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Jan 25 08 2:04 AM
That's an awfully definitive statement, for such a long-lived & varied medium. For one thing, if we go by the old Civil War general's advice, "get there the fustest, with the mostest," we have to face The Man of Steel and the Darknight Detective.
Have you read much Golden Age stuff? To a large degree, excepting mainly Simon & Kirby, Marvel's looks terrible, and is near unreadable, script-wise.
In the Silver Age, yes; to a large degree, DC had gotten fat & complacent, & Marvel - largely, Lee & Kirby & Ditko - ran rings around them, & reinvigorated the medium.
But when the Second Wave - former fans like Denny O' Neill & Wrightson - came in, the other team again took the lead. The best of the Bronze Age, which pretty much created the more adult comics most of us love best, came from DC: the "back to basics" Batman; GL/GA; Swamp Thing; Maggin's reinvigorated Supes; The Shadow; Tarzan; Kirby's stuff there (much better than his "return to Marvel" material); etc.
Nowdays, to me at least, both (former) Majors mainly stumble around; one or the other occasionally hits the ball...
PLATINUM AGE (1897-1932) - This was really pre-comic book stuff. Lots of reprints of comic strips with cardboard covers, promotional give-aways and one shots in all sorts of odd shapes and sizes. I love this age, although collecting it is out of the question simply because of price, scarcity, and costs to maintain. This is as vintage as it gets! PRE-GOLDEN AGE (1933-May, 1938) - Here we get into the idea of sequential comics. This is where the modern comic format starts, with Funnies On Parade and stuff like that. These are mostly copied comic strips from newspapers bundled together. I'm not too excited about it outside of its historical value. Some of the Disney stuff is good. GOLDEN AGE (June, 1938-1945) - I never cared for the Golden Age. The stories sucked, the art sucked...it's just because Superman hit it big and ushered in the age of superhero comics that this age means anything. Sure, we got some cool characters. But the stories are hideous, as is the art. ATOM AGE (1946 - 1956) - I really never understood this classification. Ok, so atom bomb covers were popular. Big deal. I don't think it deserves its own age. It's still mostly Golden Age junk to me. If anything, the age should be the EC AGE, since EC Comics had such a huge effect on the industy during that time and beyond. SILVER AGE (Sept, 1956 - 1969) - Here's where it gets good. Stories and art take a quantum leap up from the Golden Age. Marvel creates the ultimate comic book company of all time. It only gets better as the age goes on. My second favorite age after the Bronze Age. BRONZE AGE (1970 - 1979) - Shame on all those fools who do not recognize a Bronze Age! The 70's was as unique a time in comic history as any other, and more happened in the Bronze Age than in any other. While it can be argued that there was in some cases higher quality on some titles in the Silver Age, I still enjoyed more of the Bronze Age. RUST AGE (1980 - 1983) - Here is where it all started to fall apart. As the 80's came in, one by one the great runs ended. There were still some great comics out there, but many if not most comic titles began to decline significantly in this age. DOOM AGE (1984 - 1985) - With Secret Wars at Marvel and Crisis at DC, both companies went to hell quickly. These years are the turning points for both companies. The company-wide crossover was invented, and the ret-con reached epic proportions. Comics went to hell in this short period. Almost nothing worth reading was left by 1985. The industry was doomed by these two short years. LAST GASP AGE (1986 - 1989) - During this time, a very few comics gave a last gasp and signaled the death knell of comics forever. Scout by Eclipse (which technically started in Dec. of '85) was just about the only thing worth reading in this era, and Simonson's run on Thor. GIMMICK AGE - (1990 - 1999) - a total waste of paper, absolutely nothing good came out of the 90's. Majorly freaking stupid ret-cons were tried, characters were forever damaged with idiotic changes, and gimmicks like company-wide super-crossovers, foil covers, reboots, #0 issues, #1/2 issues and #1,000,000 idiocy polluted the stands. No wonder the industry fell. It should never have tried to get up. SHIT AGE (2000 - present) - The age of stupid ideas, near-monthly crappy ret-cons, $#!+ poor art, minimal story per issue due to hack artists doing 3 panel and full panel pages, hyper-realism and excessive sex turn comics into utter $#!+. I'd use them only for toilet paper, if extremely overpriced toilet paper. That's my take on the comic book industry between 1897 and 2008.
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