The Golden Age of comics begins in June 1938. This is the first appearance of Superman in Action Comics #1, published by DC Comics. There had been adventure comic books published before this point (Detective Comics predates Action by over a year, but Batman would not appear until 1939). However, these heroes had much more in common with their pulp magazine counterparts than they did to the super-heroes who would follow. For example, Doc Savage was described as being at the peak of human perfection, but still conceivably within the realm of human possibility, while Superman’s abilities were clearly super-human.
Superman’s (and subsequently Batman’s) immediate popularity caused publishers to launch a wave of super-heroes, or “mystery men” as they were called in the 30s and 40s, at their readers. They were introduced to the Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Captain Marvel, Captain America the Human Torch. But possibly the most popular character of all wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t even human. He was Scrooge McDuck.
Super-hero and adventure comics of the time featured simplistic characterization and power fantasies, with the heroes often battling Nazi threats. By the 1950s, the Nazi threat had been replaced by the Communist “Red menace.”
They also displayed some extraordinarily racist images and characterizations, much like many other forms of media at the time, as the cover to Detective Comics #1 illustrates.
But by the early 50s, comic books had begun to evolve thematic?y. Super-heroes were on the way out, to be replaced with horror and crime comics popularized by EC Comics. Only Superman, Batman and a handful of others were still being published by the mid-50s. Frederick Wertham’s book, Seduction of the Innocent, a scathing indictment of comic books in general and EC Comics in particular of their corruption of children, ultimately led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority, which prohibited EC Comics from publishing anything they had.
Western and War comics continued to be popular through this time, but it wasn’t until October 1956, when the all-new Flash appeared in Showcase #4 that the Golden Age of comics ended and the Silver Age began.
