Fine.

So Don called me out.

Yeah, there are still decent superhero books out there. And surprise, some of them are even coming from the Big Two.

There are a few superhero books that I enjoy consistently: Invincible and Planetary. Nextwave may join that list, I'll see what the Director's Cut looks like. I guess Hellboy counts as a superhero book. I also buy and like Ex Machina, although I'm not in love with it.

So what's my problem with superheroes? They're an American tradition. They're icons. Name one kid who hates Spiderman. Superheroes are cool.

And yet... they've been around (in their current, cheap newsprint form) for nearly a century. And they don't age well. Or maybe their readers don't age well.

I loved Rob Liefeld comics when I was a kid, heaven knows why. Maybe it was the angsty feathering on everything. Maybe it was the crazy posture and anatomically impossible contortions of the characters. It was pure fluff. But I dug it.

And then I hit puberty. I grew up. And I look back at that stuff and I gag. I can't believe I spent money on (had a subscription to!) X-Force.

Gah. My head hurts just thinking about it.

Sitcoms. Comics are so similar to sitcoms, this will make my non-existent point much clearer. They're a dime a dozen. When they're truly original and funny, they age well. When they suck... well, they suck. And each new sitcom tries harder and harder to be funny, because the premises are so dried out, but statistically well-proven: Goofy, boorish man marries hot woman and they argue about man and woman stuff and how they're different. Where have we seen this? King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, Family Guy, Mad About You, Home Improvement, Married With Children, Just the Ten of Us, Family Matters, the Cosby Show.

Simpsons, I whisper, fearfully.

Bewitched.

I Dream Of Genie.

I Love Lucy.

The Honeymooners.

It's a blueprint for success. And there's some seriously funny material in that list. But it's reached a straining point. The majority of it hurts my brain.

For every sitcom out there, there are probably an hundred superheroes, each one lovingly drawn at some kid's breakfast table. And they're all Superman/Batman/Wolverine clones.

I guess the punchline to this rambling is that the industry has made making comics harder than it really is.

It's hard to come up with really cool, original superhero. Even harder to come up with an original plot. If you can do it, and come up with truly original stuff, you're set. Either that, or you must cleverly disguise your rehashed material so that only the most intense Comic Book Guy notices that you're phoning it in. Maybe I am that Comic Book Guy, and that's why it bothers me so much.

So point one, originality.

Point two: continuity.
If your character has fought evil for fifty years, and hasn't aged or gotten killed, move on. No one is keeping score anymore. No, dying and miraculously coming back doesn't count.

Point three: maturity.
Here's a meaty one. Nearly every comic fan I know started out as a kid. They will nearly always maintain a level of affection for the books they grew up on, particularly their first books. I loved my jacked up copy of Gold Key Magnus: Robot Fighter #24. I was in love with the cover, particularly. I was probably five or six. What's not to love about this cover? Besides the gogo boots.

My tastes have changed. I want some serious writing in my comics. I'd also like some serious art. I don't mean serious, serious, I mean of a higher strata of creative effort. I'm looking for books from creators that pour as much affection into their work as I pour into enjoying them. Enough milk, I want some meat. Love is easy to recognize, and lasts. Love's not the right word: Passion is probably what I want. I want to open a book and say: "Wow, I bet that guy loved drawing that." If I see that passion, I'll spend the two or three bucks on the book without thinking about it.

A Brian Wood cover will do it.
A Cassaday full-page spread will do it.
An Ellis chunk of biting dialogue will do it.
A Diggle plot will do it.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm trying to convince me. I don't hate superheroes. I just really, really like new, original, craftsmanship.

But comics are a junk medium anyway, so I'm probably looking in the wrong place.

Nah, that couldn't possibly be it.