Bronze Age of Comic Books

Bronze Age of Comic Books
Amazing Spider-Man #122 (July 1973) The death of the Green Goblin, cover art by John Romita, Sr.
Time span	early 1970s — mid-1980s
Related periods
Preceded by	Silver Age of Comic Books
Followed by	Modern Age of Comic Books

The Bronze Age of Comic Books is an informal name for a period in the history of mainstream American comic books usually said to run from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. It follows the Silver Age of Comic Books.^[1]

The Bronze Age retained many of the conventions of the Silver Age, with brightly colored superhero titles remaining the mainstay of the industry. However darker plot elements and more mature storylines featuring real-world issues, such as drug use, began to appear during the period, prefiguring the later Modern Age of Comic Books.

Origins

The term Bronze Age was first used by comic book fandom and later the Overstreet Price Guide to refer to the more mature and modern comic books of the early 70s to the mid-80s.

There is no one single event that can be said to herald the beginning of the Bronze Age. Instead a number of events at the beginning of the 1970s, taken together, can be seen as a shift away from the tone of comics in the previous decade.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 (October 1971), One of the first comic stories to tackle the issue of drug use, Cover art by Neal Adams.

One such event was Jack Kirby's departure from Marvel Comics in 1970, ending arguably the most important creative partnership of the Silver Age (with Stan Lee). Kirby then turned to DC, where he created The Fourth World series of titles starting with Jimmy Olsen #133 in December 1970. Also in 1970 Mort Weisinger, the long term editor of the various Superman titles, retired to be replaced by Julius Schwartz. Schwartz set about toning down some of the more fanciful aspects of the Weisinger era, removing most Kryptonite from continuity and scaling back Superman's, by that point, near infinite powers.

The 1970's

In 1970, Marvel published the first comic book issue of pulp character Conan the Barbarian. Conan's success as a comic hero resulted in adaptations of other characters of Robert E. Howard: Kull, Red Sonja, Solomon Kane. DC Comics responded with Warlord, Beowulf, and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. They also published Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan, John Carter, Warlord of Mars, the Pellucidar series and the Amtor series. Marvel also tried Thongarr, and Gullivar Jones of Mars.

The murder of Spider-Man's long-term girlfriend Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin in 1973's Amazing Spider-Man #121-122 is considered by many to be the definitive Bronze Age event. However there had been a gradual darkening of the tone of superhero comics for several years before that point, including the death of her father in 1970's Amazing Spider-Man #90. (See also: "The Night Gwen Stacy Died".)

In 1971, Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Stan Lee was approached by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to do a comic book story about drug abuse. Lee agreed and wrote a three-part Spider-Man story, Amazing Spider-Man #96-98, portraying drug use as dangerous and unglamorous. At that time, any portrayal of drug use in comic books was banned outright by the Comics Code Authority, regardless of the context. The CCA refused to approve the story, but Lee published it regardless.

The positive reception that the story received led to the CCA revising the Comic Code later that year to allow the portrayal of drug addiction as long as it was depicted in a negative light. Later that year, DC Comics had their own drug abuse storyline when it was revealed in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85-86 that the Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy had become addicted to heroin.

The 1971 revision to the Comics Code also relaxed the rules on the use of vampires, ghouls and werewolves in comic books, allowing the growth of a number of horror-oriented titles, such as Swamp Thing, Ghost Rider and The Tomb of Dracula.

Further developments

Relevance

The Spider-Man drug issues were at the forefront of the trend of "relevance" - comic books handling real-life issues. The above-mentioned Green Lantern/Green Arrow series dealt not only with drugs, but racial prejudice and social inequity. The X-Men titles, which were partly based on a premise that mutants were a metaphor for real-world minorities, became wildly popular. Other well-known "relevant" comics include the Lois Lane story "I Am Curious: Black", a story (named after a film) where Lois becomes black, and the socially conscious stories written by Steve Gerber in such titles as the absurdist satire Howard the Duck or the grim urban realities of Omega the Unknown. Feminism was a trend with female versions of popular characters (Spider-Woman, Red Sonja, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk).

While the larger trend eventually faded, contemporary social commentary has remained a source for material for superhero stories to this day.

