RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books The Silver Age, defining the era, and its enduring mystique

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Age_of_Comic_Books


Even though I started reading Silver Age books well after it was officially over, I somewhat experienced it firsthand through reprints from 1972 forward in 52-page, 100-page and LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITION issues. And despite being 10 years old, I could still discern a clear difference in storytelling style in these mostly backup reprint stories. There was an innocence, playfulness and whimsy to these stories. Whether Infantino Flash, Elongated Man backups from DETECTIVE or FLASH issues, or new backups that carried on in that tradition, the heroism of Adam Strange (reprinted in 1969-1974 in STRANGE ADVENTURES 218-244, after Neal Adams' Deadman was discontinued from that title) as well as scattered Adam Strange reprints in ACTION and other 100-pagers). Or the low-testosterone nobility of the crew in the Haunted Tank (G.I.COMBAT) or Enemy Ace (STAR SPANGLED WAR), there is an optimism and warmth to these stories that still gives them enduring appeal.

In BATMAN when I started reading in 1972, O'Neil was scripting Batman with a globe-spanning grandeur on a par with the James Bond films, with the introduction of R'as Al Ghul and Talia. Or Batman fighting crime gangs and street criminals, comparable to 1939-1940 Batman stories (before Robin), or 1970's detective dramas on TV.
Even in a somewhat Dickens-esque Christmas story in Batman 239 (1971), the sympathetic impoverished criminal father of a little girl violently tries to strangle Batman to death with a string of Christmas lights. In the backups, Mike Friedrich has Robin on a commune, looking for a cop killer hippie, hiding among other peace-love-and-granola hippie radicals.
Green Lantern and Green Arrow in their title got in shouting matches over political issues I didn't quite understand at that point. But still, this was not even 10 years after the Silver Age, in 1972-1975, was still a universe away in style from the Silver Age stories that were reprinted alongside them.

I look back at the time I got into comics as a very ideal time. The 1970's material (or "Bronze Age", if you must) among some of the best written and illustrated, by the likes of O'Neil, Adams, Novick, Giordano, and Aparo, Wein, Wrightson, Englehart, Rogers, Thomas, Windsor-Smith, Kaluta, Goodwin, Simonson and others.
But where I also had exposure simultaneously through abundant reprints to the accumulated work of the two previous Golden and Silver Age eras.

I see the Silver Age as a more refined version of the best elements of the Golden Age, with the rougher elements phased out, focusing on a reverent and very pleasant heroism, where violence may have occurred, but in a world where problems seemed to be solved most by intelligence and wit rather than slugfests. Flash, Elongated Man, the "new look" Batman, to name a few, exemplified that.

To me, the DC Silver Age runs roughly from Showcase 4 (the debut of the Barry Allen Flash) to late 69 to early 70, when Batman had the "soft reboot" under O'Neill/Adams, etc., and Kirby started up the Fourth World series.

The Marvel silver age is less easily defined because there was a less of a defined break from 60s Marvel to 70s Marvel and more an evolution.

I'd say on the Marvel side, the Silver Age ended with
1) Kirby's departure from Marvel to DC,
2) with the first issue of CONAN THE BARBARIAN, and I guess,
3) with the ascendency of John Buscema as the heir apparent to Kirby's throne at Marvel.
I think this is also the point where Stan Lee was less involved, and where:
4) Roy Thomas became, basically, the acting Stan Lee. Such as Thomas' runs on AVENGERS, CONAN, INCREDIBLE HULK, SUB MARINER, and brainstorming other projects such as mostly reprint books like WHERE CREATURES ROAM, WHERE MONSTERS DWELL, FEAR, CREATURES ON THE LOOSE, and AMAZING ADVENTURES that initially had all reprints, but then increasingly had new material by writers and artists who were delegated to take over these books with new series, plus adventure series like DOC SAVAGE, KILLRAVEN, JUNGLE ACTION, ASTONISHING TALES and others that followed on the new ground opened by CONAN's success.

