Comics 101 - What is the Silver Age of Comics?
The Silver Age of comic books is a term that refers to a period between 1956 and the early 1970s. It's characterized by the resurgence of super-hero comics, a re-interpretation of Golden Age heroes, increasingly outlandish storylines, and the debut of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics as a major force in comic book publishing.
Frederic Wertham's book, Seduction of the Innocent and the Comics Code Authority that came as a response to it in the early 1950s torpedoed EC Comics and set extremely tight limits in what could be included in a comic book. Super-heroes were out of fashion, but westerns, romances and war comics were on the decline as well.
Most scholars agree that the Silver Age begins with Showcase#4 and The Flash. During the Golden Age, The Flash was Jay Garrick, a football star. The new Flash introduced in Showcase#4 was Barry Allen, police forensic scientist. The success of the character led DC Comics Editor Julius Schwartz to spearhead a campaign to revamp many of the Golden Age heroes. A major characteristic of these heroes was that they were often based in science fiction, whereas their predecessors were either based in fantasy, science fantasy or just superb athletes: Green Lantern was a test pilot who became a member of an intergalactic peace-keeping force; Hawkman and Hawkgirl were alien police officers trapped on Earth; The Atom was a college professor who had a fragment of a dwarf star in his hand that gave him the ability to change his size or mass. A new team, the Legion of Super-Heroes travels back in time from the 30st century to recruit Superboy to their team.
DC did so well with their revamps and science fiction heroes, that rival publisher Martin Goodman asked Stanley "Stan Lee" Lieber to create a team of super-heroes to compete. What he and Jack Kirby came up with was
The Fantastic Four in 1961.
The creation and style of Marvel Comics begins the slow decline of DC's Silver Age mentality in favor of a more "realistic" tone in Marvel's comics: The Fantastic Four's Thing was a monster, Spider-Man was a science nerd driven by the murder of his uncle and reviled by all of New York City, and the X-Men were misfits who were hated by the very people they were vowed to protect. Nobody got along, and many heroes were just plain unhappy. But their problems were much easier to relate to than what practical joke Superman was going to play on Lois Lane this month.
There is no consensus on when the Silver Age ended and the Bronze Age began, but there were several things that happened in the early 1970s:
1- Marvel Comics published Conan the Barbarian #1, portraying a tone and style
of violence that hadn't been seen since the creation of the Comics
Code Authority.
2- Marvel publishes Amazing Spider-Man #96-98, featuring a drug abuse storyline,
in direct violation of the Comics Code.
3- The Comics Code's regulations are loosened, and DC Comics begins to emulate
Marvel's style with more realistic storylines and characterizations, as in Green
Lantern #85-86, where Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy (now called Red Arrow) deals
with his own drug problem.
4- The trend established by Marvel in Fantastic Four #1 for darker, more dramatic
storylines and themes is a model that is followed by most comic book companies
even today.
R. Wesley Smith has been following comic books and the comic book industry for over twenty-five years. He is a freelance writer and regularly publishes columns at Examiner.com. For all of Wesley's most recent columns about comic books and the comic book industry, check out http://www.examiner.com, keyword: "Wesley Smith."
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