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Steven McCauley
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| Posted: 04 August 2016 at 7:37am | IP Logged | 1
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I've read that the darkening of DC can be traced back to the killing of Aquaman's infant son.
I think the success of Watchmen and The Dark Night Returns in 1985 was the boulder that started the wholesale grim-n-gritty movement.
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John Popa
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| Posted: 04 August 2016 at 10:45am | IP Logged | 2
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Although it's not a comic, I think "Empire Strikes Back" is a big part of it - people like it because it's 'darker,' it's more violent instead of more action-packed and the heroes continually feall short, instead of being challenged and over-coming adversity.
Edited by John Popa on 04 August 2016 at 10:48am
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Robbie Parry
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| Posted: 04 August 2016 at 11:06am | IP Logged | 3
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Seems many of us feel a lot influenced comics: various movies, politics, the state of the world, etc.
Bit hard to decide what was the first "domino".
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Jens Tenhaeff
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| Posted: 30 August 2016 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | 4
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I don't think there is one actual domino to point to. I rather see a societal shift in how society/the world is perceived and for me that starts with the Nixon administration, culminating in Watergate. In this context, Neal Adam's GL/GA-run is a reflection of said shift in thinking. Prior to that point, the world in comics and (to a lesser extent) movies had been just. The government was always acting on behalf of the people, there were no corrupt politicians, cops were always good guys … Nixon and Watergate changed that narrative and suddenly it was not unthinkable anymore to have crooked cops, an evil government and, generally, a bad world in code-approved comics. A character like the Punisher couldn't have been conceived in 60s Marvel, but the 70s were the right environment for a new generation of artists to infuse "stuffy" Marvel and DC with "edgy" and "relevant" characters and stories. All of this created a climate that made Frank Miller's Daredevil not only possible, but almost logical. And it's only a few steps from there to The Dark Knight Returns.
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Joseph Greathouse
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| Posted: 30 August 2016 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | 5
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Gwen Stacy is definitely an interesting starting point to look at. Is there another such character who had quite an "on camera" death prior to that moment?
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 30 August 2016 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | 6
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JENS: Prior to that point, the world in comics and (to a lesser extent)
movies had been just. The government was always acting on behalf of the
people, there were no corrupt politicians, cops were always good guys …
Nixon and Watergate changed that narrative and suddenly it was not
unthinkable anymore to have crooked cops, an evil government and,
generally, a bad world in code-approved comics. A character like the
Punisher couldn't have been conceived in 60s Marvel, but the 70s were the
right environment for a new generation of artists to infuse "stuffy" Marvel
and DC with "edgy" and "relevant" characters and stories. All of this
created a climate that made Frank Miller's Daredevil not only possible, but
almost logical. And it's only a few steps from there to The Dark Knight
Returns.
SER: I agree that this mark occurred post-Watergate in the comics but what
you describe did exist in the movies, especially film noir. This isn't meant to
kibitz but to suggest that comics started to becoming more overtly "noirish"
around this period. Miller's DAREDEVIL popularized a lot of the noir tropes
in comics: femme fatale (Elektra), gangsters, crooked politicians, and so on.
DAREDEVIL for a few issues after Elektra's death even feels like VERTIGO
with the "hero" obsessed with a dead woman, ignoring the woman who
genuinely loves him, and ultimately spiraling down the moral drain.
I love noir but it isn't the best fit for superhero comics. Ultimately, noir is a
world where the "hero" is hopelessly flawed at best and is only slightly less
bad than the villain. Sam Spade is perhaps the closest to "moral" in noir and
even he is a cold-hearted adulterer. Jim Gordon in BATMAN: YEAR ONE is a
moral hero by noir standards but the man cheats on his wife. That might
have been a proposed backstory for Two Face ten years earlier and even
that would have gotten pushback.
I'd argue that the O'Neil/Adams GL/GA is overtly moral in its way. It's not as
cynical as noir or as DAREDEVIL would become. There was a belief in the
good of people. It was sort of a superpowered Highway to Heaven.
