Violence has always been a part of superhero comics and always will. What matters is depiction. The superhero comics I grew up with didn't show Black Adam ripping someone in half or show a crocodile man eating someone alive. What's the point in this? Shock value? Why not go off panel? The end result is still the same.
What perplexes me more is DC's VP of Editorial directly saying that the DC Universe line of comics are all-ages books and then having crap like the above in those books. So, he's telling me that stuff like Infinite Crisis, 52, etc. are in the same class as All-Star Superman? Because if he is, then he's mentally deficient and needs to be removed from his position.
That and Superman started as a children's book. It was meant for all ages. Things started to change around 1986 for some reason
It kept and keeps getting worse.
The point I'm trying to make is, there's something misplaced about the urge to "protect" children from sex and violence. Maybe if I had my own children I'd feel differently about it, but what kids want to see are dinosaurs eating people and zombies. Is it so wrong for creators to give these things to them?
Ok, that explains a lot
But seriously, how many kids still read comics other than Manga? Not too many. Let's face facts most kids today are far more into Naruto than the number one comics right now which is Thor (I think), they couldn't care less about Thor or any X-Man who didn't appear in the three films. They only know Spider-man from the movies and Batman and Robin from the cartoon shows. They are not the ones reading and buying today's superhero comics.
So DC and Marvel are now catering to adults who are ashamed that they still read children's books and now are hellbent to prove to others that the comics that they read are really meant for adults with the all the so-called "mature" context, which is in fact very immature, in order for them to not to feel like complete and utter losers, instead of reading novels or actual mature comics.
Of course they can also just be like most people here and actually like enjoy superhero comics for what they are, but I guess that is asking too much.