Bronze Age of Comic Books

Ground-breaking writer Denny O'Neil discussed topics previously avoided in comics, such as drug abuse and urban poverty.

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 the April 1970 issue of Green Lantern, which added Green Arrow as a title character (Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76). The series, written by Denny O'Neil and penciled by Neal Adams (inking was by Adams or Dick Giordano), focused on "relevance" as Green Lantern was exposed to poverty and experienced self-doubt.[2][3]

Later in 1970, Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics, ending arguably the most important creative partnership of the Silver Age (with Stan Lee). Kirby then turned to DC, where he created The Fourth World series of titles, starting with Superman's Pal 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. Schwartz set about toning down some of the more fanciful aspects of the Weisinger era, removing most Kryptonite from continuity and scaling back Superman's nigh-infinite—by then—powers, which was done by veteran Superman artist Curt Swan together with author Denny O'Neil.

The beginning of the Bronze Age coincided with the end of the careers of many of the veteran writers and artists of the time, or their promotion to management positions and retirement from regular writing or drawing, and their replacement with a younger generation of editors and creators, many of whom knew each other from their experiences in comic book fan conventions and publications. At the same time, publishers began the era by scaling back on their superhero publications, canceling many of the weaker-selling titles, and experimenting with other genres such as horror and sword and sorcery.

The era also encompassed major changes in the distribution of and audience for comic books. Over time, the medium shifted from cheap mass market products sold at newsstands to a more expensive product sold at specialty comic bookshops and aimed at a smaller, core audience of fans. The shift in distribution allowed many small-print publishers to enter the market, changing the medium from one dominated by a few large publishers to a more diverse and eclectic range of books.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 (October 1971), one of the first comic stories to tackle the issue of drug use – cover art by Neal Adams

In 1970, Marvel published the first comic book issue of Robert E. Howard's pulp character Conan the Barbarian. Conan's success as a comic hero resulted in adaptations of other Howard characters: King Kull, Red Sonja and Solomon Kane. DC Comics responded with comics featuring Warlord, Beowulf and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. They also took over the licensing of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan from longtime publisher Gold Key and began adapting other Burroughs creations, such as John Carter, the Pellucidar series, and the Amtor series. Marvel also adapted to comic book form, with less success, Edwin Lester Arnold's character Gullivar Jones and, later, Lin Carter's Thongor.

The murder of Spider-Man's longtime girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, at the hands of the Green Goblin in 1973's Amazing Spider-Man #121–122 is considered by comics scholar Arnold T. Blumberg to be the definitive Bronze Age event, as it exemplifies the period's trend towards darker territory and willingness to subvert conventions such as the assumed survival of long-established, "untouchable" characters. However, there had been a gradual darkening of the tone of superhero comics for several years prior to "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", including the death of her father in the 1970's Amazing Spider-Man #90 and the beginning of the Dennis O'Neil/Neal Adams tenure on Batman.

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. Lee agreed and wrote a three-part Spider-Man story, "Green Goblin Reborn!," which portrayed drug use as dangerous and unglamorous. At that time, any portrayal of drug use in comic books was banned outright by the Comics Code Authority, regardless of the context. The CCA refused to approve the story, but Lee published it regardless.

The positive reception that the story received led to the CCA revising the Comics Code later that year to allow the portrayal of drug addiction as long as it was depicted in a negative light. Soon after, DC Comics had their own drug abuse storyline in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85–86. Written by Denny O'Neil with art by Neal Adams, the storyline was entitled "Snowbirds Don't Fly," and it revealed that the Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy had become addicted to heroin.

The 1971 revision to the Comics Code has also been seen as relaxing the rules on the use of vampires, ghouls and werewolves in comic books, allowing the growth of a number of supernatural- and horror-oriented titles, such as Swamp Thing, Ghost Rider and The Tomb of Dracula, among numerous others. However, the tone of horror comic stories had already seen substantial changes between the relatively tame offerings of the early 1960s (e.g. Unusual Tales) and the more violent products available in the late 1960s (e.g. The Witching Hour, revised formats in House of Secrets, House of Mystery and The Unexpected).

At the beginning of the 1970s, publishers moved away from the superhero stories that enjoyed mass-market popularity in the mid-1960s; DC cancelled most of its superhero titles other than those starring Superman and Batman, while Marvel cancelled weaker-selling titles such as Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner and The X-Men. In their place, they experimented with a wide variety of other genres, including Westerns, horror and monster stories, and the above-mentioned adaptations of pulp adventures. These trends peaked in the early 1970s, and the medium reverted by the mid-1970s to selling predominantly superhero titles.

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 Marvel and DC unsuccessfully. Several Archie titles examined socially relevant issues and introduced a few African-American characters. Archie largely switched to paperback digest format in the late 1980s.

Children's comics were still popular with 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, which eventually switched to digest format as well. Again Marvel and DC were unable to emulate their success with competing titles.

An 'explicit content' market akin to the niche Underground Comix of the late '60s was ostensibly opened with the Franco-Belgian import Heavy Metal Magazine. Marvel launched competing magazine titles of their own with Conan the Barbarian and Epic Illustrated which would eventually become its 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 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 crossovers.

The popularity of those early books also opened up a market for specialty shops. The existence of these shops made it possible for small-press publishers to reach an audience, and some comic book artists began self-publishing their own work. Notable titles of this type included Dave Sim's Cerebus and Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest series. Other small-press publishers came in to take advantage of this growing market: Pacific Comics introduced in 1981 a line of books by comic-book veterans such as Jack Kirby, Mike Grell and Sergio Aragonés, for which the artists retained copyright and shared in royalties.

In 1978, Will Eisner published his "graphic novel" A Contract With God, an attempt to produce a long-format story outside the traditional comic book genres. In the early 1980s Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly began publishing Raw magazine, which included the early serialization of Spiegelman's award-winning graphic novel Maus.

