Superhero Tragedy Porn is Bad for Comics

[thehefner]

Cyriaque Lamar on io9.com articulates one of the single worst things about modern superhero comics, which he has dubbed "Superhero Tragedy Porn," and why it's bad for comics.

The whole thing is worth a read, but the major meaty bits are quotes here for fuckin' truth:


In our post-Watchmen era, superhero writers often turn to dark'n'gritty plots to give their comics greater narrative heft. Unfortunately, these "adult" story lines are to tragedy what porn is to sex: a hyper-stylized, wholly disposable facsimile of the real thing...


... Like your average, two-people-doing-the-old-in-out-in-out pornography, superhero tragedy porn is an über-distilled version of the real thing. In porn, two (or more!) people meet each other and fuck. Sure, they may meet under the flimsiest of pretenses ("Oh my, another lost pizza delivery boy!") - but there tends to be no emotional build-up, no courtship, and no names - just the thwap-thwap-thwap of flesh smacking aft and fore. It's consumable sex, distilled and (relatively) sanitized.

Superhero tragedy porn operates similarly. Tragedy rockets into our heroes' lives without warning. The horrible event is often written simply to elicit shock or give the issue narrative significance. The misfortune usually falls on a little-known or underused character, so as not to derail the main plot about whatever space carnivore or phantom globule or cyborg zygote that the heroes happen to be fighting that issue. It is contextless, disposable dolor that drives sales and keeps the interminable comic serial from becoming stale...


...there's no reflection, no follow-up, no nothing. There's the shock that an established character has been slaughtered, and only that shock. This is fast-food calamity.

Death and other such nastiness are part and parcel of the superhero gig. I'm not disputing that. But whereas with regular porn is a solitary, onanistic pursuit, superhero tragedy porn fucks us all. We get jaded and lose faith in these flying men and women with resplendent hosiery. We start reading comics about people who wear argyle and collect twee 12" LPs. We miss out on these soap operatic übemenschen who can pirouette on the edge of wormholes. We are poorer for it. Paradoxically, when superheroes have "adult" problems, the childishness of their pursuits waxes large.


This essay just skims the surface of an ongoing problem, one that comics have seemingly tried to rectify. Remember when people like Mark Waid were indicating how INFINITE CRISIS would signal an end to the crass, violent, gratuitous, grim-n-gritty era of comics? Maybe I'm remembering/paraphrasing it incorrectly, but I do believe that was the intent!

The thing that really gets to me is how these "tragic" events are meant to solicit only one of two responses: 1.) VENGEFUL RAGE! or 2.) WALLOWING AAAAAAAAAAAAANGST. No one ever acts like a human being would, because these stories don't care about characters. Just advancement of their contrived plot points.

In an ideal world, this would only be the first of many such articles criticizing this loathsome storytelling practice. I have high hopes (while expecting the worst) for BRIGHTEST DAY, but as long as crap like JLA: CRY FOR JUSTICE and RISE AND FALL are out there, this cheap shock-treatment storytelling trope ain't going nowhere.

Comments

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

I think, unfortunately, that comics will never be what we all want them to be, because we all want them to be other things. Especially the superhero books. People buy this shit. It's a business (a stupidly self-ghettoed business, but a business none the less) and these books sell. People vote with their dollars. Many people vote for shit. This is why avatar is the top grossing film, and the eagle's greatest hits the highest selling record, cats the most successful musical ever. Comics are no different. Do I hate that this shit is going to turn one of my favorite characters into an angst fest? yes. on the other hand, I haven't bought a copy of a Green Arrow books since Judd took over. They've been mishandling a character I like for years now. Hell, DC mismanages most characters I like. Really they're only doing right by Guy. This is why i buy green lantern books and ignore the others.

Don't even get me started on how done I am with Marvel on ALL levels.

[shadowlongknife.livejournal.com]

See, I have a little list of characters I'd kill if I took over such-and-such book, but I would make it a MAJOR point, not just a gratuitous death for death's sake.

Is that bad of me? Am I missing the point?

[pure-doxyk.livejournal.com]

Hell to the yes. Plus, a sidenote about how awful and stupid the ease with which "refridgeratoring" and "Tigra-beating" lends itself as pepperoni to that particular shit pizza. >,< !

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

This essay just skims the surface of an ongoing problem, one that comics have seemingly tried to rectify. Remember when people like Mark Waid were indicating how INFINITE CRISIS would signal an end to the crass, violent, gratuitous, grim-n-gritty era of comics? Maybe I'm remembering/paraphrasing it incorrectly, but I do believe that was the intent!

