Rape in the Avengers and Avengers #200

[Doctor Know]

With Avengers #200, I always thought to myself, "the powers that be at Marvel must have been high as gas, when they wrote this". It's the only thing that would explain the OOC behavior, the everything and the kitchen sink story and shenanigans, the quasi-incest story and seemingly write off of Ms Marvel's character.

No way these comic titans came up with Avengers #200 sober.

That's what I've been telling myself for years.

[ZNOP]

This is how boogeymen get created. I will get the easy one out of the way, Shooter did not write Avengers #200. Whatever his involvement was, Carol was already getting impregnated by something before he could have been having anything to do with the story.

The more interesting one is the Hulk one, because you have a real anti-rape story here, something people seem to question Shooter about, where he uses a real life story a friend experienced and a super hero that one would not think could be a victim. As far as this story is concerned Bruce Banner could be gay or a woman, and the story still happens. The story is that the fear is so great that he cannot transform into the Hulk. Sure, it falls apart when examined by any Hulk fan, but to a casual reader this is a powerful story. About how bad rape is and if anyone spent more than a second thinking about it beyond whatever article they read telling them how bad this story was, they would see this actually speaks up for women who are often questioned about why they don't fight back or speak up.

What book (title and issue please) does this "anti-rape" story take place in?

[Michael Watkins]

What book (title and issue please) does this "anti-rape" story take place in?

Hulk # 23 1980?

[CentralPower]

Ran this by the guy at the comic store. He said the problem with "Avengers" #200 was the writer not thinking it through, which was typical for comics in the 70s.

(I am not sure that "bad writing was standard for the time" is much of a defense.)

On a less icky note, the problem with Hal nailing a kid in "Green Lantern" is mitigated. The problem was that the creative team changed, and nobody told the new writer that Arisa was a kid until...it was too late.

[Mike_Murdock]

The thing is, I don't 100% buy that argument either. If the story didn't bring up rape at all, I might be able to accept that. If the story didn't use Immortus's machines first for an evil purpose and then acknowledge it was used by Marcus, I might buy that too. But, all together, it's hard to imagine a story bringing up rape explicitly about this exact situation but somehow not think about whether or not it's rape.

[Sutekh]

And I have already expressed my opinion on that. I am probably in the minority of comic readers but I consider the annual to have made the situation worse not better. Not because it didn't address the issues with the character, that is fine as far as it goes, but because the issue was not a character issue. It is neither professional nor appropriate to have a feud within the pages of a comic. It feeds fan culture to deal with it as a character issue.

Agreed. The problem wasn't with the characters, it was with the writing. It's not Captain America or Iron Man's 'fault' that they sent Carol off to live happily ever after with her rapist / child / whatever.

IMO, it would have been a slightly less ugly 'fix' if it were later explained that 'Immortus' machines' were affecting *all* of the Avengers, and making them suggestible and compliant to Marcus' proposition, so that they would have just kind of nodded and gone along with the scenario, which Carol herself seemed fine with, at the time (being also affected by the Great Roofie Machine in the Sky). This takes the 'blame' away from the characters, who were just victims of bad writing.

Edit: And now that I've read the entire thread, and not just the last page, that seems to be what the OP was thinking as well. Mind-control-ish explanation, rather than 'the Avengers are all jerks' explanation.

[ed2962]

The thing is, I don't 100% buy that argument either. If the story didn't bring up rape at all, I might be able to accept that. If the story didn't use Immortus's machines first for an evil purpose and then acknowledge it was used by Marcus, I might buy that too. But, all together, it's hard to imagine a story bringing up rape explicitly about this exact situation but somehow not think about whether or not it's rape.

I think it didn't occur to the writers. I don't have the comic or a scan in front of me, but I remember Marcus saying something like, "I could have used my father's machine to bend you to my will but I didn't want it that way." Then he goes on about having fine dresses made for her and Mozart writing songs for Carol and what not. Then we got that line about "and with a subtle boost from my machine." I think David M and Shooter may have felt that the wining and dining made it a romance.