Creator credit and labor agreements

Writers and artists began getting a lot more credit from their creations even though they were still ceding copyrights to the companies that they worked for. Pencil Artists were allowed to keep their original artwork and sell it on the open market. When word got out that Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were living in poverty, artists such as Bernie Wrightson help organized his fellow artists to pressure DC in rectifying them and other pioneers from the 1930s and 40's

Minority superheroes

One of the most significant developments during the period was a substantial rise in the number of black and other minority superheroes. Before the 1970s, there had been very few non-white superheroes (the Black Panther and the Falcon being notable exceptions) but starting in the early 1970s this began to change with the introduction of characters such as Luke Cage (who was the first black superhero to star in his own comic book), Storm, Blade, Shang-Chi, Misty Knight, John Stewart, Bronze Tiger, Black Lightning, Tyroc, Vixen and Cyborg.

Some of these early minority superheroes have subsequently been criticised for perpetuating racial stereotypes. Characters such as Luke Cage, Misty Knight, and Shang-Chi have been seen by some as an attempt by Marvel Comics to cash in on the 1970s crazes for blaxploitation and Kung Fu movies. Luke Cage in particular became infamous for his catch phrase "Sweet Christmas!" Other minority characters however did not face such criticisms, and became increasingly popular and important as time progressed. By the mid-1980s, Storm and Cyborg had become leaders of the X-Men and Teen Titans respectively, and John Stewart had replaced Hal Jordan as the lead character of the Green Lantern title.

Art styles

Starting with Neal Adams' work in Green Lantern/Green Arrow a new sophisticated realism became the norm in the industry. Buyers would no longer be interested in the heavily stylized work of artists of the Silver Age or simpler cartooning of the Golden Age. The so-called "House Styles" of DC and Marvel became imitations of Adams' work and more realistic versions of Kirby's respectively. This change is sometimes credited to a new generation of artists influenced by the popularity of EC Comics in the 1950s. In spite of the House Styles, those artists who could draw apart from these would gain some notoriety. Such names include Berni Wrightson, Jim Starlin, John Byrne, Frank Miller, George Perez, and Howard Chaykin.

The revival of the X-Men and the Teen Titans

The X-Men were originally created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. However, the title never achieved the popularity of other Lee/Kirby creations, and by 1969 Marvel ceased publishing new material and the title was turned over to reprints. However, in 1975 an "all-new all-different" version of the X-Men was introduced by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum in Giant-Size X-Men #1, with Chris Claremont as uncredited assistant co-plotter.^[2] Claremont stayed as writer on just about all X-Men related titles, including spinoffs, for the next sixteen years, after which other regular writers such as Louise Simonson, Fabian Nicieza, and Scott Lobdell joined and Claremont eventually left.

One of the most apparent influences from this series was the creation of what became DC Comics' answer to X-Men's character-based storytelling style, The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, which became a highly successful and influential property in its own right. Wolfman would associate himself with the title for sixteen years, while Perez established a large fanbase and sought-after pencilling style. A successful cartoon based on the Titans of the Bronze Age of Comics was launched in 2003, and lasted for three years.

Team-up books and anthologies

During the Silver Age, comic books frequently had several features, a form harkening back to the Golden Age when the first comics were anthologies. In 1968, Marvel graduated its double feature characters appearing in their anthologies to full-length stories in their own comic. But several of these characters could not sustain their own title and were cancelled. Marvel tried to create new double feature anthologies such as Amazing Adventures and Astonishing Tales which didn't last as double feature comic books. A more enduring concept was that of the team-up book, either combining two characters, at least one of which was not popular enough to sustain its own title (Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Super-Villain Team-Up, Power Man and Iron Fist, Daredevil and the Black Widow, Captain America and the Falcon) or a very popular character with a guest star of the month (Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One). Even DC combined two features in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and had team-up books (The Brave and the Bold, DC Comics Presents and World's Finest Comics). Virtually all such books disappeared by the end of the period.

Company Crossovers

With Carmine Infantino at the helm of DC, he and Stan Lee struck up a close friendship.^{[citation needed]} The two worked out several unprecedented crossover titles the first of which was Superman vs the Amazing Spider-Man. They would be followed by Batman vs. Hulk, a second Superman and Spider-Man, and the X-Men vs The New Teen Titans. Another title, The Avengers vs The Justice League of America was written and drawn by Gerry Conway and George Perez with plotting by Roy Thomas but was never published, reflecting the later animosity between the two companies. Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter was not pleased that DC wanted the 4th company crossover to include the New Teen Titans, DC's best-selling title at the time, as he wanted the crossover to be the X-Men and the Legion of Super-Heroes. This led to Shooter's decision to stall and cancel the JLA/Avengers project.

