The Four Color Media Monitor

For the Man of Steel's 70th anniversary, the AFP news syndicate has chosen to run an article in which I think they're keeping on with the notion that only dark and flawed heroes are what appeal to today's audience, even teenaged:

NEW YORK (AFP) - Superman, the original comic book superhero, turns 70 this month, but his strength and invulnerability draws fewer fans in the 21st century world of flawed, postmodern heroes.

[...]

In his 2007 master's thesis at Georgia State University, another student of the genre, Aaron Pevey, wrote that Superman lost popularity precisely because he is invulnerable.

"While Superman might have succeeded as a modern hero, he fails as a postmodern one," wrote Pevey. That explains, he believes, why DC Comics has seen a slump in sales of Superman comics over the last few years.

Teenagers prefer darker, troubled, sometimes ambivalent heros, including such classics as Batman, Spider-Man or Wolverine of "X-Men" fame.

Same old, same old, and I personally find the assertion that only "darker" heroes appeal to me insulting. Come to think of it, the idea that even Spider-Man is "dark" may be inaccurate: his origin does have a tragedy, and there are times when he's had to deal with some very terrible things in life, including, lest we forget, the stupefying awful One More/Brand New Day, but even Spidey's world is far from being totally dark and depressing.

And while the article does mention Kryptonite at the end, to just say that Superman is invulnerable is exaggerated - if Lex Luthor and other supervillains in the DCU want to, they can build weapons with considerable force that don't need Kryptonite to make them formidable to Superman.

And unsurprisingly, the AFP doesn't even try to study the comics industry under a microscope and consider that it's not just Superman's comics that are failing, but also a lot of other books from both DC and Marvel, and why? Because they're wasting precious time with outmoded crossovers, forcing ridiculous editorial mandates that include making even anti-heroes less heroic, and doing almost nothing inspiring with them either. No human interest stories done with devotion in which, for example, the heroes could battle the illegal drug trade and terrorism. How do they expect anyone to be excited about reading major comics if they have nothing promising of the sort to offer?

If anything, I don't like how the article continues pushing the notion that only "darker" and "troubled" heroes are what appeal to everybody. IMO, it's exaggerated, and superficial to boot. It takes more than to just say people like darker and flawed heroes to make a convincing argument in a case like this, and the AFP just isn't doing it.

Labels: dc comics, msm propaganda, Superman