Frau vergewaltigt Superhelden: Autor der Serie erläutert die Hintergründe

Vor einigen Tagen berichtete Genderama über die Vergewaltigung des Helden der Comicserie "Invincible". Jetzt hat Robert Kirkman, der Autor der Serie, einige Interviewfragen zu dieser Entwicklung beantwortet. So sagt Kirkman über die Gründe für seine Entscheidung, die Handlung der Serie in diese Richtung zu treiben:

It's just another attempt to bring something that's a bad part of real life into a superhero world and analyze the ramifications of something like this happening to someone in superhero comics. It's a great medium to be able to deal with real-world issues against a fantastic backdrop that is completely unreal and see how those differences in the situation change how characters behave. It's really all about exploring Mark's character, and I can say it's a very hard scene to read, and it's meant to be that way. There will be far-reaching ramifications coming from this moment that will extend throughout the life of the book for years and years and years. It's definitely a huge turning point in Mark's life and it's something that's going to temper almost every scene with that guy moving forward. Issue #110 was a monumental issue as far as the run of the book goes.

Den Hinweis, dass die üblichen Idioten im Internet bereits kommentierten, eine Vergewaltigung durch eine Frau sei doch gar nicht möglich, weil man einen Mann nicht zu einer Erektion zwingen könne, kommentiert Kirkman so:

I think that's -- I hate to say it, but it's just an ignorance about what the actual situation is. This is a thing that does happen in real life, and I think for that to be brought up is very unfortunate and very insensitive to the real situation that we're trying to depict here. But, you know, the Internet is the Internet and people are going to say things like that. I honestly don't pay attention.

Ein anderer Einwand, der offenbar im Internet geäußert wurde, lautete, die Darstellung einer Vergewaltigung sei bedenklich, weil sie Menschen "triggern" (emotional aufwühlen) könne, die eine ähnliche Erfahrung durchmachen mussten. Kirkmans Antwort darauf:

Sure, you always run the risk of doing that any time you depict any kind of heavy emotional [event]. People have bad breakups with their girlfriends and then they read that kind of stuff in comics. People lose family members and then they read a comic where someone loses a family member and everyone's always dealing with some kind of traumatic event. We basically live in the spaces between traumatic events, when it gets down to it. As long as you handle things tastefully and really do your research and try to make sure you're aware of certain situations and how people handle them and you do things as tastefully as possible, I think it could possibly help someone that's going through an event to see these kind of things. But I would never shy away from a story because I thought I might offend somebody or something like that. Then, I would never tell any story.

Im Rahmen des Interviews wird auch erwähnt, dass bereits bei anderen Superhelden wie Nightwing und Green Arrow das Motiv "Vergewaltigung durch eine Frau" vorkam, dies aber zuvor nie so drastisch umgesetzt worden war.