Reed Richards: Male Chauvinist?

[Mr MajestiK]

Pictures speak louder than words but as these pics and prose will illustrate, Reed Richards truly is a class act.





Note the condescending imperious and dismissive tone.

Pay special attention to the sneering demeanour and stentorian mien.

Reed Richards far from being an emotinless automaton is actually a seething mass of chauvinistic arrogance that makes Doom look like a rank amateur.

[Mr MajestiK]

A true class act. LOL!

[Mr MajestiK]

You get the general idea.

Maybe Reed has been under some insidious form of "mind control" over the years to justify all of his numerous putdowns towards Sue? LOL!

[Mr MajestiK]

Early signs of the arrogance that would help to fuel the MU Civil War, the Negative Zone Dungeon and CLOR.

[Mr MajestiK]

The gift that keeps on giving down through the ages.

[Mr MajestiK]

Eeeeeuw!

Thoughts?

[nickmarino]

yeah he's a total jerk, eclipsed only by silver age Hawkeye.

[stelok]

You left out the issues where Reed referred to Susan as "mother of his child".

[Mr MajestiK]

You left out the issues where Reed referred to Susan as "mother of his child".

Damn!

I knew I missed something out.

[Mr MajestiK]

"Okay, at first glance you'd assume that this is one of those panels taken out of context to warp what's really happening in the scene. Surely, there's some perfectly logical reason why Mr. Fantastic, patriarch of comics' premiere superhero family, the Fantastic Four, is slapping his wife. Mr. Fantastic must be under some kind of mind control, or that's his evil twin, or he's trying to brush that red anemone off her cheek and she's got to shut up so it doesn't go in her mouth.

The interesting thing about this panel is that if you put it in its original context, it's just as bad:



In an even broader context, Susan Storm, the Invisible Girl, is being mind controlled, which explains the 80s hooker outfit but not the mullet. Mr. Fantastic has to snap her out of it, and his plan, as seen here, involves being a gigantic jerk. This being comics, his plan works, they defeat the villains, Mr. Fantastic bottles his nerd rage away again, and the Invisible Girl (now "Woman") doesn't file a restraining order. You'd think the smartest man in the world would be able to come up with a better solution for mind control than "I'll slap some sense into her," but I guess not. Oh casual misogyny in comics, where would the industry be without you?"

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&sou...SaL5xR1ao_bGIw

[Sagafan]

LOL. Classic stuff. I'd argue that Ultimate Reed is an equal opportunity jerk from that one scene though.

[Mr MajestiK]

LOL. Classic stuff. I'd argue that Ultimate Reed is an equal opportunity jerk from that one scene though.

The thread is meant to be all in good fun (even though I'm sure there may be one or two who'll take it too seriously.) but there's also a more serious subtext to it as well.

Hank Pym became the poster boy for domestic violence in the MU for slapping his then wife, Janet Van Dynn but as you can see from many of these posted scans, Reed Richards in my opinion, has been no better as one could construe his contant putdowns towards Sue Richards as being emotional abuse at its most chauvinistic.

How come Richards never gets called out on this?

Why does he get a free pass?

[Sagafan]

The thread is meant to be all in good fun (even though I'm sure there may be one or two who'll take it too seriously.) but there's also a more serious subtext to it as well.

Hank Pym became the poster boy for domestic violence in the MU for slapping his then wife, Janet Van Dynn but as you can see from many of these posted scans, Reed Richards in my opinion, has been no better as one could construe his contant putdowns towards Sue Richards as being emotional abuse at its most chauvinistic.

How come Richards never gets called out on this?

Why does he get a free pass?

Been giving it some thought and honestly I'm not sure why Hank gets so much more hatred on this matter. Perhaps it's peoples lack of familiarity with Hank that makes them focus on that one crazy eye catching instance. As for Reed getting a pass I'm sad to say that people have probably come to expect him to be kind of a jerk so they just let it go as business as usual.

[Ben Charles]

Great work Majestik! This thread is killing me. Just goes to show to all those that claim Reed is mischaracterized that in actuality he's always been a bit of a douche. But Sue obviously likes it since she's into Namor as well.

[Mr MajestiK]

Been giving it some thought and honestly I'm not sure why Hank gets so much more hatred on this matter. Perhaps it's peoples lack of familiarity with Hank that makes them focus on that one crazy eye catching instance. As for Reed getting a pass I'm sad to say that people have probably come to expect him to be kind of a jerk so they just let it go as business as usual.

Agreeing wit you on all counts here.

Even I had no idea how much of a jerk Reed has been over the years until I actually saw the sheer volume of chauvinistic behaviour on display all over the net.

It's funny how some stuff gets to slip under the radar when it's not highlighted.



Damn.