30 Days of Scans Day 23: Favorite Costume

[superfangirl1]

Tim Drake robin costume.

Robin #63






















Robin #64

Comments

[punishermax]

Pretty much. I can understand hating how it turned things in Dc, and yes having a character based purely on his wish to rape people is a totally fucked up and awful idea, but you shouldn't bash a comic because it created something that sucked down the road.

I can't hate Venom's first appearance because everything he became was overused and annoying.

[nezchan]

I agree, basing the character on the desire to rape people in all situations is incredibly stupid. What I can see is a character otherwise of a vicious temperament using rape (or rather the threat since people know he's been there) as a way to throw heroes off balance. But that's a deliberate psychological tactic, which is way different from the way it's been handled.

[icon_uk]

There's a reason comic villains have tended not to be rapists or use sexual assault, because that's not a "standard" crime, it's a personal and deliberate degradation of another person via sex. Meltzer (or at least his editors) should have bee aware of the implications of retconning in a long standing desire to rape into a relatively high profile, and widely used, villain like Dr Light). It literally taints him ever after.

The "Avatar of the Hawk" era Hawkman turned a minor, and unused for years, Aquaman villain into a murdering paedophile and leader of a kiddy-snuff ring, and more or less had to end the story with him being killed because, seriously, how do you REuse a character like that?

[punishermax]

Was it ever really implied that Light had rape in his head as a long standing desire? I remember it being a spur of the moment, horrific and awful act he perpetrated.

If I remember, he saw Due and realized he had one of the JLA's weaknesses at his hands. He committed an awful act, but I don't remember him declaring how he always wanted to do it.

Though I admit, it could have tainted him in retrospect.

[icon_uk]

He raped Sue Dibny ten years prior to the start of IC's main storyline, and seemed not to be new to it. The only reason he didn't do it again (as far as we know) was he'd had his brain magically fried, though of course he was still a murderous supervillain after the zap, clearly the rest of their plan hadn't worked. Since then he has noted on numerous occasions that he has raped, and raped again.

[yaseen101]

And you know it's supposed to be an ESCAPIST FICTION especially a team that dresses up in bright primary colours.

In the last 50-60 years, the JLA didn't need rape or grim dark ness to tell a good story, JLU didn't need it to tell a good and mature storylines, the Waid/Kelly/Morrison certainly didn't need and the last are pretty much considered as *the* standard for superhero stories, especially JL stories.

Hell, since I'm on a roll, the last 15 or so years of Batman being a grim-dark superhero, his darkest stories didn't need rape or gore to tell a good story. Sure there were some stories like Nyssa Al Ghul's origin but they were handled very maturely, imo.

[icon_uk]

As further support, DC have never acknowledged the popular at one time notion that the Joker may have raped, or in some other way sexually interfered with a newly shot Barbara Gordon. And those stories that did manage to include rape, like Nightwing/Tarantula, or even Nightwing/Mirage, were handled REALLY shabbily.

[punishermax]

But I guess this leads to a major issue I have with some people;s opinions on SD.

It seems like GrimmDark has become this catch all phrase for anything that deals with issues like rape or other very dark crimes. It seems to me that if Dc wants to try to make a comic wherein rape is a plot point then they should give it a shot if they think they can do it. A lot of responses I get here and see are people being pissed when dark stuff happens in comics. It bugs me.

Yes, I complained and found it dumb when really dark shit happened in Brightest Day. The issue though was that the comic was called Brightest Day and was created in the aftermath of Blackest Night to show things becoming more heroic and cool and nice. Things were actually a lot darker.

[icon_uk]

There is nothing wrong with dealing with strong issues like that, provided one is prepared to deal with the consequences and handle them properly, and the average superhero universe isn't set up to deal with them, it's not in their nature. A failing perhaps, but no less true for that.

The times they HAVE tried it have been, generally, unmitigated disasters; Dr Light, Deathwing, Tarantula, Mirage and so on...

The only one I can recall having any sense to impact to it was Crazy Jane in Morrison's Doom Patrol, where the long term effects of childhood abuse, and an adult rape, had caused her mind to fragment and she had to deal with that.

[yaseen101]

I can't really speak for others but I for one love dark stories. See, I love the Slavers arc in Punisher MAX, I love Hellsing and I loved the 'Born Again' arc in Daredevil. For me it depends on how it is done.

For others I don't really blame them for how they feel, most of them grew up with the characters and having seen characters they love getting mangled, raped, killed off, etc, and after seeing both industries disappointing them over and over again, it creates a layer of cynicism. After a while some just don't want to read more grimdark stories. Sometimes it's just real-life experiences that they want to get away from creeping into their escapist fiction.

This stuff if relatively mild for me but when it comes to stuff I really care about, that's another story. For example, I still can't argue coherently (even on the internet) about the Sakura debacle in 'The Five Kages Arc' without wanting to rip someone's head off and I *still* can't help but randomly butt in my utter loathing for Ben 10: Alien Force at every opportunity I can.

You have to understand some people deal with things differently. It's best to just let them express their distaste, depending on the circumstances.

[yaseen101]

Agreed.

Though Nightwing/Mirage and Nightwing/Tarantula are almost universally accepted as being shitty. You don't see people giving it glowing reviews and recommendations and having people defend it as having been a valid and important stories (excluding max and nezchan of course).

[icon_uk]

Let's not pick on individual posters here, both those you noted are perfectly entitled to hold those POV's and express them here, and such things often make for the most interesting, and frequently enlightening, debates.

[yaseen101]

umm...I said 'ex'cluding no 'in'cluding so it wouldn't come across as though I was picking on them stealthily.

[nezchan]

Dunno if I'd give it a glowing review exactly, but it was a story I read and enjoyed a lot of it. Were there faults? Sure, there were faults. Could it have been better? Hell, yes. Did I enjoy it anyway, warts and all? I'd say so. But I'm not going to fool myself and trumpet it as one of the greats.

[yaseen101]

Like I said, I don't really have a problem with those who like it, it's those who wrote it and all the problematic messages the story has that bothers me.

Oh, and I wasn't including you and max in the 'those who defend IC and think it's the best story around' list, hence the uh, excluding part. I hope I didn't come across as attacking both of you for your views.

[nezchan]

Not at all, I just wanted to make it clear where I stood on the whole thing, and that seemed like a good spot.

[yaseen101]

:)

[icon_uk]

Now I've had it suggested to me in a private message from a poster, who shall remain nameless (except they have not contributed publicly to this thread yet), that my reply above constitutes nothing more than flame-bait for those, like that poster, who believe that becoming a rapist improved the Dr Light character. To my knowledge I've never deliberately flame-baited in my life, so if it came across like that, my apologies.

To that end I happily invite anyone who thinks that it did improve the character to post their reasons why, I've made my arguments clear, and I'd actually by genuinely fascinated to read the other side of the debate, no flaming involved.

[fifthie]

you shouldn't bash a comic because it created something that sucked down the road.

It sucked when it happened, which was why it sucked down the road. Making him Doctor Rape was one of the few things that could've been done with the character after that, because he was always and ever going to be That Guy Who Raped Sue Dibny.