Two more pages from Mockingbird #8

[kojiro]

@TealBaum if we want female POVs in comics, might mean shifting paradigms.Maybe the whole drugged/raped story doesn't need to be canon.

— Chelsea Cain (@ChelseaCain) October 21, 2016

trigger warning for discussion of rape

Comments

[freezer]

So... if Bobbi didn't let Phantom Rider die because he raped her, did they say why she did? Or did they just "Changed Timeline" it?

Dammit, Marvel! You're making me sour on a retcon that removes rape!

[gnarll]

Yes... I am a bit confused. So they are retconning out the rape. But instead it was Bobbie cheating on Clint. Thats ...better than rape. But if that was Mockingbirds decision now, it is less than heroic. Of course characters should have flaws And thats a reversal of the Black Canary/Green Arrow relationship.

But previously she was entirely innocent of what happened, now she is not so much. So did they throw her under the bus when retconning that?

I am confused. On the balance I suppose it is an improvement.

[philippos42]

I don't get it. Why do this?

[starwolf_oakley]

From reading the WEST COAST AVENGERS issues, I always thought the Phantom Rider *would* have raped Bobbi, but he wanted to marry her first.
"Indian herbs" made Bobbi forget that she was married to Clint and thought she was in love with Phantom Rider. Strong herbs.

Rawhide Kid and Two-Kid Kid were able to un-brainwash Bobbi by dressing up like Hawkeye (as best they could in the 1870s) so she snapped out of it. Bobbi was angry, Phantom Rider was possessive and PR went over a cliff.

[thanekos]

So Hawkeye got the tonally different from anything done before with him character piece of a book that progressed from what'd come before (creating a complex-feeling portrayal integrating contradictory tones), while Mockingbird got the tonally different from anything done before with her character piece of a book that rewrote and discarded what'd come before (creating a simplistic-feeling portrayal disregarding contradictory tones).

Fair, but irritating.

[beyondthefringe]

But... I...
RAPE DRUG STORY BAD.
CHEATING BAD.
Wasn't there some way to do this so it didn't end up looking bad one way or the other?

Because no matter how you spin it, it was an awful storyline that A) turned a former hero into an obsessive asshole (and potential rapist) before killing him off only to then turn him into an obsessive ghostly asshole...

and B) broke up the Hawkeye/Mockingbird marriage, which has never recovered on account of one or both of them being dead for so much of the time since, or just plan arguing and...

Look, the Hawkeye mini where they met, fell in love, and got married, was one of the earlier titles I ever read, so of course I have a fondness for them as a couple. So I'm already not happy at what happened to them.

But this, while removing the date rape/brainwash drug aspect and thereby most of Bobbi's agency and consent, still turns her into someone who cheated on her husband with an obsessive, controlling, stalking piece of shit, who she let fall to his death. Removing date rape and replacing it with consenting infidelity that STILL LEADS TO LETTING SOMEONE DIE... I...

I'm so confused. :(

Why can't we have nice things?

[burkeonthesly]

It also casts a different light on Bobbi's appearance in Hawkeye--when she and Clint are arguing, and she says he "bailed, Clint, the minute things got hard." When that meant "a ghost cowboy told you I might've murdered him and you believed him over me," her anger was totally justified. With this retcon, it means "I cheated on you and then the guy died, and you left me." Kind of loses its sting.

[deh_tommy]

So, that was effectively Hawkeye's fault for being cheated on (even if he didn't really do anything that bas in their Marriage)?

[burkeonthesly]

That seems to be what it's saying. When Clint left his just-raped wife on the rumor that she killed somebody (told to him by the ghost cowboy she had allegedly killed), he looked like a schmuck and rightly so--leaving a spouse in a low moment like that without even trying to work through the moral/ethical differences (or hear her side of it) is a really crappy thing to do. If, though, Clint left because Bobbi cheated on him, well, that's not unreasonable (although again, some attempt at working through it might have been made, ymmv), and it just makes her worse to have her upbraiding him for doing so later.

Ugh....

[7dialsmystery]

Not even mercorgis and feminist pirate ghouls can make up for this.

[cyberghostface]

I don't even get her rationale with "I've always made my own decisions" as if people who do can't be raped or taken advantage of.

[lb_lee]

It's this bizarre psuedofeminist statement, in that on the surface, it sounds really empowering: "Yeehaw, women are STRONG, you can't hurt them without their consent, that's infantilizing bullshit!" But underneath it, it's actually EXTREMELY nasty, because it presumes that anyone who DOES get hurt is just weak and doesn't deserve the pump-em-up message.

...I've thought about this a lot. <.

[pyrrhocorax]

I was wondering why this retcon bothered me So Much but you’ve hit the nail on the head there.

[lb_lee]

Yup! Like, it looks good on the surface, but it easily breaks down once you give it strong thought. Like, what about kids? Obviously, kids are weak and small, and that doesn't magically make it okay to hurt them. All of us have days where we are weak and unable to defend ourselves, be it because of sickness, temperament, or just bad luck.

Pretending that someone never has those days... like, on the surface, it might make them sound badass, but in reality... it just makes them not human. Even Batman sometimes get the flu.

[michaelsaint]

So Bobbi wasn't brainwashed, she was just cheating on Clint? Then why did she let Phantom Rider die?? Was that an accident?

[beyondthefringe]

I suppose it was "self-defense" at that point, if he'd attacked her with the "if I can't have you, no one can" attitude... but letting him die at that point seems more like a disproportionate response to an assault than if she was defending herself against someone who'd drugged and tried to violate her.

I wonder which story will ultimately stick in the long run of Mockingbird's history--the nonconsensual assault or the consensual cheating.

[steverequin]

Am I the only one thinking Mockingbird is lying to the Phantom Rider? You know, going for the old troll bit of "Haha, you thought you were in control, but all this time I wanted to try a good ole Far West totem pole, so I pretended your potions worked, just so I could silence you forever afterward and get away with it." just to depower him in a psychological way.

And hey, it worked. He loses his cool and attacks her, trying to reaffirm his illusions of control.

[lb_lee]

Man, I like your idea so much better.

[thehood]

Doesn't seem to be what the writer went for however.

[burkeonthesly]

Gonna headcanon that, for sure.