Which one of Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work would you say this is?



At least we can tell which one of Gerry Conway’s Sound Effects That Are Always Hilarious is in play here.
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All-Star Comics #58, written by Gerry Conway, drawn by Ric Estrada and, yes, Wally Wood. (DC Comics 1976, reprinted in the Justice Society Vol. 1 trade paperback in 2006)

While there’s several things I’d like to discuss about the news coming out of the conventions in Charlotte and Philadelphia this past weekend, it’s one tossed-off line reported in CBR’s wrapup of the DC Nation panel in Charlotte Friday that irked me a bit:

Will any Vertigo characters like Swamp Thing or Constantine appear in the DCU? DiDio said that he didn’t want any mature reader books to cross over, because of the all-ages nature of the DCU’s audience.

I agree with this sentiment — in part. I do believe that the DC Universe should be, for the most part, all-ages territory. If we want to get kids hooked at an early age, like so many of us life-long readers were, then the comics need to be something their parents feel comfortable buying for them or at the very least feel comfortable with their reading. There’s plenty of places for comic with more adult content, both in other avenues within the Big Two and from other publishers. But I think in general, the main books with the iconic superheroes should be somewhat kid-friendly — and by that I don’t mean that they need to be “kiddie books,” but kids should be able to pick them up and not be subjected to graphic sexuality and violence.

The problem with DiDio’s “all ages” statement is that it does not represent the DC Universe as it stands right now. Not as much as the statement might imply, anyway.

Case in point, or case which is pointedly on my mind: Justice League of America #6.

You can certainly argue that Brad Meltzer isn’t writing this book with kids in mind. For one, he’s a novelist more used to writing fiction geared toward adults, but even more to the point, with this series he’s writing for himself and people roughly the same age he is. The current JLA is aimed squarely at the people who grew up reading comics (specifically DC comics) in the seventies and eighties and who now are thirty- and forty-year-olds with (theoretically, debatably) more sophisticated tastes in story theme and structure. But what that means is the current JLA is not friendly to kids. (I don’t believe sophistication or maturity has to equal kid-unfriendly, but in this case it does.)

At that point in the story, the Red Tornado had achieved his long-held desire to be human. His robotic consciousness and powers had been transferred into a human body, so he was able to experience all the sensory highs of being human — and, of course, the sensory lows. And it’s in JLA #6 that Meltzer lets Reddy really feel those lows. Solomon Grundy beats the holy hell out of the Tornado, pummeling him nearly to death, breaking his ankle and other body parts…

…and then he rips the Tornado’s arm off just below the elbow. Very, very graphically. We get Ed Benes’ lovely depiction of de-meated and de-handed bone stuck out from the stump of Red Tornado’s arm as he (Reddy, not Benes) screams in agony. (For bonus points, Grundy then eats the hand, though at least that act happens in shadow.)

This, in Dan Didio’s “all ages” DC universe.

(Also, good times in Justice Society of America #3: as neo-Nazis tear apart a family reunion, little kids included. Not quite on par with the hand-eating in JLA, but a bit disturbing nonetheless. And let’s not even touch on the amount of gratuitously graphic violence in Infinite Crisis.)

Look, I’m not squeamish when it comes to violence in comics — Preacher is one of my all-time favorite series, and the sorts of violence routinely featured in that book far, far outpaced the recent events in JLA or JSA. But Preacher was in no way intended for kids and it didn’t feature the big recognizable DC icons. Books like JLA and JSA should be treated as gateway books, comics that new readers (including kids, especially kids) interested in mainstream superhero books can pick up and get hooked by. Same goes for the main Avengers books, Teen Titans, the main X-Men books (just to touch on teams). There’s plenty of places for the more mature, more graphic storytelling, even within the mainstream Marvel and DC lines.

Also, I’m not saying that violence shouldn’t be part of JLA and its ilk. Violence is a large part of the tapestry of mainstream superhero comics and always has been. But the violence can certainly be treated a little differently, can’t it, in certain books? What Grundy did to Red Tornado was thematically central to what Meltzer was doing with that story — that scene might have been the central point of “The Tornado’s Path.” I believe, though, that the theme would have been as well served with, say, a shot of the Tornado on his back on the ground, Grundy clearly having him pinned and gripping his arm; appropriately disturbing sound effects; later shots where it’s obvious that Reddy is missing part of his arm. The same events, the same meaning to Red Tornado (and therefore to the audience), but done in such a way that’s at least closer to being truly an all-ages book. Less visceral, perhaps (in more than one sense), but still effective.

I’m a parent. I want my kids to read comics. I’ve already gotten my girls hooked by buying them their very own issues of Krypto the Superdog, based on the animated series. My older daughter loves to try to find comics from my stack I can read to her, but I’m very careful about what I let her look at — y’know, one of my main responsibilities as a parent. When I was a kid, probably eight, nine years old, Justice League of America was one of my favorite books, one of the few I bought every month without fail. I don’t remember anything in those issues my dad would particularly have objected to. But no way in hell would I want my kids reading something like the current JLA #6 until they were teenagers, and I think that’s a shame and a disservice to a book which I think should be a way into comics for younger readers.

Am I wrong here? Am I being entirely too old-fogey for my own good? Do we just say “Well, there’s the Johnny DC line and the Marvel Adventures line for the kids — let us adults have our bloody arm-severings in our mainstream superhero comics?” Or are we assuming that kids aren’t reading these books anyway, so we don’t even have to worry about making them kid-friendly? Would all be made well if Dan DiDio just gave up on the myth that the DCU is truly all-ages and admitted that DC’s mainstream output is geared toward adults? I’ll readily admit that I could be wrong on this topic and that my views could be outdated or outmoded — I’m really curious to hear what all seven of our readers have to say on the subject.