Wonder Woman Unbound (28 page)

The Bronze Age

7

Wonder Woman No More

B
y 1968, it seemed that Kanigher was running out of ideas for
Wonder Woman.
He had spent nearly all of 1966 on Golden Age throwback stories, bringing back forgotten characters from Marston’s era while Andru and Esposito tried to replicate H. G. Peter’s art style. The response in the letter columns was mixed at best, and the fan community seemed bored with Kanigher. Sales dropped as well, so Kanigher was removed as editor and writer and a whole new creative team came onboard.

Denny O’Neil was a fairly new writer who wasn’t yet thirty years old when he took over the series with
Wonder Woman
#178 in September 1968. He’d done some work for Marvel and Charlton Comics, but
Wonder Woman
was his first big job at DC Comics, an inauspicious beginning to what became a storied career. Joining O’Neil was artist Mike Sekowsky, who had been drawing comic books since the early 1940s. Throughout the 1960s, Sekowsky was a well-known and respected artist, a mainstay on
Justice League of America.
Along with DC’s editor-in-chief Carmine Infantino and series editor Jack Miller, the team decided on a new direction for Wonder Woman where she gave up her superpowers and became a regular, modern woman. The depowered Wonder Woman was one of DC Comics’ first attempts to respond to the new tone of the 1960s comic book industry, and it failed spectacularly.

The Marvel Age

The Bronze Age was preceded by a sub-age caused by the rise of Marvel Comics. Formerly known as Timely Comics in the 1940s and Atlas Comics in the 1950s, Marvel introduced a new approach to superheroics that moved the industry away from fanciful beasts and bizarre alien creatures. Although Atlas had tried to publish a few superhero comic books in the early 1950s with poor results, the events of 1954 didn’t dramatically affect the company. While DC Comics had its heroes called out by name in
Seduction of the Innocent
and actively attempted to make its books as inoffensive as possible after the Comics Code Authority came in, Atlas was a C-list publisher at best and hadn’t been through the wringer like DC. With a new company name and 1954 a fading memory, Marvel didn’t create its superheroes with the pro-Code, pro-camp fervor of DC. It had to follow the Code, but DC’s swift turn to the innocuous had made superheroes palatable to the general public again, so Marvel could try something new and different without fear of reprisal.

The biggest difference between the two publishers was that Marvel’s main writer and editor, Stan Lee, and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko made their comic books more realistic. They set their series in the real world; instead of fictional cities like Metropolis and Gotham, most Marvel heroes operated in New York. They created scientifically based explanations for their heroes’ superpowers; instead of power rings from aliens or abilities from the gods, Marvel heroes gained their powers through encounters with radioactivity, gamma rays, or genetic mutation. The alter egos of Marvel heroes were as important, if not more so, as their superhero identity; while the main focus of
Batman
was Batman, the main focus of
The
Amazing Spider-Man
was Peter Parker, who just happened to be Spider-Man.

Marvel’s first new series,
Fantastic Four,
debuted in 1961 and was created by Lee and Kirby. The Fantastic Four were led by Dr. Reed Richards, a scientist who constructed a rocket to fly into space before the USSR did. Accompanying Reed was his wife, Sue, her brother, Johnny Storm, and Reed’s pilot and friend, Ben Grimm. The four developed superpowers when they were exposed to cosmic rays and decided to use their powers to fight crime and protect the innocent. Reed became Mr. Fantastic, able to stretch his body to incredible lengths; Sue became the Invisible Girl, who could make herself and other objects invisible; Johnny became the Human Torch, bursting into flame and flying through the air; and Ben became the Thing, his skin turned into a hard, rocklike substance that rendered him both strong and nearly impervious to harm.

Fantastic Four
was soon followed by
The Incredible Hulk,
created by Lee and Kirby in 1962. Dr. Bruce Banner was a mild-mannered scientist, but after being exposed to gamma rays he developed the ability to turn into the huge and powerful Hulk. This transformation was involuntarily triggered by emotion, most often anger or fear, and so the Hulk was a violent, destructive Mr. Hyde to Banner’s docile Dr. Jekyll.

Later in 1962, Lee and Ditko created Spider-Man, who first appeared in
Amazing Fantasy
before moving to his own series,
The Amazing Spider-Man.
Peter Parker was a studious high-schooler bitten by a radioactive spider while visiting a laboratory. He developed superstrength and agility, could climb walls and jump great distances, and created his own web-shooting devices to complete his spider theme. Parker initially tried to make money off his new powers, but when he refused to stop a criminal who later killed his uncle, he decided to use his powers for good.

Other heroes followed these new properties, including the X-Men, a group of powerful mutants; Iron Man, a millionaire with a metal suit that gave him superpowers; Doctor Strange, master of the occult; Thor, the Norse god confined to a frail human body; and Daredevil, a blind man whose other senses were superhumanly heightened.

What made Marvel superheroes different from their predecessors were their personalities, not their superpowers. Superstrength, invisibility, and elasticity were nothing new, nor was fighting crime, but Marvel comic books focused on their heroes’ personal lives as well. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Diana Prince were all alter egos of convenience who never had any real problems. All they did was allow the heroes to blend into society or fund their vigilante career. The alter egos of Marvel heroes were extremely inconvenient and caused the characters a lot of problems.

For example, the Fantastic Four were a family, who squabbled as most families tend to do. Reed and Sue often had marital spats, Johnny was headstrong and reckless, and Ben was depressed and angry about his bizarre appearance. There was a dysfunctional quality to the Fantastic Four that drove their stories, making the book a superheroic melodrama instead of a simple adventure series where they battled a new villain each month. The height of personal drama at DC was the omnipresent silly love triangles, but Marvel characters had real conflict, personal and otherwise.