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Jens Tenhaeff
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| Posted: 30 August 2016 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | 7
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QUOTE:
| what you describe did exist in the movies, especially film noir. |
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That's certainly true, but noir was more of an outlier, an isolated 50s thing (around the same time that EC was happening). The 60s media landscape (with the Comics Code freshly implemented) was way more prudish/stuffy than it had been during the previous decade (underground comix etc. not withstanding). It took the formation of a wide reaching counterculture at the end of the 60s to turn the media world around. Movies (as always) were first and Comics and (eventually) TV followed suit.
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Rick Whiting
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| Posted: 31 August 2016 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | 8
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I've often pointed to DC's decision to "darken" Congorilla as the moment it all ran off the rails and "darken it" became the go-to move. But what led up to this? What were the steps that led to an across-the-board obsession with "dark" stories and characters?
___________________________
I think that the praise/critical acclaim and attention that The Dark Knight Returns,The Killing Joke,and The Watchmen (and their creators) got from mainstream news media magazines like Rolling Stone is what led to the obsession of dark and/or "mature" stories. Many of the pros and fans turned pro seem to be in love with and/or want the praise and attention from mainstream magazines like Rolling Stone,The Hollywood Reporter,and Entertainment Weekly because it makes them feel "cool" and validated in the eyes of their adult family and friends for choosing to work in the comic book industry on DC and Marvel superhero comics (which are/were perceived to be "silly kids stuff").
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Eric Sofer
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| Posted: 01 September 2016 at 8:31am | IP Logged | 9
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I think it's legitimate to point to DKR, KJ, and Watchmen as the keystone of the glum and gritty stories and themes coming into comics - but I feel that a lot of it continued because it seemed easier and lazier. "No one dies in a Batman story? You mean Batman saved EVERYONE from that bomb the Joker set? Impossible. Kill 'em, and then Batman can go all grim avenger on the Joker. And change the Joker venom from debilitating to killing. That's DRAMA!"
Themes of persecution, murder, psychotics, anti-heroes, and such were introduced because it's easier to show heroes failing, or darker, "more realistic" stories than Spider-Man stopping a riot, or the New Teen Titans or the X-Men actually going out and stopping crimes, instead of having to defend themselves CONSTANTLY.
At the same time, there was a stream of ridiculous characters and plots that also diluted the heroic stories... defined by "Bwah ha ha!" I got an awful feeling when I read the occasional Justice League and saw Blue Beetle and Booster Gold clowning around in the middle of a deadly serious situation. I so waited for the scene when they were doing that, and J'onn or Batman just clocked 'em, knocked them out, and afterwords expelled them from the Justice League... "pusillanimous conduct in the face of the enemy" or some such. There's a place for silliness in comics, sure - but (once again) the writers took it too far, I feel.
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f ron miller
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| Posted: 01 September 2016 at 11:18am | IP Logged | 10
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"Death of Gwen Stacy" was my second thought --my first was Reed Richards putting his son into a coma. A quick Google tells me that the Franklin Richards story was published six months after the Gwen Stacy story. Interestingly, both of those stories were authored by Gerry Conway.
1973, culturally speaking, could be a pretty bleak era for dramatic narrative. One doesn't need to look too hard to find comics, films and books with unhappy endings. How much this makes for a 'dark' story vs one that conforms to the idea of Marvel's sense of social 'realism' is debatable.The lines were shifting it seems. I know, as a kid reading that stuff, the tone of that stuff felt 'dark' and 'grown-up'.
Edited by f ron miller on 01 September 2016 at 12:33pm
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 02 September 2016 at 11:11am | IP Logged | 11
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The "Death of Gwen Stacy" was a "What If." Period. It should never have run
as a regular story. Gwen should have just been written out of the book --
moving to Europe with Peter failing to get to the airport in time because
he'd been delayed fighting the Goblin as Spider-Man. The Goblin would
have destroyed his chance at love just as effectively.
Elektra's death wasn't necessarily "dark" because she was a bad guy who
wound up "paying" for the life she lived. This was true of Phoenix to a
degree, while also providing us with the "noble sacrifice" a hero makes.
But Gwen was "innocent," a civilian. Her death is "wrong" in ways that Capt.
Stacy's wasn't necessarily.
It's also why Batman's surrogate son shouldn't die. And even Miller
understood that Batman couldn't go on if something did happen to Robin.
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Topic Closed)
