The Golden Age

The Golden Age was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought as lasting from the 1930s until late 1940s, during which comic books enjoyed a surge of popularity, the archetype of the super-hero was created and defined, and many of the most famous super-heroes debuted. The period saw the arrival of the comic book as a mainstream art form, and the defining of the medium's artistic vocabulary and creative conventions by its first generation of writers, artists, and editors.

History

Comic book fans and historians widely agree that the Golden Age began no later than 1938 with the debut of Superman in Action Comics #1, published by DC Comics. Some date the start to earlier events in the 1930s : the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide's regular publication « The Golden Age Quarterly » lists comic books from 1933 onwards (1933 saw the publication of the first comic book in the size that would subsequently define the format) ; some historians date it to the publication of the first comic books featuring entirely original stories rather than reprints of comic strips from newspapers (1935), by the company that would become DC Comics. However, Superman, the first comic book super-hero, was so popular that super-heroes soon dominated the pages of comic books, which characterized the Golden Age. Between early 1939 and late 1941, DC Comics and her sister company All-American Comics introduced such popular super-heroes as Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman, and Aquaman, while Timely Comics, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics, had million-selling titles that featured the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America.

Although DC Comics and Timely Comics characters are more famous today, circulation figures suggest that in the 1940s the best selling super-hero may have been Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel. According to the article « Thunderstruck » by Ben Morse in Wizard #179 : by the mid 1940s, Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel Adventures, starring the original « Shazam ! »-shouting hero, sold roughly 1,4 million copies per issue, making it the most widely circulated comic book in America. Captain Marvel's sales soundly trounced Superman's self-titled series and Action Comics alike.

Quality Comics’ Plastic Man and cartoonist Will Eisner's non-superpowered masked detective The Spirit, originally published in a newspaper insert but reprinted in comic-book form, were also extremely popular.

World War II had a significant impact. Comic books, particularly super-hero comics, gained immense popularity during the war as cheap, portable, easily read tales of good triumphing over evil. American comic book companies showcased their heroes battling the Axis Powers : covers featuring super-heroes punching Nazi leader Adolf Hitler or fighting racist caricatures of buck-toothed Japanese soldiers have become icons of the age.

Although the creation of the super-hero was the Golden Age's most significant contribution to pop culture, many other genres of comic book appeared on the newsstands side-by-side with Superman and Captain America. The Golden Age included many funny animal, western, romance, and jungle comics. The Steranko History of Comics vol. 2 notes that it was the non super-hero characters of Dell Comics - most notably the licensed Walt Disney animated character comics - that outsold all the supermen of the day. Dell Comics, featuring such licensed movie and literary properties Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Roy Rogers, and Tarzan, boasted circulations of over a million copies a month, and Donald Duck writer / artist Carl Barks is considered one of the era's major talents. Another notable and enduring non super-hero property created during the Golden Age was the Archie Comics cast of teen-humor characters.

End of the era

Fans differ in marking the end of the Golden Age. Some events considered demarcation points include :

• the rise of gritty crime and horror comics, such as those of E.C. Comics, in the late 1940s and early 1950s
• 1950 : for Timely Comics, the Golden Age ended with the cancellation of Captain America Comics at issue #75 in February 1950 - by which time the series had already been Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues, with no super-hero stories ; the company's flagship title, Marvel Mystery Comics, starring the Human Torch, had already ended its run (with #92 in June 1949), as had Sub-Mariner Comics with #32
• 1951 : stories featuring the all-star super-hero team the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics ended (the series changed its name with #58 to All-Star Western) ; this event climaxed a long decline in the popularity of super-heroes ; at Timely Comics, Martin Goodman began using the Atlas Comics logo on comics cover-dated November 1951
• the subsequent Silver Age is usually seen as starting with the debut of a new Flash, Barry Allen in October 1956, and some collectors and historians classify comics up to that date as part of Golden Age ; the interim period, from the mid 1940s to the mid 1950s, is sometimes described as the Atomic Age

The Silver Age

The Silver Age was a period of artistic advancement and commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly in the super-hero genre, that lasted roughly from 1956 to the late 1960s / early 1970s. It was preceded by the Golden Age and was one of the major commercial peaks of the comics industry, along with the collectors boom of the 1990s.

During the Silver Age, the character make-up of super-heroes evolved. Writers injected science-fiction concepts into the origins and adventures of super-heroes. Also, super-heroes became more flawed and troubled, and since the Silver Age, character development and personal conflict have been almost as important to the image of a super-hero as superpowers and epic adventures. Generational revivals in comics are typically spearheaded by a single company. DC Comics renewed the super-hero genre with its publications from 1955-1960. Marvel Comics then dominated the middle part of the Silver Age as DC Comics began to falter.

