Are comics getting more violent?

[A beaker full of death]

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.

At the risk of sounding like the idiots who blame television for moral decay, I do believe we're witnessing a true desensitization that makes this sort of violence simply normal to young people. There's a whole genre of television now devoted to watching people get seriously hurt on home video. Not a nerf ball to the nuts like the old days, but serious and lasting injury. The worse the better.
Hell, we don't even think anything of a movie that shows Superman's bastard son killing a guy.
We used to laugh when the A-Team made a point of showing the villains crawling out of every wrecked car, no matter how well they'd been blown up.
Maybe I'm just old now, but I'd rather have that in my insubstantial entertainment (and that is what we're talking about here) than this other extreme.

Sorry to be rambling. There are coherent thoughts in here somewhere. Rough day.

The Punisher Archie crossover gives this question a resounding yes.

Actually, Archie started as a backup feature to a Superhero comic called Pep. He eventually took it over.

See http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/pep-comics, around issue 41.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

It seems like Archie is the only comic you can still show to kids. That's kind of a shame. I miss the days when I was eight and could grab any comic off the rack and read it. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the adult stuff. Batman: Year One and Watchmen are all time favs of mine. Still I wish I could just grab a handful of comics and hand 'em over to my kids. But these days I gotta read 'em first.

Not that I'm complainin'....

 

[mswood]

It seems like Archie is the only comic you can still show to kids. That's kind of a shame. I miss the days when I was eight and could grab any comic off the rack and read it. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the adult stuff. Batman: Year One and Watchmen are all time favs of mine. Still I wish I could just grab a handful of comics and hand 'em over to my kids. But these days I gotta read 'em first.

Not that I'm complainin'....

Well DC at least (I am less sure about Marvel) specifically have a line of comics designed specifically designed for children to read. And they aren't bad either, if you are an adult wanted a more innocent form of material to read.

For myself, the comics I have always liked best, even going back to the first ones I read in the early 70's were the material that presented itself more realistically. That showed both the good and the bad, that showed real consequences to their actions.

But in the same vein, I also think that many books (though not all) use it to shock, instead of being integral in the story they are telling.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I love the mature stuff. I'm thinking more of my kids. Not so much my daughters because they're more into princesses than superheroes but rather my son. He's just five months old but what about when he's older? I remember my dad bringing comics home for me when I was little and I want to be able to do that for my little boy. But I'm not bringing him Watchman no matter how much I love it.

 

[mswood]

Seriously DC produces a handful of titles geared for kids, they are pretty tame and safe for kids. They might not be books you want to read, but kid safe, both in visual and tone.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Do you know the names of the books? I might want to check those out.

 

[Snaploud]

I agree that comics are not more violent than the past. We're just being presented with a more realistic picture of what such super-powered violence would create (blood, gore, etc.).

 

[Nick Ryder]

I've been reading comics since the late 80s and I've amassed a fairly sizable collection... and I do agree that comics have gotten more violent and a bit more... "mature" in their subject matter. Even in the mid to late 90s, the only places you had really graphic violence, were Image comics - or other "Indie" publishers, or in "Mature Content" branded imprints for Marvel and DC - DC had Vertigo and Marvel had their "graphic novel" line for a while, then Marvel Knights and Marvel MAX...

But it seemed like once Quesada who came from Marvel Knights and Marvel MAX... the whole MU turned into Marvel MAX. I mean I'm recalling a recent issue of X-Men with Scott and Emma in a sex club and it was clearly implied they were going to be screwing, then during that issue Pixie brutally beats down a guy - which was pretty cool I'll admit - but it seems like while yes... they're getting more realistic and less "Cartoony" in the way violence and damage is depicted. I mean in the Death of Superman, Supes took some pretty damaging blows and was pretty bloody and torn up by the end of it, but for some reason it was more cartoony and the whole point of it was to beat Superman up.

