Spider-Man Death Toll : The Bronze Age started with a Vengeance

[KA.]

I was recently reading Essential Spider-Man Vol. 6.
This includes the death of Gwen Stacy, which some consider the start of the Bronze Age.

I started noticing a bit of a trend. These are all issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, take a look at the death toll:

118 The Disrupter (Richard Raleigh) - A political schemer is killed by The Smasher, a brutish villain he helped create.
120 Jean Pierre Rimbaud - A lawyer who is trying to inform Aunt May about an inheritance, killed by a goon hired by Doctor Octopus.
121 Gwen Stacy - Killed by the Green Goblin.
122 The Green Goblin - Accidentally kills himself while trying to kill Spider-Man.
126 The Kangaroo - Killed by entering a room filled with Radioactive Isotopes.
127 Gloria Jenkins - Killed by Dr. Shallot, a scientist who mutated himself into an imitation of The Vulture.
131 Hammerhead and Doctor Octopus - Killed in the explosion of a Nuclear Breeder reactor, along with about 10 goons.
133 The Molten Man - Killed when the reaction that created him goes out of control and he plunges off a bridge into cold water.

Now I know that most of these were "Comic Book" deaths where the person shows up again later, but still, for the people who were reading them monthly and didn't know that, sheesh!

I know that supervillains and minor characters died from time to time in comics, but I think the label of the end of the Silver Age is quite appropriate.
Not just because of Gwen Stacy, but because of the seeming "kill someone every couple of issues" policy that must have been in force at the time.

Just an observation.

Any comments?

KA.

[rbezold]

You missed one. A lot of people believe that the killing spree started with Gwen Stacy. IMO, it started a year(?) earlier with the death of Cpt. Stacy at the hands of Doc Ock.

Sadly, death sells. And we have no one to blame but our collective selves for continuing to buy 'death' comics under the illusion that they will become valuable someday.

Although, now that you mention it, Spiderman probably had a higher body count than the next three comics put together...

[KA.]

rbezold,
Good Point, I think the death of Capt. Stacy was in the previous volume.

I also left out another signal that things were getting darker:

129 - First Appearance of The Punisher.

KA.

[Rapier]

rbezold,
Good Point, I think the death of Capt. Stacy was in the previous volume.

I also left out another signal that things were getting darker:

129 - First Appearance of The Punisher.

KA.

All of which is a bit before my time. What years are we talking? I would be tempted to believe that much of this had some RL impetus. I'm just thinking that there was some socio-politcal goings-on that led to a change in the comic book industry...not just my man PP.

Not that anyone asked, but if there was a thread about what comic book hero we most wanted to get with...Mr Parker is at the TOP (and boy do I mean TOP) of my list.

[lemming]

rbezold,
Good Point, I think the death of Capt. Stacy was in the previous volume.

I also left out another signal that things were getting darker:

129 - First Appearance of The Punisher.

That's the one I was going to point out though I'm not really sure that was the start of the Bronze age. The heroes of the comics were reacting to the types like Punisher and treating them as wrong. While a lot of those characters were making their first appearances, it was then the over exposure of those characters that seemed to do it later.

[lemming]

All of which is a bit before my time. What years are we talking? I would be tempted to believe that much of this had some RL impetus. I'm just thinking that there was some socio-politcal goings-on that led to a change in the comic book industry...not just my man PP.

Not that anyone asked, but if there was a thread about what comic book hero we most wanted to get with...Mr Parker is at the TOP (and boy do I mean TOP) of my list.

Well Spiderman #129 came out Feb 1974.

[KA.]

Well Spiderman #129 came out Feb 1974.

Thanks, lemming, you saved me from digging the book back out.

Also, I agree that the heroes weren't necessarily getting "darker" right away, but the "world" seemed to be getting darker. Not that bad things hadn't happened before, and I am hardly a comics scholar, but it seems like they were getting more concentrated.
I read the "Death of Gwen Stacy was the start of the Bronze Age" (or end of the Silver Age) on another thread, but I didn't really give it that much thought until I started reading the Marvel Essentials TPB.
It just seemed like they suddenly cranked the death and darkness up several notches.
This is also the run where Aunt May is in love with Dr. Octopus, and at one point is holding a gun, ready to shoot Spider-Man, to protect him.
She actually does shoot, but a police siren startles her and she fires wildly.
Also, this stuff was happening in Marvel's very popular main line book.
It wasn't a "What If?", or a small title that no one cared about.
I am not saying that it is definitively the start of the Bronze Age, but there are definitely some visible changes going on here.

