The Dark Age of Comic Books was the culmination of a gradual move towards an older audience for Comic Books, particularly those featuring superheroes, that had started in The Bronze Age of Comic Books. It's sometimes also called The Iron Age of Comic Books, to follow the Gold/Silver/Bronze progression, but Dark Age is the much more common term. Usually characterized as a Darker and Edgier period featuring an increased focus on sex, violence and dark, gritty portrayals of the characters involved, much of the content produced during this era is very controversial amongst comic book fans and is usually (depending on who you ask) considered either a welcome breath of fresh air after the medium languishing so long in its own version of the Animation Age Ghetto, or a period of grotesque excess a