Let's Talk Silver Age Comics!

[hellpop]

I know there's a good number of us around here that read and collect Silver Age comics, so I thought it might be fun to have a thread to chat about 'em. I'm primarily a DC collector, but I've got a pretty good collection of Marvel stuff as well. So, whattaya got, whattaya like?

Okay, I'll 'fess up: the real reason I started this thread is to brag because I just bought- for $20!- a low- grade copy of Avengers #8, which Marvelphiles should recognize as the first appearance of a certain time-traveling conqueror near and dear to our hearts....

[warburger]

Haha, nice catch hellpop. I'm sure the Kadre is dying of jealousy right now. :biggrin:

Myself, I have Uncanny X-men 8, which is nothing special but just a Blob on the cover. But I have a couple of the Neal Adams Uncanny X-Men issues, including the first appearance of the newly-minimated Alex Summers.

Wait, how do we define Silver Age? Is it up to the release of Giant-Size X-Men 1 in 1975?

[karamazov80]

I love me some silver age Marvel. But man. . .a lot of the DC stuff from that period was pretty bad. I'm a huge fan of many of the characters that came out of the period, though.

[hellpop]

See, I'm kind of the opposite... I love the DC stuff from that period, but I have a much harder time warming up to the Marvel material. Maybe it's because I read most Silver Age Marvel in the Essentials collections, and read back to back Stan Lee's flaws as a writer are all too apparent. The endless hype... the soap-opera pathos ("I love [fill in the blank], but I know she could never love me because of [fill in the handicap]!")... the rampant misogyny (I believe every woman in the early Marvel Universe dismissed herself at one time or anther as a "foolish female"). It's all a little much.

Meanwhile, at DC, the stories were often silly, but I find that endearing and charming. And, I know this will open up a can of worms, but I have to say it: the art was better. Kirby was Kirby, sure, but he was stretched very thin and more often then not inked by inferior artists. Ditko fared better, mostly because he inked himself, but I'm still not sure I'd put him next to Gil Kane or Carmine Infantino. And no one at Marvel was in the same league as Murphy Anderson as an inker (well, save for Wally Wood, but he wasn't really a regular).

[BannersID]

I love Silver Age Marvel. My current pride and joy is a full Doc Strange run, all three runs. I've just started working on his strange tales issues. my two favorite segments are the Bronze age run and the very short Silver self titled series.

[hellpop]

Wait, how do we define Silver Age? Is it up to the release of Giant-Size X-Men 1 in 1975?

Nah, it ends much earlier then that. The Bronze Age basically encompasses all of the '70s; there's not a definitive starting point for the BA as there is with the Golden and Silver Ages, but I think most comics historians use Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 as the line. That's the issue that introduced "relevancy" to comics, and certainly seems like where the breezy fun of the Silver Age died.

I love Silver Age Marvel. My current pride and joy is a full Doc Strange run, all three runs. I've just started working on his strange tales issues. my two favorite segments are the Bronze age run and the very short Silver self titled series.

Doc Strange is one of my favorites too. I think Ditko's work in those Strange Tales stories might be my favorite Marvel SA material (personally, I think Ditko's Spider-Man is the only challenger). Unfortunately, he' one of many, many characters that falls on the "misused-misunderstood by today's writers" list, though I did really enjoy the Brian K. Vaughn/ Marcos Martin mini a few years ago.

[Turtle]

See, I'm kind of the opposite... I love the DC stuff from that period, but I have a much harder time warming up to the Marvel material. Maybe it's because I read most Silver Age Marvel in the Essentials collections, and read back to back Stan Lee's flaws as a writer are all too apparent. The endless hype... the soap-opera pathos ("I love [fill in the blank], but I know she could never love me because of [fill in the handicap]!")... the rampant misogyny (I believe every woman in the early Marvel Universe dismissed herself at one time or anther as a "foolish female"). It's all a little much.

Meanwhile, at DC, the stories were often silly, but I find that endearing and charming. And, I know this will open up a can of worms, but I have to say it: the art was better. Kirby was Kirby, sure, but he was stretched very thin and more often then not inked by inferior artists. Ditko fared better, mostly because he inked himself, but I'm still not sure I'd put him next to Gil Kane or Carmine Infantino. And no one at Marvel was in the same league as Murphy Anderson as an inker (well, save for Wally Wood, but he wasn't really a regular).

For truth! For truth! But I've got to admit that I really love Stan Lee's campy writing because he really put fun above all else. There may be flaws, but any one of his stories is just way more FUN to read than almost anything in the Bronze or Modern Ages. But that fun factor, to me, is one of the hallmarks of the entire Silver Age. Everything was just very approachable.

