Old Comic Books Sucked

Time and time we'll hear it again and again and again, "Back in my day comic books were so much better." That's not true and you're not fooling anyone but yourself. I go back and read comics from your days, they were great. Have you seen the stuff I write for Reviewing The Classics? Everything wasn't as great as you remember it to be.

The biggest problem people, mainly white males over 40 seem to have with comics is diversity. Too many minorities and women running around being awesome. They sure have a lot to say about Miles Morales, Simon Baz and especially Kamala Khan. I mean, how dare she be a woman, middle eastern, a Muslim, educated and not barefoot in pregnant. People will hate on Kamala but love Spider-Gwen who is much more sexualized as a character. I just think it's funny, none of these old men have anything to say about Gwen but they will bash Kamala, but Kamala still getting them awards.


The other day a person who will not be named, because they're a troll and gamergate supporter, tried to tell me comics were much more diverse when he was growing up in the 70s. He said there were literally dozens of diverse characters at that time, so I asked him to name 24, which is two dozen. He named 6 black men and called it quits. No women, no LGBT characters, no other races. He gave up but stuck to his guns, like the X-Men weren't almost all white men.

So let's talk about diversity in old comics because it's no secret that I think it's important to have. There was Luke Cage, the granddaddy of them all. With his jive talking street style. Why did 90% of his sentences rhyme? Was Luke fighting crime or whack rappers? You be the judge. Then, there was his best friend, Danny Rand better known as Iron Fist. A white man who was a martial arts expert and master of chi. He usually beat up Asian stereotypes based on whatever martial arts film was hot at the time. They all used poisoned weapons too, but Danny overcame them. What about the DC side of things? Well, The Green Lantern Hal Jordan had great side kicks in the black Green Lantern Jon Stewart, who brought up how Hal was a racist. There was also Hal's Asian sidekick Pie Face. No, that's not a typo, Hal called him Pie Face every week. Don't forget all those heroic women and how they were all different. There was Storm, a black woman, Wonder Woman, who was still a walking BDSM fetish, Carol Danvers, who was raped as The Avengers didn't try to prevent it, Kitty Pryde, who was a racist.

What about the infamous Superman "Slap A Jap," comic promoted during WWII or Batman fighting African Savages? So much diversity, it makes my head spin. Let's also remember that during this time the Comics Code Authority attempted to force EC Comics to change the final panel of their comic Judgment Day which featured the reveal of the main character being a black astronaut. Keep in mind this comic featured robots who suffered segregation based on the color of their paint. No matter what people say it was not all nice and diverse. So when I'm calling for more diversity, I'm serious. We've come a long way but we still have a long way to go.

Okay, diversity aside let's talk about other things, like stories. People complain about the stories that are being told today. They have a problem with Jim Gordan becoming Batman, and claim it would have never happened in their day. But, let's think back to their day. What about the time Superman was split into Superman Red and Superman Blue? Oh, you didn't think I knew about that. What about the time Spider-Man made a deal with the devil to bring Aunt May back to life? Remember when Captain America was a drug addict? See, you didn't think we knew but we did. No matter how you try to spin it every story from decades gone past wasn't great and neither is every story today.

Old people, you have to stop fooling yourself. Comics are not worse now than they were in the past. In fact, they're better. Nobody wants to see Thor turn into a crippled doctor or Wonder Woman be subdued by BDSM play. Kanye West once said "Old folks talking about 'back in my day' well homie, this is my dad." That's where we are right now. No matter how you try to romanticize comics from your glory days, it won't hide the fact that they just plain sucked.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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