Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Comics in
We're in the middle of the second season of the Sci-Fi Network's Who Wants to Be A Superhero, the 'reality' show where a bunch of folks in homemade costumes are winnowed down to the single contestant who best 'represents what superheroes are all about.' Among the prizes is a Dark Horse comic book featuring their character, though they shouldn't hold their breath waiting for it; the release of the comic starring last year's winner, Feedback, was delayed for an entire year without explanation. At Dark Star we have a file customer who really wanted a copy...and on average would call every other week asking where it was.
I don't care for the program - and not because it doesn't 'take superheroes seriously' (as Bill Griffith continues to inform us in his daily Zippy The Pinhead comic strip, superheroes are inherently grotesque and ridiculous and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for wasting our time on them), but for the same reason I don't like the entire 'reality' genre: I had enough embarrassment and humiliation in high school to last a lifetime, thank you.
But also because the show isn't doing our industry any favors by presenting superheroes in a way so disconnected from the way super-heroes (hyphen intentional) are depicted in contemporary comic books. Most WWTBASH contestants' conception of a superhero is stuck at that classic cross between fairy godmother and old school kid's TV show host who spouts public service announcement sound bites about good citizenship while helping find lost little girls.
If the show was to give an accurate depiction of a modern superhero's life one of the show's challenges might go something like, 'OK Mr. Mitzvah, your girlfriend has been killed and stuffed in a refrigerator, your mother killed by a sentient space Ebola virus and you've just discovered your government is complicit in the operation of a death camp that executed 6,000 men, women and children*, what do you do?'
No longer are they vigilantes willing to bend the law to bring criminals to justice; today's superheroes are essentially cops, the kind trying to make a difference inside a corrupt system because they really care, man. In a recent issue of Teen Titans there's a scene that could have been from an episode of Law & Order where, while investigating the death of Duela Dent the gang are called 'nobodies' by a Sarah Michele Gellar doppelganger...and they just stand there and take it.
Though in the Marvel Universe, superheroes are more the way FBI Agents are depicted on cop shows: smug, self-satisfied jerks more interested in personal grudges and private agendas than closing cases. Though I find it both terribly sad and unintentionally hilarious that in spite of the fact that their superheroes are now very much a part of 'the establishment,' Marvel still loves to trot out the hoary cliche of the 'secret government.' Like in the first issue of The Order, where a mysterious agent wearing sunglasses suddenly swoops in, says he's from a super secret branch of the government that automatically outranks theirs and hauls off a recently captured villain (which he heavily hints was created by the government in the first place), and our 'heroes' just kind of take his word for it without, you know, asking for his identification let alone a warrant.
Making me wonder, knowing what we know about their lives today, who would willingly want to be a superhero?
Well, kids of course; kids love superheroes. They play superhero, play with superhero action figures, dress up like them for Halloween and watch superhero cartoons like Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom and Cartoon Network's Ben 10, both of which have young heroes and all the classic types and tropes of the genre (secret identities which can never be shared with anyone, except their personal support team, a personal rogue's gallery of villains who are almost always caught, etc.). As I've mentioned before, kids entering Dark Star almost always stop dead in their tracks when they get to the comic book racks, seemingly hypnotized by dynamism of the comic book covers...
Which is usually when the parents tell the kids not to touch and drag them back to the used children's book section. Or I'm peppered by parents with questions about the suitability of the comics, the big one always being 'is this comic violent?,' which invariably leads to a discussion about what constitutes 'violence' and rarely ends with a sale.
Which is why I'm so pleased with the announcement this weekend at the Wizard World Chicago about the retooling of the Johnny DC line. We desperately need titles like Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam (who better to try and recapture some of the wonder and wish fulfillment inherent in the original Captain Marvel than Mike Kundel of Herobear and the Kid?) and Super Friends (once again there'll be smiling superheroes who rescue cats from trees) that can be enjoyed by the youngest readers--and which their parents can feel good about.
Finally, isn't serendipity funny? As someone that absolutely loves Golden Age comics, and who sometimes feels himself very much alone in that devotion, it's interesting how many creators (JMS' and Chris Westons The Twelve, Alex Ross' Superpowers and Eric Larson Next Issue Project) have simultaneously decided to reexamine the earliest days of superheroes. Maybe by looking back we can figure out just where we've gone so terribly wrong.
*In case you missed it, in a recent issue of X-men, The Beast discovers the ruins of a secret concentration camp that performed medical experiments on mutants, but never for a second considers reporting it to CNN, let alone the authorities, or tries to bring those responsible to justice. He has his own problems, which says a great deal about what's wrong with superhero comics today.
The opinions expressed in this column is solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.