Bill Willingham writing at Big Hollywood mourns the current state of  superhero comic books:

The ’super’ is still there, more so than ever, but there seems to be a slow leak in the ‘hero’ part. There’s even a term for it, coined by (I’m not sure who, but it might have been one of two respected comics journalists) either Dirk Deppey or Tom Spurgeon. Folks, we’re smack dab in the midst of the Age of Superhero Decadence. Old fashioned ideals of courage and patriotism, backed by a deep virtue and unshakable code, seem to be… well, old fashioned.

Full disclosure time. I’m at least partially to blame for this steady chipping away of the goodness of our comic book heroes. In my very first comic series Elementals, first published close to thirty years ago, I was eager to update old superhero tropes, making my characters more real, edgier, darker — less heroic and a good deal more vulgar than the (then) current standard. Elementals was one of the first of what was later dubbed the ‘grim and gritty’ movement in comic books. And to complicate my confession, I’m still proud of much of that early work. At least my crass and corrupted Elemental heroes still fought, albeit imperfectly, for the clear good, against the clear evil.

What can I say? When I was young and foolish I was young and foolish. In hindsight I should have realized then what is so obvious today. In any industry, especially one as inbred and insular as the comics world, one excess feeds another. Of course we didn’t think of it as excess. We called it stretching the boundaries. Pushing the envelope. Doing a bigger and better car chase in this one than they did in that one. And every other cliche we could summon to our defense. “If they got away with having their hero accidentally kill his opponent in that book, then we’re going to outdo them by having our guy purposely kill someone in ours!” And so on, until today an onscreen (and quite graphic) disemboweling of a superhero’s opponent is not only allowed, it’s no big thing…

So, finally to the point of this note. Borrowing some wisdom from the famous parable of the mote in one fellow’s eye, and the whole beam in another’s, it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to make any call for our industry to clean up its act, until I’ve first cleaned up my own. I’ve already made some progress down that road. In my run writing the Robin series (of Batman fame), I made sure both Batman and Robin were portrayed as good, steadfast heroes, with unshakable personal codes and a firm grasp of their mission. I even got to do a story where Robin parachuted into Afghanistan with a group of very patriotic military superheroes on a full-scale, C130 gunship-supported combat mission. And in my short run on the Shadowpact series I kept to the same standard (but with less success as several story details were editorially imposed).

But ’some’ progress isn’t enough. It’s time to make public a decision I’ve already made in private. I’m going to shamelessly steal a line from Rush Limbaugh, who said, concerning a different matter, “Go ahead and have your recession if you insist, but you’ll have to pardon me if I choose not to participate.” And from now on that’s my position on superhero comics. Go ahead and have your Age of Superhero Decadence, if you insist, but you’ll have to pardon me if I no longer choose to participate.

No more superhero decadence for me. Period. From now on, when I write within the superhero genre I intend to do it right. And if I am ever again privileged to be allowed to write Superman, you can bet your sweet bootie that he’ll find the opportunity to bring back “and the American way,” to his famous credo.

A lot of people have been disappointed in the dark turn of superhero stories, particularly in the comic books. That’s why when I started Laser and Sword magazine, I wanted to be sure to include stories with real heroes in them. Of course, my heroes have flaws and then there are some heroes claiming to be superheroes that aren’t, but we’re clear on that.

Why do we need heroes? If there’s a useful, redeeming point to our culture’s heroes (particularly superheroes) it’s that they point back to true North and the type of people we should be. Superman in particular is key to this understanding.

Over the years, defining the virtue of our heroes down is a way to cover up our own shortcomings. If our heroes’ virtues no longer challenge us to be better people, than “I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay.”  But it’s not okay.

I hope for many years to come to preserve and honor heroism and virtue through the stories we tell. It’s perhaps, one of the most impacts that can come in this business.

My wife and I have in the works a series of science fiction stories set in a dark future, based on where we see current political and cultural trends potentially headed. One thing we’ve been ribbed about is that our future is not futuristic enough.

As a recovering journalist, I like to make sure statements about the present are as accurate possible. As a writer, my wife is determined to not make inaccurate predictions about the future. Our story’s set in an indeterminate future time where the year is reckoned by the rule of a global empire which, as of yet, has not set up housekeeping on Earth. Thus, until such an Empire begins and reigns for a few decades or more, you can’t even suggest we were wrong. If it doesn’t come along, our warnings were heeded, the Empire avoided. If it does, well, you’ll have more to worry about than tracking down a couple of novelists to whine about the inaccuracies in their book. My wife thus combined the dedication to accuracy of a reporter with the cunning of a lawyer.

