Why Comics* Suck

[Hotfoot]

*Comics, in the frame of this discussion, will refer primarily to the monthly superhero comics, primarily those from Marvel and DC.


Well I mean let's face it people, comics suck ass. They have for a long time. Sure, in the late 70's through the early 90's, there was some cool stuff happening. Comics were throwing off the shackles of the Comics Code, telling more interesting stories, and even having events with real consequences. So what happened? Why is it that now, comics almost universally suck?

We could blame Leifeld for the whole grimdark crap and everything, but that's not enough. We also had the collectible boom, where you had comic companies selling alternate covers for their various books, banking on collectors buying them all up, without really a care for the content of the books themselves.

Then...you have the cross-overs. I don't mean those limited deals where a few heroes interact with each other or anything like that, no, I mean the big balls-out summer events that tie together nearly all of the heroes from the respective universes. You know the ones, Zero Hour, Civil War, Inifinite Crisis, Final Crisis, the whole deal.

You also have Death's Revolving Door. We knew Batman was coming back, and hell, if Gwen Stacey were to come walking into Peter Parker's door tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, she only got her neck broken. Green Goblin and Doc Ock both got worse and they're just fine. The eternal return to the status quo both hurts and helps comics. It helps them because it's always easy to walk into a comic book as a kid and figure out pretty quickly what is going on. It hurts, because as an adult, we want to read interesting stories with points and meanings, not just mindless drek that keeps coming back to point A as if nothing has happened.

Okay, that's sort of two points in one, but I think that the Status Quo is what makes comics suck. Bear with me here. Serial stories can be fantastic, and even long lasting, but they need serious quality control from the get-go. They need good writers, editors, and all that to keep things alive and fresh, but if you want things to have any meaning, you have to have their antithesis.

Batman is Order. The Joker is Chaos. Superman is Good. Lex Luthor is Evil. That duality is what makes these combinations so classic. Instead of relying on gimmicks and power differences, it's the clashing of ideals that causes such great potential for storytelling. Likewise, you know how every hero is helped into greatness by his or her origin story? Well what best to finish the tale than with an ending?

I say this: make a comic line where there is resolution, ending, at least for individual characters. Some of the better concepts have come into play when the existing heroes are dead or retired. Look at Kingdom Come, look at Batman Beyond, hell, look at Green Lantern, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and any other "Legacy Hero" out there where another hero has taken on the mantle. Hell, look at Batman now.

Stories are best with consequences. Reboot the damn universe every so often to keep the stories from getting stale if you have to, but move things along. Let each generation of storytellers try to tell their own stories.

Thoughts?

[Cynical Cat]

I agree. It's no mystery that limited series are where modern comics really shine, because they are allowed to tell stories without the constraints and conventions of the big comic lines.

[frigidmagi]

You know I've said this. It's best if the characters are allowed to grow up, grow old and move on. I mean imagine Superman retires and Supergirl or even Connor (Superboy) takes over. The original X-Men hand over the power to the new kids.

I mean these days you usually get more interesting stories from minor comic book characters, because a writer gets more freedom to change in there.

Another problem is the constant need to go back and tinker with the origin or reconn something or try "to make comics just as cool as they were when I was a kid."

That's where we got things like Spiderman's One More Day (I CURSE YOU JOE!), Hal Jordan's return from the dead and so on.

[fgalkin]

For me, the biggest problem was that outside of a few exceptions, the writers are dumber than a sack of potatoes. When a 15 year old kid can see numerous ways to improve the story, its not a good story. Thats why I could never get into them.

So, I've come to the conclusion that the whole comic books industry is wasting thousands of tones of what could have been perfectly good toilet paper every month to produce something of far lower utility. Just my 2 cents.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Hotfoot]

For me, the biggest problem was that outside of a few exceptions, the writers are dumber than a sack of potatoes. When a 15 year old kid can see numerous ways to improve the story, its not a good story. Thats why I could never get into them.

So, I've come to the conclusion that the whole comic books industry is wasting thousands of tones of what could have been perfectly good toilet paper every month to produce something of far lower utility. Just my 2 cents.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Quality writing is an issue, but sometimes, it's just out of the writer's hands, like Countdown to Final Crisis, which was editorially driven and ended up sucking so hard Superman thought he was back in the Silver Age.

