I never thought that Colan was a good fit for the Avengers book. But he was a pro and did a fine job.

So. Sienkiewicz is my favorite superhero artist.  

And this is not my favorite work that Sal Buscama has ever done, (Marvel Team-Up 82-85, inked by Steve Leiahola, since you asked)

But it's my second favorite.

Ilike art that's a little more formalist/conceptual rather than strictly representationalist, and I think those pages do an amazing job of depicting Peter and Harry's current (Chaotic, confused, almost bestial) mental state.  I think there are maybe a dozen artists who worked in American comics EVER who can Draw Bad Emotions this well.    

And I love those Ditko style huge pools of black.  

I mean, ok, I'm not sure that "brutally dark and violent" is something that we need in superhero comics.  I am less sure it is something we need in Spidey books.  But I think the artists did an A + job in conveying the emotion of the scene.  

And the scene was a mistake and does not belong in Spider-Man comics.  

But still, A+ job with what they were assigned to do.  

From what I've gathered, the failure to address what had happened to Ms. Marvel for what it was in Avengers #200 (which didn't properly receive closure until a year later in Avengers Annual #10, at least I felt), is Jim Shooter, George Pérez, Bob Layton, and David Michelinie not properly communicating with each other with editing and not helped by deadlines which practically encouraged not giving stories the lookovers they were due, which doesn't excuse such questionable material that gets by of course, but I'm sure is still a complexity that plays a factor in how responsible a book ended up being handled, and may show the failures of the Comics Code of Authority as well actually. I suppose adding another complexity to the situation, at least from what I've seen suggested, is what the average comic book writer would have constituted as rape in 1980 vs. what the average comic book writer would have constituted as rape in modern times, and Carol Strickland's response being an exception, rather than the standard, in the rising feminist movement in properly understanding perspectives at the time, but that's probably another conversation entirely. In any case, Jim Shooter apologized on his website for what it's worth, and I get the feeling the other credited writers would apologize as well. I haven't seen them do though. If anything else, I suppose the biggest lesson to be learned here is to always give material the lookovers they're due, deadlines and the like be damned, or else you may just end up with a big smelly egg on your face that will be hard to clean off.

I imagine that as hard as comic staff workers attempt to manage deadlines, perspectives, and quality control in a way that's responsible, irresponsible cases like with Avengers #200 still pop up and goes to show how seriously comic management should be treated, because the other Avengers seemed like cardboard cutout, childish characters that seemed incapable of fully comprehending the seriousness of Carol's situation.

I also imagine that if the story had been done with Carol attempting to explain her situation to blissfully ignorant teenagers instead of superheroes, I suppose any "ignorant friends" storyline going on would have seemed more believable, but the big difference is that Carol wasn't explaining her situation to teens who are ignorant about the outside world and the sorts of crimes that can happen in it, she was explaining her situation to fairly long-time superheroes that have witnessed criminal activity and criminals with hurtful, malicious intent on a daily basis.

I mean, with Beast being treated with discrimination for being a mutant and Captain America having seen wartime atrocities during World War II (and perhaps being familiar with the Rape of Nanking), I'm sure it's reasonably enough to assume that they'd realize just how bad people can be and how victims need to be shown humanity in the aftermath of inhuman situations, or at least how friends should show concern for their other friends when they're in a bad situation in general. I'm sure Iron Man's alcohol problem he had dealt with the previous year could have been used to help lead into that sort of feeling of empathy/humanity too. With Claremont being exceptionally keen on humanity in his comic writing, I can totally understand why he wrote Avengers Annual #10 the way he did.

Yeah, DC seems to have quite a history of featuring questionable seduction and rape in their comics, arguably featuring such cases more than Marvel's comics. In fact, DC Database used to have a page about sexual assault, but has since been deleted. It was saved on the Wayback Machine though. Might as well list here what was listed there and provide the list of referenced issues. It may or may not be 100% correct, but I thought it was at least worth bringing up: web.archive.org/web/20190711...Sexual_assault

Female victims:

