There are a lot of gritty elements in the current DC Universe, yeah. But what I was getting to, was the number of issues with gritty elements versus the number of issues with no such elements. From my reading of JSA and Birds of Prey, I'd say issues with gritty elements are a tiny minority. It's just that when a gritty thing happens, it's a big deal, because it's a character dying, that supposedly will have consequences. Now, an optimistic story will not always have consequences (thought sometimes it does, like when Black Canary adopted that Asian child).

I'm just not sure that someone buying and reading all the comics published by DC comics in a given month, with no preference for darkness or light in superhero comics, will find the whole thing that gritty. On the other hand, gritty things usually happen in the big event mini-series, like Infinite Crisis, so they're more noteworthy, one could argue that the general "direction" of the DC universe (as demonstrated in the minis) is gritty these days, even though someone buying the Superman titles will likely find no over-abundance of gritty elements each month. Unlike, for instance, Marvel in the 1990s.

IMO, most of the iconic characters lend themselves to a variety of different approaches. I'd say Superman is a mostly optimistic character, but there are enough dark/tragic elements in Superman to tell the occasional pessimistic story too. I'm less sure about Captain Marvel, that seems to be much more optimistic than Superman. The Teen Titans? I dunno. The characters had their heyday when they were super-angsty, under Marv Wolfman's hand. The graphic details were never there, but you could tell that Starfire had been abused when she was sold as a slave to the Citadel, for instance.

I think the characters are more elastic than you give them credit for, personal preferences aside.

As for killing off Marvin and Wendy, I can think of a very major aesthetic objection to it - the characters were totally unestablished, with maybe two pages of appearances in any given issue, until the issue where they were killed. Not only is killing off minor characters subsequent to their first major characterization a tremendous action-story cliche, but it's very poor writing from any sort of structural standpoint. How can anyone give a damn about the deaths of characters who couldn't possibly have triggered suspension of disbelief and felt "real" yet? This is a tremendous mistake, and I think a reader who just expected better out of McKeever would be justified. Even if McKeever goes somewhere interesting from this particular issue, it will never stand on its own as anything but poor work.

It would have been far better writing, from a structural viewpoint, to have disposed of a less obvious and less defenseless target. In a purely theoretical universe, Wonderdog eating Robin would've had maximum dramatic impact, but like hell DC's going to let him get away with that. It's also sort of obvious that McKeever won't be allowed to kill Wonder Girl or Blue Beetle, either. That still leaves Kid Devil as (presumably) a viable target. So I feel confident in saying that if Wonderdog had eaten Kid Devil you would've been left with a much better story, a more menacing villain, and a less predictable narrative, without any of the pages preceding the Wonder Dog sequence being changed.

Is the DC Universe really that gritty?

No, actually; at least, I don't think it's designed to be. That's why this kind of thing grates more than it would in, say, Daredevil.

I know that's not Rene's actual question he was asking but for me that's the thing that points up the problem. It comes from jamming characters into stories completely inappropriate for their original design and intent. Sometimes you can get something interesting from this -- like Alan Moore on Miracleman, which began as a Captain Marvel pastiche-- but it seems like this is the only trick they KNOW any more, and I think we've all gotten sick of it. At this point, given things like this or the new "bad girl" Mary Marvel, I wonder if DC is ever going to wear it out... especially since I have an ugly hunch that the box-office success of Dark Knight is going to be seen as validation for this approach.

Look, I'm a Bat guy, I applauded the darker Batman approach when it was first floated in 1969 and I've been on board ever since. But that doesn't mean I want the same thing on Superman or Mary Marvel or the Teen Titans. It doesn't FIT there. That's basically my problem with it.

They killed off over a hundred characters over the course of building up to, and through, Infinite Crisis. Many of them, like Psycho Pirate, Pantha, and the Earth-2 Superman, were killed on panel in extremely gruesome ways (head popped like grape, head punched clean off shoulders, head pounded into grisly pulp...hmm, I sense a theme developing here.) 52 continued the fun by ripping a man in half on-panel, and having Black Adam fly all over the world gruesomely murdering people.

I'd say yeah, it's really that gritty.

I've recently read a whole lot of issues of JSA in one sitting and the newly-relaunched Justice Society of America, and also Birds of Prey (until the end of Gail Simone's run), and also Justice League of America. A lot of issues, and almost no "shocking" deaths of important characters.