Comics sold on newsstands were distributed on the basis that unsold copies were returned to the publisher. Comics sold to comic shops were sold on a no-return basis. This allowed small-press titles sold through the direct market to keep publishing costs down and increase profits, making viable titles that otherwise would have been unprofitable. Marvel and DC began taking advantage of this direct market themselves, publishing books and titles distributed only through comic book shops.

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. DC Comics published Crisis on Infinite Earths, which overhauled the history of the DC Universe and several of the company's major characters, and revitalized sales for the company, again making it a serious market contender against Marvel. During this period Marvel published the crossover Secret Wars, cancelled Defenders and Power Man and Iron Fist, and launched the New Universe and X-Factor (an extension of the X-Men franchise).

After the Bronze Age came the Modern Age of Comic Books. According to Shawn O'Rourke of PopMatters, the shift from the previous ages involved a "deconstructive and dystopian re-envisioning of iconic characters and the worlds that they live in",[5] as typified by Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen (1986–1987). Other features that define the era are an increase in adult-oriented content, the rise of the X-Men as Marvel Comics' "dominant intellectual property", and a reorganization of the industry's distribution system.[5] These changes would also lead to the appearance of new independent comic book publishers in the early 1990s—such as Image Comics, with titles like Spawn and Savage Dragon which also boasted a darker, sarcastic and more mature approach to superhero storylines.

• January 1970: First Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams Batman story (The Secret of the Waiting Graves, Detective Comics #395) signals a darker era for the iconic character. Ward Dick Grayson (Robin) left for college, and alter ego Bruce Wayne left Wayne Manor, in previous month's Batman comic.
• April 1970: DC Comics adds Green Arrow to Green Lantern book for stories written by Denny O'Neil and penciled by Neal Adams featuring "relevance". Series, story, writer, penciller and inker all win first Shazam Awards in their respective categories the following year.
• October 1970: Marvel Comics begins publishing Conan the Barbarian.
• October 1970: DC Comics begins publishing Jack Kirby's Fourth World titles beginning with Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and continuing with New Gods, The Forever People and Mister Miracle.
• 1971: The Comics Code is revised.
• January 1971: Clark Kent becomes a newscaster at WGBS-TV.
• February 1971: African-American superhero Falcon shares co-feature status in renamed Captain America and The Falcon.
• July 1971: DC Comics introduces the character of Swamp Thing in its House of Secrets title.
• April 1972: Marvel begins publishing The Tomb of Dracula.
• June 1972: Luke Cage becomes the first African American superhero to receive his own series in Hero for Hire #1.
• June 1973: Green Goblin kills Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spider-Man #121.
• December 1973: The absurdist Howard the Duck makes his first appearance in comics and would be one of the most popular non-superheroes ever. He would get his own series in 1976 and he would graduate to his own daily newspaper strip and a 1986 film.
• February 1974: First appearance of the Punisher in The Amazing Spider-Man #129.
• November 1974: First appearance of Wolverine in Incredible Hulk #181.
• 1975: Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum introduces the "all-new, all-different X-Men."
• July 1977: At the request of Roy Thomas, Marvel releases Star Wars, based on the hit movie, and it quickly becomes one of the best-selling books of the era.
• August 1977: Black Manta kills Aquababy in Adventure Comics #452.
• December 1977: Dave Sim launches Cerebus independent of the major publishers, the longest-running limited series (300 issues) in comics as well as the longest run by one artist on a comic book series.
• Spring 1978: First appearance of Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini is published in Fantasy Quarterly.
• 1978: DC cancels over half of its titles in the so-called DC Implosion.
• July 1979: DC publishes World of Krypton, the first comic book mini-series, which gave publishers a new flexibility with titles.
• January – October 1980: Uncanny X-Men The Dark Phoenix Saga
• November 1980: First issue of DC Comics' The New Teen Titans whose success at revitalizing a previously underperforming property would lead to the idea of revamping the entire DC Universe.
• June 1982: Marvel publishes Contest of Champions, its first limited series. This title features most of the company's major characters together, providing a template for later limited-series storylines at Marvel and DC.
• October 1982: Comico begins publishing a comic called Comico Primer that would later be the starting point for several influential artists and writers such as Sam Kieth and Matt Wagner.
• May 1984: Marvel begins releasing the first "big event" storyline, Secret Wars, which would, along with Crisis on Infinite Earths, popularize big events, and make them a staple in the industry.
• May 1984: Mirage Studios begins publishing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.
• Summer 1984: DC Comics, desiring to feature more diverse characters, adds Vixen, Vibe (and Steel) to the Justice League of America, with Aquaman as team leader and later Batman. This was commonly known as "Justice League Detroit Era".
• April 1985: DC begins publishing Crisis on Infinite Earths, which would drastically restructure the DC universe, and popularize the epic crossover in the comics industry along with Secret Wars. In the aftermath of this Crisis, DC cancels and relaunches the Flash, Superman and Wonder Woman.
• August 1985: Eclipse Comics publishes Miracleman, written by Alan Moore, developing the later trends of bringing superhero fiction into the real world, and showing the effects of immensely powerful characters on global politics (both potentially apocalyptic and utopian).
• 1986: DC publishes Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, setting a new grim tone for Batman.
• September 1986: Curt Swan, primary Superman artist during the Silver and Bronze Age, is retired from his monthly art duties on all Superman books after the last Pre-Crisis Superman story, called "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", on which he worked together with Alan Moore, is published.
• September 1986 – October 1987: DC Comics publishes the Watchmen limited series, seen by many as a model for a new age of comics.

• Golden Age of Comic Books
• Silver Age of Comic Books
• Modern Age of Comic Books