History

Events leading to the Silver Age.
Following World War II, super-heroes faced a steady decline in popularity. Their development was complicated by the rise of gritty horror and crime comic books, as well as by national parental concerns ignited by Dr. Fredric Wertham's influential book Seduction of the Innocent, and fanned by U.S. Senate hearings on juvenile delinquency. In response, the comic book industry implemented the Comics Code, which forbade gore, excessive violence, sexual suggestiveness, and disrespect of authorities, among other tenets. This made certain genres more difficult to publish, though comic books, like the similarly constrained media of film and television, of necessity, developed new means of storytelling and new types of stories.

Beginning.
The Silver Age began in 1956 when various super-heroes from the 1940s were reimagined. Only their names remained the same ; their costumes, locales, and identities were changed. Science-fiction took the place of magic. The original Green Lantern was engineer Alan Scott. His ring was powered by a magical lantern. His replacement Hal Jordan's ring was powered by an alien power source. The inspiration for this change came from DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz, a lifelong science-fiction fan.

The Silver Age began with DC Comics' Showcase #4 in October 1956, which introduced the modern version of the super-hero the Flash. According to Will Jacobs, three super-heroes still had their own titles in 1956 : Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Superman was available in « great quantity, but little quality ». Batman was doing better, but his comics were « lackluster » in comparison to his « atmospheric adventures » of the 1940s. Wonder Woman, having lost her original writer and artist, was no longer « idiosyncratic » or « interesting ». Then Showcase #4 arrived on the newsstands, « begging to be bought ». The cover featured an undulating strip of film and the Flash running so fast he came out of the film and at the reader.

Under editor Julius Schwartz, super-speedster the Flash took only his power and his super-hero name from the company's 1940s star, and became the first of many old characters DC Comics revised as streamlined, science-fiction influenced models. Other DC Comics heroes published continuously from from the 1930s and 1940s, such as Superman and Batman, were retconned as living in an alternate universe called Earth-Two, with the present-day versions considered as living in the modern-day mainstream continuity, Earth-One.

Marvel Comics and DC Comics.
DC Comics added to the momentum by introducing the Justice League of America, an all-star group consisting of its most popular characters, the success of which prompted rival Marvel Comics to introduce its own super-hero team, the Fantastic Four. Apocryphal legend has it that in 1961, Timely Comics and Atlas publisher, Martin Goodman was playing golf with either Jack Liebowitz or Irwin Donenfeld of rival DC Comics, then known as National Periodical Publications, who bragged about DC Comics' success with the Justice League of America (which had debuted in the Brave and the Bold #28 in February 1960 before going on to its own title). Film producer and comics historian Michael Uslan later debunked some specifics, while supporting the story's framework :

« Irwin Donenfeld said he never played golf with Martin Goodman, so the story is untrue. I heard this story more than a couple of times while sitting in the lunchroom at DC Comics' 909 Third Avenue and 75 Rockefeller Plaza office as Sol Harrison and production chief Jack Adler were schmoozing with some of us ... who worked for DC Comics during our college summers ... The way I heard the story from Sol Harrison was that Martin Goodman was playing with one of the heads of Independent News, not DC Comics (though DC Comics owned Independent News) ... As the distributor of DC Comics, this man certainly knew all the sales figures and was in the best position to tell this tidbit to Martin Goodman ... Of course, Martin Goodman would want to be playing golf with this fellow and be in his good graces ... Sol Harrison worked closely with Independent News' top management over the decades and would have gotten this story straight from the horse's mouth. ».

Whatever the specifics, Martin Goodman, a publishing trend-follower aware of the Justice League of America's strong sales, confirmably directed his comics editor, Stan Lee, to create a comic book series about a team of super-heroes. Stan Lee recalled in 1974 that : « Martin Goodman mentioned that he had noticed one of the titles published by National Comics seemed to be selling better than most. It was a book called The Justice League of America and it was composed of a team of super-heroes ... ' If the Justice League of America is selling ', spoke he, ' why don't we put out a comic book that features a team of super-heroes ? ' ».

This led to the era's rise of Marvel Comics under the guidance of writer-editor Stan Lee and such artists / co-writers as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Marvel Comics introduced more sophisticated characterization and dynamic plotting into super-hero comics, and began aiming at teen and college-age readers in addition to the children's market. Based on the success of the Fantastic Four, Stan Lee and his artists created 11 new series in the next two-and-a-half years, with Spider-Man and, after a slow start with a canceled series, the Hulk among the most popular new characters. Other significant and enduring Marvel Comics' heroes introduced during the Silver Age include Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, the X-Men and Marvel Comics' own all-star group, The Avengers. After an initial period of hesitance, DC Comics began to adopt some of Marvel Comics' creative approaches.

Comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that in the 1960s :

« DC Comics was the equivalent of the big Hollywood studios : after the brilliance of DC Comics' reinvention of the super-hero ... in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it had run into a creative drought by the decade's end. There was a new audience for comics now, and it wasn't just the little kids that traditionally had read the books. The Marvel Comics of the 1960s was in its own way the counterpart of the French New Wave ... Marvel Comics was pioneering new methods of comics storytelling and characterization, addressing more serious themes, and in the process keeping and attracting readers in their teens and beyond. Moreover, among this new generation of readers were people who wanted to write or draw comics themselves, within the new style that Marvel Comics had pioneered, and push the creative envelope still further. ».

For example, as comics historian Craig Schutt observed, DC Comics' heroes were straightforward in their support of each other, and quickly banded together to defeat an enemy. Marvel Comics' heroes, in contrast, trusted each other less, and would frequently fight each other before a misunderstanding was resolved and they joined together against a common foe. DC Comics' approach detailed the differences between heroes without violence, Marvel Comics', said Craig Schutt, « addressed the age-old, little-kid question of which hero would win in a fight ».

Other publishers.
The resurgence of super-heroes proved so influential that publishing houses not known for such characters - including Archie Comics, Charlton Comics and Dell Comics - attempted their own super-heroes, but met with limited critical and popular success. Tower Comics was an exception with the well-received if short-lived T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series by Wally Wood.

The period hit its commercial peak from 1966 to 1968 with the popularity of the A.B.C. network's campy Batman TV series, which both heightened interest in comics and damaged their public image as a legitimate artistic medium - this despite the Batman comic books themselves having taken a more serious tone in 1964 with the introduction of the « New Look Batman ».

Underground comics got their start during the 1960s portion of the Silver Age. However, because the artistic content, goals and marketing of these comic books were so different from the mainstream companies, it is generally considered a separate movement in the medium.

End of the Silver Age

Multiple endpoints have been suggested for the Silver Age. According to Will Jacobs, the Silver Age ended when the man who had started it, Julius Schwartz, handed over Green Lantern to Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams in response to reduced sales. Another possible endpoint is the publication of the last 12¢ comics in 1969.

John Strausbaugh of the New York Times describes the end of the Silver Age in terms of Green Lantern. In 1960, he embodied the can-do optimism of the era : « No one in the world suspects that at a moment's notice I can become mighty Green Lantern - with my amazing power ring and invincible green beam ! Golly, what a feeling it is ! ». By 1972 he had become world weary. « Those days are gone - gone forever - the days I was confident, certain ... I was so young ... so sure I couldn't make a mistake ! Young and cocky, that was Green Lantern. Well, I've changed. I'm older now ... maybe wiser, too ... and a lot less happy. ». According to John Strausbaugh, « the Silver Age went out with that whimper ».

The Bronze Age

The Bronze Age 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 followed the Silver Age.

The Bronze Age retained many of the conventions of the Silver Age, with brightly colored super-hero 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.

History

The term Bronze Age was first used by Wizard magazine to refer to the « modern horror » age in the mid 1960s through late 1970s marked by such titles as Gold Key's Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery (in 1963), Ripley's Believe it or not ! True Ghost Stories (in 1965), and Ripley's Believe it or not ! True Demons and Monsters (in 1965), as well as DC Comics' House of Mystery (went Horror in 1968) and House of Secrets second series (in 1969) and Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula (in 1972). Eventually it came to refer to super-hero comics of what has originally been called the « late Silver Age ».

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.

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). Jack Kirby then turned to DC Comics, 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. Julius Schwartz set about toning down some of the more fanciful aspects of the Mort Weisinger era, removing most Kryptonite from continuity and scaling back Superman's, by that point, near infinite powers.

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 super-hero comics for several years before that point.

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. Stan Lee agreed and wrote a 3-part Spider-Man story, Amazing Spider-Man #96-98, portraying drug use as dangerous and unglamorous. At the time any portrayal of drug use in comic books, regardless of the context, was banned outright by the Comics Code Authority. The C.C.A. refused to approve the story, but Stan Lee published it regardless. The positive reception that the story received led to the C.C.A. 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 Tomb of Dracula.

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 Lane 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 super-hero stories to this day.

Creator credit and labour 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 Comics in rectifying them and other pioneers from the 1930s and 1940s.

