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Post by Rob Allen on Sept 23, 2014 19:23:00 GMT -5
Does anyone know when the term "Bronze Age" came into use? I don't recall ever hearing or seeing it in the 70s. If you'd asked me in 1978, I would have said that we were still in the Silver Age.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 23, 2014 19:40:21 GMT -5
Does anyone know when the term "Bronze Age" came into use? I don't recall ever hearing or seeing it in the 70s. If you'd asked me in 1978, I would have said that we were still in the Silver Age. I didn't realize the Silver Age was a term actually used in the Silver Age. It's interesting to me that there's still contention about whether or not there's a Copper Age. Surely, books published in 1986 aren't "modern" anymore and share little in common with the books on the shelves today. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 23, 2014 19:46:00 GMT -5
Does anyone know when the term "Bronze Age" came into use? I don't recall ever hearing or seeing it in the 70s. If you'd asked me in 1978, I would have said that we were still in the Silver Age. I didn't realize the Silver Age was a term actually used in the Silver Age. It's interesting to me that there's still contention about whether or not there's a Copper Age. Surely, books published in 1986 aren't "modern" anymore and share little in common with the books on the shelves today. I see Dark Age used more often than Copper Age. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 23, 2014 19:50:47 GMT -5
I tend to see the "Ages" more as mindsets about comic books than anything and, thus, I feel that the different ages started at different times, depending upon the company and, sometimes, even the editor. I think Batman hit the Bronze Age far sooner than most of the rest of DC did, for example. Another example: Defenders #16 (1974) vs. Giant Size X-Men #1 (1975). Published within a year of each other, both center on the X-Men franchise, but, though both written by Len Wein, one is ludicrously corny and depends upon outlandish amounts of suspension of disbelief while the other remarkably dire, gritty, and grounded (enormous mutant island aside). Clearly, Wein's attitude towards comic book storytelling matured in that time. By the time Wein moved over to DC and Batman a few years later, he was writing exceptionally dark and grounded material for the Caped Crusader, so much so that he ended up in a battle of wills with editor Paul Levitz, who wanted to return Batman to campier, more familiar territory, with a costumed villain to take down each issue. |
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Post by Paradox on Sept 23, 2014 21:21:43 GMT -5
I do not recall using Silver Age during the Silver Age nor Bronze Age during the Bronze Age. You can't name an "Age" while you're in it, only in retrospect. But, as Kurt notes, it's not anything close to an "exact science".
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2014 21:54:39 GMT -5
Does anyone know when the term "Bronze Age" came into use? I don't recall ever hearing or seeing it in the 70s. If you'd asked me in 1978, I would have said that we were still in the Silver Age. I didn't realize the Silver Age was a term actually used in the Silver Age. It's interesting to me that there's still contention about whether or not there's a Copper Age. Surely, books published in 1986 aren't "modern" anymore and share little in common with the books on the shelves today. I think a lot of that has to do with price guides and now submission tiers at CGC. Right now half the Bronze Age is "modern" according to them. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 24, 2014 3:49:20 GMT -5
The term Golden Age was in use during the 1960s referring to comics from the 30s and 40s. So if somone asked back then what was the current age, the answer would seemingly be Silver. I'm willing to bet that term was used but not widespread
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Post by Paradox on Sept 24, 2014 4:00:02 GMT -5
Maybe, but it wasn't anything like a logical progression, though. Lots of things had a "Golden Age" without any kind of Silver, etc. following it. That term was used for anything that reached some kind of height in its early years, like "The Golden Age of Television". There is no Silver Age of Television. It wasn't related the Olympic medal progression. That came later, and seemingly only in comics (at least I can't think of anything else that does this).
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 24, 2014 4:24:47 GMT -5
Well, we know comic fans are somewhat..unusual. Nobody asks the question "When did the Golden Age of TV end?" with fans trying to provide the answer one network at a time.
It ended when Jack Paar quit the Tonight Show
It ceased with the collapse of the DuMont network
The end of I Love Lucy was the end of the Golden Age
The Golden Age started and ended with Uncle Miltie
I don't remember seeing these things in TV Guide
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Post by Nowhere Man on Sept 24, 2014 7:41:12 GMT -5
The Silver Age of TV ended for me when that annoying red-headed kid became a recurring cast member on Bonanza. *grrrr*
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Post by tolworthy on Sept 24, 2014 7:44:43 GMT -5
I think the silver age is well named. As Hesiod describes the archetypal superheroes, the silver age is when people lived as children for a hundred years and would not grow up (until a very brief time at the end when it all went horribly wrong). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_ManI see the golden age as when stuff actually happened, and the silver age was where time slowed down, where people who actually lived (Kirby, Steranko, etc) were gradually replaced by fans who just read comics and wanted them to continue. Then the bronze age (the 1990s?) was characterized by shiny armor and much violence, followed by the heroic age where man tried to regain lost glories (Marvel's "Heroic Age" coincided with the movie age). Next on the horizon is an iron age of misery and failure. I think Hesiod got it about right. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Sept 24, 2014 11:08:18 GMT -5
Does anyone know when the term "Bronze Age" came into use? I don't recall ever hearing or seeing it in the 70s. If you'd asked me in 1978, I would have said that we were still in the Silver Age. I didn't realize the Silver Age was a term actually used in the Silver Age. Now you've got me thinking... the best I can remember, I didn't see the term Silver Age until the mid-70s - what we now call the Bronze Age. Wikipedia says that the first use of "Silver" for the superhero revival was in 1966, but I wasn't really plugged in to fandom until the mid-70s. That may be why I didn't see it until then. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Sept 24, 2014 12:58:04 GMT -5
At least for Marvel, the end of the Silver Age is pretty clear; Jack Kirby's last issues are in September and the next month is the debut of Conan the Barbarian. For me, this just feels right. The Silver Age lingers on in FF and Amazing Spider-Man because Stan still write's those for two more years or so, but for all intents, Kirby leaving is the real marker.
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Post by dupersuper on Sept 24, 2014 21:14:35 GMT -5
the bronze age (the 1990s?) That's a decade or 2 later than I generally see the bronze age placed... |
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Post by tolworthy on Sept 25, 2014 3:30:41 GMT -5
the bronze age (the 1990s?) That's a decade or 2 later than I generally see the bronze age placed... Give him a break, Hesiod was writing in 650 BC. Only 20 years off? That's pretty good.  PS In another thread I referred to the Pandora's box story by Kirby, featuring "The Thing" (one of the lumpy orange skinned monsters who were all cover dated November 1961). Pandora's Box was recorded by Hesiod. I guess that means Hesiod not only invented the silver age, but was the first silver age comic writer. |
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