I totally agree, and fans are really the engine of this kind of change. But I also think that fans often settle for the bone that they throw (see: Young Avengers) and don’t keep pushing in other areas.

I can see what you mean, about even small advances meaning a lot, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to demand better; otherwise the companies will pat themselves on the back for throwing a bone and not have any real need to make things better.

Comics are usually so bad with gay characters (if they exist at all) that I think it can make readers like me a bit hesitant to point out more subtle bigotry like Millar thinking one of a gay couple has to be “the girl” (and I mean that in the most 1950s way possible) when it’s actually a lot *better* than what most other mainstream comics are doing.

Also? Erica is totally right about the literal anvils. I await the day that a 16-ton weight (with 16-ton weight written on it) falls on someone’s head.

Now I remember all the reasons I can’t stand Millar comics. It’s like he’s never met a literal anvil he didn’t throw in his story. Everything’s gratuitous.

I was also bothered with every villain being homophobic as their reactions to Apollo & Midnighter. I mean, yes, villains are bad, but bad doesn’t automatically equal homophobia. I had the same issue with Ennis’ run on Midnighter’s solo series.

@Caroline Yep, I remember you saying that, and it’s definitely true. Bryan Batt’s firing also irks me, in that in order to have a “realistic” storyline where a gay character is permanently fired, they’re actually firing a gay actor. (Which is, of course, not relevant to comics, since you don’t HAVE actors, but it’s another example of line-crossing, I think.)

@Cash I think I have to agree with Jackie that Millar just isn’t very deft with his writing, and it makes things more problematic than they’d otherwise be. I agree with you that this kind of point about the bad guys being threatened by strong women and openly gay men was likely the intent of the scenes, but they still strike me as gratuitous, and perhaps even dangerous, in that they’re yet more pieces of entertainment featuring graphic things like rape and female degradation, without much in the way of context or nuance.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I’ve watched all three seasons of the show Mad Men. Mad Men is very good, usually, at showing the very real prejudices of the early 1960s — particularly against women — without replicating them. It’s a tightrope, and they usually manage to walk it. But even Mad Men, I think, has crossed its own lines on occasion — a scene with a character performing in blackface at a party, for instance. I think there’s a line somewhere, a line of taste and responsibility, and Millar doesn’t so much cross it as trample all over it.