2014: When Joy Came Back to Comics

If there was one recurring theme from the comics marketplace of 2014, or at least the second half of the year, it's that hope and joy still sell.

This, of course, flies in the face of everything we've been told since Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns came out 30 years ago and comics "weren't for kids anymore." Doubly so as it pertains to the film and television adaptations, which have often been even darker than the source material.

The idea of superheroes as inspirational or aspirational figures sometimes seems to have deteriorated in the attempt to humanize them and make them  more relatable, and we'd only be the thousandth or so people to point out that "fun" is a bad word far too often in superhero stories. So...what happened this year?

The ratings splash that was The Flash -- with its premiere marking the highest-rated episode of any CW series ever and "The Brave and the Bold," Arrow's Flash-starring episode, being the show's highest-rated -- was a big part of a shift in the conversation about just what could make for a successful superhero property. Months before the show aired, reporters had seen it and knew not only how good it was, but how shamelessly it reveled in superhero tropes.

A lot of that came from its lead, Grant Gustin, who brought an energy and effervescence to Barry Allen that is absent from most superhero adaptations. Arrow, while a great show on its own terms, certainly doesn't have it reveling in the dark, "realistic" tone of the Christopher Nolan Batman films. Even the wisecracking Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spent most of their first season being pretty dour when they weren't snarking.

A lot of people credited The Flash with finally having learned the lesson from the Iron Man movies that humor is not the enemy and humanity is not weakness. It's probably perfect, then, that while reviewers and a few lucky fans at Comic Con had seen The Flash early, for most people the era of good superhero feelings really kicked into high gear with August's release of James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy. Loaded with humor, an upbeat soundtrack and characters far more likable than they had any right to be, Guardians didn't feel like a typical superhero movie, or even like a typical space opera. It had a sense of joy and wonder to it that matched nicely with what it was: a movie about a guy who didn't take things very seriously, having a blast in space.

It matched up nicely with some of the things going on in comics, too: titles like Ms. Marvel, Batgirl, She-Hulk and the announcement of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle's return to Justice League 3000 made it feel like, for the first time in recent memory, the Big Two weren't publishing exclusively dark books with dire consequences.

Meanwhile, titles like Quantum & Woody and Greg Pak's amazing Code Monkey Save World were jubilant and heartfelt in a way that mainstream titles don't often get.

All of this plays against the general fan reaction to things like Gotham and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For which was, essentially, "Hey, that's pretty great." Nowhere near the kind of exuberance and celebration that Guardians or The Flash got. 

We've already heard that Paramount wants to reinvent the Star Trek franchise in Guardians' image. There are Titans and Supergirl shows on the way that could really benefit from being a bit lighter and brighter, a la The Flash. Whether this is a long-term trend or not, only time will tell...but for now, it feels good to have the kind of comic book entertainment that I can show my four-year-old in a couple of years and not worry about the therapy bills.