I was just reading the collected X-Men and Power Pack series to my son. Having finished it, I do have a request for writers of kids comics:
Could you please leave out the morals?
Each issue of this has a tidy little message of wisdom for the kiddies…Don’t be mean to your sister! Science is fun! Face down your fears! Believe in yourself! It’s condescending and boring and pointless.
You know what kids learn from super-hero comics? They learn that it would be neat having powers and that stuff blowing up is cool. And they can learn to read, too. And you know what? That’s enough. Just leave it there. The other stuff is condescending and tiresome; kids are either going to ignore it, or….no, there is no or. They’re just going to ignore it. And for parents (or at least this parent) it’s annoying.
So forget the exhortations, would you?. Just tell a story, please.
Isn’t it a bad thing to teach kids that blowing stuff up and having disproportionate amounts of power is cool?
Maybe that’s why the morals in these things are always so heavy handed.
I don’t think it’s bad for kids to imagine having super-powers or thinking about stuff blowing up. Children find it pretty easy to keep fantasy and reality straight for the most part. At least that’s my experience with my son. Just yesterday he was earnestly explaining to me that his super-powers weren’t real, actually.