You don't want your kids reading your violent comic books? Then don't leave them out.
There are plenty of comics that aren't violent. Most of them don't have superheroes, but superhero books are, by nature, violent. That's why there are lines of comic books specifically for kids.
Comics are not the medium of children's literature, and one could make the case that they never were. 
If you don't want your kids seeing violent things, don't leave violent DVDs or comics sitting around, block the violent programs on your TV, and get a good safeguard program for your PC's internet browser. Don't complain that comics are too violent. Odds are, those comics aren't for your kids. Writers shouldn't have to censor themselves because you refuse to censor what your kids take in.
		
		
	 
 
Until quite recently, Marvel Comics could indeed be classified as "juvenile literature." 
Stan & Jack certainly considered themselves producers of juvenile entertainment. The average age of a Marvel reader in 1966 was 12. Now it's 24. 
That doesn't mean comics have grown up. 
With sales down so dramatically (down 50% in less than 20 years), I think it means the medium is becoming less and less relevant; Marvel is desperately targeting the tastes and sensibilities of 24-year olds because that's who comprises the majority of their core readership.
And the hard reality is that younger readers are not coming into comics anymore; not like they used to. Not by a long shot.  
 
As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing off-limits for the comics medium in terms of content.
It's context.
And presenting ultra-violence in the pages of a legacy title like Avengers, Spider-man or Hulk is the 
epitome of inappropriate context in my opinion.
 
And that 
doesn't make me ultra- conservative.
 
I'm just sick of the dark tone my lifelong favorites have taken on under the poor stewardship of Quesada, Bendis and company.
 
Like Morlun ripping out Spidey's eye last year -
and eating it - before beating our hero to death. 
Can you see that happening even 5 years ago?
We certainly wouldn't have seen it 10 years ago.
 
I wouldn't care that much if they kept that crap in the Max titles, or even Marvel Knights. But in the mainline titles? It's just foolhardy.
 
For 37 years, I have read marvel Comics. And only recently, under Quesada and Bendis, has grotesquery like this become commonplace.
 
It's all about appealing to the lowest common denominator - and catering to a mid-20's readership that will eventually die off. 
It's short-sighted and foolish. 
It's all about money.
And it's wrong.
 
Darthphere,  you are not alone in your concern. And I know quite a few readers 
decades younger than myself who have expressed similar regret at the stuff we're seeing coming out of Marvel recently.
 
And this concern is 
nothing like the idiocy of Frederick Wertham and the senate subcommittee hearings on comics creating juvenile delinquency.
 
 
 
I'm all for violent comics (like 
Preacher) and I'm all for pornographic comics for every sexual preference and/or perversion.
I have no problem with any of that 
whatsoever. 
This is America.
I just don't appreciate the darkness that's enveloping the Marvel Universe.
I think it's wrong.
I can't read most Marvel comics these days with my 10-year old,
and frankly that pisses me off.  
 
And yeah, that 
Rawhide Kid cover is juuust like what we're seeing now. 

 Jeez.