When Did the Silver Age of Comics End?
This is a hard one.
Industry pros tend to point to Jack Kirby leaving Marvel for DC in 1970, making Fantastic Four 102, the first non-Kirby issue, the marker for the end of the Silver Age and beginning of the Bronze.
While I have no doubt Kirby leaving Marvel had enormous impact, I'm not sure what the direct impact was on comic books as a whole.
One book published right around that time DID have that kind of influence, spawning countless imitators for years thereafter: Green Lantern/Green Arrow # 76:
This was the book which started Denny O'Neill's famous "Hard Travellin' Heroes" storyline, and injected contemporary politics into a superhero magazine. Now, I didn't find the liberal propaganda to be to my taste, but given how many comic creators to this day try to reproduce what O'Neill did for the first time here, I cannot deny it was earth-shaking in its day.
Before this book, standard Silver Age comic fare. After, lots and lots of painful attempts to make comics "relevant."
Apres lui, le deluge.
Industry pros tend to point to Jack Kirby leaving Marvel for DC in 1970, making Fantastic Four 102, the first non-Kirby issue, the marker for the end of the Silver Age and beginning of the Bronze.
While I have no doubt Kirby leaving Marvel had enormous impact, I'm not sure what the direct impact was on comic books as a whole.
One book published right around that time DID have that kind of influence, spawning countless imitators for years thereafter: Green Lantern/Green Arrow # 76:
This was the book which started Denny O'Neill's famous "Hard Travellin' Heroes" storyline, and injected contemporary politics into a superhero magazine. Now, I didn't find the liberal propaganda to be to my taste, but given how many comic creators to this day try to reproduce what O'Neill did for the first time here, I cannot deny it was earth-shaking in its day.
Before this book, standard Silver Age comic fare. After, lots and lots of painful attempts to make comics "relevant."
Apres lui, le deluge.
posted by Teflon at 7:42 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Although I loved the "right-on" Green Lantern issues at the time (yes, I was a liberal back then), they seem embarrassingly bad and dated now, even more dated than the Silver Age stuff that they replaced. Check out #89 for a real hoot some time; features an enviro-whacko that Green Lantern and Green Arrow credit with "trying to save the planet!"
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