Preview: The Mighty Thor #701 with art by James Harren

[Raye]

Making ultimatums about untold stories is always silly. Until a story is told we can't judge how well it was executed. I understand the impulse to state how cancer shouldn't be treated lightly, but we have seen no indication that it will be. Part of the reality of cancer is that some people refuse treatment, part of the reality is that some people change their outlook on life based upon their diagnosis, part of the reality is that it doesn't kill everyone. Let's wait and see what happens.

Sure we can speculate, I believe Jane will die and end up in Valhalla, but speculation is not an ultimatum. As soon as we start saying "if they do this I will be angry" we are literally loosing the plot. Storytelling is about making things that are not real seem real to the audience, and we can only judge how well that is achieved when we actually hear the story.

One sure way to spoil our enjoyment of a story is to prejudge what the storyteller is or isn't allowed to say.

I am normally all for taking a 'wait and see' approach, but there ARE limits to that, they may not be the same limits for every person, but they are limits nonetheless, and this, for me, would be one of them. And I think it's one that a lot of people won't really understand unless they have seen someone in that position, (I know my position on the magic cure has shifted a bit because I did watch someone go through that in the middle of the story. They got diagnosed, when into hospice and then died, all while the story was being told, so it ended up taking on a different meaning for me than it did starting out) or are in it themselves, and if you haven't, you are just going to have to accept their position.

And yeah, people survive cancer. But not all cancer is created equal. I have 'survived' cancer, but I had a very minor form of it, which was extremely unlikely to be life threatening, and was so easily treated it was trivial. It is absolutely not comparable to the stage 4 metastatic cancer which Jane has, and it would be offensive to suggest otherwise. The type of cancer Jane has, has a FOUR PERCENT 5 year survival rate, even with aggressive treatment. Yeah, she may be among that lucky 4 percent, but given how she has been neglecting her treatment, that would be extremely unlikely without a magical cure, and, as mentioned, if they went that route, I would find it both to be a cheap out from a storytelling perspective, and offensive.