Warren Worthington III: Female by Proxy
Posted by Jennifer
Warren Worthington III is a girl.
No, I’m not making a joke about his name, despite the fact that “Angel” is probably one of the most feminine male codenames in comics. I’m not even sarcastically referring to the fact that, when faced with the need to be a hero for the first time, he put on a long blonde wig and a white gown to disguise his identity. In fact, I’m not making a joke at all — and Warren’s femininity has little to do with the best of what women in comics can be and achieve. Instead, I’m talking about the ways that Warren has been used over the years to tell stories that, intentionally or unintentionally, reflect and subvert some of the most problematic of gender clichés.
The most blatant of these stories is that of his infamous capture by Morlock leader Callisto in Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men 169 and 170. Though the word itself is never used, this story is an obvious metaphor for rape. The X-Men find Warren, silent and naked except for a loincloth, shackled, crucifixion-style, to a wall in Callisto’s dungeon. Callisto explains that she’s taken Warren to be her “prince,” because he’s “the most beautiful man in the world.” When Colossus, agape, wonders how Callisto could do this out of love, Storm quickly explains that it’s not love that motivated Callisto — it’s desire. As she explains, “I was twelve when I saw a man gaze so at me — a prize to be won, an object to be possessed. My emotions, my wishes, meant nothing… had I fought, my spirit would have been broken. I would have been used, then slain.” The rape reference is barely disguised, and given that the Comics Code Authority was still stamping its seal of approval on X-Men comics at this time, it’s no surprise that it doesn’t get more blatant than that. It’s amazing that the visuals alone made it through.
But, interestingly, Warren doesn’t get any sort of special treatment simply because he’s a male rape victim, and Callisto is a female rapist. He is still tortured in the classic mode of portrayals of female rape; his pinfeathers are even violently torn out to stop him from being able to escape. He has no power to remedy his situation, despite his strength and masculinity — he remains silent and motionless throughout the storyline, unable to defend himself at all. Later, he’s shackled in an even more obviously sexual way, as Callisto prepares to “marry” him. And when he’s finally saved, it isn’t through any act of his own — it’s through the challenge that Storm, a woman, presents to Callisto, a duel for control of the Morlocks. Warren is only saved from rape by a woman fighting for his honor. And, with his silence and passivity, the story is never Warren’s own–a complaint leveled by many feminists toward female rape stories. This is his rescuer’s story, Storm’s story, the story of her growing confidence in herself and her abilities. Warren is there, textually, only because of his beauty, a beauty that made him the passive target of sexual violence. And after Storm carries his half-naked body in her arms out of the Morlock tunnels, he disappears from the pages of Uncanny X-Men entirely.*
The parallels to a classic female rape story are obvious and fascinating–and not just because nearly the same thing happens a few issues later (with less gratuitous nudity) to Kitty Pryde, a physically female character, when she is nearly forced to marry the Morlock Caliban. In Warren’s next appearance, in J.M. DeMatteis’ Defenders 125, he describes his reaction to the Callisto experience for the first time. After explaining the situation in his own words (and giving all the credit for his salvation to Storm), Warren says, “I was ashamed. I felt as if I’d been… violated. More than that, it was as if Callisto had pushed a button and brought all the psychological sludge up from my sub-conscious — as if every weak link in my mental armor had just… snapped.” The language — “violated,” “ashamed” — is not incidental. Warren’s experience was a rape story, through and through, and, for better or worse, the fact that he was biologically male did nothing to change the female-gendered aspects of the writing.
For years, Warren suffered similarly. In X-Factor, he was metaphorically raped yet again, when Cameron Hodge ordered his wings amputated. He then spent years as Archangel, Apocalypse’s former henchman, brooding and blue with metal wings. More than almost any other X-Man, Warren found himself constantly tied up or violated, and when he didn’t have his metal death wings, he couldn’t seem to stop angsting about his inferiority to more powerful superheroes. He was very rarely active, very rarely the engine for any story. He was never the star. Warren Worthington didn’t make things happen — things happened to him. And even though he was an original X-Man, one of Marvel’s oldest characters, he rarely had a plot that didn’t revolve around his romantic life — his relationships with Candy Southern, Charlotte Jones, Betsy Braddock, and Paige Guthrie, not to mention his unrequited love for Jean Grey.
