I think it's a sign of the times. DC and Marvel are trying to reflect the reality their writers are in...and that's a feeling that the world has become a gloomier, paranoid, and just plain more rotten place than it was.

Skyscrapers are blown up- it's not just a comic book plot that's foiled at the last second by Superman. Spaceships turn into flaming dust over a southern sky and there's no Fantastic Four to stop it.

The words of the day are "terrorism" and "security" (at any cost). There's a feeling that the real world governments are trying to pry into everything and register it in the name of stopping the first word and for the sake of the second. And that moral codes are being tossed out the window to do it. That body blow to "Truth, justice and the American Way." has finally, truly seeped into the mainstream comics industry.

DC broke it's entire continuity (again) to try and come to grips with this- like you, I think a lot of it is just plain wrong. Heroes deliberately committing murder (Wonder Woman), setting up a network of paranoiabots (Batman), attempting to destroy entire worlds in order to save their own willingly (Superman-2).

Marvel's always had that "one step away from the abyss" mentality. Now it seems to be happening- using the Registration Act as an analogy for reality. Superbeings are WMD's. Register and be used by the system, or you're a terrorist and end up looking like Speedball, the picture image of "internment camp metahuman". It's no longer more important to be good- it's important to be -legal-. (Witness Captain America getting busted by Thor, and the Thunderbolts working hand and hand with Reed Richards!)

The big two are trying to come to grips with the real world by putting twists of it into their own works. And yeah, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth too.

I don't think the times alone are responsible for the direction of comics today. Lack of editorial direction and control, those are your more likely suspects.

In the modern quest to be 'edgy' and controversial, all the standards that the characters were held to for the first 40-50 years have been wiped away for the sole sake of selling more books, and in the process almost every book has become a copy-cat mish-mash of crappy plot, weak characterization, retconning, and just plain ignoring what has come before.

I'm not necessarily bashing on edgy and controversial; I loved the first two years of The Authority because they PURPOSELY crapped on almost all the accepted super-hero conventions. But that book and those characters were created specifically to do just that.

Tearing apart yesterday's superheroes and doing a modern rebuild is so much crap; if the characters and comics aren't selling anymore, take the golden age approach and semi-retire the characters, and allow a new generation to come in. Certain characters will always be around, but for the rest of them, lets leave them the way they were, allow them to retire, and bring in a new generation...wait, they did that story. Kingdom Come. Maybe they should look at their own examples of where edginess can lead before they completely destroy so many time loved characters.

-D-

That's the whole problem with the current DC/Marvel universes.

The idea behind comics is to give you something -better-, not a twisted version of the real world. Heroes aren't supposed to be feeding you a bitter pill of cynical reality when you're reading the comics.

And now, they are. And for some reason, almost every new title is being tainted by that same urge to make things "relevant" to now. If I wanted to read about the bad guys getting away and killing people, I'd open a newspaper, not the funny papers. Rape. Murder. A thorough reaming of every moral, upstanding character in the book. Marvel turned Captain America into a criminal, and DC made Wonder Woman a murderer. What's next, Aunt May pulling a pistol and plugging Susan Richards in the head?

I'd like a lot more of what's at the bottom of Pandora's box, too.

Now, if it was REED Richards that she plugged in the head, I don't think nearly as many people would complain.

-D-

I've said it before, I'll say it again - when I read comics, I'm in it for the pretty toy at the bottom of Pandora's Box: Hope.

If they want to come to grips with the real world, they can go ahead - I hear there's good money in that - but I'm not buying unless there's some potential in the plotline they're writing.

Peter Eng
--
I'm only a Charter Member because of the DCForum upgrade, and because there's no rank below "Clueless F!wit."

Speedball.

Seriously. If you're going to whole-hog the Darkness and Angst, don't unearth some lame-ass two-bit weaksauce motherfucker from your We Just Make Terrible Comics 1990s days as the poster child. Make it *count for something.* Make it someone people recognize, someone people identify with. Robbie is not that guy, and trying to make him that guy just makes it a case of "oh, right, Marvel editorial talks a big game but they're *so* not going to follow through with any permanent changes to the universe."

Plus, it's sort of a pale imitation of Geoff Johns and his unholy leg-humping lust for the motherfucking Psycho-Pirate, and that just doubles the lame.

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

Not to sound crass, and certainly not to belittle any deaths that have come from and since 9/11, but the Golden Age of comics happened during the time of Nazi Death Camps, Nuclear Bombs, and Pearl Harbor. The Silver Age happened when Apollo astronauts were burned alive on the launch pad and the threat of a nuclear strike sent people to build bomb shelters. The times we live in are not any worse, really, than the 40's, 50's, and so forth.

