WHEN DOES "THE BRONZE AGE" OF COMICS BEGIN?

If you were to believe those who wrote entries for certain publications, you would likely expect that the Bronze Age was a "made up" era invented by comics retailers. To be honest, most people encountered the term in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, but its origins lie with the collector community. While many of the Golden Age & Silver Age collectors of comic books will stick with what they read in their favorite literature, the Bronze Age is important enough that the community as a whole should provide some recognition of its actual beginnings.

Collectors who were born in the early 60s came of "comic book age" at the end of the 60s or the dawn of the 70s, resulting in their having quite a separate experience from other collectors with comics and comics history. This experience was partially formed by the older generation - some of whom were already forming comic book conventions or would later open comic book shops - as well as having been influenced by a range of exposure to the industry and its changes during that time. Personalities from the comics industry - creators, really - becoming known to these new readers and being followed for their work resulted in a few - very specific - events that shaped the beginning of the Bronze Age.

For historical context, it's important to lay out the experience of the comic book consumer. As collectors, we are the first arbiter of any term associated with comics. Why? Because we became concerned with comics history long before the industry itself ever did. Which gave early collectors carte blanche over the coining of terms, such as the Golden Age of Comics and the Silver Age of Comics. Just because a comic book says it's a "Collector's Item", that doesn't mean the comic book consumer will accept it thusly - and if it doesn't accrue any significant value, then the consumer has determined the market (which is as it should be). As such, consumers/collectors should serve as our frame of reference for determining when these events actually mattered.

Initially - in print, anyway - the Bronze Age was indicated by the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide as being from 1970 to 1980. There were no events listed, nor any reason for why these years were chosen. The Copper Age was then coined as the next decade, and so on. This type of off-handed approach doesn't establish the types of events that - for readers and collectors (aka comic book consumers) - has solidified the Golden Age and Silver Age terms in fandom. As such, it's necessary to review the actual events that formed the Bronze Age of Comics.

 

ESTABLISHING A FRAMEWORK FOR DISCUSSION:

 

With this in mind - and for the purposes of this article - we'll establish a few ground rules for understanding how things work(ed). It's important to understand that the on sale date of the comic books discussed herein and the actual date of occurrence within the industry should be taken into account as the time period during which we place these events. For instance, if a certain issue is cover dated a certain month, it's usually on sale a few months before that cover date. This is because the cover date has historically indicated to newsstands when periodicals were to be removed from their place on the rack.

Bronze Age readers knew exactly when their comics were out, because we had constant reminders. The words "NEXT ISSUE ON SALE ON OR ABOUT AUGUST 25TH" were, at first, difficult for a child to discern sans punctuation. But upon asking mom or dad, we found that this meant that some time around August 25th, we could expect to see the subject issue showing up on the comics rack or at the newsstand. These announcements and their associated comic books were researched and published by the late, great Mike Voiles at Mike's Amazing World of Comics in the Newsstand Section.

Meanwhile, any event within the industry (the good folks who created and published comics) having been associated with any issue actually happened around 6 months prior to the on sale date because comics were produced with a considerable amount of lead time. They still are, for the most part. Therefore: "On Sale Date" & six months prior are standard operating points of reference.

In the beginning of the 1970s, a rather specific shift in the attitude of DC Comics - and, as a result, Marvel Comics - provided us with a touchstone. A juncture in time to which we can point indicating a "new beginning".

But let us start at the end, first, shall we?

THE END OF THE SILVER AGE:

Most important to the beginning of the Bronze Age is the end of the Silver age, as the Bronze Age can only follow the ending of the age preceding it. Might they overlap a bit? Unlikely. But perhaps. Possibly. A little bit, maybe. 

In this article, we're going to generate a consensus of the Silver Age's ending in order to move on to the beginning of the Bronze Age.

Many pundits will simply give you a year as the end of the Silver Age. 1969. It's touted as the last year of the Silver Age. No event, no prominent issue - just that year. But there are a few events which are then provided as evidence that things had changed - most of which occur anywhere from mid-1967 to late 1970. 

The earliest of these are the loss of the DC "go-go checks" pattern atop the covers of their line. However, these only lasted 18 months on the newsstands (comics on sale from December 1965 to June 1967). Our Webmaster remembers seeing them on the rack as a young reader, but they weren't really there for the entirety of the 60s.

Also, Marvel was purchased by a corporate take-over in 1967, which created tremendous editorial changes and resulted in Jack Kirby being denied a raise for his work. In response, Stan Lee suggested he draw fewer panels - which he did. It begins a downward spiral for the once-proud "House of Ideas".

