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The Many Ages of DC Comics: A Sequel
🕑 Added 2021-05-23 20:15:03 +0000 UTCBy Corinne McCreery
Three years ago, I got annoyed on Twitter and wound up writing a long article about the various different “Ages” of American comics. Well, I recently had a conversation with our delightful Editor-in-Chief, Nola Pfau, about how close the various DC Golden Age omnibuses are getting to the transition from Golden Age to Silver Age when we realized that that’s harder to pin down for the three characters in question. So here I am again, to write about this topic.
The Golden Age of DC Comics
Just like in the earlier piece, this one is really easy to pin down where it starts, because it’s literally the beginning. For Superman, that of course means Action Comics #1 in 1938. For Batman, it’s Detective Comics #27 in 1939. For Wonder Woman, it’s All-Star Comics #8 in 1941. Those are easy. It’s picking an end date for the DC Golden Age that’s tougher. For sure, the DC Golden Age ran through the entirety of the 1940s and into the 1950s. And for most DC characters of the Golden Age, there’s a good clear end date for them as well. The Golden Age versions of The Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Black Canary, and Hawkman all faded away after All-Star Comics #57 in 1951, the final appearance of the Justice Society of America before the introduction of the Justice League of America. However, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all continued to star in multiple books a month with little change in their stories to delineate such a clear shift in Ages.
The Silver Age of DC Comics
When I wrote the last piece, I stated that for DC Comics in particular it’s very clear when the Golden Age transitioned to the Silver Age. That answer was Showcase #4, the first appearance of the new Flash, Barry Allen. This occurred in July of 1956, and within months there would be new versions of many of the old DC heroes, and even a new team of heroes to replace the Justice Society. But that leaves us in a pickle with the three heroes that didn’t go away. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were all still very popular and hadn’t been put on the shelf, so there was no need to introduce new versions. So instead, the books they were all in just kept going, and eventually, it was clear that they too had moved from the Golden Age to the Silver Age.
But when? Well, the meat of this article exists to answer that very needlessly complicated question, and sadly, it’s not as cut and dry as one would hope. It may even be different answers for each character. I’m going to lay out three options in chronological, and then tell you which option I prefer.
Option 1: World’s Finest #71
So this one technically occurs before Barry Allen appeared in Showcase #4. World’s Finest #71 is notable because while the title began in 1941 as a way for DC to put its two biggest heroes into one comic together every month, for the first seventy issues of the book they were in separate stories. While they’d appear together on the cover, they never met within the pages of the book itself. In May of 1954, the book had its page count cut in half, and that necessitated a change in format. Rather than shift the book to be about one hero or the other, or alternate them month to month, the book instead became a team-up book with them appearing in the same adventure every month.
Now the reason I call this out as a delineator for where the Silver Age begins is that DC Comics itself calls it out as one. DC Comics has had three lines of retro collections that give us good information about what they consider to be in what “Age” of comics. The first was their line of DC Archive Editions. These were hard-bound collections with nice uniform slipcovers that were published from 1989 to 2014. The second of these were their Showcase Presents series. These were black and white paperback collections that only collected Silver and Bronze age books. The Showcase Presents line was published from 2005-2016. The last are the two current series of books that DC is putting out. They have Omnibus collections specifically tied to the different eras of specific characters and teams. The Age-specific omnibuses began in 2013 with Golden Age Superman Volume 1 and continue to this day. Alongside the larger hardcover omnibuses have come a line of paperbacks breaking those up into two or three volumes apiece, an easier-to-read size and price point that started releasing in 2016.
I bring this up because this gives us a clearer picture of what DC considers to belong to each age, and one thing that’s been consistent is that they have started all three of their Silver Age World’s Finest series with issue #71. World’s Finest Comics Archives volume 1 was #71-85. Showcase Presents World’s Finest Comics volume 1 was #71-111. Batman and Superman in World’s Finest: The Silver Age Omnibus is issues #71-116. This means that they very clearly consider that to be part of the Silver Age, and if so, it may actually be the first official DC Silver Age comic.
What does this mean for where the other titles of the three major DC heroes at the time? Well, the other Superman books, Action Comics and Superman were on issues 194 and 90 respectively. The Batman books, Detective Comics, and Batman were likewise on issues 209 and 85. By this time, Wonder Woman was the lone title for DC’s Amazonian warrior, and it was on issue #67. As to the current volumes, this would mean that Batman The Golden Age Omnibus Volume 9, releasing June 2021 would be the last Golden Age Batman volume, as it goes up to very specifically Detective Comics #208, Batman #84, and World’s Finest #70. Superman is a little less cut and dry because it would require a little more cramming to get all the remaining issues into two remaining volumes, but it could be done. Wonder Woman would need one more volume after 2021’s volume five as well.
