What book ENDED the Bronze Age of Comics????

[valiantman]

Assuming that we're "closing in" on an answer to what book STARTED

the Bronze Age... how about some ideas for books that ENDED it?

 

I guess some obvious choices for the "beginning" of the next age might be:

TMNT #1

Crisis on Infinite Earths #1

(or Man of Steel #1)

Dark Horse Presents #1

 

So...what books would still be considered Bronze Age, but "just barely"?

[Metarog]

I think the Bronze age ended a little before those events around 1981 or 82 when the Direct market began to really change the way comics would be distributed. Around this time there were other seminal events such as the explosion of independent publishers (again due to the direct market system) and a new style of comics began with Miller's tenure on Daredevil. This time marks the end of the BA in my mind.

[seank]

Daredevil 158 is the start of the end of the bronze age.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

"Daredevil 158 is the start of the end of the bronze age."

 

I can see where this is going. Soon we'll be debating what the END of the end of the Bronze Age was, leading to further threads like:

 

"What was the end of the middle of the beginning of the Silver Age, and why?"

 

"The Bronze Age began its beginning with this book, but ending its beginning in the middle with this one..."

 

Oh my achin' head.

[Kevin Boyd]

I think it's tough to pinpoint a specific end to the bronze age, can you think of a specific book that can be considered the last of the silver age, or gold?

 

Since I could say that since ASM95 was the last Silver age issue of Spider-Man, or GL 75 was the last Silver Age Green Lantern, then Amazing 251 might be the last Bronze age Spider-Man, with ASM252 (1st black costume) being the first Copper Age issue.

 

Saga of the Swamp Thing 21 was the first copper age Swamp Thing, while SOTSW 20 was the last Bronze Age issue.

 

I might be inclined to say that Daredevil 227 (start of Miller's Born Again) was the first Copper age Daredevil, with 226 being the last Bronze Age. Remember that as ground breaking as Miller's first run was, the status quo, while shaken, remained.

 

... and so on, like...here are some of the easily identifiable DC Copper starts...

 

1st Copper Age Batman - Dark Knight Returns 1... but in the monthlies, the change doesn't really start until Batman 401 (Magpie from Man of Steel 3 appears) or 404 (Year One starts)

1st Copper Age Superman - Man of Steel 1 (Superman monthlies on hiatus)

1st Copper Age Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman 1

1st Copper Age Justice League - Legends 6

 

Kev

 

[minutekev@50]

For some reason I just look as December 31, 1979 as the end of the bronze age. When I think Silver I think 60s. When I think Bronze I think 70s.

[Zonker]

I think it's tough to pinpoint a specific end to the bronze age, can you think of a specific book that can be considered the last of the silver age, or gold?

 

Kev,

I've personally always agreed with Roy Thomas that the final issue of All-Star Comics with the JSA was the swan song of the Golden Age. And several people have suggested that the end of the Silver Age is Kirby's last Fantastic Four.

 

Given the controversy about the whole Bronze Age time frame we may never get to anything like an agreed end point. I do like the idea of focusing on the Miller Daredevil as a turning point of some kind-- but I'd personally tend to think the watershed occured when he started writing and drawing in #168 rather than drawing from #158 onward.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[Kevin Boyd]

We've been discussing the range of the Bronze era in that Bronze Age thread.

 

Copper had to have a significant event or change in tone in order to indicate the beginning of a new era.

 

I tend to think it was the revisionism and special-event crossovers that heralded the start of the new era... starting with Crisis and Secret Wars (annual crossovers), Moore's Swamp Thing (birth of Vertigo), costume changes (Spider-Man), complete makeovers (Superman, WW, Captain Marvel, Hawkman), replacements (GL, Iron Man), attitude changes (Batman, Green Arrow), and so on.

 

Tie that in with the rise of X-Men as the best-selling line of books and the black and white boom of the mid-1980's (TMNT, Flaming Carrot, Usagi Yojimbo, Grendel) and the appearance of new color alternative works of merit (American Flagg!, Dreadstar, Nexus) and you suddenly notice that the mid-1980's were significant years for the ARTISTIC shifts in American comic books - which in my mind heralds the arrival of a new era.

 

Kev

 

 

[Kevin Boyd]

I don't want to contradict those fine gentlemen, but I could just as easily say that the final nail in the coffin of the golden age was the failed revival of Cap, Torch and Namor in the early 1950's and that the silver age "died" on that bridge with Gwen Stacy in ASM 121.

