1. Chris Claremont Tears Apart The Avengers Writers
Marvel ComicsRather improbably, Carol Danvers has become one of the most popular characters in modern Marvel comic books. Formerly a second stringer best known for not sticking with a code name and giving X-Man Rogue her powers, she has since taken up the Captain Marvel mantle and inspired a whole new generation of fans (nicknamed the Carol Corps) in a brilliant series written by the immensely talented Kelly Sue Deconnick. Which is a rather happy ending for a character whose publication history is less than rosy. Prior to the Kelly Sue refit, Carol Danvers' most well-known story was also one of the worst,
most offensive pieces of garbage that Marvel ever saw fit to publish. In an eighties Avengers story that, really, it's unbelievable anybody signed off on - let alone multiple people - and was instantly controversial. Carol becomes mysteriously pregnant, with no memory of who knocked her up. Quite unexpectedly she gives birth the very next issue, only to find her baby has just as quickly grown to adulthood. Turns out that this kid, Marcus, is also his own father; he had brainwashed Carol into loving him, impregnated her, then wiped her mind. Basically her super-roofied her. Horrific, right? That's exactly what our reaction would be. But we're not the Avengers, who greeted the news that Carol was pregnant with glee (despite her confusion as to the identity of the father), and are just as happy to see her brainwashed again and off to live in space with her son/boyfriend. Aw, it's nice that she's found someone, isn't it? They know the whole story, by the way, and still let their team mate and friend go off with a guy who has used evil technology to force her to love him. Carol A. Strickland wrote an article in fanzine LOC later that year expressing her dismay about the article, and it's breezy treatment of serious issues like consent,
which is still worth reading. One person who definitely was reading, and was similarly incensed by the rape of Ms Marvel, was writer Chris Claremont. In a follow up story the next year, he used Carol's return from Marcus' clutches as an opportunity to yell at the idiots who let it happen in the first place. In the pages of Avengers Annual #10, she's having at it with her team mates, blaming them for everything that happened and asking why they hadn't helped her? Really, though, the words were Claremont's, aimed at the editors and creative teams who presided over the original story. Why did they think this was a good idea? What were they thinking? It's a bravura piece of writing, and even more so when you know it's not just Carol Danvers that's speaking her mind, but Chris Claremont too.