Should comics tone it down?

[UltimateJustin]

Should mainstream comics tone down the suggestive content (esp. the violence)? Do you feel that Marvel comics arent liberal enough by virtue of the fact that say Daredevil will ATTACK someone that he deams to be a criminal and inflict violence on them, often without trying to understand the social conditions put in place to lead this person to have to resort to whatever act of crime they were engaged in? Should they just fight amongst themselves since its not fair to involve other "criminals" they dont understand? Or would you rather things be more conservative like when Shooter was eic, when for some reason it was against the rules to have gay characters and things were very one-sided and racist?

 

[HandOfFate]

So....which Psychology class are you taking right now?

 

[fifthfiend]

I think superheroes should violently assault the robber barons who cause crime in the first place by creating artificial scarcities across the rest of society in order to slake their bottomless greed.

Do I win the cookie?

 

[Dread]

When I read the title to this topic, I was reminded of this article I read on THE BEAT:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/10/26/would-cheering-up-sell-more-comics/

Which had a link to a ICv2 article here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/talkback/11521.html

It addresses the ancedote of comic shop owner John Riley who surmises that comic book sales may be decreasing, or at least would be better, if they, and Marvel is used as the example in the above article, wasn't as grim as the world around us currently is. The case is made that comics, even Marvel, used to offer a sort of escapism even as it took the babysteps of commenting on then-current things like Communism, the Cold War, Racism, and Vietnam.

Basically the point of the articles was that Marvel, and mainstream superhero comics in general, have gotten too dark and morally ambigous and with those themes already oozing throughout society, they don't offer any escapism, and also seemingly aren't colorful enough to attract kids or others not affiliated with comics. (Examples are given of kids seeming to catch their eye on brighter Silver Age comics rather than contempory covers/books)

Personally, while I feel these articles have a fair point, it is worth noting that Marvel's events have scored great sales for the post-1994 era of comics even WITH seeming to be dark or commenting on the grim times. The death of Captain America, which had all sorts of hintings of civil rights stuff, political assasinations like JFK, and a divided nation, sold almost a half million copies alone (and that was just the first print). Any comic book that tries to be light-hearted or offer non-commentary escapism sinks like a stone in the Top 100 list; just ask Robert Kirkman, who has had several books die that way (as has Dan Slott). So to me this is a sort of "chicken or egg" sort of thing. Would Marvel & DC be having infighting heroes, more gore/political commentary, or even deaths if their audiences didn't support said stories with good sales? CIVIL WAR was a monster hit for Marvel in terms of sales. WORLD WAR HULK, offering a more straight-forward comic book story, isn't making CW numbers. So, obviously, part of this is playing to the crowd.

I mean if DC's IDENTITY CRISIS, which arguably restarted that trend back into grimness & divided, morally challenged heroics, hadn't sold as well as it did, despite various reprintings, we wouldn't be here now. So do you blame the companies for writing them, or the fans for supporting many of these stories while letting lighter books like THE THING or MARVEL TEAM-UP hit the dust?

 

[Darthphere]

Should mainstream comics tone down the suggestive content (esp. the violence)? Do you feel that Marvel comics arent liberal enough by virtue of the fact that say Daredevil will ATTACK someone that he deams to be a criminal and inflict violence on them, often without trying to understand the social conditions put in place to lead this person to have to resort to whatever act of crime they were engaged in? Should they just fight amongst themselves since its not fair to involve other "criminals" they dont understand? Or would you rather things be more conservative like when Shooter was eic, when for some reason it was against the rules to have gay characters and things were very one-sided and racist?

No, it's called getting a ****ing job, or getting a billy club to the nuts.

 

[Joker]

god no...one of the best comics out by Marvel right now is MAX Punisher, which is the most hardcore, over the top violent comic they've ever published, and it rocks...it's fiction, bad guys are usually bad, especially if they're generic house robbing thugs, so f**k them. to quote Ben Affleck in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back..."Fictional characters...fictional...characters"

 

[UltimateJustin]

When I read the title to this topic, I was reminded of this article I read on THE BEAT:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/10/26/would-cheering-up-sell-more-comics/

Which had a link to a ICv2 article here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/talkback/11521.html

It addresses the ancedote of comic shop owner John Riley who surmises that comic book sales may be decreasing, or at least would be better, if they, and Marvel is used as the example in the above article, wasn't as grim as the world around us currently is. The case is made that comics, even Marvel, used to offer a sort of escapism even as it took the babysteps of commenting on then-current things like Communism, the Cold War, Racism, and Vietnam.

