For a dime, Spivock bought the comic book last week for her 12-year-old son at Mecklenburg's South County Regional Library. Her kids recently discovered the 1960s Batman TV show. The most eye-popping scene is a two-page spread showing Batgirl's body-to-body tussle with Catwoman for the important notebook. But it doesn't look like a struggle, and contains none of those exclamations from the TV show: POW! BOOM! WHAM! Spivock and her husband, Bill, were not amused.Okay, the "Batman" television show? Have these people been living in a cave for the last 50 years that they have not watched "Batman Begins" or "The Dark Knight" ? Even Joel Shoemaker and Tim Burton's film versions of Batman were a far cry from the campy and playful Adam West television interpretation of Batman of yesteryear. Even so, I should not be so insensitive. As parents, I feel that if they are really concerned with the reading material their children are exposed to, it is ultimately their responsibility to screen the material beforehand. However, I do feel that DC comics does not do enough to aid parents in that endeavor and that maybe they should take some responsibility.
The call for a rating system!
Stop reading this, right now. Get up, go to your dresser and pick up the last Marvel comic you purchased. Don't open it. Look at the cover. On the bottom left you will see a rating system which will indicate one of the following four options:- # ALL AGES
- # A
- # T+ TEENS & UP
- # PARENTAL ADVISORY
- # MAX: EXPLICIT CONTENT
Marvel does this with each and every one of their issues, and a lot of people seem to think that it might be in DC's best interest to adopt a similar rating system in order to prevent instances such as these from re-occuring.
"DC seriously needs to adopt a rating system for their books. I don't know why they haven't started yet."- Tina/Batmansgirl via http://twitter.com/batmansgirlTina, I completely agree. I have personally always felt that as a publishing company with content that varies in being very innocent to sometimes very graphic; it may be in their best interest to utilize a rating system similar to Marvel's. However, this does beg the question: will instilling a rating system for all DC Comics, or perhaps a unanimous rating system for all comics in general really make that much of a difference to some parents? I know, I know; always the pessimist, but how often have I seen parents complain about content in the media in the past? While I feel that DC should input a rating system of their own, I don't necessarily feel that it will make a dramatic difference in the way some parents approach comics. In the end, I really feel that ultimately they are the ones in control over the material that their children are exposed to, and I am sure that Mr. and Mrs. Spivock's 12 year old son has been exposed to much worse material via the internet and "Victoria's Secret" catalogs than what he saw in that issue of Batman Confidential.
Lastly, in no way do I find it a coincidence that this article was printed in the Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper just in time for the Charlotte, North Carolina "Heroes Convention." Just saying.