The men who destroyed super hero comics...

[Mr.Marion]

I don't think its fair to say Miller or Moore killed the comics you love. But I understand your opinion. Comics were going in that direction anyway. There was a time when Aquaman wasn't cool because he lived underwater and communicated with sea life. Those fantasy elements were looked downed upon when you had Daredevil and Punisher. Captain America's run in the mid to late 80's was beyond awful. Because the writers didn't know what to do with a then outdated character.

[The Bat]

It's nice to hear such optimism from you hue! And your right, things do change...it's the one constant in the Universe.

[huedell]

we live in a world where Lynda Carter and Adam West now star in their own DC Comics, and if we're unhappy with the past two decades, there are quite literally 100 years worth of comics content available to us with a couple of clicks. If this isn't the new Golden Age, I don't know what is.

Now, THAT'S the spirit!

I empathize with those who aren't getting what they want from modern comicbooks and superhero culture overall---heck, to me, this kind of entertainment is as holy to me as the next guy who posts on these boards----but things DO change.

That's not the bean-counter's fault. It's just the way the universe works.

That said: There's always gonna be a way to be loyal to a comicbook brand, a way to be a collector, a way to find "the good stories", a way to be a fan---ya just haveta shift your perspective a bit to see a world that's shifted---the way worlds tend to do

[samurainoir]

we live in a world where Lynda Carter and Adam West now star in their own DC Comics, and if we're unhappy with the past two decades, there are quite literally 100 years worth of comics content available to us with a couple of clicks. If this isn't the new Golden Age, I don't know what is.

[VintageMike]

My opinion is the men who destroyed comics as we knew them are the men who destroy pretty everything: Men who sit in a board room and bean counters who are penny wise and pound foolish. I could give numerous examples but I'll make condense.
One poor decision after another by people who over complicate things and can't grasp the simple stuff.

Simple stuff like if you provide good stories and art people will buy. The current mentality through is endless reboots and events to keep people buying. The problem with that is that is whether you love or hate whatever the "new" presentation is everything is rendered meaningless. Case in point: there's a small buzz about the current issue of "All-New X-Men" because a character is revealed as being gay. Which I would think is not only passe in 2015 but a new "Secret Wars" is coming up where basically everything will be rebooted. Some things may remain while others will go. So this big reveal may mean nothing in two months. Tomorrow is constantly sacrificed for today.

Tying into the above, think about this, these decision makers constantly mess with comics but when it comes to licensing images for clothing etc it's almost always the "classic" versions of the characters. These products obviously sell. But still these genius who are raking in it can't put two and two together. Not saying things should never change but a natural evolution/update would work better overall reboots.

Another easy fact they miss: When you are dealing with a published fantasy world readers are investing themselves in those worlds/characters. Throwing everything in upheaval for a quick buck, for "new" readers and attention while crapping on existing readers who have not only supported their business but contrary to popular belief have long lives ahead. These folks being alienated might even have introduced their kids!

Failure to keep up digitally: Here's a great medium for get people on. They'll give a million reasons why but $3.99 is too high for new comic. The price of comic books have outpaced inflation quite a bit. I'll even give them the fact that publishing is hurting and physical book is a "boutique" item. No way the digital copy should be the same price. Marvel at least has some grasp on this as they include a free digital copies with new books, and there's Marvel Unlimited which is basically Netflix for comics. But you have plenty of new readers and more existing readers willing to cut some slack if they could keep or get in at a lower price point.

[huedell]

Hue - Yep. I'm totally with you in the tech wave. That's the major difference with the web compared to previous mediums. The bridge gate is down for entry, compared to studio publishing/productions of the past where the gate was up and the moat was full.

That was actually one of the main lobbying propositions to the Comcast/Time-Warner Cable merger; raise the financial bar to protect studio productions. Same thing coming from Net Neutraility.

Thanks for the reply hedrap---not only does that magnify my gut feeling of "hope" for media entertainment's future, but it also means you totally vibed my question, even though my posts' syntax lost its plot/inquiry halfway through

[hedrap]

If that's regarding what I wrote Dwayne, I meant Miller/ Moore were influence by the pop culture shift towards Midnight Cowboy and Last House then Marvelmania.

Hue - Yep. I'm totally with you in the tech wave. That's the major difference with the web compared to previous mediums. The bridge gate is down for entry, compared to studio publishing/productions of the past where the gate was up and the moat was full.

That was actually one of the main lobbying propositions to the Comcast/Time-Warner Cable merger; raise the financial bar to protect studio productions. Same thing coming from Net Neutraility.

[enyawd72]

I think the popularity of Marvel's titles with adult college students during the 1960's while still maintaining a rather conservative/wholesome approach to the storytelling proves that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore simply took comic storytelling to a place it never should have gone, and didn't need to be in the first place, IMO.

The mid to late 1980's Spider-Man arc also reinforces this. The latter half of that decade saw the black costume saga, as well as the birth of the Hobgoblin and Venom, two of the most successful modern age villains ever created without deviating from the classic Marvel storytelling style. Readers both young and old embraced these stories because they were GOOD, not because they were adult or exploitative. Truly good stories don't need to be.

[huedell]

The medium then has to die and be reborn, but comics, like all entertainment now, are about perpetual IP - trademarks and copyrights. The birth-death-rebirth cycle is artificially stopped, forcing the medium into a half-life.

Ok, let's say I hear what you're saying and I agree with you that this is likely what is happening. If I were to hold out hope that with newer more powerfully efficient technology (to create and distribute new media) that there's going to be SO much product made for our favorite franchises that, altho' the majority of it will be senseless pandering, the raw aspect of recognition that good storytellers/filmmakers get will be enough to substantiate good product to always be found---albeit amidst a large sea of disposable stuff?