 

I don't really want to debate the ends of those eras.

 

And I believe Elektra is definitely a bronze character as she is an anti-hero in the mold of Wolverine, Punisher, etc.

 

Kev

 

 

[Zonker]

Right on-- it will be a never-ending debate! (as we've seen in the Bronze threads)

 

I like the idea of something different (Copper Age?) started by the rise of the (successful) alternatives to Marvel/DC. Pacific Comics I think was the first in late 1981. Don't want to push that too hard though, as Captain Victory #1 is not an easy book to defend as the start of a new age!

 

To the question at hand then, how about the end of the Bronze Age being the final Bryne/Claremont issue of X-Men #143 in March 1981? The post-Dark Phoenix speculation binge was in full swing, the Direct Market was established, and the Independents were just starting to draft their business plans.

[Kevin Boyd]

Hmmmm.... X-MEN 143.... interesting choice, but Dave Cockrum, the original New X-Men artist was back for more x-fun only a couple of issues after that (for a couple years) in the same vein as his and Claremont's earlier stories (and Byrne's). Paul Smith's run was pretty unique artistically, but story-wise? More Claremont fun.

 

I might be more inclined to pick Uncanny X-Men 171 - the arrival of Rogue to the team as Copper book (making UXM170 the last) - even though it precedes Secret Wars by almost a year.

 

The rise of alternates was also a Bronze trait... beginning with Cerebus, Elfquest, First Kingdom, Silver Star, Destroyer Duck, Elric... all characters in the Bronze mold. Alternatives didn't really begin experimenting with new directions and unique characters until the 1983-84.

 

Kev

[vic6string]

I go with Crisis #1 starting the next age after bronze. It was the start of the mega crossover event, and was the first time that one of the big two acknowledged that the status quo was growing old and stale. Sure, characters had been revamped before, like Batman or GL during the Adams run, or the new x-men team, but this was the first tiem that the companies actually came out and said "this will change everything". After this, regular stories weren't good enough...you needed some sort of earth-shattering event at least once a year. Also, this was the first time that either company really started looking at their books as parts of a greater whole. Sure, Spidey had been seen with Daredevil, Hulk fought Thing, and everyone was in JLA, but their never really was a feeling of complete continuity in either Marvel or DC. Things that happened in one book only affected things in another book when they were specifically tied together in a crossover. Later independant companies even kept that in mind, and would launch new titles under one big continuity, most notably Valiant and Malibu's Ultraverse and the Dark Horse stuff with Ghost and X and all the others. Marvel even tried their own New Universe.

 

This doesn't cover the rise of the independants, but really that was just not big enough to be considered something that changed the hobby. TMNT was huge, but the original comic line is not what was huge...it was the hoaky cartoon that came after it. As cool as Cerebus and Elfquest and the other great early independants were, they weren't somethign anyone knew about except true comic collectors. These weren't books you talked to your buddies about in school or could even pick up at the newsstands. I think those titles were a build up to what I call the Independant age that was kicked off by Wilcats #1 (or Spawn #1, whichever came first) That is when independants truly entered the game. They would not have happened without those older smaller publishers, but it wasn't until Wildcats and Spawn and Youngblood took over the top spots in sales that people most really believed that independants were a viable alternative. Without the image explosion, there would have been no Valiant explosion, or Malibu, or Dark Horse, or any of the others that came after. It might have all started with Cerebus or Elfquest, or TMNT later on, but it was nothing but a small counter-culture until McFarlane Liefeld and Lee et al. jumped ship.

[supapimp]

i said it before and i'll say it again, dazzler 1 first direct comic. OK zilla, im waiting for you to bust my balls on this one, all knowing and seeing!

[Kevin Boyd]

They would not have happened without those older smaller publishers, but it wasn't until Wildcats and Spawn and Youngblood took over the top spots in sales that people most really believed that independants were a viable alternative. Without the image explosion, there would have been no Valiant explosion, or Malibu, or Dark Horse, or any of the others that came after.

 

I agree on Crisis #1 - which is also directly responsible for your "independant age" (which I think is still part of Copper BTW). Your "independant age" books were not really populated by the true independants but rather Marvel and DC wannabes like Valiant, Image and Malibu and Dark Horse's super-hero line. Perhaps you should call it the "wannabe age"

 

How is that Kev? I hear you ask.... well, let me tell you.