The later spate of items include Julius Schwartz turning over Green Lantern to Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams (this actually occurred in 1969, but the first issue went on sale in February of 1970), Mort Weisinger retiring (late 1969 or early 1970, his last issue - Superman 229 - appeared on newsstands in June of 1970) and Jack Kirby leaving Marvel comics entirely to work for DC (occurring the end of 1969 and his first new work at DC - the cover for Challengers of the Unknown #75 - appearing June of 1970). Further, John Romita penciled his last Spider-Man story some time in mid-1970 - one of the last remaining ties for Spider-Man to the Silver Age.

Folks focusing on the Silver Age have said it ended in 1969. Most likely with Jack Kirby's departure from Marvel. For the sake of this article, considering some of the latitude in events cited, let us simply agree that the Silver Age was quite certainly gone by 1970 at the latest (for those of you willing to side with Kurt Busiek, who asserts that the Death of Gwen Stacey in 1973 was the end of the Silver Age, our Webmaster refer you to the "End and Aftermath" section of the Wikipedia article on the Silver Age, as Craig Shutt ["Mister Silver Age", himself] refutes that attempt to re-write history).

Most historians agree with the statement that the Silver Age went out with less of a bang and more of a whimper, which would explain the lethargy in identifying events associated with its demise.

SO, WHERE IS THIS "NEW BEGINNING"?

Many of these same Silver Age pundits will then surmise that the Bronze Age was simply an ad hoc manner of referring to the period just following the Silver Age and, therefore, has no event by which to determine its beginning. That retailers "invented" it as a sales gimmick. While there may be some truth to it being used to refer from comics of a certain period, the idea that it has no event to tie into is patently untrue.

The purpose of this article is to support the statement that there is a general beginning of the Bronze Age and that retailers and industry professionals have been overlooking it for quite some time. There are a few events that demarcate the advent of the Bronze Age, and only one heralding event appears in a comic book.

Now, our Webmaster hopes that many of you will forgive the fact that we're primarily DC-centric in these pages. It informs our opinion, but doesn't make us oblivious to what else was going on at the time. Many comics historians who are fond of the Golden Age and Silver Age of comics - particularly those who hold the Silver Age as the Marvel Age - have held forth that very little produced by Marvel in the Bronze Age was quite as significant as the decade prior. We only agree with that idea for the very beginning of the Bronze Age, as Marvel began picking up steam in the latter half of the 1970s, bouyed by their success with the "New" X-Men.

As such, our Webmaster hope you will further forgive that - much like the Golden and Silver Ages before it - the Bronze Age's beginning appears to be declared, again, by a DC comic book. 

A couple of precursors, if you will:

First, the Comics Code Authority was revised (more than a couple of times) in response to Denny O'Neil & Neal Adams' stories in Green Lantern from early 1970 (#76 on sale in February 1970) in which some criminals were treated with a more sympathetic depiction and political officials were shown to sometimes be corrupt. It was further amended to allow for some of the horror tropes (monsters, vampires, werewolves, etc.) it had initially been created to eliminate.

Second, Jack Kirby brings his flair back to DC Comics, starting with "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" #133 (on newsstands in August of 1970) and fully kicking into gear with "The New Gods" #1 (on sale November 1970) and "The Forever People" (on sale December 1970). And DC wanted to make sure you knew it!

 

But the most significant culmination was not only incorporation of Kirby's world into the Superman family of titles, but the significant shift in the editorial & artistic departments as well as the general continuity of the DC Universe to depict Superman's world as more cohesive during this same period.

If Kirby's departure from Marvel is important enough to mark the end of the Silver Age, then his impact after arrival at DC is an equally watershed moment. However, it appears this event and its impact have been overlooked by some. If you read about the results and you weren't paying attention, you very well may have missed how much changed both in the industry and at the comics rack.

When Julius Schwartz, architect of the Silver Age of comics, took over the Superman title and hired Denny O'Neil to write DC's flagship title, Superman, the waves of creativity and change were abundant. O'Neil was tasked with "de-powering" Superman and depicting him in a continuing story showing the cause and results of bringing the most powerful hero of all time to a more "relatable" level of power. 

