The Golden Age (comics)
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The Golden Age is a 4-issue comic book mini-series by writer James Robinson and artist Paul Smith. It concerns the Golden Age DC Comics superheroes entering the 1950s and facing the advent of McCarthyism.
Synopsis
The series opens showing how many 1940s heroes have grown following World War II: The Justice Society of America has broken up and its members gone their separate ways. The Americommando (Tex Thompson) has returned from Europe a war hero, and parleys his fame into being elected a Senator. He recruits several other heroes to create a new group of heroes for a new age, including Robotman (who has been losing his sense of human ethics), The Atom and Johnny Thunder (who are both looking for somewhere to belong), and Dan the Dyna-Mite (Dan Dunbar, who is lost after the death of his mentor TNT). Thompson oversees an experiment on Dunbar which transforms him into the incredibly powerful Dynaman.
Other heroes have their own issues in retirement. The McCarthy hearings have put Green Lantern on the spot in his role as the head of a media corporation. Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle married and divorced, and Quick is now a reporter while Belle is involved with The Tarantula, who is a novelist. Starman has suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of realizing that his research helped lead to the development of the Atom Bomb. Captain Triumph has retired and is trying to lead a normal life, despite his brother's ghost urging him to become a hero again. Hourman is fighting drug addiction to the pill that gives him his powers.
The hero Manhunter has also returned from Europe, suffering from memory loss and hunted by strange men. He hooks up with Thompson's former sidekick Fatman and hides out while coming to terms with his demons. Eventually he hooks up with Quick, who with the help of Hawkman helps Manhunter regain his memories. Those memories reveal a dark secret which Thompson is hiding and lead to a clash of heroes in Washington, DC at the end of the story.
Notes
The Golden Age takes place outside normal DC universe continuity. Only Starman's nervous breakdown was carried over to normal continuity, as shown in the 1990s series Starman.
The series was collected as a trade paperback graphic novel.