Media Notes / The Modern Age of Comic Books

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The Modern Age of Comic Books is the current era of comic books. As for when that age began... well, that's a different, much more contentious question. The term "Modern Age" has been used as far back as the early 1950s, but that era quickly became known as The Silver Age of Comic Books.

In the most common parlance, the Modern Age refers to everything since the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths and the release of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen in 1986... which, as of 2026, would make it have lasted 40 years, longer than the time between Crisis and the end of The Golden Age of Comic Books. This extended era is sometimes referred to as the Iron Age of Comic Books or the Copper Age of Comic Books, though "Copper Age" is also sometimes used to refer to The Bronze Age of Comic Books. (Look, we told you it was contentious.)

The second most common interpretation, which was used by this very wiki for several years, is to split this era into "The Dark Age of Comic Books" (starting in 1986, and ending anywhere between 1995 and 2004), and "The Modern Age of Comic Books" (starting whenever the Dark Age ended and lasting until the present day). This still means that the "Modern Age" is as long as the Silver Age and Bronze Age put together.

At present, here on TV Tropes, we've split the commonly-defined "Modern Age" or "Iron Age" period into three shorter eras:

• The Dark Age of Comic Books, lasting from the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986 until The Great Comics Crash of 1996.
• The Renaissance Age of Comic Books, lasting from the Comics Crash in 1996 until Flashpoint and the debut of Miles Morales in 2011.
• The Blue Age of Comic Books, lasting from 2011 until the present day.

If an internal link that led you here would better apply to one of these eras, please correct it to point to the right page, if it exists.

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