Originally published April 7, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1116
The Young Hero had not visited his grandfather at the retirement home since Christmas 2031—nearly six months ago. He figured it was overdue. But he did so not out of a sense of joy, but rather of obligation. After all, the conversations always seemed to go exactly the same way every time. Still, someone should visit the old man, and it simply wouldn’t be right or proper to expect someone else to attend to it. Nope. It had to be him.
He stuck his head into his grandfather’s small room. The Old Hero was watching a holo-disk with his exploits as a young man. The Young Hero winced as the six-inch-tall holo-images moved through space, holographic blood spattering everywhere. The Old Hero snickered upon watching it, then noticed he had a visitor.
“Come on, come in,” he gestured eagerly. The Young Hero entered, trying gamely to look pleased about the visit. The Old Hero patted the sagging cushion on the couch opposite him, and the Young Hero dutifully took a seat.
“So! Tell me what’s going on in the real world,” the Old Hero demanded, skipping any notion of a preamble or casual chat.
“Oh, same old stuff,” said the Young Hero. He wasn’t sure what to start with. “For starters, there’s the O.J. trial.”
“That thing still going on?” sneered the Old Hero. “What a waste of time. In my day, she wouldn’t even be dead. She’d have come back to life ages ago.”
“Well, things were simpler back then.”
“That they were. That they were. Enough about that. Tell me about your career so far. How’s super-heroing going?”
“It’s going fine.”
The Old Hero stared at the Young Hero skeptically. “What’s that thing you’re wearing? That’s not your costume, is it?”
The Young Hero looked down at his ensemble.
It was a simple body suit, colored with bold, primary colors. A pair of trunks and a cape completed the outfit. “Um, yes. Why? Is something wrong?”
“That’s not a costume! Where’s the jacket? In my day, a costume wasn’t a costume unless it had a jacket—shoulder pads optional. And where’s your armor? We always had armor.”
“Armor and a jacket?”
“That’s right. Looked darned good, too.” He craned his neck. “And where’s your big gun? You need a big gun.”
“I don’t carry a big gun. I don’t believe in them.”
The Old Hero stared at him. “Y’know, I’ve heard folks say they don’t believe in UFOs. In the Loch Ness Monster. In God. But I never heard no one say they didn’t believe in guns. What the hëll you talking about?”
“I believe a real hero doesn’t need big guns. That it’s far more challenging, and heroic, to solve problems with your wits and ingenuity, rather than just shooting down anything that moves.”
The Old Hero started coughing violently. He managed to pull himself together to get out, “Oh, that’s what you believe, is it? And your little hero pals, they believe that, too?”
“A lot of us do, yes. In fact, I can’t name a single hero who carries a gun.”
“I don’t believe it. I simply don’t believe it.” The Old Hero waggled a finger. “I’m telling you, the whole dámņëd field hasn’t been the same since The Avengers and The Justice League instituted that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. I can’t believe what you young people have come to.”
“I don’t understand what the problem is, Grandpa. I really don’t. I mean, I work hard on my career. Every day I go on patrol to stop criminals…”
“Patrol to stop criminals,” barked the Old Hero. “You don’t wait around to be attacked?”
“No, sir.”
“You don’t operate on a bounty basis or look for other ways to turn a buck at it?”
“Uh, no.”
“Are you driven by a deep need for revenge that causes you to wreak havoc wherever you go?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then what are you playing at?”
The Young Hero didn’t seem to understand the question. “I just—just want to use my powers to help people.”
“You go around in a colorful outfit with no guns and no armor and not even a jacket—just so you can kill criminals out of no reason other than altruism?”
“That’s not exactly right, sir,” the Young Hero corrected tentatively.
The Old Hero looked relieved. “That’s good to know. What did I get wrong?”
“I don’t kill.”
Clearly, the Old Hero couldn’t believe he’d heard right. “You—you don’t kill?”
“No, sir.”
“I mean, you’d kill a bad guy, right?”
“Nope.”
“A vicious fiend? Serial murderer? Genocidal maniac? You’d kill someone like that.”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
Now the Old Hero was on his feet. “Are you out of your alleged mind? What’s going on around here? After all the advancements made during my generation—after all the freedoms we fought for and won—”
“Freedoms?” asked the Young Hero perplexedly. “Freedoms from what?”
“Freedom to do whatever the hëll we wanted: Create our own moral code. Kill and still be popular. Commit acts so vile that we were indistinguishable from the villains, and yet we were still the heroes.”
“I suppose my generation wanted something more,” said the Young Hero.
“More than what we had? We had it all. And look at you. It’s embarrassing. Even your body is wrong.”
“My body?” He looked down. “What are you talking about, sir?”
“It’s all in proportion. Your head’s the right size in respect to your body. All of your muscles actually exist. There’s nothing distorted or unworkable about you. Where’s the impossibly bloated arms and legs? Where’s the incredibly tiny cranium?” Struck by a horrible thought, he said, “Quick—your girlfriend—what’s her bust size?”
“Uh, she’s a 34B, I think.”
“She’s deformed!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake—”
The Old Hero put his hands firmly on the Young Hero’s shoulders. “Listen to me carefully, kid. You’re still salvageable, but it’s gonna take some doing. You need psychological help, first and foremost.”
“But—but I don’t need any. I’m fine.”
“Oh, really?” he said skeptically. “Tell me—are you psychotic?”
“No, of course not.”
“Homicidal?”
“No.”
“Got a death wish?”
“Unh, unh.”
“Schizophrenic?”
“No.”
“Paranoid? Delusional? Alcoholic? Multiple Personality Disorder?”
“Nothing like that at all,” said the Young Hero.
The Old Hero put his face in his hands. “Oh, jeez, it’s worse than I thought. Kiddo, you need an attitude adjustment. Pronto. You gotta get a check-up from the neck up. At the very least, you need to be at least mildly disturbed. You need a decent-sized weapon. You need some armor. I know a good guy who can wholesale you some chain mail.”
But the Young Hero waved him off. “That’s not necessary, Grandpa. Consider this,” and he ticked off the factors on his fingers. “I have a nice costume, I go on patrol. I arrest bad guys. I help people. And I’m confident that what I’m doing is right. How can any reasonable person have a problem with that?”
“I’m not a reasonable person! I’m a super-hero! When I meet you, I get into a fight! When I die, I come back! I kill! I maim! I live for revenge and mayhem! I’m grim and gritty, dark and intense, with a riot gun in my sock and a cruise missile shoved under my armpit. In comparison to all that, you namby-pamby do-gooder—what are you?”
The Young Hero gave it a moment’s thought.
“Happy,” he said—and, with a smile that glinted in the sunlight, he took his leave.
And the Old Hero was left shaking his head. “Incredible. After everything we did—the destruction, the mindless chaos, the amoral butcherings—after all that—where did we screw up? Where did we go right?”
Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.
• 
ROFLMAO! If that isn’t a PERFECT story, I just don’t know what is! PAD, you are so right on the money that it’s refreshing. I loved it!!!
Loved it, all the way down to the “Producers” riff.
.
And y’know, I think the pendulum is slowly turning that way. As much as certain elements in superhero comics want to keep on with the childish, cynical, pseudo-adult nonsense exemplified by The Old Hero, other creators are creating optimistic, fun, dare-I-say-it-heroic heroes, and audiences are responding to them.
Growing up on ’90s comics, I only ever liked the jackets on the Bob Harras/Steve Epting Avengers (the first comic I ever bought religiously).
But I agree with Michael P…I think people have really been responding to more ‘optimistic’ characters and stories in recent years.
I like variety. I loved (and still do love) Superman, Batman, Spider-man, and the rest. I also read the 90’s heroes and could empathize at times. I like Hal Jordan and John Stewart (my favorite GL probably) but also loved that Guy Gardner was a stand in for every teenager that was told “why can’t you be more like your older brother?” and had to face a tougher world. I never bought into the “I can’t tell the heroes from the villains anymore” argument that was going round. The criminals killed innocent people. The Punisher (and Wolverine, and Cable, and Bishop, and the rest) killed people that hurt innocent people. You know, kinda like soldiers and police officers have to at times. I also remmebered that nobody batted an eye when Superman mutilated General Zod and killed (with Lois’s help) three depowered Kryptonians at the end of Superman II, Batman offed the Joker (and a warehouse full of henchmen) in the 1988 movie, and didn’t Batman and Superman “kill” Darkseid recently? (in quotes because they always come back.) Last time I checked, Captain America didn’t get through World War II without offing a few enemies. Again, I love variety; Starman facing life or death choices one minute, Spider-Man webbing someone up the next (though he killed during Jms’s run.) This whole “heroes that kill are a current abomination as opposed to the good old days of the Shadow, the Spectre, and Golden Age and Silver age heroes that never killed” is total b.s.