If they really intended to do that, then they failed to an extent that would get someone canned at any other job. Hell, it's become so much of a joke that the original fridging (Kyle Rayner's girlfriend) got lampshaded in Blackest Night, and the closest that anyone in comics has gotten that I know of (I could be wrong on this) to calling out Brad Meltzer for Sue Dibny's torn tights is some lukewarm roasting on the occasion of his birthday on April 1st. Bit late in the game to act like you or any of your co-workers really give a shit, Waid.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

'Course, now, I wouldn't be surprised in the bloody least if Waid somehow found this entire post and lay into me for getting the (paraphrased) quote wrong, which is entirely possible.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I'm kinda firmly against killing almost any characters at this point, because A.) as a plot point, it's kind of lazy and way overdone, and B.) death is virtually meaningless in comics.

And yet, if it's done well (which it so rarely is, partially because it's rarely done in any way other than to be shocking), a good story is a good story. So there are always exceptions.

If you don't mind saying, who would you kill? And why?

I know it's not aimed at me, But it needs saying.

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

Dr. Bashir from deep space nine.

Because he's dr. Bashir. That is reason enough.

[shadowlongknife.livejournal.com]

Charles Xavier, for one. I honestly don't see any way to develop him beyond what's been done, so in my opinion, his remaining usefulness as a character would be to finally take him out of the equation and see how Scott Summers and his other students could honor the memory of their teacher, and prove like any good student that they've surpassed what they've been taught.

The Joker, because there's almost nothing left to do with him that hasn't been done by someone else, and likely better.

However, I know no matter who I killed off, and how epic I made the story of their demise, it would never, ever stick.

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

Disagree. The thing left to do with the joker is have him win.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I can see that. Xavier seems to work even better as an ideal than as a person. But then again, maybe I speak as one who's pissed off at the attempts to make him overly flawed, as in DARK GENESIS and Joss Whedon's Danger Room story. It's one thing to make your hero a human. It's another to go all the way to dick-dom.

I have the wholeheartedly disagree on the Joker, though. As long as there's somebody with a plan, there will always be the Joker to play Loki. The problem with the character is that DC crossed a line with him with Babs and Jim, and then with Jason, and Sarah. DC and lesser writers all forgot the truth that the very best Joker writers knew instinctively: there are far, far, far worse things you can do to someone than torture and kill them.

[swimpenguin.livejournal.com]

Funny that you're bringing this whole analogy up, as I decided (after coming to a point in a short story I'm reading) that I'm laying down a moratorium on 'angry sex' in ANY media-novel/short story/play/movie/comic book, etc. anything where two people are pissed OFF at each other and then having over the top angry sex: no more! I'm sure there's a way to express such a thing emotionally realistically, but I still haven't seen it done yet.
Rant aside, an Astro City (there I go bringing that up again :P) story arc and the death of Gwen Stacey (actually only read that a year or two ago) were the last times I felt genuinely moved by a comic character's death. (Even my first read of Dark Phoenix saga several years back was tainted by "oh she's died and come back how many times by now?") All these characters being killed then resurrected, it feels like a sugar jolt- "they're dead/alive!" and two issues later you've forgotten about it and moved onto the next event. Decades ago it was OMG when Spiderman was stuck under debris and had to rush medicine to Aunt May AND pay the bills; now it's OMG when Spidey, his girlfriends, non-existent kid, numerous villains, friends, and possibly his 5th cousin on his mother's (resurrected as evil robot that gained a conscience!) have died and come back five times over. Believing that superhero comics can be (and are) reflections (like any art)of ourselves, there's some paper waiting to be written about Bucky dying (accidently/for his country) in the '40's, and now every comic character's so freaked about their morality, they pop out from death via a million different ways...oh hi there Bucky, you're back too!
(Sorry, rambly)

Disposable Dolor

[adaptor.livejournal.com]

Oh, sing it!

I don't even read comics and I'm all THIS, THIS, and THIS! This sort of thing turns up in my script reading - which I just started back in on this week and already I've hit scripts this whole post applies to.

'Disposable Dolor' FTMFW.

[shadowlongknife.livejournal.com]

I actually spent an entire evening brainstorming Joker ideas with a friend, only to find that there was already a story someone could come up with in which my idea had been done. So, I think I'd probably just choose not to use him, because there's no Earthly way that my idea, wherein Batman FINALLY snaps and hits Joker too hard, causing him to fall to his death, and then Bruce has to deal with the ramifications of crossing that uncrossable line, would never get greenlit by an editor.

And Xavier definitely works better as an idol that Scott and the others looked up to, than as an actual person who seems to be trapped in an unending cycle of letting them down over and over again. Which seems to be what's being done with him of late.