triple. feh.

Triple post !!!

Anyhow, what I meant is, after it's inception, the Code was adhered to by everyone, till Stan Lee wrote an issue of Spider-Man (in the 70's) dealing with drug use. The CCA didn't want it published, but Lee ran it anyway, without the CCA approval. After that, the CCA relaxed it's standards a bit and from there, it all went downhill.

what? the CCA don't exist anymore?

why?

Batman and whatmen stil were just "revels".
I considere the 90's the real dark ages of comics.

There were other indications aside from Dark Knight and Watchmen. The early-80's Wolverine miniseries. The Denny O'Neill Question series (which started in 1985 IIRC), dealing with the slow moral/societal decay of a Midwestern city which, by the run's final issue, dissolves into total anarchy. One of the first issues of Action Comics Weekly (previously a monthly, the issue in question being published around issue #600, 1987 IIRC), in which Star Sapphire brutally murders (disembodies) Katma Tui as an act of revenge against Hal Jordan & John Stewart. The rise in popularity of The Punisher in the mid/late-1980's.

But trying to datestamp it is like trying to set the date when the Silver Age ended. As I said, the indications were there as early as the mid-80's. It really hit big in the mid-90's with the rise of indy publishers who really didn't give much of a rip about the CCA anyway.

It's possible that the pendulum might be swinging in the other direction, though. I was pleasantly surprised by Thy Kingdom Come, Part 1, which came out last week and collected Justice Society of America issues #7 through 12. The overall message is not only pretty upbeat (Superman:"The world needs better heroes"), but the book actually has a sort of Silver Age charm to it. It makes me much more optimistic about the future of the Big Two publishers.

I had written a longer post, but it went off on a tangent about violence in super hero comics and we don't need to divert this any further.

The top selling mainstream American comics being targeted to an older audience has locked them in a niche I don't see them ever breaking out of. Excessive violence and convoluted continuity are fairly high barriers for younger readers, and because of that, they often end up going to alternative sources of comic related entertainment (let's assume we're only talking about kids who read comics at all). So instead of the old staple of super heroes with kid friendly images and themes, the heroes of kids are more likely to be manga characters like Naruto who present positive messages combined with exciting stories. In a sense, these are continuing the golden age tradition, albeit from the perspective of another culture.

I don't think censorship, elective or not, would do anything to help the problems with the convoluted continuity out there. I can't remember the last truly "reader friendly" event I've seen. The lack of creativity is also appalling when a "new" idea is usually just a different version of an existing hero, such as turning them into a monkey or something. The audience is to blame to a degree as well since most super hero fans would rather buy comics with the same old characters rather than trying something new or different.

Ultimately, it's a lack of creativity and a high barrier of continuity that's created the poor state of super hero comics.

Not only younger readers; I'm pushing fifty and the biggest thing keeping me from getting heavily back into comics is the problem with "coming in somewhere in the middle" (along with the fact that many comics are hard to follow regardless, because of the way they're written and drawn, but that's a separate rant). I did read all 200 or so issues on the Marvel Civil War DVD, and it took me 30+ books to get enough of a start to know what was happening.

I've read the posts on this thread and I'm disappointed. Yes, there are some bad writers in both DC and Marvel. Yes, DC has gotten as dark as Marvel, but that shows the growth these old characters have had. Wonder Woman (an Amazon) removing the permanent threat of Max Lord, a pure Marvel move. But Necessary for that story and the forward movement of the DC multiverse. The CCA didn't want to cover Speedy's(heroin) addiction in Teen Titans. Like the Spidey drug Story they tried to hide the issues that were happening in the rest of the world. If comics are an art form, then they need to be able to grow and address real issues of the world. I understand that part of the definition of a hero is doing the right thing when it is hard to do.

Superman and Captain America are Boy Scouts, but to the other heroes in their comic universes the are the beacons to be followed. That's why Wonder Woman killed Max Lord. That's why Tony Stark was so hurt in Civil War. Supes and Cap's ideals are to large to be tarnished by them dirtying their hands.

Yes, as a child comics showed me what I should aspire to. Now as a man they show me how to persevere when times are rough, that to do right when easy is good, but to do right when hard is better.

By the way, question your villans, just robbing banks and petty stick ups are jobs for cops. Giant robots protecting child molesters, Despotic aliens with teleportation devices, and undead nazis are jobs for comic book superheroes.

Just my thoughts,
Trident

Someone's forcing you to read comics with things you don't like in them?

Somehow I doubt that.

Tarnish

Halp! Tide 2 chare! Forsed to reed bad komiks! Send beers!

-JKL

a) How are you typing?

b) how do you plan to open the beer?

a0 Uzing tows
nj jump chare on beer top..

capes and tights have always been the bread and butter of the code authority types. They were made and molded by its rules.

Now that it's gone, the writers need to stop recycling the same old dreck with new violent dressing, and need to step it outside of the box. They need to start dressing up good humanistic fiction writing and some themes to stories that appeal to mature adults instead of perpetually adolescent manchildren.

Just because a hero wears his unders outside of his pants doesn't mean that the stories involving him have to be as equally ill-conceived as his garmentry.

It's time the industry pros stepped their game up as a whole.

What kind of stories would you like to see for example?

Maybe he was dictating?