On another note completely, I've talked at length with a few people about the standard superhero "no-killing" policy, and I see it like this:

Superheroes, most of them, are not military or acting in a military role. They are supposed to be more akin to peacekeepers, police and the like. The role of police is supposed to be to resolve situations in such a way that either nobody gets hurt, or as few people as possible get hurt. Are there times when they might have to kill? Sure, but at the end of the day, when a cop kills a suspect, there's a whole process to make sure it was justified. With masked vigilantes, it's a lot harder. Now I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, but the point is that killing should be approached with the appropriate gravitas.

But wait, I already hear the Batman/Joker argument. Yes, if the Batman killed the Joker, countless innocents would no longer be in danger. This is true, and I'm not going to dispute it. But what is also true is that if the prisons where these villains were effective, or if the law did its side of the job, the Joker wouldn't have escaped those multiple times. You can lay all the blame in the world on Batman, but at the end of the day, he's done his job when he can take down the Joker so that the Joker doesn't kill anyone, or anyone further.

It's not up to superheroes to be judges, juries, and executioners, in fact, engaging in that sort of activity stretches the suspension of disbelief. We're already supposed to accept that these masked vigilantes are operating outside the law, but to support it, and that this is accepted, even appreciated by the men and women they're supplanting. Sure, some comics do a decent job of explaining why, but the second a hero goes Judge Dredd, there should be repercussions. Just look at the Punisher. The only reason he keeps operating is because he's got some sort of secret cabal clearing a path for him, and he routinely does run afoul of the police and has to get out of those situations.

In short, yes, the no-killing rule needs to be relaxed somewhat. When an alien invasion comes along, you're no longer peacekeepers, you're soldiers, and should behave as such. When the only way to stop a villain is lethal force, it should be used, but with repercussions, and when a villain is put away, there shouldn't just be a revolving door.

[General Havoc]

You see, I don't object to an explanation like that, but the problem is that too often in comic situations it's just presented as "Superheroes don't kill. Ever." No further exploration. Yes, of course, there are exceptions, but it all too often gets taken on faith that this is the way it is. I've always thought that an in-universe exploration of that element would be nice, and while there are a few around, mostly it's just presented as "the way it is" with no explanation as to why.

[Batman]

I think that's a TINY (and I do mean tiny) bit unfair. DC Comics as the Modern Age unfolded DID explain (not necessarily always in ways that made sense) why we don't, and it DID have examples where we DID, or almost did. Hotfoot's argumentation about how we CAN'T be judge, jury and executioner in one was repeated if not verbatim then at least in spirit by Dick in Last Laugh.
Yes, police officers are entitled to kill if they feel it's necessary. They also have to go through a lot of shit before TPTB BELIEVE it was necessary.
Now enter the tights brigade, where 19 out of 20 of us would react to a bullet to the face by going' You didn't really think that would work, right'?'
With the powers most of us have, who would actually BELIEVE killing a perp was necessary?

[frigidmagi]

Depends on who you're talking about.

Darkseid? Absofuckingutely.

Mugger 1240#? There's gonna be some debate. I'm gonna say no. They shouldn't do it. I mean hell is Mugger 1240# even a threat to Robin? I mean the poor mook couldn't even hurt Superman's Dog!

Hell, I'm not saying every villian should be murdered and every hero should kill. My opinion is that someone like Superman or Wonder Women should only kill in a war time situation facing an opponent of equal power or greater, or large numbers of enemy attacks. If Seven Million Alien Grunts invade Berlin hell bent on eating every man, women and child there and Supes kills a bunch of them to stop them... I'm okay with that. Hell if Supes ripped off General Zod's head tomorrow I wouldn't lose much sleep. If he kills the Toymaker though... I'm gonna be worried.

Spiderman is another character who shouldn't kill expect in extreme situation but to bring up a canon example when someone shot his aunt, he fucking threw a damn jeep at the guy! And that made perfect sense.

What I'm saying is the tights brigade shouldn't kill unless

A: Lives (including their own) are in immediate danger

or

B: The individual(s) in question has proven a irredeemable threat to human safety and the justice system has failed systematically and repeatably to deal with this.

Ending a life is a last resort in a dangerous and special situation not Standard Operating Procedure. At the same time declaring it completely off limits is ridiculous.

