Broken Frontier

Arthur Miller died last month. The playwright who penned Death of a Salesman died. Here was the man who created Willie Loman, who fashioned this poor wretch whose life – doomed from before even the start of the play, doomed from the title alone – audiences have made an emotional investment in performance after performance, year after year, since the opening curtain in 1949. Over four decades of investing in a condemned character, an ill-fated soul who was “liked, but not well-liked” even as he was relished by audiences.

Arthur Miller is dead. Biologically dead, if not metaphorically – His works and words, of course, live on with us and future generations to come. Sure, but like the lately departed Hunter S. Thompson as well, Mr. Miller will be scripting nothing more. As the long-dead E.M. Forster wrote, “Death destroys a man; the idea of death saves him.”

Miller – and Thompson and Forster – were long-saved by the idea of death, and they will continue to be so. However, death itself has finally destroyed all three.

It seems eerily fitting, though, that the last place I read a passage from Miller was in Identity Crisis #7, expertly and adeptly employed by its writer Brad Meltzer. I read the Miller quote and found it to be the perfect conclusion to my triptych on the new period of superhero comics we have been experiencing; it was the ideal line to put into play for my argument of the Hydrogen Age. It would guide my final discussion on the matter...

...And yet, the conclusion was never written. My column was left unfinished. Life called, distractions abounded, and the quote remained in a file of notes, all of which were to be called upon, supposedly, to serve me and my urgings for the Hydrogen Age. Yet, days continued to pass, deadlines flew by, and the quote remained unaddressed, unexplored, unassigned --

Then Arthur Miller died.

It was time to write the column.

The quote: “An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.”

The illusions that have alternately plagued and populated the Hydrogen Age are now exhausted. Its era is concluding. And while it may seem counter-intuitive to argue for the actual existence of this period of time by further pressing the reader to acknowledge that yet another Age is about to be begin -- that's exactly what has to be done. As Kurt Busiek noted, “You can really only identify the Ages that are clearly over [...] So, the one you're in at the moment is always called 'The Modern Age' until you give it an actual name - because then you've put a headstone one it and you're on to the next one."

Comic books are in the Modern Age; we are readers in the Modern Age. Like Miller, Thompson, Forster, and the Bronze Age, however, the Hydrogen Age is concluding -- so the time is now to identify and honor it quickly before it passes away.

So, first: Hydrogen.

Hydrogen is a scientific element, the first member of the periodic table. Gold is an element, as is Silver, Bronze, and even Iron; all are balanced substances that cannot be reduced any further by traditional means. Of those, however, hydrogen is the lightest and the most abundant. In fact, it is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe, consisting of only one proton and one electron. Further, even the most rudimentary science student knows that it is part of the vital equation for H₂O: water, the building block of life.

(Wait, wait, science class is almost over.)

A lesser-recognized feature of Hydrogen is its potential to become radioactive – to become a “nucleotide” – and, thus, a nuclear power source, such as with the infamous hydrogen bombs (H-bombs) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unlike Uranium or Radium, for example, radioactive Hydrogen (called “Tritium” or ³H) does not occur naturally. In rare cases, it can be found cosmogenically, the result of cosmic rays interacting with Nitrogen (N) and Oxygen (O). More typically, though, the ³H found in Fat Man and Little Boy is the result of human agency: We created it.

(Class dismissed.)

Previously , an inception date for this Age was nailed down as approximately 1986 -- for a variety of reasons. The major overhaul of continuity at DC in the form of Crisis of Infinite Earths, the lesser storytelling revisions at Marvel with Secret Wars II and The Fantastic Four, the onset of “event storytelling” (to quote Chris Fluit) and new imprints, and the publication of watershed works such as MAUS, Watchmen, and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Further , these events lent themselves to solidifying the end of the Bronze Age: the descent of Conan, Supergirl, and the supernatural horror trend. And, easily the most quantifiable factor heralding its end was simply the passage of time: The Golden and Silver Ages had each lasted approximately 16 years, making approximately 1986 the sweet sixteen for the Bronze itself.

