Quote:

Dave said:
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.

No, instead, rap videos focus on guns and drugs. Fictional rape or actual social problem...which is the lesser of two evils? But, in this comparison, are you saying that if some teenager reads IC he'll be more prone to raping a girl/guy? Because, that's the line of logic I'm drawing from this.

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.

So, is your argument that comic shop owners and, in this, the publishers, are responsible for monitoring and mothering what children should and will read? And didn't you say that comic books are aimed at teenagers?

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.

Certainly. That's what JLAdventures and Teen Titans Go! are for. The children. Is it fair that the superhero medium be designated to only what is appropriate for ten year olds? Why should JLAdventures and the like even exist then? Why isn't there room for both?

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.

But, aren't we just dancing around the actual fantasy of this argument? That being children. Believe what you want, but, ten years olds, twelve year olds, teenagers...they're reading the same stuff you are. Kids nowadays don't like or enjoy superheroes. They read whatever is considered "cool" by their peers. Superman isn't as cool as The Sopranos or 100 Bullets. Sure, some will read X-Men, maybe some Batman, and whatever [INSERT COMIC SUPERSTAR HERE] is writing/drawing at the moment. But...Wanted, Vertigo...they read this stuff, too. Comic shop guy won't sell it to them, there's always E-Bay. Or their friends at school. Whatever.

So, it's a phallacy to setup an idea that there is some innocent ten-year-old out there who might be permanently scarred over an ambiguous rape scene in IC. These guys are reading Ennis blow people's brains out in Punisher or Luke get him some booty in the Cage MAX.

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.

So, male rape is preferable to female rape? Isn't the crux of your argument that rape in a superhero comic is bad, no matter what?

And, of course, my "stats" were a generalization. However, I'm pretty sure that it is a fact that well over half of the DCU is male. Someone may correct me on that. But, it sounds about right...