Bronze age.

[carmelo]

Bronze age begins for Superman in 1972 (but perhaps the true beginning is in 1970 on Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen).But when the bronze age begins for DC characters? in 1969,right,but which it is the first comic that marks the passage from Silver to Bronze age? And again,in yours opinion would not have  be divided this age in "Ancient bronze" age and "fade bronze" age.In my opinion the real ,bold, creative,bronze age (even if i prefer Silver) is 1969-1972. Agree?

[MatterEaterLad]

Well, it was different...

I don't really think it was any one year, but the accumulated differences.  I saw signs of it when the Kents were made young in Superboy, and the markers for me were Lois quitiing the paper to find herself, Wonder Woman renouncing her powers and following I Ching, Clark joining WGBS, the Green Lantern traveling America with the Green Arrow.

[davidelliott]

I agree with MEL... Also did it start when Batman came out of his "camp" phase when Neal Adams started doing covers, or when Bruce moved out of Wayne Manor?

[Super Monkey]

Well, for Batman and Superman it is pretty easy to tell, for the rest, not so much.

For Batman is the end of the Camp Batman and the start of the return of the Dark Knight (the real one that acts like a hero).

For Superman, his comics change from many stories a comic to just one "long" story an issue. The artwork is also bigger, bolder and more in your face, even though it is still Curt Swan doing it, his layouts are completely different than his Silver Age style. Of course this was Jack Kirby natural style as well.

For DC Comics, the stories start to get more "serious" with the start of the so-called "Social Relevance" era. The famous Lois Lane story "I am curious Black" being the best example of this for Superman.
 

 

[JulianPerez]

I've said this before, but a friend of mine put forth a very, very persuasive case that the moment the Silver Age officially ended was when Neal Adams did his very first cover.

I have to agree with MatterEaterLad that it was a whole bunch of different things that crept in. Kurt Busiek, who started reading Marvel comics in 1974, and DC in 1976, even then still believed he was LIVING in the Silver Age. It's something that can only be truly identified in retrospect.

In that context, the totally different visual language and shocking realism of Adams and his covers can really be pointed to as one of the start points for the end of the Silver Age.

Me? I'd say the first sign that DC was moving into something new was the introduction of the JLA Satellite.

Let me explain that.

Personally, I think the Silver Age died of sheer exhaustion. Arguably all the best Superman stories of the Silver Age happened after 1967 - from Jim Shooter/Swan on the Legion, to Ed Hamilton's science fiction/adventure stories, which had much more in common with the Bronze Age that was to come: an emphasis on adventure and science fiction over gimmickry.

But then again, Superman wasn't typical of DC output at this time.

This was a weird kind of in-between period for DC, whose most typical output were creators like Mike Sekowsky doing "Jason's Quest," a totally unremarkable story about a kid on a bicycle. JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and GREEN LANTERN had definitively jumped the shark at this point; Gardner Fox clearly didn't care anymore.

Marvel-hating pinheads often cite Hal Jordan's Marvel style personality transplant in GL as being a sign that Marvel-style approach on characterization and "hero with problems" doesn't work, but its' really more complicated than that. His personlity transplant was symptomatic of the fact the series had run on too long. It was a symptom, not the cause of GL's exhaustion. At least giving him a personality was SOMETHING to do.

The end of the Silver Age was filled with characters like Prince Ra-Man and his back-up strip (a character that is clearly based on the blueprint of Doctor Strange), as well as the Elongated Man.

Really, if anything is the definitive end of the Silver Age, it would be Arnold Drake leaving DC. His weird energy made DOOM PATROL the most readable comic of the time (why the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man hasn't fought Superman is a mystery to me), and his DOOM PATROL/CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN crossovers some of the most weirdly fascinating this side of Hamilton and Shooter. They had all the cool energy that the JLA/JSA team-ups had lost by that point: no JLA/JSA villain was possibly as cool as Muto was.

It's funny: the worse other superheroes do, the better Martian Manhunter does. The late 1960s was the age of MM's backup in HOUSE OF SECRETS.

I'm painting a very bleak picture here, but it really wasn't; in addition to Hamilton and Shooter and Drake, this was the era of O'Neil being DC's hotshot wunderkind, the Geoff Johns of his age, creating the JLA Satellite and the coolest team-up book ever, HAWKMAN AND THE ATOM. But even he was discernable by the totally different energy he brought, that he was the start of something new: consider his introduction of the Red Tornado and Black Canary going over to Earth-1 after the death of her husband. Both were very un-Foxlike stories centered on getting inside the characters' heads.

And this was a book that had been dominated by the Fox/Sekowsky team for thousands of years!

So, now you see why I consider the creation of the JLA Sattellite to be the definitive beginning of the Bronze Age: it was the first step, a symbol a whole new kind of energy and spirit, a new direction and rejuvination for a tired book.

[Spaceman Spiff]

... consider his [O'Neil's] introduction of the Red Tornado ...

The Red Tornado was introduced by Gardner Fox in JLA #64-65, which was Fox's last JLA story. But O'Neil did get the first chance to develop the character, in the next two JLA/JSA team-ups.

[MatterEaterLad]

Well, I agree with the signs that Julian posted here, I just don't agree on the relative value he places on the stories.  But, I was going to mention Black Canary coming to Earth 1 too.

As someone who actually read the the Silver Age stories WHEN they came out, I will say that the change to Bronze Age was different enough to make me stop reading comics.  As far as I was concerned, having superficial contemporary issues superimposed on Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman was not the answer. I didn't want to get inside their heads.  DC could have emphasized increased science fiction and the situations on many planets, rather than making social statements that were quickly dated, only scratched the surface of the issues, and were following trends rather than leading them.

There was a time that giving Lois her own comic and having stories with Pat Boone was change for change's sake too.

[crispy snax]

i htink it was different times for different characters, for the teen titans say, i would reckon it would be when they had the whole assination storyline and the titans became plainclothes heroes (with the exception of robin.. hay you dont mess with the icons!)

i think this would be the in dcu canon point of when the silver age becomes the bronze age, i think its the first "major event" where the heroes seemed less than perfect, but thats just my opnion