The Dark, or Modern Age of comics is known for being… well, very dark. It lasted from the mid 80s to about the 2000s. Heroes start to be drawn with ridiculously exaggerated proportions, violence skyrockets through the roof as well as including as many mature themes as a rebellious teenager could possibly hope for. The art is often ugly, with harsh shadows, intentionally repulsive designs and overdetailed characters. When people make fun of teenagers for liking 'edgy' comics… this is what they're thinking about. You've got all the classics - Mullet Superman, DARK Batman, Arsenal's Teen Titans… lots of …interesting stuff.
And yet, there is also some very comedic and high-quality material here. Everyone really does have a personality now, and comics are comfortable engaging with mature themes for the first time. Famous arcs from this time period include the Death of Superman and Bane breaking Batman's back… but it's also the time period of comedy-focused Justice League International, along with some other great comics.
Again, I have less and less to say about these ages as we approach our modern day, which is why I'm combining the Modern and Postmodern Ages. However I will say that while I don't generally like the dark aesthetic of the Modern Age, there are some amazing comics at play here. Unfortunately, this is the era where Arsenal takes over the Teen Titans (absolutely terrible, possibly the worst thing to have ever happened to the Titans, don't put yourself through it), but this is still a good era for kid heroes.
Recommendations
Flash comics are pretty good here. We've got Wally West on the throne and it's… very interesting. Wally's early comics were… not very good, as far as I'm concerned, but I am quite impressed by their commitment to letting him be such an unlikable hero for so long. I'm not saying this because I don't like what they were going for - he's supposed to be obnoxious. He's overconfident, entitled, self-serving, sexist, cheats on his girlfriend… annoying little brat on all accounts. Purposfully designed to contrast with the overly-perfect Barry Allen. But they really commit to evolving him into an actual hero and I do mean evolving. There's no 3 issue or even 10 issue arc where he stops being the worst.
No, it takes a long time of slow character work to get Wally working at top speed, and it's very satisfying. By the late 90s he was really starting to hit his stride, incorporating a real Flash Family both with generations of speedsters and pulling off one of the best comic romances with Linda Park. If you want to skip to the good stuff you'll still enjoy it even if you don't want to put yourself through the beginning!
The 90s was also what I'd consider Nightwing's heyday. Strong action, great character work, no more stupid mullet… good times! It's not the kind of comic you can usually turn your brain off for - there's a lot of detective work and plots to keep track of, but even if you don't stay on top of everything you can still go along for the ride. This period has a lot of iconic Nightwing-isms like the fingerstripes and his job with the police, as well as his most iconic plotlines and villains, like Blockbuster. Good times!
Now I'm going to bring up a couple heroes everyone is sleeping on - Hawk and Dove. Out of everyone mentioned here but Hawk and Dove are most truely of the Modern Age. Now the original H&D actually had a comic that I really liked in the 60s, but it's not for everyone. Very intellectual war v peace kind of stuff with some legitimately good character work - and it's like, 6 issues, so it's not like it'll eat up your time. I love it, but that's not what I'm here to talk to you about here.
I'm here to tell you about the 90s Hawk and Dove, the ones that really qualify as a Modern Age comic, the 90s comic run that clocks in as one of my favorite comics of all time. This comic drops the war vs peace to focus on order vs chaos, which lends itself much better to a superhero format. The action is fantastic, the puns are on point, there's an underlying complex and building horror plot under the whole thing and the character work is amazing.
You don't need to read the original Hawk and Dove to get 90s H&D, but it will prep you for the emotional payoffs that come out of that series which is great because H&D hits hard. Hawk is a legitimately amazing character who really sucks you in, and Dove is freakin' cool. Even the side characters draw you in and feel extremely fleshed out in a short amount of time. Please. Please read this comic and then tell me you read it so I can feel validated about my existence. I beg of you. There's a short introduction series starting in '88 that runs for 5 issues and is more violent than the followup, and the following'89 series is only 28 issues long, so it's definitely readable. Do yourself a favor… do it!
Postmodern Age
This brings us to what I like to personally call the Postmodern Age. This is not typically separated from the Dark Age by the general audience, but I think that approximately the 2000s to the present are so different from the Modern Age that they deserve to be in a separate category.
As a reaction to the Dark Age, Postmodern comics experienced a sharp swing towards lighter comedy and simpler art. While comics could still be indulgently dark, they become more tempered by humor than their predecessors, and rarely rely on a dark aesthetic as their main draw. Postmodern comics are also the most self-aware we've seen yet, although comics have had self-aware elements for a very long time.
Comics currently are starting to swing back to darker stories again, including a pull towards more realistic art, but since we're largely in the beginning stages of this broader trend I think it's too early to call this very recent history its own age yet.
Recommendations
Young Justice is actually really good, and begins in 1998. Young Justice features Tim Drake as Robin, Cassie Sandsmark as Wonder Girl and Conner Kent as Superboy, making it the first (and only) Titans group so far to have its own full Trinity. It's funny, it has dynamic characters, it's got fun plots… it's just a very good time.
Impulse is amazing and people need to start appreciating him more. He does have his own comic, starting in 95, and it is amazing. The entire comic is basically one very long character arc, which makes it fun to reread, and he's likable the whole time, so the whole ride is very fun. It's got fantastic side-characters (where are my Max Mercury stans at?), creative and fun art, and a surprisingly authentic emotional core. While there's a lot going on if you pay attention, this is also a comic that you can fully enjoy if you turn your brain off and make like Impulse. It's loads of fun and it's got quite a few issues if you want a comic to read for a while, although it mostly isn't sequential so you can cut out whenever you want.