Batman and Robin #18

[superboyprime]

The origin of Absence, the absence/emptiness-themed villain who is the newest addition to the ranks of Gotham's theme criminals.

Una Nemo, a woman who used to date Bruce Wayne, was shot through the head in a robber gone wrong but survived through a freak genetic condition.

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

I don't think she was intentionally made to be a "crazy straw 'feminist,'" just a fundamentally lonely woman that a horrific act on her turned her loneliness, the "absence" of love around her, into psychotic pathos.

[liara_shadowsong]

And yet they used the word "mansplain". Crazy and lonely, fine, I can deal with that; Gotham's got plenty of crazies. But either way, I find the word "mansplain" highly insulting to reasonable people of both sexes.

[darkknightjrk]

I think it's more likely that Cornell heard it being used once, thought it was an interesting word, and decided to use it for that scene. That's literally the only time that anything remotely to do with gender politics is used.

[liara_shadowsong]

I certainly hope that you're right. Unfortunately, there are plenty of times in comics (and other media) that something that was meant to be one-time thing, or something that simply had unfortunate implications, ended up turned into one of (if not the only) defining characteristic for a character, sometimes even across multiple incarnations of the character. Two words for you: Hank Pym.