that was run by the creators, with late and canceled books a regular occurrence. I don't think it was until Liefeld and Lee came back to Marvel for a bit that Image started settling down into what it more closely resembles today.

It's interesting that you point out our current situation as the potential beginning of a new era, especially as Bad Idea is about to test new distribution methods. Eniac #1 might be the first book of the new age.

[valiantman]

17 hours ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

I don't disagree with the general premise that it's easier to identify books by the date they were published, but ages generally convey a particular feeling, A book from 1990 feels a lot more like a book published in 1989 from the same company than it does like one published in 1999. I also agree with what you pointed out about the two issues of JiM. They belong to the same age because they have the same feel, regardless of whether Showcase 4 was published between them. Different titles enter the new age at different times, as people catch up with the trendsetters. The Silver Age was largely a revival of super-hero comics, after the Golden Age diversified into all sorts of genres (westerns, romance, science fiction, etc.). The Bronze Age was largely defined by pushing the boundaries of the content and testing the limits of the CCA (initially, anyway, and then generally books became more mature). I think the Copper Age was largely about a few things, with creator rights and changing distribution systems at the core. It's a little earlier than most people suggest, but I think the catalyst for the Copper Age was the DC implosion. That led to many departures from DC, the most important amongst them probably being Archie Goodwin and Larry Hama. They both ended up at Marvel, where Goodwin helmed the launch of Marvel's first (mostly) creator-owned imprint (Epic), and Larry Hama's work on G.I. Joe led to an explosion in licensed material.

I see the formation of Image as being a relative midpoint of the Copper Age. Sure, the fight over creator rights culminated here, but the first few years showed a lot of the problems with having a line that was run by the creators, with late and canceled books a regular occurrence. I don't think it was until Liefeld and Lee came back to Marvel for a bit that Image started settling down into what it more closely resembles today.

It's interesting that you point out our current situation as the potential beginning of a new era, especially as Bad Idea is about to test new distribution methods. Eniac #1 might be the first book of the new age.

That's all well and good, but you've clearly stated the problem: "Different titles enter the new age at different times, as people catch up with the trendsetters."  

So we're going to tell new collectors what?  They ask: "What's the Silver Age?"  Our answer:  "Well, you see, the trends of the Golden Age culminated in the... "

 

...and they're asleep.   

 

 

 

If you had just said "1960s comics, for the most part" they'd still be awake and maybe even thinking about what to collect. 

Edited May 8, 2020 by valiantman

[Gatsby77]

21 minutes ago, valiantman said:

If you had just said "1960s comics, for the most part" they'd still be awake and maybe even thinking about what to collect. 

Again - No.

I get that you said 1960s "for the most part" but that blatantly ignores a slew of significant DC character introductions that took place over more than a three-year period then -- that *no one* considers anything but Silver Age.

Those include the first and/or first Silver Age appearances of:

• The Flash
• Green Lantern
• The Martian Manhunter
• The Justice League of America
• Legion of Superheroes
• Sgt. Rock
• Braniac
• Supergirl
• Bizarro

Limiting the Silver Age to "the 1960s" excludes 8 of the top 20 key Silver Age books according to Overstreet's (at least of 2018) and is a blatant slap in the face of DC collectors.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by Gatsby77

[valiantman]

34 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

Again - No.

I get that you said 1960s "for the most part" but that blatantly ignores a slew of significant DC character introductions that took place over more than a three-year period then -- that *no one* considers anything but Silver Age.

Those include the first and/or first Silver Age appearances of:

• The Flash
• Green Lantern
• The Martian Manhunter
• The Justice League of America
• Legion of Superheroes
• Sgt. Rock
• Braniac
• Supergirl
• Bizarro

Limiting the Silver Age to "the 1960s" excludes 8 of the top 20 key Silver Age books according to Overstreet's (at least of 2018) and is a blatant slap in the face of DC collectors.

12 out of 20 is "most"... The first 100 issues of Spider-Man have more day-to-day market activity than all of 1950s DC.  ...and what is Showcase #3?  Golden Age?

Fine - say "late-1950s DC, 1960s everything" - and the people aren't asleep yet.  What's the first Silver Age Superman?  ...well, that depends on... and... snooze.