Of course, it's really kind of like taking someone to a fancy dinner then getting them drunk and having sex with them while they're passed out.

[Mike_Murdock]

That last line is frankly my concern and why I'm not entirely sure the writers know mind control isn't consent. It seems they treat it the way they would treat being attractive or charming or anything else.

[CentralPower]

Ah, 1970s comics, when the bar was set low...and crawled under.

The thing is, I don't 100% buy that argument either.

I am pretty sure that Claremont pointed out the rape question, years later. (Could somebody who has read this more recently maybe clarify?)

The original story had inter-dimensional time-rape.....but it was not called that. It was the grand-father paradox taken to a new and creepy place. But, the writer did not consider all of that creepy stuff when he was putting together his paradox plot. (It is a pretty big over-sight. But, I ain't the one who wrote it, so I ain't taking responsibility.)


Claremont later addressed what happened to Danvers in the original story. But, he did it in a way that required the Avengers to be assholes. Later, yet another writer fixed that by assuming that Danvers and the other Avengers were under some kind of mental control.

[JKtheMac]

That last line is frankly my concern and why I'm not entirely sure the writers know mind control isn't consent. It seems they treat it the way they would treat being attractive or charming or anything else.

I think you touched on this before, but reading the Korvac Saga the other day I was baffled with the way these same issues were cropping up. There is a real muddled and confused distinction between wooing a woman and manipulation / mind control in this era. I am totally baffled by Michael and Carina. One minute it seems to be pure willpower / mind control, then it gets switched up such that she is a spy but then she seems to fall under his spell again which is not fully explained. She ends up seeming like an unacknowledged victim of a manipulative creep.

While understanding it is sometimes hard to fully understand the cultural perspective of a time past, this was an era I remember and I am still baffled.

[Mike_Murdock]

I am pretty sure that Claremont pointed out the rape question, years later. (Could somebody who has read this more recently maybe clarify?)

If by "years later" you mean "the very next year" then yes.

[CentralPower]

For some reason, I thought that Claremont got to that much later.

[Electricmastro]

I am pretty sure that Claremont pointed out the rape question, years later. (Could somebody who has read this more recently maybe clarify?)

The original story had inter-dimensional time-rape.....but it was not called that. It was the grand-father paradox taken to a new and creepy place. But, the writer did not consider all of that creepy stuff when he was putting together his paradox plot. (It is a pretty big over-sight. But, I ain't the one who wrote it, so I ain't taking responsibility.)


Claremont later addressed what happened to Danvers in the original story. But, he did it in a way that required the Avengers to be assholes. Later, yet another writer fixed that by assuming that Danvers and the other Avengers were under some kind of mental control.

And I don't think it's just a matter of Shooter and the others mishandling any Oedipus complexes or Shooter apparently having been a subscriber to New Woman Magazine, which had run a series of articles about rape, and in particular one about "Post Rape Syndrome," which is something also had been mishandled in Avengers #200 (as well as Hulk #23) if that was very much his intent to address. In thinking it over more, I've come to the conclusion that had Carol been explaining her situation to a bunch of sheltered teens who had little to no knowledge of the outside world, I get the feeling it would have been met with less backlash, as it's really difficult to accept the idea of the Avengers not fully realizing/being suspicious of wrongdoing in seeing how Carol was frequently talking about her disapproval with the situation to say the least, with the Avengers having seen crime on a daily basis. As well as people such as in Captain America's case having surely been familiar with the Rape of Nanking incident in 1938.

Basically, it's possible to have scenarios in comics in which friends simply don't understand your situation, whether it be like with what Carol was going through, identity crises, suicidal depression, or any of those sorts of things, but it gets harder to accept when having frequent crime-watchers such as superheroes be apart of the scenario.

