1938: Superman appears in Action Comics #1. Thus starts the Golden Age of Comics. Soon Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash are created and comic books become really popular since they’re still only 10 cents.
The early 50’s: Superhero comic books start to become lame and lose some popularity to horror, crime and romance comic books. Some psychiatrist guy says that reading comics turns kids into sadistic criminals. He also believes that Batman and Robin are a couple. People believe him and the Comic Code is created that completely sanitizes comics. Without sex and violence, only superhero and kiddie comic books survive.
1956: The Silver Age of Comics begins when DC Comics reintroduces The Flash. Superhero comic books generally get better but they still lack sex and violence.
The 60's: The Fantastic Four #1 is published. Stan Lee somehow creates the entire Marvel Universe in just a few years. Spider-Man becomes popular because, unlike previous superheroes, he can’t get a date and nerdy teenagers everywhere can relate.
The early 70’s- mid 80‘s: The X-Men are re-launched, now with Wolverine. The Green Goblin kills Spider-Man’s girlfriend. Superheroes start to fight drug dealers. Both Marvel and DC have giant cross-over storylines that effect all of their titles. This is the Bronze Age of Comics. Storylines start to become more mature.
1986: The Modern Age of Comics begins. Superheroes start becoming darker. Alan Moore’s Watchmen mini-series begins and everyone thinks it is the greatest comic book ever. Partially because it may be true. Soon after Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns is released. This causes everyone to love Batman again. Soon comic books are filled with sex and violence again, making them somewhat better. Comics are published with an older demographic in mind.
1989: Tim Burton’s Batman movie is released and this sets of the comic book craze of the early 90’s.
The early 90’s: Everyone begins to think comics are a good investment (note: they’re not). Marvel Comics releases more X-Men comic books than anyone can afford. Readers vote to have the Joker kill Robin. Superman dies. A bunch of hot shot artists leave the big publishers to form their own company, Image Comics, mostly because they want more money. These comics don’t adhere to the Comic Code and have way more sex and violence. People buy them for a while until they realize they aren’t very good. Plus everyone still prefers Wolverine, Batman and Spider-Man to characters like Spawn and The Savage Dragon.
The mid 90’s: Way too many comic books get published. People stop buying them for awhile. A movie about Spawn gets made. The Batman movies suck. Lots of quality graphic novels are created (like Sin City) One of the worst Spider-Man stories ever is published (it is a long story, but trust me, everyone hated it, but at least it wasn’t as bad as the worst ever Spider-Man storyline published last year).
2000: The X-Men movie comes out and is way better then people thought it would be. Even my mom liked it.
2002: A Spider-Man movie finally comes out and makes a ton of money. Soon every superhero gets their own movie.
2009: The Watchmen movie is finally made. This causes a new generation of readers to discover how awesome graphic novels are. Parents buy it for their kids without looking inside to see that is completely inappropriate for children.
So that's how we got to the point of having a third movie about the Punisher being made and your grandmother asking you about the new Wolverine movie.
Most graphic novels today are aimed at teenage and older audiences. They don't shy away from featuring the type of violence and sex that is seen in most PG-13 and R rated movies. Many of the heroes are "anti-heroes" that don't obey authority or traditional heroic values. If you enjoy the action-packed movies based on comic books, you should read some of the graphic novels that this site recommends.
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