Periodizing 'The Marvel Age' Using The Production Of Culture Approach

Periodization is the process of defining temporal divisions which can then be used to categorize events within a certain period. Many attempts have been made to periodize American superhero comics, both in fandom and academia, mostly using the so-called 'Ages' system, but there has rarely been any agreement on how this should be done. Furthermore, most attempts to define these 'Ages' have been based on personal interpretation of the contents, with vague ideas of start and end dates which are unsuitable for quantitative analyses. This chapter demonstrates a way to avoid such issues by using an approach which concentrates on the way that texts are actually produced, rather than value judgements placed upon their contents, in order to define 'The Marvel Age' with specific dates which can be empirically justified.

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