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androxysYesterday I wrote a quick writeup of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages of Comics. Savvy readers may have noticed that those ages ended at 1986, and yet comics have continued to be published. So what Age are we in now? That's what this writeup discusses!
The Dark Age (1986-2016)
After Crisis on Infinite Earths ended in 1986, DC got to make a whole new continuity! The comics that came at this point in time form the foundation of a lot of the characters and stories that we know today. For a good bit of time, we called The Dark Age the Modern Age, because at that point it was modern! But now that we’re nearly forty years removed from Crisis and comics are still being published, there was a fair question about just how “Modern” it was. I’m using the verbiage that DC seems to be endorsing themself—I learned the phrase “The Dark Age” from 2022’s Batman—The Ultimate Guide reference book. Calling this period a Dark Age is not an indictment about the quality of work in this period, rather, it’s to reflect the doubling down on darker, grimmer stories. Crisis ended in 1986, followed almost immediately by Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, two stories very interested in deconstructing the figure of a hero with a cynical eye. While these stories were not in the main DC canon, they would reverberate on the tone of what was to come.
Within the main DC canon, huge shakeups were occurring. There were no more multiple Earths; instead, there was a single New Earth that incorporated the histories of several Earths. The Justice Society had fought in WWII and retired in the 50s, but were still around and able to mentor the younger generation of heroes. There was only ever the one Superman and Batman figure, though DC would later figure out a way to have a Wonder Woman both in the present and among the Justice Society. Many of DC’s biggest heroes were getting revamps to introduce their new continuity: The Man of Steel miniseries detailed Superman’s new origin and once again established him as the sole survivor of Krypton. The Batman: Year One story that ran thorough Batman #403-407 detailed the early history of this Caped Crusader, revamping Jim Gordon and Selina Kyle in the process. Wonder Woman saw her title relaunched with a new #1, with George Perez taking the helm of a sprawling epic that redefined the character. The darker tone of the Dark Age continued to manifest. The Killing Joke was published in 1988, depicting the shooting of Barbara Gordon by the Joker, followed quickly by Jason Todd’s murder in A Death in the Family. Major comic events of the early 90s involved the villain Bane breaking Batman’s back and the monster Doomsday killing Superman.
In the mid 90s, DC was forced to reconcile with the truth that while Crisis had mostly succeeded in tidying things up, things were once again getting messy. To solve this, DC published the Zero Hour event, officially titled Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! (DC really loves to slap the “Crisis” title on anything load-bearing) Zero Hour, published in 1994, featured the Silver Age hero Hal Jordan becoming the villain Parallax and trying to undo time. Heroes banded together to stop him, though the timeline was slightly altered. This introduced many soft retcons—retroactive continuity fixes—that aimed to make things make a bit more sense. The jury still seems to be out on if it succeeded.
By the early 2000s, DC decided that it was ready for a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, which they helpfully named Infinite Crisis. This event saw the return of several characters from the original Crisis, and more crucially, the return of a multiverse to DC Comics. This multiverse would be refined such that rather than an infinite multiverse of infinite Earths, there were now 52 parallel worlds. Some of the new worlds were established as callbacks to previously depicted alternate Earths, while some were new. Other major events within the Dark Age were Final Crisis, which saw the “death” of Bruce Wayne by Darkseid, and Blackest Night, which saw deceased heroes and villains resurrected as zombies by Black Lantern rings to feast on the emotions of the living.
In 2011, DC decided it was time for another major revamp. They wanted the characters younger and less burdened, and decided to launch The New 52 and end the era of post-Crisis New Earth. This was done with the Flashpoint story, which featured Barry Allen, the Flash, attempting to go back in time and prevent the death of his mother. While well intentioned, this event created a wildly branching timeline that he then had to set right. Though he mostly succeeded, the world Barry returned to was not quite the same. The post-Flashpoint world was dubbed “Prime Earth,” and was… controversial. Much of the post-Flashpoint continuity seemed to harken back to previous Ages–as mentioned, the characters in general were younger. Barbara Gordon, the Silver and Bronze Age Batgirl, was returned to the Batgirl role while her two New Earth successors were written out of continuity. Barry Allen was made the primary Flash of the DC Universe, with the Golden Age’s Jay Garrick and the Bronze/Dark Age’s Wally West removed.
