Why Don’t We Have Superhero Family Comics?

Superhero families are one of the coolest aspects of long-running comic books. When I say this, I don’t mean teams built around the concept of a family of superheroes like the Fantastic Four or the Incredibles, but groups that have been built up over time around a singular hero. Usually, most or all of the members of this family would have similar powers or skills as the head, with many members often being sidekicks or partners to the head hero. Some of the most famous examples of superhero families include the Batman Family, the Flash Family, and in recent years even the Spider-Man Family. These are groups that have been brought together by a shared goal and inspiration in the hero their family is both named after and centered around. They typically take decades to form, with new members slowly being added over time as side characters or sidekicks, and growing to be even more important and connected with each other.

Superhero families are one of the best ways to show both the development of the hero and their growing impact on the world. Where Batman started as the sole protector of Gotham City, he slowly accrued a veritable army of like-minded individuals who were galvanized by the Dark Knight’s constant struggle to improve their city. Fully-fledged superhero families allow creators to make use of all of the heroic side characters introduced across decades of storytelling and bring out new aspects of their characters that can’t be brought out when they’re solo or in a team with friends or colleagues. And yet, despite all of these advantages, we don’t have any active superhero family comics. Why?

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The Problems With Superhero Families

The simple issue with superhero families is that they tend to have too many superheroes for conventional storytelling. Most of these groups wind up having anywhere between six to over a dozen heroes as main members of their group, which is way too many to take active roles in a comic dedicated to a single hero. Just look at the Bat Family, which is often cited as being the most overblown family in comics. There are a lot of heroes with fairly overlapping skill sets. Yes, they each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but when you have eight people who are fantastic detectives and near unstoppable in combat, it can get a bit hard to juggle them all with equal spotlight in the limited pages available. You either have to skip out on beloved characters and make those fans mad, or give every character such little presence that nobody is happy. This leaves fans hungry for content about their favorite heroes, especially when they don’t have their own books and the only way to see them is if they show up in the head hero’s book. These are the exact problems that comics dedicated to the families themselves could solve.

The Strength of Families

Comic books dedicated to superhero families give creators a platform to satisfy the urge fans have to see their favorites interact with the people that lore says they are very close to, but we only get to see interact for two panels every three years. Back in the ‘70s there were Batman Family and Superman Family comics running that focused on stories with different members of each group, and both were massively popular. Superman Family ran for fifty-nine issues, and Batman Family was so popular that they merged it with the then ailing Detective Comics line to boost its sales. Wayne Family Adventures is a massively popular webtoon focusing on the Batman Family, though it is far more comedy focused and tends to have its characters act more in line with the fandom’s interpretation of them then how they actually behave. 

Regardless, superhero family comics can work, and it opens the avenue to have superheroes explore familial drama and relationships in a way that they usually can’t in their own series, which opens the door for so many new stories that we haven’t been able to tell yet. It makes the fans happy and can be structured with a rotating cast of characters, and gives the chance for less popular characters to share the spotlight without dragging attention away from a hero’s headlining book. Family and connections have always been essential in superhero stories, so we should have books dedicated to just that. What superhero family do you want to see get their comic? Let us know in the comments below!