KA.

[lemming]

Come to think about it, isn't this the same era that Green Arrow & Green Lantern go on their road trip? And then Speedy being drug addict is in the same area IIRC.

I blame Watergate and the SLA.

[assault]

Also, I agree that the heroes weren't necessarily getting "darker" right away, but the "world" seemed to be getting darker. Not that bad things hadn't happened before, and I am hardly a comics scholar, but it seems like they were getting more concentrated.

DC killed off Black Canary's husband in 1969. This was their excuse for her crossing from Earth-2 to Earth-1, and allowed her to get together with Green Arrow. Larry Lance wasn't exactly a major character, of course.

DC also killed off Alfred in the early-mid 60s, but brought him back. The kill off was part of a general revamp of Bat-mythology which they did then. I gather the TV series had something to do with the revival.

[Mantis]

Co-incidentally, there was a special on the History Channel the other night about the history of comics, which touched on some of the incidents mentioned above (GL/GA, Speedy the drug addict, etc). It concentrated on DC comics mostly (Supes and Batman) but Marvel did feature once they reached the 60's.

IIRR, according to the program, comics evolved according to the world at that time. They offered hope in the Depression, fought Nazis in WWII, rebelled against authority in the 60s, and so on. Back in the '50s, though, comics were subject to a McCarthy-like witch-hunt, with comics being blamed for society's ills (some doctor established that all seath row killers had read comics, ergo, comic readers were killers), which lead to the introduction of the Comics Code Authority, which in turn killed off a lot of the offending titles - most comics were schlock horror themes at that time, not superheroic.

Come the late-60s/early-70s, the comic market was dropping - the rebel storylines were getting old - and Stan Lee wanted to update Marvel comics to be more relevant to the audience. He wanted to show the effects of drug use in his comics, but couldn't because of the Comics Code, which prevented any depiction of drug-taking, no matter the context (amongst other things). So Marvel started publishing Spiderman comics *without* the CCA stamp - the first time this had been done since the CCA had been formed. In response, the CCA changed their rules to allow drug-taking to appear in comics, but not in a positive context. This change lead in turn to the Speedy and Norman Osborne addiction story arcs. The Punisher was another character who appeared around this time and I think it was another not approved by the CCA due to the amount of graphic violence it depicted.

So you are probably right - there was a definite shift to darker story lines around this time, partly as a result of the CCA rules being liberalised, and partly as a result of publishers starting to publish comics not approved by the CCA. No doubt the "shock factor" of characters dying helped sell titles, an important consideration. Again IIRR, the comics industry almost died in the late sixties - it boomed because of the Batman TV series, or at least Batman titles did, but as soon as it was cancelled sales plummeted.

[zornwil]

Come to think about it, isn't this the same era that Green Arrow & Green Lantern go on their road trip? And then Speedy being drug addict is in the same area IIRC.

I blame Watergate and the SLA.

Watergate and the suddenly-noticable terrorism of the early '70s probably had an awful lot to do with it, actually. Watergate fostered a new harsh critical mode for the media (for good reasons, obviuosly, regardless of where it went) as well as for many was a loss of innocence in that many thought a sitting president wouldn't go that far. For people of my age, I think it was simply "normal" as it's where we tuned in, and fostered a cynicism in our generation that's hardcore although expressed more in ambivlence than activism, and echoed in disdain for corporate as well as gov'tal self-congratulatory Orwellian communication and meetings.

[Witch Doctor]

I don't remember, but was the birth of the Bronze age right around the time that Juggernaut killed Madame Webb?
That was a seriously powerful story. Spidey and the Madam knew Juggernaut was coming, but there was nothing Spidey could do to stop him.

[Hugh Neilson]

Juggernaut killed Madame Web (well, tried to - effectively lobotomized her) an easy 10 to 15 years after Gwen Stacy died.

It was a powerful story, though.

[Corven_Ren]

One of the most bizzare deaths in comics I think happened after the introduction of new X-Men, Thunderbird got killed like two issues after his first appearance

[Hugh Neilson]

One of the most bizzare deaths in comics I think happened after the introduction of new X-Men, Thunderbird got killed like two issues after his first appearance

That was deliberate by the writers to tell readers there were no guarantees. T-Bird was a brick weaker than Colossus with enhanced senses and attitude similar to (but lower than) Wolverine because he was intended as a throwaway.

Note that X-Men #94-95 was initially intended as Giant Sized X-Men #2.