Things you wish they dared show in comics

Cafe Society
1

Today’s comics are a lot less innocent than the days of yore, but there are still a bunch of things related to sex, violence and hot-button issues that the mainstream lines can only hint at. I’d like to see:

Let’s face it: Wonder Woman is from a society of lesbians. It would be fun to see her struggling against her upbringing to admit her heterosexual feelings to herself, against her fellow amazons’ scornful disapproval.

All those evil doers who speciialize in hypnosis and mind control; let’s make it explicit that they’re out to rape and enslave the heroines they mesmerize.

Real injuries from fights. And I don’t just mean a few cuts and bruises or the occasionaly cast: I mean the fact that people hit hard enough to knock them flying through the air will, if they’re not superhuman, require hospitalization. Someone who was beaten unconscious should have a face like a bruised pumpkin.

And while we’re at it, no more fights that will never shred or rip the heros’ spandex in the wrong places.

2

The one thing about superhero comic books that has always bugged me is the way certain superheroes pontificate about how they don’t kill…Batman for instance, or Daredevil, or Spider-man. The thing is, you hit people in the head as often as they do in fights, particularly with the super-strength Spidey has, you WILL kill someone eventually, and you’re taking the chance you will EVERY SINGLE TIME.

3

Or, in the case of characters drawn by Frank Quitely, everyone has a face like a bruised pumpkin!

:stuck_out_tongue:

4

There are some comics that try to take a more “realistic” view of how a super hero would live. Watchmen, Concrete, The Elementals, Astro City, and Powers are a few examples just off the top of my head.

5

Japanese comics really don’t have a lot in the way of limits in what they portray. Some people will tell you that that’s only in hentai (adult comics) but the line between regular comics and hentai is fairly blurry. Same is true of animated Japanese features. Adding to that, Japanese adult anime often do quite a bit of work to tell a story – they aren’t just excuses for sex scenes like “adult” stuff in the U.S.

6

Am I really supposed to believe that all Archie did with Betty and Veronica was hold hands and kiss at the drive-in?

7

Sure! Betty is a “good girl”, and Veronica is a cocktease. So Arch has never gotten laid. Reggie on the other hand…

8

Archie comix have never been remotely realistic. Even middle-class small-town kids like those of Riverdale have to cope with things like teen pregnancy, STDs, and drug use. Even in the '50s, when the series started. But Archie and friends seem to live in a world where no teenager, not even those nasty-bad kids at Central High, ever does anything more evil than a bit of vandalism or cheating in a sports event.

I’d like to see an issue where Archie gets Betty pregnant and then beats the shit out of her until she agrees to get an abortion; Moose and Dilton come out of the closet; Jughead the “woman-hater” does the same and is shortly diagnosed with AIDS; Reggie gets busted for possession with intent to distribute; Veronica gets date-raped by a fellow socialite, turns to drink, and checks into Betty Ford; and her father is linked to the Enron scandal and goes to prison. Oh, and then Archie goes to a Riverdale-Central basketball game, lets himself be drawn into a pointless fight with a Centralian, and takes a shiv in the gut.

9

Nipples on Dagwood Bumstead.

10

You know i’ve never thought of that before.

I’m going to have to have a good long think about that later. :slight_smile:

11

It’s started to bug me that in a world where mutants are hated and reviled, about the only noteworthy thing they do is get into fights with other superpowered creatures and knock down several city blocks in the process.

How about a little help with those natural disasters? Storm would be helpful the next time a hurricane lands off the gulf coast and would have kicked wildfire butt during the Pines Fires out here. Wolverine is the perfect Search and Rescue recruit.

Gee, guys, you want the world to stop hating you, how about you stop focusing on your arch enemies and start helping out the regular folk?

12

Yeah, that’ll sell a lot of comics. :wink:
Admittedly, it would make for better storylines than some I’ve read.

13

I’ve never thought about that before, phouka, but I’ve got to agree with you. For the most part, the mutants have only themselves to blame for the way normal humans fear them.