[hedrap]

I cannot discard the horror and crime books of the 40's and 50's. They were brutally exploitative. Wertham was a dictatorial nut, but EC Comics and it's knockoffs gave him a ton of ammo. Decapitations, bound women/in peril, glorified gangsters,etc..Kirby made his living working on these books alongside romance titles.

What I see Dwayne's big question as, is who co-mingled these genres and why. While it's definitely about money, by the 70's it was no longer only a publisher competition. By the 70's, TV had been devouring what were once reliable young readers for an entire generation. Some of these most loved shows on this site - Batman '66, Spidey '66, Alex Toth, SuperFriends - drew some new readers to comics in the start of the Silver Age, but by '75, they had turned into competition do to the advent of syndication. That, in turn, transformed shows originally made for adults - Trek, Twilight Zone, Limits - into Saturday afternoon programming.

Then add-in the effect TV had on movies. Theatrical audience attendance was clipped twice, first when TV arrived, the second when it went to color. So at the same time as the Silver Age begins, a growing fissure starts within film. For example, in '64 Goldfinger was the highest grossing movie, but 2nd and 3rd? Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady, with Lady winning the Oscar. While all three were audience-wide crowd pleasures, also nominated in '64 was Strangelove and it's at that point, a split widens between films made for artistic merit, audience be damned, and mass appeal.

From '65-'69, you see a tectonic change between what was box office popular/gross, the Academy nominees and the award winners. Within five years, we go from My Fair Lady winning the Oscar, to Midnight Cowboy. That's a huge cultural shift. This opened up more marketplace for Roger Corman and his fellow B-Listers, but it also made them look into more graphic fare. So we go from Psycho in 1960, to Last House on The Left in '72.

So who is growing up in this period? Frank Miller and Alan Moore were teenagers. Television had become the outlet for broadcasting, a term which actually meant "casting for the broadest audience possible", while movies were on a downward slide from 'the late 60's, until Jaws and Star Wars. The guaranteed audience for the comic industry, boys 7-15, was halved by the mid-70's, and the new writers coming in were the first generation raised on reading Marvel/DC comics, not pulp magazines or movies. These writers still had a feel for what worked, but the second generation who arrived in the 80's understood comics in the larger context of the 70's, where comics had influenced the movie and TV creators. When Moore and Miller hit, they were doing what was the norm in their youth; subverting a medium. But it's the next generation, the Image gang, who saw the exploitative opportunity, minus the context.

It becomes a pretty clear pattern that by the time you reach the second generation raised on a certain medium, the creative destruction of the pioneers and first generation leaves only subversion and exploitation for the second-gen newcomers. The medium then has to die and be reborn, but comics, like all entertainment now, are about perpetual IP - trademarks and copyrights. The birth-death-rebirth cycle is artificially stopped, forcing the medium into a half-life.

[huedell]

I'm going to play Devil's advocate for a minute. I think comics had to evolve or die out. As fond as I am of the old stuff(and I have lots of them in my collection)...can you imagine if Doctor Doom was still spouting things like..."It was you who sought to defeat me, but in the end it is I who will ultimately destroy you!" If a writer try to write something that over the top now a days he'd be fired. I'm not defending the lost of innocence of the "glory days" of comics. But like us...comics grew up as well. It's just a simple fact of life...evolve or die.

I'm gonna go with your "evolve or die being necessary" and T-bolt's "blame the audience" bit for now ^^^^---anything else in the "finger-pointing/blame" mold would drive me batty this early in the morning.

[The Bat]

This is a great discussion. Is it the subject matter, or how it is handled? We're agreeing that Miller and Moore changed comics forever, but before them, Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil did some pretty controversial stories also.

I LOVE Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil ! I grew up on their Batman...they changed Batman before Miller did. Brought him out of the 60's Camp...back to the Dark Knight detective that he is! Those were some great Comics(I own them all).

[Hedji]

No, you cannot! Well, you can but I'll hate you for it. To Me...Jim Lee is THE BEST Artist in the business...period! But I will say he does need to be paired with the right Writer....like Jeph Loeb in their "Hush" series. Best Batman comics I've read in YEARS!

Tee hee. You can like him, and I will not hate you for it. It's just that every other artist wants to be him too. He and McFarlane are to me the architects of the modern look of comics, which are not to my liking.


This is a great discussion. Is it the subject matter, or how it is handled? We're agreeing that Miller and Moore changed comics forever, but before them, Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil did some pretty controversial stories also. Oddly, though, the Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories didn't seem to impact all of comicdom the way that Dark Knight and Killing Joke did. (I really love those books, though. The Heroes were still Heroes. Hard-hitting, yes. But heroes.) But I imagine some readers who are older than us were pretty put off by Speedy shooting up heroin.

[palitoy]

Comics needed to evolve, extreme violence and gratuitous sex is not really evolving, tho. Its pandering. Just look to Byrne's Fantastic Four to see how better complex storytelling makes for better comics.

Right, exploitation isn't grown up, "boobs and blood" isn't kids stuff but it often isn't used maturely.

I will disagree on the gay characters, comics have always been about progress and change. By adding more minorities in the 60s, more strong females in the 70s, the writers were hoping for brighter days. I wish more comic fans punched down than up....

[The Bat]

Jim Lee to the list

No, you cannot! Well, you can but I'll hate you for it. To Me...Jim Lee is THE BEST Artist in the business...period! But I will say he does need to be paired with the right Writer....like Jeph Loeb in their "Hush" series. Best Batman comics I've read in YEARS!