It's been a little while, so take this with a grain of salt. The newer comic books tend to be more graphic ( unless you go with the disney ones or archie ). The last time I messed with comics X-men ( wolverine, cable, x-force, excalibur, x-factor, generation X, yes I'm a geek ) were starting to become more and more graphic with thier violence.

Batman has been violent for awhile now, but that's his character.

You might try Superman ( i'm not trying to toot my own horn btw, I was never a huge fan of his series ) simply because he rarely kills anyone he fights, and except for the death of superman series, there was very little tragedy in the series.

Justice league of america tends to be a little more rough and tumble but not as bad as batman.

Teen titans, the last time I looked at one, didn't look too bad.

Avengers was a good one too, along with the incredible hulk.

If I were a Mom ( you can laugh now ) I would go to borders, and near the magazine section there's a comic book spinner. Take a look at a few that I mentioned and see what you think. For the most part the mainstream ones don't have too harsh of language, but there are a few that are more graphic with blood etc.

Good luck

Jade

Yay!  Thanks for all the ideas!  =)

"She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef."

I'm fairly new to Olympia, but I've found Danger Room a great place to buy comics. I have five and seven year old boys, and here are a list of the comics I've approved of for them. I'm fairly conservative, FWIW.

 - Doug TenNapel's "Creature Tech," "TommySaurus Rex," "Iron West," and "Earthboy Jacobus" are our favorites.

- The "Bone" cycle have also been a big hit.

 - My extended family buy my sons all the Tintin and Asteriz & Obelix comics.

- I was thinking of buying the Prince Valiant comic books, but the price/value ratio isn't high enough for me. They are fairly costly to not have the ending handy (serialized for newspapers), and the language stays a bit archaic.

- The "MouseGuard" comics are well-drawn and are a serious action-adventure story on par with the Redwall novels, in which high medieval adventure is acted out by animal characters.

- Kazuo Kibuishi got together a group of artists to put out an anthology called "Flight" that has been released three times. I've found almost all the stories in the anthology to be kid-appropriate and beautifully drawn. His comic "Daisy Kutter" is also pretty good, although it's similar to TenNapel's "Iron West".

- Linda Medley does some fantasy comics about a bunch of fairy tale characters called "Castle Waiting" that my kids and wife like. I don't like them as much, probably because the relationships are rich and the action sparse.

- "The Land of Sokmunster" and "HeroBear" are two comic books that are pretty creative and inoffensive, as well as one called "Lions & Tigers & Bears" about the power of imagination to triumph over fear.

- "Owly" is unique because it is a textless comic. It's all pantomime and symbols communicating between the few characters. There are three "Owly" books.

- Michael Gagne does a lot of different things, but one of his books my kids have liked is "Zed". It's a space adventure that's a little bit macabre and gory at times, but it's still age-appropriate and not graphic.

- One of my favorites is called "The Wizard's Tale" by David Wenzel. It's an incredibly illustrated color book with a great story. The same guy also illustrated a graphic version of "The Hobbit" which might also be a good buy. I try not to buy comic versions of books that I want my sons to actually read, so I won't get the latter till they've read the novelized version.

 Anyway, hope this is something to work with.

Dave Shackelford

So many good suggestions!  I actually feel like I can walk into the Danger room and not look like a complete idiot!  Heh.

"She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef."