Okay, here's the deal, I have a research class where basically we have to do this one 5 page persuasive paper on whatever we want. I chose to do mine on whether Villain based comics (such as Villains United or DV8 or any other comics where the villains are the heroes of the book) are a bad influence or not. So if any of you have an opinion one way or the other you can put it here and chances are it'll be in the paper. You can make the answer as long or as short as you want, but of course the more indepth it is, the more I'll be able to use. Thanx in advance. Oh and if I don't actually know you that well, I'd appreciate a name as well. :D

As you know I am by no means a comic savant, and I am even less versed with the villains of the comic universe, however I will assume that this issue you have chosen is similar to the whole “Violence in Videogames” controversy, so I will base it off that. Honestly I don’t know how villain oriented games (I assume that means it’ based around the bad guys beating up the good guys) could be said to be of any bad influence. They are books in essence, and people can more easily tell the difference between reality and fantasy when they aren’t seeing the plot unfold as they would in a videogame. If anyone commits a crime and confides in the police that, “Villains United” caused them to do such damage then a few things must be addressed. Firstly if some kid goes columbine on his whole school, then I am thinking he has wanted to do it before the comic, she/he probably has some other issues other than this comic. Secondly, comics are pure fantasy how could you hope to do most of that stuff in real life? I doubt that these people would suddenly believe they can manipulate fire and torch their whole school. Finally, now this is my own judgment as I haven’t ever gotten an actual comic, but don’t they warn you of the content within the book, or how graphic it is? If you are old enough to know that the stuff within the book is a big “no, no” then if you do commit crimes then it is your fault, not DC’s. If you aren’t old enough then I don’t know how you got the comic or why your parent bought it for you.

Alright I think that’s all I have to say hope it helps!

Thanx for the help Miguel(see? see? I appreciated it so much I used your real name and I never do that). Anybody else have anything to add? Rebuttles? Anything? I've actually already emailed Todd Nauck, Peter David, Judd Winick, Warren Ellis, Al Rio(or a rep anyway), and Dale Keown.

lol And I bombed at trying to find Tom Grummet, Karl Kesel, Jim Lee(WHYYYYYYY?*shakes fist*), Tom Raney, Brandon Choi, J. Scott Campbell, Scott Lobdell, Ed Benes, Adam Warren, Rob Van Dam(...so what if he's a wrestler, he actually owns a comic book store...it was worth a shot...), Mike Heisler, Jason Johnson, Humberto Ramos(well, I kinda found something, but I don't trust a site that only has his name and email address on it...), Brian Pulido, Ivan Reis, Michael Turner, and Paul Jenkins.

And yes I did this all in one day...so...very tired...

For those who want to know, this is my finished paper lol. Of all those artists, I only got replies from Todd Nauck and Al Rio's rep.

It seems that every few years something is attacked by the media because it supposedly causes regular children to become sadistic killers. Among some of the media have been television, movies, music, video games, and comic books. It seems that almost every form of entertainment can, in essence, affect the members of the public enough that they would do something completely out of character. Is this really true? For instance, if people read violent comic books, will they automatically begin to act out what they read? Can the readers distinguish between the fiction of what they read and reality? Even with their sometimes excessive violence, comic books are not a bad influence upon their intended readers because most of the comic books have morals, give the readers hope, and are actually a good way to take out life’s frustrations; in addition there is the fact that the reader should be able to tell that the comics are fiction.

This argument has been similar to the one now going on with violent video games, but people had problems with comics years before video games. This debate was mostly started in 1948 by Fredrick Wortham, who wrote "The Psychopathology of Comic Books" as well as the book, Seduction of the Innocent. (Blackmon, par. 10) In both of these, he gave his opinion on comics, which was basically that they were all so violent that they could manipulate regular people and with enough reading could turn them into murderous psychopaths. This in turn, was brought before the courts and in 1955 it was decided that there would be a code to rate comic books for general audiences. (History, pars. 19-27) This alone, put some comic companies, mostly horror, out of business since stores at the time would only sell comics that were code approved. (History, par. 30) Currently the code is still used, but it is not quite as powerful as it used to be. Most readers probably do not even see the small stamp usually in the upper right corner of the comics. The rules themselves have even gotten significantly less strict from when the code was first implemented. From time to time even the mainstream comic books such as Spiderman will occasionally do two or three issues that are not code approved if they want to stress the darkness of a situation.

In “The Psychopathology of Comic Books” Wortham says that the readers will most likely see themselves as the hero of the comic while simultaneously seeing their frustrations as the “corpse.” (Wertham, par. 4) He also points out that “all comic books without exception are principally, if not wholly devoted to violence.” (Wertham, par. 5) Considering that there are five hundred million comics published a year, with the readers buying ten to twelve comics a month, (Wertham, par. 6) that is a lot of violence to absorb.

To show that he is not just talking about comic books in general without actually reading any, he does mention specific ones. In one case it was Superman. “Instead of teaching obedience to the law, Superman glorifies the ‘right’ of the individual to take that law into his own hands. Instead of being brave and fearless, Superman lives in continuous guilty terror, projecting outward in every direction his readers’ inward aggression. In the ten-year effort to keep supplying sinister victims for Superman and his imitators to lynch, comic books have succeeded only in giving every American child a complete course in paranoid megalomania such as no German child ever had, a total conviction of the morality of force such as no Nazi could ever aspire to.” (Wertham, par. 8-9) Basically, Wertham is saying that not only is the idea of Superman fooling the readers into thinking it is a good influence, but it is actually corrupting them as well.

