Don't read superhero comics? Give me reasons why. And what you think needs improvement

Teira 2022-03-20 04:19:25 UTC #21

I grew up on anime and manga, so I never got into American superhero comics.

darthmongoose 2022-03-20 08:58:17 UTC #22

The only reason I can imagine to ask people why they don't read superhero comics is because for some reason you want to make a superhero comic for people who don't like superhero comics.
This is a trap a lot of people seem to fall into. I've seen it over and over again, so I'm warning you not to fall victim to it. If you're going to make a superhero comic, make it for people who at least kind of like superhero comics, or like superhero movies or cartoon series (like Young Justice for example) but don't like mainline superhero comics. Nobody is going to read a comic that's like "this is a superhero comic! But it's not like other superhero comics!" if they're not motivated to even look in the Superhero genre to begin with.

Because the fact is that Superhero comics are fine at what they do, but what they do is very specific and not for everyone. It's generally some sort of soft sci-fi or Fantasy about people who use their extraordinary powers to personally overcome problems in society, often while wearing a flamboyant outfit, possibly with some kind of anonymity. It's a power fantasy about having control and agency.
Practically every conceivable deconstruction of superheroes has kind of already been done, like "ooh, what if the heroes were government sponsored and we explored how authoritarian superheroes are as a concept!?" Yeah, we've got The Boys, we've got Watchmen... Hell, even My Hero Academia is a bit like this. Or "Ooh! What if a group of superheroes refused to wear costumes and hated superheroes!?" Yeah, that's Runaways among others. "What if somebody with no powers tried to be a superhero in real life?" and so there's Kickass. "What if instead of being a masculine power fantasy, superheroes were a group of girls in cute outfits and there was romantic drama!?" -Yeah, that's Sailor Moon all right.

When you're going to make a superhero story, assume your audience are people who at least like the concept of superheroes, because if you remove the elements that people who don't like superheroes dislike so much that they can't even read a less "typical" take on the genre like Watchmen or Runaways, you'll get something that isn't really a superhero story, more like... I dunno, a soft sci-fi or Fantasy story about people with powers (like Buffy the Vampire Slayer) if you take out the costumes and codenames (and my comic is arguably this too), or a story about vigilantes or a government task force if you take out the powers (like The A-Team).
There are a lot of people who love the Marvel movies, and maybe like some stuff like Young Justice or Teen Titans, and maybe odd comics like Runaways, Young Avengers, Squirrel Girl and My Hero Academia but don't like mainstream superhero comics, and the reasons are often:

The characters are hard to relate to because they're usually exaggeratedly muscular and craggy white American men in their mid thirties.
Politically superheroes are.... kind of an authoritarian concept that may not appeal to modern young people? Like the idea that if you have superpowers (or if you're Batman just.... lots of money?) it's reasonable to be a vigilante and go around beating up criminals gets deconstructed a lot for a reason. Modern superheroes have to do a lot more legwork to justify why being a superhero is okay, and tend to have to focus on big threats like a supervillain or alien invasion or have the characters answer to authority, and still a lot of people might just not like the concept of people who go around with superhuman abilities solving people's problems for them (especially with um... how this reflects American foreign policy in an uncomfortable way sometimes, as reflected in Watchmen).
The art style, particularly in print superhero books, is very masculine and aimed at a pretty narrow audience. I say this as a person who was literally told by a Marvel editor that my art is too feminine looking to be in a mainstream Marvel book (yes, that really happened, he said if I worked for Marvel, I'd need to be on books like Runaways and Young Avengers, I'm just too girly to draw Spider-man). A lot of people preferred the art style and character designs of the cartoon series, but only more fringe books tend to reflect this.
While attempts have been made to represent LGBTQ+ people, a lot of them have been um.... bad? Looking at you, Snowflake and Safe Space A lot of readers want representation of queer identities because it reflects their experiences, but mainsteam superhero books don't always do it super-well. Honestly just any representation of marginalised people and even of just women tends to be bad due to how homogeneous the teams making a lot of Superhero content are, or editorial meddling.
Plotlines tend to focus on the action, fighting and convoluted villain plots, while a lot of people who like Superheroes as an idea but prefer them in films and TV it's usually because they like the ensemble cast dynamics (which is why X-Men Evolution was my favourite version of the X-Men personally).
When I started reading even "fringe" superhero books like Runaways, I had to catch up on an absolutely ridiculous amount of lore to follow certain plot threads. A lot of mainstream superhero books are from the "big two" and assume ridiculously in-depth lore knowledge, which is even a problem with the Batman comic on Webtoon; it assumes you know way more about Batman characters than somebody who has never read Batman and has only seen the films or the old animated series would know. People often prefer the movies and animated series over the comics because those don't assume you already know who Stephanie Brown, AKA Spoiler, is.

