Fox Affiliate Condemns DC Comics Relaunch Over Sex, Violence. Where You Folks Been?

A Fox affiliate has come out swinging over the totally tit-sational blood bath universe of DC comic books after its relaunch or something. Well uh, what the fuck. This has been a problem in comic books for….ever. Forever.

Robot 6:

Nearly five months after the debut of DC Comics’ “New 52,” the Washington, D.C., Fox affiliate has taken aim at the “edgy makeover,” zeroing in on  the controversial first issues of  Catwoman  and  Red Hood and the Outlaws.

For the Fox report,  titled “Relaunched Comics Using Sex and Violence to Sell” on the affiliate’s website, correspondent Sherri Ly turns to child psychologist Neil Bernstein, who characterizes the much-discussed sex scene between Batman and Catwoman as, “sort of like a fictionalized  Playboy  for kids at its worst.”

He goes on to suggest the comic may pose a danger to young readers, as overexposure to sex and violence could encourage aggression. Yes,  really. “I think too many kids would be put in harm’s way or at risk,” he said.

Bernstein also dissects  Red Hood and the Outlaws  #1, in which Starfire propositions Roy Harper for sex, later saying, “Love has nothing to do with it.” “We want our kids to think sex is an act between two consenting mature individuals who care deeply for one another,” he says. “That doesn’t really come across and it’s too easily to misconstrue things particularly for a kid.”

And to underscore just  how  dangerous and easily misconstrued the comics are, Ly … went to a local middle school, and showed them to some children. Sherri Ly and Fox 5: putting kids in harm’s way?

While it can be, and certainly  has  been, argued that those issues of  Catwoman  and  Red Hood and the Outlaws  are sexist, misogynistic or just downright bad, or that other comics in the DC relaunch have been gratuitously violent and gory, Fox 5 ratchets the debate to alarmist, Wertham-esque levels.

Kevin Melrose in the Robot 6 article I’ve quoted crushes the point home. Fuck yeah!, the aforementioned Catwoman and Red Hood Blah Blah have been bullshit, but there’s been problematic titles since I was an adolescent getting weird boners looking at the comic rack back in the 1990s.