Did you see the Batman movie of the 1960? It was fantastic.
http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/niven/142/index.html
However, I don’t understand why you would say he is not a superher? He is owned by DC, which along with Marvel, has copyright to the phrase “super hero” and he is a masked adventure and vigilante, just like Black Canary, or The Flash.
Sounds to me like Superman FLICKED that particular guy big time.
Correct me if I’m wrong but Batman is still a mortal human with no super powers. Smart, strong and a little crazy but otherwise a regular guy.
Yeah, I sas the Batman movie. Fun and campy but that caped crusader is hardly menacing to bad guys.
Padeye. If Superman lost all his powers, but still stood for the same things and fought for justice the same way – would he still be a superhero?
Of course! Because being a superhero isn’t about powers, it’s about behavior.
Batman is a superhero because he lives by the superhero’s rigid code of conduct, similar to Superman. Although I grant you Batman today is very nearly an antihero but he’s definitely of the legitimate superhero tradition.
I’d say it’s almost more about having a costume and code name. Moral concern come second.
Menocchio. So… a nun is not a nun unless she has her habit and is addressed as Sister Whatever?
No. What essentially makes a nun a nun, and a superhero a superhero – what distinguishes the clergy, teachers, doctors, lawyers, firemen, etc. even after they retire – is how they adhere to the code of conduct of their professions.
Costumes, names, weapons, headquarters – all just trappings of their office.
The code of conduct, the overall behavior, is at the heart of a superhero. Moral concerns are just a part of that code.
What you say is true from a marketing/visual standpoint, but not for the essence of a character.
This thread has taken off an ran away from me in a way I never expected. It seems to have done so in a good way however. So, I will go with the new topic, not withstand that I believe that the “two universe” explanation of batman’s no-longer taking lives is bull.
Now, Menocchio, I haven’t heard a thank you for the comics list that I posted. Bone was in their by mistake. Cerebus, however was not.
You say that you think that Batman is getting to dark. In my proposition in post one I said to divide the lines into an all ages line and a older readers thread. Give the reader who are currently working one the newer, dark batman titles permission to get more real world issues. It would take awhile, but with increased freedom, I believe it would work. The vertigo titles already do something like this, but with original characters and lesser known titles. A monthly Batman version of this would satisfy me, and countless others, I am sure. Writers already try to do this, and sometimes they have a problem writing stories that satisfy their intellect and write for children at the same time and in one issue of the hulk, a writer tried to tackle issues better handled in “Heavy Metal” and wound up making one of the worst issues of all time. Hulk Annual 2000 (Feb 2001)
At the same site is an article that goes towards your points, I have read it and am not convinced, but still, it covers your points. http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/niven/142/opinion/opi60.html
Yep. Otherwise she’s just a pious woman. The trappings of being a nun, the habit, the titles, the vows, are what distinguishes a nun from the rest of the good Catholics. You are defining a hero. That’s an interesting discussion, but ultimately a much more complex one than defining a superhero, which I think is simply a matter of sticking to a set of tropes, most importantly a codename and a costume. It’s a matter of genre, not morality.
For example, take James Bond. He is not a superhero. But, were he to wear a domino mask on missions and go by the name “007” all the time, he’d be a superhero.
Scott_plaid, the fact that you can list a dozen or so comics that are family friendly, all of them somewhat obscure and some of them not even superheroes (and aren’t Bone and Cerebus over, anyway?), only proves my point. Where’s Superman on that list? Where’s Batman and Wonder Woman and Spider-Man? The challlenge should be to find well-written superhero titles that aren’t kid accessible, not the other way around.
I’m also not sure what you were trying to prove with that Hulk link. Yes. It looks like that story sucked. So? I’d guess it would still suck even if they could be more explict. It looks like it’s just a bad idea.
As for dividing the Batman (and other mainstream heroes) line, it could work, and if it would mean a return of a less crazy, slightly less grim Batman with accessible continuity (ie, you’d only have to follow one title, and picking it up as a new reader would be easy), I’d accept it as a compromise. I wouldn’t be optimistic for its success, however. DC decided that two ongoing continuities were too hard to follow once, and they could do it again. They’d have to make sure that they were clearly differentiated in marketting, enough so a kid wouldn’t pick up the adult title and see Batman doing Catwoman doggy-style while the Joker bleeds to death in the corner. It’d be tricky. Not impossible, but it would be better, I think, to simply work with new characters and obscure ones that nobody wants to use, and let Batman and other famous characters revert to being kid accessible.