Granted a lot of that fruit wasn't borne until 1972 or 1973, but the seeds were there in 1970-1971. Even Kirby did some mystery stories right before he left Marvel in CHAMBER OF DARKNESS 4 and 5, and some Inhumans backup stories in AMAZING ADVENTURES 1-4 (if I recall correctly).
I think Thomas pushed for new directions and got his way after CONAN THE BARBARIAN's success and critical acclaim. AMAZING ADVENTURES/Killraven was another Roy Thomas idea, that apparently was delayed a very long time waiting for Neal Adams, until Thomas turned it over to others in 1973. And delegating to skilled writers like Englehart, Wolfman, Gerber, Starlin, McGregor, Claremont, Mantlo, Moench and Kraft, opened up a lot of great reading on the Marvel side.

I agree 100% with your picks on the DC side that drew the boundaries of the Silver Age. Although it was the same thing at DC, where there was an editorial shift with Giordano entering in 1968, and the full fruit of that sprouting in 1970 on the DC side. Plus, y'know, Adams coming to DC about the same time in 1967-1968, and Infantino, Orlando, and Kubert becoming editors in 1967-1968 as well. That opened up DC to some really positive change, with the talent (already on staff like Kubert, Swan, Anderson and Gil Kane, along with new talent arriving with Giordano from Charleton) to pull it off. HOUSE OF MYSTERY, HOUSE OF SECRETS, Enemy Ace in STAR SPANGLED WAR, the Creeper and others in SHOWCASE, Aparo on AQUAMAN, Adams rising from BRAVE AND THE BOLD to DETECTIVE and BATMAN with O'Neil, O'Neil/Adams GREEN LANTERN, Kirby's Fourth World titles, O'Neil/Swan/Anderson SUPERMAN, ALL-STAR WESTERN, that eventually spawned Jonah Hex and became WEIRD WESTERN, and later down the pike WEIRD WAR, WEIRD MYSTERY, SWAMP THING, TARZAN, KORAK and WEIRD WORLDS.

I think AMAZING ADVENTURES as well as any Marvel series manifests the changes that occurred at Marvel in the transition from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age.

Kirby was angry about being uncredited and insisted on scripting his own material in his Inhumans stories in 1-4. Issues 5-8, after Kirby's departure, are by Thomas and Adams, in a warm-up for their AVENGERS "Kree-Skrull War". The art on issue 5 in particular is exceptional, and the storyline manifests the Bronze Age trend toward more introspective, realistic and socially relevant storytelling. A few issues later, The Beast (after a beastly transformation conforming him to accommodate the early 1970's the monster craze) debuts in issues 11-17.
The series finally reaches its definitive run with issue 18, debuting Killraven in a story by Thomas and Adams. That again, was delayed roughly 2 years by Neal Adams dragging his feet on the pencils, to the point that Thomas took it away, and gave it to Howard Chaykin to complete the second half of the book. And after two issues by Conway and Wolfman, McGregor began scripting with issue 21, and the series reached its peak when joined by artist Craig Russell with issue 27.

FEAR began with its first 9 issues having Kirby and Ditko monster stories reprints. Man-Thing began appearing in issue 10, by Conway/Chaykin/Morrow. Steve Gerber took over the series and it began its definitive run in Oct/Nov 1972.

The same trajectory demonstrated in ASTONISHING TALES, that began in 1970 with unimpressive Kazar and Dr Doom stories, with occasional spots of brilliance by talents like Windsor-Smith (3-6, 10) and Neal Adams(12), and finally launching its definitive run with Moench and Buckler's Deathlok series (25-up).
And with MARVEL PREMIERE, which more quickly started off with definitive Bronze Age characters like Thomas/Kane Warlock, Englehart/Brunner Dr. Strange, and Claremont/Byrne Iron Fist. And then becoming more hit and miss, with later featured new characters.

