Bronze Age of Comic Books - Timeline of The Bronze Age

Timeline of The Bronze Age

• April 1970: DC Comics adds Green Arrow to Green Lantern book for stories written by Denny O'Neil and penciled by Neal Adams featuring "relevance." Series, story, writer, penciller and inker all win first Shazam Awards in their respective categories the following year.

• October 1970: Marvel Comics begins publishing Conan The Barbarian.

• October 1970: DC Comics begins publishing Jack Kirby's Fourth World titles beginning with Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and continuing with New Gods, The Forever People and Mister Miracle.

• 1971: The Falcon shares co-feature status in the renamed Captain America and The Falcon.

• 1971: The Comics Code is revised.

• January 1971: Clark Kent becomes a newscaster at WGBS-TV.

• July 1971: DC Comics introduces the character of Swamp Thing in its House of Secrets title.

• April 1972: Marvel begins publishing The Tomb of Dracula.

• June 1972: Luke Cage becomes the first African American superhero to receive his own series in Hero for Hire #1.

• June 1973: The death of Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spider-Man #121.

• December 1973: The absurdist Howard the Duck makes his first appearance in comics and would be one of the most popular non-superheroes ever. He would get his own series in 1976 and he would graduate to his own daily newspaper strip and a 1986 film.

• November 1974: First appearance of Wolverine in Incredible Hulk #181.

• 1975: Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum introduces the "all-new, all-different X-Men."

• July 1977: At the request of Roy Thomas, Marvel releases Star Wars, based on the hit movie, and it quickly becomes one of the best-selling books of the era.

• December 1977: Dave Sim launches Cerebus independent of the major publishers, the longest running limited series (300 issues) in comics as well as the longest run by one artist on a comic book series.

• Spring 1978: First appearance of Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini is published in Fantasy Quarterlty

• 1978: DC cancels over half of its titles in the so-called DC Implosion.

• July 1979: DC publishes The World of Krypton, the first comic book mini-series, which gave publishers a new flexibility with titles.

• November 1980: First issue of DC Comics' The New Teen Titans whose success at revitalizing a previously underperforming property would lead to the idea of revamping the entire DC Universe.

• June 1982: Marvel publishes Contest of Champions, its first limited series. This title features most of the company's major characters together, providing a template for later limited-series storylines at Marvel and DC.

• October 1982: Comico begins publishing a comic called Comico Primer that would later be the starting point for several influential artists and writers such as Sam Kieth and Matt Wagner.

• May 1984: Marvel begins releasing the first "big event" storyline, Secret Wars, which would, along with Crisis on Infinite Earths, popularize big events, and make them a staple in the industry.

• May 1984: Mirage Studios begins publishing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.
• Summer 1984 DC in order to be more diverse with minorities the Justice League of America disbanded and reborn with Vixen, Steel and Vibe as members with Aquaman as team leader and later Batman. This was commonly known as Justice League Detroit Era.

• April 1985: DC begins publishing Crisis on Infinite Earths, which would drastically restructure the DC universe, and popularize the epic crossover in the comics industry along with Secret Wars. In the aftermath of this Crisis, DC cancels and relaunches the Flash, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

• August 1985: Eclipse Comics publishes Miracleman, written by Alan Moore, developing the later trends of bringing superhero fiction into the real world, and showing the effects of immensely powerful characters on global politics (both potentially apocalyptic and utopian).

• 1986: DC publishes Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, setting a new grim tone for Batman.

• September 1986: Curt Swan, primary Superman artist during the Silver and Bronze Age, is retired from his monthly art duties on all Superman books after the last Pre-Crisis Superman story, called Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, on which he worked together with Alan Moore, is published.

• September 1986-October 1987: DC Comics publishes the Watchmen limited series, seen by many as a model for a new age of comics.