J-M & AF #2

[suzene]

Dear Forum,

Eat my reply one more time, and we are in a fight.

No love,
Me

Now then:

My understanding was, from the first time I ever read Alpha, that Aurora had been psycologically abused by the Nuns. IE:- Every time her mutant powers manifested she was locked away in the dark and probably told that side of her was evil, possessed etc. This of course led to her fractured psych. I never considered sexual abuse until now. So this developement, to me, isn't needed, I can't see what purpose it serves. Is FVL saying that if he was allowed to have a nun trussed up like that, than the implication would have been the psychological abuse, but because he had to use the caretaker, then the only plot line left was to go down the path of sexual abuse? If the abuse aspect is to try and show how underhand the Unity project is then again, psychological abuse could have been used.

He seems to be saying that Jeanne-Marie had definitely been sexually abused, and since they weren't allowed to say the nuns did it, they opted for a generic.

As regards how characters are bought down, so they can rise again... Generic plot devices are there. Iron Man falls into a bottle, Vance Astrovik had an abusive father (One of the only times I would say that a generic plot thread has really been used well). Female characters get raped, physically abusive relationship. By their very nature I don't think Comics can be held to an exacting standard and I expect the use of generic plot devices, but I would hope they are used for a purpose and not just an add on.

Truly, if the attitude is going to be that comics are incapable of doing better than they have and do, then the industry needs to stop wringing its hands over the shrinking readership and die quietly. When you have things like a major company admitting that their big, line-wide reboot in a grab for new readership is actually aimed at the same old audience but they are "aware that they have other readers too", and then stories about how little those in charge actually value the characters those already devalued other readers are supposed to identify with turn up (link goes to scan comm), then it can't be a surprise when female/queer/chromatic dollars go to other forms of entertainment (and yet it somehow always is).