[karamazov80]

I didn't mean to refer to the artwork. I'm a huge Gil Kane and Infantino fan, as well as Neal Adams of course (though I guess he came in on the tail end of the silver age). Both companies had their share of great artists during this period. For me though, Stan Lee's flaws are far outweighed by his strengths in the early days. He created the template(s) for the vast majority of what came since. Sure, he was a promoter, and they were a sign of their times, as women were depicted differently, but at least they were good. And he was fairly progressive in creating an analogy for the civil rights conflict in X-Men at a time when it was not necessarily a popular move in all segments of society. I tried to read through much of the old DC stuff, and it was just tedious. I see some colorful characters that are one-dimensional and interchangeable. Storylines that are wacky and cool on their surface, but that fall flat and get old fast when you have to try and expand them out for an entire comic (which in those days were a lot longer than comics are these days), or even worse, for multi-comic arcs like some of the JLA/JSA crossovers. Jack Kirby's DC stuff was really good of course, and I'm sure there was some other great silver age DC stuff I haven't read. But the JLA/Superman/Batman/GL/Flash/Teen Titans stuff I've tried to read has been rough for the most part (art aside), while Marvel's early X-Men/Fantastic Four/Avengers/Spider-Man/Hulk/etc. at least were good to great at various points in my opinion.

Edited February 27, 2012 by karamazov80

[Turtle]

One thing that I think is true for Silver Age stories from both DC and Marvel... they really weren't meant to be read back to back, and they feel awkward when they are. A lot of stuff these days is written so that when published in a collected volume, it reads seamlessly, and we've gotten used to that. In SA comics, multi-issue stories seem to always keep incorporating the exposition, and that gets really annoying in collected form. Hell, even non-multi-issue stories get annoying. I don't need for Green Lantern to spend several panels explaining his powers every single issue. But if it had been a month since you last read the story, that wouldn't be so annoying, and it would be even less annoying if you had never read a comic at all- which is what the Silver Age was dealing with. That's part of why I think SA comics are more approachable- you really can get on board at almost any issue. The problem comes, for me, when you read several issues back to back.

And I am just going to throw this out there, but All-Star Superman is a delightful collection that really hearkens back to the Silver Age while incorporating a lot of the good points of the Modern Age. If you like Superman and the Silver Age, it's definitely worth reading.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Turtle

[karamazov80]

I think you're right about the continuity and flow across comics, Turtle. Reading the first few Avengers issues can be a bit disorienting. And I did enjoy the All-Star Superman cartoon (didn't read the comic), as well as Alan Moore's nostalgic look back at the silver age in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow." But I think it's because those ideas work when treated with a more sophisticated/modern edge. Though I suppose Marvels did that for the early Marvel stuff, it really isn't necessary to revisit the early Marvel stuff in that way because it stands on its own merits. And Lee was able to do all that despite very explicitly targeting these works to small boys.

I may be a bit biased, but I should also note that I never encountered much Silver Age stuff at all really until I was an adult, so I don't think nostalgia is coloring my point of view (though I'm sure it would toward the bronze age ). And I like to think that I care nearly as much for DC as I do for Marvel.

Edited February 27, 2012 by karamazov80

[buttheadsmate]

I was reading Silver Age Marvel as it was published ....well,maybe a year or so after it hit the US. Finding US comics in the UK was a bloody nightmare then we became blessed with B&W reprints that were available on a weekly basis....then they disappeared...then they reappeared a few years later....then they disappeared again. Very frustrating but I think it made reading them even more enjoyable & I would read them again & again & then again. Contemporary SA DC always seemed a bit odd but I reckon that's more prejudice (I was young) than fact.

I've never gotten over my initial love for SA Marvel & you cannot imagine the abuse I was given at the time from people who ridiculed my passion for reading them. Their loss not mine

[MiniFiend UK]

My SA reading comes from the same sorta source as BHM the Marvel B&W reprints in the UK from originally Titan and then the Marvel Pocket Book series. As for DC it was alot harder to find on the shelves not really SA but I loved All Star Squadron and any JLA/JSA crossover when I could find them, I always preferred the DC Earth-2 stuff to the mainstream DC universe.

[Mystery Man]

I grew up reading my dad's tornado-survived Silver Age Marvel's. Romita, Sr. on Spider-Man, Colan on Daredevil, Tales of Suspense/to Astonish (with Sub-Mariner, not Giant Man) and Fantastic Four. I've read Marvel from every period out there and am an avid collector of the Marvel Masterworks line, as well as the Omnibus and trade programs that Marvel releases. But my biggest soft-spot is for the Silver Age.

9 times out 10, the characters I'm wishing for to be made as minimates (Marvel-wise, that is) comes from the stories that I enjoyed as a child and grew up, still enjoying regardless of how many times I read them.

