This is my opinion, which admittedly matters less than I'd like, or I'd be running for presidency in a small unnamed Slavic country instead of writing this post. I'd first like to stress that I'm not addressing anyone's specific claims but rather the gist of them, so if anyone feels they're being misrepresented, be at ease.
Comics are all part of a medium, which can be criticised as such. To criticise the limitations of the medium itself is to my mind different from criticising its execution. In other words, what you
do with the medium for storytelling purposes doesn't necessarily define what the medium is capable of.
Consider filmed science fiction. Its most common expressions might currently be summed up in "technobabble," "spectacular visuals" and "big explosions." Yet that isn't the sum total of what can be done within SF. Witness movies like Gattaca, Pitch Black and Dark City -- even if you dislike them, you'd be hard pressed to fit them to the stereotypic SF movie mold.
Let's take something a bit more relevant to the topic at hand: cartoons. They're usually typified by either being disney, japanese hentai, or even more incomprehensible japanese power fantasies. But strictly speaking, all the difference there is between cartoons and "real movies" lie in the fact that the cells are drawn rather than filmed. Maybe that's for the best, as those who survived Ralph Bakshi's LotR travesty know what happen if these lines are blurred.
I'd argue that the medium isn't necessarily at fault. Yes, it's an inherent problem of comics that their format lends itself well to telling stories on the level we're accustomed to see. But this doesn't mean that comics are
restricted to that level just because they tend to be insipid and shallow in general. As in sci-fi, there are good kinds and bad kinds (just less of the good, as a rule).
To spurn comics because of stupid plots and over the top action is unfortunately merited in most cases. To claim that the medium
itself is (and/or must be) "childish" is, well, probably as valid an opinion as any. But it is one that could easily be applied to many other genres, and strikes me as being derogative just for the heck of it. Because if comics
must be stupid, from where does the stupidity then come? Does the act of putting pictures to a story make it less intelligent? No? Is it, then, the reduction of text? If so, movies must be very stupid indeed. Perhaps the lack of motion to the visuals makes it foolish? Personally, I believe that imagining motion between the panels is pretty similar to visualising scenes from a book, of which as a medium I've heard little criticism.
In closing, I'd say the fault lies less with comics as a medium, and more with what the market has done to it. Some have earlier in the thread cited Watchmen and From Hell and been flamed for it (I've read neither). It's evident that you can't use these titles as a gauge for normal comics, but I think it's fair to say that they illustrate the medium's potential. As does series like Blade of the Immortal, Sandman, et cetera.