Arella was raped by the demon Trigon, leading to the conception of their daughter Raven.[1]
Anne Pasquale was raped her freshman year in college by an unknown man who was never caught. The event caused Anne to become a cop.[2]
Artemis Her soul ended up in Tartarus after death and there she became a figurative bride or concubine to one of the ruling Princes of Hell, Dalkriig-Hath. Diana had came to her aid, but Artemis accepted her fate. Despite being raped, beaten, and tortured at the hands of her "husband" and possibly other demons, she became accustomed to her "damnation", and adapted quickly.[3]
Batwoman was raped by Nocturna over a period of many months due to vampiric-hypnosis, and during that time also subjected to repeated acts of emotional and psychological abuse. After Nocturna's deception was revealed by Bette, along with her intent to frame her for murder, the vampire attempted to shift all of the blame on to Kate, claiming it was what her subconscious desired all along. It didn't work.[4]
Bleez was repeatedly raped by members of the Sinestro Corps after her home planet was overrun, which inspired her with the rage to become a member of the Red Lantern Corps.[5]
Cellanth was kept as a sex slave by the megalomaniacal Solus.[6]
Cinder DuBois was raped as a child by Lacey.[7]
Cora was raped and impregnated by Dardanus and gave birth to her son Kordax.[8]
Gypsy was raped by Baron Üman von Mauler twice, once when she was fourteen and once when she was nineteen. After the second time, she psychically battles and then kills him.[9]
Demolitia was raped by a group of thugs after she was found under the rubble of a building.[10]
Grace Choi ran away from her foster home and was abducted to become an underage sex slave from the ages of 9 to 12. Her abuser was a man named Tanner who held her prisoner until her powers developed.[11]
Harriet Arkham and her daughter were both brutally raped and murdered by Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins.[12]
Hippolyta was drugged, chained and raped by Heracles after he simulated a truce to steal her girdle.[13]
Judith Benoir was raped by Mathieu Arbogast and died due to injuries.[14]
Lady Flash was raped by Vandal Savage.[15]
Starfire was raped by members of the Citadel.[16]
Mirage was raped and impregnated by Deathwing and gave birth to her daughter Julienne.[17][18]
Pix was beaten and raped by a gang of street thugs.[19]
Sue Dibny was revealed to have been brutally raped by Doctor Light during the Identity Crisis storyline.[20]
The Huntress was kidnapped and raped by a mobster who belongs to a rival family when she was a child.[21]
The original Silk Spectre was raped by the Comedian in Watchmen.[22]
Windfall was drugged and passed around by members of a fraternity at her college, who posted pictures online. The local district attorney was father to one of the boys, and he refused to press charges. The school used her past career as a super-villain to justify expelling her, and she ended up on the Suicide Squad.[23]
Melissa Dugan was sexually assaulted by Lex Luthor out of spite for attempting to end their romantic relationship.[24]

Male victims:

Apollo was raped by The Commander. The rape was followed by a scene of revenge in which it is implied that The Midnighter raped The Commander with a jackhammer.[25]
Aquaman was raped by Siren who was disguised as his wife, Mera.[26]
Batman was drugged and raped to conceive a child with Talia al Ghul which she raised in secrecy.[27] This may be a retcon of an earlier story in which their sexual encounter appeared consensual, and took place during marriage.[28]
Birgit Eisenmann once attempted to rape Batman in the hope of creating a perfect child, although she failed because she couldn't get him to develop an erection.[29]
Cosmic Boy: Saturn Girl tried to use her telepathic powers to bring Cosmic Boy out of a coma. It appeared that she'd succeeded, but instead she was subconsciously animating and controlling his comatose body; during this period they began dating, and Cos woke up at their wedding. This admittedly was not treated as "okay" so much as it was forgiven because Saturn Girl did it subconsciously, not on purpose.[30]
Edward Lawton: The son of Deadshot, is implied to have been sexually assaulted prior to being killed by Wes Anselm.[31]
Green Arrow was raped by Shado while he was delirious with fever, believing her to be his girlfriend Black Canary.[32] This lead to the birth of their son Robert Queen.
Invisible Man was sodomized to death by Mr. Hyde in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics, as revenge for Griffin assault and attempted rape of Mina Murray.[33]
John Constantine was raped by Swamp Thing and his wife Abigail when Swamp Thing possessed John's body without his consent in order to conceive their daughter.[34]
Kyle Rayner was date-raped by Bueno Excellente, who slipped something into his drink. This is only mentioned in passing and he does not remember the incident.[35]
Mr. Majestic was raped repeatedly by Nemesis while he was in a paralytic state.[36]
Nightwing has been raped on multiple occasions. Mirage posed as his girlfriend Starfire to deceive him into having sex with her.[37]
Tarantula pulled his pants down and raped him on top of a building while he was going into shock after the emotional strain of participating in Blockbuster's murder.[38]
Starman was raped by the villainess Mist II and fathered a child.[39]
Swamp Thing was raped by an alien entity known as Technis.[40]
Vril Dox was raped by his L.E.G.I.O.N. teammate Stealth as part of her species' mating habits.[41] This led to the birth of their son.
Guy Gardner (New Earth) was raped by Vuldarian Empress Karine.[42]

