You can tell it's a down day for me when I'm looking to a guy called "Mr. Cynical" for an emotional pick-me-up.

But Michael Paciocco's Mind can always be counted on to reaffirm everything that I know to be right and true, and to do so in an amusingly bitter fashion.

The Initiative: STILL MADE OF FAIL lists all the ways in which Marvel's own stories have conclusively disproven Marvel's own claims about the rightness and effectiveness of superhero registration, but my latest favorite has to be his pronouncement of Plot Devices that Need to Go Away #5:

SUPERHERO EMO

Why does it have to go away?

Because at this point, it's become as laughable (if not more so) than the angst-free superheroics that preceeded it. Because the entire point of the superheroic ideal is one of uplifting against impossible odds and doing good. Because every extra bit of angst takes away from the belief that people can improve themselves and make the world a better place. Because people who do right should have some reward in fiction, because lord knows it is all too rare in reality.

Much more, all of it just as apodictically accurate, to be found by clicking the link ...