'Watchmen' creator Alan Moore warns adults' 'childhood' love of superhero movies can lead to fascism

Over the past few decades, comic books have steadily evolved from a niche hobby to Hollywood's most valuable intellectual property. One person who has been around the industry at every stage of this evolution is Alan Moore, who wrote seminal comics like "Watchmen", "V for Vendetta", and "Batman: The Killing Joke".

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While Moore was a pivotal figure in the artistic legitimization of comic books, that doesn't mean he's thrilled to see what the industry has become. In a new interview with , Moore expressed his concerns about our culture's new obsession with superheroes.

"I said around 2011 that I thought it had serious and disturbing implications for the future if millions of adults lined up to see 'Batman' movies," Moore said. "Because that kind of infantilization — that push toward simpler times, simpler realities — which very often can be a forerunner of fascism."

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He continued, "Hundreds of thousands of adults queuing to see characters and situations that were created to entertain 12 year old boys - and it was still boys - from 50 years ago I didn't really think superheroes were adult fare. was a misunderstanding born out of what happened in the 1980s - to which I have to lay my hands on a considerable share of the blame, even if it was unintentional - when things like "Watchmen" first appeared There were an awful lot of headlines saying "Comics have grown".

Moore is widely credited with turning comics into an adult art form, but he's not sure that's actually what they are.

"I tend to think that, no, comics haven't grown", did he declare. “There were a few more adult titles than people were used to. But the majority of comic book titles were pretty much the same as they had ever been. It wasn't the comic growing up. I think it was more comics that met the emotional age of the audience coming the other way. »

While Moore is proud of the work he's done in comics, his distaste for everything around them prompted him to move on to other types of writing.

"I will always love and adore the medium of comics, but the comics industry and everything related to it has become unbearable."

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