A significant portion of the problem, of course, lies in how many of those people are committed to tooting their own horns as loudly as possible, instead of looking to the future health of the characters.

There is a great difference between having an imagination that can conjure up disturbing imagery...and knowing where it is appropriate to place that imagery... I said nothing about hating Grim and Grittiness...I love it in the appropriate context.
Superheroes that have an established history of heroism and youth friendliness is not the appropriate context.

Way to miss the point!

************************************************************ ***

Maybe you're missing my point. I think you're sort of a creep. I'm not really interested in hearing about teen characters from youth novels performing sex acts for drugs. At least a professional writing about such might have some misguided literary goal in mind, he's not just conjuring up that imagery to impress his online buddies.

I don't think we are quite on the same page. Yes, 9 to 14 has some disposable income, but they don't have nearly the disposable income of the 16 to 24 year old age group. This is the group that has expenses paid and begining to work. But, they aren't generally "working for a living". This is the group that defines much of the change that happens in any media. They have the money to piss away and the desire to explore. They thrill on finding something new and staking claim.

Frankly, from a business sense, it is what the comic companies should do and who they should go after. It is the market that is growing. As generations go, the Boomers far outnumbered Generation X. But it is the Millennials that are far outnumbering both groups. We still have a handful of years that they are in this buying market and the next generational group dominates the market and we have our next major swing.

_________________________________

The problem with the companies (specifically the Big 2) aiming their superhero comics at the 16 to 24 age group is that most people in that age group don't have any interest in reading, much less spending their money, on superheroes comics. Remember, the over whelming majority of current adult superhero comic book readers all started reading superhero comics between the ages of 5 and 14. You have to get the fans young, if you want to keep some of them reading and buying those same superhero comics as older teens and adults.

_________________________________

But not that many people are buying the books. Remember, today's top selling gimmick comic would have been on the cancellation bubble 20 to 30 years ago. The thing is that TPTB at the Big 2 rather try to keep their rapidly shrinking aging readership and appeal to the near mythical brand new older teen and adult reader, instead of trying to appeal to a wide all ages audience made up of mostly new young kid readers.