The Death of Captain Marvel/Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle (1982/1979 comics) = Finished

I've heard so much about these stories. About how groundbreaking they were. About how they forced the industry to reckon with topics like death and alcoholism in unparalleled sequences of nuance that would reverberate throughout the medium. I leapt at the chance to get these at even a slight discount, and see the origin point of more human stories in comics.

What I found wasn't a lasting example of depth, but a demonstration of how far comics have come in the past few decades.

Let's take Demon in a Bottle. You've got this groundbreaking subject matter, right? Comics will finally grapple with Tony Stark's casual alcoholism. Wow.
And it happens--but in spurts.

The focus is still on villain-of-the-week machinations. Guys in goofy costumes emerge from the woodwork to punch Iron Man in the face, and then we get some relatable storytelling. A character tells Tony that maybe he doesn't need a drink today, Tony begs to differ in a manner that is increasingly out of control, we move to the next issue, rinse and repeat as needed.
There are glimpses of a growing issue, but the full impact of these moments is smothered by the need to add punchy bits that feel out of place. The two topics strain against each other to the point of tangible tension. Even when the storyline finally comes to a head in an issue largely focused on Tony's problem, its resolution is undermined because of this underlying feeling that his grappling, in itself, can't be the topic.

A few years later, Captain Marvel's death is given an entire graphic novel. The intriguing subject matter is broken up a bit less--his impending death holds much more gravitas due to issue length and the relative attention given--but there's still a noticeable gap. Emotion hits harder in these segments, not necessarily because they still hold up, but because they're otherwise absent in the comics I read leading up to it in the collection.

Today though, an entire run of a comic might be about a major superhero's struggle with alcoholism, or PTSD. Mariko Tamaki's run on She-Hulk is actually about the latter. It's been a brilliant exploration of a character that had human issues and reactions, but never quite reached a breaking point...until now.

If these comics showed me anything, it's that the medium is increasingly comfortable in its own skin. Particularly in superhero comics, we now tell human stories in the middle of superfights--even using the superfight itself as an engine for real emotional effect.

We got better, in other words, and that gives me a lot of hope for the future.