In 2015, DC would publish the “Convergence” event, which featured an extant Brainiac capturing specific slices from several timelines and pitting them against each other. This included seeing the pre-Crisis Teen Titans operating at the same time as the post-Crisis, pre-Zero Hour Suicide Squad, or the post-Zero Hour but pre-Flashpoint Batgirl. It was messy! But importantly, it showed DC acknowledging their older characters and characterizations, and restoring some of the multiverse that came before.
The Dark Age would eventually come full circle, with the Doomsday Clock event heralding the end of the Dark Age and beginning what we call (for now) the Modern Age. Doomsday Clock was a direct sequel to Watchmen, the iconic comic that helped set the tone for the Dark Age in 1986. Doomsday Clock suggested that part of the reason the New 52 was so different than the pre-Flashpoint New Earth was because Doctor Manhattan, the massively powerful Watchmen character, had removed several years from the timeline to observe how the world would change. Batman and the Flash discovered this meddling during “The Button” storyline, and DC subsequently began its Rebirth initiative.
The Modern Age (2016-Present)
It’s fickle to decide precisely when the Modern Age begins. DC Comics themselves states that the Dark Age ended in 2011, with Flashpoint, though I disagree. Many of the initial New 52 storylines hold on to the darker tone, though there is evidence that around 2014, DC began to pivot away. The DCYou initiative, for example, focused on refreshing some characters to a younger, more upbeat characterization–such as Barbara Gordon in her Batgirl of Burnside era–or by introducing new comics altogether–such as the more lighthearted Gotham Academy series. You may disagree with me on precisely where these eras begin and end, however, and that’s okay.
In 2016, DC began its Rebirth event that sought to reconcile some of the pre-Flashpoint elements into the Prime Earth continuity. This was spearheaded by the return of Wally West, and continued to gradually fold back in pre-Flashpoint elements into the Prime Earth timeline. The events of 2020's Dark Nights and Dark Nights: Death Metal finalized it, placing characters in a sort of super-state of having access to all of the memories of all previous versions of themselves, while still ostensibly having only lived the one life. It’s complicated, but it crucially gave writers the opportunity to have characters make reference to past events that happened on New Earth, canonizing them for the Prime Earth continuity.
The end of the Dark Nights saga resulted in DC’s Future State and Infinite Frontier projects in 2021. Future State’s premise was showing possible futures for various DC characters, and then Infinite Frontier launched characters on possible paths. The emphasis was on this being a new starting point for many characters, both old and new. Jon Kent, the son of Superman, had his own title launched during this time, and Yara Flor, a new Wonder Woman, got a miniseries. On the Nightwing title, a new creative team took over to steer the character out of the “Ric Grayson” amnesia arc, restoring Nightwing to his traditional hero status.
In 2022, DC would publish Dark Crisis, later rebranded Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths (see what I mean about them just reusing the same words for emphasis?) which saw many classic DC villains from across different eras brought together by a powerful force. This continued to delve into the DC Multiverse and establish that everything was metaphorically on the table, leading to the Dawn of DC initiative. Similarly to Infinite Frontier, Dawn of DC was about fresh starts, new beginnings, and updates so that new readers could jump in. The Justice League was disbanded in the wake of Dark Crisis, leading the Titans to become the preeminent Superhero team. The Superman title was relaunched at #1, and many books got new creative teams.
It’s always easier to retrospectively talk about something that has concluded rather than to actively analyze something ongoing. However, I think so far it’s fair to say that DC is attempting to use the Modern Age to craft a more expansive, perpetually new universe. Old characters are getting new attention, new characters are being created, and the depth and breadth of DC’s publication is getting highlighted. The current Modern Age has seen DC focus on expanding its Young Adult graphic novels since 2019, and DC announced in 2024 that they would be bringing back the Elseworlds imprint to tell alternate universe stories. DC has committed to telling more diverse stories in the Modern Age, which I think is crystalized in the various “Celebration” issues published. DC’s annual Pride anthology started in 2021, and subsequent celebration anthologies have featured Asian American and Black heroes and creators. While we don’t know when the current Modern Age will end (I’m already hedging my bets on this eventually being called the “Rebirth Age”) I do think the future is bright.
