One thing I've noticed lately, especially after last classes look at the movie 9, is that animation changed from fairy tales and pretty distinct sides to plots with a little more shades of gray. You always knew Popeye would be good and Bluto would be bad. You know Mickey mouse will be good. You always knew a witch would be bad. Now look at modern cartoons, which many split the gambit of not having a "good guy" or having a main character who's flaws sometimes make it hard to tell if they are a hero or not.
Part of this comes from our societies falling out with the fairy tale. Reality TV has proven that many people like to watch shows where they can identify aspects of their own lives. This is why spongebob is so popular. There's rarely a quest, it's just simple day to day living. We don't need a hero anymore to enjoy a story. Cartoons have matured with their audiences and we no longer need that black and white morality, we no longer even crave it, we just want people living life. Of course I'm in the latter part here I suppose, as I love a hero more than I love everyday life. It seems rare that a cartoon will give us a hero to aspire to anymore.
Which brings me to my next point. Shades of gray. Lets look at the best example of a gray hero: Invader Zim. He wants to take over earth, but in many episodes you see him show compassion, kindness, and he even saves the earth a few times. He's a moral ambiguity. You never know what he will do. We like that. Just look at the evolution of superheroes. We go from paragons such as Superman in the 1930's to less than perfect people like Spiderman and Wolverine. This also has roots in the first point I made, that people like things relatable in real life. It is rare we can be a paragon of any real world troubles. Life is about give and take, and paragons rarely compromise.
I've noticed the same thing in the more modern cartoons/animations of the day too. Seeing characters who are flawed gives the audience a someone to relate to because having flaws makes a character more human in a sense. Some good examples are Wolverine, like you mentinoned, and Vegeta of Dragonball Z. Both of them wouldn't be considered the boy scout hero that Superman is. However, I do think that having a hero character who is uncompromising in doing what is right gives people, especially, younger ones, an ideal of the better person that we all wish to be.
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