Then there's Bronze Age, which goes up to about Crisis, IIRC.

Though with Bronze and the seldom-mentioned Copper, it kind of feels like they're just slapping a metal where appropriate or something.

nods head vigorously in agreement with definitions

Kevalier and Clay is all about the Golden Age, for instance, up to and including it's end.

Then there's Bronze Age, which goes up to about Crisis, IIRC.

I don't know that many people who use Bronze Age as a term. It's usually either just Pre-Crisis or Post-Crisis. As you note, it's just a long slide into the base metals at that point.

Other historical markers (in my mind anyway) that mark signal changes in the industry would include things like: Cerebus and Elfquest establishing direct market comics distributed through comic stores instead of 7-11s; Alan Moore taking over Swamp Thing (which ultimately kicks off the Vertigo Line and a whole new market); the media hoopla about Dark Knight, and Miller's Batman Year One reboot; Fantagraphics publishing Love and Rockets (another significant expansion in the market for comics, coincident and tied with indie culture in general); a couple weird rise-and-fall cycles of the industry driven by collector speculation (first the black and white crash by Teenage Mutant Ninja imitators - there were fourteen at one point. Then the Every Comic Is Now Officially #1 Forever, with Multiple Gold Leaf Embossed Covers Collect Them All). Etc. etc.

So what would the line of comics that came after Miller's Dark Knight be considered? Are they Bronze Age or Titanium or just, oooooh dark and nifty?

I'm considering getting back into comics again. I stopped buying X-Men after it split into half a dozen X-titles (or so it seemed to my wallet). I read all of Sandman when it first came out and a hundred or so issues of Hellblazer before I got distracted by something shiny. But I picked up an Ultimate X-Men Ultimate-Spiderman crossover and really enjoyed it.

I don't know that many people who use Bronze Age as a term.

I think eBay might.

So what would the line of comics that came after Miller's Dark Knight be considered? Are they Bronze Age or Titanium or just, oooooh dark and nifty?

"Copper"

Yeah, I don't get it either.

If it's post-Clinton, it's "modern."

Note, these distinctions are usually only seen at places attempting to sell you stuff. Well, bronze is kinda-sorta used. Kinda.

But the main distinctions I see out there are Golden Age/Silver Age/Modern Age.

Ebay uses: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Modern.

This period is when comics were at their height of popularity. I think Superman was churning out a million issues or something ridiculous. It was a lot - much more than today.

Captain Marvel was actually the blue medal winner of the Golden Age—that title sometimes sold in excess of 2,000,000 copies during WWII. It held the record for single issue sales until the speculator frenzy of the 90s and that Todd McFarlane Spider-Man #1 with a bazillion cover variants. However, the character faded into obscurity during the Silver Age and was only returned to a certain level of prominence once DC acquired the rights.

Hec, what's your memory of when direct market sales really got to be the thing? I remember getting my mid-late 70s WW's at the drugstore or the supermarket, and my first real comics store experiences in the mid-80s. Somewhere in between, the racks in the drugstores disappeared, but I'm blanking on just when that happened.

(And curiously, this isn't the first think I've had today on mass market vs. direct market sales and changes in comics marketing.)

So comics right now are....? Modern Age? Copper? Admantium seems appropos.