This is all only shocking if you're not paying attention to what's going on in popular culture as a whole. See the average action movie or horror film aimed at adolescents, and there's as much if not more violence.
And you think the violence in 52 is bad? Hooo brother, just WAIT 'till you check out those ultraviolent porno comics they make over in Japan. And spazzy teens are buying those by the truckload!
And this is all hardly a new or recent phase for popular culture. Edgar Rice Burroughs had far more violence in RETURN OF TARZAN alone (written in the 1910s-1920s) than any three Geoff Johns put together...and had a far more spectacular body count to boot!
(This is why I can never be a curmudgeon: to be a curmudgeon you have to think things are gettings worse, when the one great insight studying history reveals is how little things really change.)
Is the violence disturbing? Maybe, it all depends on your personal judgment. But it's hardly UNIQUE. Which is my point here about Geoff Johns: he's being unfairly singled out.
There was far uglier violence in DELIVERANCE than there was in RAMBO II. But look at the difference in culture: we're far more willing to embrace violence and sex in the era of BOB AND ALICE and SHAMPOO, than we are in the uptight, hypocritical eighties, the age of parents' groups banning heavy metal.
And that saddens me, the mainstream titles used to be books that could be enjoyed by all-ages. One of my sons is of comic-reading age and I cannot fully share my hobby with him as my Father did with me.
I don't think it's lamentable superhero comics are no longer being marketed to kids, nor do I think it is a good trend, either - demographics are like gravity. How can you have an opinion for or against gravity? Or, rather, judging a comic based on the intended audience is being intellectually dishonest, because you're not judging a book by its own standards.
To put it another way, I don't think, say, the John Broome GREEN LANTERN is "better" than the Stan Lee/Don Heck AVENGERS because Stan and Don were going for an older audience than John Broome was. Maybe for other reasons, but not THAT one.
Well of course I've said it many times, but I'm getting old so I'll repeat myself again
....
There is nothing "mature" about superhero comics.
Nothing. Whether the stories feature dogs in capes and sprites from the fifth dimension or rapes, assasinations and beheadings, at their core they are still stories about people who fly, shoot beams out of their orifices and fool their closest friends with lame disguises. Therefore, the whole concept of superhero comics for "mature" readers is an oxymoron. The only mature comics reader is one who can recognize the juvenile nature of the genre and enjoy it for what it is, instead of piling on the sex and violence and kidding themselves they're reading something "grown up."
I agree with what you're saying for the most part, but I don't understand how violence is somehow not a part of the superhero kind of story, something foreign or anathema to it. In fact, violence and sex to an extent are inevitable, and I don't just mean Comics Code stuff like Thor and Hulk pounding the stuff out each other in an abandoned warehouse district.
Stylized, over the top violence belongs in superhero comics. Superhero comics are an outgrowth of the b-movie tradition and aesthetic in many ways, where teenagers get their faces eaten off by space monsters, and seeing in what weird way the Plant Monster is going to kill next is part of the thrill.
Consider KILL BILL, which is pretty much just a Silver/Bronze Age Martial Arts comic made in movie form and the closest we'll see to a truly accurate IRON FIST picture: the violence FIT IN with the masks and the motorcycles and samurai swords and the villainesses with eyepatches, particularly the scene where Uma, with all the swagger she can muster, says "You are all free to go. But those of you that lost limbs, leave them here, as they now belong to ME."
I agree, I would like a rating system that makes sense. I used to be able to trust the CCA seal, but not anymore. I don't think any of the individual comics you describe should get the same rating as an issue of Archie. There needs to be "G" and "PG" equivalents for comic books.
The industry needs to publicly publish what the CCA guidelines are - and then use the seal when the comic meets those guidelines, and don't use it when it doesn't. Right now no one has any clue what it even means.
Potential readers (and parents!) deserve to be warned about certain things.
I agree with what you're saying about a rating system that makes sense.
Does any comic use the CCA anymore? Marvel went off of it by 2002 - and I would argue they only pulled the sticker off to acknowledge the reality of the situation: nobody really was following the CCA anymore. And why should they? The CCA was a toothless, irrelevant hold over from the 1950s (insert any given speech by Frank Miller here).
Actually, I would argue the CCA started to be irrelevant come the 1970s. When you had the White Queen show up in what was essentially bondage leather on the COVER of UNCANNY X-MEN, which is the very definition of a mainstream title, you get a feeling this code doesn't have teeth anymore.
