In all seriousness though, I had much more of a problem with the 1980′s animated series of GI Joe where you had dozens of characters firing what looked suspiciously like M-16′s and AK-47s at each other and .. oddly enough.. a total lack of the life shattering consequences you would expect from same. But then, for all I know Snake-Eyes and Cobra Commander wore their masks because they were missing large chunks of their faces.

For that matter I have more of a problem with the fact that there is a kids cartoon on tv now that features a cute, three fingered version of Wolverine. Not because Wolverine has killed more people than the swine flu, but because how are the claws supposed to pop out between his fingers when he has the same number of fingers as claws. It just seems like a logistical nightmare.. ok I’ve lost track of what my point was, carry on.

I don’t know, it’s fucking comic books. If I wanted to see halves of human bodies, I’d go to Bagram again.

?!!?!?!!

Uhh. Maybe because I’m American I don’t have the right perspective, but could you explain that? Not seeing the connection.

So I object on the basis of repetitiveness. None of this ‘oh think of the children’ here.

It always comes back to Americans seemingly being deeply traumatized since 9/11 and living out their traumas in fiction. I mean, it seems pretty obvious in retrospect that a lot of franchises went with “darker and edgier” at around that point.

Let’s hope that they got it out of their system in more or less one decade and we get back to good stories featuring good guys.

It’s hard for me to say exactly why comic creators have moved in this direction, apart from a general “darker is better” and “we have to always RAISE THE STAKES” mentality, which I think overlooks the complexity of tone and atmosphere and balance within a story. Or it may just be that they really want to be making horror or crime or gritty action comics, but superheroes are where the money is.

Long story short, I think a lot of good would come of forcing Bendis, Johns, etc. to sit down and watch some of DOCTOR WHO’s best episodes to see how you can do family entertainment without sacrificing creepiness or sadness or drama. Seriously, “The Doctor Dances” would blow Johns’ mind.

You know what? The current comic book fanbase will stay no matter how much they get pissed on. The hardcore fans are pretty pathetic, and they’ll keep buying the Superman books with no Superman and the Batman books with no Batman, and the gore-heavy books, and the big events, and the weekly series. They will stay NO MATTER WHAT, and even if some miraculously leave, it really doesn’t matter, because both companies make the bulk of their profits on licensing rather than publishing. So moving to an all-ages direction is a smart financial move, no matter how nervous bloodthirsty fanboys get about it. They’ll stay, because they have so little else in their lives. They may not deserve good comics anymore, but kids do.

The phrase “It’s always darkest before dawn” comes to mind. This is the half-way point of Siege. This is Osborn and his goons at their most powerful, just before Steve Rogers and the real heroes take them down and return things to the “Way It Ought To Be”. This is the demostration of what is wrong just now that has to be addressed. If it isn’t dark, then it misses the point. This isn’t the start of the Heroic Age, this is the end of the Dark Age and that’s an important distinction.

On a different note, the idea that kids are still reading comics and therefore comics should be kid friendly is laughable. The kids are GONE, and while it might be a good idea to try to bring them back, doing so by pissing off your existing audience just leads to bankruptcy. Just ask WCW how that change from Rasslin’ to Sports Entertainment under Russo went.

I don’t mind blood and gore in comics–or anywhere else outside of real life. It just seems weird that Marvel has decided shiny and heroic is the way to go, but instead of actually doing shiny and heroic stories, they just hit the ugly notes harder now. Almost as if they’re just planning to go back to business as usual, but still want to be able to say “See? 30% more shiny and heroic now.”