The Four Color Media Monitor

According to this Bleeding Cool posting, following the horror that took place at Sandy Hooks Elementary in Newtown, CT, DC's said they're going to check the violence in their stories. Interestingly enough, it also says:

This policy may be too fresh to affect Death Of The Family, which is expected to continue to feature seriously strong violence and child death among its various plotlines, but I have heard creators talk that DC were previously pushing them to more extremes of violence.

Which basically amounts to a form of editorial mandate, and sure isn't a healthy way of helping aspiring writers to develop their talents, if they have any talent at all.

But why only now, when tragedy strikes in real life, do they suddenly begin to show concern? They should have been able to recognize the poor direction they were going in long before, yet only when real life tragedies take place, they seemingly begin to show some common sense? That's hardly being responsible, IMO.

As much as I'm hoping DC tones down much of their offensive ideas of how to "Marvel-ize" their universe - and I think it's ill-advised to think violent entertainment doesn't have a bad influence in real life - I've got a sad feeling that they're not going to do that in the end. They may lower the volume of violence for a while, but that may only be for a short time, until they think the coast is clear, and then they'll go right back to their old tricks again. All they may be doing now is what most of Hollywood's doing, which is postponing anything potentially jarring to later dates, but not stopping to consider that violent showbiz can have an impact, especially when it's done in poor taste and sensationalism. And that's just what both DC and Marvel are guilty of these past several years.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, violence