| abstract | - The Modern Age is the current age, the one we're in right now (we're talking about comic books, here). Ages don't get named until they're gone, so the present age is always Modern; thus, in five to ten years, we'll probably have to change the name of this entry. If The Golden Age of Comic Books and The Silver Age of Comic Books were the childhood of Super Heroes, The Bronze Age of Comic Books was their adolescence, and The Dark Age of Comic Books was their angst-ridden teenage years, then The Modern Age of Comic Books is surely the college years: all the work gets turned in late, people come up to you with crazy-awesome ideas all the time (most of which don't really pan out), and there's still some adolescent attitude about, but it's growing into something more mature. If you want a start date for the Modern Age, then the publication of Ultimate Spider-Man #1 in 2000 is as good a signpost as any: definitely a sharp turn back towards lighter and happier comics, harbinger of a lot of Modern Age tropes like Writing for the Trade (something of a side-effect of the Decompressed Comic) and habitual lateness, the beginning of Marvel's Ultimate universe, and hey -- it's a great big obvious #1 issue. Of course 1996 is just as good, since it's the year that Kingdom Come came out, and the year that The Sandman ended, and the year of The Great Comics Crash of 1996. Or even 1995, when Astro City came out. Hindsight is always clearer, though, so this is another thing we'll probably have to change in five or ten years, when we can look at the Age as a whole. Depending on your viewpoint, we may still be in The Dark Age of Comic Books; or at least, there's still some lingering elements of the Dark Age hanging around. This generally seems to refer to tone and atmosphere more than actual content, since the extremes of that era have arguably long-faded, and could be more of a sarcastic insult as much as actual criticism. The Modern Age is the era in which Running the Asylum became overt, as creative teams often went to great lengths to restore the elements of their own favorite childhood comics -- frequently to the point of completely discarding the contributions of the last creative team. With an unusually high rate of turnover in the 2000s, this would occasionally result in a character experiencing several All New Directions in the space of two or three years. Both Dark Age and Modern Age influences can be seen in recent superhero movies. If The Dark Knight Saga is a Dark Age movie, then the Iron Man movies can be considered Modern Age movies. Another feature of the era is while the decline of the comic book as a regularly published periodical is real, the rise of the graphic novel as respectable reading material in mainstream North American culture has been dramatic. For instance, public libraries, which for generations has largely treated comic books like a hospital did with medical waste, have embraced the format in their acquisitions. This is not only in growing recognition of the medium's unique artistic and literary virtues, but also in recognition that one way to encourage kids to read at all in this age of Video Games, Home Video and online resources is by meeting them halfway with this combination of word and image. With this in mind, at least one commenter has suggested that, following the "metallic" scheme of Golden/Silver/Bronze/Iron, the current age may be known as "Aluminum", since so much of it is recycled. Another possible name is the "Diamond Age" or Prismatic Age because the medium has become multifaceted (or because Diamond has an effective monopoly on distribution, take your pick). Another suggested name is "The Post-Modern Age", due to the growing number of post modern books that have been coming out. The name "Neo-Silver Age" has also been used, considering the common values of the two. Grant Morrison recently referred to the current age as the "Renaissance", to contrast it with the Dark Age that had just come before. Some consider this and the Dark Age to be a single era, The Iron Age of Comic Books. It's too early to say for sure, but if an "age" of comic books lasts fifteen or so years, and the Modern Age began in the mid-90s, then it is likely to be reaching its end point now. Certainly, the September 2011 reboot of The DCU following Flashpoint appears to be a significant change, similar to how some consider Crisis on Infinite Earths to mark the end of the Bronze Age. Also, Archie and DC finally officially dropped the Comics Code in 2011. The fact that the reboot also marks the beginning of DC's major digital publishing initiative is also a sign that times are changing. On the Marvel side of things, September is also the month that Ultimate Spider-Man, one of the launchers of the Modern Age, officially passes the torch from Peter Parker to new character Miles Morales.
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