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scans_dailyThe audience's attitudes towards certain subjects change as time progresses, so what might seem harmless or even amusing to a past audience comes across as offensive or even creepy by one of today! So, I thought that I'd gather up a few for your perusal.*
*Note: This isn't meant to make light of what they're doing or who they're doing it to, but rather pointing out how unpleasant and strange it is that SUPERHEROES are the ones doing it.
Item One: Hal Jordan, Inappropriate behaviour around a minor.
Starting with one from the olden days, we begin with a tale of one Hal Jordan and young Green Lantern Arisa Rrab, where the then 14 year old Arisa was treated as a surrogate sister to the Green Lantern Corps of the time.
Somehow Arisa got a crush on the kind of doofy Jordan, and somehow managed to will herself to age by some ten or so years. Reasoning that she now at least looks like an adult, Hal promptly sleeps with her.
This was later retconned to Arisa's species aging at a different rate to that of humans, with her being chronologically much older than Hal to work their way around the whole interstellar conscent issue thing... Which doesn't really change the fact that she'd still mentally be the same age she was just prior to accelerating her aging, so effectively Hal (and by extention DC) seemed to be making the "Hey, she LOOKED legal!" excuse. Ew.
Basically? If THIS ends up being a conversation that one of your main superheroes is having, you've probably gone down a path of storytelling best avoided in a mainstream comicbook.
Generally though, Hal's relationship with women in the past hasn't been that great. Whether it's a character quirk or just a reflection of the times the story was written in can be up for debate, however. Things like his casual sexism and racism, for example.
In the years prior to the DC Reboot several years back, however, a lot of these more... questionable attributes of Jordan's character were carefullly removed to make him a bit more palatable (and promptly brought back for his New 52 JLA issues). This was mostly done by transferring the unpleasant sexual stuff onto Jordan's BFF Oliver Queen (who I'll cover in the next segment), but they still had a reference to it in the series Cry for Justice, with Ollie referencing Hal apparently having a drunken threesome with two members of the Birds of Prey.
This last one so angered the actual Birds of Prey creators at the time, and they had to retcon it in such a way that it seemed like Hal or Black Canary spreading rumours about Helena and Zinda behind their backs.
And we close with Guy Gardner, a character that somehow went from being a guy who worked with kids with special needs to the "asshole Green Lantern". Just how much this was the case varies from writer to writer, but in one of the Superbuddies series (a comedy series featuring some of the cast from Justice League International which is so AWKWARD now for so many reasons... as a series involving Maxwell Lord getting mad at Blue Beetle's antics while people joke about Sue Dibny being pregnant could get post-Identity Crisis).
The writer of the series, Keith Giffen, allegedly wanted Mary Marvel (who was between 14 and 16 at the time of this story) to sleep with Guy during the course of the story, causing her to shift from her virginal white costume to her traditional red one. 'Cause SYMBOLISM. Whether this was true or not depends on who you ask, but it's pretty much an example of the kind of creepy stuff going on behind the scenes at DC for a good while in regards to Mary Marvel that Grant Morrison was satirising in Final Crisis.
Guy didn't get to sleep with Mary (thank god), but he still did this, which seems almost as bad.
'Cause a grown man groping a minor and sniffing his fingers afterwards is hilarious, right? Urgh.
*Note: This isn't meant to make light of what they're doing or who they're doing it to, but rather pointing out how unpleasant and strange it is that SUPERHEROES are the ones doing it.
Item One: Hal Jordan, Inappropriate behaviour around a minor.
Starting with one from the olden days, we begin with a tale of one Hal Jordan and young Green Lantern Arisa Rrab, where the then 14 year old Arisa was treated as a surrogate sister to the Green Lantern Corps of the time.
Somehow Arisa got a crush on the kind of doofy Jordan, and somehow managed to will herself to age by some ten or so years. Reasoning that she now at least looks like an adult, Hal promptly sleeps with her.
This was later retconned to Arisa's species aging at a different rate to that of humans, with her being chronologically much older than Hal to work their way around the whole interstellar conscent issue thing... Which doesn't really change the fact that she'd still mentally be the same age she was just prior to accelerating her aging, so effectively Hal (and by extention DC) seemed to be making the "Hey, she LOOKED legal!" excuse. Ew.
Basically? If THIS ends up being a conversation that one of your main superheroes is having, you've probably gone down a path of storytelling best avoided in a mainstream comicbook.
Generally though, Hal's relationship with women in the past hasn't been that great. Whether it's a character quirk or just a reflection of the times the story was written in can be up for debate, however. Things like his casual sexism and racism, for example.
In the years prior to the DC Reboot several years back, however, a lot of these more... questionable attributes of Jordan's character were carefullly removed to make him a bit more palatable (and promptly brought back for his New 52 JLA issues). This was mostly done by transferring the unpleasant sexual stuff onto Jordan's BFF Oliver Queen (who I'll cover in the next segment), but they still had a reference to it in the series Cry for Justice, with Ollie referencing Hal apparently having a drunken threesome with two members of the Birds of Prey.
This last one so angered the actual Birds of Prey creators at the time, and they had to retcon it in such a way that it seemed like Hal or Black Canary spreading rumours about Helena and Zinda behind their backs.
And we close with Guy Gardner, a character that somehow went from being a guy who worked with kids with special needs to the "asshole Green Lantern". Just how much this was the case varies from writer to writer, but in one of the Superbuddies series (a comedy series featuring some of the cast from Justice League International which is so AWKWARD now for so many reasons... as a series involving Maxwell Lord getting mad at Blue Beetle's antics while people joke about Sue Dibny being pregnant could get post-Identity Crisis).
