Okay, I'm grasping for a more appropriate term, but nothing comes to mind so bear with me as I explain.

In the late '60s and early 70's there is a crop of new writer's coming into comics that begin to address social or individual injustices and/or personal empowerment, rather than crime or super-villains.  Denny O'Neill, Steve Gerber, and Chris Claremont immediately come to mind, but there were others.

I don't understand how this radical change came about?  Did the editors believe that the readers they found in the early and mid-60's were growing older and more sophisticated, and therefore a more sophisticated storyw was reqruired to keep them hanging around?  Were the editor's not minding the store?  Exactly what happened that super-hero comics moved from super-action to what they were at that time.

And, what caused the shift back to the focus on super-heroes during the '80s?  Was there any one series that made people take notice?  Were sales really tanking?

Thanks!

Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

The big problem in comics, for decades now, is that there's too little genres being backed by companies with money and a good business sense. So everything gets crammed into super heroes.

The problem with this kind of writing (in all genres, in all formats) is that you have to agree with the point the writer is trying to make in order to enjoy the story. If you disagree with the writer, the writer has to be extraordinarily talented in order to keep you reading.

After all, the trick isn't to make the reader buy the comic they're already reading (since presumably they already bought it), but to get them to buy the next issue. If I was a fan of Green Lantern when he was made 'relevant' I would have been more than a little ticked off (Hell, I was ticked off when I read that story years later. The art was beautiful but Hal looked like a chump, and an impotent chump at that.), not neccesarily because I disagreed with Denny O'neil's story (though in that specific case I did), but because a point was being shoved down my throat. I hate that kind of stuff and always have.

Gordon Korman was a great writer of kids books when I was growing up, funny, well structured, likable characters, and then he got infected with the 'lesson' disease and every novel had to end with the characters learning an important lesson. Knowing this, and resenting this, I find that I have to keep it in mind and read around it when I come to the end of his books. I don't disagree with the lessons, but I don't like being lectured to now, and I absolutely despised it as a kid and his books were a welcome respite from the lectures of the other kids books. And then he followed their lead.

By the by, there were lessons in his other books, but they were different sorts of lessons, about responsibility, about finding a way to fit in, about dealing with and learning to like the strange people around us, but they weren't presented as lessons. They were presented as part of life. But for some reason he had to make those lessons explicit and a part of me wonders if 'parents' groups (parents in quotes because I've found most groups that identify as parents groups usually consist of mothers, not exclusively, but predominantly) read his books, missed the subtle lessons (that were very boyish lessons in a way. Told by a boy, to an audience of boys, with boy characters doing boy stuff), and decided that it was fluff and unworthy of educating children (as an aside, giving a child a book in order to educate said child? Bad idea. Reading the book, giggling, then handing it to the child like my mom did? Good idea). So he responded by making his lessons more obvious.

There were some interesting stories in the relevant phase of comics but was it worth it? Or were the writers and artists and editors and companies suddenly more interested in chasing the accolades of the critics? And most importantly, they usually bled readers on those titles but I wonder if it had a chilling effect on all of comics? That those readers who liked those titles would look down on all the titles that weren't like that and make other fans feel stupid for liking them. That other writers would see those accolades and respond by being even more relevant and then bleed readers themselves.

The core of Spider-Man is such that any reader of almost any political bent can feel comfortable with the concept. A conservative can think that Peter's a conservative (since he's all about personal responsibility) and a liberal can feel just as comfortable thinking that Peter's a liberal (since he's all about helping his fellow man). The emphasis might shift but both camps can claim him.

But then a writer comes along who wants to claim him for their side and writes a story (if the writer is a liberal) where Spider-man starts spouting off about responsibility and how everyone should be as responsible as he is and then something happens to make him realize how everyone must help one another. Or to be even more explicit; the republican party holds their national convention in New York and the writer reveals them all to be former nazis who have found a long life formula and Spider-Man destroys their evil cabal and pledges to end the evil that those Conservatives represent.

This isn't to start a debate, I'm sure a liberal would be equally as irked to have the above scenarios reversed by a conservative writer. The point is that if you disagreed with the story, not only would you resent the story, and the writer, but I have a feeling you would start to resent the character. And that portrayal would taint how you feel about that character. Obviously you'd probably drop that comic.

By the by, I'm not saying liberals aren't responsible, or that conservatives don't believe in helping others, just that it would be easy to twist Spider-Man to fit either viewpoint.

Unfortunately, before it was, it won all kinds of awards and notoriety outside the normally very closed and insular comicbook community. How many times was that "What have you done for the black skins?" panel reproduced in "real world" newspapers?* This made "relevance" cool, and the utter failure of the experiment was overlooked as pretty much everybody jumped on that bandwagon -- and sales dropped across the board.


* Ever wonder, as I have, why GL didn't respond with "Well, I save the whole world about a million times!"

JLA.  Green Arrow/Green Lantern.  I haven't read any other Denny O'Niell stories at DC because Showcase Presents reprints are just getting into that era, for the most part.  Teen Titans has quite a bit.  Heck, even Metal Men sort of gets into it a little. 

At Marvel you can see it in some issues of Spider-Man, Man-Thing and I'm assuming Howard the Duck, as well.  Captain America had a lot of it, although not as heavy-handed.  I'm drawing a blank, but I know there is more. 

Edited to add:  Thanks JB, I didn't know that bit of informaiton, and that explains a lot.