Iron In, Iron Out
Iron Age (1987-1997)
After the Bronze Age . . . things slid badly. Most people complain about the content of recent comics by comparing them to "the 90s." The truth is, while there was a lot wrong with comics the 90s, there were still lots of good stuff during that time. It's just it often gets drowned out by the overwhelming attitude created in the 90s: style over substance. After the seminal works The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen people suddenly realized something about comic books. Sadly, it wasn't what the creators wanted them to realize, that comic books could be just as deep, meaningful, "literate," and inspired as other media of entertainment. Instead, it was that "heroes" could be mean, grunting, asshats and people would still buy the hell out of 'em. The Batman in DKR and the primary p.o.v. character in Watchman, Rorschach, were rather monosyllabic, brutal figures. They were, charitably, anti-heroes. They were jerks. People loved them. Since comics never let a good idea go by without stealing it, more and more protagonists like these appeared. However, where DKR-Batman and Rorschach were also deep, well-rounded characters, their followers often had no personality to speak of, and their motivation rarely more complex than "hit stuff." Another effect that led to the low quality in many people's recollections of this time was an over-reliance on "flashy," "star" artists, often whose styles were fads. This grew to a head with the early output of the nascent comic publisher Image, which was really a loose coalition of recently independent artist studios, who all lacked business experience and whose story-telling abilities weren't quite up to snuff, either. Basically, they broke away from the mainstream publishers--mostly Marvel--because they wanted to be paid according to their stature as "megastar" artists. Their output at first emphasized style and flash over substance (not everything they did was terrible, but their ignorance of core story-telling--and business--practices showed, hard). Because of the "grim & gritty" themes, this time period is often called the Dark Age, and because of Image's rising star during this time, it's sometimes called the Image Age. I choose to call it the Iron Age because it fits in with the metals theme naming for the other age, because Iron isn't very reflective, or as "shiny" as the other metals used, and because it's a little more neutral than other terms. As I said, there were good comics that came out around this time: Neil Gaiman's Sandman for one, James Robinson's Starman, Kurt Busiek's Astro City, just to name a few. There were diamonds in the rough, is what I'm saying. You just had to comb through a lot of rough.
Astro City bears extra mention. DKR and Watchmen are often cited as "deconstructions" of the super hero comic book. Those who say so have a point, since they basically underlined the massive differences between a world like ours, and one in which super heroes would actually live in. However, too many people get caught up in the surface details of the Deconstruction, and forget the point behind it all: tearing down the bad stuff so more GOOD stuff can be built; a "Reconstruction," one that showed us all why we fell in love with this ridiculousness in the first place, building off of the good foundations left over after the Deconstruction. Astro City is the first one I can find--certainly it's the only one still around. But it paved the way for a backlash against the over-reliance on grim & gritty, paper-thin characterization and world-building, as well as "style over substance" visuals of the time (most notably with Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come). Which is why I choose to end the Iron Age just after it came out.
After the Bronze Age . . . things slid badly. Most people complain about the content of recent comics by comparing them to "the 90s." The truth is, while there was a lot wrong with comics the 90s, there were still lots of good stuff during that time. It's just it often gets drowned out by the overwhelming attitude created in the 90s: style over substance. After the seminal works The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen people suddenly realized something about comic books. Sadly, it wasn't what the creators wanted them to realize, that comic books could be just as deep, meaningful, "literate," and inspired as other media of entertainment. Instead, it was that "heroes" could be mean, grunting, asshats and people would still buy the hell out of 'em. The Batman in DKR and the primary p.o.v. character in Watchman, Rorschach, were rather monosyllabic, brutal figures. They were, charitably, anti-heroes. They were jerks. People loved them. Since comics never let a good idea go by without stealing it, more and more protagonists like these appeared. However, where DKR-Batman and Rorschach were also deep, well-rounded characters, their followers often had no personality to speak of, and their motivation rarely more complex than "hit stuff." Another effect that led to the low quality in many people's recollections of this time was an over-reliance on "flashy," "star" artists, often whose styles were fads. This grew to a head with the early output of the nascent comic publisher Image, which was really a loose coalition of recently independent artist studios, who all lacked business experience and whose story-telling abilities weren't quite up to snuff, either. Basically, they broke away from the mainstream publishers--mostly Marvel--because they wanted to be paid according to their stature as "megastar" artists. Their output at first emphasized style and flash over substance (not everything they did was terrible, but their ignorance of core story-telling--and business--practices showed, hard). Because of the "grim & gritty" themes, this time period is often called the Dark Age, and because of Image's rising star during this time, it's sometimes called the Image Age. I choose to call it the Iron Age because it fits in with the metals theme naming for the other age, because Iron isn't very reflective, or as "shiny" as the other metals used, and because it's a little more neutral than other terms. As I said, there were good comics that came out around this time: Neil Gaiman's Sandman for one, James Robinson's Starman, Kurt Busiek's Astro City, just to name a few. There were diamonds in the rough, is what I'm saying. You just had to comb through a lot of rough.
Astro City bears extra mention. DKR and Watchmen are often cited as "deconstructions" of the super hero comic book. Those who say so have a point, since they basically underlined the massive differences between a world like ours, and one in which super heroes would actually live in. However, too many people get caught up in the surface details of the Deconstruction, and forget the point behind it all: tearing down the bad stuff so more GOOD stuff can be built; a "Reconstruction," one that showed us all why we fell in love with this ridiculousness in the first place, building off of the good foundations left over after the Deconstruction. Astro City is the first one I can find--certainly it's the only one still around. But it paved the way for a backlash against the over-reliance on grim & gritty, paper-thin characterization and world-building, as well as "style over substance" visuals of the time (most notably with Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come). Which is why I choose to end the Iron Age just after it came out.