Superheroes: For Kids or Adults?

Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a guy wearing spandex that comes to life in our imaginations. Superman first hit the comic book pages in the early 1930's. His popularity led to the Golden Age of Comics and the time of the costumed hero. Along with his peers, Superman thrilled children who saved their dimes and nickels for when the next comic hit the stands. What was most appealing about the costumed hero in that era was the offer of escape from the depressive times that were all around. A fantasy world - where men could fly; where aliens were friendly; where villains were ruthless; where ordinary people could become extraordinary - was just what the kids needed, an escape.

Today many of these heroes still exist. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman from the DC comic world are still very popular. In the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Captain America and the Avengers still inspire many readers of this century. But funnily enough, these characters that were once so innocently depicted in newspapers and in their own features have become a lot more graphic. Yes, the medium that superheroes are most often drawn in this day and age is the magical graphic novel, but when did the exploits of the men, and women, who don spandex, that we are suppose to look up to become the precursors of pornographic drawings. Women are always scantily clad, parts of them are over-emphasized and they are almost always drawn in proportions that would not support them if they were real. Men are drawn with more muscles than even a person doped up on steroids could possibly have, expanding the chest to large abnormal proportions. The content of most graphic novels is darker than what it used to be back in the Golden Age. Superman must decide whether or not to kill another in order to save the lives of millions or even billions. Peter Parker is infected with a disease that could impair his abilities as Spider-Man. Along with a long stream of story lines that are quite PG-13, the violent battles that ensue between heroes and bad guys, looks like a bare-knuckle boxing bout reminiscent of Fight Club. It seems to me that Superheroes have reached a new benchmark, they are now geared more towards adults.

You may be wondering why would the writers of graphic novels intentionally make the content more mature? The answer is simple. While there are children who have become enraptured with capes, many of the fans that remain are in their 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s now. They are the target audience for such a genre. Large movie companies also seem to have come to this consensus as the majority of all superhero movies that have hit the silver screen in the past 10 years have been rated PG-13. Even animated attempts on these characters have toppled over the safe PG rating. The animators of the DC Universe series have created animated features rated PG-13. And their animated Superman, Batman and Justice League series, pushed the boundaries of their TV ratings.

Comic books have pretty much died as a genre, graphic novels pick up the slack in the publishing world for that diminishing sub-culture. I believe that is safe to say that Superheroes are, for now at least, for adults.