At the same time, Schwartz (Superman & World's Finest Comics), Murray Boltinoff (Superboy, Action Comics & Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen), E. Nelson Bridwell (Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane) and Mike Sekowsky (Adventure Comics/Supergirl) ensured that there was a bit more editorial consistency and downplayed some of the more sentimental and non-science fiction elements of the mythos (Mr. Mxyzptlk, Krypto, Titano the Super-Ape, Bizarro, etc.) and agreed to maintain some semblance of deference to each others' titles and their "worlds". Boltinoff, overseeing Jack Kirby's first project, Jimmy Olsen, had a lot of requests for other editors to consider, while he also accommodated Schwartz by placing Superboy's adventures in the late 1950s, so that Superman was of an appropriate age (29) in Superboy #171. Sekowsky apparently determined that de-powering Supergirl intermittently was also a way toward more interesting stories (although, this could simply be a pattern, being that he'd done the same to Wonder Woman a few years earlier), Bridwell also accommodated Kirby's Fourth World here and there and added "The 100" to the Lois Lane, Rose & The Thorn mythos. While, in retrospect, it was an uneven roll-out, the ideas - as presented to the public - went forward as announced. And announce it they did, in titles such as Superman and Superboy on sale in November of 1971.

While Neal Adams would bring his first all-Superman story pages forth during the early 1970s, Murphy Anderson inked Curt Swan on both Superman & Action Comics (fans coined the term "Swanderson" as a shorthand for describing this team) as well as embellishing Bob Brown on Superboy, bringing further artistic excellence and uniformity to the look of the Man of Steel.

This overall effort was so remarkably important that the company took, at minimum, two pages out of every super-hero-related title (other non-super-hero titles, as well) in order to make the announcement that "A new year brings a new beginning for Superman 1971". This was in reference to the change beginning with issues cover-dated January 1971, when Denny O'Neil began his epic story arc, "Kryptonite Nevermore". Superboy #171, in particular, had added an explanation for the shift in timeline as a full-page "Editor's Note" (with art by Bob Brown & Murphy Anderson) in the page following the Superboy/Aquaboy story, but preceding this two-page Superman in-house advertisement. The explanation of what is to come (lovingly restored and re-colored from the original art by our Webmaster) is both penciled and inked by Curt Swan, which was not a very frequent occurrence.

The issue heralding the "beginning" of this change (Superman #233), however, was on sale in November 5, 1970 - almost colliding with Kirby's arrival at DC with the August 25, 1970 issue of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 (barely 70 days apart). The lead-in story was a multi-part epic told in over a year's worth of comics - 13 issues, from Superman #233 through Superman #242 (#236 being a storyline only tangentially-related to the overall epic and #239 being a 68-Page Giant issue of reprints). Such a effort was easiest to do in Superman, as it was then the "Number 1 Best-Selling Comics Magazine!" as heralded on this cover. It was, among fans, called the "Sandman Saga", referring to the sand-styled Superman (a being from the Realm of Quarmm whose essence came through a rift in dimensional space opened by Superman's involvement in an explosion and formed out of his imprint in the sand). The storyline is also referred to as "Kryptonite Nevermore!" although that is only a single and remarkably small aspect of this story (albeit a catalyst for setting most of these events in motion).

All of the writers and artists for the Superman titles were cooperating with one editor (Julius Schwartz, also considered the architect of the Silver Age), working to ensure as much continuity as possible (which, admittedly, wasn't a lot). During this period, O'Neil and Adams were still at work on Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow (GL/GA stories by O'Neil & Adams continuing after cancellation of this title as a backup in The Flash in 1972-73). 

SO, WHAT HAPPENED THEN?

Well, several things. Kirby's Jimmy Olsen introduced Darkseid, who is now an iconic character in all media. Further, six months after the arrival of Jack Kirby and the revising of the Comics Code Authority, the now-much-sought-after 48 page comics of the DC line (with a 25¢ cover price, later heralded as 52-pages, what with the covers and all) that followed had expanded the page count of new stories and featured reprint backup stories, as well. This was closer to the page count of the Golden Age of Comics. The success of the O'Neil/Adams team on Green Lantern and the added space gave them the determination to tackle the issue of drug use by teens in the United States.

Also, the Justice League of America was at its height, penned by new writers Len Wein & Mike Friedrich. This is also the period during which the Legion of Super-Heroes begins to come to prominence in the DC Universe with Dave Cockrum bringing a new feel to their universe. Add Elliot S! Maggin & Jim Shooter to the mix working at the height of their powers with great artists like Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, Joe Kubert, Gray Morrow, Rich Buckler, Nestor Redondo, Nick Cardy, Jim Aparo, Russ Heath, Bob Oksner, Irv Novick, Frank Thorne, Tony DeZuniga, Alex Toth, Mike Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson - a year or so later adding Wally Wood, Basil Wolverton and Keith Giffen to name a few and - for a few years - DC was at its pinnacle.

It all begins, however, with the arrival of Jack Kirby and the shift in editorial in response to other departures and industry changes. Most see Kirby's departure from Marvel to depict the end of the Silver Age. And while it likely ended right around that time - possibly slightly prior - it's as good a point to end as any.