But there just seems to be a far more graphic tone of the past maybe 10 years. Subject matter that was maybe only implied is more blatant. What some used to think as "sexy" back in the 90s and early 00s, is nothing compared to what comes out lately. Greg Horn's artwork, while beautiful is pretty... ah... revealing? In a way he turned the X-Men into porn stars LOL. The Dodsons are similar too.

Not that I'm a prude by any means but it still seems like "pushing the envelope" has made quite a few comics too mature. Even Spider-Man recently had him talking about having sex with his roommate and getting drunk and such. I mean, would you, as a parent, hand a kid the latest issue of Spider-Man and not feel like he's got anything to worry about?

Sure, some may say - well that's what Marvel Adventures are for. But how come the "kids" comics are so much more like the comics that I grew up with... ? Compare any issue of Marvel Adventures to a comic published before 2002. You'll see my point.

 

[stj]

My notion of consequences to superhero violence would include the heroes being too beat up to win, heroines with unsightly scars, amputations, lots and lots of dead and maimed bystanders, and whole nations laid waste the devastation of its leading cities.

My unscientific impression of the way modern comics (since about the Reagan era) dwell upon violence is they're getting off on it, not showing "consequences." Getting off on the hero's violence is a marked difference.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Deadpool, again, is remarkably violent. He even shoots himself in the head...a few times.

 

[blaXXer]

Yeah, but that'S what he does. also Deadpool is awesome.

 

[EnsignRicky]

Nah, we're just becoming more and more a world of wussies, with a capital P.

 

[Hober Mallow]

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.

For violence, yes, but not sex and nudity. There were movies back in the late 70s/early 80s that featured full frontal nudity and only garnered a PG rating. Now even split-second nude shot will earn a film an automatic R.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Titanic didn't earn an automatic R.

 

[coolghoul]

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.

Yeah - less violence and more sex please.

Seriously tho' I am more forgiving of seeing xyz people in a more revealing costume. Even a few remarks (like PG going "Oh!" on how to distract Toyman in Public Enemies) are fine. People talking about doing the deed might be too much tho'. (I recently came across a crack that Spider-Man makes about The Venus Butterfly as dessert for MJ which was definitely eyebrow raising. I think anything like that should be a little off-limits in the main lines.)

However, it's the violence that sometimes turns me off. Two of the big recent crossovers from DC - Sinestro Corps War and Final Crisis (I just read this) had pretty graphic and somewhat needless violence. In Sinestro Corps War, they show Atrocitus doing entrail-reading. I think that was a little over the top - I don't see why we couldn't make it a Ysmault thing - all denizens have some prophecy reading stuff.

In Final Crisis, which I'm just reading - there's a completely gratuitous dismemberment of somebody called Marena Herald (sp?) and the dog that she's riding in BludHaven by Mary Marvel (who's siding with Darkseid for some reason). I thought Mary could have been shown to kill without actually completely tearing Marena and the dog apart rather graphically.

I love the mature stuff. I'm thinking more of my kids. Not so much my daughters because they're more into princesses than superheroes but rather my son. He's just five months old but what about when he's older? I remember my dad bringing comics home for me when I was little and I want to be able to do that for my little boy. But I'm not bringing him Watchman no matter how much I love it.

Marvel Adventures - I recommend it for adult reading too - I find it funny and engaging tho' the stories are pretty short.

And DC does some line which I don't know but it is based on the DCAU look. I remember reading a couple of Batman Adventures titles - which I thought were great.

 

[elaithin]

coolghoul, the Spider-Man issue in question is from 1989. That's.. er.. not really recent.

 

[coolghoul]

^ Yup - issue 298. Except I came across it recently (on scans_daily). That site is educational and fun.

The point being that *that* level of sex-speak is probably a bit too much for main-line comics (no matter that it was done in the late 80s).

But more sexually revealing costumes - I just read the JLA Sanctuary trade with art by Ed Benes (wowza) - is perfectly fine with me.


Btw, on a totally different topic - 89 is kinda late in the Spidey-mythology. Since everybody swears the best stuff was in the 60s and 70s. Seriously - what "big" thing happened in the 80s and 90s? Venom and the Clone Saga and the Spidey marriage - anything else?