Neo-Silver Age Comics

According to famed comics historian Peter Sanderson, the Silver Age of comics experienced a complex renaissance beginning in the late 1980s in the form of an emerging sub-genre that Sanderson dubs “Neo-Silver,” one that produced a slew of legendary comics works. 1/6

To Sanderson, Neo-Silver comics authors “recognized and assimilated the more sophisticated developments in the medium since the 1960s and reinterpret the Silver Age characters and stories from that standpoint….” 2/6

“They respect the achievements and intentions of the great writers and artists of the past, and attempting to recapture the spirit of their works for a new generation…” 3/6

“I propose that the first true “Neo-Silver” work emerged at the very time that the legacy of the Silver Age was under severe attack in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths: it was Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” 4/6

In addition to Moore’s story, Sanderson also singles out Gaiman’s “1602” as a Neo-Silver text. Other prominent works that might be revisited as Neo-Silver are Busiek and Ross’s “Marvels,” Waid and Ross’s “Kingdom Come” and Darwyn Cooke’s “New Frontier.” 5/6

Sanderson’s greater point then is just that the silver age of comics didn’t simply end – its values re-emerged within new contexts and contributed to an entirely new generation of deeply influential comics texts that informed the trajectory of comics all over again. 6/6