#comic discourse

[prettywitchiusaka]

Also, to the stans who want to claim Clea is "irrelevant";

She's been steadily increasing in popularity since her re-introduction under Jed Mackay in late 2021.

She ranked 3rd place on CBR's list of Best Sorcerer Supremes (with Stephen coming in at #1 because...well...yeah, you can't beat the OG).

She had her own, brief solo run as Sorcerer Supreme that was well received, with Issue #1 being in first place for the Top 50 Best-Selling comics of March 2022

She got her own spin-off novel called Sisters of Sorcery where she teams up with several magic users to save her friend, Ardina from her mother in the Dark Dimension

She made her MCU debut in the mid-credit scene for MOM where she's played by Charlize friggin' Theron (aka The Ultimate Milf)!!!

She was recently introduced as a keychain attachment in Marvel Rivals, which suggests the developers will (most likely) introduce her into the game proper in a future season (if not sooner).

She has a small but dedicated following who'd love to see her have her own solo title in the future.

She's currently a member of Bucky's New Avengers group, will play an important supporting role in Jed's Moon Knight relaunch debuting in a few weeks, AND she's a member of Wanda's council (despite me despising what Orlando did to her).

So tell me, how exactly is Clea Strange, Sorcerer Supreme of the Dark Dimension, Warlord of Manhattan, loving wife of Stephen Strange and perpetual badass "irrelevant"?

[jyoungbloodvo]

Having preschool shows based off of comic books is funny because little kids see villains like The Joker and Ultron just pulling pranks or committing petty theft but then they get older and see them committing murder and mass genocide

[kadennotmain]

Professor Xavier Meta List

I have taken it upon myself to make a meta-analysis list for Charles Xavier, it’s going to go through a lot of editing but I hope the Xavierheads appreciate this archival doc.

[Charles Xavier Meta Doc]

Compiles posts from 2000-current time (I’m working on finding articles or newspapers from even further back).

Meta is mostly centered around comics Charles Xavier but adaptations will be included and any character-focused retrospective content.

Comments are on and encouraged. Suggest any article, post, or essay that would be good to include!

Reblogs are appreciated and would remind me to continue updating the doc haha.

[wateroflifefrommountains]

Is David Cain's race integral to his character? TW: Abuse, Sexual Assault, Murder, Child Abuse, Blood and Gore.

David Cain, the world's best* assassin assassin during his prime, is the father of Cassandra Cain. During his introduction, he is depicted as being a caucasian man with white hair to hint at his age.

In the New 52, they made him somewhat younger, and his hair is black. He still seems to be Caucasian.

David is presented and described as a lethal threat that Batman himself acknowledges. He is skilled in conventional and unconventional weapons and is skilled enough in hand-to-hand combat to perform nerve strikes, which knock out victims while only leaving a small near near-untraceable fracture on their jaw. Aside from his skill, David is known for his cruelty, which is shown through his sadistic murder of Vesper Fairchild, his murder of Carolyn Wu-San, his rape of Shiva (pointing a gun at her head and forcing her to bear him a child), and his abusive rearing of Cassandra Cain (Depriving her of communication, severely injuring her, and getting her to kill another person). It must be emphasized that his actions towards Shiva and Vesper were mostly unnecessary. His "eugenics experiment" required Shiva's genetic material only, and merely collecting several egg cells would theoretically be more sensible. The importance of this can be gleaned in the manner he opted to achieve his goals. First, it can even be argued that Shiva could have considered merely donating the genetic material, but David wanted Shiva to reject him to give himself an excuse to kill Carolyn.

This then shook Shiva, then Sandra Wu-san, to the point that she willingly fell for his trap, and was ambushed by Cain and other mercenaries. At which point she was held at gunpoint and made to bear Cassandra.

As for his murder of Vesper, he actively chose strikes that would cause excessive amounts of pain without knocking her out so that her screams would be caught on the phone call. This horrific act of cruelty cemented Nightwing's belief that Bruce Wayne was innocent. David, being the foremost expert in assassination, could have completed his plan in some other less unconscionable way, but still opted for causing his victim as much pain as possible, and was thwarted because of it.

Finally, his treatment of his daughter was downright abusive. It can be argued that he loves Cassandra and genuinely wanted to have a continued connection with her in the original Batgirl run. It cannot be argued that he subjected her to gunshots and beatings that no child should ever experience because he saw her, 1st and foremost, as an experiment.

