Just to intrude here, but, "Quicksilver was always a scumbag"? "Wanda was previously unstable"? True points, but the problem with HOM was that there was no progression back to these character "regressions". They just happened. It was retroactively claimed that "Wanda'd been going crazy", even though it was over 10 years in real time when that happened, same thing with Quicksilver being a villian. Both of them have spent more time as Avengers than as Brotherhood agents, and both of them in the previous decade had resettled into rather stable B-List Avenger status. Heck, Quicksilver'd been removed from the roster at various points, but Wanda usually remained, usually to keep the "chick ratio" at about 2-3 members, most likely. They'd overcome that insane devotion to their father Magneto.
Avengers sales went down, mostly because Chuck Austen had a run there, despite almost all of collective fandom bemoaning his presence (sort of like they bemoaned the Clone Saga, which Marvel dragged on about a year longer than they had to, or Liefield on art, which has produced nothing but sale sucking bombs since the late 90's, etc). They need a big name for their event, so they get Bendis, who's never let someone else's work hamper his own. So they revert the Maximoffs back to states they hadn't seen in over a decade and treated it as a progression, without the actual progression. The aim was shock value, and it failed, because its constantly needed to be defended, debated, and criticisms shot down with the excuse of "hey, look, it sold gangbusters". McDonald's makes billions, does that mean if you get a worm in your burger, you should just eat it with a smile?
And y'know the irony of HOM? Quicksilver's actions really weren't that evil, at least not in the classical sense. He basically manipulated events to make most of Marvel's heroes have their wishes come true, and to elevate mutants into the role humans have. Humans got the short end, but it wasn't full of neo-apocalyptic slave camps for them, like a lot of angsty dark realities. Many characters were even revived from death by HOM, including Gwen and Ben. Whenever I think of HOM, my mind takes me back to the two mutant kids in GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS, the ones who are murdered in the beginning which pisses off Magneto. In HOM, they would have been revived. They'd have grown up and probably had successful lives. And now a bunch of heroes are claiming they deserve to go back to death and all their accomplishments mean nothing simply because "it's right", with no rebuttal, no debate, nothing. There was a huge moral debate there, but aside for a token page (in which Jessica Drew, the heroine Bendis has a fetish for in the same way that Claremont has one for Storm, is shouted down by nearly every character in the scene), its shoved to the side in exchange for a pointless slugfest in which the heroes basically have a pyrric victory at best. HOM for all intents and purposes was the new reality; there was no risk of "collapse" or something because of Wanda's actions. She was batty, but it was the heroes who were provoking an unstable reality-warper into near oblivion.
Frankly, I hate it when a decade of character growth can be omitted simply to return someone to a default status quo. Even Whedon is guilty of this, knowtowing to overzealous Jean Grey fanatics by having Emma Frost be a mole for the Hellfire Club, despite the fact that she'd been on the "good" side for about 12 years, real time. It makes all the people who read, say, GENERATION X or something feel like they'd just completely wasted their time. Why bother caring about some grand revelation or shift or event when it can be undone in a flash for the sake of a current storyline? Brubaker's in the same hole with Vulcan.
CIVIL WAR, at least, doesn't treat the moral debate as an "elephant in the room", it actually is debated strongly in almost every chapter. The only problem is that at 70 chapters, it has almost been over-debated that you know all the agruements by now and are waiting for the story to reach Act 3.
The Question said:
Okay. I do agree here. Marvel has taken the moral ambiguity and darkness a bit too far. But that doesn't mean those things should be completely omited from comics either. That's the other extreme. There should be a balance. There should be comics with clear heroes and villains and relatively happy endings, but there should also be comics with morally ambiguous characters and not so hhappy endings. It should depend entirely upon what suits the story.
You're right, there should be a balance. That's why I buy books like MTU, AGENTS OF ALTAS, BEYOND!, etc.
But these days there seems to be little balence. The pendulum shifts towards being gritty, with anything on the other end of the spectrum being as rare as a one-shot story. Some characters need that style more than others, of course (Morrison is trying a lighter take at Batman, and its not working).