Option 2: Showcase #4
This one is a pretty clear-cut way to look at it. If we consider that Showcase #4 with the introduction of Barry Allen is the start of the DC Silver Age, then clearly the other books that came out that month (or the next for those titles that were bi-monthly at this point) must be the starts of the Silver Age stories for those characters as well. Nice and simple, but in the end maybe too simple. This option would leave us with very arbitrary breaking points with no real meaning to them for all three characters. Worse yet, it would make the claim that one of the most ubiquitous Silver Age books, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen wasn’t a Silver Age book until issue #15.
Option 3: Individual Breaks For Each Character
This one is the most confusing of the options, as it would move each character into the Silver Age on their own, rather than collectively. This option does have precedent with both the Showcase Presents and the Archive Editions, but it’s absolutely the messiest option. For this option, we’re looking at wildly different cutoff points, based on previously collected editions. Both Superman: The Man of Tomorrow Archives and Showcase Presents: Superman start with Action Comics #241. This issue is the first appearance of the Fortress of Solitude, a Silver Age staple, so it’s a pretty good issue to claim as the start of that era. Likewise, both Wonder Woman: The Amazon Princess Archives and Showcase Presents: Wonder Woman start with Wonder Woman #98. Again, that’s a pretty good issue to denote the beginning of the Silver Age, as it recounts Wonder Woman’s origin with a decidedly Silver Age twist of having an extra goal of turning a single penny into a million dollars. For Superman and Wonder Woman these issues occur within a month of each other, which also would seem to point to this as the answer. The problem, however, lies with Batman. Both the Dynamic Duo Archives and Showcase Presents: Batman do indeed start with the same issue, the problem is how far removed from the other books that issue is. Those two volumes start with Detective Comics #327, which isn’t really that notable for story content but is notable for being the first appearance of Batman’s yellow oval around his chest bat. I guess that’s what makes this his first Silver Age story, six years after everyone else.
So Where Did The Golden Age of DC Comics End?
After careful consideration, I think the best of these options is to end the Golden Age of DC Comics with World’s Finest Comics #70. First of all, since this is the earliest option, it’s also the most inclusive. It’s a clear breaking point and one that DC considers to be accurate in their own collections. It also means that the first issue of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen is included in the Silver Age, as well as Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane. It means that we’re not going to say that the World’s Finest stories are Silver Age but the stories in the other books aren’t too. It’s also less arbitrary than looking at the books that came out alongside Showcase and cleaner than using the starts of the older collections.
The Bronze Age of DC Comics
Now that we have that settled, it’s time to move on to where to mark the separation between the Silver and Bronze Ages. The thing about this transition though is that it was much more subtle. In this case, transitions were left more to the individual titles and characters, because there weren’t huge changes to the continuity. In terms of what DC considers to be these shifting points, we have The Brave & The Bold #74 in 1967 (when it becomes the Batman team-up book), Justice League of America #77 in 1969, Teen Titans #25 (the first Robert Kanigher issue) in 1970, and the Robin story in Batman #192 in 1967. And though they’re spread out, all three of the major heroes have specific issues that can easily denote a shift to the new era as well.
For Batman, it’s when Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams take over the character with Detective Comics #395, as that shifted the character away from the campiness of the Silver Age, and the 1966 tv show, and back towards his darker roots. O’Neil and Adams are one of the iconic creative teams for the character and they also both played large parts in several of the other transitions to the Bronze Age for DC Characters, most notably as I called out in the other article, with Green Lantern/Green Arrow.
Denny O’Neil also took Wonder Woman into the Bronze Age with Wonder Woman #178 in July of 1968. Wonder Woman’s transition to the Bronze Age was an even more drastic status quo change than Batman’s, as she gave up her superpowers and became both a kung-fu fighter and a super-spy over the next few years.
O’Neil was also the writer to take Superman into the new era, this time bringing Adams along for the iconic cover of Superman breaking Kryptonite chains on Superman #233 in 1971. Superman’s shift was a lot more subtle than his compatriots, mostly involving various pieces of Silver Age nonsense just disappearing for a while, like Mr. Mxyzptlk and Krypto the Superdog.