Actually, these series have what we could call "uplifting" themes, since JSA is about older heroes training new ones to be better heroes, and Birds of Pray has a lot about friendship and empowerment.

I don't quite see it as "the same thing over and over again." Are a couple of shocking deaths enough to make the whole DC Universe "gritty". One gritty issue is worth more than, say, 12 issues that have no or few gritty elements?

Maybe the gritty bits get more visibility? Because of the controversy?

How many gritty stories are "too much"?

I see quite a bit of diversity of mood in the DC Universe. It's not like the Marvel Universe in the early-to-mid 1990s when indeed almost all books were gritty. Is the DC Universe really that gritty? Or are there fans that have a very low tolerance for gritty?

And the fundamental truth is, once you're numb to the "shocks", Didio's DC has very little else standing behind it. It's a short-term marketing strategy at the expense of long-term character-building, and I think it's backfiring. Why do I think that? Because I only heard about this latest controversy online...because I've dropped every single DC title and don't give them my money anymore. (Except for the Showcase Presents line, which reprints their old Silver Age material.)

I would also say that you'd better have a solid story backing up your shocks if you want what you're writing to hold up to repeat reading. So in that sense I would say that a story that is all about the shock or the surprising twist is inferior to one that makes you laugh or cry or any other emotional response you care to name.

And it's hard to speak for the general public. Did not the general public love Dark Knight, the darkest mainstream superhero movie yet? Maybe the innocence of childhood heroes are not so precious to most of the general public.

I have a question for all of you. Do you guys think shock should never be employed in a story? Should it be permanently removed from the writer's toolkit? I happen to think that eliciting shock is perfectly legitimate, just like elicting fear, excitement, romantic feelings, laughter, crying, or whatever other emotion. If there are stories that are all about laughing, or crying, why not stories that are all about shocking?

I'm curious to know what is the core of the objection to shock. Being shocked can often be good to make you think and to shake you from complacency. I'm not saying this particular story used it well (the story seems kinda silly to me), I'm just saying that doing things for shock value isn't inherently bad. Or is it? I'm curious to see what you guys think, and why.

No, but if someone called "The Joker" killed them with KRYPTONITE........well that would just be oh so clever and edgy!!!

Titans: Wendy & Marvin are fraternal twins
Superfriends: Wendy & Marvin weren't related

Titans: Wendy & Marvin were technological geniuses
Superfriends: Wendy seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. Marvin wasn't very bright.

If someone puts characters named Clark & Bruce in their story and kills them, does that mean Superman and Batman got killed off?

On the other hand... They got ate by Wonder Dog. That's kind of hilarious.

I am torn.

And while it's true that most comic book BBS are places for knee-jerk fan reaction- CBR's is sadly, a good example of that- there IS a point in that people CAN be upset by the killing of Wendy and Marvin. In popular culture, Wendy and Marvin (as part of the Super Friends) ARE probably better known than most modern DC heroes. And if you tell most people, "They got eaten by Wonderdog. No, that's not a joke" they're not likely to think it was a good idea- though perhaps based on the assumption that comics are still for children. Still, people HAVE a right to feel outrage over this, AND to express it online. Questioning that sounds silly to me. Seriously: some of you look at these things too much from a clinical "element of the story, blah blah" part, and not enough from a humanistic viewpoint. Maybe that's DC's problem of late- they've become disconnected from what the general public feels, possibly convinced that only the shock-value-loving fans are worth pursuing. Funny how Marvel isn't doing that (except maybe with Marvel Zombies) and still sells pretty well...

Oh yeah, I'm sure, but over there people have the most extreme reactions to EVERYTHING. That place takes the fan indignation to outrageous extremes on every issue, valid or not. Many people there did the same thing with the Sue Dibny rape for example, using the "raped my childhood" line. I wouldn't invalidate the many intelligent commentators bashing this comic for rational reasons based on the DC Message Board yahoos out there.

The battle ultimately arrives, Kid Dinosaur dies, and he gets flooded with hundreds of letters saying "How could you kill Kid Dinosur! He was my favorite character!". The character had appeared perhaps four times, over a total of as many pages (out of about a thousand total) ... but he was the favorite character of hundreds of people.

I will now think of Kid Dinosaur as a deWolffe...