I’ve mostly read New 52 and Rebirth because I got into comics only a few years ago and Dexter Soy’s Jason is from Rebirth, so I picked Rebirth, but this is only from my experience.
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I read and loved the most from the modern age, but I’ve been exploring the Bronze Age and really enjoying it the past couple years.
But honestly, they all have some great stuff.
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I think best is very objective. There will always be disagreements and that is the fun. For myself, I chose modern as that is the era I grew up reading comics and fell back in love with comics in my early 20s.
I do like all eras of comics and have a fondness for 70s horror books and goofy Silver Age superhero stories.
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For me it’s the Silver Age mostly due to the incredible efforts of Lee, KIrby, Ditko, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Thomas, Goodwin, Colan, Tuska, Marie and John Severin and Don Heck.
The characters and stories that sprang from the minds of these wonderful creators redefined and reinvigorated a stagnant industry.
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For me, it’s the Post-Crisis era. It was an era where characters were growing and legacies were passed on. There was a history to this world where the Justice Society of America were the heroes of World War 2. We had that amazing run of Superman with a new origin and emphasis on Clark being the real person and Superman being the disguise. We saw legacies like The Flash, Green Lantern and Green Arrow passed onto the next generation. We had cool annual crossovers like Armageddon 2001 and Eclipso: The Darkness Within. DC had an amazing espionage corner of their world with books like Checkmate, Suicide Squad, Captain Atom, etc. There was the death of Jason Todd, James Robinson’s excellent Starman series, and new heroes like Booster Gold. The Justice League International, the rise of Vertigo, Secret Origins…the list goes on. It was a universe that was moving forward.
And even though I loved the new stuff, it was interesting to see instances where a character remembered their lives Pre-Crisis like Psycho Pirate, or during The Kingdom storyline where Batman entered the Planet Krypton restaurant, saw the Silver Age Batwoman Kathy Kane and for a brief second…he recognized her! It was acknowledging the past, giving us hints that on some level these characters remembered their old lives. It didn’t mean they were going to return to them, but seeing little things like that was cool.
I think for me at least, this era doesn’t end for me with Infinite Crisis…even though timeline-wise it should given its another reboot. No, this era ends for me with several events: Hush, bringing back Silver Age characters and Identity Crisis.
Hush isn’t a bad story, but it’s not a great one. I put it on my list of things that ended my era of DC as it kicked off the wave of DC going for the big names (In this case bringing Jim Lee in) over story. After this we saw the writers and artists being more important to selling a book more than what was going on IN the book. Most of them did their runs and left, leaving little in the way of consistency.
We saw writers and artists bringing back the Silver Age versions of characters…THEY’RE version back, despite being dead and having their mantles taken up by new heroes. Now, this isn’t inherently bad as we got some great stories with Barry, Hal and Oliver when they came back, but it always felt like writers didn’t want to write stories with Wally, Kyle and Connor; that they were just placeholders. They wanted the versions they grew up with to be back in the suits.
Finally, we have Identity Crisis which kind of melds the previous two problems together (going for a big name as the creator in Brad Meltzer and having a focal point of the story involved Silver Age characters) with a new problem stepping in…becoming TOO grim and gritty. You can point to Identity Crisis as the start of DC going darker for some reason and I never understood it. They tried to be hip and edgy, learning nothing from the late eighties and the extreme era of the nineties. That balance we had Post-Crisis was suddenly gone and now things were getting edgy for edgy’s sake. I’d hoped the New Earth era (post-Infinite Crisis) would try and change the damage done, but that didn’t last long as the New 52 happened.
I can say this, though: when it comes to the Post-Crisis era, it was a lot of fun while it lasted.
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So the best DC era is due to a bunch of Marvel writers and artists?
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I voted for the Golden Age because of the many legendary characters to originate at the companies that now make up DC Comics emerged during that time: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, Blackhawk, and so on. I grew up in the Bronze Age, but for whatever reason I gravitated more towards Silver Age books (there were still a lot of them floating around) and I encountered the Golden Age through the reprints in DC titles at the time.
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I am glad to see there is someone else who has a problem with Identity Crisis! I dislike it so much I wish they would just retcon it so it never happened.
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I remember the hype for it and was intrigued…and then I read it. Not only was it yet another story where Batman HAS to be right against his fellow leaguers, not only was I not happy with what happened to Sue, but as a mystery, it was a mess. But somehow its lauded as one of the greatest stories ever. I’m sorry, but no. Any chance of my favorite era of DC coming back from the brink of this was gone by the ending.
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And the Atom suit
Does not allow
Jean
To transport a
FLAMETHROWER
through the telephone
So the
Ending is not even possible
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And this was the same “era” that gave us a story where Wonder Dog goes rabid, eats Marvin and almost Wendy. No jive, someone thought doin this to the SUPERFRIENDS’ sidekicks was an idea worth printing. Sorry for gettin off-topic here, that one still really, really pizzes me off.
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No, the best DC era is the Bronze Age where the writing caught up to the wonderful art talents from the Silver Age. No one can deny the beautiful artwork of Infantino, Kubert, Swan, Kane, Anderson, Cardy, Toth, Andru, and Esposito that graced Silver Age DC comics, but the writing was not equal to the Marvel content. But at the dawn of the Bronze Age, talented young writers like O’Neil, Wein, Wolfman, Skeates, Maggin, and Pasko brought characterization and nuance to the Silver Age stalwarts. The installation of Carmine Infantino as DC Editorial Director/Publisher pushed the line into a more mature direction that could compete–at least–in style with Marvel Comics. Ras al ghul, the satellite JLA HQ, and The Spectre as the “spirit of vengeance” could not exist in the silly sixties.
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Hitman, Impulse, Cosmic Boy, World of Krypton, Deadshot, The Ray, and more of my favorite series!!! Modern Age 100%
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