I’m not arguing that any of these things are good — or that they should happen to any characters, male or female. But these particular problems — being passive rather than active, only having romantic stories, being constantly used and “raped” — are the problems that female characters have suffered in comics for decades. They’re the stories that the passionate women at Girl-Wonder.org rail against. They’re the bullet in Barbara Gordon’s spine, the mental rape of Jean Grey by Mastermind during the Dark Phoenix Saga, the throwing of Gwen Stacy off a bridge to bring Spider-Man despair, the rape and murder of Sue Dibny, and half the other crimes mentioned in the Women in Refrigerators list. Yet, here, they’re used on a male character. And while that could just be called bad or lazy writing, I do believe that, in some instances, the gender tropes are inverted on purpose.
Let’s examine, for instance, Warren’s appearance in issues 11-14 of the Excalibur series written by Chris Claremont that immediately preceded House of M. In these issues, Warren once again encounters Callisto (who has, for some unknown reason, developed tentacle arms) — as well as green-haired villain Viper, who, upon seeing him, immediately makes plans to either kill him, or have sex with him against his will. (Viper, incidentally, is fond of this sort of plan — she also once blackmailed Wolverine into marrying her.) Elsewhere, Warren’s girlfriend, Paige Guthrie, frets — she worries about Warren encountering Callisto because of their history, and though she says Warren claims he’s “over it,” she doesn’t believe him.
In his encounter with Viper, Warren tries to defend himself. When Viper calls him “eye candy,” Warren shoots back, “All people like you ever see is the face and the wings — and they figure all I can do is fly and look pretty.” He goes on to explain just how powerful his wings are — but has any other male superhero ever had to do that? Usually, it’s the women who have to prove they have value beyond their pretty faces. But despite his Y chromosome, Warren has to work just as hard for that recognition.
Eventually, the situation results in Warren, Callisto, and Viper all being buried alive, with Warren alone holding up the rocks that are about to crush them. As he does so, Callisto and Viper begin to have a catfight of epic proportions — over Warren. They fight over him no less passionately than Wolverine and Cyclops have been known to fight over Jean Grey, and when Warren pathetically exclaims, “I’m s’posed to be the one with the testosterone here, ladies,” no one listens. In this situation, Warren has no testosterone. He’s a prize to be fought over, an object to be desired — in short, he finds himself once again in the plight of the average comic book woman.
What does all of this mean? It means that, as far as the worst stereotypes and tropes of comic book gender politics are concerned, Warren Worthington III is a woman. And if writers realized the potential, they could get a lot of mileage out of Warren’s femininity. Rather than rehashing the same old stories over and over — like X-Force is currently doing with its Archangel plot — X-writers could use Warren as Chris Claremont has done, to deliberately turn gender stereotypes on their heads and prove, through a male character, the absurdity of the treatment female characters suffer. The plots don’t have to be silly or obviously parodic — none of those I’ve referenced in this article were. They can simply exist as bits of social commentary threaded into a serious narrative, an exercise that would benefit comics as a whole and the character of Warren Worthington III in particular.
I know I’d read it.
*Oddly, in the version of this story used in the 1990s X-Men cartoon, the object of Callisto’s lust is Scott Summers, who is abducted while he and Jean Grey are leaving a performance of The Phantom of the Opera. Scott, as a main character in the series, was a convenient substitute for the absent Warren, but the Phantom reference is interesting. With Callisto as the Phantom, Scott becomes operatic ingénue Christine Daaé — and the feminization of the role is even more evident.
E-mail: Jennifer@fantasticfangirls.org
Twitter: throughthebrush
Oh, *X-MEN*. That Warren-in-the-sewers story was a huge influence on my life. That says something, I’m sure.
Thank you, Jen, for writing this up — I have to chew on it a bit more, but I think this is a character point deserving of recognition in the Marvel U.
You know I have this good angel saying, “No character should be subjected to such things regardless of gender!” and part of me reacts like I do to those scenes in Inferno when Madelyne dresses Havok up in bondage gear and I think, “Awesome!” and even “It’s about time!” (And dude, if Warren is a girl what is Havok?) This probably makes me a bad person.
