The Silver Age (And Other Sources of Joy)

I just don’t like brutal or depressing stories that much.

As a distinguished figure from a different company once said, I’m looking for “comic books where superheroes fight giant apes on the moon”, where the problems are ridiculous and the solutions are a demented kind of genius you can only find in comic books. Batman '66 has a good tone for me, and I know I should be reading some old Flash stories…

(and weirdly enough I do love the Morrison Doom Patrol and the Jack Knight Starman run, but maybe that’s not the right tone?)

Anyway, what’s good in the Silver Age, and what’s good outside it? What’re your favorite issues, storylines, whatever makes you go “Aw yeah that’s a comic book all right!”? No story is too silly, no plot is too far-fetched, no art is too Jack Kirby. What do you guys love?

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Anything by Gardner Fox, especially his run of JLA and even his JSA issues in All-Star Comics.
Fox seemed to study encyclopedias just to find an off the wall solution that makes perfect sense after it’s explained by someone in the story.

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Anything illustrated by Jim Lee is an absolute winner IMO.

Give Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Faraday a read. It’s the one series Jim Lee wrote and illustrated (mostly, on both accounts).

It’s fun and not depressing or brutal at all.

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Gardner Fox is a favorite, and I’ll look into Divine Right. Those both sound pretty great.

Lately I’ve been reading the early Flash stories. It’s amazing how many problems one man can solve by running in large circles.

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I think Green Lantern basically fought apes on the moon in an early adventure. Check out Silver Age GL!

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I was also delighted by how central tearing off his own limbs and throwing them was to Silver Age Robotman’s battle tactics.

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The Silver Age is where I started (Superman #189 and Batman # 183) and I have never looked back. My favorite book from this era was Adventure Comics: Starring Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Great art, great fun–and great insanity. Read everything on this app that is from the Silver Age and you will have a GREAT time.

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Makes me want to go back and read some Silver Age comics now.

Also, @XyzzySqrl keep an eye out for the ‘DC Checks’ era comics.
These were the comics made between roughly 1966 and 1968, during the height of Batmania. They’re noticeable by the black and white checker banner across the top of the covers. DC called them ‘Go-Go Checks’.

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@XyzzySqrl, The “go-go” checks is where I started with my DC Comics journey. Those “checks” define the Silver Age for me until this day.

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Justice League

Earth 2 team ups

Hawkman by Kubert and Fox

Metal Men

Inferior Five Parodies of Marvel characters and Thunder Agents

Doom Patrol

Non DC

Archie Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

Double Life of Private Strong (The Shield)
The Adventures of the Fly (Tom Troy starts out as young boy so Captain Marvel vibes)

Dell
Dr Solar
Magnus Robert Fighter
Turok Son of Stone

Thunder Agents

And of course Marvel

Fantastic Four
#4 Namor
#5 Doctor Doom Namor

Spider Man

X men

Avengers
#4 Captain America
Cap versus Hulk

Sgt Fury and the Howling Commandos
Set in WWII one issue had Cap

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