- AKA
- TresDias
If you've heard any kind of news about this comic, it's probably that its author, Chelsea Cain, has quit Twitter following harassment she's been receiving from male comic fans:
http://www.cbr.com/mockingbird-writer-chelsea-cain-quits-twitter-due-to-harassment/
http://www.cbr.com/mockingbird-writer-issues-statement-after-leaving-twitter-due-to-harassment/
http://www.cbr.com/correction-fandom-is-broken/
That's not what I'm making this thread to talk about, though. It's a shameful situation highlighting a shamefully pervasive problem, but while it is all of that, I'm actually baffled about something else. Namely, that with Cain's last issue on this book (also the book's final issue), she has seemingly attempted to retcon the late 80s rape & revenge storyline from "West Coast Avengers" in which Mockingbird was drugged and raped before regaining her memories and allowing her abuser to fall to his death -- circumstances that led to Mockingbird and Hawkeye's divorce after he was a complete douchenozzle over her letting an even bigger douchenozzle die.
[On a related note, I'm reposting these links from the "Civil War II" thread highlighting why I fucking hate Hawkeye, Hypocrite Supreme, in the comics:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2016/04/23/abandoned-love-so-is-hawkeye-a-killer-or-what/ (this article really should have also mentioned "Avengers" #502, part of the "Avengers Disassembled" story, wherein Hawkeye went to his death while deliberately killing an entire battleship full of Kree soldiers)
http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/10-times-hawkeye-ironically-said-superheroes-shouldnt-kill]
Cain has attempted this change by making it "ridiculous" that such a strong-willed woman as Bobbi Morse could have been drugged and mind controlled. And so she must have just cheated on Hawkeye, with him going through some wacky-ass bout of cognitive dissonance, deciding instead that she was drugged. Regardless of the pages of that old storyline explicitly showing that she was kidnapped right in front of everyone, then drugged, then struggling with her lost memories in private thought bubbles, and so on and so forth.
Already "ridiculous" (there's that word), as notably, Cain doesn't make any effort to change that Bobbi let the Phantom Rider die. Which, frankly, makes the character seem fucking insane without the rationale here that this asshole had violated her in every way possible.
Here's a couple of articles about this absurdly misguided idea:
http://www.cbr.com/so-mockingbird-let-phantom-rider-die-for-no-reason/
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/10/19/removing-the-rape-out-of-mockingbirds-past/
And a link to read the actual issue if you wonder whether some context has been overlooked that makes this less bad than it sounds (sadly, nope):
http://viewcomic.com/mockingbird-008-2016/
Over and above what this does to the character of Mockingbird (as one comment I read put it, "The retcon takes her from survivor to Gone Girl"), it seems to me to be rather cavalier in its implications about rape victims who are drugged (i.e. they just aren't strong willed; or if they are, then I guess they were just cheating). Which I can't imagine would have been Cain's intention, but how did that not occur to either herself or an editor?
This is way worse than thinking jettisoning Carol Danvers's memories of her own victimization somehow improved that character (since her whole appeal was that she overcame her shitty life and alcoholism to be a hero who exuded dignity from within rather than begging for it from external alternatives -- e.g. stupid plot devices
). This is Mockingbird's "One More Day" right here. Between this and that Twitter fiasco, what a sad end to a good writer's run on an otherwise enjoyable book.
http://www.cbr.com/mockingbird-writer-chelsea-cain-quits-twitter-due-to-harassment/
http://www.cbr.com/mockingbird-writer-issues-statement-after-leaving-twitter-due-to-harassment/
http://www.cbr.com/correction-fandom-is-broken/
That's not what I'm making this thread to talk about, though. It's a shameful situation highlighting a shamefully pervasive problem, but while it is all of that, I'm actually baffled about something else. Namely, that with Cain's last issue on this book (also the book's final issue), she has seemingly attempted to retcon the late 80s rape & revenge storyline from "West Coast Avengers" in which Mockingbird was drugged and raped before regaining her memories and allowing her abuser to fall to his death -- circumstances that led to Mockingbird and Hawkeye's divorce after he was a complete douchenozzle over her letting an even bigger douchenozzle die.
[On a related note, I'm reposting these links from the "Civil War II" thread highlighting why I fucking hate Hawkeye, Hypocrite Supreme, in the comics:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2016/04/23/abandoned-love-so-is-hawkeye-a-killer-or-what/ (this article really should have also mentioned "Avengers" #502, part of the "Avengers Disassembled" story, wherein Hawkeye went to his death while deliberately killing an entire battleship full of Kree soldiers)
http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/10-times-hawkeye-ironically-said-superheroes-shouldnt-kill]
Cain has attempted this change by making it "ridiculous" that such a strong-willed woman as Bobbi Morse could have been drugged and mind controlled. And so she must have just cheated on Hawkeye, with him going through some wacky-ass bout of cognitive dissonance, deciding instead that she was drugged. Regardless of the pages of that old storyline explicitly showing that she was kidnapped right in front of everyone, then drugged, then struggling with her lost memories in private thought bubbles, and so on and so forth.
Already "ridiculous" (there's that word), as notably, Cain doesn't make any effort to change that Bobbi let the Phantom Rider die. Which, frankly, makes the character seem fucking insane without the rationale here that this asshole had violated her in every way possible.
Here's a couple of articles about this absurdly misguided idea:
http://www.cbr.com/so-mockingbird-let-phantom-rider-die-for-no-reason/
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/10/19/removing-the-rape-out-of-mockingbirds-past/
And a link to read the actual issue if you wonder whether some context has been overlooked that makes this less bad than it sounds (sadly, nope):
http://viewcomic.com/mockingbird-008-2016/
Over and above what this does to the character of Mockingbird (as one comment I read put it, "The retcon takes her from survivor to Gone Girl"), it seems to me to be rather cavalier in its implications about rape victims who are drugged (i.e. they just aren't strong willed; or if they are, then I guess they were just cheating). Which I can't imagine would have been Cain's intention, but how did that not occur to either herself or an editor?
This is way worse than thinking jettisoning Carol Danvers's memories of her own victimization somehow improved that character (since her whole appeal was that she overcame her shitty life and alcoholism to be a hero who exuded dignity from within rather than begging for it from external alternatives -- e.g. stupid plot devices
). This is Mockingbird's "One More Day" right here. Between this and that Twitter fiasco, what a sad end to a good writer's run on an otherwise enjoyable book.