Most certainly, this one event - this "announcement" and the changes it both accepts and includes - is the point at which DC ushers in the beginning of the Bronze Age of Comics. There is no other singular event which encompasses the retirement of Mort Weisinger, the advent of Julius Schwartz as Superman Editor, Denny O'Neil's writing, the addition of Jack "King" Kirby to DC's ranks and the art of Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson & Neal Adams (who was also a Superman cover artist and some-time interior artist). 

No other event is heralded by its publisher in such a manner. No other event encompasses all of these changes at once.

Nowhere else does this or any other publisher take on as a new task the unification of several titles into a more singular narrative at this time.

Now, certainly, following the early 1970s, DC would see several ups and downs. The last great run of this period for the Distinguished Competition (as they were called by Marvel) could likely be said to have been Steve Englehart's & Marshall Rogers' run on Batman in Detective Comics. But the early period from 1970-1974 was truly the apex of this decade for DC as a whole.

Considering that Kirby's Fourth World was impinging on Superman's corner of the DC Universe, it was a solid bet that it would have implications down the line. No one knew how impactful it would be until about a decade later when Len Wein and Keith Giffen unfolded the Legion of Super-Heroes' "Great Darkness Saga".

Since then, the Fourth World has been an integral part of the DC Universe. Particularly in any cosmic sagas. Speaking of which...

IMPACT ON OTHER PARTS OF THE INDUSTRY:

It took almost 2 years for Marvel to focus on their more "cosmic" characters. While Adam Warlock had been given something of a start in Marvel Adventures #1 a year after the New Gods appeared (cover dated Jan. 1972, on sale Nov. 1971), it took an additional year for Captain Marvel's title to be rekindled and for Thanos to appear in the Marvel Universe. While there might be some critics who would call Thanos an imitation of Darkseid (most would posit that even if the origins of this character had some touchstone of appearance based on Kirby's classic character) the similarities outside of appearance have been lost to the two characters' divergent development over the past 40-plus years.

There was a considerable surge of creativity at Marvel in the mid-70s that created considerable fan reaction. In particular, The Defenders, Roy Thomas' run on The Invaders, Dave Cockrum's appearance and influence in the Marvel Universe and the appearance and growth over time of the New X-Men are solid examples. Some excellent storylines in The Avengers during this time also became stories which writers would continue to mine for decades to come.

That said, even Kirby's eventual departure from DC and return to Marvel in the mid-70s failed to reignite the fires of creativity that had been so synonymous with the "House of Ideas" in the 1960s. Marvel was still a powerhouse, but its momentum had been stalled over the course of the early-to-mid 1970s. 

In the mid-70s, DC attempted a rebirth with the "DC Explosion", but upon having to cancel every title that came out of it due to a recession in 1977 (prompting many to refer to it as the "DC Implosion"), they were left with little to show for their efforts.

Marvel and DC would most certainly recover, but that wouldn't occur until further along - more toward the 1980s. Right about the time that John Byrne left the X-Men for the Fantastic Four, George Perez and Marv Wolfman revamped the Teen Titans at DC and Frank Miller began his now-legendary run on Daredevil. These three artists would help define the next decade of comics for the Big Two.

While it might result in a seemingly short "era", it could fairly be deemed appropriate that the end of the Bronze Age would come somewhere around 1979-1981.

THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE

Historians may wish to consider ending the Bronze Age with a few different events showing a further shift in the industry and in comics publishing. Expansion of the Direct Market beginning in 1980. John Byrne's move to writer-artist on the Fantastic Four (1979), Frank Miller as writer-artist on Daredevil (1980) and Jim Starlin returning as writer-artist on the first Marvel Graphic Novel "The Death of Captain Marvel" (1982). Dave Sim self-publishing Cerebus the Aardvark (1977). The advent of Warp Graphics in 1979, Pacific Comics in 1981, Comico Comics in 1982 and First Comics in 1983. Also, the move to an industry-wide cover price of 50¢ in 1981. Separately, each of these appear to be simply the industry shifting here & there. As a whole, what we saw was independent companies, unfettered by the Comics Code Authority, selling books for a higher price point and giving their creators ownership of their intellectual property. It was a tremendous shift that created opportunity for creators and a change in attitude toward the dominant comics companies.

All of these moves began an "independent streak" that led to a growth in the industry, a shift from newsstand distribution to comics shops and the fuel that gave rise to the Independent Age (generally considered to begin in the early 1980s - also known as the Speculator Age - which has its own consequences further down the line in the early 1990s).

Ending around 1979 or 1980 or 1981 segues into the next considered age and compresses the Bronze Age comics and creators into a singular, rather focused period of change. 