[Mirymate]

Comparing SA Marvel to SA DC is very much apples and oranges. SA DC was very much still playing if "safe", their characters were defined by their costumes and powers, not their personalities. They were all stalwart and true, helpful and polite, with just a hint if snark. And their villains were long on mayhem, short on menace. It was charming and fun. It wasn't bad, but it was certainly... lite.

Marvel was very different. Lee, Kirby, and Ditko were trying very hard not to be DC, to break new ground and do things differently. Some of that worked, some of it didn't. Some books got their A game, and then there was the Avengers and X-Men (note the irony) But the idea of giving heroes separate and distinct personalities, that some heroes were their civilian ID first, the heroic ID second, that they were people beneath the colorful suits, this is what really separated Marvel from the Distinguished Competition. And it changed the industry.

Of course, looking back both companies stories of the era read a little clunky and silly now, but undeniably fun.

And both companies were pretty darn misogynistic at the time.

Nice score BTW, hp.

[hellpop]

I think, for me, I've always responded much more strongly to the DC characters then Marvel. Maybe it was Super Friends... I dunno. :biggrin: But I just don't get the same... I dunno what you call it, thrill I guess... from the Marvel characters that I do from the DC ones. Batman, Green Lantern, Flash... they just resonate with me in a way most of the Marvel big guns just do not. So I respond more viscerally to the early adventures of those guys then I do, say, Thor.

I don't mean to slag off the formative years of Marvel, or Stan Lee; certainly, everything you guys say about the way Marvel changed comics is true (and maybe not for the better, since they basically invented our modern sense of continuity, which is one of the things that, ultimately, kept comics from a wide general audience, but that's a whole 'nother discussion). Stan probably got more credit then he deserved for many years, considering how much writing Ditko and Kirby in particular were doing, but he probably gets dismissed more then he should these days. Was he a great writer? Probably not, but as an editor, idea man, and general guiding light I don't think he's got a peer.

Anyway, I just think Silver Age DC sometimes gets unfairly dismissed, as if everyone's still drinking the "Brand Ecch" kool-aid 50 years later.

So, what are some favorites from the Silver Age? What are some great things that have gone overlooked? Has anyone ever actually read an Ant-Man story>

[Mystery Man]

There's plenty of Silver Age DC that I love too. I just grew up with Marvel, that's all.

Silver Age Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman ('50s stuff by the talented Ramona Fradon), Justice League of America, Doom Patrol, Metal Men, Hawkman and Adam Strange are all favorites of mine that I've collected (what's been released) in DC Archives format.

[Turtle]

I'm a big Superman fan, so... A surprisingly ahead of its time story is Action Comics #300 "Captive of the Red Sun." Superman chases the Superman Revenge Squad through time and ends up millions of years in the future. Under the earth's dying red sun, he is powerless and has to trek on foot to the Fortress of Solitude. Along the way he befriends an android Perry White and meets some wild monsters. He eventually makes it back to the present, but the experience affects him and the story ends on a fairly somber note. Art by Curt Swan. Back-up story features Supergirl and Comet the Super-horse.

The Superman Emergency Squad is a pretty fun concept. A bunch of little shrunken Kandorians that look like Superman and come to Superman's aid when he's in a bind.

Anything with Red Kryptonite is a win. Fun, silly concept that absolutely is guaranteed to never get old.

[Mirymate]

Strong love of Silver Age Flash and his wonderfully varied and bizare villains. Lot of fun there.

And when I picture Superman in my mind, I still see him as drawn by Curt Swan.

Similarly I picture the Avengers drawn by Big John Buscema and inked by Palmer, Batman by Neal Addams, and Spidey by JRSR.

[hellpop]

Curt Swan's my favorite Superman artist also. In fact, a few years ago I did a top five Superman artists thing on my blog, and he was at the top.

It took me a while to warm up to Superman as a character (and, subsequently, Curt Swan as an artist). I was squarely in the age group that DC was trying to attract when they relaunched him with John Byrne. It's easy to see now why the relaunch failed (well, maybe for everybody but John Byrne :biggrin:); by removing all the elements that make up a traditional Superman story, Byrne eliminated everything that makes Superman unique as a character. He became just another strong guy that could fly, fighting a group of mostly forgettable villains. I think, by comparing Byrne and Swan, you can get a pretty good extrapolation for the differences pre- and post-Crisis Superman: while certainly nowhere near as dynamic as Byrne, Swan brought a polish and dignity to Superman that few characters possess. Now, I'd list Silver and Bronze Age Superman as among my favorites from those time periods.