The first episode of the old X-Men animated series has Storm using tornado-force winds to rip a building off its foundation and drop it on Juggernaut. I dunno about you guys, but if someone around here did that, I’d fear and hate them too.

14

…and all it would have taken to earn mountains of goodwill would have been sending some weather-controlling mutants to California during the Big Burn. Or to most of the Southwest during the droughts of the past ten years.

But comics fans don’t wanna see that. Dropping buildings on big red guys is much more fun.

As to head injuries… well… it goes with the genre. Detective fiction, particularly during the pulp era, had heroes getting conked on the head left and right. Such worthies as Sam Spade or Mike Hammer should have had major brain damage by their fortieth birthdays, they got clouted upside the head so often… but they never even suffered minor concussions. Just a short, involuntary nap, and perhaps a headache afterwards, dealt with (usually) with a jolt of bourbon or gin, followed by a plunge back into the thick of the action.

In particular, I always wondered about Batman. That guy has gotten shot more times than a Human Cannonball. In fact, I remember reading a STORY about that… published during the late forties, I think… in which Batman is offered admission to the “Bullet Hole Club,” a society of law enforcement officials shot in the line of duty. Batman had more bullets dug out of him than any of them.

Add to that the number of times he’s been hit, clocked, stabbed, cut, slapped stupid, beaten, clobbered, or clouted upside the head and shoulders with a variety of blunt objects, and what we have here should NOT look like a young, eligible, rich, handsome bachelor playboy.

What we have here should look like a cross between a broken-down prizefighter and the Elephant Man.

But, for some reason, the Bat Guy still has no trouble getting his mask on over all that scar tissue…

15

The Authority is the only super-team that comes to mind that has actually tried to thwart natural disasters, and they have been shown saving thousands of people during these disasters. I’m mainly thinking of the “Earth Inferno” storyline. And the heroes in Rising Stars actually used their powers to turn the deserts of the Middle East into fertile farmland. These “proactive” superheroes are a relatively new trend over the last few years.

16

Just once, have Superman, after getting knocked through a building, get up and say “Motherf*cker” and fly off and clobber the guy. He grew up on a farm, I bet he knows a bunch of good curses.

Or have some cop get pissed at Batman for being better at their job than they are. It must be hard to have crooks saying “You ain’t no Batman” all the time.

17

I’ll add another vote for “Superpowered beings using their powers constructively.” Maybe “Mechan-X,” a series about the X-Corps of Engineers?

If you did it Manga-style, you could probably sell it.

My own suggestion?

Stable monogamous romantic relationships developing between lead characters. Call me an old softie, but I thought that a Batgirl-Superboy pairing would have been kinda cute.

18

There is a series called Gotham Central, all about the hard-working police and detectives in Gotham City, and there is plenty of resentment of the big black Bat. Some cops see him as a menace, others as a rival, and a few realize he’s an ally. But the book, written by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka and drawn by Michael Lark, is excellent. It keeps the Bat-appearances to a minimum and focuses on the work the cops do. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes police procedural shows on TV like Homicide, The Shield, NYPD Blue, and Law and Order… and you need no knowledge of the several Batman comic book series in order to enjoy it.

19

That sounds like a good idea for a TV series. “Law and Order: Gotham City”.

What I’d like to see is the consequences of the wholesale destruction the superheroes wreak on their city. The people who live in that apartment Superman gets slammed into; the lady who is married to the Joker’s henchman who gets it; the owner of the car that the Hulk throws off the bridge.

It’d be a good little sidestory, anyway.

20

I’ve often wondered if the folks who live in Gotham (and why would you, anyway) could get insurance. Insurance companies don’t like to insure against things that are probably going to happen, and if you have a bunch of wackos regularly destroying bits of the city, who the heck could got/afford in the insurance. Is that guy whose car the Hulk just sent to the bottom of the river just out of luck? Could anyone afford to run their own small buisness with people being knocked into the walls all the time? Even health/life insurance must be a pain in the butt to deal with. “Non smoker, average weight, no illnesses, 21, male? Here’s your rate. Lives in Gotham? Ha. Triple the number I just gave you.”