Quote Originally Posted by CentralPower View Post
"Good for their time" only carries so far.

Michelinie's "Iron Man" run was ~10 years ahead of its time, which was impressible. But, that still makes it dated by ~25 years. And, when the standards of that time were low, being "good for its time" is less impressive.




It is not just Marvel. But, yes.




Old comics had ideas and themes. But, there was no dissection needed. Readers were beaten over the head with the moral of the story. X-books spent pages virtue signalling about civil rights (which was nonsense, as the X-Men do not work as an oppressed group), Spider-Man about struggling young adults, Captain America was polemical navel-gazing.
For sure, it's all comics. I just kept it to Marvel because we're in the Marvel neighborhood. I think Marvel demonstrates a much wider range of writing styles than DC, even though there is a lot of crossing over between the companies. DC is getting better lately though imo.

Older comics had ideas and themes, but they were much broader and didn't change much from arc to arc. They had more of a main idea or hook and stuck with it. Captain America would either be "America Good!" or "America Good? Maybe no but actually yes in the end". There's no comparison between that and what we're getting with Coates or got with Spencer on Cap. Now we're more likely to get a finer, more specialized kind of theme. And we have comics that not only have a main theme or source of commentary, but several, and might explore a couple different themes over multiple arcs.