God bless Charlie Anders, and not just because of her footwear on Sunday:
All of the discussion about the continuity snafu in Birds of Prey #109 started me thinking. For those who missed it, Tony Bedard goofed as to which of Oliver Queen’s illegitimate sons was the result of a supervillain raping him. Ollie’s firstborn son, Connor Hawke, was the result of a casual hook up with a woman named Moonday Hawke Armitage. And then later, a supervillain named Shado raped Ollie and had his baby against his will, a kid named Robert. But Bedard accidentally said Shado was Connor’s mom, which would have made a creepy recent cover of Connor and Shado making out way creepier.
Anyway, I was thinking about the fact that Starman also had a supervillain rape him and have his baby without his consent: The Mist, who left Starman a note saying that she would raise Starman’s son to be hate him and want to destroy him. (Did this plotline ever go anywhere? Is there still an evil Starman baby out there somewhere?)
So I wonder: Is this a trope? Have there been other instances in superhero comics of female villains raping male villains in order to have their super-babies? Come to think of it, didn’t this happen to Nexus as well?
There’s a slight follow-up here, but seriously – What is that all about?
August 28th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Yep, the Knight/Mist II baby plot went somewhere alright. Not where Mist II was expecting, though…
August 28th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Didn’t it happen to Tom Strong, too?
August 28th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
> Moonday Hawke Armitage
Jesus! That’s like a Bond girl name gone horribly wrong.
And now to Batman! Although, to be almost fair, I am not sure Damian was meant to kill Batman… I think.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Yes, Tom Strong was drugged and raped by a Nazi supervillainess.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
“Yes, Tom Strong was drugged and raped by a Nazi supervillainess.”
That happened to a good friend of mine. Damn Nazis.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Odd that adult-female-against-adult-male rape is even a minor trend in superhero comics, since it’s virtually unheard of in other pop mediums. Perhaps because superpowered females can be stronger than their male counterparts, or can use mind-powers and the like? I can think of at least one example that didn’t result in a superbaby – Nightwing was raped (at least by some accounts) by Tarantula, who never got pregnant, at least as far as we know.
August 28th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
The Hulk was raped too, but not by a female supervillain. During Future Imperfect, when the Hulk was paralyzed from a broken neck, the Maestro had one of his concubines have sex with him, and Bruce was fighting it.
August 28th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
My guess is that the trend has something to do with Arthurian legend. King Arthur had a child with his enemy, which resulted in his son being his mortal enemy
August 28th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Yeah, Jack is raising his baby now. At least as far as anyone knows.
August 28th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Howard Chaykin said once that superheroes “are beautiful people who have problems that you wish you had.”
Considering how many men have reacted to women raping men – as in the trend of female school teachers taking advantage of their underaged male students – with a South Park-style reaction of “Niiiccce!”, I think Chaykin’s point could very well explain the number of female characters raping male characters in superhero comics.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
King Arthur is definitely the precedent.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I’ll wager good money that DC is holding on Nightwing and Tarantula’s baby for when they run out of ideas for Nightwing (other than killing him).
August 31st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Lesee… Conan was actually raped by a horde of female molemen (pale-skinned, never-seen-the-sun humanoids, not actual animal molemen) in one of the early Roy Thomas stories, because some mad wizard wanted to improve the breeding stock of his pets – which Conan REALLY wasn’t all that willing to help with.
Does that count?