That’s not just an amazingly underrated movie by Jason Trost, with James Remar as the best non-Joker joker, ever. I think it’s a truth that needs to happen, for the geek culture to evolve into maturity.

For better or worse, we’ve hit peak nerd this year. The movies are bigger,the cons are bigger.But there’s a crash coming,and most people in the film/comics industry refuse to see it. But that’s a debate for another time.But for America’s sake,superheroes have to go. And here’s why:America needs to grow up.

Superheroes are all about wish fulfillment. People like Grant Morrison have compared them to modern gods, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. If they are modern gods, someone needs to go throw the priests out of the temple.

Back in the early days of superheroes, they were static.Nothing about Superman changes except for acquiring a dog and a horse(go look it up). The comics industry will tell you that the Comics Code and such were responsible for comics decline, but I’ve read those puppies, and it’s a law of diminishing returns. Superhero comics are circling the drain until one man changes all that.

Spiderman and the rest of the Marvel lineup’s revolution in comics can’t be understated. They had fully fleshed out characters with real issues that people could relate to . And people loved it, to the tune of superheroes becoming popular again.

And what happened once they got popular? They went right back to the same exact thing:nothing ever changing. Franklin Richards, son of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman, is born in 1968. He disappears and isn’t made into a n actual child until the late 80’s. He should have been going to college.by then. But he didn’t have hair on anything.

And even then, that change was only due to another pair of comics revolutionaries. Frank Miller and Alan Moore turned heroes into dark, serious people. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn them into mature ones. People took what was meant as an indictment of the genre in Moore’s case and turned it into an excuse to turn the violence and sex way up. They entirely missed the point.

This was revolutionary in one way: it flipped the script on changing superheroes. Suddenly, everyone was changing. Spiderman got a new suit! Sales went up. Spider man’s new suit is gone! Sales went up.

I really think this is where superhero comics blew their big chance. They had the worlds attention, and all they had to offer were bruises and boobs. And it set forth a cycle of reboots that the big two of superheroes have never recovered from.

My biggest problem with current super heroes is one that’s lasted since the late 70’s:NOTHING EVER CHANGES, AND YET EVERYTHING CHANGES TOO MUCH. Every year it’s new titles and and variant covers and reboot after reboot after reboot.

Here’s an idea. Don’t reboot anything. Don’t come out with 6 billion new costumes and titles. Play with the toys you already have. Dance with the ones that brought you.

One of the most popular comics of the 30’s and 40’s was called Gasoline Alley. Its characters grew up, married and had kids. Why not superheroes? You want to bring me back to superhero comics? Show me Kitty Pryde having to balance the checkbook after Colossus wrecks another car. Just once I’d like to see a villain defeated because he had to go get the kids from day care early. Make them human again.

And if you don’t think this needs to change, I point you to San Diego this year. The guy who tried to marry off Batman to Catwoman needs protection for making Bruce grow up. I’d like to think it’s just pissed off people who hated the stupid left at the altar trope he used. Again, a symptom of the problem in comics:People want new and shiny, but stockholders don’t want change in the IP.

I grew up on comics, specifically X-men. I loved the family drama.It spoke volumes to have people talk to each other about their problems, living in a house where that didn’t happen. I loved it when characters changed and evolved. Then they showed me they wouldn’t do it.

The pinnacle of non-alternate reality superhero comics of the 80’s, for me, was the Wolverine miniseries by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. It  speaks volumes about what it means to be a man, to change and mature.It ends with a invitation to Wolverine, as a character, getting married,

Then came the actual wedding, three years later.And the first comic I ever destroyed was my first copy of the issue where Wolverine gets left at the altar. Because it was so stupid and handled so badly. I mean, Mastermind? After having spent four issues having two other supervillains try and stop the wedding? And lets not even discuss the blatant racism of not having the only Japanese superhero, Sunfire,  not appear at the only supes wedding in Japan.

But why do they need to die, Trevor? Because of what they symbolize now for most people. Powerful, unchanging gods who rule and dispense justice, who never change their minds or evolve. That’s a view of us, as Americans, that needs to go away.

People who know me are probably groaning at my putting politics into this, but hear me out. Why is it when politicians evoke superheroes, it’s never  liberal ones? It’s always conservatives. Because in a genre that uses change every month, nothing ever really changes, except to minor characters. The message is clear:real heroes don’t change. Supes hasn’t in 75 years. Peter Parker is still a whiny teen boy. I’d love a comic where the heroes grow,mature and change. Yes, Virginia, I know stuff like Astro City exists But doing it to those characters won’t change the culture. And comics culture needs to change. We need to stop enabling the toxic masculinity of them. Characters like Spider Gwen and Squirrel Girl, are a step in the right direction, but where’s the equivalent for young men? .What’s the point of inviting girls to the party if we’re still treating it like a boy’s club?

I’d like to say I have the answer,but I think it’s only going to come with someone who’s written outside comics being in charge. There’s a huge uptick in non-comics writers writing superheroes, and it’s been amazing. But until people in charge realize that variety and change are what fuel art, I think the superheroes have to go. The price is too high. We, as geeks/nerds/fans have to accept that things change, that our heroes grow and change, and it can’t just be for sales sake. Ten years ago, I was massively excited for Spiderman’s wedding. Then they shit the bed and reversed it.

So let’s retire some of these supes. Let’s let them train new people to do the job. And let’s let it stick. No more Robins, since Nightwing is out there. And maybe then, superhero comics can be great again.