The Four Color Media Monitor

The Centre Daily Times wrote about a new book by cartoonist Jon Morris called "The League of Regrettable Superheroes":

The book looks at comic book heroes who have put on a cape or spandex suit to fight crime but never gained the notoriety achieved by others.

"The name 'regrettable' doesn't mean that they were just bad ideas. Some were just weird ideas. Some were bad execution. And with others, their publisher just vanished in the night," Morris says.

It's okay, I realize the title is kind of an ironic joke.

There's a part following that's interesting, but also has a line that's ambiguous:

Some of the more recent regrettable superheroes may have slipped past Morris. He doesn't read a lot of the modern titles because he didn't like the change to the major characters made by the publishers. But he has been happy that both the Marvel and DC Comics worlds have grown to be more inclusive.

Yes, but that was long ago they'd become more inclusive, depending on what he/they mean. Nowadays, they've become a lot less so, as some characters were thrown out and obscured since DC's Flashpoint in 2011.

And, the article sinks into the exaggerated cliche that superheroics were only about men, although it does have something interesting to say simultaneously:

There was a time when all of the comic book heroes were white males. Now they come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ethnicity and sex. Being diverse doesn't mean they are all good. Today's comic book heroes could one day join the cast of regrettable ones he spotlights in his book.

For crying out loud, why do they insist on claiming all the old heroes were just white men, even as the article does mention Wonder Woman? Why can't they bring up Hawkgirl, Sheena, Liberty Belle, Phantom Lady and Black Canary? Even if that doesn't qualify as the biggest bunch of women for its time, it still proves there were some significant superheroines during the Golden Age.

But they're right that most of today's heroes suffer from bad writing styles, some of which are politicized, and as a result, yes, they could easily wind up on the mound of what could be described as regrettable experiments in political correctness someday.

And, Morris' book sounds interesting, and I'm glad he thought of writing it to get a look at less recognizable creations in history.

Labels: dc comics, good artists, indie publishers, marvel comics, msm propaganda