Broken Frontier

For over a decade, the “animated” DC universe has been a mainstay of TV and comics.  Genuinely offering some of the comics’ best stories (especially at the time of its inception), it offered a truly original take on the characters and settings of the DCU.  But with the oncoming new “The Batman” cartoon, the completely unrelated “Teen Titans” cartoon, and a restart of the “Justice League,” the era of the Bruce Timm & Paul Dini-founded universe is officially over.  To help facilitate the change over to the new cartoon style, DC has cancelled the Batman Adventures title, even though it has been by far the best Batman book this year. And yes, I mean better than Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb’s run.

Slott, Templeton, Burchett, Beatty delivered 14 issues of the most consistently kid-friendly, yet adult-oriented comic on the stands today.  In case you missed it in it’s first run, DC is collecting it in the burgeoningly popular digest size, half of the series per book for $6.95 each.  Trust me when I tell you that picking these two books up is worth far more than the meager price implies.  Each issue is divided into lead and backup stories, the backups usually tying into the aftermath of the lead story.  It’s a unique way of telling a story (reminiscent of Jay Faerber’s criminally under appreciated Noble Causes), that adds to the depth of the story, while providing a diversion and a different tone.

Alright, I’ll admit it, I have a bit of an ulterior motive in talking about this.  A little while back, Darwyn Cooke’s infamous interview in the second issue of Top Shelf’s Comic Book Artist set off earthquakes through the online community.  In it Cooke claims that books like The Ultimates are missing the point of corporate comics.  What he essentially says is that it’s fine to make comics that appeal to adults, but it’s bizarre to do it at the exclusion of what has been the industries main audience for nearly a hundred years, children. This, in typical internet fashion, got blown up into Cooke saying “Superhero comics are for children and stupid people.”

Well, Batman Adventures is proof that Cooke is right. You see, I remember reading Batman and Detective Comics as a kid and not quite grasping everything that was going on, but it was certainly nothing that would be deemed inappropriate for younger eyes.  Unlike, say Azzarello’s recent run on the book, which, while a great story in the style of his hit Vertigo book 100 Bullets, is pretty far from something I’d let my own kids read.  But, here’s the thing, those old Batman stories were every bit as mature as anything being done by Marvel or DC today.  “A Death in the Family,” one of the seminal books of my childhood, was every bit as serious as Azzarello’s run, dealing with supremely serious topics (Terrorism, Parent Desertion, the perils of Diplomatic Immunity, oh yes, and did I mention DEATH?) all in a way that didn’t make my parents snatch the book from my hands.  

You see, comics imparted to me a lot of serious life lessons, from the concept of tolerance (“God Loves, Man Kills” is still the perfect book for teaching tolerance, I reckon) to honor (Usagi Yojimbo imparted it as much as Lone Wolf and Cub) and loss (the aforementioned Death in the Family).  I grew up in a close minded predominantly white Christian town, and the swastikas etched on my locker, or cries of “Fag” simply because I wasn’t into sports, seeing African-American kids get spit on and called names, and even the KKK having annual meetings in our high school auditorium, all seemed to fall into perspective when I had the foresight of Charles Xavier telling me “They are only human, and know not what they do.”  Did it make the hatred I experienced as a child disappear? No.  Did it teach me the value to place on it in terms of my own self identity?  Absolutely.  Did it teach me to stand up for those who could not defend themselves? Hell yes.

Now, do all comics need to serve as this sort of moral compass to the youth? Of course not.  But, when there are books that succeed at doing this, it’s important, I feel, for us as a community to support them.  I’ve made an effort to buy an extra copy of every single kid-friendly comic I come across and pass them out to kids in my neighborhood, or give to friends to give to their kids.  Ultimately, the strides made in terms of freedom of speech in comics has been hard fought, and well-won, but, it doesn’t mean that comics need to necessarily give up what for the most part was their original role in our culture.  Comics were a blueprint for children for right and wrong, good and evil, and actions and consequences.  In the post-Authority industry, we all seem to be missing that.  Even in that seminal work, Warren Ellis makes sure to prove the point that these men in so-called “Pervert Suits” are supposed to be our moral compass, and look at how time (and the industry crash in the 90’s) have subverted them into our own internal fears and personal hatreds. And that, to me, is a shame.

GUIDING LINE: Comics were a corner stone of my childhood.  They made we how I am today.  I just want to make sure that there are still comics for the next generation.  Support all ages comics, they’re the industry's biggest hope.

- Josh Fialkov