The Silver Age has never felt more closely at hand than it does in the summer of 2025. At least, a rose-colored simulacrum of the Silver Age, one highly focused on the colors and optimism of the era, on the weirdness and fun of the era, without any of the questionable quality. Both Marvel and DC dropped films this year that harkened back to a simpler time of comics storytelling, stripping away years of unnecessary grit and grime. Comics seem to have come out from under the shadow of deconstructionism – wherein characters are reexamined under the harsh light of reality and made to disavow the bright, four-color worlds in which they reside.
DC
Look no further than Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum, a book by famous, horror-based creators that seems more interested in the primary joys of Superman. It is a book that doesn’t drag Superman down into the muck of their chosen genre; instead, it shakes the character free of any continuity so that it can better play with a sparklingly clean version. Rather than expose a dark heart in a bright world, the book wants to celebrate that brightness.
What’s more, the book plays with the hokiest of the Superman lore – the multicolored spectrum of Kryptonite, and all its zany and unpredictable properties. The story centers around a pile of fresh Kryptonite, each a new color that may affect our hero in shocking, new ways (spoiler: they do); none of them happen to turn Superman into a lion-man or anything, but we’ve yet to see the end of the series. Anything’s possible.
The third issue of the series delights in different forms of nostalgia, both for the comic book and for the people at the issue’s center. It’s an issue about childhood, about the complicated feelings of being a child in an adult’s world; repeatedly throughout the issue, the personal reflections of Shazam and Superboy are laid out in crayon drawings. Shazam, who is an actual child, struggles with the tragic childhood he’s in the midst of – full of dead parents and broken social care. Superman, who reverted to a child’s body through the magic of Kryptonite, struggles with a similarly tragic childhood.
DC
The bonus is that the villains of the piece are equally nostalgic, classics who don’t often get top-billing in the dramas of their respective heroes. Dr. Sivana may be one of the most foundational of villains for the Big Red Cheese, but he’s no Lex Luthor. In Superman’s corner, we’ve got Toyman, a character so thoroughly of a time that it’s hard to take him seriously outside of the Silver Age.
Comics will always be a nostalgic enterprise: creators find them when they are children, and in creating them they reflect fondly back on their on childhoods. They are self-celebratory: comics love their own histories. I’m not sure that The Kryptonite Spectrum is achieving anything particularly transcendent in its playful reflection, but it is certainly nailing that sort of rose-tinted view of comics past. It loves the fun of the medium, and it wants the reader to love that fun, too. We’re back in the Silver Age because it’s hard to remember that brightness exists in this harsh world. It’s worthwhile to have fun.
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