It isn’t so much that “a hero never kills” as the 90’s penchant for making all heroes dark and grim and all life cheap” that Peter’s piece responds to, I think. Remember, back in the 90’s “darker and edgier” was very popular, so EVERYbody did it, and usually did it badly. I wouldn’t say heroes who kill are an abomination so much as heroes who kill cavalierly are an abomination. Interestingly, you’ll occassionally get the argument that heroes who DON’T kill are being irresponsible, i.e. the notion that by not killing the Joker, for instance, Batman (and, oddly, NOT the Gotham Criminal Justice system for continually sending the Joker to Arkham instead of, for instance, Death Row).
Sorry, hit “reply” too soon. I meant that last sentence to say “Batman…is indirectly responsible for the deaths caused by the Joker.”
To be fair, we don’t know how deep those fog-covered crevices in the Fortress were in Superman II, so we don’t know that they killed them. And if they did, well, keep in mind that it’s two, and not three, as Non accidentally killed himself.
.
As for the 88 Batman, wasn’t that self-defense, as well as the defense of Vicki Vale, whom he was trying to rescue?
Oh, and the more optimistic comics that may be seen as a backlash against the “grim and gritty” fad are not “recent”. They were around not too long after that fad itself started.
I’m pretty sure once he took the Batmobile out and started unloading it’d dual machine guns and bombs to blow up an entire factory that had to be filled with workers, the self defense issue prolly left awhile ago. If not then, then maybe the part where he uses the missle locks on the Batwing to blow up the parade route, where civilians were standing nearby may have done the trick.
The Punisher (and Wolverine, and Cable, and Bishop, and the rest) killed people that hurt innocent people. You know, kinda like soldiers and police officers have to at times.
.
Sorry…the Punisher is a serial killer, not a hero. That his MO is to kill other criminals doesn’t change that fact. He wakes up in the morning, puts on his spiffy skull-logo bodysuit and sets out with the sole intention to take a life.
.
I also remmebered that nobody batted an eye when Superman mutilated General Zod and killed (with Lois’s help) three depowered Kryptonians at the end of Superman II
.
While it didn’t make it into the theatrical cut, check out the Richard Donner cut of Superman II. It shows that, not only did the Phantom Zone criminals survive, but police (!?!) are shown taking them into custody at the Fortress.
.
Batman offed the Joker (and a warehouse full of henchmen) in the 1988 movie,
.
Just call me “Nobody,” then, cuz I batted an eye at that (and his actions in Batman Returns). First, he rolls the Batmobile into that factory and blows it up, lines up the Joker in a targeting bullseye from the Batplane, Joker falls to his death (although, we can chalk that one up as accidental, as I recall), then in Returns, shoves a bomb down a bad guy’s pants just before it goes off within a short timeframe of setting another on fire with the Batmobile’s afterburner.
.
And that’s not counting the brutal murder of logical, linear storytelling in both movies.
.
–Daryl
The criminals killed innocent people. The Punisher (and Wolverine, and Cable, and Bishop, and the rest) killed people that hurt innocent people. You know, kinda like soldiers and police officers have to at times.
.
Not remotely comparable. Cops and soldiers have codes of conduct that (in theory, at least) they’re held to, and there is a system through which their actions are judged and, if necessary, punished. They’re part of a system, not above it or outside it.
.
PAD
I am tired of the whole conflict between fun and gritty in superhero comics, and the obsessions of people on both sides.
.
In the 1990s, I hated the attitude that everything had to be grim and gritty. Post-1990s, I also hate the attitude by the nostalgics that everything has to be fun.
.
Whatever happened to variety and unpredictability and nuance? The superhero genre is already small, do we really want to limit it even more? Can’t we have stories with a variety of moods, a variety of protagonist types, and protagonists with moral codes that aren’t just either mass killing vigilante or absolute boy scout?
.
Please, give it a rest. I feel like throwing up whenever someone makes yet another “comics should be fun” speech, just like I threw up when everybody had to be anti-heroic.
.
Optimism isn’t necessary for good stories. And neither is pessimism, actually. And not everybody has a narrow definition of “fun.” Noir detective stories can be fun. Deconstructionist superhero stories can be fun. People are known to be entertained by gruelling dramas.
