Doesn't great work justify its existence?

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No. That's the "to tell a good story" justification.

So you would prefer that Watchmen and Dark Knight never have been written?

The problem with Stark's alcoholism is that he was the wrong character for this particular "revelation". There was never so much as a hint of him having such problems before the IRON MAN office engineered a sequence of events that "drove" him to alcoholism. A sadly classic example of the character(s) being forced to serve the story the writers wanted to tell.

WATCHMEN, yes -- tho it would be sad to lose that beautiful artwork! DKR -- let's just say I wish the second half had told the same story as the first.

I see this discussion taking shape with two sides; One camp says anything and everything can be done to and with mainstream (and here I use this term to differentiate from creator-owned) superheroes because anything can be retconned or forgotten. In this view, make Peter Parker a thief or a rapist in an arc, that's cool.  People will either buy it and remember it or they won't and it'll be forgotten.  In the end, there's no editorial reign and anything goes with any character on the map.  The other camp says that things should generally remain the same with mainstream superheroes such that an illusion of change is all that's needed in order to feel something like momentum for a given character.  "Change" and "realism" are all fine and good as long as the core of the character(s) remains the same.  In other words, Peter Parker would never become a thief or a rapist because that's not who Peter Parker is and, as such, that story should never be told. 

Me?  I fall in the latter camp, no surprise.  I think it's very important to make the distinction between mainstream superheroes who have been around for decades as opposed to creator-owned or newly created characters.  INVINCIBLE by Robert Kirkman falls into the latter category.  So does WATCHMEN.  Personally, I don't find it to be the greatest work in the genre by a long shot, but that's my personal bent.  Should it never have been written?  I don't think so.  You can't hold pale imitations up to the originator and blame the original, as has been said here in this thread time and again.  Miller shouldn't be held responsible for the Batman we've seen for two decades, for example, because the character he wrote about was in it's own universe, it's own continuity, in a world separate and apart from the DCU.  A "What If..." if you will.  Editorial should have pulled the reigns in on making the mainstream version of the character less in line with Miller's depiction every bit as much as they should have lessened the psychopathic, borderline crazy, and decidedly darker elements they let in post-WATCHMEN. 

In the end, I think that mainstream superheroes should be written for an all-ages audience.  They can certainly explore "realistic" themes as long as they remain true to who they are and are not forced to be in a story they would otherwise not be a participant . THE ULTIMATES comes to mind here, in that the story doesn't have as much of an impact if you take out the names of the regular MU heroes being appropriated to tell that story. It's a cheat to me, riding the coattails of a name to pander to an adult audience who would better be served reading comic books intended for an adult audience using characters specifically created to tell that story.

What's this all mean?  Mainstream superhero comics can and should have stories that should never be told.  Not everything goes, nor should everything under the sun be allowed to be published and let the world work it out.  Creator-owned comics can and should be allowed to tell any story they wish to tell and let the world sort out their worth.

Matt, Thanks for the extremely well reasoned post. I think you did a great job of dissecting what's at stake here. I don't disagree with anything other that perhaps a slight mischaracterization of, at least, my views. I certainly don't think anything goes, and I would hate to see Peter Parker so depicted. What I am in favor of is good comics and I hope that the powers that be would recognize what they are and what they aren't. Watchmen and Dark Knight were and, apparently, a lot of the stuff that followed weren't. Failing good judgment and taste from the creators, again, perhaps a ratings system and some explicit explanation that a story is out of continuity would help ease the pain caused by favorite characters portrayed unsympathetically.

edited for spelling

This was the comicbook version of shows like "The Shield" -- excapt there were no good cops anywhere.

That's why I struggle so hard to hold onto the sheer joy of doing comics.

The Dark Knight Returns -- more deconstructionism . . . this showed us what Batman was undeniably DESTINED to become, and every Batman story written since this has just been part of the long march to that definitive, unalterable destiny.  Worked fine as an "Elseworlds" story (quite intriguining and entertaining when taken in that vein, in fact) -- too bad that virtually NOBODY since then (writers and fans alike) has ever treated this as being anything less full in-continuity canon that is destined to occur

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Well, yes and no.  If DKR is future canon, then Sarah Essen could not have been killed in the present, nor could Sgt Merkel have been hung in "Dark Victory".  These types of inconsistencies are always excused by an appeal to DKR being just an imaginary story in the first place.