Your bouncing boy link does touch on what I’m getting at. Thank you. Here’s another link for you: http://www.geocities.com/cheeksilver/wisdom1.htm
(Cheeks is instrumental in shaping my worldview on comics today. His site is sadly defunct, but has been copied and cached at several places, sometimes without graphics, as it is here. It’s an effort to find that stuff these days, but I recommend it)
I think my view is best expressed on that page by this quote:
The origin of superhero was in pulp fiction. In the beginning there were both absurd heroes and grim and gritty ones. This continued until that trash that called itself a book, "Seduction of the innocent " by that real life supervillian, Dr. Fredric Wertham came out and they were reduced to what you claim. I might mention that the books attention was to drive EC Comics, publisher of a lotta’ horror comics and Mad magazine, nearly out of business. The art form then became as narrowly defined as you do, and then , for a long time, kids lost interest. The publishers turned to romance, cowboy and drama comics and slowly more adult elements began to filter into comics. Interest surged.
You are defining a genre as what has happened during one specific period of the art form. I don’t see it. Feel fine to read only comic books written for children, but don’t be afraid to go to the back issue bin of your local comic book store for good stories, and as for the Cerebus no longer being published there is such a thing as a graphic novel. If you really have such a disdain for your local comic book store, then order on-line. I assume you know how to go online.
P.s. The above timeline is to the best of my recollection, and may be completely off base. As for what a more mature line, specifically of super hero comics might be like, read the short fiction stories inSuperheroesand in Wildcards
Study guide:
the slow heath death of ec comics:
http://www.fullyarticulated.com/EC.html
http://www.cvalley.net/~canote/da.html
http://www.psu.edu/dept/inart10_110/inart10/cmbk4cca.html
evolution of superheros:
http://www.reconstruction.ws/032/mottazzi.htm
http://users.moscow.com/qayne/IntroAlterEgo.htm
I’m well aware of the history of comics, and the Wertham scandal. The comics code is stupid, and was primarily intended to drive EC out of business.
I’m saying it worked out for the best, eventually. That the fantastic, light-hearted Silver Age was both the artistic and economic pinnacle of comics. The pushing of comics into specialty stores, the all but intentional exclusion of young readers and casual readers of every age, is killing the comic industry. I don’t just want to see youth comics because they’re good, I want to see them because they’ll sell!
Hollywood gets it. No, seriously. Look at the films being made. Spider-Man, Superman, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Batman, The Incredibles (not a comic, but a loving tribute to the genre) these are the types of comics I’m talking about. These are the types of stories and the types of heroes with massive popular appeal. Even Burton’s Batman, dark as it was, still qualifies. Hollywood is trying to be more like the comics of the silver age, while comics disown the best part of their history!
I don’t have a cite and I don’t have time to look right now, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the case. I’m pretty sure comics, on the whole, sold way more in the Golden Age than any time since.
Also, there are a lot of comics that play off silver age themes. Untold Tales of Spider-Man was one of the best books of the mid-to-late 90’s, there’s JLA: Year One, Astro City, Grant Morrison’s JLA, Invincible, New Frontier, even John’s run on Flash. I hardly thing comics are “disowning part of their history” (and even if they were, aren’t they allowed to evolve like any other artform?).
It also seems that if you think that most superhero comics published right now aren’t kid accessible for reasons other than a lack of self-contained stories, you have some pretty strict standards. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any reason why I’d object to a younger child reading any of the major superhero books published by Marvel or DC right now (except for maybe stuff like the Marvel Knights books, which are designated as being for older audiences anyway).
I admit it’s better now than it was in the 1990’s, which is a very good thing. For awhile there, all you saw were big guns and bigger breasts.
Menocchio, I loved The Incredibles. One reason out of many, that seems to go against your points that I loved it for it’s hearkening back to the golden age, with a high body count of villains and thugs. It is not necessary to have a hero break a thugs spine with a well-placed kick and a sickening crunch, but instead to toss thugs who may or may not know how to swim, into the water, when at a dockyard.
P.S. Body count of the Incredibles, one villain, multiple off-screen superheroes, one screen former Cyclops type hero, now currently a skelington, and multiple thugs whose vehicles were blown up-without have been equiped with GI-Joe style ejection seats.
Remember when Dash landed on a hovering saucer, and knocked off the thugs helmet? I loved the realism, of not knocking out thugs in one punch, but instead of have Dash realize that this is a real person, and that he had either knock the guy out, or get captured, and most likely killed later.
On reflection, I wonder if we’re talking past each other.
Here’s what I think a youth-friendly title should contain:
Self-contained stories. Two-parters happen, thee and four parters are exceptionally rare. Characters from long ago or other books are reintroduced to the reader if they appear. I should be able to pick up any random issue of a comic and tell what’s going on without difficulty.
No graphic violence or sex. Keep it PG rated. Could kids handle heavier stuff? Probably. Could their parents? Probably not. Let’s be realistic here.
No psychopaths as heroes. They can kill, but don’t dwell on it or revel in it. Let heroes be heroes. Not brooding amoral killers hanging on their last shred of sanity. This is why Batman, as currently written, can’t kill, and the more stable Golden Age version could get away with it.
