Superhero Tragedy Porn is Bad for Comics
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.
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.