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Violence Against Woman in Comics

The problem is that comics as a genre and superhero comics most of all use violence as a resolution for most plots. The Avengers are "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" - not Earth's Smartest Heroes, Earth's Most Cunning Heroes, or Earth's Most Diplomatic Heroes. If they were any of these, the book wouldn't sell. Part of the Avengers fantasy is that they really are the "big guns". Look at all the correspondence on this board about Avengers vs JLA (or any other team) which basically boils down to "my gang is tougher than your gang."

So the Marvel universe is a world where pretty much all resolution is through violence and many superheroes' first reaction on meeting even a fellow superhero is to trade punches with them (because writers know what the fans want, and fans seem to love the "who'd win in a Cap/Wolverine scrap" type story). Since some of the protagonists are women, they're going to get into fights. Now Marvel's way of coping with this has changed over the years.

Back in the 60's the main reason for having women in the team (apart from being a hostage of course) seemed to be to deal with the occasional female baddie. "How can I stop her when I can't hit a woman?" Step forward the Wasp or Marvel Girl or whoever to deliver a right hook that floors the villainess (or at worst have a sort of scratching catfight).

Now it is acceptable for male heroes to fight women (as recently noted by Lady Lark against Cap) and for women to mix it up against male adversaries. This is undoubtedly a good thing and demonstrates how society might just be getting the hang of this equality of the sexes thing. However, there are certain underlying problems which prevent equality from really being possible:

1. Women in bondage is a Comics Code no-no (as in the trouble about the Wanda cover to Avengers #3). While its OK to show the villain has stripped Wolverine down to his hairy pelt and strapped him to the torture table, the scene would take on very different overtones if it was being done to, say, Firestar.

2. A guy punching a guy is all part of the macho, males-do-this-kind-of-thing stuff. A man hitting a woman is far less socially acceptable, and even to depict a villain attacking a female in that way raises problems that just don't occur when the Masters of Evil hospitalise and cripple Jarvis.

3. The cynical side of most adult males notes that many real bad guys who capture a scantily clad superheroine might, um, take advantage? There's quite a few websites around offering artwork of this kind. I know superheroine rape has been dealt with as an issue by Mark Gruenwald in his early Captain America stories and in other places since but the whole issue is still a delicate one (not as delicate as the rape of a male superhero, of course. Has that ever been addressed?).

Finally, addressing the domestic violence issue, the superhero world is a bit different from the real world. In comics powers are often used to emphasise arguments. Therefore, whereas in the real world I would confidently say that NOBODY should use force on another person in any kind of personal relationship, I find myself far more easily able to accept that Wanda can overlook Simon's lapse than I would if this were a non-superhero story. That said, the most dramatic example of comics using domestic violence as a plot were the Shooter Yellowjacket/Wasp issues, which were so effective in making their case that I still find it hard to accept the Hank/Jan reconciliation of the current Avengers