The Campaign Builder's Guild

This is a rant originally published on my blog.  I thought I might x-post it for any comics fans here.

I recently read the Black Panther: Civil War trade paperback collection.  I found it to be an engaging read.  I'd recommend it to others who like political thrillers, espionage, and/or superheroes.  I also read the Checkmate: A King's Game trade at about the same time.  My overall enjoyment and evaluation is the same.

Despite the excellence of these two collections, they seem to perfectly illustrate a trend I don't especially like in comics: the post-90s, post-9/11, grimmer, grittier superhero comics.  It probably started in the 80s with grim, deconstructionist superhero tales like Watchmen, Bat Man Year One, Bat Man The Dark Knight Returns, Miracle Man, and, depending on your definition of the superhero genre, V For Vendetta.  

It went further in the 90s, with companies finding ways to make superheroes grimmer and grittier by either screwing over their marquee characters (Knightfall, The Death of Superman, Emerald Twilight, Age of Apocalypse), increasing the prominence of or introducing grim, psychotic vigilantes (Lobo, Azrael, the three regular Punisher books plus his guest appearance every month in someone else's title, Ghost Rider and Wolverine's similar omnipresence in the 90s), and turning villains into not quite heroes (Venom, The Thunderbolts).

Now  after experiencing a bit of a slow down, the grim superheroes trend has kicked back into high gear again.  I can't say it definitely started with Avengers Disassembled, but that seems to be a pretty key point.  Since then, Marvel's House of M and Civil War and, on the DC side of the street, Identity Crisis and Infinitie Crisis have kicked it up another notch.  

It's not that these are bad comics.  They're not.  They're intelligent and well written.  The trouble is, these comics are too reminscent of the troubles of the real world.  

Do I really need to read about a superhero civil war, spured on by a superhuman registration act precipitated by a disastrous explosion that resulted in numerous civilian deaths, when we've got two real wars and are heading for a third, while the nation is deeply politically divided, and the Patriot Act erodes our civil liberties, all precipitated by the real 9/11?  No.  I want to see the JLA and JSA team up agaisnt the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3.  I want the bad guys caught.  I want the world to be a bit more idyllic than our own.  

I'm also tired of morally ambiguous superheroes.  I like superheroes who do what's right.  The Powers make them super.  Morals makes them heroic.

I wholeheartedly agree, though I don't really read comics. I think the effect you're talking about is really everywhere... Chivalry is still dead. :(

I think the grim-and-gritty thing can work, to some degree. Wolverine, The Punisher, Ghost Rider, ETC. are all great characters, in their own rights. The problem with those types of characters (both in the past, and currently), is the corporate mindset of using the characters as gimmicks. In the 90's, it got to the point where Marvel would throw Wolverine in any title, and include the phrase "'Nuff said!" on the cover, regardless of whether or not he fit in that title, or whether or not that really was "'nuff said". (A Wolvie cameo in an ongoing Sabertooth title would fit, and would qualify as "'nuff said". Wolvie in Fantastic Four, on the other hand...)


I'm using Marvel Comics as a case example, because I'm more familiar with them, and because they're more likely to have "grom-n-gritty" vigilantes, but the whole gimmick-of-the-hour thing really is tiring, and should be used much more sparingly then it is.

I can see your point, and indeed do at times think your way may be best.

However, do we lecture the authors of books dealing with these very same ideas, the countless novelists, historians, and political writers who talk about these things extensively?

A comic book writer is still a writer, and therefore must appeal to his audience. They could remain escapist, dealing with worlds separated from our own, where there was no such thing as "moral relativism" or "mitigating circumstances". But they would lose a great deal of their audience. People want to identify with the people in the narrative. How many times have you watched a movie, or read a book, and thought or even said "don't do that, don't do that!" or, when thinking about the choice the hero made, thought "I'd do ..."? These are because you're imagining yourself in the hero's shoes.

Is this possible without reflecting our world in the fictional one? Yes, but the reflection makes it easier. When Captain America has to decide between the freedom he defended in WW2, and the law, we think about why, and what we would choose. That's why they put heroes on both sides, we're not all going to agree. Heroes are doing questionable things, and fighting other heroes, because some of us would do the very same thing. I know that personally, I am capable of doing horrible things, if I felt the situation required it. And it's this abandonment of the "ideal" morality that lends itself to the same forms of comics.

You mentioned you believe this started in the 80's. I'm not claiming to know anything on this matter, but, the young men from Vietnam had been coming home, from a war America questioned, having done things few of them had probably considered doing. Some of them may have become comic writers. In any case, these were men who wanted someone to agree, that sometimes, you need to do thing, whether or not you're sure of the results. And comics were being written by similar young men such as Frank Miller, for such people.

Comics have always upheld the "virtues" of their time period, and with modern cultural losing that easy footing, it's harder for comics to remain as pure.

Quote from: AllWillFall2MeI can see your point, and indeed do at times think your way may be best.

However, do we lecture the authors of books dealing with these very same ideas, the countless novelists, historians, and political writers who talk about these things extensively?

A comic book writer is still a writer, and therefore must appeal to his audience. They could remain escapist, dealing with worlds separated from our own, where there was no such thing as "moral relativism" or "mitigating circumstances". But they would lose a great deal of their audience. People want to identify with the people in the narrative. How many times have you watched a movie, or read a book, and thought or even said "don't do that, don't do that!" or, when thinking about the choice the hero made, thought "I'd do ..."? These are because you're imagining yourself in the hero's shoes.

Is this possible without reflecting our world in the fictional one? Yes, but the reflection makes it easier. When Captain America has to decide between the freedom he defended in WW2, and the law, we think about why, and what we would choose. That's why they put heroes on both sides, we're not all going to agree. Heroes are doing questionable things, and fighting other heroes, because some of us would do the very same thing. I know that personally, I am capable of doing horrible things, if I felt the situation required it. And it's this abandonment of the "ideal" morality that lends itself to the same forms of comics.

You mentioned you believe this started in the 80's. I'm not claiming to know anything on this matter, but, the young men from Vietnam had been coming home, from a war America questioned, having done things few of them had probably considered doing. Some of them may have become comic writers. In any case, these were men who wanted someone to agree, that sometimes, you need to do thing, whether or not you're sure of the results. And comics were being written by similar young men such as Frank Miller, for such people.

Comics have always upheld the "virtues" of their time period, and with modern cultural losing that easy footing, it's harder for comics to remain as pure.

I actually pretty much agree with you.  The world feels darker these days, and comics have taken on that aspect.  It's the natural artistic response.

One of the defining things about my blog, is that I sort of play the part of the curmudgeon before my time decrying the sorry state of the modern world, particulalry as it gets represented  in Geek Culture sources.  Sometimes I'm just in that mindset.