Comic Books Comic Book • Page 262

Loving Identity Crisis outside of the whole rape thing.

 

I just read it over the weekend and that part seemed so out of place and completely unnecessary.

 

Thought it fit the story pretty perfectly.

 

How so? I felt they really didn't need to go that far with it. Especially considering he wasn't even the one who killed her.

 

The story is meant to be horrific and real, where costumed villains (and heroes) perform absolutely heinous and disgustingly human acts. It doesn't matter that he didn't kill her, the damage was done to every single person costumed hero/victim/family member/whatever and that was explored in a way I found to be really emotional. It's not what you expect, it's not what you want, it's a tragedy. As a horror fan I'm always into exploring the worst of human behavior.

 

I get that. But rape isn't the only way to accomplish all of those same feelings imo.

 

Completely agree. I guess the question than is if you think rape should be included in anything ever at all for any reason. Again, to bring up horror, it comes up a lot, because it's horrible. If you don't think it should be in fiction at all than yeah Identity Crisis sucks, but it you think there's merit in exploring horrible things, then the question is whether or not Identity Crisis did it right, and I think they did.

Feeling bad about this convo though and like I'm not explaining myself in a good way. Sorry for that.

 

Nah, I understand what you're saying. I just feel like for Identity Crisis, it would have made much more sense if he had killed her. Leaving it out altogether for fiction definitely wouldn't be the answer. It's just one of those instances where I felt it wasn't needed. I just wanted to know what made you think it fit in with the story.

 

If I haven't explained well why I think it was necessary, in a more literal sense, it's what preceded the memory wipe which is what I found to be the most interesting part of the story. I guess the idea of how all these costumed heroes would react to something like that, how it tore them apart and how some of them literally couldn't live with that knowledge was pretty powerful. I do agree that Dr Light could have just kidnapped her or something, it didn't NEED to go that far, but it adds to the dark, tragic tone that I think really sets the story apart.

 

The biggest issue with the rape in IC is that it follows a horrific history present in comic books where a female gets something terrible done to her in order to drive the plot for the male heroes.

It is just a really bad device that was used and abused for decades. And that means, rightfully in my opinion, they don't get any benefit of the doubt now. Find a different way.

It is a cheap tactic to artificially "darken" the tone of the story. And I say this as someone whose first ever single issue was IC #1. That book got me into comics. I bought that stuff hook like and sinker. But in retrospect, there just isn't an excuse for using "Sue got raped" as a plot device.

 

No doubt that this was a dark story. And I will add that I still enjoyed this as a whole. After sitting with it for a day or so, I bumped it up to 4/5 on Goodreads from my initial 3.5 (which drives me crazy that you can't actually rate a book with half stars on Goodreads). But that's a whole separate story that isn't for this thread hah.

 

Ugh, I know, that's been driving me insane recently because I've been reading the Dark Tower comics and they're all so incredible that I keep just giving them 5's and I'm like, ok this one wasn't as good, it deserves a 4.5, but no way it deserves a 4, especially with my super low bar for good reviews, ha.

I was actually going to hassle you for giving IC a 3/5 when I saw it on GR but I guess I totally forgot how controversial it is. I'll probably stop reccing it, ha.

 

If I'm in between on something, I go with the lower number and then make a comment like 3.5 stars or something so if they ever change it, I can adjust reviews. But with IC, I just needed to sit with it a little and process it a bit more.

 

If you're a man writing a story that you want to be gritty and dark and "real" or whatever, and you think about using rape (or other acts of sexual assault), please do women and the rest of the respectable world a favor and don't. It's not edgy or cool. It's not "real." It's immature shock value trash.

Like, I don't think I've ever seen something like that used effectively outside of the Jessica Jones Netflix series.

 

I tend to go with my immediate reaction when finishing a book and not changing it. Probably why so many of my opinions depend on the ending, ha. For example, I was reading a book the other day (The Occupant) that was okay but did this really long, terribly boring epilogue and I ended up giving it 2 stars. My point being, it's a good thing I'm not a professional reviewer.