If all of this were true, then everyone who read Superman, let alone the edginess of Batman or The Punisher would in a few years be even worse than Hitler. It would only be a matter of time. This is the same Superman whose slogans are “The worlds biggest boy scout” and “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” He also follows the “Heroes don’t kill.” rule, as well as only fighting when he has to. This is the same Superman who went through years and years of hypothetical questions of whether he would save those close to him at the expense of innocents and did not falter. This is the same Superman who works with the police and not in contradiction of them, to the extent that almost every good hero aspires to be like him. If anything, Superman comics set forth a good example for the readers. It says that if you have the power, you should use it responsibly.

Wortham is not alone in his beliefs. There are others who agree but for different reasons. After all, everyone, children and adults alike, can be influenced by what they see, whether it is words and especially if it is pictures. (Blumberg, par. 5) There have probably been countless times when people have read something that has gotten an emotional reaction from them. There have probably been just as many that they have probably looked at a newspaper cover and saw a picture that made them cringe or just feel uneasy. This raises the question of whether knowing for a fact that what one is seeing is fiction will have an impact on how much it influence it has. Would seeing a bloody photo on a newspaper have the same effect as a bloody drawing when one knows that not only is it a fictional character, and the act itself has not actually happened?

There is also the argument that while good almost always wins in comic books that sometimes the violence before this happens is so long and so intense that the ending result loses the intended meaning. (Blumberg, par. 6) This could be true, but the fact is that if good always won after very short battles, the comic itself would lose the influence. Who would want to read a comic if they know that the good guys will win in a page or so? There needs to be a challenge. The idea of the challenge also puts in the reader’s head that everything is not easy. Sometimes to stop something that is wrong one has to put forth a lot of effort. Everyone has to deal with some level of abuse, but in the end it is going to be worth it. In the end, the bad guys will be defeated. Considering that in real life, the “good guys” do not always win, that sometimes 110% of your ability just is not enough, this is a good ideal to try to give the readers hope.

Johann G. Auerback, M.D. states that when children are young they learn to hold back their sexual impulses and aggressive tendencies. (Blumberg, par. 9) It is not something they really have a choice with; if they do not want to be punished, they have to suppress their sexual urges and hold back any anger they have at their parents or educators, and anybody in general. (Blumberg, par. 9) This would lead to a lot of pent up frustration that can not be actually expressed. Comics, in theory, should be a suitable outlet for most of the frustration, but is that actually true? Auerback feels that the excessive and usually realistic violence and sex makes the reader want to substitute the fiction they see into their real frustrations. (Blumberg, par. 12) She uses the analogies of a woman on a serious diet looking at cookbooks to curve her hunger, or an adult with anger issues talking all the time about violence and war as a way to recover. (Blumberg, par. 13-14) Obviously neither of these would work. Both people would just be torturing themselves with temptation.

This is not really a fair analogy. People who read violent comics as an outlet are not exactly “starving”. One would not suggest giving someone with aggression issues or drug abuse problems an issue of DV8 (an excessively violent comic based on villains) as an outlet. The majority of the readers do not need to have violence. It is a form of entertainment that allows them to temporarily put themselves in the shoes of a character who either has better or worse problems than they do, which could be quite therapeutic.

Gerard Jones, a comic book writer as well as a parent, wrote Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence on that subject. He said that fantasy gives children a world where they can become beings that life won’t let them be. (Rimensyder, par. 4) Considering how children tend to feel weak and helpless, temporarily displacing themselves as someone more powerful can be a good influence. (Rimensyder, par. 5) When asked why he thought people tended to be so uptight about violence, he thought that they were trying to control the violence, which in itself is good. (Rimensyder, par. 6) The problem was that they focus so much on that aspect that they go after anything that resembles violence and forget that fantasy is supposed to take those desires and dispel them in a harmless way. (Rimensyder, par. 6)

There is also the fact that most comics are fantasy. They have people who do things that we can not possibly do which helps to reinforce that it is indeed fantasy. (Rivera) If the readers believe that they can actually do any of these things, such as manipulate fire with their mind, something was wrong beforehand and comics can not really be blamed for that. (Rivera) When comic books become excessively violent, they are not intended to be read by sociopaths or people who will think that they can or should do what is depicted in the pages. They are intended as a refuge for people who can see parts of themselves in the characters and are mature enough to distinguish between the two. “Simply put-if your mind is weak, then you can be influenced by anything-including fiction.” (Maltos)

Of course there is a reasonable limit to this. If comics consistently show evil winning and focus on violence as a good thing and how drugs and sex are the most glorious thing in the world then they would be a bad influence. Even some of the worst violent comics, DV8 for example, have the villains who are doing all the killing and drugs depicted as miserable people the readers would not want to be. They were definitely not role models. Todd Nauck, a comic book artist and writer, states that it is all in how the violence is approached. (Nauck interview) He also said that while he did not see comics as a bad influence they could be depending on the content, context, the writer/artist’s presentation of the material, and the viewer’s perceptions, values and choices. (Nauck interview) This is a good point, though the comics that I have read, including the most violent, were responsible in how they put the material.

Comics themselves are most likely not the bad influence they are sometimes made out to be. They might alter the thinking process slightly, but so does being in a bad mood and no one would suggest drugging people up every time that they get a little angry. When someone does something like shoot up a school or act out something seen in a video game, or heard in a song, or read in a comic, there must be something else there. Maybe there should be a closer look at the parents. There had to have been signs before something like that happened. It is not really fair to blame the entertainment when one of the reasons the child or teenager got so involved in that same entertainment is probably because of the lack of parental guidance in the first place.

SUPER HEROS TEACH US SOMTHING AGOUT PHYSICS