Hubris Comics

I worry.  You know?

Have comic books and comic book movies quit being “Kids’ stuff” because we now refuse to give up being kids?

Not that long ago (but after the creation of the Comics Code Authority), comic books were filled with ridiculous romps suitable for all ages, meaning young ages.  Batman would find himself upside down in absurd death traps, wearing his bright blue and light gray outfit, with Robin next to him, also in wildly over-produced peril, and wearing garish colors.  Likewise Superman, who’d chuckle indulgently as he rescued Lois from some Lucille Ball-esque tangle, him wearing his trapeze-artist costume and shiny blue spit-curl. And whatever goofy thing happened in the comic didn’t matter because next month would see them back at ‘go’ at the beginning of the issue, ready for another goofy romp.

And people wanted to grow up and be adults.  They left behind comic books, and graduated up to literature, and wore suits and nice shoes because to do otherwise meant that you had no respect for yourself or those who had to spend time around you.

Now?  Grown men running around in matched basketball uniforms modeled after their favorite players.  It’s like some kid in the fifties who so desperately wants to wear his superman pajamas to school that he disobeys his mother and wears them under his school clothes.  Except we can’t look at these grown men and make fun of them like we did Kevin on the playground, him suddenly yelling “Up, up and awaaaaay” and charging headlong across the playground in his red socks, away from the pile of his street clothes under the monkey bars. We don’t make fun of grown men wearing their color-coded shorts sets, or their sagging britches, or their Tshirts that say ungentlemanly things because if we say anything about it, they might have a complete and utter Hissy Fit and shoot somebody, meaning me.

…Or they’ll have some other similarly very adult sort of  reaction.

Plus, if we make fun of them for wearing the kiddie clothes THEY like, then who’s going to restrain themselves from giving us an earful when we wear our official Walking Dead embroidered baseball cap, Sons of Anarchy distressed denim jacket and matching leather chaps, or our favorite Crocs with the worn out heel straps and dog’s teeth marks all over the left heel when we go to the doctor’s office?

Excuse me, please.  I’ve gotten myself into such a tizzy, that I’ve dribbled my beer down the front of my best Flash underoos.