During those days characters like Superman and Captain America existed as means of offering, as someone else said, hope for tomorrow. Not even just a better tomorrow, but just a tomorrow. If superheroes today have to reflect the nastiness and hopelessness of our day, then they no longer serve their purpose. If we have to have Superboy beating up Krypto because Columnbine (or pick your own News Event) happened, then what good are they?

At that point the heroes should hang up their capes and let Naruto or Ben Tennyson act as beacons in the night... And, for my money, they kind of already have and do.

Got nothin' wrt Naruto, but the brief sneak preview of the concept art for season-3 ep Ben 10K at Comicon was...

WHY MUST 30-YEAR-OLD BEN BE SO HOT

I FEEL DIRTY

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

(O.K., not really, I am kidding, but it seemed funny in my head.)

EDIT: Also, what is this "Ben 10K" of which you speak. Google's being rather coy today.

Oh, I know how you feel, but only because I had a mildly embarrassing moment with Gwen's voice actor yesterday, wherein I'd mistaken her for the not-preteen wife of another friend of mine. Oops! :)

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

It's one of the first of the next season eps, set 10 years in the future. I assume that means we'll see a legal version of Gwen, too. ;)

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

What was it? I'm always up for some good Robin Hood action.

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

In a weird twist, when I bumped into Tony at the Markosia booth, he recognized _my_ name (from another forum).

Wow, that does look neat. I thought you were talking about the upcoming BBC show until you pointed that out.

I do think there's an arguement for "Superheroes" as a lot of us grew up with surviving only in projects like this, though. People don't (usually) try to overcomplicate folk heroes the same way that Comic heroes seem to be skewered lately, since there's that nice layer of history and myth over them.

Actually, the more I think about it, that's probably part of the problem. Most of the "Save the girl, win the day, laugh as you go" archetypes like Robin Hood, Arthur, etx. tend to get that respect. Anything newer than the 1800s (all that fun "revisiting" of real life heroes like Wyatt Earp and the 'Old West' that kicked up a few years ago) seems to be pushed and prodded because they don't have that protection, and the tales are either set into historical record, or are considered literary subjects.

-BZ, who knows a guy working on a PH.D in Batman.

Arthur?

Save the girl, win the day, sleep with your sister, have your bastard bring your kingdom low, have your woman fuck your best friend, laugh as you go?

Not so much.

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

Maybe he means Arthur from The Tick.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

That said, I think the poster was referring to the early days of Camelot (excepting, of course, the trickery - by Morgause, as I recall - that led to the birth of Mordred). Then, his comment rings true.

Not really. There's not any tragedy to be had if things *always* suck. You've got to have the golden period to have the arc, else there is no tragedy in the first place. Focusing on a fragment of the arc out of context with the rest doesn't make it an archetype.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

But in comics today, they seem to want to revel in the depressing bits. Maybe it's because there IS no ending.

This is where I invariably note that the book that everyone wants to read first on my pull every month is Bill Willingham's Fables, although Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba have Owned My House For Free with Casanova of late as well. Neither of these are superhero books-- Casanova Quinn is, er, rather a bit far from that sort of mold, and high-powered Fables seem to eat the shit end of the stick more often than their less-flashy counterparts-- but there just isn't much in the way of a good, uncomplicated hero read out there lately.

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

Majestic was the last one that I was aware of, and got it canned in less than two years. I firmly believe the problem isn't that "comics suck" so much as it is that "comics as a medium have stagnated." I think all the energy we used to expect from comics has moved on, following the tween and teens, to video games and cartoons.

Gravity was the last one I can remember. It was derivative, but in such a fun way that I didn't mind much.

My verdict remains out until it's done (sometime in the next 10 years, it feels like), but the last issue of Justice started to Turn Towards The Light. The bi-monthly schedule on that is sort of making it hard to follow, so it might read better as a collection. (On a side note, I realize the guy's talented and all, but Jesus Christ I wonder if Alex Ross's booth at Comic Con was as big as his frickin' ego. There were television networks there with smaller setups.)

>Majestic was the last one that I was aware of, and got it
>canned in less than two years. I firmly believe the problem isn't
>that "comics suck" so much as it is that "comics as a medium have
>stagnated." I think all the energy we used to expect from comics has
>moved on, following the tween and teens, to video games and cartoons.

