The Silver Age

So we got through the Silver Age of comics this week. It was a rather interesting shift from the start to this maturing middle stage.

I was not familiar with many comics from this time period and was amused to find out the back story behind the arrival of Krypto the super dog. My son was a fan of Krypto a few years back and occasionally they still have guest appearances by Batdog! The Krakow to Krypton text seemed to state that the DC comic line made these sort of cross overs in a contrived fashion only driven by the desire to grow sales across fan bases and iw ould have to agree. Two things have always made Marvel my favorite, first the interconnected Universe that made the world seem "real" and alive. A unified setting where each characters actions potential affected another, and where villians didn't always harass the same hero always.

The second attraction to the Marvel comics was the human elements of the characters. I remember an old Spiderman comic book that I used to own that had Spidey literally pacing the walls of his apartment stressing out and eventually having problems with stress ulcers. It was this real person element that made him great.

One other facet of the Silver Age I found interesting was how process of comic creation final began to seem more deliberate. At least that is how I felt it was presented. In the Golden Age it seemed any trash printed was going to be snatched up but in the start of the Silver Age the market had contracted and a quality comic that was tailored towards individual markets were required.

So that leaves me interested to see what the third and final Age of comics will be... Perhaps it will again be defined by further growth, an increase in the use of the medium for something besides simple entertainment?