[Rosebunse]

To me, it reads like a horror movie
The veey idea that you are just suddenly and randomly pregnant for no reason and everyone around you thinks it's ao great while you are literally crying for them to actually do something.

The actual revelation of what was happening was just icing on the cake.

[brettc1]

For the first time, I read Avengers #200 and it was worse than I possibly imagined (even after hearing others who read it who told me it was worse than I would have imagined). I know I'm not saying anything new, but it was so yucky I kind of just want to rant about the story itself. That being said, since I had read the fifty or so issues prior, there was some context for the story that I think is worth addressing more broadly. I think the big thing is I'm trying to figure out what they were going for in that story. My brain is trying to wrap my head around two viable theories:

The first: All the Avengers are being brainwashed, which is why they're acting so bizzare about the mystery baby. In this version, the Avengers are supposed to be seen as behaving abnormally. There's such strong sentiments that it's a supernatural rape baby the story doesn't shy away from. Then, when Carol sees Marcus, it's magically and instantaneously washed away as well. Even when the story went out of its way to contrast Immortus's brainwashing with Marcus's romantic efforts, it still concedes there was a subtle boost from his mind control machines.

Second: The goal of the writing is to be a commentary on Feminism, which is exemplified by Ms. Marvel and, specifically, by her desire to not have a baby. Throughout the several issues before (I think it starts in 197), Carol has a strong anti-baby stance that is slowly worn down by seeing the baby she birthed. When she says "I've been denying my feelings for quite awhile," it makes me think the story is trying to say "she didn't really believe all that feminism nonsense." It feels like an appalling theory, but it at least explains everyone else's behavior.

What complicates this is the very rapey attitude the book had under both Jim Shooter and David Michelinie (I used to think it was just Shooter and could safely blame even this issue on him). There was definitely this idea that, when someone gets ultimate power, they immediately want to use it to have sex with less than willing women. This starts with Graviton who, with his ultimate power, wanted the unwilling woman (as opposed to the other woman who wanted to have sex with him, who is portrayed as an evil bitch). Five issues later, we have Nefaria Supreme where Count Nefaria does the same thing. Finally, we have the Korvac Saga. The difference with the Korvac Saga is the first two villains were literally grabbing women who explicitly did not want him in a very traditional view of forcible rape. With Michael Korvac, there's a completely unnatural transformation of someone from wanting to kill Korvac to instantly falling in love with him that seems to be mind control, but the story never explicitly says it. In the end, the story does, however, say that Korvac was not a villain and was really trying to do good.

Like I said, I used to think this ended with Shooter. However, when Michelinie took over, he wrote a story where the Absorbing Man came back to life. He takes a woman "in case he gets bored" during his escape. It's slightly different because, in the end, although he wanted to rape her, he didn't want to hurt her and the story ends with him pushing her to safety and fleeing and "dying." There's a slightly romantic attitude towards Creel, but he's still clearly the villain. Finally, we get to Avengers #200 where mind control is, again, explicitly used - once it's used significantly, the other, it's used "subtly" during an attempt to woo Carol. However, at no point is Marcus the villain in the story. At most, he's misunderstood. The tragic action is Hawkeye destroyed his machine, thus forcing him to return to Limbo and it's somewhat redeemed by Carol deciding to go with him.

So I thought I'd start a thread to see if anyone wants to discuss Avengers #200 or the broader issues of power and mind control in these comics. Or, if they want, if there are other eras or time periods where similar things occurred.

Marcus IS the villain.

I’m sorry, but just because HE doesn’t see that he raped a woman doesn’t change the fact that he did. And prior to that he kept her in limbo against her will to serve his own purposes.

He ISNT redeemed by Carol going with him because it WASNT a choice. Marcus had removed that option.

Look, what Marcus did isn’t any different to what a Purple Man did to Jessica Jones. He violated another persons mind and body out of expeciency and desire. His inability to see his actions as immoral is not a defence. If it were, Thanos would have the hero of the MCU.