But... Obviously those aren't the thoughts of somebody who doesn't read superhero comics, so much as the thoughts of somebody who loves superhero comics as a concept and has read a lot of them, but would like them to be better and more accessible and even tried to work for Marvel to make it happen, and had a bad experience with the whole thing.

NickRowler 2022-03-20 11:23:47 UTC #23

My sister and I enjoyed the Runaways comic as teens, I haven't seen the show so I am speaking mostly for the comic...

We both enjoyed it because of how it didn't have the stereotypical "people in spandex" and it focused more on teen drama and there relationships with each other and their parents. It was also a comic with multiple LGBT characters during a time when that was not too common in comics. And these themes were never used for weird PR which tends to happen to modern LGBT superhero comics. I remember I stopped reading because things got really convoluted and there was a comic with time travel that I thought was a silly "what if" story but it ended up being canon and I was "OK, I'm done".

darthmongoose 2022-03-20 11:52:26 UTC #24

You stopped reading when Joss Whedon took over Honestly, totally justified, his run was a total mess and really seemed to miss the point with a lot of the themes. The runs after that one before it got abruptly cancelled mid-arc weren't good either.

The more recent revival run by Rainbow Rowell wasn't bad... although my experience was tarnished somewhat by finding out about some of the controversies around the writer. It did have some good character stuff and actually get the themes of the series.

Runaways is a really interesting series and it is a shame that Marvel blanked me after I sent in pencil samplers for it (at their request). I'd have loved to have worked on it. All that said though, it never again hits the same thematic coherence as the original 3 volume Brian K Vaughan run. The TV series isn't bad. Makes a few changes to make things work outside of Marvel continuity (like the fact that the comic has aliens, tech AND literal magic gets streamlined so the source of powers is a bit more unified) and focuses a lot more on the adult characters, making them more nuanced. Worth a watch.

Fafnir 2022-03-20 13:00:38 UTC #25

Super hero comics are like any other genre. If done well, its good, if not its not. Its got nothing to do with super powers.
super heroes are just fantasy heroes with powers in the present. The x-men is basically a fantasy. the genre doesn't matter as much as the writing.

Personal preference, for an example. I read "the boys" and HATED IT. It was basically a super hero comic about why super heroes suck written by someone who hates super heroes.
However, the SHOW was great! The "heroes" had actual character, and there was a real story. It had respect for the genre.
SO yeah. good story, good characters, respect for the genre. that's all.

powerplantanimations 2022-03-20 17:36:22 UTC #26

@darthmongoose TOTALLY agree with this. A little bit of a spoiler, but there's a character in my current comic who's gonna pop up real soon that's gonna act as a little test for how people react to a aesthetic/lore lol (if people don't like that one, I'll just use the one below). Personally I'm done with gritty superhero deconstructions. I just want to make a cartoony superhero comic that's a love letter to the genre and the cosmic wackiness.

I've been thinking about making things look a little silver age while having some sort of funky look to it:

Like I'm a huge fan of Funkadelic-Parliment and Bootsy Collins and if you know the history of funk, you know stuff like Star Trek and Sputnik helped create today (and LSD but we don't... we don't talk about that). There's a bit of commentary about music in the music genre as well.

The comic is basically asking "Okay, what would be the band's take be on superheroes?". Episodes are chopped up like my Stick Figure Webcomic, so you can just hop in and just read a story. Something that's Tapas friendly.

As for the costumes, I want the characters to look exaggerated af. Like when they put on their costumes, their personalities are being hypercharged (like the picture above) instead of keeping a low profile lmao. The joke is the characters TRY to keep a low profile, but everyone is like "We know it's you. Just stop pretending". There is a character who is promiscuous but everything's kept PG (also she's a space cougar) (humor is very Funkadelic/70's-esque lmao).

Characters talk they're like in a cartoony Saturday Morning Cartoon but there are moments where they get real in humorous situations and they begin to talk like real human beings (a la Smiling Friends). The main villain is like this godlike being instead of some evil Superman. But yeah, hopefully I'm doing something right here lol. You mind if I ask you some questions since you worked at Marvel? I've actually always wanted to work at someplace like DC and I've always wanted to get insight with how companies like that work :0

darthmongoose 2022-03-20 17:46:36 UTC #27

I said I didn't work at Marvel. I did a portfolio viewing with an editor (I'm not going to name which one) at a large UK comics event. He liked my work, said it was good enough quality but "too feminine for a mainstream book like Spider-Man" but that he could see me working on a "side book" like Runaways or similar and gave me the talent manager's email address, saying I should ask for a script for pencil samples, which I did.
So I did the pencil samples to the Runaways script I got from the Talent manager, sent them in... and they blanked me. I waited a year thinking "maybe the quality of my work is the issue! I'll just work really hard and get better and try again!" and ended up sending one pencil sampler a year for the next three years and getting no response every time.

