Comics by year

1970's 1980's 1990's 2000's 2010's 2020's

This page contains links to all the comics on the website, ordered by year. For an alphabetic list please click the link below:

Site Map: Section list and alphabetic comic list

Note: There are countless arguments when and why various ages start and end, especially the Bronze and Copper ages so, apart from the first three superhero ages, all the later ages here are split into decades to keep things simple.

1938-1945 - The Golden Age

1938 saw the introduction of Superman in Action Comics #1, which ushered in the dawn of the Golden Age of the superhero. During this time many memorable characters emerged such as Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Captain Marvel and Captain America (many of whom had stories battling with the Axis powers, some before the U.S. had even entered World War II). Comics were not just dominated by the superhero at this time, however, and covered many diverse subject areas such as "true crime", horror and romance, some featuring drug use, sexual expoitation and violence.

Various years

Golden Age Ashcan Comics

1941

All Star Comics #8 - mentioned on Wonder Woman #600 page

1942

1946-1955 - The Atom Age

After the end of World War II, the superhero genre lost popularity entering an interregnum. During this time campaigns against comic books were abound with a focus on juvenile corruption that lead to public comic book burning in some areas by the late 40's. In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published Seduction of the Innocent, asserting that crime, sex and violence depicted in comic books encouraged the same behaviours in the children reading them. A Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency suggested the comic industry should tone down its content and this pushed the comic industry into forming the Comics Code Authority (CCA). This all lead to the loss of many titles and the sanitization and censorship of others (including the attempted censorship of a story on the evils of race prejudice!) with distributors refusing to carry books without the code approval.

1952

Superman #75 Error Variant: Misnumbered #74

1956-1969 - The Silver Age

With the CCA well established, 1956 saw the publication of DC Comics' Showcase #4 and the introduction of the modern version of the Flash, which ushered in the second coming of the superhero. Other DC characters were also re-worked during this time and the sixties then brought us new heroes in the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-men and more with Stan Lee's Marvel revolution. The sixties also saw growth in "underground" comix distributed independently without any CAA approvals (so were free to cover previously taboo subjects such as recreational drug use, politics, sex and violence).

1956

Action Comics #223 Error Variant (misnumbered #233)

1962

1964

1969

1970's - The Bronze Age

Following on from the Silver Age, the Bronze Age became a little darker focussing on more realistic stories, horror and Sword-and-Sorcery (such as the popular Conan books). During this time the infamous Air Pirates Funnies parody comic was produced leading to eventual litigation with Disney and banning of future sales and reprints of the comic.

1971

1974

Sandman v1 #1 - Purple variant

1980's - The Dark Age

The 80's saw a maturing of comics with a focus on the older reader; writers such as Alan Moore took stories to a darker level, deconstructing the superhero (Marvelman, Watchman etc) and bringing horror to a new depths in Swamp Thing. Notibly Frank Miller also came to prominance writing in Daredevil and this was the basis of an unexpected indie hit with the anthropomorphic parody: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

1980

1981

Love and Rockets #1 Self-published

1990's - The Chromium Age

This was the great age of variants giving us ashcans, Chromium embossing, 3D covers, black & white variants and more! The decade also saw some classic new titles such as Preacher, Spawn, Hellboy and Frank Miller's gritty Sin City.

2000's - The Plastic (slab) Age

With the hang-over from the excessive marketing of the '90's, the new millennium saw Marvel re-booting itself slowly with the modernized "Ultimate" titles that eventually overtook some of their equivalent sixties titles. This was also the decade which saw the introduction of the Walking Dead and the low print run #1 would go on to be the top collectible of the decade. The 2000's also saw the introduction of CGC and started a whole new sphere of collecting unreadable comics encased in "plastic prisons" ☹.

2000