Reprints

Beginning circa 1970, Marvel introduced vast numbers of reprints into the market, which played a key role in their becoming the overall market leader among comic publishers. Suddenly many titles featured reprints: X-Men, Sgt. Fury, Kid Colt Outlaw, Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid, Outlaw Kid, Jungle Action, Special Marvel Edition (the early issues), War is Hell (the early issues), Creatures on the Loose, Monsters on the Prowl, and FEAR, to name just a few.

DC Implosion

In the mid-'70s, with Carmine Infantino at the helm, DC flooded the market with numerous new titles such as Jack Kirby's New Gods and Steve Ditko's Shade the Changing Man. The company referred to this as the DC Explosion. DC greatly overestimated the appeal of so many new titles at once and it nearly broke the company and the industry, including Charlton Comics. Jenette Kahn would eventually take the helm of the company.

Marvel eventually gained 50% of the market and Stan Lee handed control of the comic division to Jim Shooter while he worked with their growing animation spin-offs.

Non-superhero comics

During this time period, and partly because of the revision of the Comics Code, many non-superhero mainstream comics became popular. Notable non-superhero comics of the time include Conan and Savage Sword of Conan, which each lasted over 200 issues, with Savage Sword being a magazine format that escaped the Code entirely; The Tomb of Dracula; Master of Kung-Fu; the Star Wars comics; Howard the Duck, Swamp Thing; and Jonah Hex. Doctor Strange and Beast developed in the direction of horror. There were a marked number of post-cataclysm series (Deathlok, Killraven, Kamandi). The success of Conan also led Marvel and later DC to adapt other franchises such as pulp characters (Doc Savage, Kull, The Shadow, Justice, Inc., Tarzan), entertainment personalities (Kiss, Human Fly), toys (GI Joe, Micronauts, Transformers, Rom, Atari Force), popular movies (Planet of the Apes, Godzilla, Indiana Jones, Jaws, 2001: A Space Odyssey), TV shows ("Six Million Dollar Man", Star Trek) and even a life of Pope John Paul II that was a best-seller. As part of the move away from superheroes, this era saw several series featuring villains (The Tomb of Dracula, Super-Villain Team-Up, Secret Society of Super-Villains, Joker).

Alternate Markets and Formats

Archie Comics dominated the female market during this time with their characters, Betty and Veronica having some of the largest circulation of titular female characters. Several clones were attempted by Marvel and DC unsuccessfully. Several Archie titles examined socially relevant issues and introduced a few African-American characters Archie largely switched to paperback digest format in the late 1980s.

Children's comics were still popular with Disney reprints under the Gold Key label along with Harvey's stable of characters which grew in popularity. The latter included Richie Rich, Casper, and Wendy Witch which eventually switched to digest format as well. Again Marvel and DC were unable to emulate their success with competing titles.

An adult market was ostensibly opened with the Franco-Belgian import Heavy Metal Magazine. Marvel launched competing magazine titles of their own with Conan the Barbarian and Epic Magazine which would eventually be their division of Direct Sales comics.

The paper drives of World War II and a growing nostalgia among Baby-Boomers in the 1970s made comic books of the 1930s and 1940's extremely valuable. DC experimented with some large size paperback books to reprint their Golden Age comics, create one-shot stories such as Superman vs Shazam and Superman vs Muhammad Ali as well as the early Marvel crossovers.

The popularity of those early books also opened up a market for specialty shops. So-called "Independent" publishers and titles grew such as Dave Sim's Cerebus and Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest series. Marvel and DC began seeing this market as a way to bypass the Comics Code Authority and as a way to return added value with high quality formatted titles including the creation of Graphic Novels.

Disappearing genres

That period is also marked by the cancellation of most titles in the genres of romance, western and war stories that had been a mainstay of comics production since the forties. Anthologies, whether they presented feature characters or not, also disappeared. They had been used since the Golden Age either to create new characters, to host characters that lost their own title or to feature several characters. This had the effect to standardise the length of comics stories.

End of the Bronze Age

The end of the Bronze Age is debated, and some do not believe it ended at all. Like the beginning, the exact date is uncertain, and not every single comic book may be said to have exited the Bronze Age at exactly the same date.

