How was Silver age - Bronze age comics? - Gen. Discussion

#1 Edited by Skunkstein (554 posts) - 10 months, 20 days ago - Show Bio

95 % of the comics ive read was from the early 90s - till now. Comics past that period i mostly have knowlegde of from Wiki sites, discussions, reboots etc. I just read the origin of Hobgoblin which was from the early 80s i believe. Even though i enjoyed that story i could easily feel the pacing to be much slower than modern comics, i actually enjoyed the more simplistic art for a change compared to the very digital rendered modern comic books. However just like when comparing newer movies to older movies the stories and action feels much more slow, and i felt that i could sometimes become bored if i read it for longer periods, that and i sometimes find some of the dialogues cheesy and cliché - however to be fair, these lines are mostly only cheesy because viewed with modern eyes they feel that way, its a different time after all.

How do you guys feel the older comic books are compared to the newer ones?

#2 Posted by Glitch_Spawn (15615 posts) - 10 months, 20 days ago - Show Bio

What books from the period are you reading?

#3 Edited by S2333 (4 posts) - 10 months, 20 days ago - Show Bio

I read a couple of those early Spiderman omnibus books which contain Spiderman's first 50 or so issues and they were very cheesy and cliché. They were also much more self contained then todays comics where nearly everything coming out is part of a larger story arc. Nevertheless for a quick thrill they were quite fun to read but I do have to say the art of story telling in comics has evolved immensely since the silver age.

#4 Posted by jinxuandi (581 posts) - 10 months, 20 days ago - Show Bio

They vary from company to company. Much of DC's Silver Age stuff is not much different than their Golden Age material in terms of writing. It tends to be episodic, without much character development from issue to issue. At the end of each issue, things almost always return to the status quo. Marvel's Silver Age books are a bit more advanced in terms of character development. It's true that most of the changes made to characters are superficial and short-term in retrospect, but at least Marvel authors respect the reader's attention span for more than one or two issues. A plot point might be introduced in one issue so that it can be brought up 5 issues later, for example (this almost never happens in a SA DC mag).

The Bronze Age is my favorite period of comics. Both companies really start addressing contemporary issues for the first time (sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's always fun to read). Real changes to characters are introduced that have lasting effects (e.g., Peter Parker's girlfriend dies, Hal Jordan leaves Coast City, Steve Rogers stops being Captain America). Yeah, sometimes the dialogue is a bit predictable to us but that's partly because these stories have now existed for 30+ years and partly because authors tried to be more friendly to new readers than they are today.

#5 Posted by JediXMan (23389 posts) - 10 months, 20 days ago - Show Bio

The Silver Age was mostly... well bad. The Bronze Age was rather good.

#6 Posted by CrimsonCake (2611 posts) - 10 months, 20 days ago - Show Bio

The stories from those eras were pretty over the top.

#7 Posted by krilling (2484 posts) - 10 months, 19 days ago - Show Bio

Superhero comics began to become more imteresting during the Bronze Age. The SIlver Age was the ressurection but in fact the plots were pretty naive and immature (especially the DC stuff). Also the Cold War literature in some of them is just too cheesy. But they're some volumes which are well done. For example the first Silver Surfer series.

#8 Posted by They Killed Cap! (2243 posts) - 10 months, 19 days ago - Show Bio

Older books tend to have slower deloping plots with very campy plot devices. The action is much more subdued. Morality plays big in these stories and they do tend to be a lot more wordie.

#9 Posted by veedub (1 posts) - 10 months, 19 days ago - Show Bio

I'm a big fan of ec comics, like tales from the crypt and two fisted tales and such. i guess they would be golden age but can be gory as hell! agree that there is quite a bit of morality inserted into the stories but the best bits are the ironic endings!