Basically the point of the articles was that Marvel, and mainstream superhero comics in general, have gotten too dark and morally ambigous and with those themes already oozing throughout society, they don't offer any escapism, and also seemingly aren't colorful enough to attract kids or others not affiliated with comics. (Examples are given of kids seeming to catch their eye on brighter Silver Age comics rather than contempory covers/books)

Personally, while I feel these articles have a fair point, it is worth noting that Marvel's events have scored great sales for the post-1994 era of comics even WITH seeming to be dark or commenting on the grim times. The death of Captain America, which had all sorts of hintings of civil rights stuff, political assasinations like JFK, and a divided nation, sold almost a half million copies alone (and that was just the first print). Any comic book that tries to be light-hearted or offer non-commentary escapism sinks like a stone in the Top 100 list; just ask Robert Kirkman, who has had several books die that way (as has Dan Slott). So to me this is a sort of "chicken or egg" sort of thing. Would Marvel & DC be having infighting heroes, more gore/political commentary, or even deaths if their audiences didn't support said stories with good sales? CIVIL WAR was a monster hit for Marvel in terms of sales. WORLD WAR HULK, offering a more straight-forward comic book story, isn't making CW numbers. So, obviously, part of this is playing to the crowd.

I mean if DC's IDENTITY CRISIS, which arguably restarted that trend back into grimness & divided, morally challenged heroics, hadn't sold as well as it did, despite various reprintings, we wouldn't be here now. So do you blame the companies for writing them, or the fans for supporting many of these stories while letting lighter books like THE THING or MARVEL TEAM-UP hit the dust?

Thats pretty enlightening. I will have to think about how I feel.

Frank Miller's run on DD was considered "dark", but it wasnt bleak. The MU right now is very bleak and nothing is satisfying. In the 80's, Daredevil went on his own investigations and had his own stories to keep peoples minds off of the cold war or whatever, we werent constantly told that the president is a *****e and everything is stale and theres nothing anyone can do about it. Most people all ready know all that. Thats not comics, thats reality.

Maybe CW sold so much because it was a big event that had an interesting premise and was said to "change everything forever" and was billed as " the most important thing ever written", whereas WWH isnt that appealing to non-HULK fans.

 

[imdaly]

I think that we've got a pretty good mix of both right now.

We've got our MAX Punishers, and we've got our Spider-Girls.

Heck, Archie is still out there, too.

 

[Mladen]

superheroes are very conservative. This is right, that is wrong, you're either with me or against me.

They've always been that way, they're just a bit more physical in the way they express it now, but even THAT violence is still pretty childish (more bloody does not really mean anything).

I don't have a problem when their moral absolutism (is that a word?) is clearly only within their own head (something like the Punisher, who very often steps over the line of what the 'normal' person might call unnecessarily cruel). I may not agree with what the Punisher is doing, but I can understand why, and I can easily trust that the character himself believes its fair and totally righteous. But when a hero's strong moral code is supposed to represent what EVERY SINGLE PERSON READING THIS COMIC is supposed to be striving for, I find it unrealistic, narrow-minded and childish. Real people have a sliding scale of morality, but superheroes only have the one. 'Flawed' heroes are no exception, since from the outset, what makes them different is called a 'flaw' to begin with... They're not perfect until they're straight, white, male, and live by an outdated moral code.

I can understand what you're saying about fighting the root causes of crime instead of beating up desperate criminals who would probably not bother turning to (risky) crime if they had a job... Bruce Wayne, I'm look at you.

For me its always more satisfying when the heroes beat up organised crime syndicates rather than just random muggers (you could extend that to supervillains, but they can sometimes be a bit silly). There's the difference of beating up some guy who is doing the crime out of desperation, and somebody who is doing the crime because the money is good or because they enjoy inflicting pain on others. 'The Joker' mentioned Punisher MAX, (of which I should point out I've only read the first Ennis volume), but the man kills a hell of a lot of mafia, which BECAUSE they're organised criminals makes it okay. Its a very entertaining comic, and Ennis is smart enough to realise that there's no point trying to impose moral perfection on a guy calling himself 'The Punisher'. He's not GI-Joe, he's a goddamn crazy man with a warped sense of righteous vengeance. A Punisher comic isn't a public service announcement, and its just that little bit too uncomfortably violent and cruel to be an escapist fantasy.

Comics are still pretty homophobic and sexist most of the time, they've just dressed it up in a different package. There's very strong evidence that homosexual heroes and women can never be as tough or effective as their male superhero counterparts. Half the time female superheroes are just a joke in comics (and anybody claiming that men are sexually objectified in comics as much as women is kidding themselves... when was the last time we were treated for a full-closeup of Batman's butt and thighs in a comic? Or Superman flexing his pectorals while topless and wearing a thong mid-flight? Thats right). I'd rather they stop pretending to be progressive (that huge ad campaign about Batwoman was just low), I'd rather they just be honest about it, have Wonderwoman back to getting tied up with her own lasso in every comic.

 

[wolvie2020]

I'm very comfortable with the current tone of comics.

I thought the 90's had too much throwaway violence in comics...

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

I'm very comfortable with the current tone of comics.

Same here.

 

[Kitsune]

I would rather see more sex, and less violence. Theoretically sex is something you want people (like your kids when they grow up) to have, but violence is something you would hope they never have to experience.

 

[Mladen]

I would rather see more sex, and less violence. Theoretically sex is something you want people (like your kids when they grow up) to have, but violence is something you would hope they never have to experience.

People are wierd like that. Sexual content in a film is more likely to get you an adult rating than some violence. Sex should be the more natural one (everybody does it, and you'd think people would rather their adolescents see loving acts of sex than people slaughter each other), but people get more uppity about sex in comics/film/tv than they do about violence.