Of course, we made some assumptions. Under the influence of corrupt despotism, with extremely high punitive tax rates, in the Years of the Empire, green tape strangleholds make businesses feel like they’ve been put in a headlock by the Hulk (the Incredible one not Hogan.) the economy would grow at a snail’s pace. It’s a miracle that after a hundred years they have dish generators to turn garbage into electricity and recycle dirty dishes, and 3D Holowindows to watch television on. Don’t even ask me for starships. The same green tape strangling their economy also punishes scientists researching anything but solutions to environmentalists’ pet concerns.

Pity poor Robert Zemeckis. His hit trilogy, Back to the Future, is dated, quite literally. The 1955, 1985, and 1885 scenes stand the test of time, but in Back to the Future II, we’re taken to the year 2015 to see Zemeckis’ vision of the future.

Robert Zemeckis, you are no Nostradamus. 2015 is right around the corner. Zemeckis’ future has six years to happen and, unless Mr. Obama really has a magic wand, it looks like it’ll be as absurd as Lost in Space’s vision of Intergalactic travel in 1999.

Some of the predictions Zemeckis made that appear not to have come true and are unlikely to hit by 2015 include:

• No flying cars.
• No garbage powered cars.
• No rejuvenation clinics that can add 40 years to your life.
• No automatically adjusting clothes that adjust to fit your size.
• No clothes that dry themselves off
• No hover boards.
• No dog-walking robots.
• No 3D Movie trailers in the townsquare that jump out at you.
• No elimination of all lawyers (Please, can we work on this one? To quote MLK: “I have a dream.”)
• While some high tech installations have Thumb Print scanners, they’re unlikely to replace your old fashioned lock any time soon.
• No tiny dehydrated Pizza from Pizza Hut that will grow to full size if you add water. It’s true that Dominoes sells shriveled dehydrated pizzas, but unfortunately they don’t rehydrate. They were just left in the oven too long
• No readily available cybernetic implants to take your neighborhood idiot and turn him into a supercharged idiot.

Did Zemeckis get anything right? Yes, being able to watch multiple channels at the same time is a reality. But compared to hoverboards, it’s a “big whoop.”  Also, there are some automated ordering systems as well as self-check out. Of course, nothing was a grandiose as Zemeckis’ ‘80s café where a virtual Ronald Reagan takes your order. Zemeckis also gets a partial for suggesting video games would be way cooler than they were in the 1980s, but he got it wrong when he predicted that kids would not be playing them with their hands.  

Finally, he uses the common sci-fi trope of the videophone, which actually made it’s début in the sixties, had already long since tanked by the time the movie was made, and has never made a comeback. Today it exists as one of many features available for PCs and high end mobile phones, which most users pass up in favor of more sophmoric features. Not exactly the future Zemeckis envisioned.

Now, I’m sure there’s some tech geeks who will protest, “Some guy in Indiana has a flying car or a dog-walking robot.” But it’s not being mass-marketed, and it’s really unlikely to happen in the next six years.

Zemeckis’s future, oddly enough didn’t contain cell phones, which may have been the easiest to predict tech trend in recent decades. I cut him slack on other missing components, like MP3 players, which just may not have been seen in our brief peak at 2015, but the everyday annoyance of omnipresent cell phones should have been an easy call when the film was presented.

So how does Back to the Future, Part II stand out? Actually, fairly well. Watching the movie as a kid back in the ‘90s I had no idea how probable it would be that we’d have hoverboards. I just wanted one.

Beyond that, the characters and the story are a lot of fun. It delivers a memorable message on the dangers of greed, arrogance, and being a hothead with only a small touch of ethnic stereotyping. Marty McFly, the Irishman, is hotheaded? You don’t say.

Despite a few plot holes, it’s still a fun movie, and the film’s outrageous predictions didn’t phase me in enjoying it. The morals of the story for writers:

·        Don’t try to predict the exact shape of the future: you can’t.

·        Having gadgets for the sake of gadgets is dumb.

·        Good writing covers a multitude of techno-prophetic sins.

More importantly, as Doc Brown said, “The future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.”