As we have discussed who David Cain is, the question now stands, do these characteristics require David to be caucasian? Cruelty, in my opinion, is not race-specific, and anyone is capable of displaying cruelty, even cruelty to this degree, to another person. David's skillset is also one that is not race-specific, as a person's ability to kill is not improved or diminished by their race. As such, it is perfectly reasonable for a person to argue that changing David's race would not change any of the fundamental story beats of the character. There are counter-arguments to this. At face value, David's race has nothing to do with his character; however, what if we look at it as a metaphor for who can inflict and benefit from cruelty? David's targets and the way the narrative rewards David for his cruelty to said victims may be treated as an allegory of power and the privilege that gives a person. David's most notable victims are women of different walks of life. Shiva is a foreign woman who has strength that he admires and even covets, but whose personhood he is all too willing to disregard, seeing her only as a tool to make his masterpiece. Vesper Fairchild is a caucasian radio host who he kills under orders from then-President Luthor to frame Bruce Wayne, a tool he uses to accomplish his job. Vesper's popularity is often a shield against violence, but it is the same popularity compounded with her connection to Bruce Wayne that made her a target. Finally, we have his child, someone whom he is supposed to protect, but who was instead subjected to his abuse, someone whom he treated as an experiment. Finally, Cain was rewarded or commissioned for each of these acts. The League of Assassins practically commissioned the creation of Cassandra. In effect, they also commissioned the death of Carolyn and the assault of Shiva. Luthor commissioned the murder of Vesper.

In summary, Cain chooses the cruelty of his acts and often, if not always, opts for the path that would cause more pain to his victims. Cain was directly or indirectly rewarded for his use and abuse of others. He seemingly seeks to reaffirm power by targeting those who could or should have been safe or protected from him by removing or disregarding those protections. Ergo, if viewed as an allegory for those in power abusing those who are disfranchised of power, making David a middle-aged Caucasian man might be important to his story as the environment of the comics seemingly reflects this notion.

[that-annoying-raven-the-sequel]

So fucking tired of everyone treating J. Jonah Jameson like a raging mysoginistic anti mutant incarnation of evil.

He only disliked Spider-Man because his wife was killed by a masked vigilante, and doesn’t trust someone with as much power as spiderman to be running around loose with so much power and no way to stop him if he turns out to be a bad person.

He’s an asshole who hates spiderman. But he’s not evil. He actively is pro mutant rights, he doesn’t trust that anyone with that amount of power can possibly be good, and he thinks that the true heroes aren’t the people who beat up criminals but are firefighters and nurses who risk their lives every day just to save people and yet nobody pays attention to them. And I’m fucking sick of every goddamn fic and rp blog and whatever portraying him as every little bad thing they can think of.

[thestinkk]

HEAVY WARNING FOR MENTION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND IMAGES FROM THE DRAGON SLAYER COMIC DEPICTING THOSE THEMES. ALL ART IS BY SLEEPYSUNDAE.

There's been something on my mind regarding people's rightful concerns with the excessive amount of on-screen sexual assaults in The Dragon Slayer, and how when talking about them the number I see most often is 4. This made me wonder if it's accurate when people say there's 4 assaults so far, and so I went back and sifted through the pages of the comic to find out.. and unfortunately, I discovered the number is actually a lot more than 4.

So, I've compiled a list of all the instances so far in the comic where SA occurs or is mentioned to have occurred below. Spoilers for the comic, obviously.

1.

Aaand the first assualt occurs just seven pages in, when a random stallion attempts to assault Dandy. And Dandy (our current main character at this point) hasn't even had a line of dialog yet! Oh boy.

2.

The second SA attempt happens on page 12 to 19.. and it's Crisis assaulting Dandy. His own (underage) daughter. Two SAs in less than the first 20 pages.. just 6 pages between eachother.. what an introduction.

3.

Page 60. A random stallion tries to assault Pierces' (UNDERAGE) older sister.

4?.

Page 63-64. Just a few pages after the last attempted SA.. And now we come to the first instance that may or may not count. Caly is ABOUT to try and coerce Dandy in order to SA her but is cut off. Does this count?

5.

Another few pages later, page 67. Caly is suggested to have attempted to assault/come onto the mystery mare and then chases her down/attempts to assault her when she doesn't reciprocate. That's 3 seperate instances of SA or attempted SA within 7 pages..

6+??

Dyktor mentions a few pages later that Caly has been chasing mareS PLURAL who are unwilling. Suggesting multiple previous assaults off-screen. Notably, all Dyktor has to say about that is that it's "wrong" and "messed up". Does this count?? Perhaps not as it isn't on-screen?? But it is said to have happened. So..

6??7??

Page 83. King Severe threatens to "pick off your(Dyktor's) mares one by one". Is he threatening assault?? Sexual or?? Is he just threatening to kill them?? The wording is unclear but knowing the story's world/context so far makes this seem like he's threatening SA. Does this count?? Maybe, maybe not.

6.

Page 97. S'mile's SA via coercion at the hand(hoof?) of Caly. Notably the one that Sleepy insists doesn't count as SA..

7.