The writer of the series, Keith Giffen, allegedly wanted Mary Marvel (who was between 14 and 16 at the time of this story) to sleep with Guy during the course of the story, causing her to shift from her virginal white costume to her traditional red one. 'Cause SYMBOLISM. Whether this was true or not depends on who you ask, but it's pretty much an example of the kind of creepy stuff going on behind the scenes at DC for a good while in regards to Mary Marvel that Grant Morrison was satirising in Final Crisis.
Guy didn't get to sleep with Mary (thank god), but he still did this, which seems almost as bad.
'Cause a grown man groping a minor and sniffing his fingers afterwards is hilarious, right? Urgh.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-16 04:35 pm (UTC)I disagree a bit about taking old comics seriously. I think we can learn from characters with different views. It allows us to weigh ideas against one another and play with outcomes and consequences (rather than choosing to read something that simply reaffirms our ideas, which can be a grossly dumbing engagement if not an outright circle jerk). A definitely sexist, slightly racist Hal Jordan who doesn't see a problem with having sex with a girl who may not be mentally mature enough to make those decisions for herself is a Hal Jordan that can serve us. For example, I love the idea of Hal becoming aware of his mistakes and learning from them, AS LONG AS that is a constant part of his character-- he would never HAVE learned, but rather, would be as a character in a constant state of learning (and by association, teaching). Same for Guy. And Hawkeye. I liked that about Spider-Man too.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-17 03:05 pm (UTC)Arisia as an underage hero was dumb to begin with and makes the Guardians look like maniacs. This is why it is no longer in canon. Arisia is an adult who comes from a race who look child-like and whose species doesn't have equivalent years to humans. There's a lot of jokes that have been made about assuming a humanoid alien is exactly like Earth humans. Green Lantern books are often used to make such points: like the one of the human woman who offered to have sex with an alien whose species required the use of sharp sticks to pierce their giant hymens. That went badly. This is not a story about two humans. Its a story about aliens and making assumptions.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-31 11:33 pm (UTC)"Arisia as an underage hero was dumb to begin with..." YES! While we're at it, they could've taken the opportunity to explore that more. But that's not why it's not in canon. If that was why it wasn't in canon, I wouldn't be seeing Batgirl running around punching murderers and rapists today. It's not in canon because it's not kosher. The rest of that is cover work, and fairly bad, insulting cover work at that.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-01 06:39 am (UTC)Batgirl was actually permitted to grow up. There are people who see nothing wrong with her having a romantic relationship with her dad's friend and this is why it is now canon in certain continuities, like The Killing Joke and Batman Beyond.
We disagree on Arisia. Typical comic book plots involve revealing a thing, then going back and revealing another thing about it so "everything you thought you knew was wrong." Considering the typical treatment of sexuality in Green Lantern, it makes sense that calling Arisia fourteen--then later revealing (as they did) that planetary revolutions are not the same on all planets, so that Arisia's home planet's fourteen revolutions has the same time frame as over a hundred of Earth revolutions. Arisia is older than all the human lanterns put together. The die-hard argues "but she is treated like an immature adolescent" but we've already established that this is an alien. No Earth standards can be applied without knowing more about her species. Arisia promptly dumped Hal and went on to date other Lanterns, none of whom see anything wrong with it to this day. She is simply not a good case for discussing adults dating people mentally under-age (the movie Big, Poison Ivy in television series Gotham, every comic book child who's been magically aged, etc).
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 07:33 pm (UTC)Right, sorry, I seem to constantly be under the impression that Batgirl is a teenage girl (I think Stephanie Brown shunted her a bit for me-- and Barbara wearing that purple and looking like she lost 10 years keeps me confused). I'm actually in the camp of Barb-Bruce shippers, assuming she's at least like 20.
Mmm well if she has the experiences and mentality of a grown woman as well, then... oof, this'd be a lot easier if Space Law were more transparent. What constitution is the Green Lantern Corps working from? I feel like they're enforcing nebulous law.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 09:41 pm (UTC)Barb-Bruce is squicky to me, because of those old issues? Its hard to remember how continuity has changed and I need to take a breath before accepting the new perception. Its still uncomfortable, even without agism, because of her relationship to Dick.
The Corps enforces Guardian rules of order and are permitted limited intervention in local law enforcement. The Guardians have come down hard against too much siding with local law though. They see local law as being influenced by prejudices, et cetera. Their own morality is beyond my understanding.
During the time of Arisia, you also had the membership of G'Nort, the mentally challenged alien who supposedly got Corps membership because of an uncle's influence (later retconned that this was someone's con job and G'Nort was never actually a Lantern). So, if you bought the first appearances, the Guardians were fine with relative's influencing them, utter incompetence, underage kids, et cetera. But you also had them with rules preventing Lanterns from associating with each other (Hal got this changed) and in the modern continuity, they had rules against sexuality between Lanterns (eventually changed).
They care about the really big issues of Order in the universe...and the very small details of how/whether Lanterns get to know each other. Their interest in Lantern interaction might be less about Order and more about preventing a Corps culture developing independent of Guardian control, similar to the way corporations fire employees who reveal their salaries, because it leads to unrest.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-12 06:59 pm (UTC)That puts the Corps into perspective nicely, they should explore how a Lantern navigates the Guardians' Order with Lantern culture with individual cultures/laws on planets more often. I seriously would've assumed the Guardians had a super in depth code of justice. Like with Sinestro. When he started acting the fool, I'd assume they'd have laid a lot of violations on him and sent him to space Leavenworth. So what WOULD have happened if one of the Lanterns was hopping from planet to planet bedding (by their culture) underage girls? These are the questions.