Though I suppose the
other reason is many Gen Xer hate clean, sane heroes.)

***

That's something that really annoys me in recent years. There's nothing wrong with flawed heroes or anti-heroes, or maybe even total scumbags who manage to do something heroic now and then, but that's why the potential to create new characters exists. I am very very tired of old heroes, characters that used to be "better than us" having psychoses and problems and dirty secrets and other garbage shovelled onto them. I grew up admiring certain characters because I hoped I could be like them, not because I wanted them to be like (or worse than) me.

If this thread is about misunderstandings, I think that trend shows a complete misunderstanding of what the nature of heroic fiction is supposed to be to begin with.

••

The downward arc of Cyclops is a near perfect blueprint for what has gone wrong with the characterization of many superheroes. Roger Stern (him again!) used to note that one particular writer could not handle superheroes properly because he, the writer, could not imagine anyone more noble that he was (which was not very).

As the audience has shrunk, and the industry has pandered more and more to what used to be the fringe, we have seen the old ideals chipped and even ripped away. Thus, Cyclops, once a strong, serious, deeply conflicted character has become, to quote Joss Whedon's "contribution" to the first X-Movie, "a dick".

Tony Stark has become an alcoholic. So has Hal Jordan. Hank Pym has become a wife-beater. The Hulk eats people. Batman is psychotic. Etc, etc. To the unsophisticated masses which seem to make up far too much of the audience these days, this seems "edgy" and "gritty". While all it really is is boring and redundant. And lazy. It's EASY to break the mold. Finding ways to stay inside it, and still be fresh and innovative -- THAT'S the challenge!

The heroes have become scummy, and the villains (Magneto, Sandman, Venom) became heroic.

Can we blame that on George Lucas and ROTJ?