SERIOUSLY! Contains Trigger Words Behind the cut

[shadowpsykie]

Okay so I was thinking about reading some more of the Ultimate Universe comics despite my aversion to them, mainly due to how excellent Ultimate Spider-man has been... Now I had some issues with the Avengers/Ultimate Avengers/Ultimate Ultimates Ulitmization...

Part of those issues were that I though they were too... how do i put this... Perpetually stuck in the EXTREAM! 90's! if you get what i mean... exsesively violent, some what sexist (im Looking at you Ultimatum!), and just not too many likeable characters, admitedly Cap had his moments, some very good moments, but some how those moments were always counter acted by some thing else. But I have hear on here some good things about the Ultimate comics and have decided to maybe give them a try... so i did some research.... and I found this out....


I found this Entry on the 2nd version of the Ultimate Wasp... you know... after the first one was EATEN by Blob!....

In the Ultimate Comics: Avengers a new Wasp appears (called Red Wasp). She is revealed to be a former Liberator soldier previously known as the Insect Queen, now reformed with an obedience chip and serves as a member of the Avengers. In Ultimate Comics: Avengers #5, a flashback reveals that she was Petra Laskov, the wife of a Georgian activist. One day the Red Skull kidnapped them, held the couple's child at gunpoint, and forced her to kill her husband to save her child. She does so, only for the Red Skull to throw her infant out a window, and then order his men to rape her. Along with the rest of the Avengers, she fights the Red Skull only to be overpowered until he was fatally injured by Captain America. A short while later when the Red Skull was in the hospital, Petra, dressed like a doctor, walked into his room and shot him in the head, killing him.

SERIOUSLY! She was Kiddnapped, tortured and RAPED! REALLY? can some one please tell me ANYTHING good about the Ultimates that would counter act this? or that would out weigh this? Anything that would make this worth reading?


For Legality The Red Wasp/Wasp2




if this was an innappropriate post, Or i posted the Trigger warning Wrong, please let me know....



She appears to have the same powers as her predecessor.

Comments

[sherkahn]

I think that's part of the point.

Someone trying to better themselves and the world after much trauma had been done to her on all fronts. Either Marvel Ultimates gives her story a chance to better herself and the world around her, or they continue to propagate the vicious cycle of "eye for an eye".

It's Ultimate, so I am going with the latter. But the possibility is there.

[darkknightjrk]

It was Mark Millar. When it comes to the Ultimates, I pretty much personally discount everything that happens after Ultimates 2.

[biod]

Let me start by saying I love that Red Wasp costume, even if a corset seems a bit counterintuitive.
Now that that's out of the way, I too have been recently tempted by Ultimate Spider-Man. The above does not dissuade me from this. Terrible stuff has happened in the 616 universe (hello OMD!) both in and out of universe, but that doesn't make you swear off all the good stories forever does it? I suggest you take the same approach here.

[shadowpsykie]

it just... this stuff angers me... I get that sometimes bad things happen... but really? this is horrendous... Im conflicted... i don;t know what to think.

[freezer]

Someone posted the whole sordid Sadistic Choice/Rape scene a while ago. To me it felt a lot like Kingpin MAX -- trying WAAAAY too hard to show what an irredeemable bastard the antagonist was and just came across as snuff porn. (He wrote, trying to keep the TV Tropes refs to a minimum)

[biod]

Yes real Kick the Dog moments. :P

[valtyr]

Yeah, that was #5 of the Next Generation arc. I read the first four, and I was really enjoying it, and then I got to issue five and they gave the new superheroine a gangrape backstory and threw her baby out of a window.

Oh, and she had to kill her husband with scissors. It took a while.

I was pretty WTF; it was so unnecessary. But I really liked the arc apart from that. If those kinds of things are dealbreakers for you, yeah, most of the Ultimates universe isn't really going to suit you, but I find enough there to make the gross bits worthwhile.

A couple things I find positive about the Ultimate Universe; Jan is a scientist in her own right, rather than Scientist's Girlfriend. (We get little of her actually doing science, but it is a start.) The domestic violence incident is graphically depicted, but it isn't sexualised at all despite the fact Jan's naked for some of it. The narrative doesn't victim-blame, and neither do any of the other characters. It also depicted the cycle of domestic violence well; that he'd hit her before, and they'd had new starts, and the cycle kept going, as she was inclined to forgive and believe him; it wasn't magically fixed. And she still wasn't blamed or punished for that.

