Golden Age?! Silver Age?!

[D-Mono]

Okay, so I'm no comic buff, but I can't help but feel a little stupid for not knowing the this - just which time periods do the Golden, Silver, whatever Ages refer to? And what's the differences between them all? What age are we in now? Post-modern?! Gah! 'Tis all so confusing. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :D
D-Mono.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Boy, this should really be in a FAQ...

Golden Age: Begins in the 1930's, with the introductions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and running until the 1950's. Major heroes are the Flash (Jay Garrick), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), and Hawkman (Carter Hall). The superteam of this era was called the Justice Society of America.

Silver Age: Begins in the 1950's, with the introduction of the new Flash (Barry Allen). The period was pretty much the first comics "reboot," where a lot of classic Golden Age characters got re-created by contemporary creators (Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino being two of the biggest ones). Green Lantern became Hal Jordan, and Hawkman became Katar Hol. The superteam of this era is the Justice League of America.

The "eras" become more indistinct after the Silver Age. Some people view the Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 80's as the end of the Silver Age, while others place it earlier. There is no consistent agreement on what age we're in now; I've heard it called the Bronze Age, the Modern Age, or the Post-Modern Age.

-- Ed/Ace

[MattL.]

The Bronze Age is actually over. Bronze was roughly 1972 to 1986.

1986-the present is the Iron Age. If you look at the texts to find out what the the Iron Age actually means, the name becomes extremely fitting.

[JLApe]

What comes after Iron? :confused:

[Joe G.]

Ace covered most of what I was going to say. There's a few things, though...

1) the beginning of the Silver Age. A lot of people view the beginning of the SA as Detective Comics #225, the first appearance of J'onn J'onnz. Why they see it that way, I don't know. Probably because J'onn is a member of the JLofA. I like Showcase #4 personally. But then, I'm a biased Flash fan :)

2) the end of the SA. Most people agree that the end of the SA was in 1973, to cite a specific issue, Amazing Spider-Man #121 -- the death of Gwen Stacy. Comics was coming out of a campy time, thanks to the Batman TV series (now showing on TV Land, btw). This issue, the death of a major character, really changed the whole landscape of comics. Of course, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams had a huge hand in making things how they were, with their series' such as GL/GA and Batman, but the death of Gwen Stacy and the subsequent death of Norman Osborn set the 'darkening' into motion.

That oughta do it :)

[SimonMoon5]

Originally posted by Joe G.
1) the beginning of the Silver Age. A lot of people view the beginning of the SA as Detective Comics #225, the first appearance of J'onn J'onnz. Why they see it that way, I don't know.


I think it's because this is the first new superhero, after the more or less death of the genre at the end of the Golden Age. It's not a perfect starting point because you have the occasional new superhero (such as Captain Comet) appearing between the two ages.

Of course, then with DC characters, some people even try to decide when Superman or Batman stopped being Golden Age characters and started being Silver Age characters. With Batman, the cutoff point is the "new look" Batman usually, but for Superman, it's not so clear cut.


Originally posted by Joe G.

2) the end of the SA. Most people agree that the end of the SA was in 1973, to cite a specific issue, Amazing Spider-Man #121 -- the death of Gwen Stacy.

Oh, that's perhaps the end of Marvel's Silver Age. Different companies have different Ages, imho.