'Family' adventure films feature mass genocide and burning corpses (Star Wars).

Shooting a man dead in a film was legal long before showing a prolonged kiss was.

go figure.
to quote southpark: "I guess parents don't give a crap about violence if there's sex things to worry about"

 

[wolvie2020]

I would rather see more sex, and less violence. Theoretically sex is something you want people (like your kids when they grow up) to have, but violence is something you would hope they never have to experience.

I've thought about this much myself, but all forms of media are guilty of this.

This is why I liked Paul Jenkins run on Spidey so much, he had issues about Peter Parker and his family life growing up, and no punch ups.

It broke things up a little and made the fights seem more important

 

[Docker2.0]

Thats pretty enlightening. I will have to think about how I feel.

Frank Miller's run on DD was considered "dark", but it wasnt bleak. The MU right now is very bleak and nothing is satisfying. In the 80's, Daredevil went on his own investigations and had his own stories to keep peoples minds off of the cold war or whatever, we werent constantly told that the president is a *****e and everything is stale and theres nothing anyone can do about it. Most people all ready know all that. Thats not comics, thats reality.

Maybe CW sold so much because it was a big event that had an interesting premise and was said to "change everything forever" and was billed as " the most important thing ever written", whereas WWH isnt that appealing to non-HULK fans.

QFT! It's hard to escape reality when MU is worse than the real world. Thank goodness for Bud Ice! t:

 

[the_hood]

tone down? nah!
what i love about Marvel is it's sense of reality (whereas DC's more fictitious).
Heroes sometimes need to be violent to fight injustice.

----
off-topic:

hey check out my GL: Sinestro Corps War comic trailer at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR_9Rx_KWvs

im sure youll enjoy watching it! thanks!
oh sorry to bother you guys..

 

[Son of Sun]

Dread pretty much nailed it.

If I like something in comics, it's consequences - not just what it looks like to set off a nuclear bomb, but also what happens afterwards. The superhero comics in the old days mostly didn't give a rat's ass about consequences, but rather just pit some menacing parties against one-another and stepped back to watch the fireworks.

I like the modern trend of "realism". It brings substance, but at the same time makes every little superhero act more meaningful, too. It might not be ideal for escapism, but that's the trend now. I'm guessing that as the comics fans have grown into adults (and beyond), they wanted more than new fights every day.

 

[Kitsune]

I think that we've got a pretty good mix of both right now.

We've got our MAX Punishers, and we've got our Spider-Girls.

Heck, Archie is still out there, too.

Actually no, Archie was killed by the Punisher in the 90. He's been replaced by a clone.

 

[imdaly]

Actually no, Archie was killed by the Punisher in the 90. He's been replaced by a clone.

Are you sure that it was the real Archie that died? Or could that have been the clone, and the real Archie is the one that's back? Or perhaps they were both clones, and the real one is still out there somewhere just waiting to show up one day?





Hi. My name is Ian, and I'm a Spider-Man Clone Saga survivor...

 

[Kitsune]

Are you sure that it was the real Archie that died? Or could that have been the clone, and the real Archie is the one that's back? Or perhaps they were both clones, and the real one is still out there somewhere just waiting to show up one day?





Hi. My name is Ian, and I'm a Spider-Man Clone Saga survivor...

Maybe the real Archie is calling himself Bill O'Reilly

 

[masteryoda]

So....which Psychology class are you taking right now?

t: t:

 

[Varient]

So....which Psychology class are you taking right now?

Very Good,.. that made me smile.

On Topic:

No.

Comics right now has been split into different levels by reading content:
(Add on plz if I miss A few.)

My terms - with examples

Baby - Sonic the hedge hog / Scooby Doo
Preteen - Marvel Adventures / The Batman
Teen - Teen Titans Go / Spiderman loves MJ / Archie
Regular - Standard DC / Marvel Faire
Adult - concepts/situations / MAX / Vertigo
Adult - graphic / Heavy Metal / Klick
Porn. - The Pro.

There is no real need IMHO to "tone it down,.. just show discretion in who gets what.

Peace.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It's kind of depressing that kids can't get into the standard Marvel and DC comics by your model, though. How many of us were won over as kids and are still fans to this day?

 

[Varient]

It's kind of depressing that kids can't get into the standard Marvel and DC comics by your model, though. How many of us were won over as kids and are still fans to this day?

Well,.. Todays kids, (The ones being walked into the store by parents desperate to have them read ANYTHING.), Seem to gravitate toward Marvel adventures and Cartoon based versions of DC superheroes. Outside of Spiderman,... I really don't see todays kids wanting the midrange until their teens,..

I think we were different as far as what was written and the comic code as what was allowed.

Example: New Avengers where All of them are hung up into the air wearing nothing,.... Can you see how that would've been written back in the 80's? Everyone would've been in underwear at least with no shots of the female except the face.


Now writers go for graphic shock value on the personal side.

V.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, I could stand to see that done away with. I don't ever really see nudity as necessary in comics. The costumes they put women in are bad enough as it is, and both genders' costumes are usually drawn as if they're painted onto their naked bodies anyway.