Silver Age Marvel: Search And Destroy

Destroy: Main bit of Thor (even the red-baiting stories are hamfisted), Captain America. Iron Man has always looked uniquely soporific but I've never read the early 'sagas'

Destroy: Captain America, the X-Men, Iron Man, Antman and the Wasp, the Human Torch, Nick Fury (apart from the Steranko issues), Sgt. Fury etc. Of course the artwork is sublime on most of these titles - but the 'split book' format of things like 'Tales of Suspense' generally didn't allow for any truly meaty storylines (although Stan Lee's French dialogue for Batroc the Leaper in Cap A is worth a read... 'early smirk'!) Part of the prob. may also be w/ the Marvel Style method (ie Lee gives artist two-line plot - Iron Man has a heart attack but still has to fight the Mandarin - and then adds dialogue/captions AFTER the artwork has drawn...)

However crude and sappy some of the early Marvels now seem, they're still full of life when compared to DCs from the same era. And as tiresome as a lot of Lee's angsty stuff is, it still feels a bit more 'realistic' than the sober-sided DC heroes, who never felt a moment's doubt or alienation, never bickered, never fucked up.

which comes first, the golden or silver age?

I really like the Fantastic Four and X-Men early issues that I've read. Spiderman suffers from craptastic baddies!

and thus more concurrent with fish age

I'd say that you won't be entirely disappointed by anything by Kirby or Ditko, personally, though there is certainly some variation in quality. I'd recommend the first five Essential FFs (which I hope will cover the whole of Jack's run), at least the first two Spideys, Dr Strange, two Caps, the first Hulk, the first X-Men (very patchy), Ant-Man and lots of Avengers. I'll buy all the Kirby Thors too, but they're a bit boring, mostly. Iron Man is likeable.

The Silver Age as far as Marvel is concerned starts with FF#1 and ends, for me, when Kirby leaves Marvel for DC, after FF#102 or so. The DC Silver Age starts much earlier, with the new version of Flash, and I'm not sure that there is a sensible endpoint. I am very loathe to propose ending it with Kirby arriving at DC!

Golden Age = 1938 - 45

Silver Age = 1956 - 70

Bronze Age = 1970 - 78

So Kirby's Arrival at DC does actually end the silver age, but only because it begins the Bronze Age.

I'd disagree with Andrew re DC's output at the time of the Silver Age Marvels: mostly he's correct, but he forgets that DC had several editors to Marvel's Stan Lee. I think we're better off thinking of Stan Lee-edited comics, Mort Weisinger comics, Julie Schwartz comics, etc. Robert Kanigher's titles are full of heroes who suffer self- doubt or the like, fight among themselves and don't always win. The most obviously unheroic figures are Von Hammer and Capt. Storm, but there's a lot of it in at least one Johnny Cloud story ('Blind Eagle-- Hingry Hawk!' in All-American Men of War # 102) (Andrew, please try to keep up with your flatmate's apa mailings).

But yes, I agree w/ yr points, plus I just remembered that I actually really really like the 50/60s Weisinger-edited Superman titles. I suppose the stark staring tedium of Silver Age Hawkman, Atom, Green Lantern, etc. was more on my mind. Plus I'm not really into war so much.

Martin S - again, yes, I like the silly aspects of the early Marvels. In X-Men 2, America's nuclear secrets are kept in a briefcase on a table in the Pentagon!

the silence is killing me

And 'Zemko' sounds like a 'Commie' villain in an early silver age Marvel.