Tuesday, November 8, 2011

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!







21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Karen...have you been hiding Doug's medication again? You know how he gets...

Richard

dbutler16 said...

I love this idea! I agree that rankings rather than lists generate a lot of fun controversy and discussion. I'm looking forward to this.

dbutler16 said...

I had to vote against my heart on a couple of these, such as choosing Superman: The Movie over Treasury Edition-style big books and Frank Miller's Daredevil over Jim Starlin takes over Captain Marvel(I love Starlin’s cosmic stuff). I’m honestly a little surprised that that latter contest is tied 6-6 at the moment. I’m also surprised that Cerebus is tied 5-5 with Swamp Thing, though I’ve never read a single Cerebus, and also the Luke Cage is getting stomped. I expected him to lose, but I thought it would be close.

Ram said...

Great Idea!

Doug said...

It looks like we're off to a great start! I figured there would be some runaways as well as some races that would be neck-and-neck. Really, this probably will play out just like an NCAA men's basketball tournament!

And if you've looked ahead to some of the second round match-ups, you've seen that there will be some very worthy events that will fall by the wayside!

Doug

Doug said...

You know, like any tournament it's the luck of the draw. I honestly did not pay any attention to the match-ups, or future, when setting this up. I know some of our regular commenters love DC's 100-page Super Spectaculars... but not against today's competition!

More votes!

Hope everyone is having a good time with this.

Doug

Karen said...

I figured the X-Men would be a shoo-in...but no love for Luke Cage? Sweet Christmas!

Doug said...

It's been fun to check back throughout the day and see the ebb and flow of certain "races". When I first looked, there were several battles that were huge to one side, but have totally swung the other way as we've gone on. And, there are still a few days left for voting.

It runs in my mind that the biggest turn-out we've ever had for one of our polls was around 45 votes. It would be nice to top that somewhere along the way in this series of queries.

Doug

Fred W. Hill said...

Just did my own voting and discovered I wasn't with a majority on all of them. I did join in the crowd in picking Miller's Daredevil over Starlin's Captain Marvel, mainly because I felt Miller's run did have a greater impact on the industry, although to be honest while I was very much bowled over the first time I saw Starlin's work, in Captain Marvel #27, I was somewhat less than awed the first time I saw Miller's, in his 2nd Daredevil issue. Gradually I was awed by his work, but it took me a bit to warm up to it.

vancouver mark said...

Looks like fun, but I'm a bit confused. Do we vote on this table as it stands or wait for you to present the match-ups one by one? If we're meant to vote on the opening rounds right away, I don't understand how I do it. There don't seem to be any boxes or whatever to tick. Did I miss something?

Garett said...

Fun idea! I'm in agreement with most of them. I liked Swamp Thing better than Cerebus, but I think Cerebus had more impact from a creator point of view.

Garett said...

Hey Vancouver Mark--check the left hand side for the polls.

Redartz said...

Great idea; lots of fun! I look forward to checking each bracket. Some tough calls already; the first mini-series was a pretty notable milestone, but pales compared to Gwen's death.

dbutler16 said...

Poor DC's 100-Page Super-Spectaculars. They ran up against a juggernaut! I used to love those things, but X-Men was a no brainer.

Doug said...

No love at all for Jonah Hex! I was never a fan, and to be honest wonder if he made the list in the first place simply because when BI! #49 was published was around the same time the film was out.

These polls are set to end on Friday at noon -- we shall see how it goes. I'm thinking that for the most part these will be decided by the end of the day today. But who knows? Internet voting is an inexact science after all.

Look for a summary of this first round on Saturday, with the release of the next round of brackets and open voting anew. Since there will be 16 match-ups in the 2nd round, we'll split that into two groups of 8. The 2nd round will last most of next week.

Doug

Anonymous said...

Regarding Miller vs Starlin, I guess it depends how you interpret 'the greatest impact on the Bronze age' and when you think the Bronze Age ended. DD 158 came out in May 1979, so if you think the Bronze age ended 7 months later, you've really got to go with Starlin, unless you're arguing that Miller single handedly shut down the Bronze Age and ushered in the Modern Age.

Richard

Ric said...

I'll echo the sentiment of others here: this is a fun idea! It should be fun to watch the pool develop!

Like others, I was really torn in voting for the event I thought was more signficant over the event I liked better (100-pagers, Treasury Editions, Starlin...). Might be fun to run this pool again on the latter crieria. (That thought might cause Doug to pull his hair out by the time this pool finishes!).

Thanks again for your hard work!

Ric

Doug said...

Cheating -- looking ahead:

How about that 3rd round potential match-up between the O'Neil/Adams Batman and the Death of Gwen Stacy?

Yikes!

Doug

Anonymous said...

First - Doug and Karen, very cool idea and a lot of fun!

Ric - I'm looking to stir the pot. :-) Re: your comment about more signifcant over liked better - I think how generally well-liked something is can factor into its significance.

For example, I think you could argue that the Treasury Editions were more significant than the Superman movie, in terms impact on Bronze Age comics. My memory of the exact timeline of events is hazy, but it seemed to me that the popularity of the Marvel Treasurys spawned a lot of major events using that format such as the Superman-Spiderman treasury, Superman-Ali, etc. Obviously, the Superman movie was a major event. But what was its lasting impact? Making a star out of Chris Reeve?

This is cool.

Tom

Doug said...

With a little over 22 hours to go in polling, I think it's safe to say that I can pencil in all but one of our first 8 races. And how about that last one?? Superman: The Movie going down to the wire against the Treasury-sized books. Very cool.

Doug

dbutler16 said...

Yeah, only one race that goes down to the wire. If the standings hold up, the only "loser" I voted for is Luke Cage.

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