On a slightly more serious note, I wanted to repeat the comment I made while I was reading over this — I wonder if the writers/artists/editors discovered, consciously or unconsciously, that they could get away with being more graphic in treating a male character like this than a female. Because on some level we’re coded to think it’s not *really* rape (note that the guys aren’t tied up by sexually threatening men, or, you know, tentacles). I hesitate to make that as a broad generalization, though, because I’m well aware the world of comics provides disturbing bondage crack of *all* varieties and I’m nowhere near informed enough to do a real comparison and contrast.
In conclusion, anyone who is complaining that recent X-Men comics have too much kinky sex in them doesn’t really understand the point of X-Men comics.
@Caroline “In conclusion, anyone who is complaining that recent X-Men comics have too much kinky sex in them doesn’t really understand the point of X-Men comics.”
Yeah. Oh yeah. My mind boggles at the accusation that the writers of today are corrupting the pure X-Men. To quote, “huh-buh-wha?”
Look we all get tied up once in awhile, it’s the nature of what we do. Granted it would be smarter if we the villains just shot us in the head instead of trying us up, explaining their big plan and then leaving to go make a sandwich so we could escape but that’s the way it works.
Okay mutant chicks who live underground enjoy kinky sex, I’ll give you that but I’ll say if I lived in the sewers I’m pretty sure I’d be far less well-rounded than I am now.
I’m not saying that I disagree with you, but how about someone like James Bond? He gets tied up and has a laser shot at him slowly moving up towards where the first thing that it’ll do is emasculate him. Is there subtext to that, or is sometimes a laser just a laser.
One thing you’ll find with the X-Men, and I don’t know if this has to do with a bunch of guys growing up together in a weird boarding school with only one girl (sort of like prison but with better food) or what but you’ll find a lot of strong women. Granted Grey went crazy, but eventually so did Wanda so I think the family environment of the X-Men/Xavier Institute is where female characters get to have a stronger role.
@Caroline This will sound meaner than I mean it to but Havok isn’t a girl, he’s a sissy. He lets pretty much everyone and certainly the women in his life push him around. In some comic somewhere Logan even points this out to him.
But that TPTB can get away with more when it is a man versus a woman was pretty much my first thought, too. And there is some precedent because there’s a semi-famous ‘cover that didn’t go to print because it is clearly depicting Wanda Bondage’ when the truth is it is only clearly depicting Wanda Bondage because Wanda is a scantily clad woman (and by that I mean — she is in her uniform). So.
This was fascinating. Like. Really, really interesting. I’m trying to think of…like, how is this affected by the Male Prettiness Scale? It’s obviously hard to judge attractiveness, let alone the more specific “prettiness,” in comics, because the skill and style of the artist and the personal preferences of the reader all come into play, so I usually find it more useful to see what characters are described as being pretty in the text. And Dick Grayson, one of the prettiest men in the DCU according to the text, was also raped. I wonder if the other few male characters who have been raped also fit into that “pretty” category.
They’re the bullet in Barbara Gordon’s spine, the mental rape of Jean Grey by Mastermind during the Dark Phoenix Saga, the throwing of Gwen Stacy off a bridge to bring Spider-Man despair, the rape and murder of Sue Dibny, and half the other crimes mentioned in the Women in Refrigerators list.
This made me tear up. LOL NERD.
Callisto (who has, for some unknown reason, developed tentacle arms)
I believe the reason is COMICS.
@Jess — Warren is definitely among the ‘most consistently described as pretty’ Marvel characters. But then, I think Cyclops is too, and this kind of stuff doesn’t happen to *him*. (only his little brother) Maybe Warren is the ‘token man-pretty X-man’ and thus bears the brunt of it. Ironically, Wolverine tends to be described as ugly or scary-looking, but gets drawn pretty a lot of the time, anyway.
@Anika — Yeah, Havok’s just a wuss. *sighs* Oh, Alex.
This is so right and obvious I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Then again, maybe that’s one of the points– we’re not reading it as a rape because a) it’s metaphorical and b) it’s being done to a guy.
@Caroline: I believe there was an Authority issue where the original script called for Apollo to be beaten and quite obviously raped; Midnighter’s rescue was supposed to interrupt the rape. However the draft panels were vetoed by TPTB and they “tamed” it down to a severe beating. This may be the except to the rule though.