 

After Crisis - DC not only revamps almost all of it's core characters, but they do it with artists and writers who have been making waves at MARVEL like Miller, Byrne, etc. and with artists making waves on the alternative scene (like Truman and even Grell, a former employee of DCs) and by forcing solid Marvel-style continuity and inter-relationships between characters and titles, so that, for the first time ever really, DC has a cohesive group of titles and DC goes from being distant second. Marvel Zombies suddenly start defecting to DC because they start out-Marvelling the regular Marvel books and they are on the rise to dethroning Marvel by the end of the decade as the most popular company.

 

Suddenly there are no longer Marvel zombies per se, but fans collecting books from both companies. Marvel recruits new talents to do their books, but after only a couple of years of producing books for Marvel, those guys (also approached by DC to move to them) decide why bother going to either company. If fans will support two universes (DC's and Marvel's), then why not a third? With Shooter's Valiant rising at the same time you have a fourth... Malibu's Ultraverse makes it five... then Dark Horse gets into it for six... and there were others not worth mentioning.

 

Kev

[500Club]

Pencil my vote in as Dark Knight Returns 1.

 

This seemed to be the point at which the general tone of comics started to change.

[HighVoltage]

I love these Bronze Threads! (naw, I'm not talkin' about my hip wardrobe...)

 

To me, Bronze is all about the 70's - Crisis and Moore's Swamp Thing feel way too deep into the 80's to start a new era.

 

I'd focus on X-Men #137 - Death of Jean Grey. I remember that book issue so vividly, compared to anything else out at the time - and I believe it came out right around 1980...

 

(and I realize they brought Jean back, but I'm not sure if I choose to believe it's her! )

[lighthouse]

Personally, I don't think the end of one age and the beginning of the next are connected at all...

 

It's not true of military empires... or artistic eras... or sports dynasties...

 

There are time periods that are part of an "Age", and there are time periods that just aren't... this notion that one Age must bump directly against the next minimizes what an "Age" really is...

 

We as collectors try to define the boundaries in such a way that every issue will 'fit' into a particular Age... "if it's not Silver, it must be Bronze"... that's fine for our own shorthand, but the nomenclature isn't terribly accurate.

 

The comics of 1968 have very little in common with those of 1956-1965, and yet we feel compelled to include them as Silver, because clearly they don't belong with Bronze. Most any collector here will tell you that the books of 1973-74 are the height of the Bronze Age... but the books of 1968 have almost nothing in common with them, so we force the 1968 books to be "Silver"...

 

I am as guilty as the next guy... In my shop, the books are sorted by Age, and signage behind the Silver Age indicates that you will find books from 1956 to 1970 there... The signage behind the Bronze Age indicates you will find books from 1971-1979... But those signs are a seller's convenience, not the stamp of cultural observation. The signs breaking down the remaining decades describe all the books as Modern... Modern 1980-1989 and so on...

 

I would have a hard time arguing with someone who said that '38-'45 is Golden Age, '56-'65 is Silver Age, '71-'75 is Monster Age, and there are no ages since then... But for our own convenience we slap labels on them. So you'll find The Cat, Isis, and Human Fly on the Bronze Age tables... because that's when they were produced...

 

But for the sake of argument, if I had to pick one book to respond to the initial thread, it would be Daredevil 157.

[Mister_Comics]

Is there anywhere some kind of timeline of events for comics? Something on the net? Or in books? If not, that would be something that could be put together that I think a lot of comic collectors would like to see. I really believe its not just a single comic book that starts and ends a age. It more like a chain of events.

 

I seen in ENCARTA a timeline of history throughout the century that is pretty cool. Something like that for comics would be great. It would make things more clear to everyone.

[Warlord]

 

supapimp writes:

i said it before and i'll say it again, dazzler 1 first direct comic

 

I think that Superboy Spectacular #1 in 1980 was the first direct comic. Dazzler #1 was the first issue of an ongoing title that was a direct comic is all.

 

 

 

[murph0]

No I'm pretty sure Dazzler was Wayne, but I don't follow DC so who knows. Anyways, Dazzler is the start of the Modern Age or are we trying to say that Dazzler 1 ENDS the bronze age AND starts the modern age?

 

Brian