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A Dose of Reality with Those Tights.

I am an adult now and it seems as if my heroes have grown up with me. Sure, Batman still makes sure the Jokers of the world are locked back into Arkham and Superman still stands for truth, justice and the American way. However, something is different about them, about all of them... Spiderman, Green Lantern, Captain America... All of the legends of my childhood have an aura of darkness about them. Sure, there have always been your dark heroes, the anti-heroes or the street fighters who needed to resort to less than noble means to protect their own. Those were never my heroes though. My heroes always saved the day just in time and while this may paint me as terribly naïve, they always did it with a smile. A smile that came from the fact that they were fighting the good fight. Fighting to keep us mere mortals safe from a world that wanted to harm us. It didn’t matter what flag flew high in the sky. There was good, and there was evil and my heroes never crossed that line, not even a little.

Then, things changed.

This goes beyond the dark hero trend of the early 90s, indeed, with the launch of Grant Morrison's run on the JLA and other late 90s books; the pendulum swung the other way. The bright costumed heroes of the silver and golden age were again acting like heroes. Sure, the villains they tackled were a bit darker and the world had grown more cynical, but these books and characters were rising above it all. Then came a slight change, I'm not sure when it happened, but, stories found them firmly anchored in the real world. Comic events began to, intentional or not, mimic real life. Villains began using their powers like human bombs, taking out civilians to get the attention of the heroes. Sexual assault, a longtime taboo within traditional off the shelf books became a focal point in many a superhero story arc. Like the proverbial frog in slowly heating water, we readers didn’t really notice. To be fair, many of the comic audience had grown older and enjoyed the more adult storylines. The sales numbers also seemed to support this trend. Seeing the numbers on the books, editors at both major comic book companies started pushing the envelope even further.

The heroes started acting differently.

It was one thing to test a character's moral fiber, to push them to the brink of what makes them a hero only to watch how they rise above. It is something entirely different to allow these characters to cross that line, even just a step or two. In the classic Action Comics issue, "What so Funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way", Superman is pushed to that very edge. He even, for a moment, thinks about crossing the line from hero to executioner. The genius of that story is that the reader gets to understand the dilemma Superman (and in a way, us) deal with on a daily basis. We also get to see how he rises above it all. It didn’t stay that way though. While Superman didn't become a stone cold killer, his writers did allow him to turn a blind eye to events that would have horrified readers in the past. Like a page taken right from the Manchurian Candidate, heroes were re-wiring the minds of the enemies. It didn’t stop there; they were also wiping out the memories of other heroes who didn't agree with their tactics. Over in Marvel, heroes were threatening citizens who stood in their way. While Marvel has always had a more realistic bent, it still went against their core characters to threaten people instead of finding a way to work with them. I couldn't help but again notice a frightening similarity between my heroes and real world events. Black and white was long gone. There was nothing but levels of grey in my world of spandex and capes. Heroes, while still allies, were keeping a constant eye on each other. A cloud of paranoia and fear filled all the best selling books. It began to look like Superman was standing for Truth, Justice, and the New World Order.

The books still sold.

They were selling well. Hell, even I was enjoying these stories. These incredibly real stories that just so happen to have costumed heroes. I was as much to blame for the "adult style" of both the DC and Marvel universe as the Dan Didios and Joe Quesadas of the world. The stories were extremely compelling, I loved them. Yet, I found myself emotionally drained after reading them. They were no longer providing me the pulpy escapism that I had come to crave in my comics. That is not to say that I want all my stories to end with the villain being taken out as he monologues about how powerful he is. I understand that some serious character drama is what drives the character that endures. But, I was also growing tired of learning that this character had been raped, or that that character was planning the execution of others, or that heroes needed to start acting like their villainous counterparts to get their point across. Now, I’m not saying these things didn’t occur in comics in the past, they did. However, it was rarely shown "in panel" and when it did happen, it was often the foundation for a massive crossover event. No, these stories were happening on a weekly basis in all my favorite books. Realistic or not, I didn’t want to read about my heroes being ripped apart or violated, and acting out at their opponents in like manner. Things have seemed to reach a climax...

Enter Infinite Crisis and Civil War.

DC's Infinite Crisis has just wrapped and if the final panels are any indication, the DC Universe, while still filled with dastardly villains, will become a slightly brighter place. There is no way to go completely back to its’ more innocent days. I am fine with that, even younger readers are more savvy then their predecessors and I doubt they would accept a Batman who cracks wise as he cracks heads. However, I doubt we'll see Batman pummeling villains into barely living slumps of flesh and spying on the rest of the DC Universe. Judging by the few books that have been published in the post Infinite Crisis setting, the writers at DC have found a balance. Hopefully this trend will continue. We older readers, even the ones who liked the gritty stories, won’t be around forever and they need to bring in the younger folks. I read my first Batman story when I was 8 years old. While the story dealt with murder and all the other gritty elements the world of Gotham had to offer, it didn’t open with the graphic rape of a character. I highly doubt I would still be reading comics if my parents saw that book as my first introduction to the DC Universe. It is now Marvel's turn to enter the abyss of painfully realistic stories. Marvel's Civil War opens with a superhero reality show that results in an elementary school being blown off the map. It is unsettling to see Captain America and Iron Man carrying the corpses of children and placing them in coroner vans. Comics tend to follow national sentiment and trends. With the potential of national IDs and all the flinging about immigration, I am curious to see how Marvel treats this issue within their world. Perhaps the name of the crossover event says it all: Civil War. Heroes will choose sides. Heroes will fight one-time allies. Heroes will die fighting their own. While I am not a huge Marvel fan, I do think I will follow Civil War. I want to see if they will bring their characters into a brighter future.

I like a dose of reality in my books. However, I also read comics to get away from just that... Reality.

I need my heroes.