.
Sorry for the rant. I’m just tired of the “Fascists of Fun.” They’re as bad as the sneering, kewl new guys of the 1990s.
Preach on, brother Rene.
.
I wish Marvel felt the same way about Millar and Hitch’s version of the Ultimates, instead of watering it down to be a clone of the Marvel 616 universe, beginning with Loeb and Madureira’s Ultimates 3. Much as I like both Loeb and Madureira, I wish they didn’t have to piss all over what Millar and Hitch had accomplished in showing how a mainstream superhero comics story could be told with intelligence, maturity, and believability.
Man did Jeph Loeb take a dump all over that. Let’s take a well written contemporary take on superheroes and turn it into the most drap and routine superhero slugfests youve seen a million times before.
Well, you’re right of course. And remember, its was only the glut of grim ‘n gritty stuff (and BAD grim ‘n gritty stuff, at that) that caused the backlash of the “Fascists of Fun.” That, and the derailment of a great many characters into grim, morose shadows of themselves.
There’s room for nearly everything, so long as it’s well done and isn’t gimmicky, derivative, pandering crap.
.
What’s sad is that the damage from that overall trend has been done and it’s taken so long to start seeing the turnaround that the damage may never be able to be undone. The industry (with a few exceptions here and there) seemed to become very unfriendly towards the youngest readers out there and has likely lost a huge number of potential/future readers in the last 15 to 20 years. With the market being so much smaller now and comics being in so many fewer stores, getting the numbers back up is going to be less of an uphill battle and more of an up a sheer cliff face during an avalanche type of battle.
The Image anti-heroes were insanely popular with young readers. Depressingly so.
.
Define “young readers” there, Rene. What I was seeing from the early 90s to the early 00s (and as being told was what was being seen by friends in other parts of the state and other states) was that those types of heroes were huge with late jr high and high school kids. Yeah, if you were in your 20s then that counts as younger readers, but those aren’t the readers I’m talking about.
.
A lot of the Marvel and DC books that I was reading when I was 6, 7 or 8 years old are no longer suitable for most 6, 7 or 8 year olds. The dark hero trend, which is cool in and of itself if it’s not becoming the standard, got a little bit too overdone for a while there. The idea that the books could be sold to “adults” not only got a wee bit overdone in some areas, but the definition of “adults” seemed to mean guys mentally and emotionally stuck in their late teens.
.
We saw lots of blood, lots of killing, lots of over sized bøøbš, lots of fighting as a quick fix/answer and a lot of “reality” injected into comics that was about as realistic as your average nighttime soap. And the pop culture coverage of the medium at the time wasn’t helping any because it more often than not covered that as either a negative or as the sign of comics finally growing up. But the catch was that it was that that was being covered.
.
I use to tell disbelieving coworkers and relatives who had younger kids that, yeah, there still really was comic books out there, even superhero comic books, safe for their 8 year old and get told that they just didn’t see it. Open up a magazine and see an article on comic books and there was the hot trend coverage. Turn on an entertainment news program covering comic books and there was all the hot trend stuff being covered. Walk into most comic shops and the first thing (and second thing, and third thing, and…) you would see is the hot new trend issues and advertisement materials.
.
Comic books moved towards an adult audience. Fine. I’m all for that. But the problem was that it didn’t try (well, not very well at least) as a whole to retain the ability to keep hooking the very young readers. As a result, you had a lot of young non-readers of comic books who grew up to be older non-readers of comic books.
I define young readers here as 12-14 year old, perhaps 11-15. I envision the archetypical Image fanboy as a 13-year old boy that thinks it all was hyper-mega-kewltastic.
.
Those are not “adult” comics in any way, shape, or form. They’re for kids, just not the very young 6-year old kids.
.
I dunno, perhaps it’s my background as a non-American. You tell me Marvel comics were ever suitable for 6-year olds? That must have been a pretty smart 6-year old to enjoy, say, Claremont’s X-Men.
.
It was different here in Brazil. 6-8 year old kids had Disney comics (very big here) and some other nationally-produced kid’s comics (Monica’s Gang, about a pack of kids). You weren’t really supposed to graduate into Marvel/DC until a few years before your teenage years. Superhero comics have been just so hormonal and soap operish ever since forever.
.
But in the US it was different, I keep hearing in the Internet.
