BTW, here's a link to that issue I reference above:

"More Mature Stories"

I forgot that there was also a Captain Underpants ad directly to the left of that page, too!! Talk about mixed-up!

Stephen, try this, check the dollar boxes for old 1970's issues of Superman or Action Comics, those were still kid friendly wholesome entertainment.

I second this!  You can give a kid any issue from Superman/Action/World's Finest in the 70s and 80s.  For all their datedness, my silver/bronze age Superman collection is still the jewel and most cherished part of my comic book collection.

I personally would recommend DC COMICS PRESENTS.  Perhaps the most consistently good Superman title EVER with fabulous rotating team-ups and creative teams.  It's classic/modern in story telling and art and has many of the best single issue Superman stories ever!

Jimmy Olsen referring to Clark Kent as "C.K." bothered me almost 20 years ago when he did it on "Lois & Clark."

***

To say nothing of the fact that pronouncing "C.K." takes longer than saying "Clark", since it's two syllables to the later's single.

When I was in the army, there was another Sergeant who took to calling me M.T. but it came out sounding more like "empty".

*Edited to add, this was in 1987, six years before Lois & Clark began.

Another vote for DC Comics Presents as an excellent title for young and old alike.

The Grant Morrison Action Comics is also adult by virtue of the freeform, randomly associative nature of its storytelling as well. There is no straightforward telling of events, but rather a montage effect of hyper-real concepts and very little forward motion. It can be followed, but it takes considerable effort at times when the payoff is so thin. Attempting to read Grant Morrison to a six-year old is likely to cause a great number of questions, head-scratching, and again, no real adventure-style thrills. We're onboard for the coolness of it all, remember, not because the stories themselves or the characters are exciting... Like Abrams' lens flares, there is a great deal of the autuer stylistically waving at the audience from behind the camera. But hey, knock yourself out and give it a try. Why not, right?

Regarding the darkening of Congorilla, it first took place in a Rick Veitch-written Swamp Thing Annual with a Brian Bolland cover. Today, the remains of Congo Bill, having just been eaten by the Golden Gorilla, would have been a lot bloodier. This is also the issue wherein it is suggested that Angel and the Ape's relationship is a sexual one, as Angel is seen cavorting with some Gorilla City citizens before Sam jealously grabs her arm and takes her back to the city, ostensibly because he has comic book deadlines to meet.

Although B'Wana Beast also appeared in that annual*, he was transformed via the cited White Man's Burden into a South African champion of the oppressed, Freedom Beast, early in Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man. Now those were straightforwardly told stories, for the most part... :-)

* He is beaten almost to death by his previously-loyal ape servant, Djuba, who after being freed from Grodd's control, nurses him back to health at the end of the story. This, despite the fact that he is now apparently terrified of her.

Hey, gorillas are serious business! We weren't doing these kids any favors by letting them think of gorillas as cute or friendly or anything but the wild animals they are! What would happen if a child, a small child, one who picks flowers during playtime and sings happy songs, what if that child happened to think of an escaped gorilla as a playmate because they read one of OUR comics???? How would that child's death help anyone? No, insane killer gorillas are they only RESPONSIBLE portrayal of these modern-day monsters, lurking in our zoos and wildlife preserves, waiting for their chance...

Okay. It's just fun to write like that... :-) Really, though, the darker portrayal of characters, which we are constantly told by creators and critics alike, is more REALISTIC (because when that flying super-powered guy showed up on the news last year, everything happened EXACTLY the way the doomsayers said it would... Oh, wait. No, it didn't. Because the concept itself is inherently NOT realistic...) is just a way to spin a story without having to devise a plot or any such additional, troublesome elements. You just go dark, and the government conspiracies and black ops missions start to write themselves. Plus, the fans eat that stuff up. Finally, finally, after decades of having to justify to your mom and abusive older sister and everyone at school that it was okay to like Batman, suddenly we see that the writers and artists took all of those criticisms about a lack of realism to heart and FIXED EVERYTHING!

Now, he's a psychopath. Or a sociopath. I forget which. But he's REAL. And all that cartoon "Biff, Pow, Sock" violence? Now it's REAL violence. Oh, yeah... This is all cool now, baby. Nothing to be embarassed about here. YOUR crummy forms of entertainment don't consider the consequences the way OUR'S does...! We got people putting arrows through people's skulls, we've got villains eating the hero's eyeballs, we've got crazy people cutting their own faces off... We got it all! You just TRY laughing at us now!!

And I've got to say, I kind of am... The whole thing is right there on that thin line dividing comedy and tragedy, but the longer it goes on, the farther and farther it topples into the comedy side of things.

And yes, Gaiman did write the story in which Brother Power is revealed to have been a Fabric Elemental all along, as his wandering powers run amok in the city and a hail of marked-down socks in a department store literally flew off the shelves urging shoppers to "Tune In, Turn On, and Drop Out." Gaiman's also the one who united all of DC's plant-related characters into one university graduating class, so Alec Holland knew Pamela Isley who knew Jason Woodrue who knew the gal who became Black Orchid... He also wrote the story wherein he personified the Tardis as a quippy female character and the Doctor's only ongoing, commited relationship. (Rolls eyes...)

Gaiman is a total fanboy...*

The relationship of the Vertigo titles to the rest of the DCU was an odd mix, given that the series that kicked it all off had copious and (you should forgive the term) deeply rooted ties to the mainstream titles. Swamp Thing crossed over with any number of DC characters, mystical and non-mystical, and was a player in the Crisis. Swamp Thing's first major menace, the mass-murdering Plantmaster was reformed in the Millenium series and was a player in the New Guardians spin-off. That was just weird. Did everyone just kind of forget about all the inhabitants of Lacroix, Louisianna he wantonly killed?

Comics are weird, man...

* That being said, I did think the bit with the socks was funny...