Minority super-heroes.
One of the most significant developments during the period was a substantial rise in the number of African American and other minority super-heroes. Before the 1970s, there had been very few non-white super-heroes (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 super-hero to star in his own comic book), Storm, Blade, Shang-Chi, Misty Knight, John Stewart, Bronze Tiger, Black Lightning and Cyborg.
Some of these early minority super-heroes 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 1980s, Storm and Cyborg had become leaders of the X-Men and The 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 Comics and Marvel Comics became imitations of Neal Adams' work and more realistic versions of Jack Kirby's respectively. This change is sometimes credited to a new generation of artists influenced by the popularity of E.C. Comics in the 1950s. In spite of the House styles, those artists who could draw realistically apart from these would gain some notoriety. Such names include Bernie Wrightson, Jim Starlin, John Byrne (John Byrne's style would become the House style at Marvel Comics), Frank Miller, George Pérez 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 Stan Lee / Jack Kirby creations, and by 1969 Marvel Comics 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 were introduced by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum in Giant-Size X-Men #1, with Chris Claremont as uncredited assistant co-plotter. Chris Claremont stayed as writer on just about all X-Men related titles including spin-offs into the Modern Age, after which other regular writers such as Louise Simonson, Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell joined and Chris Claremont eventually left.
One of the most apparent influence 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. Marv Wolfman would associate himself with the title for 16 years, while George Pérez established a large fanbase and sought-after penciling style. A successful cartoon based on the Titans of the Bronze Age of Comics was launched in 2003, and lasted for 3 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 Comics graduated its double feature characters appearing in their anthologies to full-length stories in their own comic book. But several of these characters could not sustain their own title and were cancelled. Marvel Comics 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 Comics 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). Virtually all such books disappeared by the end of the period.

Company crossovers.
With Carmine Infantino at the helm of DC Comics, he and Stan Lee struck up a close friendship from Carmine Infantino's work at Marvel Comics. 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. The Hulk and The X-Men vs. The New Teen Titans. Another title, The Avengers vs. The Justice League of America was written and drawn by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez but was never published, reflecting the later animosity between the two companies. Both companies would do crossover work with independent companies such as Teen Titans and the DNAgents as well the Marvel vs. Capcom video game.

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

DC Comics Implosion and Marvel Comics' New Universe.
In the mid 1970s, with Carmine Infantino at the helm, DC Comics flooded the market with numerous new titles such as Jack Kirby's New Gods, and Kamandi, Steve Ditko's Shade the Changing Man, etc. The company referred to this as the DC Explosion. DC Comics greatly overestimated the appeal of so many new titles at one and it nearly broke the company and the industry, including Charlton Comics. Janette Kahn would eventually take the helm of the company.
Marvel Comics eventually gained 50% of the market and, in the mid 1980s, Stan Lee handed control of the comic division to Jim Shooter while he worked with their growing animation spin-offs. Jim Shooter developed Marvel Comics' New Universe as a series of titles with its own continuity separate from the Stan Lee creations. Like DC Comics, Jim Shooter greatly overestimated the appeal of so many new titles flooding the market, four of the titles were cancelled the first year, with the last in 1989.

Non super-hero comics.
During this time period, and partly because of the revision of the Comics Code, many non super-hero mainstream comics became popular. Notable non super-hero comics of the time include Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan, which each lasted over 200 issues, with Savage Sword of Conan being a magazine format that escaped the Comics Code entirely, 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 Comics and later DC Comics to adapt other franchises such as pulp characters (Doc Savage, Kull, The Shadow, Justice Inc., Tarzan), entertainment personalities (Kiss, Human Fly), toys (G.I. 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 super-heroes, this era saw several series featuring villains (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 the Marvel Comics and DC Comics unsuccessfully such as Millie the Model. Several Archie Comics' titles too examined socially relevant issues and introduced a few African American characters. Archie Comics largely switched to paperback digest format in the late 1980s.
Children's comics were still popular with Walt 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 Comics and DC Comics were unable to emulate their success with competing titles.
An adult market was ostensibly opened with the Belgian import Heavy Metal Magazine. Marvel Comics 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 1940s extremely valuable. DC Comics 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 Comics crossovers.

The popularity of those early books also opened up a market for specialty shops. So-called Independent publishers and titles grew such as Dark Horse Comics, Dave Sims' Cerebus, and Wendi and Richard Pini's Elfquest series. Marvel Comics and DC Comics 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 fuzzy, 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 Comics 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 super-hero 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 Comics' longest running titles launched in the seventies) and the launch of the New Universe and X-Factor.