One commonly used ending point for the Bronze Age is the 1985-1986 time frame. As with the Silver Age, the end of the Bronze Age relates to a number of trends and events that happened at around the same time. At this point, DC Comics completed its special event, Crisis on Infinite Earths which marked the revitalization of the company's product line to become a serious market challenger to Marvel again. This time frame also includes the company's release of the highly acclaimed works, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller which redefined the superhero genre and inspired years of "grim and gritty" comic books.

At Marvel Comics, the commonly-used milestone marking the end of the Bronze Age is Secret Wars although this could be extended to 1986 which saw the cancellation of Defenders, Power Man and Iron Fist (Marvel's longest running title launched in the seventies), the launch of the New Universe and X-Factor (extension of the X-Men franchise).

After the Bronze Age came the Modern Age of Comic Books. According to Shawn O'Rourke of PopMatters, the shift from the previous ages involved a "deconstructive and dystopian re-envisioning of iconic characters and the worlds that they live in",^[3] as typified by Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen (1986-1987). Other features that define the era are an increase in adult oriented content, the rise of the X-Men to become the "dominant intellectual property", and a reorganization in the industry's distribution system.^[3]

Noted Bronze Age talents

NOTE: This is not a definitive list whatsoever. These are merely people who have represented a strong fan following and have been involved with some of the greatest and/or most influential projects of the Bronze Age.

Top 10 comics

According to "The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #38" by Robert Overstreet, the following twelve Bronze Age comics were the most sought after by collectors.^[4]

Timeline of the Bronze Age

• October 1970: Marvel Comics begins publishing Conan The Barbarian. Bronze Age of Comics begins

• 1970: DC Comics begins publishing Jack Kirby's Fourth World titles beginning with Jimmy Olsen and continuing with New Gods, The Forever People and Mister Miracle.

• 1971: The Falcon shares co-feature status in the renamed Captain America and The Falcon.

• 1971: The Comics Code is revised.

• 1971: DC Comics introduces the character of Swamp Thing in its House of Secrets title.

• 1971: Clark Kent becomes a newscaster at WGBS-TV.

• 1972: Marvel begins to publish The Tomb of Dracula.

• 1972: Luke Cage becomes the first African American superhero to receive his own series in Hero for Hire #1.

• 1973: The death of Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spider-Man #121.

• 1973: The absurdist Howard the Duck makes his first appearance in comics and would be one of the most popular non-superheroes ever. He would get his own series in 1976 and he would graduate to his own daily newspaper strip and a 1986 film.

• 1974: First appearance of Wolverine in Incredible Hulk #181.

• 1975: Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum introduces the "all-new, all-different X-Men."

• 1977: Dave Sim launches Cerebus independent of the major publishers, the longest running mini-series (300 issues) in comics as well as the longest run by one artist on a comic book series.

• 1978: At the request of Roy Thomas, Marvel releases Star Wars, based on the hit movie, and it quickly becomes one of the best-selling books of the era.

• 1978: DC cancels over half of its titles in the so-called DC Implosion.

• 1979: DC publishes The World of Krypton, the first comic book mini-series, which gave publishers a new flexibility with titles.

• 1980: First issue of DC Comics' The New Teen Titans whose success at revitalizing a previously underperforming property would lead to the idea of revamping the entire DC Universe.

• 1982: Comico begins publishing a small independent comic called Comico Primer that would later be the starting point for several influential artists and writers such as Sam Kieth and Matt Wagner.

• 1984: Marvel begins releasing the first "big event" storyline, Secret Wars, which would, along with Crisis on Infinite Earths, popularize big events, and make them a staple in the industry.

• 1985: DC begins to publish Crisis on Infinite Earths, which would drastically restructure the DC universe, and popularize the epic crossover in the comics industry along with Secret Wars. In the aftermath of this Crisis, DC cancels The Flash, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

• 1985: Eclipse Comics publishes Miracleman, written by Alan Moore, developing the later trends of bringing superhero fiction into the real world, and showing the effects of immensely powerful characters on global politics (both potentially apocalyptic and utopian).

• 1986: DC publishes Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, setting a new grim tone for Batman.

• 1986-1987: DC Comics publishes the Watchmen limited series, seen by many as a model for a new age of comics.

References

See also

• Golden Age of Comic Books
• Silver Age of Comic Books
• Modern Age of Comic Books
• Crisis on Infinite Earths

External links

• Bronze Age - Television Tropes & Idioms

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