I hate the Anissa rape plot so much
The entire plotline of Anissa raping Mark and the following events annoy me so fucking much. Now I’ll give the story credit, it treating rape as a traumatic thing regardless of your gender is good. Which does make it already not the worst male rape plot ever. But it honestly just makes the later stuff piss me off more. Since Kirkman has shown he knows it’s wrong and traumatising, and still doesn’t care
First off is the near immediate aftermath of the rape. Where Mark has a couple moments of trauma from what happened to him. One where he pushes Eve off him when she tries to have sex, a good, small, realistic reaction. And another where he talks a little about how he feels defiled and broken, and then Eve comes in to tell him to shut up cause the plot is happening. And that’s it. That’s all we get of Mark’s trauma of being raped. And the second one annoys me because if you try and defend it as ‘well the later issues were quite rushed, maybe Kirkman didn’t have the time?’ In the very same issue it happens, he dedicated 5 pages to Mark taking a shit, and 1 page to Mark’s trauma. Cinema.
Then there’s Nolan’s reaction to learning of Anissa’s actions. Where he just goes ‘well that’s what viltrumites are like Mark’. So??? Viltrumites also thought it was ok to kill and conquer everyone and the whole plot has been about taking issue with that. Why are we suddenly supposed to be all respectful of Viltrumite culture?? Then he goes ‘Trust me Mark. I know Anissa hasn’t apologised or shown any regret or remorse for her actions. But she’s definitely a better person now.’ Peak redemption arc there, just have someone else apologise for them.
Next is everything done with Anissa’s son from the rape, Marky. For starters, needlessly fucked up to name him Marky and no one seems to care. And I say ‘everything done’ with him, but I mean everything not done with him. He’s really just a pointless addition to the narrative. His only moments is a page long evil arc at the end of the story, and facilitating Anissa’s “redemption” by just existing.
And yeah now we’re getting into Anissa’s so-called “redemption”. Where she just disappeared for multiple issues, came back a completely different person, and then went ‘I’m a mother now so obviously I’m a completely redeemed good person now!’ And everyone just shrugged and agreed. And then later when she dies she gets a hero’s death where she says ‘tell mark I don’t regret raping him one bit. Cause literally everything good in my life came from raping him’. And it’s supposed to be a sad moment.
Look I hate to pull this card, but if the genders were reversed people would be fucking rioting. A man rapes a woman, gets her pregnant, doing so is treated as his redemption arc, and then dies a hero saying he doesn’t regret raping her. Nothing wrong with that arc at all right?
And as a final point I just have to wonder, what was the point? I asked myself this a lot in the later parts of Invincible, as it just devolved into endless torture porn with Kirkman kicking him in the teeth. In interviews I read about Anissa raping Mark, Kirkman talked about (not treating rape in fiction with any grace or care) kicking Mark down so they could build him up later. And uhhhh where was the building up? Mark’s life sucked, then there was a time skip, and now he’s god emperor of the universe. No growth, no development, nothing. So it’s just impossible for me to come away from this story believing Kirkman actually wanted to do right by rape victims as so many defenders of this arc claim
Sorry if this ever felt like me just raging, I’m just really pissed off about it













