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neuhallidae ([info]neuhallidae) wrote in [info]scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-17 22:08:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:char: ant-man/wasp/hank pym, char: captain america/steve rogers, char: hawkeye/ronin/clint barton, char: iron man/tony stark, char: jocasta, char: ms. marvel/carol danvers, char: scarlet witch/wanda maximoff, char: thor, char: vision, char: wasp/janet van dyne, char: wonder man/simon williams, creator: david michelinie, creator: george perez, creator: jim shooter, group: avengers, in-joke: what were they thinking?, publisher: marvel comics, title: avengers

"The Child is Father To..." or, "So many levels of EW."
Gather 'round, chilluns, it's storytime.

I was originally intending to post some Christian-comic cheese, but having the memory of this brought up made me insistent on sharing the pain, especially since the original S_D went bust and took this with it. Thus, I bring you the story of how Carol Danvers gave birth to her own rapist, featuring pages and partial pages from Avengers #197-200*.



Once upon a time, Ms. Marvel and Scarlet Witch are walking along a beach, discussing Wanda's growing desire to have children, when suddenly, Marvel collapses.



Wanda rushes her to the hospital, where she gets a massive surprise.



And not only is Marvel pregnant, the baby is growing at a rate no baby should, and yet it's not causing her any added physical stress. But emotional stress... hoo boy.




Meanwhile, the other Avengers have been off dealing with a giant mecha called the Red Ronin, and are more than a little surprised to come home to a pregnant lady on the couch.



While the initial mood at the coming of a baby is joyous, later that night, things are more subdued, as they worry about their teammate.



They all gather to keep an eye on the labor, but it's not exactly the usual sort.






After an amazingly quick and painless birth, the happy mood's returned over the brand new and seemingly healthy baby boy, but, understandably, not everyone's sharing it.



Things start to calm down, until it becomes evident that the pregnancy isn't the only thing that grew abnormally fast.



Damn, that last panel's really creepy looking. Anyway.

Meanwhile, Carol's very much over being the vessel for some creepy kid, but decides to take the advice to confront the problem...



Who's becoming a bigger problem by the minute.



And as if this weren't bad enough, at the same time that the creepy kid's continuing to shoot up at an impossible rate, reality is going haywire. Dinosaurs popping up in Central Park, etc. And then, when Carol does go see 'her' child...



Ew.

And several pages of reality-chaos later, the levels of creepy just shoot right off the charts as Marcus is forced to explain what the hell is going on.






In case y'all missed that bit, allow me to make it bigger.



Once again, EW.



...Er, guys? Did you totally forget that he can do mind control? Why are you just- oh, fuck it, nevermind.

And thus, one of the creepiest stories to come out of comics in 1980 closes, and Carol Danvers vanishes from the comics for a bit. But not without some noise, as a lot of people, including some Marvel staff, thought this story was way over the top in skeeze. Chris Claremont was so annoyed that when he brought Carol back as part of the X-Men storyline in Avengers Annual #10, he had her explicitly call the Avengers out for being complete dumbasses in allowing Marcus to waltz off with her without even making sure she really was going willingly.



*Issue 200: Roughly 10 1/2 of 35 story pages.


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

Re: Reposted for wording fail.
[info]ashtoreth
2009-08-18 08:50 pm UTC (link)
If you focus on male-female interaction, I can see how that might be troublesome. Especially the 'It's MY fault!'

However, these are superheroes. They hit each other all the time. You really can't compare civilian culture to it.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Reposted for wording fail.
[info]neuhallidae
2009-08-18 09:14 pm UTC (link)
Except that Shooter doesn't try to handle it as a superhero thing, not here, and not in the incident with Hank and Jan. He handles it like a male-female thing in the scripting, and that makes it impossible to divorce civilian ethics from it entirely.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]ashtoreth
2009-08-18 09:35 pm UTC (link)
That's fair. It always bothered me that Kaine beat Darkdevil with a two-by-four so hard he got a concussion. It was on the surface a hero-trying-to-capture-a-criminal fight, but Kaine was the closest thing to a father DD had, and DD was still a minor.

I guess some things need to be completely..not sure what word to use, righteous?..in order to be accepted. For instance, if Jan became DARK WASP and started sucking people's blood, it would be okay for Hank to hit her.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]neuhallidae
2009-08-19 03:37 am UTC (link)
Even if she'd gone evil, this scene would have had problems, simply because it's not a superhero fight, or a hero-vs-villain fight. It's a guy backhanding his wife, and is handled as such. Frankly, I think it would have caused a lot less problems if it had been presented as a superhero fight, or, as Byrne suggested, he had simply used knockout gas on her or something. Hell, it's not like she's not been knocked out by her own teammates through similar non-physical methods before, and she could have still been angry enough to divorce him afterwards because of the violation of trust. I just think that by invoking something like straight-up domestic violence, it provoked a visceral reaction in both readers and later writers that gave the scene immortality in all the wrong ways, and could have been handled so much better.

Jesus, that got long. Er, sorry.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

um so this may be my biggest pet peeve about MC2
[info]felinephoenix
2010-05-27 04:10 am UTC (link)
I know this post is very, very old and this is a little off-topic... but hey, I was re-reading the post and felt commenting. Just wanted to let you know you're not the only one bothered by the Kaine and Darkdevil scene. Honestly, it's pretty hard for me to read that issue because of it. I feel similarly about the fight between Peter and Darkdevil in Last Hero Standing, too. Although at least Spidey has the excuse of being brainwashed. Plus, he has no idea Reilly's his nephew.

It's one thing for heroes to knock each other around. It's different for relatives, especially when the victim has already been abused. By his other uncle no less! And it's in Spider-Girl. You know. The comics I read when I need some happy fluff (or sometimes crack).

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: um so this may be my biggest pet peeve about MC2
[info]ashtoreth
2010-05-31 07:41 am UTC (link)
Happy fluff comics like to stick in the angst so you appreciate them more. Angsty comics can't remember there is anything else. O_O

I do like that DeFalco has been inching that subplot forward. The progress is so slow it's almost realistic.

(Reply to this) (Parent)


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