Modern Superzeros

I miss the old style superheros. You know ... the ones who were motivated by virtue and "what was right". The everyday man and woman who was a hero in the truer sense of the word even before considering their super abilities. Special abilities that were generally kept well hidden and suppressed unless needed. It seems that a superhero nowaday has to be vindictive or conflicted and badder than the bad guys. Flashy, with incredible super powers, but tormented in some way.

Then there are the abundant antiheros. There seems to be plenty of bad guys who are demi-heros in that they beat the other bad guys or aliens or monsters and by doing so present some hidden and suppressed virtue. Like vampires that fight against vampires... Or societal rebels who fight the bad inherent in business, politics and civilization. Criminals with a "noble" cause.

Now I'm not saying we have to get rid of the new ones. Some of them are very entertaining. I rather enjoyed when Batman went from brawling with the bad guys as a whizy gadget toting brainiac to becoming the vigilante "dark knight", even though it sacrificed a lot of the common humanity, intrigue and slapstick from the original. Oh, but would someone please give the new Superman some relationship counseling before they torque him and Lois's affairs up even further...

So what I guess I'm trying to say is that while our superheros and our good guy vs bad guy portrayals have gotten more complex and diverse, I miss the simple superhero who was inherently good and beat the bad guys because they were virtuous, not because of some dark twisted psychological reason...