Gail Richards/Barnes; in 616, it was treated like a joke that an older woman was still attracted to her old boyfriend Steve Rogers. In Ultimates, it's taken completely seriously that there are still strong feelings between them; it's never played for laughs. She gets pregnant by Steve late in WWII, and gives the baby up, and again, no hint of victim blaming from anyone. It's treated as her tragedy, as much as Steve's, when their child turns out to be the Red Skull.

I find a lot to like in Ultimates. For some people those things aren't going to outweigh the bad bits. And that's okay! Not everything is for everybody, you know?

[auggie18]

Someone edited the pages so that after the Red Skull threw the baby out of the window, Petra beat him up and took out all of his men. The baby then randomly sprouted wings and flew away.


I know that it was just a fan-dub, but it made me feel better about the story in general.


Just stick to Ultimate Spider-man, though. Only read the books that you can enjoy.

[shadowpsykie]

they posted that here?

[shadowpsykie]

can you suggest some Ultimate stories i should try?

[valtyr]

Ultimates and Ultimates 2 are generally pretty good; you might want to skip the domestic violence issue in the first one if you're sensitive to that. Um, there's also some cannibalism in the last issue but it's not graphic. Ultimate Gah Lak Tus is a great trilogy. Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four, and Ultimate Spider-Man are all fun and I don't recall any really horrible scenes; some Logan being Logan. Ultimate War is pretty good, and Ultimate Six is okay. Ultimate Armour Wars isn't bad at all, but just... ignore the bit where the Metropolitan Police are using high-tech battlesuits for crowd control and then Tony murders some policemen and never faces any consequences. There are deaths, but I wouldn't call it any more gruesome than 616 on average.

[cleome45]

"Tell, not show" is sometimes the right path for the storyteller to take. Having read that whole thing here, I don't understand why it was necessary for them to go into such loving and drawn-out (no pun intended) detail about RW's torture. Then again, I'm kind of skittish and rarely seek out "realistic" violence in media deliberately. Some things are better left to the reader/viewer's imagination.

[icon_uk]

Someone trying to better themselves and the world after much trauma had been done to her on all fronts.

Doesn't the fact she has an "obedience chip" implanted sort of suggest she might not have any choice about "bettering" herself?

[icon_uk]

Let me start by saying I love that Red Wasp costume, even if a corset seems a bit counterintuitive.

I think it's a little too blatantly screaming "Look at me! I'm dressed in a fetishistic latex garb!!" to impress me as being anything other than "trying too hard to be edgy"

[freezer]

Indeed they did.

[shadowpsykie]

*sigh*

#sadforever....

[schrodingers_fangirl]

Another character with rape in her origin story. Yawn. Can't Marvel get off the rape/gang rape bandwagon for its female characters? Lady Bullseye, another fairly recent addition to the Marvel female character roster, has rape and torture as part of her origin story. It's really common with the Big Two and I'm tired of it being a motivator for agency from the Big Two.

[sherkahn]

do we know it's still in her at this point?

[stubbleupdate]

Ultimate Human is very good.

[icon_uk]

I have no idea, I know nothing about the character, but from the way I read the description it sounded like she was only on the team BECAUSE of the chip. Sort of like the Suicide Squad explosive bracelets.

[sianmink]

is.. is that Claudia Christian done up as Baroness?

And, yeah. Imagine if the new U!Spider-Man was written with rape/torture into his background. That would never fly. The usual comics double-standard that it's supposed to have outgrown by now but just can't seem to.

[whitesycamore]

Someone trying to better themselves and the world after much trauma had been done to her on all fronts.

Like Batman!

Except that he's a man though. And you can't give a man a gory gang rape backstory for motivation. That'd just be sick.

[whitesycamore]

Imagine if the new U!Spider-Man was written with rape/torture into his background.

Oh gracious, no. Imagine how alienated, disturbed and insulted the fanboys would feel!

You're only supposed to try and alienate your *female* readers.

[shadowpsykie]

like, lets say... he still has the motto, with great power comes great responsibility, adn he still gets it from uncle ben... be he comes up with it on his own.... because of uncle ben.....

[icon_uk]

I missed that the first time around... I wish I had again... WHY did I click on that link? WHY?