The Bronze Age Shift

So, we just spent a week looking at the Comic That Ended The Silver Age: JLA #77 "Snapper Carr -- Super-Traitor".

It leads to the question: what OTHER differences did the Bronze Age bring? Why is it considered a different age from the Silver Age, if there was no break in continuity?  Fair question.  The inability of modern readers to distinguish between the Silver and Bronze Ages because there was no break in continuity is one of my pet peeves.  The wiki article linked above gives you some of the grander meta-view of the shift; here are some specifics in the DCU.

Superman.  Superman went from being a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper 

to a hapless anchorman for television broadcasting company. 

Some of his foes become noticeably nastier.  After years of being a fat guy in a brown suit or prison greys, Luthor gets a gym membership and a new suit.

And that's terrible!

Batman.  Robin left for college.  

Batman closed down Wayne Manor and moved into a swinging bachelor penthouse in the city. 

Who builds a MOAT around a PENTHOUSE?!

Batman foes were reintroduced as scarier and more disturbed. 

No more John Dough.

Warmed over Fu Manchu knockoff Ra's Al Ghul is introduced as ALREADY having figured out Batman's secret identity and not caring.  

I think Dick still uses that picture on Tinder.

Batman stories become generally spookier ...

and Batman becomes MUCH stupider.


Wonder Woman. Diana loses her supporting cast.  

Diana also loses her powers, 

learns martial arts from an old blind Chinese guy, 

opens a mod dress shop

That's because minis are IN, oh, god, Diana you're just HOPELESS.

fights lesbian slavers

borrows a machine gun.

Flash.  Barry Allen finally marries Iris West, 

I think we can ALL agree with that, Flash.

who figures out he's Flash because he talks in his sleep (as highly disturbed people do).  

That's a LIE. Everything Flash says is a lie.

She's murdered by Reverse-Flash 

This would make an AWESOME mural, by they way.

and Barry moves on FAST.

Barry's a player.

Green Lantern.  Slips on soap on in the shower banging his head, giving us our first black Green Lantern, John Stewart.  

You thought I made that up, didn't you?

Despite having a power ring that can take him across the galaxy, spends an inordinate amount of time with Ollie Queen on purposeless roadtrip of the US.  

Dumb and Dumber: The Bronze Age

Becomes a toy salesman and a truck driver and can't keep a job generally

Do NOT ask about the starfish.  I'm still trying to process the phrase "a thoughtful Hal Jordan".

Unable to sustain his own title, he's forced to buddy up with Green Arrow, of all people.

From your mouth to god's ears, Ollie.

Green Arrow/Black Canary. Black Canary immigrates from Earth-2, gains a super-power, and replaces Wonder Woman in the Justice League.  

Larry was such a good-for-nothing, loudmouth, sexist jackass that Dinah had to come to Earth-2 to find a suitable replacement.

Green Arrow loses all his money, suddenly hates rich people now that he isn't one, grows that stupid goatee, becomes a loudmouthed liberal,

Picking on Hal for being clueless is like kicking a puppy.
Except when I do it.

blows off his sidekick who has become a junkie.  

Ollie's a dick.

GA and BC start (what I will politely call) dating, even though he's the reason her husband died.

Martian Manhunter. Who?  Martian Manhunter was sent away on a space-bus (notice his absence already in the Snapper Carr Super-Traitor story). He completely missed the Bronze Age and the Satellite Era of the Justice League. 

"And don't let the door hit you on the way out...!"

Justice League. In addition to the above changes, the JLA become less a supergroup of all DC's icons than a mechanism for trying to make lesser characters more iconic. Hence the inclusion of 

Zatanna, 

"Someone has violated my mind!" Well... that would explain the new costume, alright.

Firestorm,

Whoa; that's ... limber.
I wouldn't let him in the satellite
but my bedroom is another story.

Hawkgirl (-woman, eventually)

No joke pic; Hawkgirl's awesome.

the incompetent whiny villain-created android Red Tornado, 

When the man who married Jean Loring thinks your trouble, you are.

and the goddammed ELONGATED MAN, a goofy self-aggrandizing wannabe gold-digger left over from some Flash stories.