That is the entirety of my interaction with Marvel comics.

If you want to work for DC, my recommendation is to start submitting scripts to comics publishers soon (and working on your own webcomics projects and building an audience for them). DC tend to only work with creators who have already been published by some other large or noteworthy comics publisher.

powerplantanimations 2022-03-20 17:53:29 UTC #28

Ah okay. Thanks for the advice tho. Hopefully I'll be able to gain a large enough fanbase.

Awesomeness_Studios 2022-03-21 02:39:48 UTC #29

Hmm, then I think in that case you should focus on what you like and dislike about the genre. It's your love letter so it should be about your feelings.

I realize in a sense that's sorta how I approached my comic.

AlydaB 2022-03-21 03:08:20 UTC #30

I personally haven't enjoyed the very few superhero comics I've checked out for several reasons. Biggest one is not feeling invested in the action.

A city is being destroyed by giant lazer beams with people running around screaming and dying and my eyes start glazing over because there's still no emotional weight to the scene, and no sense of stakes. As the reader, for me to care about what's happening I need to know that something I care about is at risk of being lost or damaged. If I know that the hero is going to beat the bad guy and everything's going to be alright with nothing lost in the process, I zone out and lose interest. If the hero is boring and I don't care if they live or die or go through trauma or loss, I zone out and lose interest.

Unfortunately, the few superhero comics I've checked out all had the same problem. They spent so much time on cool-looking action scenes that they forgot to make the hero interesting and someone worth investing my time in.

I think this has a lot to do with the heroes having fuzzy motivations. Why do they bother to fight the baddies and save the world? Because.. they're a good person ? I dunno!

Characters who do what they do for no clear, understandable reason- or for stupid, unrealistic reasons- bore me.

RedLenai 2022-03-21 03:35:00 UTC #31

At difference from many already here, which also, seems to have lost themselves in time because Comics nowadays are way more diverse than before, with different plotes, heroes with different powers, different timelines, extremely different art styles and collaborations with different artist from all around the globe with art that is no longer the classic "comic" art from the '80s-'90s. As well the merging with other sub.genres. I have so much around me that I don't know what to pick, I feel overwhelmed and then I end up not reading stuff most of the time.
And since there are so many things, so many stories with so many different characters, it also happens the same thing to me but with with manga and webcomics as well.

And so, I read very few things in general, I guess the only "Mangamic" I'm reading right now is "One Operation JOKER" which is done in manga style, and it's quite a slice of life, comedy series of Joker raising Batman after the later accidentaly fell in de-aging Chemicals with strong side effects.

I think I'll get it if people felt overwhelmed just like me, but I think that those that complain that "there is no enough of this or that" are... probably a bit lazy, you know, the classic of those who don't search, don't find what they want.

kitschensyngk 2022-03-21 03:38:20 UTC #32

Two superhuman characters on opposite sides of a moral argument take turns punching each other while racking up collateral damage. Not really my cup of tea.

Plus I kinda feel like superheroes have become the default genre in mainstream comics, which is saddening because there's just so much more out there.

I've read Watchmen, though. The underlying theme of Cold War paranoia kept it interesting.

Kuma 2022-03-21 03:51:13 UTC #33

Devil's Advocate Part 2

Generalization is bad people. There are many art styles in modern mainstream comics, don't close yourself to amazing artists such as Daniel Warren Johnson (Mid) who is a double threat writer/artist doing both mainstream and indie stuff.

The second issue I see a lot of you repeat is the over-abundance of action and lack of character development. That couldn't be further of the truth. In the 80's Comics used to be one-shots, until having multi-part stories became the norm, giving character waaaay more space to develop and evolve.

Third issue I concede. Mainstream Superhero Comics have the never ending problem of reset status quos and ignoring what the previous writer workd hard on, but you can take storylines as their own thing. For example recently there was an amazing Hulk run, introspective, exploring the character and its mythology, with amazing art and superb horror leanings. When it ended a new artist and writer duo picked Hulk up and changed everything. I personally don't like it as much, but the reinvention on each run keeps stuff fresh.

The haunting Immortal Hulk

Ensemble casts are a long tradition in comic books and has been done perfectly many times over. The problem is the sheer quantity obscure quality. Justice League International is an amazing book from the late 80's and early 90's with hyper-expressive faces and comedy, as it was less of a superhero book and more about what Superheroes did outside their adventures. If you want something more recent Wolverine and the X-men which has Wolverine taking over as the headmaster of Xavier's School (Rebranded Jean Grey's School) is also great with a lot of character interaction.

