Post by Yasotay on Sept 16, 2024 14:57:12 GMT -5
So I was looking through old Iron Man issues recently and came across this - to me - rather bizarre set of events that I'm hoping someone with an expert knowledge of late 70s/early 80s Marvel might be able to shed some light on.
In issue 137 Ling McPherson, the roommate and private eye partner of Tony Stark's then love interest, Bethany Cabe, is serving as a bodyguard for some guy when she's ambushed in his apartment by a group of armed men. Ling pulls out a gun, shoots the gun out of the hand of one of her assailants but then loses her own gun and receives a brutal, fairly graphic beating from the bad guys.
Now I'll preface this by saying, as long as it's not gratuitous, I don't have a problem with violence toward female characters in superhero comics. Fighting villains is, presumably, a dangerous occupation and if male characters can be beat up, injured or killed, I see no reason why female characters shouldn't be subject to the same dangers. Though we can debate how graphically comic violence should be depicted, if the standards are to show graphic violence including blood and bruises for male characters, then I don't have a problem depicting it the same way for female characters. None of which is the point I'm trying to make.
What struck me about this sequence in Iron Man was that, first, Ling was only permitted to be shown shooting the gun out of a thug's hand, rather than shooting him (I won't even address how annoying I find the whole trope of shooting a gun out of someone's hand in all forms of entertainment to be) yet it was perfectly fine to then show the bad guys administering what was, frankly, one of the most graphic beatings I've seen in a Marvel comic up to that point in time. Though it was only a couple of panels, the battering to her face was made obvious.
So what I'm wondering is, who thought it was a good idea to say, "We should only have her shoot the gun out of the guy's hand rather than actually kill anyone but it's fine to show the bad guys then beat her half to death?" In contrast to this, in the very next issue, Stark and his sidekick Rhodey have to shoot their way out of a lair full of thugs and Tony clearly shoots one of the bad guys in the body (from the angle of the image, it actually looks like he may have shot him in the groin, yikes!).
The writer on this was David Michelinie, whom I've generally thought had the best run of any Iron Man writer I've read, and the artist was Bob Layton, whose work I've always liked. But does anyone have some insights on who might be responsible for this whole sequence? I know Marvel artists were given a lot of latitude to do what they want so is this all on Layton? Did Michelinie come to him with the idea of saying "In this part of the story I want you to show Ling being beaten half to death?" Would the editor (Jim Salicrup) or editor-in-chief (Jim Shooter) have come to them and told them to make sure not to show her actually shooting anyone (only to later say it's okay to show Tony Stark doing just that)?
Perhaps I'm making too much of this since I googled it and haven't seen it mentioned anyplace else. It's just the juxtaposition of all these images and the double standard they seem to show left me scratching my head. Anyone with knowledge of what the thinking was here?
(I didn't post images in case anyone is squeamish about seeing violence toward female characters in comics. If people think it's appropriate and moderators don't care, I'll post them).
In issue 137 Ling McPherson, the roommate and private eye partner of Tony Stark's then love interest, Bethany Cabe, is serving as a bodyguard for some guy when she's ambushed in his apartment by a group of armed men. Ling pulls out a gun, shoots the gun out of the hand of one of her assailants but then loses her own gun and receives a brutal, fairly graphic beating from the bad guys.
Now I'll preface this by saying, as long as it's not gratuitous, I don't have a problem with violence toward female characters in superhero comics. Fighting villains is, presumably, a dangerous occupation and if male characters can be beat up, injured or killed, I see no reason why female characters shouldn't be subject to the same dangers. Though we can debate how graphically comic violence should be depicted, if the standards are to show graphic violence including blood and bruises for male characters, then I don't have a problem depicting it the same way for female characters. None of which is the point I'm trying to make.
What struck me about this sequence in Iron Man was that, first, Ling was only permitted to be shown shooting the gun out of a thug's hand, rather than shooting him (I won't even address how annoying I find the whole trope of shooting a gun out of someone's hand in all forms of entertainment to be) yet it was perfectly fine to then show the bad guys administering what was, frankly, one of the most graphic beatings I've seen in a Marvel comic up to that point in time. Though it was only a couple of panels, the battering to her face was made obvious.
So what I'm wondering is, who thought it was a good idea to say, "We should only have her shoot the gun out of the guy's hand rather than actually kill anyone but it's fine to show the bad guys then beat her half to death?" In contrast to this, in the very next issue, Stark and his sidekick Rhodey have to shoot their way out of a lair full of thugs and Tony clearly shoots one of the bad guys in the body (from the angle of the image, it actually looks like he may have shot him in the groin, yikes!).
The writer on this was David Michelinie, whom I've generally thought had the best run of any Iron Man writer I've read, and the artist was Bob Layton, whose work I've always liked. But does anyone have some insights on who might be responsible for this whole sequence? I know Marvel artists were given a lot of latitude to do what they want so is this all on Layton? Did Michelinie come to him with the idea of saying "In this part of the story I want you to show Ling being beaten half to death?" Would the editor (Jim Salicrup) or editor-in-chief (Jim Shooter) have come to them and told them to make sure not to show her actually shooting anyone (only to later say it's okay to show Tony Stark doing just that)?
Perhaps I'm making too much of this since I googled it and haven't seen it mentioned anyplace else. It's just the juxtaposition of all these images and the double standard they seem to show left me scratching my head. Anyone with knowledge of what the thinking was here?
(I didn't post images in case anyone is squeamish about seeing violence toward female characters in comics. If people think it's appropriate and moderators don't care, I'll post them).
