Some changes are big, some changes are small. The Golden Age was the biggest change of all, when super hero comics, as they are, were created. Silver Age was the modernization of DC and Marvel, and the unification of different comic book universes. The Bronze Age was not as big a change; more a change in tone from the 1960’s to the 1970’s.

And changes since then? Independent comic companies, direct marketing, the fall of the CCA, the commodification of comics, the comic movie universes - these are bigger changes than Parralax or Dr Manhattan could ever create in the DCU.

Changes used to be linked to generations (hence 15 to 20 years) but the internet has linked people in a way that generational change doesn’t mean anything anymore, IMO.

These days the DCU changes (Zero Hour, Flashpoint, any Crisis) all seem to return to the status quo, as Dark Crisis and Perpetua have done in DC. We’re still in the modern era. And no one wants to call it “The Post-Modern Era”. If anything we’re in The Crisis Era.

Well, I'd say it'll last forever, in our hearts.

The whole era is sometimes called the Dark Age, because of the tone shift.

There's also the Copper Age (1986-1991) and the Dork Age (1992-1997ish?).

It was obviously named by contemporary people who had no idea the era after the Post-Modern era would be nothing remotely like previous eras called PoMo.

2011 is a DC-specific cut-off, but these ages transcend publishers.

That's one of the things that always bugged me about the current naming system, once something is "Modern", it's a lot harder to add new categories. Even "Post-Modern" is limiting in that sense. Maybe comic historians will adjust some of these ages someday but until there's a greater consensus that we have actually entered a new era, or a couple even, we're still stuck with Modern.

Isn't there a Dark age From 1986 to Idk exactly when but around the early 2000s? It was started by the release of Dark Knight Returns.

This is a debated yet mostly unexplored matter of comic history. Personally, I'd agree we have come a long way from the 1986 shift between Bronze and Modern, but I think it's actually too early to trace a specific date that marks the start of a new macro-Age of comics.

Most of the Ages people mentioned above are just sub-divisions of the greater and more general Ages we all know. Copper Age, Dark Age (that also has a double meaning referring also to the late 1940s - early 1950s), Atomic Age, Marvel Age... they're all more specific ways of looking at comic book history, but the general Ages still stand as the main points of reference if we consider comic book history as a whole.

In my opinion, as a comic book history buff, I'd say the most impactful shift that still connotates our current comic book era happened sometime during the late 2000s, early 2010s. But it's undoubtedly true that we cannot ignore the many changes that underwent before that moment and after 1986.