While reading this wonderful post, I was reminded of something I read a couple of weeks ago. You might know about how comics treat rape and sexual abuse in a highly frivolous manner. Anything bad that happens to a woman is generally important only in how it affects the male (lead) character, and seldom in how it affects the woman herself. This, and many related things, are amply illustrated in the Women in Refrigerators syndrome.

And Garth Ennis is this Irish chap who writes comics that trounce religion (mostly Christianity) mercilessly. His comics usually assume that the key figures in Christianity exist, but they are always presented in a highly perverted (and sometimes original and interesting) manner. Ennis has written his fair share of women into refrigerators, and his treatment of gender issues is extremely heavy-handed and rather clueless. But I was struck by something he wrote in his run of Hellblazer* (which is a title I started reading because of this guy).

[ * Hellblazer is a comic book about John Constantine, a chain-smoking semi-alcoholic British guy who does magic stuff, and who was, for some reason, morphed into the all-American expressionless Keanu Reeves when they made a movie of it. The character was created by Alan Moore. ]

Garth Ennis, in Hellblazer, postulated that Jesus Christ was born from the angel Gabriel’s rape of Mary, which Gabriel had committed on God’s orders. And now (in the twentieth century), Gabriel is hating God, and is going to fall, and one of the reasons he resents God is for making him do that.

Now consider that this is a god who can do such a thing to one of his own beloved creations. What kind of god might he be?

Ennis, in his story, was more concerned with Gabriel, but this is the part that struck me the most. And which is why, in spite of Ennis’s fetish for guns and for thrusting war stories into almost every title he writes, I will continue to read his books.

And since we are on the topic, I will take this opportunity to point you to this excellent quote.

Current music: Those Crimson Tears – Ed Harcourt