[Cynical Cat]

For the most part, they shouldn't kill, but as a general moral principal not an ironclad rule they never break, even when the consequences of not killing are worse. Heroes are law breaking vigilantes (mostly), but they usually don't need to kill. They can usually easily defeat street punks and super villains tend to be durable so they get ko'd instead of killed when they lose a full power fight.(if they could be easily killed the cops would just shoot them). Some of them (Punisher and Magog) are defined by being far more willing to kill than other heroes and that's fine.

The Joker is a special case. In his instance
1) no cop ever "shoots him while trying to escape" despite his massive body count (including a small army of law enforcement personnel)
2) There's no way he would succeed on an insanity defence (being insane doesn't cut it)
3) He keeps getting sent to places he can escape from

Because of all that and Batman is supposed to be a driven maniac, the question of why doesn't Bats kill the Joker comes up. After all, the Batman takes the law into his hands all the time. What heroes do when the system fails is a legitimate question, especially since so many of them are outside the question.

As a side note, the Nolan-verse Batman's adherence to a no kill rule is pretty iffy. In "Batman Begins" he gives Gordon the Batmobile and instructions to take out the elevated train. He then declines to save Ras and his minions. In "The Dark Knight" when he flinches from killing the Joker its one on one in an area that will soon be swarming with cops and he can try other ways of taking the Joker down (although he crashes instead). That version of Batman will kill if the stakes are high enough.

[General Havoc]

It just seems to me that there should be more variation. We are after all talking about vigilantism here. Real world incidents of that sort of thing do not shy from killing. Obviously we're also dealing with idealized superheroes, but it always struck me as weird that the only heroes who ever killed were ones like Punisher who were defined by the fact that they killed people, and were themselves borderline psychotic. It strikes me that given the hundreds of heroes that both the Marvel and DC universe have running around, there ought to be some that would be considerably less reluctant to ever take a life. I don't mean that they reach for the guns as their first option, but they would be more willing to go there than Batman or Spiderman. Not everyone views vigilantism in the same way after all. It would make for more interesting conflict for a sane and reasonable hero to do such things in opposition to one that does not do them, rather than the usual half-crazed anti-heroes that are the only ones ever allowed to kill.

[Cynical Cat]

There are a fair number who take the middle ground. Iron Man, for example, will kill. Wolverine isn't the Punisher, but he's all over the lethal force. Huntress has outright murdered several people. Colossus has killed in the heat of battle. There's a fair number of heroes who are more middle of the road when it comes to lethal force, but the only one of them who is a flagship character is Wolverine.

[Batman]

Depends on who you're talking about.
Darkseid? Absofuckingutely.

Heck, I'd consider having to go up against Darkseid an automatic wartime situation then and there. The guy usually doesn't show up to shop for handbags in Paris.

Mugger 1240#? There's gonna be some debate. I'm gonna say no. They shouldn't do it. I mean hell is Mugger 1240# even a threat to Robin? I mean the poor mook couldn't even hurt Superman's Dog!

Unless he's been written out of continuity AGAIN that stupid dog is as about as easy to kill as his owner.
It's highly unlikely that, say, Diana or the Martian would need to resort to this (killing the mugger, not the stupid mutt, though don't think I haven't considered it) but what if they DO? Usually you have only their word that it was necessary and no way to verify it.
And what about the likes of me or Ollie? For cops, you have procedures to go through to determine wether it was a necessary killing or not. For us, while it's a lot more LIKELY that it was necessary, you still have nothing but our word.

Hell, I'm not saying every villian should be murdered and every hero should kill. My opinion is that someone like Superman or Wonder Women should only kill in a war time situation facing an opponent of equal power or greater, or large numbers of enemy attacks. If Seven Million Alien Grunts invade Berlin hell bent on eating every man, women and child there and Supes kills a bunch of them to stop them... I'm okay with that.

Doesn't it already work that way? The no killing rule seems to be applied a lot less strictly during the yearly alien invasion.

Hell if Supes ripped off General Zod's head tomorrow I wouldn't lose much sleep.

Diddn't he ALREADY kill Zod and his companions, or has that been written out of continuity?

If he kills the Toymaker though... I'm gonna be worried.