Emphasis on wonder and adventure. More heady topics can be broached, but if you really want to talk about philosophy or social politics, maybe a genre designed for men in tight pants to beat each other up isn’t the best choice.
I do think that it’s “decompression” and continuity fetish more so than content issues that’s holding modern superheroes back (although the Spawn/anything-Liefield EXTREME phase of comics in the 1990’s was scary). That, and comics have all but surrendered any hopes of selling to anyone who isn’t already coming into specialty stores. That’s an ass-backwards way of doing business.
I don’t mind heroes killing, you don’t mind heroes killing. I don’t remember having seen you say this before now, however, though I may have forgotten since this has been going on for a while. I am however oppossed many of your other points, such as your problem with dark and brounding heros. He wears a dark costume. Even with your your suggested changes, he would still be darker then other heroes, and as a consequence parents will have a problem with him, as opposed to Superman or Green Lantern.
Well, we can’t make heroes totally immune to overprotective parents, but we don’t have to make it easy for them either.
There’s a difference between “dark” and “amoral killer”. The animated Dini/Timm Batman (my favorite take on the character) is the former. Rorshach, Spawn, and the Punisher are the latter. I don’t want to see Batman, or the genre as a whole, slide towards that direction.
To steal from Peter David – in comics, we had the Golden Age, we had the Silver Age, we had the Bronze Age.
Nowadays? We have the “Mess Age”, named after how big of a mess the “hero” can leave in his wake…
(Actually, I don’t think it’s as bad today as it was several years ago. At least now we’ve gotten some innovative fun stuff like Astro City to offset the Spawns and Punishers)
See, I think it’s the other way around. I think a hero is relatively simple matter – sports figures and Hollywood stars are cited as “heroes” despite questionable behavior-- but an actual superhero is infinitely more complex, both as a genre and a literary character type. Because an average superhero is so self-sarcificing, driven and moral as to be impossible for most people to identify with. They exhibit a whole range of behaviors that supercedes the importance of their trappings.
Take my nun example. A nun is a super-pious woman, because a pious woman can still have sex, a husband, children, be wealthy. A nun adheres to a whole slew of specific self-sacrificing behaviors, which I see as essentially more important than wearing a habit or her church service, and as an ex-Catholic schoolboy I think if you put my argument to any former or practicing nun, they’d agree with me. Mother Teresa in blue jeans and T-shirt ministering anonymously in the slums of Calcutta is still a nun. Shirley MacClaine in TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA was not a nun, despite having the trappings of a nun: the title, the habits, the appearance of piety.
James Bond is an interesting case: his wearing a domino mask and calling himself 007 all the time would make him more of an antihero than a superhero, because he himself would not adhere to the superhero code of conduct. He drinks too much, fucks around too much, is emotionally and physically abusive and misogynist to women, is frequently judge, jury and executioner, is egocentric and insubordinate-- and we’ve seen him in some cases kill people as a matter of pique or whim. In most other respects, though, he’s is definitely superhero material, and other members of the “OO” section might be superheroes if they assumed costumed identities and could follow the superhero code of conduct. But Bond-- definitely an amoral killer, to use your own words – is too much of a prima donna domineering headcase to pull it off.
Askia, I rate your thread double+ good. However, I have to disagree with you on two points. One is that I believe that all the nuns you mentioned were wonderfull people except for mother teresa. That however, is a topic for another thread. Also, I can not believe you think so little of the noted writer of “Birds of the West Indies”. You practically demonized the guy!
No, wait I see a footnote that says there was a fictional hero by that name. I guess you are talking about him. 
I disagree with this point given your definition of “kid” (7-13) and would replace it with the condition that the comic books be available at major retail outlets (supermarkets, drugstores, shops in the mall, etc.) and relatively cheap (Shonen Jump is around 350 pages each month for $5) so it really doesn’t matter what parents think, since the kids will likely buy them on their own anyway.
Again, young boys (especially 9+) love the violent stuff and will generally be attracted to that (it wasn’t for nothing that all those Image books sold back in the early 90’s - when kids actually were still buying comics). I don’t see any special need to restrict it just because it makes parents uneasy (besides, if kids know their parents don’t like the books, that’ll just make them cooler and make them want to buy more of them). Also, a PG rating means pretty tame fare compared to other forms of entertainment vying for the attention of the same age group - video games most noticably.
I could, however, readily accept your conditions were your age range less broad: 6-9 perhaps. And for kids that young, I think stuff like DC’s animated books and Marvel’s Marvel Age comics work pretty well.
The golden age Batman was pretty much a fruitcake, too. And it bears repeating - the period of time in which Batman actually killed criminals was so insignificant compared to his long, long history of abhoring death and guns in all their forms as to be utterly inconsequential in a discussion of the character other than as a curiosity in regards to his early days.