Little did I imagine that when I picked up issue #1 of The Golden Age by James Robinson & Paul Smith that I was about to encounter what would turn out to be one of my favorite comic mini-series. Maybe my favorite, period.
I’d previously enjoyed Robinson & Smith on an Image mini called Leave It To Chance, and while I liked the JSA (but never loved them), this sure looked intriguing.
In a word: Wow.
It’s a superhero story, a spy story, a mystery story, a love story, and a war story (in multiple ways).
Robinson weaves a sense of melancholy nostalgia through the whole thing, so the characters are already longing for an era as they see it evaporating right in front of them.
The four issues are a storytelling clinic in their balance of exposition, character, and rising danger. It all climaxes with — and I realize I’m about to sound like a Stan Lee caption box — one of the most hair-raising, pulse-pounding good vs. evil showdowns I’ve ever seen in a comic.
These images are all from early in the story; I don’t want to give away any spoilers in case someone reading this hasn’t seen the series (DC released it in hardcover as JSA: The Golden Age).
Robinson is best known for Starman, Smith probably for X-Men. This is their masterwork.