Only it hasn't. I still manage to drop $15-30 a week on my pull, and not out of rote habit-- I'd been out of comics for almost 10 years before picking back up in 2004-- but for things I'm honestly interested in reading. There's plenty of new, interesting stuff being told in the format, you're just less likely to find it anywhere in the Big Two Proper. I can count the number of books I buy a month with the Marvel badge or the DC bullet on one hand. And while, yeah, a chunk of what I'm buying is coming from DC imprints (Vertigo, Wildstorm), many of them are coming from elsewhere. I share Gryph's sense of wonder at the fact that Image, of all people, are pushing some of the best books on the rack now.

We were wandering the indie booths in San Diego this last weekend, and while Rob and Ard were poking around somewhere else I wandered into an adjacent booth to check out a model in a case behind the table the guy sitting there had set up. It was a submarine made to look like a hammerhead shark, and as I checked it out he told me it was designed by one of the guys who did the models for The Thunderbirds. He then proceeded to shove a free copy of his comic in my hand which was named, so help me, Shark-Man. (I'm not entirely sure who I was talking to now, though it certainly wasn't Ronald Shusett, sadly) I'm sitting here giggling just at the thought of it. So I took it and brought it home and, hey, it's not half bad. Slightly goofy, a little disjointed in spots, but I'll give issue 2 a go. Somewhere between Batman and The Phantom. Underwater. In the Future. The first issue is out today in stores, if you're lucky enough to live near a shop that'll stock indy stuff.

So, I dunno. You say stagnant, I say look harder. :)

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

Too much trouble. Why dredge through so much junk when The SciFi Channel, The Cartoon Network, Toon Disney, The Discovery Channel, etc. happily stream it to me on a regular scedule. Heck, thanks to Jetix.tv, I can watch (at least one episode of) Get Ed whenever I want, and let's not forget they sell Mythbusters at iTunes.

Comics, as a hobby, for me, are too much effort for too little reward.

EDIT: This is why I say comics are closer to vinyl records than pop culture. Pop culture just happens, it's the media clutter you stumble over. More and more I'm hearing, from comic fans, that I need to dig deeper to find the good stuff. That sounds more like antiquing or eBaying for flatware than it does anything else.

Hee hee hee. I know you probably didn't mean it this way, but the literal interpretation of your statement is so very accurate. "Why go out to the comics shop and paw through crap when I have hot and cold running crap at home?"

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

In that case, I think you're being far too kind to the Cartoon Network when you remark that they stream you junk "on a regular schedule". Those clowns couldn't hit a time slot in the ass with a bass fiddle. My TiVo knows. Or knew, back when there was anything on CN I watched.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Touche and well met! You point is both apt and well taken.

Then, frankly, the problem is with you and not with Comics.

Edit: That came off as harsh. My only point was that it's not that hard to look somewhere other than DC or Marvel. But, you know, if your deal is you can't be arsed because the Entertain-O-Tron won't drop it in your lap without getting off the couch, that is, in fact, your problem and not a problem with anyone writing comics. :)

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

Quite possibly, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that comics aren't still the pop media they used to be. They're a fantastic medium, a medium that still hasn't passed its prime (paper is still way more of a dynamic, usable media than even CD's), yet it's squandered sitting in specialty shops. I don't think it's be hard to find fun comics if the industry as a whole stopped being so self-important and realized they are to literature what (uh, uh) Jessica Simpson is to Beethoven.

Jessica Simpson is to Beethoven, Stephen King is to Shakesphere, Brett Ratner is to Akira Kurosawa, and Brian Bendis is to Brian Wood. Or Matt Fraction. Or Bill Willingham. Or Garth Ennis. Or about 30 other writers/artists who are continuing on making great work just like every other artistic genre that functions doubly as an industry.

I, for one, am glad Avi Arad is rolling in enough cash to quit Marvel and start his own production company. Mainly because, hey, comic book movies pay my rent. Commercialization sure puts out a lot of crap, but at the same time makes for a more fertile environment for everyone. There are more comics I want to read now than there *ever* has been. And if that means I have to suffer a zillion copies of Civil War tripe on Golden Apple's rack to get to my copy of Battle Pope? So be it.

edit: Just like I had to wade through a zillion copies of X-Force #1 to get to my copy of Hellblazer or whatever else it was I was buying 15 years ago (to the day, almost, in fact). Are things *really* all that different now? ;)

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

Please note, for context's sake, that in his own day Shakespeare was to fine literature as Stephen King is to Shakespeare. :)

Also, I call foul on your mention of Garth Ennis, as his run on Ghost Rider may have been the least comprehensible comic book ever made.

