I know this place is called “Comics Should be Good” but kvetching about how superheroes don’t stop enough muggers seems like maybe a really inane way to go about calling for better comics.

Remember when comic books not only cost a LOT less, but were a hell of a LOT better?

I certainly don’t remember when comics where a hell of a lot better

Remember when a quality story was defined by more than shock value and cheap thrills?

Bah. Get off my lawn, indeed.

Oh, if you really lived in the Marvel Universe, you’d distrust EVERYONE, because the Federal Government has been infiltrated, controlled, replaced, duped, suckered, and overridden so many times that the second you hear about government officials trying to ‘regulate’ super-heroes, your first response would be to assume that the Red Skull was mind-controlling the freaking President AGAIN.

Indeed, that’s ridiculous! The freaking president doesn’t need to have his mind controlled by the Red Skull, he’s perfectly capable to commit heinous crimes by himself.

This is a world where Nixon committed suicide because he was secretly running a branch of HYDRA called the Secret Empire, and you’re telling me people are more inclined to trust governments than super-heroes?

…the cover, plus a whole lot of other weird stuff.

also, has Shatner sung it yet? that’s all I’m waiting for, bay-beh.

I don’t suppose you have a link to that cover?

No, actually. Honestly I’d been thinking of that old cover which says ‘Superman says you can slap a jap!’ so that was in my head. I realized after I’d commented thought that that’s what it seemed like I was saying. I apologize for that, as I too miss the time when superheroes fought crime.

For seven issues, the heroes can try and negotiate with the villains via megaphone, walkie-talkie or telephone, and talk with each other about how they wish there was something they could do, and if they’d been more focused they could have prevented it, and dammit, the world just isn’t the way it used to be anymore.

In #7, the heroes finally find a way to burst into the bank and get the drop on the villains – only to have the villains surrender as soon as soon as they burst in (for that extra special Marvel Anticlimax taste). In the end, the heroes learn absolutely nothing and nothing changes (for that extra special DC BS taste), but for a few scant months, they try and convince us it has.

And naturally, a few months after #7 hits the stands everything changes back to normal and they’re just fighting each other again, and then…well, here we are.

…what was I saying again?

-M

These days, it’s all fighting other superheroes or having super-baddies come after the hero because of old vendettas. I mean, Batman will still fight some crime, and Spidey will stop the occasional mugger (I think), but who else really bothers? It’s all gods and revenge and other heroes. Weird.