u/Memento_Mori24 — reddlx

Image Source: Wonder Woman (2006) Issue #25

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot more time on social media to talk about comics, and while I do genuinely enjoy discussing something I’ve been passionate about since I was eight, there’s also a lot of information or statements spread around these circles that’s either completely divorced from the necessary context, heavily warped, or outright false. Comics are an inconsistent medium and everyone knows that, but sometimes these sorts of things go beyond retcons or inconsistent writing and are just plain wrong. I see it on here from time to time, but it is especially bad on TikTok, Twitter, and Tumblr. There’s a few that are really, really persistent and kind of drive me insane.

“Wonder Woman is a ruthless warrior who is ready and willing to kill her rogues”. This one drives me up a wall because it’s always said in an attempt to make Diana sound badass but it is totally divorced from her true character. She is first and foremost an Ambassador for peace! One of her most important quotes is "Don’t kill if you can wound, don’t wound if you can subdue, don’t subdue if you can pacify, and don’t raise your hand at all until you’ve first extended it.” The one kill everyone knows about, Maxwell Lord, was a worst case scenario where there was literally no other option, and even then she takes absolutely no pride in it. Writer after writer after writer repeatedly emphasizes just how much peace and pacifism mean to her. Yes, she is a warrior, but her main weapon is the Lasso of Truth for a reason. She is just as against killing as the other heroes are! It doesn’t make her less badass to hate violence.

“Jason Todd was permanently driven insane from the Lazarus Pit and all his actions were committed under its influence.” As for this one, I totally understand why it’s so persistent and popular. It’s brought up as a possibility in the movie adaptation, the negative effects of the Lazarus Pit are very well known, and it is an easy explanation for why he becomes Red Hood. The problem is that I have thoroughly looked through every single mention of the Lazarus Pit in regards to mainline Jason, including author interviews and other sources, and only four mainline writers have ever implied the Lazarus Pit had any effect on him, and two of those four debatably don’t count (Meghan Fitzmartin if you count Future State’s possible timeline as mainline, Joshua Williamson if you think Knightfight’s fake conjured realities count, Tony Daniel, and Judd Winick). Of those four, the two debatably-not-canon ones make it clear the effects don’t last long, and the other (Judd Winick) literally changes his mind on it later to retcon the last guy who implied it (Tony Daniel). Even with Tony Daniel, it’s only one sentence from an IGN interview in 2009, and it’s not even mentioned within the story itself. It’s one of those things that sounds true and plausible enough to be spread around as fact, but it kinda falls apart when you look at Jason today and see him being injected with Lazarus Pit juice to resurrect himself with no ill-effects or hanging out to mentor a bunch of kids in the upcoming Teen Titans book. The dude is fine, he was angry and traumatized and used to be a huge asshole, but he’s fine.

Okay last one because this is turning out way longer than I was expecting but one misconception that’s gotten really, really popular lately is “Krypton was an authoritarian hellhole that deserved to go boom” and I place the blame at the recent Superman film, along with general fandom telephone. Clark’s parents were unambiguously good people, and had no ulterior motives other than wanting their child to live in a world where he can grow happily. The harem plot was made up by the film to add conflict. Another dimension to this is the character General Zod in the comics. A lot of people assume that Zod is meant to be a total representation of Krypton’s government and military as a whole when he was very much a trigger-happy fanatic by their standards. He was a violent extremist who killed and imprisoned people willy-nilly and was sent to the Phantom Zone for a reason. Now, that is not to say that Krypton was a flawless utopia. The Science Council and the government as a whole were ignorant and refused to heed Jor-El's repeated warnings about the danger they were in, and they also did some pretty bad things that can’t be sugarcoated, but you’d think it was Viltrum or Planet Vegeta with the way some people describe it. The narrative that its destruction was a sort of karmic justice or divine retribution just isn’t true.

There’s a billion I didn’t mention, like everything involving the various no-nuance takes on Bruce’s character, to the way people base their comic opinions on the DCAU and other properties, a ton of weird misogynistic takes on women, etc. I’d love to hear some that bother you guys!