No one entering this hobby is going to be impressed by our pontificating on themes and pointing out how Sgt. Rock is a Silver Age character who fought in Golden Age wars but he wasn't around back then.  We might as well put on wizard hats and roll dodecahedrons when they ask a question like "What's the Bronze Age?"

Or... we could say "comics from the 1970s".  

Edited May 8, 2020 by valiantman

[Hollywood1892]

I understand the first three ages but outside of time "how does a book go from Modern to an element?"

[valiantman]

1 minute ago, Hollywood1892 said:

I understand the first three ages but outside of time "how does a book go from Modern to an element?"

It's not even an element with Bronze.  Gold and Silver are on the periodic table but Bronze is known best as an Olympic medal which is elementally mostly Copper mixed with a little Tin... so that's not confusing at all to have Copper Age after Bronze or to imply Copper is some 4th Place Olympic Medal.  It's funny to note that the Golden Age, Silver Age, and Bronze Age in Greek were followed by a fourth age... the Age of Heroes... which would be a more appropriate name than Copper Age following our borrowing from the Greeks/Olympics, but would be no different than every other age of comics... Age of Heroes.  Let's get to "themes" Age of the Anti-Heroes, ooooh, doesn't that sound aweso---whoops, my dodecahedron fell out of my pocket protector.

[Gatsby77]

35 minutes ago, valiantman said:

12 out of 20 is "most"... The first 100 issues of Spider-Man have more day-to-day market activity than all of 1950s DC.  ...and what is Showcase #3?  Golden Age?

Fine - say "late-1950s DC, 1960s everything" - and the people aren't asleep yet.  What's the first Silver Age Superman?  ...well, that depends on... and... snooze.

No one entering this hobby is going to be impressed by our pontificating on themes and pointing out how Sgt. Rock is a Silver Age character who fought in Golden Age wars but he wasn't around back then.  We might as well put on wizard hats and roll dodecahedrons when they ask a question like "What's the Bronze Age?"

You're setting up an irrelevant Straw Man by focusing on this theoretical newbie to the hobby.

The reality is that *anyone* - even a neophyte investor - looking to drop thousands of dollars on a Showcase 4, Showcase 22, or Action 252 - isn't going to have the attention span of a gnat.

And will be able to pay attention long enough for you to cough out "the Silver Age of comics started in late '50s."

Because it mother-ducking *did.*

Edited May 8, 2020 by Gatsby77

[valiantman]

1 minute ago, Gatsby77 said:

You're setting up an irrelevant Straw Man by focusing on this theoretical newbie to the hobby.

The reality anyone - even a neophyte investor - looking to drop thousands of dollars on a Showcase 4, Showcase 22, or Action 252 - isn't going to have the attention span of a gnat.

And will be able to pay attention long enough for you to cough out "the Silver Age of comics started in 1956."

Because it mother-ducking *did.*

"What is the Silver Age of comics?" is asked on Google a million times by people who think 1990s comics are "antiques" before some actual person willing to shell out $10,000+ on a 1950s DC book would find this discussion.

Hello Google visitor - welcome to our page.  What is the Silver Age of comics?  It was the late-1950s from DC and all of the 1960s in comics.  Thanks for visiting.

I set up a Straw Man?  At least I didn't give him a pocket full of gold doubloons to spend on Green Lantern.

[Hollywood1892]

59 minutes ago, valiantman said:

It's not even an element with Bronze.  Gold and Silver are on the periodic table but Bronze is known best as an Olympic medal which is elementally mostly Copper mixed with a little Tin... so that's not confusing at all to have Copper Age after Bronze or to imply Copper is some 4th Place Olympic Medal.  It's funny to note that the Golden Age, Silver Age, and Bronze Age in Greek were followed by a fourth age... the Age of Heroes... which would be a more appropriate name than Copper Age following our borrowing from the Greeks/Olympics, but would be no different than every other age of comics... Age of Heroes.  Let's get to "themes" Age of the Anti-Heroes, ooooh, doesn't that sound aweso---whoops, my dodecahedron fell out of my pocket protector.

I agree

Age of Heroes has a good ring to it!

Then Anti Heroes!