1. Teen Titans (Volume 3) #8
2. Vigilante #33
3. Artemis: Requiem (Volume 1)
4. Batwoman (Volume 2) #40
5. Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #2
6. Swamp Thing (Volume 1) #21
7. Cinder and Ashe #2
8. Atlantis Chronicles #3
9. Justice League Task Force #24
10. Action Comics #718
11. Outsiders (Volume 3) #17
12. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
13. Wonder Woman (Volume 2) #1
14. Beware the Creeper (Volume 2) #5
15. The Flash (Volume 2) #50
16. Tales of the New Teen Titans #4
17. Team Titans #8-10
18. New Titans #130
19. Batman: Gotham Knights #34
20. Identity Crisis #2
21. Huntress #1
22. Watchmen #2
23. Suicide Squad (Volume 3) #5
24. Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography #1
25. The Authority #14
26. Aquaman (Volume 7) #44
27. Batman #656
28. Batman: Son of the Demon
29. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #24-26
30. Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 4) #96
31. Deadshot #3
32. Green Arrow (Volume 2) #11
33. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volume 2) #5
34. Hellblazer #10
35. JLA/Hitman #1
36. Wildcats: World's End #23
37. New Titans #88-90, Deathstroke the Terminator #14
38. Nightwing (Volume 2) #93
39. Starman (Volume 2) #12
40. Swamp Thing (Volume 2) #60
41. L.E.G.I.O.N. #7
42. Hawkman (Volume 3) #23

Of particular note are Swamp Thing #21 and Action Comics #718, which were written by David Michelinie, who's also credited with writing Avengers #200.

It's not that the subject is impossible to approach, I'm hoping the 19 issue run of The Huntress will turn out to be well done and worthwhile, it's a question of why this writer thinks he/she could tell this story not really why these characters because, well, why anybody? It's common enough in soaps I think. Ms. Marvel was great in the Avengers until they wrote her out this way and then it's been nothing but a mess until around 2000 where she goes by the name Warbird but has an alchohol problem (and I guess Iron Man is her AA contact?). I didn't care for the whole costume and name changes that gave Henry Pym a run... Binary I just never cared for, so going back to the black outfit with the lightning bolt was welcomed by me. Eventually she got the Ms. M name back and then promoted to Captain and someone else then got the Ms. M name.

My '80s Avengers run ends at #200. I like the cover, too bad it wasn't really a special issue. Maybe a lot of the editors and creators were just too busy with all the conventions that year. I did like what Claremont did in Avengers annual #10 (when I did still have that comic) but I also still like David Michelinie's writing aside from this. His trademark light touch with dialogue was misplayed on this subject matter. Later it's Claremont that seems to dwell on every possible manner of psychic, vampiric, kink D/s type relationship; that one Avengers episode with Emma Peel in a spikey dog collar guest-starring Peter Wynegarde must've really been a major event in his life is all I can figure. I really wish he'd have left The X-Men with #143 instead of John Byrne (or Byrne could leave too and Dave Cockrum and Paul Smith could still have done stints).

What a strange time for double-sized issues... X-Men #137 in September reaching the heights, Thor #300, Hulk #250, Ghost Rider #50... all very memorable issues, and Avengers #200... memorable also but for what it might've been.

I finally looked up What If #20 to see what about its plot was so similar as to require changing Avengers #200, and I'm more puzzled than before. That issue of What If? (story: Tom DeFalco) dealt with the end of the Kree-Skrull war from The Avengers. In the official conclusion, the Kree Supreme Intelligence gave Rick Jones the power to summon heroes to rescue him from Ronan. In the What If? version, Ronan kills Rick, so the Supreme Intelligence takes material from Rick's corpse to create a baby Supreme Intelligence who wins the day.



This seems like something the unscrupulous Supreme Intelligence would do. So does impregnating a superheroine against her will, resulting in the birth of a Star-Child to serve Kree breeding purposes. Carol Danvers would be a likely target due to her Kree ties. Carol certainly wouldn't get a romantic attachment to either the Supreme Intelligence or the baby. Well, they could have decided Carol had maternal attachment to her baby even under the circumstances, but they didn't. Either way, the Supreme Intelligence makes more sense than introducing a son of Immortus into the mix.

It's hard to say for sure without knowing exactly what ending was originally proposed for Avengers #200, but letting What If? #20 pre-empt Avengers #200 seems like a bad call even before the alternate Avengers ending enters the scene.

I'm not really understanding why any What If story would affect a story set in the "real" universe.