Ahh, the Ages of comics, designations that help define important eras in comic history. Fans argue when the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages began and when they ended. Opinions vary, but there are landmarks that are impossible to ignore.

I always believed that the Golden Age begins with Action Comics #1 and effectively ends with World War II. By the end of the war, the popularity of superheroes had greatly declined, and these "Age" designations do - for better or worse - seem to be "super hero-centric" in their use. This, however, means that 1946-1955 is basically ... unnamed. Some fans don't like that and extend the Golden Age until 1955. I'm still mulling that debate.

In any case, most fans agree that the Silver Age begins with Showcase #4, where the Barry Allen Flash debuts. This issue is cover-dated Sept./Oct. 1956. I'm not sure what the on-sale date was. Sometime during summer, 1956, I guess.

It's trickier to argue when the Silver Age ends. Once, after a day of web surfing, I concluded that the best ending was with the comics cover dated Jan. 1971 (an onsale date of, I assume, August or September 1970). Why? Because two landmark issues shipped that month - Superman #232 for DC and Amazing Adventures #4 for Marvel.

Superman #232 was Mort Weissinger's last issue before retiring as Superman editor. The next issue, Denny O'Neil became the book's new writer, and he reduced Superman's powers! It's hard to conceive of a more definitive "end of one era/beginning of another" than that.

Amazing Adventures #4, on the other hand, is not often mentioned in these debates. Most people point to Fantastic Four #102, because it was Kirby's last issue of that title. FF #102 had shipped a couple months earlier, but a couple of Kirby Inhumans stories had yet to be published. Amazing Adventures #4 featured the last of these, so this, rather than Fantastic Four #102, represents the last published work of Kirby's Marvel tenure. (Incidentally, Kirby's first new "Fourth World" titles - New Gods and Forever People - both debuted with issues cover dated "Feb./March 1971."  Mister Miracle #1 was to debut the month after that. It is true that Kirby's Jimmy Olsen had already appeared, however.)

I had often disputed the existence of a "Bronze Age." What really marks this "Bronze Age?" There's no resurgence in the popularity of super heroes, and you can even argue that that genre briefly declined (Non-super hero books like Conan the Barbarian, Tomb of Dracula, Howard the Duck and Warlord were some of the hottest titles of the early 1970's). The term "Bronze Age" continues to become more and more prominent, however, and it probably won't go away.

Let's assume, then, that the Bronze Age is indeed immediately kicked off by the comics cover dated Feb. 1971. When does it end?

Well, I think I now I have an answer. I was recently cover surfing the Grand Comics Database ( www.comics.org ) and discovered that the last issues of Marvel's Secret Wars II and DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths shipped the exact same month! Both are cover dated March 1986.

Whether this is really the end of the Bronze Age will be debated for years and years to come. As with the January 1971 comics, though, I think that these March 1986 comics also denote the end of an era and the beginning of a new era at the same time. This is more obvious at DC, since Crisis altered the entire DC universe. I think that the two Secret Wars series, though, - along with the Crisis series - did signify a change to the comics industry as a whole. The day of the epic, multi-title crossover had now truly arrived, and the impact of this would continue to be felt to the present day. To me, the end of Secret Wars also signifies a decline in quality for the Shooter Marvel era. By the time it was over, many top Marvel creators had left for DC.

So, those are my thoughts on the matter.

Mind you, I don't think that my theories here are flawless. For one thing, the Bronze Age still strikes me as a bit undefined. If we assume the existence of these "Ages," however, then the beginning and end dates must naturally be arbitrary, and I think that my selections work pretty well.