And that brings us to the most recent example. Pages 129-130. Caly assaults Dandy via coercion. It should be noted that Sleepy doesn't call this what it is(rape!) just as she didn't with S'mile's assault. Because apparantly no guys, it's not rape! He just manipulated her into having sex! It's toootally different! /sar

So, if you were counting along that would mean we have at least 6 on-screen SAs minimum, or 7 if you count threats of sexual assault. 8 if you count that and the attempt at SA via coercion that was cut off before anything could happen, but later is attempted again and does happen. Or, a maximum of 9/10+ if you count the additional assaults that were said to have happened in dialog..

This would mean, if we count all of the examples up to page 130(the most recent SA), that on average there is an instance of on-screen or mentioned SA every 21.6 pages at minimum, OR one SA every 13 pages at the maximum.

That is frankly, in my opinion, insane. People really were right when they say we get an SA every 20 pages..

If there's anything you think I've missed feel free to tell me in the replies.. and I'm interested in whether you all would lean more toward counting all 10 of the instances of SA listed here, or the base 6 when it comes to the discussion of this.. I can imagine either way that this won't be the last time a character is assaulted though, since we may only be halfway through the comic and Sleepy has eluded that it gets worse for the characters.

[gregxb]

Paul Is Terrible… But the Reaction Says a Lot More

I’m going to say this up front so nobody tries to “well actually” me into the ground. I have not been reading current Spider-Man. I fell off a while ago. So everything I know about this whole Paul situation is secondhand, absorbed through osmosis because it has gotten so loud that you can’t avoid it if you’re even adjacent to Spider-Man fandom.

I’m a hardcore Spider-Man fan. I love Peter Parker. I love Mary Jane Watson. I love Peter and MJ together. I hated One More Day when it happened and I still hate it now. That part hasn’t changed.

What has changed is how I look at some of the reaction to this Paul guy.

For those of you who somehow missed it, Paul shows up in the recent Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6 (Zeb Wells run) and, for all intents and purposes, he is the guy MJ is with after she and Peter are no longer together. There are alternate dimension shenanigans, time displacement, kids, the whole thing. Again, I have not read it, so I am not here to litigate the execution of the story.

What I am here to talk about is the reaction.

Because the reaction is not normal.

And I don’t mean people being upset. Fans get upset all the time. I was upset about One More Day. That’s part of being invested in a story. What I mean is the specific kind of anger, the tone, the way Paul has been turned into this almost mythic symbol of betrayal.

For a long time, I rejected the idea that some Spider-Man fans project themselves onto Peter and view MJ as some kind of surrogate girlfriend. I thought that was dismissive. I thought it was people trying to psychoanalyze fans instead of engaging with the actual criticism.

I don’t reject it anymore.

Because with Paul, it is impossible not to see.

There is a segment of the fandom that is not reacting like readers who dislike a story choice. They are reacting like they got dumped.

Paul is not just “a poorly written character” or “a contrived plot device” to them. Paul is that guy. The guy the girl chose instead of you. The guy who shows up after you thought you had something real and suddenly you’re on the outside looking in.

And here’s the thing. That feeling is real. A lot of people have lived that. Especially the kind of dorky, socially awkward guys that Spider-Man has historically resonated with. Peter Parker was the ultimate “that could be me” character. Smart, awkward, overlooked, gets the girl anyway. That fantasy has been baked into the character for decades.

So when you introduce Paul, you are not just introducing a new love interest for MJ. You are breaking that fantasy in a very direct way.

Now, does that mean all criticism of the storyline is invalid. No. Not even a little.

From everything I have gathered, there are plenty of legitimate storytelling complaints. Skipping over the breakup. Dropping readers into the middle of a status quo without context. Using alternate dimension time shenanigans to force a separation. Repeating the same editorial mandate we saw with One More Day where Peter and MJ cannot be allowed to move forward.

Those are real issues.

But they are not what is driving the intensity of this reaction.

The intensity comes from something more personal. Something a lot less comfortable to admit.

It is the projection.

It is seeing Peter as yourself, MJ as the girl you wanted, and Paul as the guy she chose instead.

Once you see it through that lens, the scale of the backlash makes a lot more sense. It stops being just about comics and starts being about people working through their own baggage in public.

And to be clear, recognizing that does not change how I feel about Peter and MJ. I still think they belong together. I still think breaking them up over and over again is creatively bankrupt. I still think One More Day did long-term damage to the character that Marvel has never really recovered from.

But it does change how I look at the discourse.

Because some of this is not about Spider-Man at all.

[grays-matter]

twitter venom (and comics in general) discourse pisses me off

amongst many other things, a post has been going around about flash's time as agent venom

no true agent (anti)venom fan speaks ill of eddie brock

it's stupid to pit them against each other; time to grow to respect each other like the damn characters did, y'all