Selecting 1986 as the start-date for a new Age of comics is nothing new; what may distinguish the Hydrogen Age from the supposed Dark Age is, in fact, how long it actually lasted – the full 16 years. The Dark Age ushered in the time of the grim-and-gritty anti-hero, the morally conflicted superhero, and the hardcore, life-taking protagonist. With the comic industry crash of the nineties, this trend eventually seemed wiped away. But what the revolutionary works of ’86 actually unearthed would continue beyond this “Dark Age” and be wrestled with well into the 21^st century.

The Golden Age began as a result of Superman’s appearance, the template struck for superhero conventions and ethos; for the next sixteen years, the genre would grapple with the issue of Morality: Do heroes kill? Does might make right? Do comics corrupt? Then, circa 1954, the Age and focus shifted, as mandated by the new self-regulated decency organization, the CCA. The tone of the Silver Age resonated from just that -- a grappling with the concept of Authority: Vigilantism, teen culture, group dynamics, and justice versus lawfulness. Following a series of both industrial shake-ups and final authority-challenging storylines – from The Amazing Spider-Man’s drug abuse storyline unapproved by the CCA or the conscience-raising hard-traveling heroes of Green Lantern & Green Arrow – the Bronze Age set in, with Conan, with Ghost Rider, with the new issue of Autonomy.

Morality. Authority. Autonomy.

Then came Mortality.

Death, resurrection, reformatting, aging, maturing, retiring, reviving, burying. Batman: A Death in the Family. The Death of Captain Marvel. The Dark PhoenixSaga. The Death of Superman. Suicide Squad. The Mutant Massacre. The fatalities rise during this era like never before; the occurrences of heroes themselves taking lives sharply spikes, from Punisher to Wolverine to Spawn to Cable to Aquaman to WildC.A.T.s to Wonder Woman...

...But death is not all there is to Mortality. There are issues of grieving, blame, guilt, mourning, finitude, and acceptance. It was standing graveside of Illyana Rasputin, Superman, and Metmorpho. It was the handing-down of the Starman mantle, the quantum bands, the Green Lantern legacy, the Star Brand, and the Fantastic Four roster. It was the Millennium. It was Onslaught. Heroes Reborn and Heroes Return; the Ultimate line and finality of the Kingdom Come mini-series. It was a new JLA, the New X-Men, a reborn JSA, the return of Hawkman, the Astonishing X-Men, the New Avengers, the resurrection of Green Arrow, the rebirth of Green Lantern, and, of course, the murder of Sue Dibney catalyzing not only Identity Crisis but also a complex chess game leading to a purported second DC Crisis (not to mention the All-Star line). The sociopathy and lethal urge manifested by the grim-and-gritty heroes was just the beginning; our heroes may finally be closing in on their new relationship to transience.

Acceptance.

Perhaps they will reach it, and soon allow this Modern Age to take shape. After all, the conclusion of this Hydrogen Age is now overdue. Even our tampered hydrogen has a half-life: 12.3 years, the closest, relatively speaking, to the theorized comic book Age-span. Like the decaying nature of a nucleotide, the titles have each had to face age in their own way. Like its radioactivity, they have had to confront illness, suffering, and death. Like its abundance, they have flourished into literally hundreds of titles from a variety of publishers, not solely an exclusive two.

If there was no better reason to see Hydrogen as the symbol of this age -- of 1986 through recent history -- then there would only have to be its place as the symbol adopted by Doctor Manhattan in the Watchmen mini-series. Rather than a meaningless atomic icon, he burns a hydrogen icon into his head, saying that it is “more appropriate.” Rorschach did not define the era, only its onset; Manhattan foresaw the future. “If I have to have a symbol, it shall be one I respect.”

“Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell,” wrote critic Walter Benjamin. “He has borrowed his authority from death.”

Morality. Authority. Autonomy. Mortality.

Gold. Silver. Bronze. Hydrogen.

What’s next, Mr. Loman?