Broken Glass Makes Me Laugh

This may seem cruel, mocking and unpleasant to you. And I do not disagree that it has its vile and childish side. But comedy has no friends, mad people are funny, and it's not news that I'm an arsehole sometimes.
-- Warren Ellis

Friday, November 09, 2007

Reed Richards - Mr. Fantastic Jerk!


Okay, at first glance you'd assume that this is one of those panels taken out of context to warp what's really happening in the scene. Surely, there's some perfectly logical reason why Mr. Fantastic, patriarch of comics' premiere superhero family, the Fantastic Four, is slapping his wife. Mr. Fantastic must be under some kind of mind control, or that's his evil twin, or he's trying to brush that red anemone off her cheek and she's got to shut up so it doesn't go in her mouth.

The interesting thing about this panel is that if you put it in its original context, it's just as bad:

In an even broader context, Susan Storm, the Invisible Girl, is being mind controlled, which explains the 80s hooker outfit but not the mullet. Mr. Fantastic has to snap her out of it, and his plan, as seen here, involves being a gigantic jerk. This being comics, his plan works, they defeat the villains, Mr. Fantastic bottles his nerd rage away again, and the Invisible Girl (now "Woman") doesn't file a restraining order. You'd think the smartest man in the world would be able to come up with a better solution for mind control than "I'll slap some sense into her," but I guess not. Oh casual misogyny in comics, where would the industry be without you?
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I'm off to India for a few days, kids. Photos when I get back.

2 Comments:

Blogger Sleestak said...

Susan carried that anger with her for a while, too.

9:54 AM, November 10, 2007  
Blogger Glenn Ingersoll said...

You just couldn't see it.

10:19 PM, January 12, 2008  

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