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January 12

Posted by DCA Theater on January 15, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Wishbone Theatre Collective

by Kimberly Van Ness, Wishbone Company member and actor in the ensemble for Spandex

Monday kicked off Wishbone Theatre Collective’s second rehearsal for Spandex.  Since our last meeting had left us all with questions about the who’s, where’s and why’s of the superhero world, we had each chosen topics to research.  During Monday’s meeting, we all spent time sharing what we had learned (kind of like book reports, but without the homemade diagrams). 

Laurie’s topic, The History of Superheroes, was particularly fascinating.  Did you know that there were different ‘ages’ of superheroes?  Laurie explained to us that the four ages (there might be more…we’re fascinated by this so the research continues!) are the Golden Age (which lasted from late 1930 to late 1940 and is responsible for bringing Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Captain America to the public), the Silver Age (approximately 1956 to about 1970 and brought about such characters as the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil and The Fantastic Four among others), the Bronze Age (about 1970-1980 in which many comics began taking on a darker tone and current issues such as drug use were introduced.  The Bronze Age supposedly ended with the publication of Watchmen, a comic book that introduced a new way of writing about superheroes), and finally The Modern Age (lasting from the mid 80s until present day and is also known by other names such as ‘The Iron Age,’ ‘The Crossover Age,’ and the ever optimistic ‘Dark Age.’  Present day comics have more psychologically complex characters and many smaller and independent comics have risen to the forefront).

We’re finding that each round of research brings up new questions about the incredibly complex world of superheroes.  For example, today I will be researching the Crisis on Infinite Earths and the book that caused comic sales to plummet for awhile, Seduction of the Innocent.

Oh, and did you know that there are people with real-life superhero powers? Check it out!