I was watching an old History Channel piece last night about  comic book superheros. The show traced the development of comic books through the introduction of Superman, use of super heros helping the war effort and taking on social issues of the 60's and later decades.

One particular part caught my attention; the show was elaborating about the evolution of Batman and how in later years DC comics used the character as a commentary on the hot political issues of the day (early 90's). DC's publishers were approached to address gun control/crime/violence.

They willingly obliged and printed a "one-shot" issue of Batman called "The Seduction of the Gun" (the plot has something to do with gang-bangers buying  guns in Virginia and reselling them in the Hood).

Some of the artwork they showed had teenage gang types running around shooting off TEC-9s, MACs and other "full-auto" VPC favorites).

Allegedly, the printing had some small part in getting a gun-control bill passed (from Googling around, I think it might have been Virginias "one gun a month" law).

www.thebatsquad.net/batman/tbscomics/misc/seductionofthegun.htm

Must they pervert everything?

Quoted: Must they pervert everything?

A middle age man living with a teenage boy in a mansion, and both like to wear tights and masks.  That's not perverted?

Nah, it's the norm in   Santa Barbara.

CW

I always thought that the overall superhero message was anti-gun and anti-self-defense. They seem to give people the idea that if you are attacked, some magical superhero will come save you.

Also that if you happen to be a rich person obsessed with stopping criminals, then a good approach would be to buy yourself a lot of spandex and a fancy car to go around stopping them yourself. Of course, putting say 100 38 revolvers in the hands of honest citizens would probably be much more effective in stopping common criminals.

Great. Another of my cherished childhood memories is defiled.

Didn't the original Batman carry a .38?

Understand that Batman is fantasy.    The fantasy genre is characterize by individuals having innate power or special often supernatural abilities compared to the rest of the population.   Contrast to science fiction where technology for the most part delivers power and it is more or less equally available.

A firearm is not supernatural and are available to all.   Thus they are not particularly suited to fantasy plots, except to demonstrate how useless they are against the super- heros' and villians' powers.

-z

Actually, there were a few issues where Batman packed a handgun regularly.  I'll try to find the info for you tonight.

I'm glad I read the Transformers, GI Joe, and The Nam as a kid...