I have no bone to pick here.  I love old comics and John Byrne is one of my favorite artist/comic creators ever.

I have never called anyone bitter or angry or really commented on the situation outside this forum.

I don't care for current comics for the same reasons JB just outlined in his original post.

But I find it curious there seems to be a need to clarify a difference between angry and bitter.  What is really the difference?  In my mind (and please correct me if I'm wrong), a person goes from being angry to bitter through a passage of time.  If one is angry is long enough, they become bitter.  How long does it take for a person to pass that line?  I don't know. I suppose it depends upon the person and the situation.

I will say this... I am no longer angry about the state of comics.  I am bitter. 

And I have no hope for the future of comics.  I can't even take them home to my kids anymore.  Video games, cartoons, movies, and toys have completely taken their place.

This business HAS been infected by ennui engorged bungee jumpers. An infection is, by definition, something which sickens the body. It is not the body as a whole.

++++++++

Sorry, just have to do it...

(EDIT: Not that I'm equating JB with Landru, mind you--the quoted section above just reminded me of him. Any chance for a TREK reference...)

Anyway, I've reached a point where I think that superhero comics are, for the time being, at least, beyond redemption. Maybe someday, someone will come along and make them work again, but it probably won't be the same.

Marvel, in particular--from about 1961-1980/90-something--felt like a cohesive universe. Sure, there were the occasional problems and bad periods, but one could still feel that the Spider-Man of, say, 1981 was the same character introduced in 1962. Sure, he wasn't, but the illusion of it all being in the same "universe" was there.

For me, it was the madness of the 1990s, with one stunt after another, that caused that reasonably cohesive tapestry to completely unravel. Now, I have absoutely no connection to the characters in the books currently being published. As JB himself noted, these characters feel more like pornographic caricatures who serve the whims of rockstar writers and artists. The characters aren't "alive" anymore.

And, sadly, I don't think the feel of that "cohesive universe" can ever really be recaptured, now that it's gone. There's been too much garbage in-between then and now. Perhaps the Marvel Age was something of its specific time and place, and the likes of it will never again exist. Times have changed. The world has changed. The genre has changed. Maybe we really can't go home again.

But maybe, just maybe, someone will come along and pull a SHOWCASE # 4 or FANTASTIC FOUR # 1 on us someday. I wouldn't bet on it, though. Not for a long time, at least.

Interesting thread. Just yesterday I was reading a new book called "Ant-Man and the Wasp" ( Hank Pym and the new Ant-Man) and was presented with a scene featuring the new Ant-Man and a "romantic interest". He's trying to shoo the young lady out of his apartment and she's shown stumbling from his bed while trying to pull up her jeans. Later in the book Ant-Man hits on two young females who attend Avengers Academy (and might be underage.) and winds up passed out drunk in their quarters. I understand that this new Ant-Man is supposed to be a "humorous" character and not exactly a "role model", but this was a bit much. 

I have to wonder if in an attempt to prove they arent "limited" to writing comics they toss in "adult" scenes just in case some Hollywood types might be reading and are in need of a writer. Of course said material might be right at home in the raunchy R rated comedies that are common place these days, but in a comic book co-starring Hank Pym. not so much.

**
Not really to argue with you, Greg, but it's easy for me to imagine that
"cohesive universe" being captured again-- if all the characters were
simply written on-model again, without any reference to why they
suddenly became so or any reference to those years that seem so
incongruent.

Then the 90's and aughts would vanish into the haze just like the 50's
did.

...And all 16,000 people who still read comics could really enjoy them
again!

**
I second that.

Taking the "public relations" path with the current regimes would be like
trying to save people on the Titanic by talking nice to the captain.

Not really to argue with you, Greg, but it's easy for me to imagine that
"cohesive universe" being captured again-- if all the characters were
simply written on-model again, without any reference to why they
suddenly became so or any reference to those years that seem so
incongruent.

+++++++

I agree that it CAN happen, but I just don't see it happening anytime soon, if ever. Too many of the old guard will be gone, and too much garbage will have been produced to dilute the perceptions of future writers. There may come a point where too much time has passed, and too much damage has been done for Humpty-Dumpty to be put back together in quite the same way.

Will an aspiring writer in, say, 2025 or 2040 even know what, say, Spider-Man is all about, after all of the wildly divergent comics, movies, and cartoons in the decades before? Will he/she have the wisdom to go back to the Lee/Ditko original for inspiration, or will more recent incarnations be looked at, instead?

Sure the 50s Captain America stories disappeared after the 60s revival, but that was a very limited "off-model" period.

When one stops to think about it, a great many of these characters have been off-model for decades, now, with no end in sight. That's a lot more than a blip on the radar.

Dick Grayson has been an adult for almost 1/3 of his history.

Spider-Man has been (well, was) a married adult for nearly 1/2 of his history.

The Hulk hasn't been anything resembling consistent for nearly 1/2 of his history. It's kinda been "Hulk of the Month" for some two-plus decades.

**

I hear ya. But the sad thing is that very few get the idea of how easy it would
be to make it happen.

Comics CAN be fun again-- it would simply (ha!) take people on the
important jobs who WANT comics to be fun again.