Trying to define exactly when Marvel’s Bronze Age began is fraught with danger; it would be hard to find any two Marvel fans of the Bronze Age that can agree on a specific date or issue, and besides, it would not have been a sudden line-wide shift from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age, but a gradual shift in tone and style. It is generally agreed that the shift occurred in the early 70s, but many of Marvel’s comics would still read with a Silver Age sensibility well into the early years of that Marvellous decade.
Oh, fun game. I’ll take an easy one and suggest that the Fantastic Four left the Silver Age with #103, the first issue not by the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The seminal Marvel title had lost its founding fathers.
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe Spider-Man entered the Bronze Age when Stan dropped the Comics Code for Harry Osborn's drug problem,a definite sign that Marvel Comics had entered a new era. Would that be #96?
Thanks Martin.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn’t agree that the Fantastic Four had lost their founding fathers, just that their ‘parents’ had got a divorce and Stan Lee got custody of the children. I don’t think what came after #102 was particularly different to what came before (the last year and half, perhaps), except it wasn’t drawn by Kirby. But yours is certainly the popular opinion on that defining moment.
While it's true that the lines for the ages is an artificial thing and therefore can be vague, certain things could only have happened in the Bronze age. For example O'Neil/Adam's Green Lantern/Green Arrow could not have happened in the 60's or the 80's. It is a comic that spoke of it's time with art that echoed it's modernity. Other things equally spoke of it's time like Steranko's very modern psychedelic art work on Nick Fury and Captain America as well as the controversial themes of the time like Black power and women's lib. So while there were titles that were still firmly planted in the past like the FF, there were other titles and creators pushing the envelope of the comic industry mores and breaking new ground, just as Lee/Kirby/Ditko did a decade before and Miller/Moore did a decade later. So we can surmise that the decade division is not referring to the average which is slow to changes from age to age, it reflects the movers and shakers of the medium who blazed a trail where the normal follow, although later, sometimes much later. It seems that the divisions can be seen as the time when the old trail blazers are replace by the new ones.
ReplyDeleteTHanks Piperson, for a thought provoking post. I basically agree with you regarding the divisions in 'ages' being defined by the shift between the old and new wave of creators. Who would you hold up as the creators that typified the Bronze Age at Marvel? I would suggest Gerber, Englehart and Starlin, but some of the older creators like Conway wrote stories that are held up as Bronze Age classics.
ReplyDeleteGood points all. My [personal] Bronze Age yardpost is Conan the Barbarian #1; cover date October 1971. Probably debuted on the stands in September...
ReplyDeleteMy reasoning is that Conan is the first comic Marvel published as a licensed character, i.e. one created outside the confines of the Marvel offices/employees. If I am wrong on this, please let me know.
quickwatson@hotmail.com
I'd go with Avengers 89 because of the multi-issue story, but it wasn't the first in superhero comics.
ReplyDeleteThe Deadman serial in Strange Adventures 205-216 starting in 1967 featured many self-contained stories, but they were all steps on Deadman's journey to find his killer. When Deadman found his killer, the strip ended to be replaced by Adam Strange & Atomic Knights reprints. This series was also drawn and later written by Neal Adams. It may not have been as epic as the Kree/Skrull War, but it was a long-form saga that pre-dated it.
Even the 1970 start of Green Lantern/Green Arrow with the continuous background story/theme--the trip across America--could be considered (though marginally) a long-form story.
ASM #121 is often used as a marker. But I tend to think that the Bronze feel began before that landmark issue. But if we have to pinpoint one issue as the gateway - ASM #121 gets my vote.
ReplyDelete