Anyone who’s ever been to a playground knows that preschool kids love superheroes. Look in a major toy store, clothing store, or Halloween costume catalog and you’ll see that 3 year old boys all want to be Spiderman, Superman, Batman… But the superhero movies in the theaters aren’t for three year olds. And the comic books aren’t for three year olds. And still they want the costumes, the action figures, the t-shirts, the licensed bicycles and scooters, the backpacks and light-up sneakers. They don’t get the stories, they get the products. So by the time these three year olds are in elementary school, superheroes have faded a little. Oh sure, there are some kids who still really dig Batman, but even if they’re ready for the action movies, that’s once a year with a Happy Meal tie-in, and the comic books are still well out of reach. They’re just not written for a second grade reading level. Girls have already noticed that aside from the occasional pink and sparkly Wonder Woman t-shirt, superheroes aren’t for girls. So by and large these grade school kids are moving towards Phineas and Ferb and Adventure Time. You know, things that are about people their own age being imaginative and leading ridiculous and exciting lives. Superheroes are for toddlers.
Comic publishers talk a lot about wanting to reach younger audiences and reach female audiences. But they already have these kids sucked in before they can walk… and then they lose them. Because superheroes mostly live in comic books. And superhero comics aren’t for little kids.
Except for Alt Baltazar and Franco’s Tiny Titans. I haven’t yet broken the news to my children, but the next issue of Tiny Titans, released March 21, will be the last. Luckily, everyone tells me, the same creative team will be back with the Superman Family Adventures! Luckily, everyone tells me, Superman Family Adventures will be just as much fun as Tiny Titans, but with Superman fighting bad guys!
But, and I’m not just talking as a pacifist hippie mom here, the lack of fighting was one of the things that made Tiny Titans so perfect. I have a nine year old daughter and a five year old son. We’ve been reading Tiny Titans for a couple of years now, and we’ve bought every issue. At least twice. And all of the story books. My son’s been reading on his own since he was three, and it’s not hyperbole when I tell you he taught himself to read so he could devour Tiny Titans in bed with a flashlight.
Now, I am enough of a pacifist hippie mom to say that the lack of CRASH! BANG! and superviolence appealed to me (and appealing to me should be pretty important to the publishers since I’m the one footing the bill) but it’s also true that the slower pace and lack of gigantic explosive scenes made the comics readable for my preschooler. He’s leafed through some other comic books, including many which target young readers, and though he (of course) was excited to see all the ass-kicking going on, he just flipped through them and tossed them aside. He never returned to them. When there’s too much going on, a smaller kid can’t find a place on the page to begin to focus. And if a smaller kid can’t focus, the smaller kid gives up. Tiny Titans is easy to follow, with a clean, uncluttered design reminiscent of classic comic strips. My son has destroyed some issues of Tiny Titans from reading them over and over and over again. And so I buy multiple copies. (Publishers, take note.)
To small children, the appeal of superheroes is not the fighting, but the fantastic. Preschoolers put on capes and masks and “fly” down sliding boards. Jungle gyms are the imaginary webs on which they swing to and fro. They crawl around turning into animals and robots. These kids are are running around the playground engaging in precisely the kind of dramatic play that educators hold up as important first stages in early literacy. And what they’re play-acting is not the fighting, but the superpowers. Secret identities, costumes, legends, history… and Tiny Titans gives young readers all of this. Though not so much that you’re lost if you’re hearing it for the first time. I’m not a longtime comic book reader and I know next to nothing about anyone’s backstory. I could sense the insider jokes and comments, but they didn’t make the books any less interesting to me, or to my kids. In fact, we often ended up going online and looking up more about the superheroes because of some intriguing reference. We badgered comic geek friends to fill us in. My kids and I started to gather all of these little shreds of comic book folklore and now we’re hooked. All three of us.
My daughter is someone who is very particular in her tastes, and always has been. She can’t stand princesses but can’t resist cute. She gets bored quickly by any story that doesn’t involve girls. And she loathes violence or anyone being the slightest bit mean. As a Tiny Titans reader she has decided that superheroes are amazing. She soaks in the characters the way she learns about mythology at school. She spends hours asking me to look specific backstory facts up for her on the internet. She tried to memorize all of the Green Lanterns. She is always looking for more female superheroes and laments that out of the 138 superhero action figures we own, only 23 are female. And believe me, I have bought every female I could find.
The female Tiny Titans are not quite as numerous as the male ones, but of the 41 Titans listed on Art Baltazar’s site, 17 of them are girls. That’s pretty damned close. Close enough to count as equal. The school scenes in the Titans’ comics resonate with my third grader, and as a Phineas and Ferb fan – like most of her peers, she is a kid interested in watching kids with awesome imaginations and abilities — the treehouse and meetings and plots and plans appeal to her.
The thing is, we need more books like Tiny Titans. I’m sure that the Superman Family Adventures will be fine, and it’s likely that my five year old son will approve, if it’s at his reading level. But I’m pretty sure my nine year old daughter will lose interest. It’s not just the promised fighting of the bad guys, either. A look at the cover of Superman Family Adventures #1 shows a giant muscled Superman holding a tiny Lois aloft. Sure, there’s Supergirl flying around (partially obscured by Superman’s beefy leg), but the cover absolutely says “This is a comic book about a big dude saving the day!” It may be more than that, eventually, but from the starting gate it does not say “this is about boys and girls being awesome together” it says “this is about an extraordinary man flying around with an ordinary woman holding onto him for dear life.” Lois doesn’t look powerful. Lois looks worried. And Lois certainly does not look like Superman’s equal.
I’m sure my son will look at it and say “Aw Yeah!” (one of his favorite expressions, thanks to the Titans) but damn it, doesn’t he already get enough of big strong men saving tiny women everywhere he looks? Gender stereotyping doesn’t just affect girls, you know. Yes, we need to validate the self esteem of young girls by offering them interesting female characters, but it’s every bit as important to show young boys that female characters are strong and interesting, too. I don’t know, maybe that’s even more important.
And Superman Family Adventures isn’t about kids. Kids like reading about kids. Supergirl and Superboy are minuscule compared to Superman on this cover, and they are clearly not the focus of the story. Kids want to imagine themselves NOW in the story, not themselves someday.
Without Tiny Titans, we are left without a superhero comic that highlights all that is most appealing to younger audiences — secret identities, costumes, superpowers, and mythology — not just ass-kicking. We are also left with another comic with a man in the lead role, that once again, fails to attract young female readers. And we’re left without a comic book for kids that is about kids.
Tiny Titans ends with issue #50, on sale this month. Five paperback collections are currently available (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5), and back issues are available from Art Balthazar’s website. Art often includes bonuses, like posters or hand-drawn character sketches.
All the above panels are taken from issues of Tiny Titans, the photo is copyright 2012 Marnie Ann Joyce.
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