I have no particular sensitivities to rape. I have no real problem with films or books which depict rape as part of a serious plot. I am conscious that superhero comics are aimed at a teenaged male audience.
Here is another fantasy medium for teenaged boys: rap. Most west coast rap videos have guys in expensive clothes, driving expensive cars, surrounded by beautiful available women. Teenaged boys watch this shit and engage in a fantasy involving hero worship.
But you'll not see a rap video with a simulated rape. You'll see bump and grind dancing, but no scene where a guy pins down a girl and has sex with her against her will.
So here we have DC publishing a comic involving its mainstream characters. JLAdventures features many of the same characters, aimed at small kids. Some 10 year old wonders into a comic shop and decides to buy the issue with Hawkman and Green Arrow on the cover, because he's seen them on TV. (He might also buy it because he thinks Zatanna's tits are drawn great.) Then, he's reading a page with a graphic rape. I wouldn't want my 10 year old to read that.
Sure, that kid might just as easily have picked up Watchmen, you may say. But not really "just as easily": Watchmen isn't on Saturday mornings or whenever, aimed at the kid market. DC's main characters are, and the comics to a greater or lesser extent tie into the TV series.
I really don't like censorship of anything. I think people should be able to express themselves as they see fit. I probably wouldn't have been so bothered by this if it was in the pages of a Vertigo comic - lets face it, I'm reading Wanted, which has much more graphic violence and explicit references to rape, and really enjoying it. But Wanted doesn't have the characters who appear on kid's TV.
Your other point, that 90% of characters in comics are male, simply means that there are more male targets than female targets to kill and rape in the DCU, doesn't it? From a plotting perspective, isn't it more directly hurtful and humiliating to be raped yourself, than have your love one raped? The story would have had more impact if one of the male characters had been raped - the Atom, Elongated Man, Green Arrow, or whoever. Dr Light would have been just as, if not more bad-ass (pardon the pun) if he had raped a hero, as opposed to a wife of a hero. But instead, a female character gets it, again - one of the 10%, assuming your numbers are correct.
