So in the same issue as a wife decks her husband hard enough to knock him down, she is in a conversation regarding gender roles.

Hal being slightly misogynistic is bad. Dinah decking her husband is funny and “deserved.”

You know what Xero, I thought the “Green Arrow and Black Canary have an… interesting relationship” covered that for people who knew, and implied an understanding of that, but for those who don’t, sure, here we go…

The Green Arrow/Black Canary relationship, over the years has shown other examples of battery such as this, always played with a wink and a nod to the seriousness of the actual event, to the point that Black Canary battering and physically abusing Green Arrow has become an accepted part of her character by many of her fans.

My gut feeling was that to point out that this has been going on for years, and that Green Arrow keeps coming back, was that it made this one incident seem even worse than it was.

How’s that Xero?

Black Canary and Hal Jordan have been hitting Green Arrow since the 1970′s, and now it becomes an issue? In the funny JLI there was a running gag about Batman hitting Guy Gardner so hard that he had a personality change.

Every other site or poster who has commented on this has made sure to include or reference the prior examples of this behavior, yet you have not. Why is that Matt?

We don’t live in a world where domestic abuse figures are equal. Men are the overwhelming majority of abusers. Period. If we ever live in a world where that number approaches anything resembling equal—when men who beat women are as rare as women who beat men—then you can start making a big deal out of things like this story created by men (primarily) for men.

Getting huffy over a fictional “husband-battering” in a medium that is overwhelmingly male-oriented is insulting to real victims of abuse.

Complaining about women hitting significant others is like privileged white boys whining “why can’t we say the n-word if they do?” So, why not quit whining and start working to end domestic and sexual violence if a comic book portrayal of a women punching her husband bothers you so much?

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Chris Brown beating Rihanna: Lots of guys saying he needs his ass kicked for it.

Rihanna beating Chris Brown: It would’ve let to a bunch of (the same) dudes chuckling and saying, “Well if he couldn’t stop her he deserved the beatdown.”

I’m not saying its right. I *am* saying that’s definitely what would’ve happened.

Also. You’ve discovered a double standard. One of many, and one of many that’s not going away anytime soon, folks. Sorry. Personally, I had a nice little chuckle about it, and yes I would’ve been horrified if it’d been the other way around, which is I realize is ridiculous because Ollie on his best day could *never* defend himself against Dinah if she ever got really angry.

MZ

Movie about woman being a housewife and having a problem watching the kids, and the successful husband may be having an affair – not funny.

Movie about a GUY being a house-husband and having a problem watching the kids, and his successful WIFE may be having an affair – comedy gold.

If a man hits a woman, it’s a crime. If a woman hits a man, it’s empowering.

I mean really, if Rhianna had laid the smack down on Chris Brown, would there have been a single person feeling for him?

“Physical violence against a spouse is never funny in my book.”

-Dolores winging a frying pan at Ed Wood in the eponymous film

-ANY installment of Maggie and Jiggs

-One of these days, Alice, ONE OF THESE DAYS…

ANYTHING can be funny.

But thank you for adding “in my book”, which makes it personal opinion, and as such unassailable.

I don’t read JLA, so I hadn’t heard this. Why hadn’t I heard this? Why aren’t the comics news sites making a bigger deal about this? Without the greater context, it may be a little difficult to pick up on the subtext of the scene, I understand that. But GL just stands there? Really?

Wow.

On the other hand, super-heros punch each other and make up all the time. I don’t know what the very first team-up was, but it probably had the format of:

1. Heroes punch each other.
2. Heroes team up to fight bad guys.

So heroes punching each other doesn’t bother me. But this is a husband and wife. Somehow, it’s really creepy.

Somehow the sucker punch has become effective storytelling (Batman and Hal Jordan in recent books with each other), but it strikes me as lazy. Had Canary shoved Arrow Elaine Benes-style (“Shut. UP!!!”), maybe it would’ve come across as more funny like “I’m pissed at you, but I love you.” Instead the sucker punch she delivered was petty, unprofessional, and suggested that League leadership is more than she can handle.

Sometimes women do physically abuse their significant others, but most case of domestic violence result from men’s violence on women and seeing the tables turned might be empowering. On the other hand, while empowering such portrayals arguably reproduce the patterns they claim to fight against.

Another possible point against a positive reading is the point that “if Green Arrow complains then he is feminine.” Maybe the scene’s humor relies on stereotypes of men’s and women’s gender roles not female empowerment.

Cheers,
Bob

Physical violence is how superheroes relate to each other. If they have differences, they tend to punch it out. Thus it has ever been. It’s a convention of the genre. It’s actually pretty messed up if you think about it for two seconds, but there it is. Anyway, I think the real problem here is that the Wasp didn’t hit Hank back all those years ago. If she had, it would have been just another superhero story. But oh no; someone had to try to get realistic about it, and now we’re stuck with two contradictory standards.