Favorite history/continuity era of DC Universe?

[Buried Alien]

I've identified seven distinct eras of DC Universe history/continuity. Which is your favorite?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[md62]

I voted SA/BA. I think that also tweaked the GA stories & made them relevant. I wasn't a big fan of the 1985 Crisis. I loved the Multiverse. I think the way it was done made one earth too crowded. It made DC feel like a copy of Marvel. And they spent the next 20 yrs trying to "fix" errors that one earth/timeline created.

[The Frozen Reptile]

I also voted SA/BA. I love that era because it corresponds to the era that I cut my teeth on. To this day the majority of my back issue buying is from this era DC.

[FoxMulder2012]

I'm a huge fan of the entire Post-Crisis Era, especially the 90s. Morrison JLA, Kyle Rayner, Waid's Flash, Starman, Nightwing gets his own book ect, ect. So really 86 to 06 is my favorite, but I picked 99 to 06 because that's when I started reading.

[ForeverYoung8]

I voted post-ZH to Pre-Kingdom, but really I would have voted Post-COIE to the end of the Dominus Superman arc, had there been an option. And this is entirely due to the Triangle era of Superman that started in 91 or 9/ (I think).

These were the days of the "Super Summits". Continuity on the Superman line is the best I've ever seen it, for any character. An event would be foreshadowed in April's "Man of Steel", occur in July's "Adventures of", and be referenced in Novembers "Action" (just as an example). The Jurgens / Triangle era of Superman, following the excellent shared storylines of Byrne and (Wolfman's?) Superman and Action, respectively, was amazing until just prior to the wedding, in which case the line had clearly moved away from the "Death of" story and became more of a comedy book...or at least, that's how it came off to me at the time. When Electric Superman debuted, I was done. I came back around 2006. The last great story, or that era, for me was the "Battle for Metropolis" and the "Fall of Metropolis". While not as sophisticated as Batman's No Mans Land, in depth and quality, it was an awesome story that altered the status quo for a bit before it was all magically put back together (and I mean that literally! Where the Hell was Zatanna during No Mans Land?).

Sorry to rant, but I just loved this time period. Batman was also on solid ground, following A Death In The Family with some amazing titles that all flowed into each other but also stood alone as single issues. The fallout from Jasons death was felt in every issue; Tim's training was a blast to follow, because he didn't just start fighting crime after one issue. It took a while. In Knightfall, Tim was sheltered because he was still new; Prodigal followed the fallout of Knightfall, resulting in Batmans new look & attitude for the 90's in Troika. When Contagion landed, we had Gordon asking Batman "Are you him? The original one, I mean?", clearly still sore regarding Azrael. Gordon even brought it up again in No Mans land. These titles flowed from one to the next, feeding into and out of each other. It was amazing.

Unfortunately, Superman and Batman were the only characters I followed back then so I can't speak to the rest of the DC line at that time. And although my tastes have changed to encompass much, much more of the DCU now, beyond 2 characters, the Triangle era of Superman (and Batman at that time, although he didnt have a triangle treatment) remain my favorite period to this day and probably will for a long, long time.

/much too long post.

[Cowtools]

I only started buying floppies about a year before the DCnU hit, but I voted for 99-06 because that's where most of the trades I'm buying come from.
Morrison's JLA
Rucka's Wonder Woman
David's Young Justice
the Cassandra Cain Batgirl
Simone's Birds Of Prey
Batman: No Man's Land
Gotham Central

Seemed like a minor golden era in retrospect.

By contrast, the only runs that really mattered post-Infinite Crisis, pre-Flashpoint were Johns' Green Lantern, Morrison's Batman, Miller's Batgirl, 52, and Final Crisis.

[tony ingram]

I'm not really sure the various minor tweaks between COIE and Flashpoint count as separate continuities-they certainly don't in my mind. Anyway, I love pretty much every era prior to Flashpoint, but I voted for the Silver/Bronze age because that's when I started reading.

[ascended]

I voted for the post Zero Hour to Kingdom Come era, but for me it really starts a little bit before that, with the Death of Superman and the breaking of Batman. Those days saw a huge upheaval in DC's status quo, and gave us the likes of Tim Drake, Superboy, Impulse, Jack Knight's Starman, the Peter David Young Justice and Aquaman, and Waid's Flash.