Yeah, my feelings run about the same. I feel in making everything more “sophisticated’ to appeal to fans still reading in their 40s and 50s waaay too many comics became inaccessible for young readers.
.
It would also help if marvel, DC or whoever were allowed to advertise their comics at the end of their movies/TV shows like they used to be able to do with “G.I.Joe”. that 5 second ad at the end of every episode pulled in a LOT of new readers.
.
Rene: “I dunno, perhaps it’s my background as a non-American. You tell me Marvel comics were ever suitable for 6-year olds? That must have been a pretty smart 6-year old to enjoy, say, Claremont’s X-Men.”
.
Early on? Yes. Younger kids would read the books and be easily wowed by the stories and the heroes while not picking up on the more adult themes and subtexts. In later years, X-Men became filled with darker, brooding killers-as-heroes and there was little restraint by most of the X artists and writers as to what they would put on a panel when it came to bloodshed, killing and other such stuff.
.
Spider-Man was much the same for a while. My friends and I were reading Spidey when we were six. Our parents got us the Spider-man and Hulk digests that were on the market in the late 70s and early 80s and we loved them. Did you have violence? Yes. Did you have death? Yes. Did you have angst and characters who had sexual attraction to one another? Yes. But the the degree in which it was on display was vastly different than what was on display in the 90s when Spidey occasionally went darker and the villains were allowed to be far more monstrous, vile and bloodthirsty on panel and the sexuality was sometimes played up in a more “adult” (as in pandering to stunted teenagers) manner than earlier decades saw.
.
And a lot of that was done while talk of embracing the “comic books have grown up” philosophy was being thrown around every third discussion or story about comics. And, again, I’m fine with that. I like adult natured comic books. I have no problems with adult natured comic books. But where the industry took a turn that I would have rather not seen it go is when it seemingly shifted everything (barring Archie, Disney and a few others obviously) up the age scale a bit.
.
Some of it was shortsighted greed. The late 80s and the early 90s saw the growing speculator market and its boom and bust. Most of the people driving that were older, well, readers for lack of a better term since some of them barely read most of what they were buying at the time. The huge money market seemed to be the late teens and twenty-somethings and they were certainly the ones looking at oversized comic book breasts and blood filled panels and gushing about how cool it all was. And there was definitely some record money being made during that boom.
.
But during that boom, the industry seemed to move away from the youngest readers more and more. It also started trends that have become major problems for some with the industry now.
.
I wasn’t a big fan of crossover-mania back when I had the money to keep up with all of the titles. Now it’s even more insane and it’s a huge negative for me when debating if I’m going to bother looking at most Marvel or DC comics that are a part of their shared universes. Year long events that lead into yet more year long events that crossover into almost every book and have an impact on almost everything going on in the shared universe tend to make me less willing to spend my money on a book after being away from the field for so long because A) I have no idea what the hëll is going on in these giant stories, B) I’m not looking to jump in to a giant mega crossover and C) I’m not going to drop that much cash on buying all of the books involved in the thing even if I like what the story seems to be so what’s the point?
.
And then you throw in the double whammy of making jumping back into comics for someone who has been out of the loop for a while look like a massive chunk of a paycheck’s worth of cash and making the dámņëd mega-crossover grim and gritty. I can’t really judge it because I didn’t read 90% of it, but what I saw of Marvel’s Civil War era did not look youth reader friendly. It also looked like it would be confusing as hëll to older readers who tried to jump back in after years away or to casual buyers who were coming into comic book stores looking to get books for younger relatives because of the buzz around newer movies or TV shows. And, dámņ, I’m a horror movie fanatic and I loved Green Lantern growing up, but just looking at the previews for the whole crossover event where rotting corpses are coming back as Black Lanterns and killing heroes left and right… I can’t see myself spending the money on the series for Ian in a couple of years or even wanting to.
.
And other than classic reprints, there really isn’t much out there I feel like I could buy him that deals with many of the classic DC and Marvel heroes.
.
Rene: “It was different here in Brazil. 6-8 year old kids had Disney comics (very big here) and some other nationally-produced kid’s comics (Monica’s Gang, about a pack of kids). You weren’t really supposed to graduate into Marvel/DC until a few years before your teenage years. Superhero comics have been just so hormonal and soap operish ever since forever.
.
But in the US it was different, I keep hearing in the Internet.”
.