*sniggers*

What I'm saying is the tights brigade shouldn't kill unless
A: Lives (including their own) are in immediate danger

Works for me, except for the problems mentioned above.

or
B: The individual(s) in question has proven a irredeemable threat to human safety and the justice system has failed systematically and repeatably to deal with this.

I'm not sure that works. Yes, it's a reasonable thing to do, but how would the public react? There'll be those who complain we don't have the right to pass judgement (and they'd be correct), those who would complain 'but he could STILL be have been redeemed' (remember that nutjob psychologist from DKR?), and the large number of people who would ask 'Why didn't you do him in before he killed my father/brother/spouse/uncle...' or 'Why didn't you do in the one that killed my...'.

Ending a life is a last resort in a dangerous and special situation not Standard Operating Procedure. At the same time declaring it completely off limits is ridiculous.

I think that's a think of the past anyway, at least the 'No killing, under any circumstances, ever' interpretation of it. Barry killed Professor Zoom to protect his family, I damn near killed the Joker in Hush, Dick DID kill the Joker in Last Laugh (and guess who was the stupid git what revived him), Clark was held back from killing by Lois on a few occasions and likely WOULD have killed Darkseid if Kara's death at his eyes would have been real, DID kill Zod and his minions (though he needed to see a shrink about it afterwards), and the only reason Helena is holding back is because she knows I'll ground her if she goes too far.

[Cynical Cat]

Helena holds back because she's mellowed somewhat and she's already killed everyone who killed her family.

[frigidmagi]

It's highly unlikely that, say, Diana or the Martian would need to resort to this (killing the mugger, not the stupid mutt, though don't think I haven't considered it) but what if they DO?

I would really love to see the mugger that can take on those two. I mean an unenchanced human beating Wonder Women who can go toe to toe with Supes? Or the Manhunter who has so many different way of taking a person it's not even funny anymore?

And what about the likes of me or Ollie? For cops, you have procedures to go through to determine wether it was a necessary killing or not. For us, while it's a lot more LIKELY that it was necessary, you still have nothing but our word.

When the two of you stop throwing around muggers as light exercise then I'll worry about it. As it stands Green Arrow was recently shown taking out 7 muggers alone and Batman... I mean holy hell he wrecked 4 muggers while holding a damn baby!

Doesn't it already work that way? The no killing rule seems to be applied a lot less strictly during the yearly alien invasion.

Superman refused to kill during the Imperix invasion. The bad guy in question was trying to wipe out the entire universe. So it defintely varies by writer at best.

Diddn't he ALREADY kill Zod and his companions, or has that been written out of continuity?

When did that happen?

I'm not sure that works. Yes, it's a reasonable thing to do, but how would the public react?

Oh Thank God someone finally got rid of that laughing nutbag? I mean that's how most of us would react. I'm sure Commissioner Gordon would want to know why it wasn't done sooner. And since when does Batman care about public opinion?

[Batman]

It's highly unlikely that, say, Diana or the Martian would need to resort to this (killing the mugger, not the stupid mutt, though don't think I haven't considered it) but what if they DO?

I would really love to see the mugger that can take on those two. I mean an unenchanced human beating Wonder Women who can go toe to toe with Supes? Or the Manhunter who has so many different way of taking a person it's not even funny anymore?

You misunderstand. I absolutely agree. But what if the mugger ends up killed ANYWAY? Can you automatically assume it was excessive violence? Do you trust them when they say it was necessary? There ARE situations when even heroes of that power level MIGHT have to resort to lethal force vs ordinary humans so what do you do?

And what about the likes of me or Ollie? For cops, you have procedures to go through to determine wether it was a necessary killing or not. For us, while it's a lot more LIKELY that it was necessary, you still have nothing but our word.

When the two of you stop throwing around muggers as light exercise then I'll worry about it. As it stands Green Arrow was recently shown taking out 7 muggers alone and Batman... I mean holy hell he wrecked 4 muggers while holding a damn baby!

That's self defense. What if we claim we killed that mug to save an innocent bystander?

Doesn't it already work that way? The no killing rule seems to be applied a lot less strictly during the yearly alien invasion.

Superman refused to kill during the Imperix invasion. The bad guy in question was trying to wipe out the entire universe. So it defintely varies by writer at best.

Argh. Not that it comes as much of a surprise.

