Previous Post The full story can be gleaned from the links: Seeking Avalon: Marvel - ONLY STRANGER RAPE IS REAL RAPE Amazing Spider-Man And The Rape That Wasn’t (UPDATE) | Bleeding Cool Comic News & Rumors Spider-Man's Villains: Not Rapists, Says Creator - Spider-man - io9 This just in: Rape not a simple concept >> Sheena Goodyear, girl reporter dead time pacifies: Spider-Man Says Rape is OK? Stars And Garters - Is Chameleon Marvel's Doctor Light? Van Lente on Chameleon rape - eXaminer.com Latest Spider-Man Issues Creates Controversy : Slice of SciFi Is There Too Much Rape in Superhero Comics? | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper Suffice it to say that Marvel's doing some damage control at the moment.

Remarkably this is the first I've heard of this.

First off, the definition of rape: various dictionaries offer definitions which variously include or do not mention deception as condition which qualifies the act of sex as rape.

I'd cautiously go with the "it is" side of the argument based on very ancient narratives which depict Zeus or Uther Pendragon sleeping with women disguised as their husbands and which clearly depict the act as rape (although the Greeks tend to the "but then she enjoyed it so that's okay" qualifier).

That said I'm uncomfortable about how casually rape is used as a way of describing repugnant acts (rape of the environment, rape of the senses, rape of his rights etc), even sexual ones, because the danger is that actual, genuine, unquestioned rape then gets blurred with lots of other definitions. There's a spectrum of rough consentual sex, elective rape fantasy play, mutually drunken regret-it-tomorrow intercourse, paid for sex with economically helpless sex workers etc., some of which raises moral questions, but all of which blur the intense ahborrence that rape should elicit.

Then I'd point out that there are a couple of very major examples of comics rape-by-deception that haven't been cited so far in the debate I've seen.

In the first Squadron Supreme limited series by Gruenwald, the Supremor's Hyperion is replaced by the Squadron Sinister version for a couple of issues. While posing as his heroic counterpart he sleeps with Power Princess, who yields to him after a long period of unspoken mutual lust between her and hero-Hyperion. In fairness to Gruenwald he does deal with the issues this raises and uses it to fuel the eventual denouement of the two Hyperions problem.

In the same series Golden Archer uses a mind control device to convince his ex-girlfriend Lady Lark to come back to him and they renew their sexual relationships as a consequence. This is likewise depicted as rape.

But the earliest implication of this happening is actually in Fantastic Four, circa #177-179 (Thomas/Perez - from memory). The Counter-Earth Reed Richards was likewise transformed by cosmic rays but on his world Sue Storm died of radiation and he was changed into the strong, deformed Brute. In a multi-part storylne the Brute comes to Earth and teams with the Frightful Four. "Our" Reed is cast into the Negative Zone to die (again) and the Brute is restored to human form and takes his place in the FF. There he finds himself alongside "our" Sue, who is alive, beautiful, and believes she is married to him.

There's a scene where Sue leaves her bedroom in a semi-transparent Perez-negligee and walks off looking troubled, and a caption saying something to the effect of "She can't get rid of the feeling that the man she's just left is not her husband." This is never mentioned again when Reed gets back to save the day (helped by the Brute who is suddenly contrite and sacrifices himself).

But anyway, sex with shapechanged imposters is almost compulsory at Marvel these days. The challenge is to find a heroine who hasn't slept with a skrull recently.