"Brian, I have to ask why it is that you can always, without fail, find the contrary position on nearly every single question, debate or argument.  "

Well Matt, I guess to be contrarian again to your point that I am always a certain way, I guess I simply look at things as being more positive rather than always looking at things so...glum. 

My point was about the heroes and villians. In my experience, they have bypassed the monthly comic book and the local comic book shop. They have permeated the mainstream. I grew up in a house with comic books. I have an older brother eight years my senior.  I started grabbing his comics wen I was about eight.  I started buying my own when I was about twelve. Before that, my exposure was Super Friends and Spidey Stories on Electric company and whatever other cartoons I could find. At four, I knew only a fraction of super hero knowledge compared to what he does. He impresses me and is a point of pride, especially since I have never taken him into a comic shop and I don't have a house full of them laying around.

Again, I don't know what that says for the industry. I am not going to argue with you about Spider-Girl being a bad story. I haven't read it. It didn't interest me before that. They are going for a market that isn't me. And I have read a ton of crappy books over the years. I have also read a ton of books over the years that have broke away from that idea that were outstanding.  And I have read crappy books that followed the formula and I have read outstanding books that followed the formula. Frankly, I don't know what you want me to say.  Somewhere in there, I think I said you were right.

That said, and to my point, I do think we live in different, "super hero" times than when you and I and John grew up. I think there is much more mainstream awareness and penetration of super heroes.

I hope that it will impact the positive. Because if everyone is only going to talk about the gloom and doom and how awful everything is, why would anyone knew ever want to join us?

I hated that too.  That marks a point when the fanboys were taking over and obsessive continuity was being emphasized, to the overall detriment.

The Superman Jr. and Batman Jr. stories in World's Finest were never identified as Imaginary Stories.  Editor Murray Boltinoff insisted they were just as "real" as the other stories published in the book, no doubt much to the consternation of fans who wanted a consistent continuity.  I remember as a kid I just read and enjoyed them and didn't give it much thought.  I assumed maybe they took place a bit in the future because Superman and Batman didn't have kids in their regular comics, but beyond that I didn't worry about it.  Which was precisely what Boltinoff and writer Bob Haney intended.

Then Boltinoff and Haney were shunted off into retirement and the new, younger editors decided they needed to "explain" those Superman and Batman Jr. stories, and that was the genesis of the awful computer program story that ended the series.   Blech.

Then DC published a story that totally disappointed me--they explained that the two Jrs were a computer generated program and all the stories we ever read were"imaginary". It sort of ruined them for me at the time. I think I was14 about that time.

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I hated that too. That marks a point when the fanboys were taking over and obsessive continuity was being emphasized, to the overall detriment.

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Not quite. What it represented, more correctly stated, was the end of the editorial fiefdoms that had dominated DC for so long, where each office operated as a completely separate entity from the rest.

Thus, WORLD'S FINEST operated without any regard to (or control from) the SUPERMAN and/or BATMAN offices.

Wisely, toward the middle/end of the Seventies, DC began to tighten these controls, so that, for instance, the Batman who appeared in WORLD'S FINEST and BRAVE AND BOLD would be the same Batman who appeared in BATMAN and DETECTIVE.

All this talk of needing to do research to understand current comics has made me think of my father and Star Trek.The key to a succesful form of fiction, whether its comics or TV or whatever, is that enough info is provided for a person to enjoy it in and of itself. Any further interest or digging "archeologically" should be OPTIONAL.

My father watched Star Trek long before I did. He watched it in its original airings in the 60s and introduced me to Trek via reruns. He likes it. He's seen probably all the episodes of TOS at least once, seen the movies, seen chunks of TNG and the other spin-offs. If he comes across an episode while channel-surfing, he'll probably stop and watch it, but he won't go chasing it. 

Meanwhile, I inherited the interest in Trek and took it further. I sought out the novels, the comics, own all of TOS and various other things on DVD, have seen certain episodes many times, and have a head full of Trek trivia and knowledge that goes beyond casual watching.

If you name a TOS episode, I can probably tell you what it was about and who was in it, etc. If you ask my father to list his favorites, he won't know titles but will say something like "the one with Khan" or "the submarine episode (Balance of Terror)" or "the one with Joan Collins."

My point being: in no way, shape or form is my father's status as a fan of Trek any less valid than mine. We both enjoy it in our own ways and neither one of us is FORCED to work any harder than we have to to derive our own sort of joy from watching Star Trek.   

If comics still worked that way, it would be a great thing. But, like in the example Francesco just posted, that's not the case anymore.