 

I think Jessica Jones was just handled extremely well in all aspects.

It's not something I do with every rating. This one just took me an extra day to figure it out haha. I only switch them once in a while. Or if I notice I marked something as read, but didn't rate it.

 

My grading scale is compared against Harry Potter. If I liked it as much as those books then it gets a 5 if not then it'll get a 4 or 3.

 

Over the past week or so, I've been back to reading lots of classic Spidey stuff. I've decided to commit to reading what I own in chronological order for now, since even with lots of big gaps, there's a lot to appreciate from seeing how the story of Peter Parker flowed over the years.

I last left off before The Night Gwen Stacy Died, which actually worked well 'cause my next collection after that (besides a couple issues in "Son of the Goblin") is the Original Clone Saga, which uses a Gwen clone to solidify his and MJ's relationship. Really enjoyed seeing MJ as an actual nuanced character after Gwen's death.

Now I'm almost through Return of the Burglar, which is like 40 issues after Original Clone Saga but still a nice follow-up due to both stories using Mysterio in a connected way. As a big fan of Mysterio, I love knowing that I already own the majority of his classic tales. This also introduced Black Cat, which was fun, even though "sexy villain with the hots for the hero" is a lame angle. The family dynamic for Felicia was interesting.

 

Apparently Marvel revealed a big part of the Secret Empire finale (out tomorrow) on the New York Times website yesterday:

Captain America: Fighting Evil Again

This reminds me of the way DC just the other week released the last page of Dark Nights: Metal #1 on the Monday of the week it came out. I saw on Twitter that Marvel's reasoning (and probably DC's) is that, with when the comics arrive at shops, this would've leaked by Wednesday morning anyways, so might as well "leak" it yourself as a publicity tool instead of letting a trash comics blog promote itself with said leak.

As someone who notoriously doesn't care about spoilers, I really don't care that this happens, but all the nerds on Twitter (including some creators) who do care are annoyed at this. I do find it a fascinating business decision for dealing with the whole direct market leak issue, though.

(Also, the revealed page of Captain America punching Captain America is awesome.)

 

Finished Return of the Burglar. The last issue, Amazing Spider-Man #200, was a wonderful sequel to Amazing Fantasy #15, fleshing out why the nameless burglar went after the Parkers and giving Peter a chance to kinda redeem himself.

I know that the current Spidey films are bending over backwards to avoid what previous films did, but since Spider-Man 3's take on the burglar was so different from the comics, I'd love to see the Homecoming sequel take some inspiration from this storyline. It'd be a great way to organically address Uncle Ben without fully rehashing the origin. Plus, while they obviously wouldn't (and shouldn't) try to retell this exact story, maybe they'd take enough inspiration to include Mysterio! It'll never happen, but I can dream, lol.

 

i'll take anything to get a live action Mysterio! haha

 

I'm glad I read Identity Crisis because it gave me the context for Secret Six. Really appreciate that continuity.

 

Today was the last issue of Secret Empire. Nick Spencer is finally done with Captain America! ...besides the Secret Empire Omega issue and the Captain America issue of Generations, lol. (Speaking of Generations, this issue apparently finally gave the context for those one-shots, but it's exactly what everyone assumed and doesn't really matter.)

Has anyone here been reading this? Or is anyone planning to do so? I still can't decide if I'm gonna give any of it a shot down the road or not.

 

So I finished Hawkeye (2012) today and I really enjoyed it. This was a great series to choose to get me into reading comics with it having so much humour in it. Also I really liked Kate Bishop as a character so I've added some of the new Hawkeye stuff to my quickly growing list of to check out.

I'm definitely going to be delving further into Marvel Unlimited this week, although I haven't decided what I'm going to read next. I thinking I might go for either Astonishing Xmen or Ultimate Spiderman.

Thanks again for everyone's advice last week and for everyone's recs on the first page