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But the Punisher only scratches the surface. In 1982, acclaimed British comic book scribe Alan Moore began work on Warrior (later to be re-titled V for Vendetta), which told the tale of a masked anarchist who changes the lives of all he encounters while fighting a fascist regime in future Great Britain. The work was written in deliberate response to the conservative Margaret Thatcher era of the 1980's and stood as a bleak vision of the future based on actual political events. In 1988, Vertigo Comics (an imprint of DC Comics) began publishing Hellblazer, a monthly series which chronicled the antics of John Constantine, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking con man, neck-deep in the world of magic and the occult. In 1991, Frank Miller released Sin City, which featured such characters as Marv, a violent borderline psychotic, and Miho, a woman best described as a prostitute/assassin. And, perhaps most popular of all, was former Spiderman artist Todd McFarlane's creation, Spawn. First printed in May of 1992, the series followed an undead CIA mercenary who agrees to serve in Satan's army in exchange for another chance with his wife and daughter on earth.

It is works such as these—many of them since adapted for the movies—that have been defining the industry for the past 25 years, ushering in what many refer to as the Dark Age of Comics. Any self-proclaimed authority on comics has to include such developments in his account of the genre. Fortunately, even as superficial treatments continue to take a toll on the already battered art form, the comic book faithful seem to have nurtured a few champions of their own. Books such as Superheroes and Philosophy, edited by Tom and Matt Morris; Greg Garrett's Holy Superheroes; and Dave Zimmerman's already mentioned Comic Book Character are impressive studies of the genre, proof that comics can inspire thoughtful and witty reflection on their own terms.

If books like these are still the exception, they nevertheless point the way. Comic books—and their cousins, the so-called graphic novels perpetually "discovered" by the mainstream media over the last few years—have come of age.

Edirin Ibru, a comic book and science fiction "know it all," is also a pre-law philosophy major and studio art minor at Calvin College.

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