There was a time when you could easily pigeonhole the big two. Marvel gave us heroes with angst: Peter Parker trying to deal with being a teenager and a hero; Matt Murdock trying to reconcile catching criminals, just to end up defending them in court; The Fantastic Four just trying to keep their relationship solid. DC gave us gods in the form of humans. The Golden Age and Silver Age heroes encountered problems in their personal lives, but for the most part this was not the focus of DC comics. DC gave us heroes that we could look up to, that were Super and Heroes in every sense of the words.

DC’s Golden Age: The mystery men. While brave Americans fought evil in one form overseas, other brave Americans fought from behind a mask. Their Age was short, but well loved and remembered with fondness.

DC’s Silver Age: The time of the Superheroes. Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman. Green Lantern. Flash. Martian Manhunter. The Justice League of America. In those days the readers were like Snapper Carr. They were teens with stars in their eyes, amazed just to be in the same room as their heroes, but at the same time, accepting it as normal. The heroes had their occasional flaws, but they all fit the same basic mold: noble, strong, honest, fearless, and self-sacrificing.

The Silver Age started with the emergence of Barry Allen as the new Flash, and Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern. Barry wasn’t much different from Jay Garrick, his predecessor, both gaining their great speed from exposure to chemicals. The important step taken by this Flash was the acknowledgment that the previous Flash was a childhood hero of his, from the comics. The new breed of superhero grew up reading the exploits of the old. The Golden Age fans, if any took a look at the new funny books on the newsstands, saw themselves represented as the new heroes. Later, the Flash managed to break through the dimensional barrier between the Silver Age (Earth 1) and the Golden Age (Earth 2) forever linking the two. (Or as long as forever lasts....until a Crisis.)

Hal Jordan, however, differed from his predecessor. And his difference marked the true difference between the past and the present. Hal was given his powers by an alien from an intergalactic police force. Unlike Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, whose power came from a magic ring, Hal’s power came from science. Science Fiction became the watchword for the Silver Age. The foes were aliens, and alien invasions. The new heroes got their powers from scientific means. The superhero’s mastery of science reflected his mastery of his own self. Not only were they perfect physical, mental, and spiritual specimens, now they had the power they needed to raise them to the level of near gods.

Then came the Crisis on Infinite Earths. By merging Earth 1 and Earth 2, it effectively ended the Silver Age. But which Age would follow it?

The Dark Age. Frank Miller introduced us to the dark and gritty time in comics. Through his work in Daredevil over at Marvel, and Batman at DC, he changed things. Suddenly our heroes had a dark side. The villains were more evil, more twisted than we had realized. Miller added a third dimension to the comic universe. For most it was a welcome change, but it opened a door that perhaps should have been left closed. The age became darker and darker, with the result being characters that were more brutal than the villains they fought. The comic universe was getting too dark and gritty to survive, there had to be a change.

The Tinsel Age? Suddenly, fun became the watchword of comics. Not the pure innocent fun of the Golden Age. Not the noble uplifting fun of the Silver Age. But a “please the masses” fun aimed at the base of the comic buying pyramid. DC decided there were more young readers out there than older readers, and they decided that quantity was better than quality. A few great talents held out, protecting their favorite characters, but others rushed in to create FUN comics. Suddenly Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) was dead, replaced by his previously unknown son. Suddenly Ray Palmer (Atom) was 18 again, leading a new group of Teen Titans. Suddenly there was a new Superboy, a teenage clone of Superman, surrounded by bikini clad admirers in Hawaii. For a short time there was a new Wonder Woman, until a champion of tradition rescued Princess Diana from the FUN age. The Flash was fast enough to stay ahead of this wave of change, but an Impulse came along to represent youth in the world of speed. Fortunately, in this case youth has been tempered by age as this character has a mentor in the form of Max Mercury, Zen Master of Speed. Another young hero with a mentor is Jack Knight, son of Ted Knight the original Starman. And, like Impulse, he is handled with more care and respect than many of the new breed of FUN heroes. But what of the Green Lantern? I have said that his appearance set the tone for Science Fiction based comics. He was the standard of nobility and loyalty that all other heroes could be measured against. What was his fate? He too was slated to be replaced by a younger, more FUN character. Kyle Rayner, whose origin also represents his Age of comics. He is chosen at random to receive the heritage of another. He gets the power ring of Green Lantern, as well as the title that goes with it. In a few short years, Hal Jordan goes from the epitome of the Silver Age hero, to a megalomaniac, a murderer, a would be god and finally a martyr, dying to give the new Age a chance to grow without having to be held up to comparison to a noble past. And so the hero of the Silver Age is sacrificed to give the Tinsel Age a chance to be fun without being compared to what has gone before. Luckily, for the fan of the Silver Age, there is an alternative. Your local comic store has boxes and boxes of great stories just waiting for you. Pick a writer. Pick a penciller. Pick a hero. Pick a title. Decades of better work lies waiting for you. When you’re ready to spend your comic dollar, you can spend it on the road no longer taken.