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.
