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From: mwm@dartvax.UUCP (M. W. Modrall)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: moriarity's retort on miko
Message-ID: <2455@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Oct-84 01:12:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.2455
Posted: Sat Oct  6 01:12:58 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Oct-84 09:12:49 EDT
Organization: Dartmouth College
Lines: 49

jeff -
  i live in california officially, when i'm not at school... is that far enough
west for you????  as to the miko debate, i've already had this out with betsy
perry here.... i liked the way that miko handled herself in wolvie's mini too, 
but the fact remains that heroes can't get married and stay heroes.... they
always get picked on... the flash/iris, the atom/jean, green lantern/carol,
Spiderman/Gwen Stacy, Cap/Sharon....
 you may have heard of a role-playing game called champions.... cross between
d&d and comics.... in that game, relatives, spouses, and girlfriends are taken
as point liabilities, as they are in main stream comics.... wives are always
getting kidnapped, beat up and tossed around while their heroes are combing
the world never resting until the culprit is brought to justice (makes me want
to choke- it's such a cliche)  and then there's always the "If you loved me,
you wouldn't go on patrol","I've got to honey, it's my job." lines...

my overall point being that heroes have to be so good through so many hard-
ships, that normals don't fit into the scheme very well.  i for one have always
thought that supers wives and girlfriends have been too long exploited for
cheap plots.  even if they are good characters in themselves, they restrict
a heroes actions, make them responsible to someone else.  a hero can't go out
and give heroic sacrifice when he owes it to the spouse to stay alive, unless
the spouse is a hero too... the spouses (spice?), on the otherhand, make
great sacrificial lambs..... for one shining moment, rising to a heroic level,
making a heroic sacrifice for a worthy cause, and furthuring the cause of 
goodness AND freeing the hero, and giving a renewed sence of purpose....
an admittedly callous good use of dead weight.

on a tangent, however, i enjoyed frank miller's handling of heather in dd.
as stick says, matt's head is a snake-pit... the relationship with heather
brought out the worst in matt, exposing his all-too-human weaknesses, the
fall of a hero through hubris, as it were.  the termination of the re-
lationship by natasha allowed matt to regain an even keel.... though i 
always thought that natasha got away with it too easily.

jeff, i think you should keep in mind that we are dealing with fictional
characters, and as such, they serve a literary purpose higher than their
existence (yes, i will argue that comics are a form of literature).  to
me, miko would serve a better literary purpose as a sacrifice.  those who
disagree with this position, still shouldn't cast moral aspersions on others. 

i remain, with my honor intact,
 
Mark Modrall
mwm
Dartmouth College

"Shoot him!!  Shoot him in his shiny bald head!!"
  -fc