BATMAN #251: Towering Evidence the Bronze Age Is the True Golden Age
With a new Facsimile Edition out this week, dig this tribute to a comic book that emblemizes the best of the best era… — UPDATED 9/7/26: The Batman #251 Facsimile Edition is being re-released this week. Perfect time to reprint this piece, which first ran during October 2019’s JOKER WEEK! Plus, also hit up BATMAN #251: How Fans Reacted to the Return of THE JOKER. Dig it! — Dan — Walking into Midtown Comics this week and seeing a glorious new reprint of 1973’s Batman #251 made me realize something that has really been self-evident for a good long time: the Bronze Age is comics’ true Golden Age. Now, I love the actual Golden Age. I love the Silver Age even more. And I love a lot of what the Modern Age has to offer. But, push to shove, no period in the history of our favorite entertainment medium burrows deeper into my heart than the Bronze Age, which I define as 1970 to 1986. (Others have more nebulous definitions but I see it as beginning when Robin split for college and ending when Crisis on Infinite Earths wrapped up.) Anyway, you could chalk some of it up to nostalgia, sure. I was a child of the ’70s, that era of Batman TV reruns, Megos and Hostess ads, the heyday of Ben Cooper costumes and Slurpee cups. But there’s more to it: Taking the 81 years of the Superhero Era in sum, no period better exemplifies comics’ ability to entertain and make you think. It’s the ideal nexus of high adventure, dazzling art, pathos, realism and fantasy. Serious but never too serious. Sometimes silly but in the best way. And as far as standalone stories go, Batman #251 — The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge! by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams — is absolutely unparalleled. Everything taken together, it’s the single greatest issue ever produced and I expect I’ll believe that until I read my last comic. But hey, I’m sure you’ve got your own Bronze Age choice for that distinction and I invite you to list it in the comments below. In any event, Batman #251 is a deceptively simple story executed masterfully: the Joker, who has been locked away (DC pretty much had him on the shelf for several years), returns to kill his old gang because one of...
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