Before becoming the Hulk, Bruce Banner had been a normal scientist with a normal life and a girlfriend, Betty Ross. All of that ended after he became the Hulk; the military came after the destructive Hulk, forcing Banner to be secretive, withdrawn, and often on the run. His relationship with Betty suffered and she soon found another man. Peter Parker had a complicated life to juggle as well: he had to attend school, care for his widowed aunt, spend time with his girlfriend, and work as a photographer at the
Daily Bugle,
all while fighting crime as Spider-Man. Plus he had to protect his secret identity lest villains try to get at him through his family and friends. For Marvel heroes, fighting bad guys was the easiest part of their life. Their real-world problems were much more difficult to navigate.

Marvel’s realistic approach to superheroes appealed to a different audience than DC’s fantastical adventures, and the Marvel readership tended to be older. Teenagers, and even college students, began to read Marvel comic books, likely identifying with the real-world problems they presented. Marvel books were also more socially relevant than those of other publishers. For example, the X-Men faced great persecution and fear for being different, serving as a clear analogue of African Americans and the ongoing civil rights movement. Marvel also had several physically disabled heroes, including the blind Daredevil and Thor, who had a leg impairment as his alter ego, Donald Blake.

In
Comic Book Nation,
comics historian Bradford Wright cites a 1966 poll in
Esquire
magazine where college students “ranked Spider-Man and the Hulk alongside the likes of Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons.” The rise of Marvel led to the decline of campy, simplistic superhero stories and changed the audience for superhero comic books. By the late 1960s, with Marvel becoming more and more popular, DC had to respond and follow Marvel’s lead, signaling the end of the Silver Age and the beginning of the Bronze.

The Bronze Age

While historians generally agree on the start of the Golden and Silver Age of superhero comics, the exact start of the Bronze Age is a matter of some debate. The most commonly cited events and dates include:

• House of Mystery
  #174, March 1968:
  Horror had been forbidden by the Comics Code in 1955; DC’s creation of a new horror series marked the end of the horror-less era and a shift toward comic books for older readers.
  
• Green Lantern/Green Arrow
  #76, April 1970:
  The two heroes teamed up to travel America and addressed issues like crime, race relations, and drug use. The left-leaning Green Arrow showed Green Lantern the real America that he was missing by being up in the stars, and it was the first DC series to really tackle modern social issues.
  
• Amazing Spider-Man
  #96, May 1971:
  The federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Stan Lee to include an antidrug story in one of his series, so he wrote a three-part story where Peter’s friend Harry Osborn abused pills. The CCA refused to approve the issues because of the drug use, and so Marvel printed them without the Code’s seal. No one was offended and sales were unaffected, and it ultimately led to a revision of the Code that made it far less severe.
  

The thread connecting all of them was a shift toward stories that were meant for an older audience and the diminishing influence of the Comics Code Authority.

There’s no one key moment, so suffice it to say that the transition from Silver to Bronze took place around the late 1960s and early 1970s. DC Comics had spent over a decade strictly adhering to the Comics Code in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the events of 1954, and did quite well revitalizing its superhero line. However, by the late 1960s it wasn’t necessary to tell silly, inoffensive stories anymore. Marvel had great success with its more realistic and relevant stories and, perhaps more important for DC, the Silver Age schtick was no longer profitable. Marvel’s sales increased steadily over the decade while DC’s slowly declined, and Marvel ultimately surpassed DC in total sales in 1967. The stories that had saved DC in the 1950s were now dragging it down, so the company made substantial changes to many of its titles.

At the forefront of two of the most radical and critically acclaimed revamps was Denny O’Neil. Editor Julius Schwartz, the man responsible for many of DC’s successful new heroes, took over the Batman line and rid the books of their Silver Age frivolity with O’Neil at the helm. O’Neil found inspiration in the early days of Batman, and along with artist Neal Adams he turned Batman into an ominous figure who struck terror into the hearts of criminals. The stories had a gothic flavor, pitting Batman against fearsome villains with murderous intentions. Adams’s artwork is legendary today; he extended and sharpened the ears on Batman’s cowl, making them look almost like fierce horns, and lengthened Batman’s cape so it could be a dark shroud when it enveloped him or a frightful, batlike wingspan when flowing freely. Mood was key to this darker Batman, and Adams made excellent use of shadow and the night in depicting the Bronze Age Batman.

Adams also worked with O’Neil on
Green Lantern/Green Arrow.
While their Batman collaboration rebelled against the Code with its darker stories and often frightening tone, their
Green Lantern/Green Arrow
work challenged the limits of the Code with its subject matter. In a famous exchange from
Green Lantern/Green Arrow
#76, an elderly African American took Green Lantern to task, stating, “I been readin’ about you … how you work for the
blue skins
… and how on a planet someplace you helped out the
orange skins
… and you done considerable for the
purple skins
! Only there’s
skins
you never bothered with—the
black
skins! I want to know … how come?!” The chastised Green Lantern could only hang his head in shame.

This indictment of Green Lantern for neglecting the plight of minorities and the underprivileged can also be read as an indictment of DC’s superhero comics as a whole. They spent the 1950s and 1960s battling aliens and strange creatures, not addressing real-life problems at all.
Green Lantern/Green Arrow
marked a turn toward relevance for DC, and the verdant heroes continued to address major societal issues, most shockingly in
Green Lantern/Green Arrow
#85.