GOD, I hate that guy.

Not the Justice League.  Superheroes lose market share to other genres like Western, Fantasy, and Horror, which is why the Bronze Age gives us ...

Swamp Thing, 

Back luck for Terry Thomas.

Jonah Hex, 

Bad luck for Santa.

Warlord,

Now THAT's the Demon's Head.

 and

 the Phantom Stranger.  

There's more, but you get the idea.  Frankly, the DCU changed more between the Silver Age and the Bronze than it has in ANY subsequent reboot.

Wolf Week #4: Wayne versus Wolf

Okay, assume you are a rich and famous athlete in the DCU. So rich you hang out with Bruce Wayne...
   
and a Comic-Relief Fat-Cat.
 

Since it's 1974, Ollie Queen is waiting in the parking lot to beat the crap out of this guy, purely on principle. Or better yet, to make Hal do it.

And it turns out that the alternative therapy you had for your recurrent headaches has exacerbated your latent lycanthropy, and now you are a full-blown werewolf. Do you:

• (a) go public with your plight and seek the help of the innumerable scientist institutions would kill for the opportunity to study/cure you, including STAR Labs?
• (b) pool your resources with some of your wealthy Club buds like Bruce Wayne and create a Lycanthropic Understanding & Protection in the United States society, while simply locking yourself away one to three nights a month?
• (c) volunteer for the Creature Commandos, then sell the movie rights to your life for a boatful of money, becoming even more rich and famous?
• (d) beat the crap out of and/or sue the pants off of Prof. Milo, since you are not only really really strong but also really really rich?

Well, if you are any kind of reader of comics you know that the answer is going to be (e) enslave yourself to the deceitful, criminal quack who caused your problem to begin with, willing to kill on his behalf, in the naive hope that he can and will cure you. Because if people were smart enough to solve their own problems in a normal way, they wouldn't need the Stupid Bronze Age Batman to save them. So Anthony *snort* Lupus bribes Batman to visit him with a charity check...
 

Newsflash, Tony; truly rich people do not look for their own tax loopholes. They have people for that. Heck, I have people for that.

...whereupon Batman gets all hot and bothered ...

"Well, Batman, why don't you... take off your shirt and have cold beer?"

 
... and rips the attractive athlete's shirt off with his own hands right before lying face down on the floor.
 

Slash fic really ain't all that difficult, folks. Particularly in the 1970s.

Later, Batman wakes up in chains at a construction site.
 

I had a dream that started like that; I was Batman. And the construction workers were also kind of the Village People. You know how dreams are.

Anyway, Batman dodges the werewolf's first attack with a standard Gumby-flop:

 

"Thank you, waiter; may I see the dessert *unnff*?"

Gumby-flops were very common in the 1970s, when characters were much more limber because artists did more drugs. So was the Bat-bitchslap, but we'll go in to that another time. Then he picks the locks to his chain with a pin he grabs with his teeth from the nearby mud because, obviously, Prof Milo and Anthony Lupus removed Batman's utility belt and other gadgets before the chained him in the middle of a public area. Oh, wait... THEY DIDN'T.
 

"Its endurance level is unnatural!" Gee, Batman; I wonder why. 
Stupid Bronze Age Batman.

Well, then! Since the villains were that stupid, obviously Batman just whips out his Werewolf-Repellant Bat-Spray or some such and --
 

Who thinks to karate chop a werewolf?! I have seen a lot of werewolf movies; in none of them does the logical solution ever seem to be "I will karate chop the werewolf". Stupid Bronze Age Batman.

Oh, what am I thinking? This is the 1970s with the Stupid Bronze Age Batman, who was all about karate chops and choreographing his fight scenes rather than ending or winning them. Batman uses nothing from his utility belt at all. He doesn't even use a cellphone (or a 1974-style bat-communicator) to call 911 or animal control, because some tranq guns would solve this situation fairly quickly. So after the eighteenth time the werewolf shrugs off one of Batman's attacks and nearly kills him, the Stupid Bronze Age Batman thinks, "Hm. This opponent seems to be stronger than others. Hey...he's a werewolf! "
 

Ladies and gentlemen; the World's Greatest Detective!

