I certainly don't mind comedy in superhero comics as such, and in fact there is something inherently comical about the superhero genre,
Me neither. If you can, check out the Steve Gerber run on METAL MEN in the 1970s - funny, funny stuff: Platinum awakening with a sexpot personality, Doctor Magnus plotting the Metal Men's deaths when insane...oh, it's a lot funnier than I'm making it sound!
but you're quite right about how badly it's been handled.
I have no idea why people call the 1980s and the Modern Age in general the "Grim and Gritty" age (meaning blame is unjustly placed on very, very worthy works and character types) when all the too-precious-for words "funny" stylings of Giffen and his imitators get a free pass when they aren't praised (gag) for "bucking the dark trend."
(And though that period of Avengers history wasn't that great...the Avengers matching jackets were a pretty cool fashoin statement. I want one!)
I said the Giffen League was by far, the worst of the Post-Crisis reimaginings. That's a shocking stament, but I'll defend it to the end. Byrne's Superman reboot eliminated a lot that worked about Superman, true, but at least Johnny Redbeard's version of the character kept his dignity. I can't say the same about poor Beetle and Captain Marvel. Lois under Byrne had an annoying personality, but at least she had a PERSONALITY - unlike Black Canary under Giffen. I can't think of one thing she really did in that entire run.
(This is a gigantic problem. Nobody ever really did anything cool except Giffen's favorites, Batman and John Jones. In the first seven issues, Mister Miracle, an escape artist, doesn't...ESCAPE from anything! He doesn't pick a lock, he doesn't fool a trap. Not till the JLI founding issue do we even have his technical skills mentioned. And then we have the very interesting and underused Kimiyo Hoshi Dr. Light, a character that also never does anything really that neat.)
The only place where Giffen's League might have competition is with Ostrander's HAWKWORLD, which has the singular distinction of being an update that screwed any chance of DC's history ever making sense, and also serves as the most cynical and mean-spirited of all the reboots: assuming everything we know about the characters is a lie. The Hawks can't be happily married, it's a cover story; they came to earth as spies, not as policemen...to say nothing of royally missing the point: Silver Age Hawkman's absurdity was the most interesting thing about him.
The Giffen Justice League business was simply embarrassing, coming across as a very poorly written sitcom. It relied heavily on people saying something stupid (it works for Homer Simpson, but only because his lines are written by clever people) or using far-fetched similes in conversation. Tellingly, the only characters in the series that didn't come across as airheads were Batman and the Martian Manhunter, who were therefore written as humourless spoilsports.
Strangely, I always thought the best character in the Giffen League was Guy Gardner. At first he might seem the epitome of the pain-in-the-behind spirit of Giffen's League, but actually, he worked: he was the only one where the humor fit the character. Beetle was made a moron to get jokes, Black Canary didn't really do anything, but Guy was...well, Guy was Guy. Everybody else was annoying, but it's IN character for Guy to be annoying. So actually, he's the only one being written correctly!
On Bizarro World, losing = winning!
I can't explain this series' popularity, but then I was increasingly apalled by it and still bought it quite regularly. Giffen recently did the same thing to the Defenders, to even sillier effect.
GET YOUR HANDS THE HELL OFF DEFENDERS, GIFFEN!Steve Gerber must be doing 400,000 RPMs in his grave - and yeah, I know he's not dead yet! That's how bad it is.
I was able to pick up the first issue. It had the usual Giffen stuff. Doctor Strange and Bruce Banner were going back and forth.
BRUCE BANNER: Who is it this time? Necrodamus?
DOCTOR STRANGE: No.
BRUCE BANNER: The Presence?
DOCTOR STRANGE: No.
BRUCE BANNER: How about Dormammu?
DOCTOR STRANGE: No! Wait...yes. [/list]
AHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Giffen, you animal you! I can just hear the
BOI-OI-OING! sound effect at the tail there, and the canned studio laugh track.
Also: way to be the sixth or seventh person to do a Defenders revamp starring Hulk, Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, and Namor. True, Englehart did some OKAY stories with this roster (the book didn't get cooking until the Valkyrie was introduced and her falling in love with a statue subplot), but DEFENDERS, especially under Gerber, was always was driven by the subplots of the less famous but more interesting characters: the Valkyrie, Nighthawk, and later, Son of Satan. Filling the Defenders list with big names is a showy, but emotionally hollow thing to do.
To be fair, the mistake Giffen makes is a common one: the Defenders are not about the fact they have a reverse pride in their non-team status; this was the gimmick that sold the book, but not why people read it and why it lasted as long as it did. The Defenders are each at some level, dysfunctional and very lonely, alienated from others, a common Gerber theme.