Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in
The September 19th issue of Entertainment Weekly had a piece that speculated on the resurgence of the culture wars in time for the November elections, but concluded that even with the Red/Blue* State schism, America presently has too much on its plate to get all worked up over supposed “filth” in popular culture.
Happily I missed this example, but the piece reported how in the first five minutes of the new version of Beverly Hills 90210, a pair of teenagers engaged in oral sex and the CW Network received a grand total of two calls of complaint. The Parents Television Council pressured advertisers to pull their commercials from the program but so far none have. And there was this startling quote from Dr. Bill Maier of Focus On The Family:
“The culture has changed so dramatically our whole thing now is to help parents understand the culture their kids are growing up in. That’s the best we can do.”
I admit there have been times after Marvel or DC had done something particularly transgressive to one of their characters (say, Marvel making Satan Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage counselor) I’ve wondered why isn’t The 700 Club all over this? The answer appears to be that the heyday of the decency advocacy group in
And if they can, so can I. I’ve been writing about my discontent with modern superhero comics content here for a couple of years now under the assumption there was a simple course correction for the current direction. As a reader and retailer I believed superhero comics were supposed to be for everyone and one way for them to reflect society would be to adopt the standards of broadcast television as opposed to the edgier fare of cable. That way maybe we could enjoy a thrilling adventure of Superman without receiving a gratuitous flash of
My problem was believing that there still existed a line between the standards of broadcast and basic cable, but as that episode of 90210 made clear, we can no longer comfortably assume every network TV show can be watched by everyone anymore. Broadcast networks have become so desperate to lure back the twentysomethings who’ve abandoned them for basic cable shows like Nip/Tuck, The Shield, and Rescue Me they’re constantly stretching their own standards to stay competitive.
And that’s happened to comics as well. For a while I was complaining bitterly how superhero comics were using the Law & Order programs as a template (except to be more “realistic” the bad guys always won), but now there’s a push to make them ever edgier, like when Wonderdog met Wendy and Marvin (It just hit me--iconic childhood characters acting wildly out of character meeting an unexpected bloody end--that isn’t a story, that’s a sixty second Robot Chicken sketch).
I realize that reacting to new situations and coming to a different conclusion makes me a poor pundit but that’s the new reality of superhero comic books, and I’m just going to have to accept it. But don’t worry, when publishers do something I consider particularly egregious I am going to say something, but hopefully those comments with come in the form of information a retailer could use. I mean, I bet a lot of you could have sold a lot more (well, some, any, anyway) copies of Batman Confidential #18 (a.k.a. The Most Naked Batman Comic Ever) if DC had just let us know Barbara Gordon was going to be running around in it 98% naked.
And knowing DC Comics still believes there’s a line they can’t cross gives me hope, otherwise why pulp three comic books in one week, over language, iconic characters drinking alcohol (after having been portrayed as a father to an illegitimate kid in Superman Returns, it’s nice knowing Time-Warner still cares about Clark) and, well, people are still trying to figure out why they pulped DCU Decisions #1 (DC’s continued silence on the subject is probably an indication that, like so many things, it’s none of our business). Me, I would have done it on principal, the principal it was both absolutely unnecessary and achingly dull.
Finally, I was writing about the level of violence Marvel superheroes were using against the invading Skrulls in the pages of the Secret Invasion titles. As gruesome as it’s been so far it seems to me if they wanted a war between super powered beings to be “realistic” it would probably go more the way it did in the pages of Invincible #52 (somebody get a mop).
* If DC Comics had really wanted to get their superheroes involved in politics they should have done it the way good old Julie Schwartz would have; exposure to Red Kryptonite recreates Superman Red/Superman Blue, except this time they’re diametrically opposed instead of duplicates and decide the best way to eliminate all of earth’s problems is by running against each other for President of the United States. I see Nightwing and Flamebird as their VP’s and former President Luthor doing commentary for Fox News.
The opinions expressed in this Talk Back column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