Eventually, once his arm's been nearly yanked off, Batman finally decides to take to higher ground, reasoning that he'll be much safer from the werewolf. Because there's no way the werewolf could climb up after him... EXACTLY AS HE DID IN THE FIRST PANEL OF THE STORY. Naturally, the Stupid Bronze Age Batman is surprised.

"Yeah, thank goodness this stupid monster growls. If he were, say, an ordinarily second-story man with a a gun or even a billy club, I'd be way dead by now!"
Case in point:

Low-rent Loser "Bigger" Melvin (Batman #251),
the Man Who Could Have Killed Batman;
Stupid Bronze Age Batman.

Bronze Age Batman may be stupid but he's hella strong. Politically correct or not, I believe the technical term for this is 'retard-strength'; I suppose it's nature's way of compensating for the loss of other senses like "enough common sense not to try to karate chop a werewolf". Anyway, retard-strong Bronze Age Batman simply throws a piece of flat-tipped rod of rebar right through a freaking werewolf.

That's... quite a pitching style, Batman. Apparently Batman is the Josh Outman of the DCU. If only he weren't such a terrible bat-man...

I forget, does DC have a designated hitter rule? No, that must be Marvel.

Unfortunately for Batman, he's taken his best shot and the werewolf just shrugs it off. Batman is injured, hasn't called for back-up, and is about to get beaten to death by a werewolf holding a big chunk of rebar.  Stupid Bronze Age Batman.
   
What will become of our Caped Crusader? Who can possibly save him now? Only one answer, since it's the 1970s and this is the Stupid Bronze Age Batman: God. More on Him tomorrow.

Wolf Week #0

As long-time readers will know, one of our (least) favorite characters here at the Absorbascon is the Stupid Bronze Age Batman.

"If only I knew some form of... self-defense! Like any 23 year old female New Yorker would!"

The Golden Age Batman was a spooky, ingenius, smack-talking detective who pretty much invented Being Cool. The Silver Age Batman was absurdly unflappable, dealing coolly and casually with bizarre creatures from outer space and other dimensions, and was secure enough to put a cape on his dog. The later Iron Age Batman was five kinds of dark crazy-scary and slowly morphed himself into the omnicompetent Platinum Age Batman who needed nothing more than "time to prepare."

Like Clouseau, Stupid Bronze Age Batman is a master of easily penetrated disguise.

But in the middle of all that, from about 1970 to 1986, was the caustic, bumbling, overconfident and undercompetent Bronze Age Batman. Who, for some reason, no one seems to notice is an idiot. Really, the Stupid Bronze Age Batman is like Inspector Clouseau, blithely acquiring fame as a brilliant crimefighter with each stumbling misstep he makes, his idiocy hidden in plain sight.

"No nothin' "? Did Batman just say "no nothin' "?
Only in the '70s, folks; be glad you missed them.

How did he get away with this? Well, I credit the Minor League Batman Theory. As much as I like Major League Baseball, I enjoy watching minor league baseball much more. Why? Because, thanks to the imperfections of the players, minor league baseball is MUCH more interesting; you never know quite what's going to happen.

Stupid Bronze Age Batman can't even get to first base without help.

Similarly, a flawless Batman doesn't allow for lots of suspense in a story. We certainly want Batman to be really cool and capable, yes; but if he's too perfect, we don't identify with him, we don't fear for his safety, we don't thrill to his adventures. Perhaps the Stupid Bronze Age Batman's human imperfection was his literary strength. Think how much acclaim and popularity Scott Snyder's recent work on the character has won, in part by showing us a Batman who is overconfident, vulnerable, and possibly outmatched!

Well, we're certainly going to see a Batman who is overconfident, vulnerable, and possibly outmatched this week here at the Absorbascon, as we sit down to read the 1974 Len Wein story enitled...


...which first appeared in Baman #255 and surely won't appear anywhere else again, so enjoy it here while you can.