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Targeting an audience composed mostly of boys in their early teens, Stan knew that the characters who would have the greatest appeal would be those who, at least in some fashion, reflected typical teenage angst. None of the DC characters of that time did this. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash --- they all stepped into their roles as superheroes as if born to them. And, indeed, "born to it" was a recurring theme. A standard trope of Mort Weisinger "imaginary stories" was having Superman shown to have been destined to become Superman, no matter how his life path might have varied.

Across the street at Marvel, the characters were rarely prepared for the roles "Fate chose for them". The FF, the X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Daredevil, the Hulk -- these were all people suddenly thrust into lives for which they were ill prepared. That they dealt with them as well as they did was a sign of their strong characters, but getting to that point was often a struggle. Marvel heroes accepted their fates, but reluctantly.

This felt very familiar to teenage boys (I was close to that audience, being 11 when I started reading Marvel "full time", as opposed to occasional glimpses at the barber shop). Rolling into one's teen years was like having one's whole life turned, if not upside down, at least on its side. Physical changes were as much an embarrassing inconvenience as anything else. (There, I was lucky. I drifted thru puberty hardly even noticing it, but I did see my friends and classmates thumping over those speedbumps.)

And, of course, the assumption was that once kids got thru those turbulent times, they'd be leaving comics behind, and new readers would have been flowing in to replace them.

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And how many of these elements are now gone?

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One of the things that struck me as very odd when Bill Mantlo took over ALPHA FLIGHT was that he seemed embarked upon a campaign to remove anything that made the characters -- and the book -- "different". He changed Puck, he "fixed" Bochs, he made Heather a superhero.

Mantlo was not alone. There came upon Marvel an era of writers and editors who seemed determined to erase anything that was unusual about the characters in their personal lives.

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Roger Stern used to say of one writer that his stories lacked a certain zip because he loved the characters so much he could not bring himself to do bad things to them! And, of course, if we don't do bad things to the characters, we don't get very exciting stories!

On the faux commentary track for "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog" when asked what the story is about, Whedon intones, "It's about PAAAIN..." to which another of the actors says, "Let's not talk to Joss right now. He's dark and scary."

Joss loves the dark and the pain. He wrote the introduction to Brad Metzler's "Identity Crisis" and praised it highly. To see those once-bright and shining, stainless super-heroes dragged through sordid episodes of rape, murder, and unethical practices tickled him greatly.

It's worth noting, though, that Joss hits a lot of notes in his work, and the "dark and scary," while always there and reliably painful for characters and audiences alike, is not the be-all and end-all. He also brings genuine warmth, humor, wit, adventure, discovery, and any number of other effective emotional beats. It's hardly the same one-note theatre I find so often with other "dark" writers such as Millar, Mills, Ellis, Ennis, Robinson, et al.

As for disabled heroes in general, there are some perceived difficulties with them that many writers struggle with. First off, they are seen as difficult to relate to, both for the writer and the general reader. Very few young readers identify greatly with the hero in the wheelchair. They may like them just fine, but it is hard to know exactly what they're feeling, to what degree anger plays a role, or what it's like to deal with chronic, persistant pain and social discomfort.

Of course, it's also hard to know just what it's like to turn into a gamma-irradiated monster, but in that case, there aren't others waiting by the sidelines to tell you how wrong you were.

There's the perceived danger of stereotyping. Or creating characters who are without flaws so that whatever group is represented doesn't take offense. On the whole, it shouldn't be as hard as it's imagined to be, however.

Mantlo went all out, given a team of "freaks" and unpleasant, painful medical cases, to erase all of that and turn them into relatable, reliably fit and heroic super-heroes, and in so doing lost sight of the central Marvel thesis that we are all freaks and we've all made mistakes, and we're all in or have been in situations we'd rather not be. We just have to make the best of it. You can screw up as badly as a person can, and there is still a world out there with potential girlfriends, social acceptance, and bat-winged anarchists from the Negative Zone out there waiting for us.

Many, many readers could identify with and admire JB's original take on Roger Bachs, whether they were confined to a chair or not. What Mantlo's thin, trim, handsome young devil had to offer anyone is lost on me. Similar arguments are made concerning Barbara Gordon. Batgirl is a beloved character and icon, but the cost of her return was the genuinely original and evocative Oracle. Which is truly more deserving of the reader's time and attention? The debate continues, and just to be on the safe side, Barbara seems awfully worried about the possibility of a relapse much of the time...