MARVEL FEATURE is another series that followed the same pattern, introducing the Defenders, early work by Craig Russell on Ant-Man, and then Starlin's work on the last 2 issues, that became part of the canon of Starlin's classic CAPTAIN MARVEL run.

But I hadn't realized until you said it that unlike at DC, none of these on the Marvel side fully materialized right out of the starting gate, and took a few years to develop into the series they are known for. With the exception of Thomas/Smith CONAN, and Thomas/Buscema AVENGERS.

And MARVEL SPOTLIGHT that launched Werewolf By Night, Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, Moon Knight, and Spider-Woman.

And less successfully, CREATURES ON THE LOOSE ( previously TOWER OF SHADOWS in issues 1-9), which after a number of stillborn births, finally launched Man-Wolf by Kraft and Perez.
Perez's first series, before he went on to do FF, AVENGERS, INHUMANS, LOGAN'S RUN and others.

Even though not major Bronze Age talents in 1970-1971, these titles introduced many of the creators who would soon produce definitive Bronze Age work.

I also recall a lesser-known aspect of the Silver Age's demise being a group of Silver Age creators such as Gardner Fox, John Broome, Jim Mooney and others, voicing a collective appeal to DC for better pay and benefits, and quietly being pushed out and replaced by incoming talent like Dick Giordano, Dennis O'Neil, Mike Friedrich, and others. There wasn't any discussion of it, the names just changed.

A few years later in 1971-1974, Carmine Infantino, as he detailed in the book THE AMAZING WORLD OF CARMINE INFANTINO, said that when the ACBA (Academy of Comic Book Arts) formed, one of the possibilities was an organized strike of writers and artists. And that was part of the reason for bringing in so many Phillipine artists to DC, to create a potential reservoir of backup talent to do the work should the regulars strike. And the visibility of this to DC staffers, possibly a deterrant to such a possible strike.

I was a bit jolted in 1972 to see Gardner Fox, a writer who was a centerpiece at DC, who almost singlehandedly established the DC stable of characters like FLASH, JLA, Adam Strange, Kid Flash, Elongated Man, HAWKMAN, THE ATOM, GREEN LANTERN, etc., and suddenly he was over at Marvel doing books like TOMB OF DRACULA issues 4 and 5, and MARVEL PREMIERE 3 or 4 with Doctor Strange. And then he was quietly just completely gone from the comics scene.

I never really saw an explanation of that anywhere, until COMIC BOOK ARTIST had interviews on the subject in the 1990's. That the writers and artists who asked for just a few crumbs more (health insurance, a modest living-wage page rates) were completely, but quietly, shut out and forced to leave in 1969-1970.

Another factor cited as the curtain coming down on the Silver Age was the price change from 12 cents to 15 cents.

The 15 cent change didn't last long. By 1971, most of DC's titles switched from 15 cents to "48 pages for 25 cents", and soon after in 1972 "52 pages for 25 cents, BIGGER AND BETTER!"
Marvel at the same time stayed with the 32-page format at 20 cents.

Many might not know this, but DC was still outselling Marvel up to that point. But when DC went to 25 cents, much as I love those issues, more readers drifted over to the lower-priced 20-cent Marvel titles, and that's when Marvel started outselling DC. And when Marvel vastly expanded their line (1969-1971) from about 15 titles up to about 40 titles. Jim Starlin said that made it a fantastic time to enter the field as a new writer or artist, because they needed talent to fill all these new books. He said "They were pretty much hiring anyone who could pick up a pencil."

Neal Adams brought a lot of new talent to DC as well in the early 1970's, such as Michael Kaluta, Dan Green, Howard Chaykin, Frank Thorne, Rich Buckler, Walt Simonson, Al Weiss, and Ralph Reese. You might not know it, but Starlin's first work was actually for DC and not Marvel (HOUSE OF MYSTERY 207, Oct 1972). But he obviously found more work, and forged his artistic identity, at Marvel.

So those were more milestones that separated the Silver Age from the period that formed immediately after it.