Compared to the 50 years previous in the comics industry, the decade that followed (1981 - 1991) would be a vastly turbulent one which would include some of the greatest surges of artistic merit, increased production values, universe-building and shifting of leadership at the helm of the publishing arm of the industry ever seen. But the beginnings of non-underground and firmly independent publishers outside of the Comics Code Authority becoming popular through Direct Market comic stores is truly another story and another age. Maybe even a second Golden Age.

While some might point out that the entire publishers' narrative and editorial teams changed with "Crisis on Infinite Earths" for DC, others would counter that this was indicative of the particular period and industry, which - by this time - were quite different than during the Bronze Age. The 1980s to the early 1990s were an unraveling of everything that had come before. DC's efforts to further codify their universe under a singular narrative in 1985 is unlikely to have never happened if not for these dramatic shifts in the industry.

In 1981, at the beginning of the Independent Age, Jack Kirby was noted for having intellectual property rights and creative control of his newest creation, Captain Victory at Pacific Comics. At the same time (also at Pacific Comics), Neal Adams created Ms. Mystic, retaining all intellectual property and creative control over the character, as well. Although a few efforts like this had started in the 70s (Star*Reach started in 1974 by Mike Friedrich, Aardvark-Vanaheim founded in 1977 by Dave Sim and Deni Loubert to publish Cerebus, Eclipse - also in 1977 but with no products to speak of until 1984 - Wendy and Richard Pini founded WaRP Graphics in 1978 with Elfquest, Will Eisner published outside of the comics industry through Bantam in 1978 with "A Contract with God"), this was the first time that two of the comics industry's top talents had owned their own work with an independent publisher. As such, what many call the "Independent Age" and began a new era for creators.

In 1982, Comico provided the same deal to creators Bill Willingham for The Elementals and Matt Wagner for Mage and Grendel. Pacific Comics had also provided similar deals for Mike Grell's Starslayer in 1981 and Sergio Aragones' Groo the Wanderer in 1982. Fantagraphics started Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Bros. in 1982 and in 1984 Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai. Kitchen Sink, who had continued Warren Publishing's numbering of Will Eisner's The Spirit from 1977 through 1983 also provided the same offers to Don Newton's Megaton Man and Omaha the Cat Dancer by Reed Waller and Kate Worley in 1984.  That same year, Eclipse published Scott McCloud's Zot! with the same conditions 1984 also saw the birth of that year of self-publishing phenomenon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, which started a rush of self published black-and-white comics on store shelves.

The history of the period referred to as the "Independent Age" speaks for itself. It's an entirely different time for the industry and it sparked its own "Golden Age" for new comics readers. So between the deals starting in 1977 and culminating in published books in 1981, and the shift to the Direct Market in 1980 which enabled such independent companies to exist and profit, I'd surmise that a good year to begin with would be 1980 or 1981. Personally, our Webmaster prefers 1981, as this is the year we saw actual publishing and sale of books by Independent companies, rather than 1980, which is when the Direct Market began in force.

IN CLOSING...

Hopefully, this article will have provided some context and insight into the Bronze Age and its beginnings. One also hopes that readers will appreciate and ponder the information provided, here.

It is our hope that 1971 and the changes surrounding the revamping of the Superman titles at DC by Julius Schwartz and Denny O'Neil upon the departure of Mort Weisinger will eventually be recognized as a key beginning point for the Bronze Age of Comics. The incorporation of Kirby's Fourth World, attempts to incorporate or acknowledge goings-on in other characters' titles, the O'Neil & Adams storytelling in Green Lantern/Green Arrow and the Batman titles, among other changes at this time will tell the tale.

And, perhaps, that the period from around 1981 to 1991 (or thereabouts) might be considered more widely as the Independent Age. Acknowledging that the following decade from the early 80s to the early 90s was a time very different from its previous 50 years (the shift to direct market at the expense of the newsstand market alone was a force that came close to destroying it entirely) - let alone the previous 10 years - should be enough to indicate that this deserves its own, specific moniker. The vast number of new comics companies and popular independent titles (sometimes creator-owned) by new and exciting creators unencumbered by the Comics Code Authority, plus the rise of popular artists at DC and Marvel to becoming creative forces in their own right made for an entirely divergent period in comics.

By the time the speculator boom collapsed in the early 1990s, publishers had been adjusting to new "norms" for about a decade. A decade considerably different than the Bronze Age had been. But... that's another story, entirely.

Thank you for "listening"! 

Our Webmaster  hope that you enjoyed this trip through the past.  our Webmaster sure did!

Pax, harmonia,

Brian G. Philbin

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