I really liked this essay, especially in that it points out the ridiculousness of the entire trope (yes, Claremont, I’m looking at you and your bondage fetish)! Still, Claremont was one of the few to really think about the thoughts and feelings of the passive victim – Storm, in particular, gets imprisoned a lot and fights back hard, though there is usually at least a panel or two of her captors standing around admiring her first – and then continue to make that victim a character of importance in the comic, rather than a throw-away. Maybe that’s part of why he could get away with such blatant rape references – he strongly avoided dehumanising the victim/s in the text?
This is fascinating post! I keep trying to think of something else to say about it and failing.
“X-writers could use Warren as Chris Claremont has done, to deliberately turn gender stereotypes on their heads and prove, through a male character, the absurdity of the treatment female characters suffer.”
I would read that too.
Fantastically thorough analysis there. I agree that Warren’s femininity could be utilized in a much better manner than backwards stereotypical gender plots though. Yes, I’d read that too.
Warren is one of the few male characters at Marvel who has been consistently defined by his looks, from his very first appearance, Scott, on the other hand, started out as skinny, gangly, and awkward, then at some point he grew into “handsome” or “attractive”, but never “pretty”. Warren has always been described as looking like an angel.
The others I can think of would be Longshot and Gambit. Gambit has never been portrayed as being as pretty as Warren or Longshot, but interestingly enough, in the Mutant X alternate universe, he was the one who was crucified against the sewer walls instead of Warren.
Great analysis, Jennifer.
I’ve always found Warren the least interesting of the original X-Men, while Jean (who ends up being by far the most powerful) has been consistently fascinating. (Oh, and the whole beautiful-creature business is definitely played up in the Renaissance version of Warren in Neil Gaiman’s 1602, where he’s apparently attracted to young men as well.)
It’s about time I wrote some replies! I’ve been busy.
@Sigrid, @handyhunter, @Kiri, @everyone else: Thank you for reading! I very much appreciate your comments.
@Caroline, @Anika: I think the fact that we’re conditioned to think that males can’t really be raped does allow some license — after all, the term “rape” is almost never used in stories like this about men, and with women the word tends to be there. But I’m not sure that the stories about women are any less graphic or explicit than the stories about men; in this case, with the comparison to Kitty, I think the lack of explicitness in her story is because she’s 13, not because she’s a woman. But I’m sure there are plenty of female rape scenes completely comparable to this one, though I don’t have scans at the moment to back me up.
@Jess, @Caroline, @DkPhoenix: That’s a really interesting observation, about male prettiness, and I think you’re definitely onto something. As Caroline says, Wolverine is specifically described as not pretty — and this kind of thing doesn’t really happen to him. (Well, except for when he’s crying into his beer about how Nick Fury mentally rapes him, but that’s another story entirely. Physically, he doesn’t tend to be taken advantage of, and certainly not this passively.) And that’s a really interesting note about Gambit — I didn’t know that about the Mutant X universe. I definitely think he’s another one who’s been put in the “pretty” category — just look at the Wolverine movie casting.
@xenokattz: Thank you! I hadn’t heard about that Authority issue, but that’s really interesting. And I think you’re right, that a lot of readers won’t read it as rape automatically — it wasn’t until I took a second look that it really stood out to me. But I think the subtlety works well, and if it were used more consistently, the broader point could be made.
@lilacsigil I definitely think Claremont gave a lot of thought to what victimization does to a person, and made sure to deal with it with most characters — it’s one of his strengths as a writer. That’s why this story, where Warren is given no thoughts or point of view or words or actions at all, is so fascinating to me — because it’s not the norm for the writer. I think my point stands whatever the authorial intent, but I find it hard to believe Claremont didn’t know what he was commenting on with this scenario.
@Cash Thank you! I love the version of Warren in 1602, and I think his sexuality there makes a lot of sense when this aspect of his 616 characterization is taken into account. (Not that gay men are necessarily feminine, but there’s a correlation in terms of society’s treatment and portrayal of each.) Also, Warren is actually only my fourth-favorite of the original X-Men, largely because Scott, Jean, and Hank are my three favorite X-Men of all time. It took me a long time to notice him, and I think a lot of readers similarly overlook him. That’s why I’d love to see more meaty, interesting stories for him.
[...] Their entries are personal, critical, celebratory and above all well-written. One post, on the X-Men’s Angel being a woman (but not in the way fans usually mean when they say that), is a great example of their insight. [...]
“Havok is a sissy”…”wuss”
Those terms do specifically denigrate a man for acting like a “woman”.