The Dark Age of DC Comics
This transition is an incredibly simple one for DC Comics, both as a whole and for individual characters. Clearly, the big focal point of change during this era was Crisis on Infinite Earths as it was a universal reset that completely shifted status quos for all the major DC characters, and especially for our big three that we’ve been focusing on.
Starting with Superman in 1986, the entire DC Universe had new life breathed into it. With Man of Steel #1, John Byrne would kick off the Dark Age of DC Comics; which despite the name would wind up being one of the best eras in the company’s history. Superman, in particular, would experience a renaissance after Byrne left in 1988. This would kick off a period of eleven years where Superman was handled extremely well by very consistent creative teams on as many as five books a month, commonly known as the Triangle Era.
Batman too would see a resurgence with first Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns in 1986 and Year One in 1987. Both of these continued the moves that O’Neil and Adams started in the Bronze Age, and would define the character for decades to come.
Wonder Woman would get her own revamp in late 1986 courtesy of legendary artist George Peréz, who would also write her brand new series. The changes to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman would be instrumental to how this brand new DC universe would take shape over the next fifteen years, and the line was better for it.
The Modern Age of DC Comics
Much like the shift from Silver to Bronze, the shift from Dark to Modern was very subtle, and like I mentioned in the previous article, some people don’t even bother to separate the two, despite the fact that if you don’t it is an era that has been going for more than double the length of any of the previous eras. But there’s no world-changing event, there are no character reboots, there’s nothing to really and clearly mark this change.
Like I noted before, the Superman shift is probably the most notable because the creative teams had been so consistent for a decade, it was jarring to see a sudden shift with a new editorial regime. Moving from Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, Karl Kesel, and Jerry Ordway to Jeph Loeb and Joe Kelly supplied both status quo and tonal shifts for the books. The new creative teams would also make some sweeping retcons and start to bring in some of the Silver Age elements that had been completely thrown out with Byrne’s reboot.
Batman’s transition was also marked by a creative team shift, though some of the changes take place just slightly before what I’d consider the start of the Modern Age for Batman. Long-time writer Chuck Dixon would leave the Batman titles during the sprawling “No Man’s Land” event, and new writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker would herald an era titled “New Gotham” coming out of that event. Both of these creators would leave indelible marks on Gotham and its supporting cast.
While both the Superman and Batman shifts happened towards the end of 1999, Wonder Woman’s would wait until the end of the next year with issue #164, but would also be heralded by a new creator taking over the title. This time it would be Phil Jimenez, who would write and pencil a career-defining turn on the Amazon princess.
The Chaotic Age
While 10-11 years is a short span for an age of comics, it’s not unheard of since that’s about how long the Silver Age lasted depending on which of the delineations you look at. That said, when looking at DC Comics, it’s hard not to think that the Modern Age ended with Flashpoint and the New 52 relaunch in 2011. Much like Crisis on Infinite Earths before it, this was a complete reset for the DC line, and one could argue that it was even more of one, since even long-running series like Action Comics and Detective Comics were scrapped for new first issues. There’s no real need to actually delve into specific reset points for the characters because everybody and everything started over with new number ones.
Just five years later, things shifted again with DC Rebirth #1 and more relaunches of titles, this time with legacy numbering for Action Comics and Detective Comics, and eventually, Flash and Wonder Woman would move back to their legacy numbers. In between the New 52 and Rebirth was the ill-fated DCYou as well, further defining this as an era where the ship was rudderless and company leadership had no idea what they actually wanted to do with the characters.
Now, just another five years after Rebirth and we’re looking at Infinite Frontier #1 and new directions coming out of that. However, for the first time in a while, it actually feels like there may be a better hand at the wheel and there might be cause for optimism as DC looks ahead. One argument for that optimism is the format changes we’re seeing come with the new directions. DC has an increased focus on the younger readers market with middle-grade and young adult graphic novels aimed at bookstore audiences. They also have an increasingly large number of digital-first series that they are quickly porting to their subscription service DC Universe Infinite. Finally, there’s a bigger push at anthology books, whether they be for Walmart audiences or the newer anthology series that are coming out post Infinite Frontier.
As I said in my other piece, it really does feel like we’re at the start of a bold new age for comics, one that’s driven by different markets than your traditional comic shop crowd, and I feel like DC has fully embraced this new reality.