Looking back, it's easy to see what DC should have done with Superman: just give him to Alan Moore. In the two issues of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (not to mention the Superman Annual and, much later, Supreme stories), Moore showed an innate understanding of what makes Superman tick, and a unique ability to modernize the character while keeping the elements that make Superman Superman in tact. Morrison's All-Star Superman is similar; both recognize that Superman is essentially a decent, normal guy from the midwest who happens to live in the most fantastic world imaginable. Imagine Moore and Jerry Ordway on Superman in 1986... that might have been the definitive Superman.

[Turtle]

An Ordway/Moore series of Superman could have been pretty amazing. As far as your list, if he's not in the top five, Gary Frank at least deserves an honorable mention. He really incorporates the best of each Superman incarnation, imo. And it's about more than simply looking like Christopher Reeve. He captures a lot of the energy, hope, innocence, and optimism of Superman. I like.

[hellpop]

Nope, not on my list. I don't think he's had enough of an impact on the character to warrant a mention, frankly (no pun intended ), and certainly not enough to get ahead of the guys on the list (who are Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Jerry Ordway, Wayne Boring, Joe Shuster, and Curt Swan, incidentally). I think this is a HUGE problem with modern comics, incidentally; guys are announced as being the new artist on a book, do one storyline, then disappear. Johns/Frank were supposed to be the Action Comics team, and they did, what, seven, eight issues together? Certainly less then a dozen. At least that's better then the Kubert brothers, who were supposed to be "permanent" on Action Comics and Batman, respectively, and lasted all of one storyline.

But I digress... I'd certainly put Frank behind Frank Quitely and Ed McGuinness if we're talking modern Superman artists. Not that either of those two gentlemen are better then Frank (whom I quite like), but that they've left a greater mark on the character. Yes, Quitely only did 12 comics, but they amount to one, self-contained story, one which is, IMHO, the definitive Superman story.

Oh, and I just can't resist saying. I hated when Gary Frank started drawing Superman to look like Christopher Reeve. *HATED* it. To me, it felt like the most phony, unnatural artistic choice possible. If Frank's Superman just happened to look like that, that would be one thing, but it was a conscious choice that really turned me off. But then, most of Geoff Johns' Superman (outside the Legion story) turned me off.

Edited March 7, 2012 by hellpop

[Mirymate]

Most of what Byrne/Wien did to Superman, I hated. But I remember several issues of the SA Superman book where Supes was cruising through the obituaries, looking for a new secret ID cause he was tired of being Clark Kent and wanted something cooler. Now at the time it had that SA charm and silliness to it, but when I got older, say 12, it just read creepy and made me wonder why he bothered with a secret ID at all. The reboot gave him an anchor, making him think Clark Kent first, and Superman the fake identity and I think this helped a lot of people relate to him better.

YMMV

[Turtle]

I see where you're coming from about Frank, Hellpop. I was initially put off by the likeness, but I really do like the energy and emotion. For me, it really resonates as Superman. And whoever he used as colorists did well as well. That particular shade of blue works for me.

And I completely agree about the overall humanizing of Superman, Miry. That is what sets that work apart.

[hellpop]

Most of what Byrne/Wien did to Superman, I hated. But I remember several issues of the SA Superman book where Supes was cruising through the obituaries, looking for a new secret ID cause he was tired of being Clark Kent and wanted something cooler. Now at the time it had that SA charm and silliness to it, but when I got older, say 12, it just read creepy and made me wonder why he bothered with a secret ID at all. The reboot gave him an anchor, making him think Clark Kent first, and Superman the fake identity and I think this helped a lot of people relate to him better.

YMMV

I think I have that issue. Doesn't he become, like, a cowboy, and a gangster or something?

Anyway, I think that Mark Waid nailed the Clark Kent identity dichotomy pretty well in Birthright (which is, I think, the best of the seventy-five or so Superman origin books that DC has published in the last ten years): it is, by necessity, a mask. People can't look at Clark Kent and see him as ruggedly handsome, or daring, or anything that might make people connect the dots. But I guess I personally disagree with the idea that he's Clark first, Superman second. I think Superman is much closer to his true "self" (the Batman/Bruce Wayne relationship is much the same). But you're probably right, that's something Byrne and DC (it was Marv Wolfman, not Len Wein, on the other book, BTW) probably tried to do. But, in doing so, I think they got away from the core of the character. He's not Spider-Man, after all. But, you're right, opinions may vary. I enjoy the conversation, though. :biggrin:

[Turtle]

I've always thought that too many writers see Superman as Kal-El of Krypton as the same identity and Clark Kent as separate. I've always preferred the idea that you have this human, Clark Kent, who finds out that he was born Kal-El, the last son of a dead planet, yadda yadda yadda. But instead of being Clark Kent with secret identiy or Kal-El with a codename, he invents and redefines himself on his own terms as a third identity, that of Superman. It enables him to embrace both heritages and mix them into something that is distinctly his own. But I still like the idea that he has certain human anchors and that they keep him grounded.