There is room for a successful argument that mainstream comic book superheroes have never been heroes and have always been champions of the status quo. I get this argument and can even see its merit. This is not my argument however.
My argument is that once Miller’s Dark Knight stuff broke all sales records there has been a constant downward spiral of even this level of “heroism” and that post-Miller mainstream superheroes are today essentially just sociopathic costumed clowns.
No, you’re right. It kinda ties in with all this reimagining and deconstructing thats been going on lately. Doesn’t help that the most popular superheroes like batman are the original super heroes, batman, superman, spiderman. How do you keep coming up with new Superman storylines after decades? You change superman.
There is certainly an element of truth to this, but it doesn’t explain why everything post-Miller had to become “dark and gritty and sociopathic”. Except that to me it says something about the people who want this.