It wasn’t that different. I’m not going to be one of the people who answers the question of which comic was their first with the “cool” answer. I’m pretty sure it was Casper, Hot Stuff, Tom & Jerry, a Disney book or some other thing like that. We had tons of those everywhere and there were a lot of licensed comic books based on comic strips like Beetle Bailey as well. But the fact of the matter is that even the Marvel and DC comics that you could find on the supermarket rack and in every 7-11 in the city were done in a manner that (most of the time) you could read and enjoy for the super powered characters and fun of it and not catch some of the other subtext until you were old enough to do so. Some books are like that now, but not as many as before and the additional whammy is that they’re harder to find.
.
Harder to find and more expensive…
.
Seriously, I risk sounding like an old person here, but I said this back when as well. We don’t need the slick, shiny paper and expensive formats. Newspaper print really was fine for most comic books when people were actually reading them rather than sweating their collectability value. Comic book cover prices almost doubled when everyone followed Image’s format and made all of their books the special format rather than just standard newsprint style.
.
So, sold in less places, comparatively more expensive and with far fewer books that really meet the definition of “all ages” on the rack to choose from. Yeah, that’s a recipe for success.
.
Jerome: “I feel in making everything more “sophisticated’ to appeal to fans still reading in their 40s and 50s waaay too many comics became inaccessible for young readers.”
.
And “everything” is basically the key word with my problem with the market these days. There are a lot of books that I don’t read that are for characters that I know very well. Yet when some of my younger co-workers and friends are discussing the books, I have no idea what they’re talking about. And I don’t mean insofar as the plots. Yeah, I’m not going to know those (duh) if I’m not reading the books. I’m talking about the general vibe and the type of stories they’re describing. They’ll be talking about what’s going on with a character who would once have been the type to wonder what kind of psycho the Punisher was, but things they’re talking about that the character is doing or going through makes the Punisher and his stories from the 90s seem tame.
.
And then you have the shared universe issue dragging most of that into just about every book in that shared universe.
.
In the meantime, while DC and marvel have animation coming out aimed at late nights and older audiences, the characters are still seeing their classic versions being done as more younger age friendly programs with more of the classic feels to the stories (even when they include updated continuity in the new cartoons.)
.
Jerome: “It would also help if marvel, DC or whoever were allowed to advertise their comics at the end of their movies/TV shows like they used to be able to do with “G.I.Joe”. that 5 second ad at the end of every episode pulled in a LOT of new readers.”
.
Yeah, but what are the going to advertise? Very few of the books on the rack now look like the movies or TV versions and fewer still seem accessible to newer readers; or older readers who left for that matter. I only really left mainstream comics and my large monthly pull list behind for cost reasons in 2001 or 2002. I mean, it’s not even been a full ten years. I’ll borrow a TPB of recent stories from some of my co-workers and it sometimes looks like something that’s not even related to the book I left behind ten years ago. Yet the movie and TV versions of most of the Marvel and DC characters that these ads would fall behind look like the more “traditional” versions. So, again, what are they going to advertise?
.
And the really bad thing about all of this for Marvel and DC is that they’re well and truly stuck right now. Peter has mentioned his work on several DC and Marvel title that were aimed at younger or all ages readers and how he was told that they new sales would likely be lower and that’s likely to be even more true now. Most of the people coming into comic shops are after the hot cool trend of the week comics and the industry doesn’t have the newsstand coverage it used to have. It was rare for me growing up to see a mini-mart gas station, a 7-11, a grocery store or a convenience store that didn’t have a large rack of comics. Now I see them in less and less places and, outside of book stores, there’s only 10 or 15 books on the rack at best.
.
And, again, they’re how glossy and more pricey than they need to be. Not an easy sell as an impulse purchase anymore or as something to just grab without thinking overly much about it and handing it to a kid so he has something to read on the way home.
.
Just a bad thing all the way around for getting new readers into the fold. Or at least that’s how it looks from where I’m at.
I am mostly with you, Jerry. Endless crossovers, overpriced comics, and lack of availability has turned comics into itens that are only accessible to a small group of initiates. And this small group doesn’t include kids or anyone that has not read the same comics for decades.
.
What I disagree with you is that the bloodier, sexier contest is what drove kids away. I know it’s a popular opinion, but I just don’t see it. I think it’s the other way around. Because comics became more expensive and less available to the general public, and kids stopped reading them, then it became useless to cater to an audience that just wasn’t there anymore.
.