The current X-men run is less a superhero book and a study in nation building, as all mutants, good, bad, neutral and more, have teamed up under a single banner forming their own nation. It has a little bit of everything, political thriller elements, mysteries, culture building as the mutants generate their new society (X-men by Jonathan Hickman). They became more focused on their own survival than being actual superheroes.

Giffen and DeMateis Justice League International.

Imagine the balancing act of having Magneto, Apocalypse and Professor X assist to a diplomatic conference.

Still, comic books aren't perfect and many issues don't have a counter-argument and could be improved, like better representation, even more variety of art.

Some problems are intrinsic with the medium, as the baton pass of writers and artist shifting a character.

Is a dying industry struggling from air as it sinks. It makes a lot of mistakes.

Pommie 2022-03-21 07:02:20 UTC #34

-sobs in superhero comics and sees all these tropes-

I love superhero comics and I find the stigma of the hyper masc male protag never doing anything wrong a huge issue in superhero comics.

But i love the genre, there's a lot of peeves I have with it that everyone wants to be the next JACK KIRBY, or golden age of comics when there's so many good superhero indie comics that exist -pain peko-
Mine's kind of a commentary against the superhero tropes tho, but still with the fun of superheroes.

TheLemmaLlama 2022-03-21 08:38:07 UTC #35

I get where you're coming from; when I critique a genre, I like to focus on the things inherent to that genre (in my case, superheroes => superpowers => loss of awe due to normalization of incredible powers. If they just had normal, non-incredible powers, then they wouldn't be superheroes; they'd just be heroes) instead of trends that (I assume are) common but not necessary components and that, as you said, may have updated since the last time we picked up a story of that genre. As people who don't read superhero comics, naturally we're not going to be an authority on superhero comics and we shouldn't act like we are.

Though the OP was specifically asking for the perspective of people who don't read superhero comics as to why they don't read superhero comics, rather than an objective analysis of the flaws of superhero comics. So I think the responses here are reasonable; they're giving OP the data he asked for. If that includes ignorant stereotypes of the genre, that's to be expected from people who don't engage with the genre. And yeah, "those who don't search, don't find what they want", but you can't assume the respondents here haven't found what they want - they probably have other genres they like and are comfortable keeping it that way for the moment :]

RedLenai 2022-03-21 10:40:09 UTC #36

I want to clarify I'm in fact someone who doesn't read the genre, yet I know a little few things about certain comics or the evolution of the genre itself thanks to the people that read them, be it friends, colleages, fans, etc. I can be a bit informed about it without consuming it or shutting myself totally from it.
So I'm also one of those that don't read comics despite I don't necessarily follow nor focus on the same stereotype and mindset of those who have already participated, not everyone that doesn't engage with something, share the same reasons.

You'll probably find those who don't have that same outdated mindset, but there are also are those who don't read comics because they are too "politically correct", "too inclusive", "very political about IRL issues", "I read comics to escape from reality, not to bla bla bla", the art-style is too cartoony, to anime-ish, or that they are constantly ret-coning characters, etc. You know, the classic thing that pops on someone's Twitter feed without interacting with the topic at all.

As well, I did not make an analysis about the flaws of superhero comics, considering that I don't know much about the genre, I can't even think of a comic I have read from start to finish or that I'm actively reading. What I can say is what I can see superficially even without having much of a prejudgement over the genre, while still being in my comfort zone.
I want to clarify as well that I did not call anyone ""unreasonable"" or ""ignorant"", considering it on your usage of those words, just that my reasons as to why I don't read comics are different of the already mentioned ones that other people have expressed here.

powerplantanimations 2022-03-21 16:25:22 UTC #37

Yeah, you're right. Imma take that advice.

R.n.P 2022-03-21 18:19:30 UTC #38

I just don't like that a lot of superheroes are displayed as being completely in the right or when the story writes itself to make us view them as being good even though they did something messed up, I wish a lot of superhero comics made the readers hate the actions of the heroes and then try to redeem them

TheLemmaLlama 2022-03-22 00:29:29 UTC #39

Ah my bad, I thought your point was basically "people have outdated notions of what a superhero comic is, and they should inform themselves of the myriad of superhero comics that don't have the flaws they're criticizing the genre for having" :]

The word "ignorant" just means that someone is uninformed about something, and I thought you were saying people were uninformed about what superhero comics that don't fit their stereotype of superhero comics, which means they're ignorant about the topic. It doesn't have to carry any loaded connotations

I guess I thought you were implying that one shouldn't critique a genre without being well-informed about it, which makes such a critique unreasonable. But I guess that's not what you were saying :]

And I wasn't saying that you were making an analysis of the flaws, I was saying that the other people who don't know about superhero comics can't be expected to make an accurate analysis of the flaws.

But thanks for clarifying what you meant! I just feel the need to clarify what I meant as well

system 2022-04-21 00:29:32 UTC #40

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