[...] also dislike the growing trend of removing all the humans from the superhero comics, such that we’re only left with stories about [...]

Paco was “changed into a supervillain” for maybe 1 issue, thanks to an alien virus (which was accidentally added to him and controlled him without his say). That’s all been sorted now – Paco is back to being Paco again. Back to a full-human cast again.

K

Val Cooper is the X-Men version of the Avengers’ Henry Gyrich, a government handler/liaison.

SW, I agree about losing sight of the “world that needed them”, and that makes me sad.

Suzene, who’s Val Cooper? I like that therapist character in NM myself.

Its not just a loss of reference for the character, but a loss of a sense of wonder that the characters are unique or special in the world and not just part of a population of superheroes. But, mostly, I think its indicative of the fact that superhero books quit being about superheroes as heroes in a world that needed them, and became about, as Alan Moore said “tactical superiority”, and poorly realized characters slugging it out for reasons that didn’t amount to much but them.

I’ll take my Superman with one foot firmly in the Daily Planet and his actions meaning something to Metropolis. I think there’s been some of that in the New 52 Superman, but I doubt it’ll continue as DC dumps cross-overs and Wildstorm U stuff on the characters rather than just building Metropolis as a location with a strong supporting cast.

Daredevil is set in Matt’s world, his role as a lawyer is as (if not more) important than his role as Daredevil. So having Foggy, etc. is needed and Waid has done wonders.

Wolverine and the X-Men though, their world revolves around mutant kind, teaching, etc. Having normal humans as regular supporting cast would take some hoops to jump through I think.(though one teaching tolerance might be nifty)

Superman(in both titles) is the one that I feel they’ve dropped the ball on. None of the supporting cast really supports Superman or Clark so far. I know they’d talk about making him isolated, but I also feel isolated as a reader. Before if it was the Kents, Lana or eventually Lois, having someone he could talk to about his stuff made me feel more connected to the character.

It’s interesting, Leask, that a couple of the titles you mention are/were my favorites: Daredevil and Herc. I want to like Spider-Man and Iron Man more than I do, but with Spider-Man, especially, every story I enjoy is followed by some superpowered battle or crossover tie-in I dislike. (It’s tough balancing that stuff on a flagship book, I know.) I’ll have to take your word on the Bat-books, because I’m just not interested in them after the reboot.

I think the bigger point is that we can each cherrypick titles based on what we’re looking to demonstrate. Which is why I wanted to talk about this in a post — to see whether others were feeling the way I was, or I was just looking at the wrong superhero comics.

I think supporting characters are doing just fine.

Granted, the New 52 version of Jaime’s supporting cast is more like an off-model version of the original, but it’s there.