Silver Age of Comic Books
Origin of the term
Comics historian and movie producer Michael Uslan traces the origin of the “Silver Age” term to the letters column of Justice League of America #42 (Feb. 1966), which went on sale December 9, 1965. Letter-writer Scott Taylor of Westport, Connecticut wrote, “If you guys keep bringing back the heroes from the [1930s-1940s] Golden Age, people 20 years from now will be calling this decade the Silver Sixties!” According to Uslan, the natural hierarchy of gold-silver-bronze, as in Olympic medals, took hold. “Fans immediately glommed onto this, refining it more directly into a Silver Age version of the Golden Age. Very soon, it was in our vernacular, replacing such expressions as … ‘Second Heroic Age of Comics’ or ‘The Modern Age’ of comics. It wasn’t long before dealers were … specifying it was a Golden Age comic for sale or a Silver Age comic for sale”.
History
Background
Superman, as depicted in a 1941 Fleischer Studios cartoon, was created during the Golden Age of Comic Books.
Spanning World War II, when comics provided cheap and disposable escapist entertainment that could be read and then discarded by the troops, the Golden Age of comic books covered the late 1930s to the late 1940s. A number of major superheroes were created during this period, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America. The brief so-called Atomic Age followed, between 1945 and 1956, but in subsequent years comics were blamed for a rise in juvenile crime statistics, although this rise was shown to be in direct proportion to population growth. When juvenile offenders admitted to reading comics, it was seized on as a common denominator; one notable critic was Fredric Wertham, author of the book
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