Indie webcomics cooperative CO2 Comics is fighting back against mainstream publishers' repeated slayings of A-list superheroes with a T-shirt line entitled "Death Fatigue."
Simply put, Death Fatigue is "physical or mental weariness resulting from the repeated need of comic publishers and editors to kill popular superheroes in an effort to boost sales," CO2 Comics explained in a lengthy blog post Thursday. "Just in recent memory, Batman, Captain America and now Spider-Man have made their journey to the Pearly Gates only to be turned away to fight another day. Enough already!"
Originally inspired by DC Comics' best-selling The Death of Superman series – and re-energized by Marvel Comics' upcoming Death of Spider-Man storyline – the Death Fatigue line features the blood-stained iconography of temporarily murdered superheroes like Spidey (above), Superman, Captain America and Batman (all below) splashed against a backdrop of splintered or piled cash.
The T-shirt line "really was a combination of circumstances," CO2 Comics co-founder and Death Fatigue co-designer Bill Cucinotta told Wired.com by e-mail.
"I did have the Stooper shirt (above) available for some time, which was actually a cover I painted for the comic Day of the Dead Stoopermen, published by Comic Zone Productions in 1993 with art by Michael Avon Oeming," he said. "It was published in response to The Death of Superman, and the message then is still relevant today, if not more."
The other three Death Fatigue designs were created with the assistance of Gerry Giovinco, who helped found CO2's print predecessor, Comico Comics, with artists and writers back in the early '80s. The indie comics upstart turned out graphic novels for Max Headroom, Robotech, Mage, Jonny Quest and more before succumbing to bankruptcy in the late '90s and reincarnating as a webcomics outlet in 2009.
CO2's own death and rebirth is an ironic aside to the Death Fatigue line, but the point remains valid.
"This stuff is laughable in soap operas. What makes it any less inane in comic books?" asks CO2 on its blog. "If the publishers would put half as much energy into developing new and exciting properties as they put into figuring out how to kill and resurrect the old standards, the readers might actually have something worth looking forward to."
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