It makes no sense to make superhero comics more kid-friendly if you keep all the other factors that drove kids away unchanged.
.
Another problem is that most writers seem to have lost the ability to write in “layers” like in the 70s and 80s. When they try to appeal to kids, they go into the other direction and make the comics too light. Marvel Adventures and Johnny DC and stuff like that are much fluffier and kiddier than Marvel/DC from the 70s and 80s that DID have the Hellfire Club in bondage gear and the Joker killing people with venom and Bruce Banner facing parental abuse.
.
I find that few comics have the balance needed to truly appeal to all ages.
“What I disagree with you is that the bloodier, sexier contest is what drove kids away. I know it’s a popular opinion, but I just don’t see it. I think it’s the other way around. Because comics became more expensive and less available to the general public, and kids stopped reading them, then it became useless to cater to an audience that just wasn’t there anymore.
.
It makes no sense to make superhero comics more kid-friendly if you keep all the other factors that drove kids away unchanged.”
.
I’m not sure that’s true though. I still see parents who want to get their younger kids the comic books based on their favorite heroes despite the higher prices. They just can’t find them very easily. And, make no mistake about it, those young readers were not buying books with their own money to begin with (other than with the odd bit of allowance money or chores money.) it was the parents and the grandparents grabbing the books off of the racks on the way out of the store or telling their six or eight year old child to go grab a couple of books before leaving the 7-11. The parents still buy the things when they can find them, they’re just not buying many new comic books.
.
I see parents who can’t find something new on the market for their kids after a quick look on the racks who end up grabbing a $15 or $20 classic collection rather than three or for new comic books. Go into Walmart and Target and you’ll see crappy little ten page “young readers” books with Marvel and DC characters drawn like the young cartoon versions of themselves or done much older school than now and priced anywhere from $1 to $3.99. They sell and they sell fairly well. Ten pages of story, maybe a paragraph written on each page and very basic artwork used for the double page splash storytelling and they sell well at easily what a twenty-two page new comic would cost.
.
Disney/Pixar and others are charging top dollar (and certainly more per page than Marvel or DC monthly books or collections) for picture books based on their characters and selling good numbers. And, no, they’re not monthly books, but they make multiple books for each film (sometimes many, many books for several years) and they make new books for every new film and TV show.
.
And they all sell well despite the higher price tags.
.
Give the kids something kid friendly and they will bug their parents to get it. Give the parents something that doesn’t look like it was created with the 16 and older set in mind and they will buy it for those kids. It’s being done and it’s been done for a long while now by other companies out their not named Marvel and DC and it’s something that should be relatively easy to do with the resources that they and their parent companies have.
.
The problem is that the majority of the industry’s superhero books seem like they’re being written by fans of convoluted plots, mega crossovers, T&A, grim and gritty and/or shock for shock’s sake for fans of convoluted plots, mega crossovers, T&A, grim and gritty and/or shock for shock’s sake. There really doesn’t look like there’s as much out there for younger superhero fans these days and the industry is going to suffer because of that.
Jerry,
“Yeah, but what are the going to advertise? Very few of the books on the rack now look like the movies or TV versions and fewer still seem accessible to newer readers; or older readers who left for that matter. I only really left mainstream comics and my large monthly pull list behind for cost reasons in 2001 or 2002. I mean, it’s not even been a full ten years. I’ll borrow a TPB of recent stories from some of my co-workers and it sometimes looks like something that’s not even related to the book I left behind ten years ago. Yet the movie and TV versions of most of the Marvel and DC characters that these ads would fall behind look like the more “traditional” versions. So, again, what are they going to advertise?”
.
Well, with the Marvel cartons, I would advertise the Marvel Adventures line. If it was an MTV show or something, or the movies, advertise the Ultimate line and “Amazing”.
.
With the thor movie why not advertise “Astonishing Thor” #1? Instead most of the people that will be made aware of it are current fans. Yet another missed opportunity.
.
It would be nice if some retailers took the initiative, also. they are not required to simply order 150 copies of “X-Men” for their show. if they wanted, they could take a 2 inch ad out in the paper and let people know they have Thor stuff, or “Teen Titans Go!”. Sometimes I think retailers are comntent to sit behind the counter and have people come in for the next hot thing, Bat-book, or crossover. Not all of them, of course. But again, there are so many missed opportunities.
And that’s why I love Doctor Who. The triumph of reason and intellect and compassion over brute force and cynicism.