The Rahne Sinclair I want to remember - An antidote to X-Men 17

[icon_uk]

I posted this nearly a decade ago, but the current X-Men issue makes me want to re-post it, for reasons which will become evident.

When we first met Rahne Sinclair, back in the New Mutants Graphic novel, she was a terrified 13 year old, being pursued across her Scottish island home by a pack of (literal, not figurative) torch-wielding villagers, led by the Reverend Craig, a Presbyterian minister of, even by Presbyterian standards, excessively strict views. (Translation - The man was nuttier than squirrel shit and had about as much to do with the Christian concepts of love and charity as a slug has to do with tap dancing)

He had raised her as her guardian (though exactly how he came to that role was never made clear) when her mother died in childbirth (Moira MacTaggart delivered her) and spent the intervening years browbeating his version of religion into her, pointing out that her mother had been a... well, let's be kind and say "low woman" and so Rahne herself must be inherently evil. The poor girl believed him too. When he had seen Rahne's mutant power of lupine metamorphosis manifest for the first time he had decided that she needed to be purged of the evil that was obviously within her and set about organising an mob.

Thanks to the intervention of Moira MacTaggart, she was rescued and removed from Craig's custody. Moira adopted her (and it's worth noting that Rahne always referred to Craig by his title and surname, but called Moira "Mummy"). But the damage had been done by then. Thanks to Craig's abusive (as far as is known, mental rather than physical or sexual) treatment Rahne spent years of her life as a painfully shy, completely introverted personality with pitifully poor self esteem. It took Moira and her friends in the New Mutants years to show her that being a mutant was NOT innately evil, or the work of the devil.

Years later, when she was with Excalibur (in Excalibur #93 to be precise) and visiting Muir Island, she came across a local girl who was a pyrokinetic mutant.. and discovered that she also lived in fear of Reverend Craig (who had seen her lighting candles in church without using a match). Rahne decides the time as come for a reckoning...

Please try to ignore the outfit she's wearing, especially below the waist, I'm no expert on the biology involved by surely there is no way that could ever be comfortable. I'm also not a fan of the art, but it's Warren Ellis on words and that can make up for a lot.

Anyway, Rahne walks into the kirk, and Craig immediately denounces her, saying he should have made sure and killed her years ago...





(That's a reference to THIS issue)





And with that, as the next caption box says, "The woman, Rahne Sinclair, turns and leaves the church"

I've never been a HUGE Woflsbane fan, but those pages made me want to cheer, because that's how you face down a bigot, not with hysteria or shouting, but with knowledge. I like that the reveal that Craig is her biological father is not dwelt upon, because it doesn't need to be, it's irrelevant to her life because she chooses it to be so. Also that she hasn't entirely lost her faith as a result of her past, just that she has a more open approach to it now.

Comments

[scorntx]

The question of how Reverend Craig was allowed to adopted Rahne, and got away with his treatment of her grows ever more baffling with the passage of time.
And it was pretty baffling to begin with.
Especially with the idea the church knew about Craig's attitude and still let him take her in.
There's no way a man that obviously awful on every level wasn't hated by his fellows. So did they just want to wash their hands of him and forget he ever existed?
(And the age-old question of social services, which I have to assume existed even in the 70s...)


As to the outfit... it's odd Rahne stuck with it. I suppose the justification might be it's for when she's all wolf-y, because any outfit's going to get sticky when you're covered in fur, to say nothing of zippers and the like... but... nyyyeeah...

Also a good standing up to an abusive parental figure (because Craigy doesn't get to be called a parent).
It's not as viscerally satisfying as punching him or the like, but doing that wouldn't really be Rahne's style. Just verbally demolishing him, proving the man has no more power over her, and leaving.
Go Rahne.

[icon_uk]

Regrettably, given what we are now more aware of as institutional child abuse in several major churches, I think this seems a lot MORE plausible now than it did back then.

[donnblake]

I could cite things that have happened to children in the care of religious institutions, but that's a bit more depressing a discussion than I want to get into today.

[gnarll]

I would expect Sinclair lived long enough to name him as the father on the birth certificate. A shame he'd keep hidden, but it'd get him custody.

[wizardru]

Honestly, the church-related stuff is the LEAST baffling thing here (her outfit being the most so). In a world where we have had Magdalene Asylums, Moore River Native Settlement, forced adoptions and of course, the requisite sexual abuse scandals...it is actually pretty on point. And not just the Catholic church, but plenty of Protestant denominations have done similar things.

Simply put, it'd be nice to think that no one would allow it to happen, but as bad or worse HAS happened in reality; particularly in cases where the mother was unmarried and considered to be of 'low moral standard'.

[jlbarnett]

there was a fanfic back in the 90s that had the idea that Craig was probably a mutant. A telepath, not controlling people's minds but able to hear people's thoughts so he always knew their secrets. So that makes him not someone to mess with. Also it suggested he drank to quiet the voices

[mizerous]

But the drama! Surely her attacker would keep pushing her down and force her to reveal that "mutie" skin he would like to beat up for his own self-serving pleasure! That clearly is more realistic than a normal conversation! :V

[siamesa]

Thank you for posting this. Awesome scene.

[crinos]

I owned this comic in physical format. Its also a favorite of mine.

[featheredserpent]

This is one I had forgotten until now (and I *am* a HUGE Wolfsbane fan, just not a Rahne x Doug fan) - I'll have to look back in my archives. I think I was subconsciously blotting out those outfits.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/wolfsbane-reverend-craig-and-overcoming-religious-indoctrination-and-abuse
I did not write this, but by gods large and small I wish I had. The poor girl has been so inconsistently and badly written, and used as a punching bag / fridge victim, since the early days, but this scene is a breath of much-needed fresh air.

[icon_uk]

LIkewise not really a fan of Doug and Rahne as a couple, it seemed too sudden and contrived to make Doug's upcoming death more bathetic. I actually found Rahne and Douglock in Excalibur to be a much cuter couple.

And that is an excellent article, thanks for the link.