Thursday, March 18, 2010

Bullet Points

There I was, 11 years old and the DC Bullet was aimed square between my eyes.

Blue Devil in the chamber, Captain Carrot and The Amazing Zoo Crew, in the chamber. The New Teen Titans, in the chamber.

Batman and The Outsiders, in the chamber.

Who's Who... you know the drill.

Crisis On Infinite Earths, DC; fully loaded and I'm done for.

No place to run, a human target. In 1982, I was the target audience for what was, for me, my own personal comics Golden Age. These were my comics. It was like they came up to me and said, "Kid, you're our demo. you're the ass we want to put in our seats."

My response, "Man, you had me at "ass."

So my question to you is: "What was your particular comics Golden Age?'

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had two, really.

One was when I was quite young and Action Comics was being published every freaking week. Plus, there were suddenly a batch of comics marked "For Mature Readers", carrying with them a delicious savour of the forbidden: Green Arrow. The Question. Doom Patrol. Animal Man. And (just as Action Comics Weekly was coming to a close) the best one of all -- Sandman.

I gave up reading comics during the '90s. I believe Zero Hour might have had something to do with it. I occasionally picked up a copy of The Flash or Starman, but they seemed like tiny oasises in an otherwise barren desert.

I came back at the end of the decade, in time for JSA, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., Hourman, Young Justice, the explosive finales of Starman and Morrison's run on JLA, and the beginning of Johns' run on The Flash.

Seriously, I don't think there was ever THAT much awesomeness packed so closely together as in 1999-2000.

ChrisM said...

I remember growing up on old Bronze age Marvels. Being inspired by crazy ass stuff like the Champions, the Avengers, Supervillain Team up! The Micronauts!

As a kid-those comics had such intrigue! Gil Kane Covers!

But as I got older the 80s (and early 90s) came around and I discovered DC! Some of my favorite stuff there. Perez on Teen Titans! Levitz and Giffen on LSH! Starlin on Dreadstar! Doug Monech, Don Newton and Gene Colan on BATMAN!

and then came all of the First comics stuff!! Chaykin on American Flagg! Rude on Nexus! Reinhold on the Badger!

Man I loved that stuff. I don't know that there's any "age" of comics that I didn't at least enjoy SOMETHING. :-) But I still have most of THOSE comics...

Bill said...

Mine was square in the center of the 'X-Treme' 90's. Good thing not everything that came from that era was terrible. I loved Age of Apocalypse, as story so epic it blew my young mind. I was hooked on Venom, and the amazing quirkiness of The Maxx. Sam Keith made quite an impression on me, his stuff was so different from everything else. I would also add Jeff Smith's Bone.

Peter said...

My golden age started when I first got into comics with DC One Million and ended when Mark Waid left the Legion. There was just alot of great stuff, enough that it even made the trash I was reading seem better. Ahh, those were the days.

Jeff said...

Justice League America #28: Giffen and DeMatties, Ty Templeton and Mike McKone. Completely changed my initial thoughts on what a comic book could be. It was my first comic, and man, it hooked me in hard.

KENT! said...

1986 - 1991:
The aftermath of Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and Crisis were in full swing. Continuity was never tighter and some astounding things were happening...
Justice League International come America/Europe brought humour and heart to heroes.
Suicide Squad reinvented the purpose of bad guys.
Byrne's Superman relaunch kick-started the modernization of legends.
Wally West became the Flash, and the legacy hero was born.
Action Comics took over for DC Comics Presents as the Superman Team-up, then became Weekly, then Action/Adventure and Superman (later with Man of Steel) developed the "triangle system". I don't think I've ever liked Superman more.
The annual tradition of the even began with Crisis, followed Legends, Millennium, Invasion and ultimately Armageddon 2001 which showed us the way to the grim'n'gritty era... hero becoming villain and all that.