Diddn't he ALREADY kill Zod and his companions, or has that been written out of continuity?

When did that happen?

Sometime prior to Action Comics 797 (late '03 I think). Clark talks to his shrink about it.

I'm not sure that works. Yes, it's a reasonable thing to do, but how would the public react?

Oh Thank God someone finally got rid of that laughing nutbag? I mean that's how most of us would react. I'm sure Commissioner Gordon would want to know why it wasn't done sooner. And since when does Batman care about public opinion?

I might not (though I WOULD be worried about the whole judge jury and executioner thing). The superhero community as a whole (especially Clark) however...
And I wouldn't be so sure about Gordon. He had the chance to kill the Joker, once. When I had told him I wouldn't stop him and there were no laws in the books that would have made it a crime. He didn't do it.
HE was the one who stopped me when I was about to kill the Joker in 'Hush'.

[frigidmagi]

Didn't he try to kill the Joker after he killed his wife? The 2nd one I mean.

[Batman]

Didn't he try to kill the Joker after he killed his wife? The 2nd one I mean.

If we're talking about Sarah Essen, that's exactly the incident I'm talking about. He put a gun to the Joker's head, I told him I wouldn't stop him, and I doubt anybody else present would even have bothered TRYING. He DIDN'T kill the Joker.

[LadyTevar]

That's because there's a big difference between Execution for Crimes and Murder for Revenge. Gordon refused to cross that line.

[Batman]

Exactly my point. I don't have the legal authority to kill the Joker however much I might want to.

[Steve]

Exactly my point. I don't have the legal authority to kill the Joker however much I might want to.

Some might argue that in the face of what the Joker and his ilk do whenever free, you're committing an act of moral cowardice.

Really, though, I think it reflects that the one true enemy of the Batman is Death. He will do anything to prevent people from dying, even those who's deaths would probably safeguard dozens, hundreds of lives in the future. For us BTAS fans we may recall this was played to full and glorious effect in "His Silicon Soul", one of the top episodes of BTAS.

[Batman]

Exactly my point. I don't have the legal authority to kill the Joker however much I might want to.

Some might argue that in the face of what the Joker and his ilk do whenever free, you're committing an act of moral cowardice.

And the people who HAVE the legal authority to do so yet NEVER EVER DO but instead put him in jail again, and again, and AGAIN, are not?
My job is to stop them. To see to it that they STAY stopped is up to the authorities. If THEY don't think the Joker deserves killing who am I to argue?
JIM GORDON didn't kill the Joker despite the fact that the guy crippled his daughter and killed his wife. Because it would have been MURDER.
I might work BESIDES the legal system, but I work WITH it.

[frigidmagi]

That gives us an interesting question doesn't it?

At what point is it okay for someone, not just people like Superman and Batman but any citizen, to say the Justice System has failed and to take matters into their own hands?

Superheroes skirt that line, while they operate as extrajudicial additions to the Justice System (read as freelance and unregulated enforcers of the law) they do not act as the Justice System itself. They do not pass sentence, or carry out sentencing. They merely arrest the guilty, which one can argue is the right of any citizen (citizen arrest is in fact a reality).

So when it okay for anyone to kill someone like the Joker? I'm using the Joker not to pick on Batman but because the Joker is well... He's the one of the most extreme and well know examples that could possibly be killed by Joe Average. Another example like Carnage wouldn't work because there's no way a regular guy could kill him.

[Cynical Cat]

Plenty do take the law in their hands. They're already vigilantes. Wolverine, for instance, has no problem killing a dude if he thinks that the world is better off for it. The whole premise of the Authority is that they're willing to be judge, jury, and executioner. Spiderman has warred with himself about crossing the line and killing Norman Osbourn, his closest analog to the Joker.

[frigidmagi]

Yes, but that has nothing to do with my question Cat.

I'll repeat.

At what point is it okay for someone, not just people like Superman and Batman but any citizen, to say the Justice System has failed and to take matters into their own hands? So when it okay for anyone to kill someone like the Joker?

Let's not sidetrack, I would really like to try to hash out an answer to this one.

[Rogue 9]

Exactly my point. I don't have the legal authority to kill the Joker however much I might want to.

I feel constrained to point out that you don't have the legal authority to do most of the things you do.