I would add to the list:

You desire for superheroes to kill or maim (or struggle with the issue of whether to kill or maim), because that's more "realistic."

My point, as underlined above, is that using the term to describe regular-sized comics is pretentious, and it is.

+++++++++

I'm down with that.

2)As long as it's not ofensive to the work of creators i like and not obviously ridiculous i can accept a little bit of contradiction with previously stated things:

-Claremont renewing himself on the x-men both in the 80's and recently (with sage for an exemple) at the price of often contradicting a detail or another, for the love of a new story, have never been a problem to me. And there's still a whole giant novel about the x-men that is coherent enough as long as you don't look too close at the details. But, heh!, evenn the great novelists of 19th century had sometime this kind of "ret-cons".

-Frank Miller doing "Man Without Fear" or "Batman Year One" where ok too.

-JB revealing Aunt Petunia as being a young woman was not only ok, but great.

(but JB doing Spider-Man Chapter One with a blue costumed Electro wasn't OK *winkle*)

5) "Fuck"/Sophisticed= I wonder if it doesn't really say more "imature" rather than "too old". Let just say that in teens it is excusable and in adults ridiculous.

6) I dont really care about the character being younger or older than me but i like to look at the series as at a (fictive) biographic novel rather than as a TV show. So Spider-Man aging is OK to me.

9) When i'm in a story i thrill for a hero in a deathtrap as much in a monthly comics than i thrill for the hero when it happens at the page 57 of a 500 pages novel. If the story is good, it works. no matter that we know he will survive the trap.

There is no science of superheroes. Most of what these guys do is flat-out impossible from Batman to Spider-Man to Superman. What's necessary is not "real-world physics" but some sense of logic to the story.

For instance, if all Kryptonians possess Superman's powers on Krypton then they would have easily surved the planet's explosion and even have flown away someplace else once they knew it was about to blow. Solution: Superman gains his powers from earth's yellow sun. How does he do this? His body processes solar energy like a living solar battery. It's an explanation with no basis in scientific fact if you examine deeply enough. In other words, effective comic-book science is hand waving. You accept it and move on. Once you go deeper, it all falls apart -- namely how could life even exist on a planet so different from Earth like Krypton -- and if it did, how could it resemble human life? And so on.

I think JB effectively brought in logical "hand-waving" when he revamped Superman that made more sense than a lot what we'd seen before without getting bogged down in minutae.

Most of it was just sealing up issues in real-world logic: Wouldn't it be difficult for the Kents to adopt a baby they found on the side of the road without a lot of questions being asked? Solution: Superman was "born" on Earth and passed off as their biological child, solving a lot of the issues with social security cards and so on. How can you raise a superbaby? Wouldn't he be uncontrollable? Solution: Superman developed his powers slowly over time. If Superman was invulnerable on Earth from practically birth, what keeps him from pulling a War of the Worlds whenever he temporarily loses his powers? Solution: Superman developed his powers slowly over time (I thought this one solved a lot of story issues!).

John Byrne wrote: (6) You think the characters should be at least as old as you are, and some a lot older.

I'm good on all counts except for this one -- I'm in my 40s now, and for some reason I've NEVER been able to think of Superman and Batman as being in their late 20s / early 30s.  I grew up with Curt Swan's Superman, and he's ALWAYS looked like he was in his late 30s (at the youngest) to his early 40s.  I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that I am now in my 40s -- I think this has more to do with the fact that my father was 62 when I was born (my mother was considerably younger than my father).  I also had two brothers (half-brothers who I don't think of as half-brothers, anyway) who were considerably older than me -- when I was a teenager I had a brother in his 20s and another brother in his 30s.  Given this age spread in my family, folks in their 40s have always seemed like REAL adults, whereas folks in their 20s and 30s have always fallen into the "youth" category, and you have to get up into the 60+ range before you start to seem "old."

The Curt Swan Superman reinforced this image for me (he looked around 40 to me), and the Jim Aparo Batman looked around the same age; the Adam West Batman from TV never seemed twenty-something or even thirty-something to me.  Toss in the Mike Grell Legion of Superheroes (another fave of mine as a kid) who all looked like twenty-somethings more than teenagers, and then later on the Wolfman/Perez "Teen" Titans (also looking like twenty-something teenagers), and you might begin to see where I'm coming from.

Given this frame of reference, the Superman and Batman that I grew up with (Swan Superman, Aparo Batman) DEFINITELY seemed like "adults," which placed them in the 35 - 45 age range for me.

I'll never get used to the idea of Superman or Batman in their late 20s, and this has nothing at all to do with MY current age.

If the story and art (and bank account) is ok, I'll read just about anything.  I've recently realized that I'm more ANNOYED than ENTERTAINED with certain books....so they are gone.  New Avengers being one...I tried Amazing Spider-Man again...poo...

Basically, I'm trying to train myself to only get that which I enjoy, not to worry so much about keeping the string going...I'm getting the latest Batman, Detective, Superman and Action comics...for now.  When The Kuberts start, I'll probably drop whichever book they're on, but keep going on the others.  That kinda thing...

Another one for consideration:

You refer to superheroes by their real names or worse cute nicknames

Thus, Superman, Batman, and Flash are Clark, Bruce, and Wally or Supes and Bats. You also think it makes more sense for them to refer to each other by their real names *even when in costume*.

How often is Wolverine called "Logan" these days in the books? Yeesh.

I would say yes to most, and could say no to most also depending on the product itself.  I do not just have a blanket love for any old superhero story or concept. If it is done well, then I can become that 12 year old kid again and enjoy myself. If it is cheesy, shallow and not very creative then I am too old or bored. Also, I do not automatically hate a comic that takes a different angle on the super hero concept such as Cage, or X-Statix. It is entertainment to me; I am okay with stepping on both sides on the fence with this issue. I am a fan of comics. I like Dave Cooper, Crumb, and various other non-superhero comics. I will always have a soft spot for superheroes though, I just watched "The Batman" on kids WB for the second time and loved it.

QUOTE: the only one I have a problem with is #1 WHEN a writer half-ass references science in the story to explain something - i.e.. Morrison says the Flash's density goes up as he approaches the speed of light - which instantly makes me think "But then he would either have to have to be adding MASS, or else his volume would start shrinking to the point that he's a compressed particle" -- if they just said Flash runs faster he has a harder impact, i wouldn't have any problems.

Along similar lines, I really only worry about continuity on two occasions.  First, when the story tries to rely on continuity.  If you're going to build on past stories, make sure you're building on them correctly.  For example, the recent Illuminati story from Marvel purports to be based on things that happened around the time of the Kree-Skrull War.  If you're going to do that, make sure you get the details of the Kree-Skrull War and related stories right.

The second time I worry about conitnuity is when the mistake is really big.  What's a really big mistake?  Well, that's subjective.  If you do a story about Spider-Man that turns on Peter Parker being raised by his Uncle Norman Osborne, then I'm probably going to cry foul.  If you do a story about Spider-Man that turns on Ben Parker and Norman Osborne being high-school classmates, I probably won't mind, even if it turns out there's one story from 25 years ago that established that Ben and Norman went to different high schools.