Superheroes getting help and dealing with trauma

[QuinnFillory]

Here is some news about a new comic: https://nerdist.com/dc-comics-tom-ki...sis-sanctuary/.

This sounds like a good idea, and one that I hope gets explored further. Superheroes deal with a lot of life-changing and traumatic stuff in their lives, and we have seen it take its toll. I hope that this comic inspires Marvel, Image and other comic companies, as well as the movies and tv shows, to do something similar and have their characters deal with their issues in a somewhat healthy way.

[Duskman]

While you can definitely make some good stories about superheroes dealing with heavy topics, one of the things that always appealed to me about superheroes is their near universal ability to just tank through trauma and get on with their lives. Is one of the things that puts the super and even the ostensibly "just human" heroes.

[kjn]

There have been a couple earlier takes, by both Marvel and DC. Marvel had "Doc" Samson, but I'm not sure how much he actually spent helping other heroes with therapy. And dealing with trauma and PTSD was part of what Kim Yale, John Ostrander, and Gail Simone explicitly explored with several of their Barbara Gordon stories. Simone has continued to explore this at times, with both Barbara Gordon and Poison Ivy. I'm sure people more well-read than me in comics can come up with many more examples.

But it's hard to write well, and arguably dangerous if written badly, so I understand that comics usually steer clear of it. The Sanctuary plot also seems more of a background device rather than exploring issues of PTSD, but I might be wrong about that.