Comic books have tackled politics themselves and the political climate increasingly. But this isn't about that.
Comic books have historically been the subject of much controversy and politicking. But this isn't about that.
Comic books have an enormous penetration into out popular culture regardless of low comic literacy rates... not that either.
Comics could have existed through most of history but, like the compound bow, waited until they were already superceded by more advanced technology to be invented. Interesting? Yes, but no.
Comic books are studies in altruism, selfishness, and meaningful ideas of duty.
Comic heroes have all sorts of motivations. Generally it is assumed that their overall aim is to protect the general population. Villains on the other hand just want to be evil with wealth and power as mere tools to that end, and revenge or random acts of cruelty the mere means. That's the old story.
The new story is that even the villains just want to do good. Lex Luthor, albeit with the self-involvement of television's Dr. House, wants a world free of superheroes as he believes this will be better for humanity. Luthor was even depicted recently as the POTUS. Marvel Comics is going so far as to deepen the meaningful ideological conflicts among its characters to the point that most of the publisher's enemy roster is drummed into footsoldier service for Iron Man.
Comics are becoming increasingly oriented towards battles between heroes. Looking back, there have always been big hero-on-hero throwdowns. And just as in other fiction, and facets of real life, anti-heroes who chomp stogies, don't shave much, cuss, and employ dirty methods have predominated in recent years (decades at this point). Looking back, there was always some of this going on. The first big stories to seriously explore superheroes gone world-rulingly fascistic were about 25 years ago. Stagey deaths crossed the line many years ago when Batman's Robin was killed as the verdict of American Idol-style phone voting. That was 1988. Almost 20 years ago... (And the same year incidentally that Michael Dukakis went down kinda hard). The comics publishers have killed, and then even more callously reanimated, more characters than George Romero.
But what is fundamentally different is the role that ordinary people play in these stories. Stories wherein the fate of the world, of a city, of a city bus, rests its hopes on superheroes, are seemingly past. Occasionally a villain will still kidnap someone dear to a hero... But that is hackneyed. More often than not the superheroes (and villains, if you can tell the difference and if they appear at all) simply assault one another. None of them can appear too weak... No one would buy that, right?
Well let's use the medium of comics itself, as an analogy for this point about their story content. Comic books are hard for many people to read; they don't know how. My wife doesn't know how. In an interview famed comics creator Howard Chaykin exlained that his wife doesn't know how, either. It isn't a gender thing---I picked up my comics reading habits from my mother. It's a predisposition thing. Comic layouts are deliberately intense, and as such are very confusing to those who don't know how to follow the panels, the action, the world balloons, or the countless assumptions of pre-existing knowledge of comics.
When comics are less off-putting in their layouts and self-references, they're prove to be more appealing to newcomers and casual readers, but the gains are incremental. A great many people, put off to them, never want to try them again. It's just not their thing.
Next, factor in the intense animosity the characters show towards the other characters in these books. Consider their sneers and jibes. I can't find a smiling picture of Superman or any other hero really, that doesn't date just about from the Superfriends era. They all have that stern look, at best optimistically stern like they are about to embark on perilous but peaceful space voyage. At worst the look is one of disdain or disgust, with rage behind it.
Tough does sell, it's a proven fact. Tougher, grittier, more uncompromising. The characters' very utopian (or otherwise beneficient) motivation, his love of family or of principle... Is but a weapon in the combat over who is right. Since readers know that whoever the editors require to win will win, the battle of ideas is almost as important because it's outcome is open to interpretation and dispute by the readers. But in these bright personal spots, even in their very humility, the characters are increasingly smug. They just have their whole spiel down so well about wat got them into the hero business, and what they are looking out for day by day as they do it.
Meanwhile the human bystanders in the comic world are treated like set dressing to make the cityscapes look real. The tallies of innocent bystanders killed during battles has become a blunt thing to state for shock... But not as something to do anything about, except draft new draconian laws (yes, make-believe laws factor heavily into comics). The buyer is presumed to be a vaccum waiting to be filled by the most brilliant personal story of a hero, waiting to identify with the most caustic outlook on the opposition, waiting, simply, to buy.
Meanwhile, spurts here and there notwithstanding, sales are way off year after year. People in the business talk about that but don't seem very bothered by it. They view comics as a way to launch properties into other arenas where the money is made. The big two publishers meanwhile use those bankrolls gotten from elsewhere to buy up and let die off the competitve offerings of upstarts outside their dual hegemony.
The buyers who are already going to buy get more motivated in this climate to buy, but other people stay away in droves. They'll pay their taxes anyway at the cineplex or the toystore, so what does it matter whether they take their opportunity to vote at the comic book shop for the hero they prefer or which comic book publisher's offerings they prefer overall.
And as to those bodycounts? Well, they aren't real people anyway, they are just backdrop in a political, I mean a comic book, story.
Oh, but don't worry. Dontcha know there is always good old Image Comics, for those who have the capital both financial and fan, to publish their creator-owned properties. Off course these, when it comes to capes, tend to be even more surly and simplistic.
Oh, but never fear, fans, because there are always some heroes that have been "killed off" for a while waiting in the wings for their moment in which to be relaunched. For sure they will be different. Just like the good old days. Right?