I would have voted for the previous era, when (many) of those things (and others I didnt bother to mention) really started but I feel that it took until after Zero Hour for many of them to really hit their stride. This was the last time the Superman books did really well and were worth reading every week, and the Batman universe really exploded with Azreal, Tim's solo series and a Nightwing solo. Waid's Flash remains one of my all time favorite runs in all of comics, and Starman is right up there with it.

And I dont want to start one of *those* flame wars, but I find it funny no one has voted for the pre-Flashpoint DCU at all yet, despite some posters still screaming for a return to that continuity. Seems a bit odd to me.

[bat39]

First of all, I consider the continuity from COIE to IC is essentially the same one. Zero Hour hardly had much of an impact on the overall continuity of the Post COIE universe. Post-IC/Pre-Flashpoint does count as a separate continuity to an extent...though one could view it as essentially an altered version of the Post-COIE universe, with Pre COIE elements blended in.

That said, the Post-IC continuity is my favorite, albeit more in a conceptual sense than for any particular story. This was one of those rare occasions where DC tried to embrace their history, by incorporating most of it rather than erasing past continuity. They maintained the Post COIE continuity, but brought back Pre-COIE continuity and concepts and tried to create an ultimate version of the DCU. This is the kind of thinking which led to Grant Morrison's Batman mega-arc...one of my favorite stories in recent years!

[Sk8maven]

Silver/Bronze age, particularly whenever DC gave the Earth-2 crowd one or more full zines to play in. My favorite titles from that era are All-Star, All-Star Squadron, and Infinity Inc. Crushing Earth-2 into the DC Onlyverse did the characters far more harm than good, especially since it became the first of many times that DC tried to just get rid of the Golden Agers.

[tony ingram]

Silver/Bronze age, particularly whenever DC gave the Earth-2 crowd one or more full zines to play in. My favorite titles from that era are All-Star, All-Star Squadron, and Infinity Inc. Crushing Earth-2 into the DC Onlyverse did the characters far more harm than good, especially since it became the first of many times that DC tried to just get rid of the Golden Agers.

I agree. I've never understood what DC has against those characters.

[FanboyStranger]

Post-Crisis/Pre-Zero Hour for me. This period contains so many seminal and flat out excellent works: Sandman, Hellblazer, Animal Man dOOM pATROL, Skreemer, Shade, the Changing Man, Books of Magic, the balance of Moore's Swamp Thing, Veitch's Swamp Thing, Chaykin's Blackhawks and Twilight, the Helfer/Sienkiewicz/Baker Shadow, Suicide Squad, Ostrander's The Spectre, Wasteland, the 5Yr Gap Legion of Superheroes, L.E.G.I.O.N., Batman: Year One, the early days of LotDK, Grell's Green Arrow, Giffen's JLI...

[FanboyStranger]

First of all, I consider the continuity from COIE to IC is essentially the same one. Zero Hour hardly had much of an impact on the overall continuity of the Post COIE universe. Post-IC/Pre-Flashpoint does count as a separate continuity to an extent...though one could view it as essentially an altered version of the Post-COIE universe, with Pre COIE elements blended in.

I think it's a significant dividing point because DC's more mature titles were shuffled over to the newly created Vertigo, and most of those characters would rarely appear in the context of the DCU for the better part of 20 years.

[CaptCleghorn]

I'm a huge fan of the entire Post-Crisis Era, especially the 90s. Morrison JLA, Kyle Rayner, Waid's Flash, Starman, Nightwing gets his own book ect, ect. So really 86 to 06 is my favorite, but I picked 99 to 06 because that's when I started reading.

I'm thinking this is the major factor for many of us.

[GavinR]

Post-Crisis/Pre-Zero Hour for me. This period contains so many seminal and flat out excellent works: Sandman, Hellblazer, Animal Man dOOM pATROL, Skreemer, Shade, the Changing Man, Books of Magic, the balance of Moore's Swamp Thing, Veitch's Swamp Thing, Chaykin's Blackhawks and Twilight, the Helfer/Sienkiewicz/Baker Shadow, Suicide Squad, Ostrander's The Spectre, Wasteland, the 5Yr Gap Legion of Superheroes, L.E.G.I.O.N., Batman: Year One, the early days of LotDK, Grell's Green Arrow, Giffen's JLI...

This...I was totally into Marvel and then Post-Crisis DC turned me on to loads of other great books. The Vertigo imprint allowed so many writers to experiment with concepts which otherwise would have never seen the light of day. Also Elseworlds was launched during that era. It was a great time to be into comics.