The Way of the Editor:

Old Genre, New Interpretation

Super-heroes, indisputably, are the dominant genre of American comics and for as long as they have ruled, readers have wanted to see every variation of the theme. But a new generation of comics out there doesn't just pay tribute to the classics, it reinvents the genre.

It’s a popular new tactic: take a super-hero premise and make it “real.” What do I mean? I’m talking about the grit of Frank Miller’s Batman and the “everyman” approach of Astro City. I’m thinking Sam Raimi’s geek-boy movie Spider-Man, and Brian Singer’s über-sleek blockbuster X-Men.

Whether it’s visual or emotional, a setting update or an entire make-over, these reinterpretations of super-heroes have become so popular they’ve inspired a whole new generation of “realism” in comics that reinterpret the original trendsetters; opening the way for the slew of next generation titles like Invincible, Common Grounds, The Freshman, Grounded, Hero Camp, etc.

So super-heroes, indisputably, are the dominant genre of American comics and for as long as they have ruled, readers have wanted to see every possible variation of the theme. What if? stories, Elseworlds, alternate realities. Marvel and DC, for one, are constantly going back and rewriting their roots. The new batch of Marvel Adventure titles out there is testament to the efforts to take old stories, slap on some new cartoon pictures, and regurgitate them to a younger audience. But what I like about the true descendents of the new generation, as opposed to Marvel’s recycling of old material, is that they don’t retell the origins of hero so-and-so, but tell the story of a super-hero from a different perspective.

Invincible, for instance, has gained a critical fan following as a super-hero comic that hits all the right spots, but still brings something fresh and different to the drama. Like Kirkman, Erick Hogan’s Hero@Large takes a more personal look at what's behind a hero in the sprawling Megalotroplis, “where super-heroes battle for truth, justice, and top story on the evening news.” Grounded, on the other hand, takes the dark path and explores the protagonist’s obsession to become a super-hero to its most destructive possibilities. It's the coming of age story of a boy who has no apparent super-power, but is convinced that he is destined to become a super-hero, and gets in way over his head when he discovers that his father is a super-hero cheating on his civilian mother with another super-powered woman. (Definitely not your conventional origin story.)

Other striking alternative tellings of super-hero stories, like Wasted Minute, focus on the logistics of what it means to live the life of a super-hero. (The recent Incredibles movie is another example.) Wasted Minute takes place in a world of super-heroes and villains who have been ordered to give up the vigilante lifestyle and live simple lives – and what happens when they can’t find a good job because even the brightest amongst them hasn’t got a college degree.

Finally, in Hero Camp, writer Greg Thompson delves into the idea of a special training camp for the children of super-heroes (what could be more banal?) but focuses the tension of his story on the conflicts of children at camp in close quarters with each other; unlike the children with serious behavioral/social-problems-due-to-alienation/mutation popularized by comic titles like the X-Men.

All of this is just another way of saying: there’s an interesting influx of new takes on the same old super-hero stories right now, some of which are very good, and many of which are full of super-hero insider fan-jokes. But if you can’t find any of these titles in your local store, what can I say? There’s always eBay, and you can also look forward to our upcoming Atomic Avenue, to be unleashed this winter.

NOTE 10/20/05 : An earlier version of this article mixed reviews of Grounded and Hero@Large, which have since been corrected. Thanks go to Hero@Large writer Erick Hogan for pointing out the mistake!