--G.
and yes, that includes the works of Howard "Do What Now?" Chaykin
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Heh, maybe. The closest I've come to reading a superhero (I'm not sure where else you'd fit Ghost Rider) book he's done is his 'Welcome Back, Frank' run of Punisher. Mainly, when I reference Garth, I'm thinking of Hellblazer, Preacher, or any of his multiple indy war comics (303 was a great read). Battler Britton, the first issue of which came out either last week or the week before, looks promising as well, enough so that I'd be tempted to reccomend it to you.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

The Ghost Rider, as he appears in modern comics, isn't really much of a superhero, despite Marvel's continued attempts to portray him as one. He was always the weirdly false note in team-ups he featured in back in the '90s (I have an issue of Fantastic Four featuring him, the Hulk, and Wolverine as guest stars, and he stands out like a sore thumb in every scene he's in). As presented in more recent books, I think his milieu is more akin to something like a Vertigo title, but since Marvel hasn't got a Vertigo-esque imprint, he ends up getting lumped into the main Marvel universe.

I gather Ennis is kind of a sought-after talent in Vertigo-esque circles, so you'd think his run on Ghost Rider would've been a triumph of sorts, but instead it was just an incomprehensible mess. (And badly illustrated, to boot.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

My guess is, this is a case where the author just doesn't understand the character. Somebody can write a good take on one character or group, then wander off and completely screw up a different character.

This is why I'm not particularly inclined to follow authors - most of them, as far as I can tell, don't know what they're bad at. Thus, Ennis on Ghost Rider, Willingham on Robin, and a mess of other train wrecks from people that write really cool stuff some of the time, but don't understand the dynamics of something they didn't create.

Peter Eng
--
I'm only a Charter Member because of the DCForum upgrade, and because there's no rank below "Clueless F!wit."

Also, I find it hard to give that prize to anyone other than Chris Claremont for X-Men: The End. Hoooly shit.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

I was going to reconsider and give it to Howard Chaykin's Green Lantern: Evil's Might, until I remembered that Evil's Might is perfectly comprehensible, it just sucks.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Dude, I'm a 20-year X-fan and X-Men: The End of the X-Men's End with More Men and X-Men, My X-Men was a *steaming, festering pile of donkey cocksuck.* I can *send you my copies* if you require actual proof. Just don't feed them after midnight, they might breed.

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

You're lucky if you think that's as bad as Claremont gets. I've read his Sovereign Seven series. *shudder*

EDIT: Wait. Maybe I'm the lucky one, I'm thinking of a different X-Men story.

I had the most fascinating little chat at Comic-Con with a fellow who works on a Marvel title. It ended with me telling the nice man (and he was a nice man, don't get me wrong) that I was probably planning on dropping any book that Claremont picks up when he recovers. The nice man expressed the sincere hope that I didn't wish Chris any ill as a person, to which I replied "No, never-- I grew up on the man's work. It's not Chris that's the problem, it's, er, Chris's Special Interests and his way of mentioning them on every page these days."

And the nice man looked up, smirked, and gave me the big OK sign. We proceeded to have a nice conversation about Longshot, and nothing more was said about Chris's incoherent lust for mind-controlling dinos for the rest of my time at that table.

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

At least it was aptly named for what came out of it. (W)Hoooly shit, indeed. I gave up on X-men for good around the Xorn/Not Xorn thing (and I actually liked the inital Xorn-before-we-decided-to-make-him-Magneto thing.) though. At that point it'd jumped a feeding frenzy's worth of sharks.

(Exiles is the only Marvel comic left on my pull list at this point. I get more fun out of stuff like KoDT and PS238 than 99.8% of Marvel.)

Ultimate X-Men has been really, really good, though I come from a standpoint of not ever having been a hardcore X-fan. Astonishing was fucking *great* for the first six issues, and then just completely fell apart in the second six, only barely holding together on Joss's dialog. The third arc going on now is marginally better, but I don't know what his deal is, other than he's probably just playing tourist with the whole comics thing.

The biggest surprise of the last couple months: X-Men Fairy Tales. #3 just came out a week or two ago. Fantastic art, well told. Highly reccomended if your shop still has the backissues up, or for the inevitable trade when the run is up.

edit: Oh, and Nextwave. Mustn't forget that.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

This is almost entirely the fault of one company: Diamond. The greedheads at Diamond drove most of the "innovations" that made comics radically more expensive starting in the early '90s - the glossy paper, the special covers, the tonier ads - because they wanted to create a collectors' market where one didn't exist (namely in the "modern comics" sector). They apparently didn't realize that old comics are collectors' items not because they were manufactured to some costly quality standard but because they weren't, and thus became rare and hard-to-find. Nobody pays $40,000 for a copy of Action Comics #1 because it's got a foil cover or because it contains part 1 of the radical, visionary "The Krypton Agenda" story arc or any other such bullshit. They pay that because there's only a few dozen copies of the magazine left in the world.

