Bracketology -- Bronze Age Babies-style!

Doug: Back Issue! #49 was a "1970's Time Capsule" edition. I recall several months ago when my pal Karen (who is a semi-regular BI! contributor) told me that editor Michael Eury had asked her to submit her ideas as to some of the hallmarks of the Bronze Age. I was excited to see the list when the magazine was published, yet dismayed at the format. It was my anticipation that any list would be not just a list, but a ranking of top Bronze Age happenings. Let's face it -- lists are fine for information, but everyone loves the controversy that rankings generate!

Doug: So, because we are a full-service blog, we decided to take the "Top 40" events that BI! published, bracket them a la the NCAA basketball tournaments, and have a long face-off. Here's our vision: Each week we'll try to have a round or partial round of throwdowns, update the brackets, and move on from there. If you scroll to the bottom of this post, you'll see the complete lay-out of the tournament. The display is in six parts, and was uploaded as .jpg files rather than as a Word document (because I don't think that's possible on Blogger).

Doug: How did we arrive at these brackets, you might ask? Quite simply, the BI! list was chronological. We took a 40-team blank bracket and just began plugging in events in reverse order. We took the last item on the list, which was the advent of the mini-series, and put it on the top half of the first play-in. Then we skipped to the top half of the next play-in, etc. until we got to the bottom. Then we started to move back up, but filling in the bottom line of each bracket. So by the time we got done, we'd looped the entire thing twice, which mixed up the time frame but still left some very interesting match-ups.

Doug: We will run a series of polls each week where you'll be able to vote on the match-ups. Basically, we'll ask you to choose between two events -- which was the most significant in the formation of the Bronze Age and beyond? In the event of a tie at poll's closing, either Karen or I will just flip a coin with the top half being heads and the bottom tails. When you see an event that was a tie move on, well then you'll know how it turned out. We'll also publish updates of the entire bracket so you can see the winners and losers as we move through. When we do that, those posts will also serve as your chance to justify your voting, criticize the entire process, and declare a recount if you're so inclined. And hey -- vote! Even our many readers who stop by daily and don't comment, let your opinion by known!

Doug: Hopefully this will be just another chance for us to get together in that back corner of the comic shop, hashing out what we like and don't like and the merits of all of these special happenings that have made this age we love our "best". Have fun!