Are comics getting more violent?

[Thespeckledkiwi]

To me, I wouldn't care as much because I like comics but I've noticed that many of the comic books are becoming increasingly violent and some in not a good way. Mainstream books like Deadpool, I'm surprised are, well, in the mainstream. There, to me, isn't much of a difference between the MAX listing for Marvel and some of the books that don't carry that label.

I also notice that in my Green Lantern books, they have become graphically violent as well. I'm all for it but I really have to wonder since there is mature readers (which is in really small print) but also for any kid that wants to read these as well.

I mean yes there was the famous, Girlfriend in the fridge but at least they didn't show much of it. These days...well some of the stuff I've been, I've been shocked at what they can get away with.

 

[C.E. Evans]

A lot of this has to do with more comic book readers generally being adults rather than kids, IMO. The average age is, what, at least 20-25 or something?

Mainstream comic books have been skewing towards PG-13 material for awhile now, IMO. I think nudity and f-bombs are the new markers for adults-only stuff these days...

 

[DarKush]

I think the books have been trending toward more adult subject matter for a good twenty years or more now, probably since Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. But yeah, I am a little shocked today to see some of the violence and sexual situations, references, etc. that are in mainstream comics. Even though it was cool as hell, Sentry's recent actions during the Siege storyline were very graphic and would've never been depicted back in the day. I also agree with what was said about Blackest Night. Most of the mainstream comics are definitely not for kids, or all ages anymore.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Former DC publisher Paul Levitz said it best in a TV interview once that people think comics are just for kids...but they're not, and they haven't been for a long time.

And I think that was from almost ten years ago...

 

[stj]

My unscientific survey suggests that modern comics are selling sadomasochistic sexuality (which includes quasipornographic violence I think) in a way unlike older comic books. The watershed seems to have been in the Reagan years, when reactionary ideologies became "politically correct."

 

[Delta1]

One might say that sadomasochistic sexuality in comics goes all the way back to Wonder Woman.

 

[Trent Roman]

Are comic books getting more violent? No. Are comic books becoming more graphic and realistic in their depictions of violence? Yes, and have been for a while. What has changed over the last decades (and I do mean decades, as this is hardly a new phenomenon) is the introduction of consequence. What used to be cartoonish is now realist; what used to be off-panel is now on-panel. By and large (exceptions occur), I think this is a good thing. Much like those old foggies complaining about violence in televised cartoons when in their days rabbits and ducks dropped pianos on each other, violence no longer occurs in a vacuum.

The 'creep' by which such graphism pushes the boundaries of mature titles and, in turn, gradually makes its way into mainstream titles is nothing more than the usual, gradual weakening of censorship, and that is generally a good thing. Exceptions exist where graphic violence becomes an end into itself (the plot-less sequence of extreme violence that was "Ultimatum" springs to mind), but more creative freedom means a good writer/artist can go where they want to if they feel the need to do so.

Heck, maybe someday comic books will even acknowledge that sex exists.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Again, Deadpool comes to mind with graphic violence and a LOT of the Blackest Night was graphic for the sake of being graphic. I think that's the problem a lot of comic books have been learning toward is being graphic because they can.

 

[Silvercrest]

Wertham is jumping up and down in his grave. "I told you so! I told you so!"

 

[DarKush]

Trent Roman made some nice distinctions. Comics have always been violent, but I don't think they've ever been so explicitly graphic in how that violence is depicted. And I think sexuality has been a part of comics for decades too, and today it is getting more attention, example the Buffy-Angel tryst in the Buffy Season 8 comic.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Not there yet in the Buffy comics, but I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek anyway. Just commenting on how violence gets more graphic but sexuality remains rather prudish and usually winds up looking like an Austin Powers gag. The old disparity, eh what.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[A beaker full of death]

Trent Roman made some nice distinctions. Comics have always been violent, but I don't think they've ever been so explicitly graphic in how that violence is depicted.

Not so. Superboy Prime would never have been shown tearing people's arms off or splitting them in half years ago. And don't even get me started on the rape of Sue Dibney.

Comics are certainly not more "mature" than they were 25 years ago, at the height of the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans run. Claremont's X-Men and Byrne's FF were classic examples of stories written for mature minds. Even back in the 60s, Stan Lee's writing was "mature" in that it tackled big, literary concepts.

As the MPAA and some members of this board just don't get, "mature" does not mean graphic sex and violence. In fact, those are juvenile traits.

 

[stj]

My impression is that the sexualized violence is indeed being perpetrated by the heroes in a way that was quite different from earlier times, even including the fetishistic elements in Wonder Woman. If consequences are being more realistically depicted, then the death and destruction in the comic book here and now would be far more prevalent. Indeed, it seems to me that in storylines focusing on the annihilation of normal people, the mass death is first of all reserved for other worlds or timelines or what have you, and Our Heroes rectify the situation. With the best of excuses, that is, reasons to toy with murder and torture along the way.

But as I said, it's an unscientific survey.

 

[Myasishchev]

You can point to some pretty extreme old ultraviolence in comics decades old at this point... Dark Knight Returns, of course, is rather brutal if not bloody, Watchmen has some pretty sick sequences too (Rorschach's death, the gunning down of a pregnant woman, and so forth).

And then there's Miracleman. Miracleman has this one issue where something unspeakably awful, I mean absolutely horrific is portrayed in all its slippery-slimy ugliness and terror.

Oh, and there's that other issue where Kid Miracleman kills London.

 

[elaithin]

That's the thing though, like Trent said. They're not more violent, they always were. They're just more realistic.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Trent Roman made some nice distinctions. Comics have always been violent, but I don't think they've ever been so explicitly graphic in how that violence is depicted.

Not so. Superboy Prime would never have been shown tearing people's arms off or splitting them in half years ago. And don't even get me started on the rape of Sue Dibney.

Er, what you posted doesn't contradict what he said in any way. His point is that comics are getting more graphic in their depictions of violence (which includes depicting types of violence that were forbidden by the ratings).

It's not just comics, either. What you can get away with in a PG-13 movie has been climbing and climbing for years now.

 

[A beaker full of death]

^I meant they wouldn't have happened. Certainly not before the late 80s.

 

[DarKush]

^
I'm not sure that's the case. I remember reading about the history of comics and comics were violent pretty much from the beginning. But some of that violence was implied, not like recently where the creators have more leeway to show the violent acts. But I think the content in books like from EC Comics, etc. prompted Congress to enact the Comic Book Code back in the 50s.

 

[Davros]

The Punisher Archie crossover gives this question a resounding yes.

 

[mswood]

^I meant they wouldn't have happened. Certainly not before the late 80s.

Well yes and no. Comics have always been violent, we have had comics going back to the 30's that show cased Captain America in a World War II (before the US joined), and yeah being war terrible things would have happened. We didn't get to see any realism in that violence though. Now days we see a lot more of what that violence would entail.

In days past we would see buildings getting attacked and damaged yet be lead to believe that no one was mortally harmed.
We had wolverine since the70's a being who fights with unbreakable sharper then razor claws and never be shown the bodies he would have waded through.

But they would have existed.

Heck how many times do we see SH in modern times fith in wars with aliens, and yet be lead to believe that no one dies or that people wouldn't fight brutally? All the time. Heck even in the early 8-0's the Teen Titans acknowledge that they've killed in those types of situations, but we never saw it.

Now days you see it.

I personally have no real problem with seeing a more realistic view on combat, but I don't want to see it just to see it. That to me is the hard line to draw.

The other point is that while comics have matured in that regard, they are still fairly sedate when it comes to sex and sexuality. Let alone nudity.