Off My Mind: Are Civilian Deaths Necessary for Realism in Comic Books?

I aggre@Burnstar1230

Honestly, it's disrespectful. Super hero deaths are reversed like that and the faceless masses are left broken, vaporized, or unburied. If you aren't going to let the immortal heroes save the human race, let them have an honorable death and the same for hero deaths

The problem for me is that the mass deaths happen, but then have no long-term effects.  In War of the Hulks, they trashed Washington DC.  After that, it's not like any other comics mentioned it in any way.  I mean we have seen in real life the drastic nationwide effects of real devastating acts in this country, from 9/11 to Katrina--it destroys the economy, slows down government services, etc.  In the comics, they have these dramatic thinsg happen where cities are destroyed, tons of people are killed, but there are no real effects from all that. Then, in Fear Itself, only a year after War of the Hulks, Sin and her army trash Washington again, just as if it had never happened. 

I say it makes a bigeger impact. Loved the Civil War storyline and it would have not been the same without Stamford

Well think about it this way. If a giant superstrong monsterman is rampaging through the city, what are the chances that no one will be harmed at all?

Occasionally just don't overuse the concept besides we are all suckers for happy endings and genocide really doesn't help... 

civilian deaths in comics don't matter to me. Sure the heroes get impacted but the fact that it's a piece of fiction doesn't escape my mind. There's nothing a writer can do in comics to make me relate to the real world. They should focus on trying to be more original and dare to risk change. Have a random civilian shoot and kill one of the villains during a major fight.  Do a story about a civilian that dwells on finding a superhero's secret identity and how they want to express the information.

I think mass deaths in comics meter detachment, which is fine when they take place entirely in the land of make believe, like the DC Universe, but when they take place in real brick-and-mortar locations, like NYC, and try to deal with real events, the way they deal with those massive events always rings false.  
 
Look at how the Marvel Universe dealt with 9-11 or Hurricane Katrina: In the real world, those were devastating, generation-defining events, so they wrote about them as if they had the same impact on the Marvel Universe - a universe where mega storms and collapsing buildings are commonplace. I could buy the "Millions dead, but we're focusing on these important ones" dichotomy before - I simply chalk it up to a universe wherein superheroes have become a new social class, even surpassing our own upper class within that society (Check out Fear Itself: Secret Avengers #15 - they actually deal with this idea in a really interesting way). It made it interesting and alien, if perhaps a little unsettling - a world where just being normal made you comparatively invalid. What I can't fathom is why the twin towers coming down would have more of an impact within that universe than, say, a plant monster destroying an entire city block, or the Hulk tearing through a populated town, or Asgard falling from the sky, or instantaneous world-wide climate change etc. etc. etc. 
 
Oh, post-disclaimer, obviously no disrespect to anyone involved in 9-11 or Katrina.

I think they're important, and done improperly.   
 
You bring up a lot of instances where there were civilian deaths and they were breezed over, making the point that we don't need them because there's no effect. 
 
So instead of removing them, I say focus on them.  Tell us stories about what it's like to be a typical civilian in NYC. Tell us the stories where the hero is utterly destroyed because of the loss of life surrounding an event he was involved in.  Drive alcoholics to drink and catholics to seek out their priests.  These deaths, which in fact aren't even MENTIONED all that much, should be the reason these heroes do their heroing.   
 
The problem with this?  How can anyone truly like a bad guy who actually killed someone?  If Electro suddenly fried a ten-year-old, even by accident or by proxy, no one would ever like Electro again.  And you can't keep coming up with new interesting bad guys who are actually bad, can you?   
 
I'd personally love to read the universe where civilian deaths have actual weight.  Not all of them would be Uncle Ben type weight, but certainly enough of them would weigh on any plucky little spider-hero.

Of course deaths are needed in comics. Not all comic are "fun let's fight bad guys bam bam" they need to connect with the reader. Why else would there be Teen and Mature rated comics.

The more realism the better I say. I dont really care for Canon Fodder characters but the Gwen Staceys of the comic book world are needed.

Deaths of weak or stupid heroes would make things more realistic. "Invincible" does this right. There is little plot armor protecting the minor characters even if they are considered very powerful.. More heroes should be dying considering the heavy firepower they go up against. Doctor Doom swatting aside The Wasp, for example, should kill her, while a swing from the Hulk should be enough to disintegrate a less powerful hero like Hawkeye.

True. Too many is too many. I do welcome civilian casualties here and there though. But I hate it when heroes accidently or when in rage, kill civilians. It's usually a long depression period that goes on and then they just go around and pretend that they never did anything. It's annoying. Heroes killing civilians is unbearable just for that reason.

I would like to see more casualties caused by villains though. For New York, people sure do know who to disappear once superhero/villain fights start. I want to see things like battles where villains take out civilians on a populated street/sidewalk because they were recklessly trying to defeat or escape from hero(es). I think that would be a good extra element to use here and there.