Destroying Comics: Comics For Kids

Marvel's late "kids" line, Star Comics

Every the comics' gadfly, I thought I'd chime in on a little tidbit that bounced around the virtual talk box yesterday, bleeding into today, even.

Roger Langridge, popular writer of Thor the Mighty Avenger, got things rolling with this quote from his blog, which was later reposted by Robot 6 on CBR:

I really don’t think Marvel and DC are helping things by having gritty, R-rated versions of their superheroes in their main comics – what they sell as the “real” versions – while simultaneously selling those exact same characters in kids’ comics and plastering them all over lunchboxes and animated cartoons… Casual readership by kids, or by parents for their kids, is effectively impossible the way things are currently structured. And I think the waters are muddied too far now to claw that ground back. I think it’s insane that DC have spent 70 years making Superman as big as Mickey Mouse, and branding him to be understood by parents as being pretty much as kid-friendly as Mickey Mouse, only to piss that brand away in a decade. Nothing wrong with doing mature content in comics – in fact, it should be encouraged as often as possible – but doing it with characters who are on your kids’ lunchboxes is kind of moronic. Take a lesson from Watchmen and come up with new characters for that stuff. And then go back to Superman and Batman and put the same kind of love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve been putting into all those rape scenes and body mutilations into something kids can read, and adults can also be proud to read because of all the love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve put into it, and make those the “real” versions.

People who both a) read comic books and b) like to post their views online ran with this quote.  Many, of course, agreed with Langridge, and pointed towards things like death, violence, rape, vomiting blood, sleeping with Norman Osborne, what have you as examples that, hey, those aren't the people on my kids' sheets!  It's crazy that the Big Two are marketing two different versions of the same characters!

Others responded with "I like my adult superheroes doing adult things and I don't want Batman patting bad guys on the head just because some brat out there wears Batman Underoos."

Idiot Box: Why Chuck Fell Apart

Last week's episode of Chuck dropped to a 1.3 in the ratings, a series low.  Since that would appear to be the last nail in the Chuck coffin (barring a miracle or the WB agreeing to sell the rights to NBC at a reduced rate for the sake of reaching the syndication point), I thought I'd take a look back at the show and figure out what exactly went wrong.

Destroying Comics: Important Issues

In the penultimate Meltcast (the podcast put out by the fine folks at Meltdown Comics), Caleb, Sam, Chris, and Aaron give their top 5 lists for the greatest comic books of all time.  It's an interesting discussion, and I invite you to listen to it, as well as the 73 previous Meltcasts (and the 1 later).

My wife is a film editor.  A few years ago, the post-production team on a movie she was working on decided to share their top 10 favorite films of all time.  You could probably imagine what a list like that, created by people in the industry, would look like...I don't think I'd seen most of them.  One of the movies that Nicole put on her list was Garden State.

One of the other people on the post-production team told my wife that, as she got older and saw more movies and as time passed from when she saw Garden State (it was the movie of the moment around this time), it would eventually fall off her list.  In other words, he was saying it wasn't a particularly good movie.

Destroying Comic Books: Hollywood Will Save Us

I know how you feel, too, Cap.

As rumored for some time -- as mentioned just the other day int his blog -- Steve Rogers is retaking the mantle of Captain America, just in time for the release of the Captain America movie.  Marvel, to their credit, have actually come right out and said that they realized there would be no better time to bring Steve back as Cap than when the movie was released.  They are making a publishing decision based upon a movie.

And I'm actually fine with that.  But it's not all they're doing.

The latest issue of Iron Man sold more than 41K copies.  This is actually 6K more than the final issue released before it was restarted the month that the movie came out.  In defense of that series, though, it had sales of around 40K earlier in its run, so it's not like this new run is blowing it out of the water.  In other words, the new version, which was started the month the movie came out, isn't really doing any better than the last version...it hasn't picked up any new readers.

But, that first issue of Iron Man that came out the same month as the movie sold over 100K copies.  That's crazy.  It's crazy to think that it sold that many because it was a) a new #1 and b) had a movie out.  It's also crazy to think that it has dropped 60K in under 3 years -- and that's with a creative team that is, by all accounts, doing a hell of a job on the book (I don't read it; I can't get past the fact that Tony looks like Sawyer from Lost -- I know it's minor, but it bugs the hell out of me).

What does this tell us?

Destroying Comics: The Return of CrossGen

My whole "Destroying Comics" series fell apart after a few entries, basically because life got in the way.  But I realized that I write about comic books so often that perhaps approaching these topics as if they are finite is a bad move.  So this is the first, non-sequential episode of "Destroying Comics."

After all my railing against corporate comic books, it would seem strange for me to say anything positive about CrossGen, a company that was, perhaps, the epitome of corporately owned comic books.  It was also seem strange for me to say anything positive about the return of some of their properties, this time from Marvel, one of the Big Two I so frequently attack.

And yet...

Nightwing Might Break Me

From the Newsarama.com write up of the DC Nation panel at WonderCon today:

"When asked about Dick Grayson, DiDio unbuttoned his overshirt to reveal a Nightwing t-shirt."

This might sound insane, but this news -- or at least what was implied -- had me pretty annoyed.  Fear my nerd rage, DC, fear it!

Why did this bother me so much?  Because it was, yet again, a reminder that mainstream superhero comic books thrive on the allusion of change, but nothing ever will -- particularly when dealing with a corporately owned character.