Some of the most egregious features of that little trend have, happily, died off. Most collectors have realized that they're not going to get rich sitting on a copy of Ghost Rider Vol. 4 #1 for ten years. But the effects of that particular spasm of mercantile fancy remain. People got accustomed to some of the new features and won't accept a return to the old style. There aren't many holofoil covers, but nobody's going to accept a return to cheap paper. The forces that drove comics off newsstands - mainly, the powers that be at Diamond, a virtual distribution monopoly, not wanting them there - remain.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>mainly, the powers that be
>at Diamond, a virtual distribution monopoly, not wanting them
>there - remain.
>

Having had to deal with Diamond personally because of my ex-wife's work, and that because of the fact that if Diamond DOESN'T carry you your access to retailers is crap (Diamond distributed any and all manga and/or comics found at places like Borders, B&N, etc, as well as your local comic shop), I can wholly and completely affirm that they stink like a rancid pile of pig shit. I know for a fact that several companies have pursued filing anti-trust lawsuits against Diamond, but no one has the moxie to pull it off. Anyone big enough to claim 'competitor' status died or was bought out long long ago.

-D-

Wildguard (which is published by Image) mixes superheroes with reality TV. It's kind of tongue in cheek. There's even a character/contestant called Wannabe.

The first set is called 'Wildguard: Casting Call', a 6 issue series which covers the forming of the team (also available as a trade paperback). Then there was a 1 shot called 'Wildguard: Firepower', and more recently 'Wildguard: Fools Gold' which was a 2 part story.

oh, quick warning if you're interested, each issue of Casting Call and Firepower had 2 available covers.

-------------
Lead me not to temptation, for I can find it myself.

...might well be missing the point. (Now, if it was just a "Comics That Don't Suck" thread, you'd probably have to provide evidence of same, but I might not call you on it. ;)

Ard Sumhenner
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

1. "Tongue-in-cheek". While there's certainly room for humorous superhero comics, too often of late the humor has been at the expense of heroic ideals. The idea of a hero that actually believes in heroic ideals is viewed as corny (at best) or naive (at worst)

2. Superheroes as pop culture. Same sort of problem, really. "Who wants to be a superhero" gave me the twitches.

All I want are stories with heroes who act heroically, LIKE being heroes, and are being taken seriously. Thankfully, I can get that here. :)

Second, I've been having fun with some of the Image titles of all things, lately. Invincible is a fun read, very much like Spider Man, with less angst. (Spidey's a fun character, but man, between Venom, that whole clone thing, the Goblins, he's been dicked around more than any other comic character I can think of). Also, while they aren't exactly 'fun and happy', there's been a couple of series by the Luna Brothers..Ultra (Which actually shows a trio of superheroines as *people* and not just their costumes) and Girls (Which is...odd. I have no other way of describing it without spoiling anything.)

Fables is indeed quite good..I's really, really interesting how they've tied the various fairy tales and fables together.

Then of course there's Gold Digger, which, while not exactly a superhero title...

Last I looked, Birds of Prey was still pretty fun, if anyone wants to check that out...

It's not exactly Superhero and it's not exactly happy-go-lucky, but 'Ex Machina' is also a good read, I feel...

Oh, and don't forget Nextwave and Great Lakes Avengers/X-Men. They poke fun at superheroes, and they're both from Marvel.

Planetary is fun, I feel, just to see the 'what ifs' of other companies...

I also like Runaways, which, while not entirely happy-go-lucky again, is still fun.

Also, Y - The Last Man.

While few of these are superhero comics per se, they're still quite enjoyable without a heaping helping of screwing with existing characters to make them 'edgy'.

Oh, and one last thing...Batman, in the beginning, wasn't really an upstanding citizen of the world. He only became like that during the Comics Code Authority years, when anything that wasn't suitable for a God Fearing All-American Boy(tm) was ruthlessly stamped out. Even his distaste for guns was added later. He killed people for not very much reason, he was rude, sexist, and just plain mean, even in his 'Millionaire Playboy' persona, and he didn't think twice about using guns. Not saying his current portrayal is welcome, or, oh, what's the word...*sane*...*competent*...either one will do...It's that he's swung back, like a pendulum...except he went a bit too far to the 'dark side'. Now on top of being obsessed with justice and 'His City' and whatnot, he's also a paranoid monster who causes more trouble than he fixes.

'Quiet, or papa spank!'