Discussion ValuesDissonance / ComicBooks

This statement in itself reads as somewhat uncomfortable:

• Xavin and Karolina's relationship might also be considered a case of values dissonance. Having a story arc in which a depressed lesbian teenager basically gets guilt-tripped into betrothal to a violent masculine alien who insists that he'll become female for her (and yet parades his masculine form in front of her friends) is the sort of thing that might have flown back when gay rights advocacy could attract attention from Moral Guardians and Orson Scott Card was welcomed to Marvel with open arms (by the same guy who ended up as the editor on Runaways, no less.) But even before Xavin was Put on a Bus, there were indications that the writers had realized that the relationship had Unfortunate Implications, and it took a lot of character-development to make Xavin likeable.

This statement basically infers Xavin is not a progressive character for being a shapeshifter, i.e., shifting back and forth between female and male identities. It goes further and ties into the idea that a genderqueer person is not an adequate partner for a full-fledged lesbian, which has all sorts of gross implications.

The comment seems to promote the idea a genderqueer individual is expected to consider her gay partner's feelings before her own when deciding on the matter of her personal identity, tying into the idea that gay people's feeling are more important/more relevant than anyone else's in the LGBTQ community. Maybe this could be revised?

Removed from the discussion of Ultimate Captain America:

• It doesn't help that Cap is situated in modern day New York which is at the forefront of the ever-changing times, instead of say, a small farming community that would be closer to 1940s etiquette and values. Maybe having all their psychics killed and replaced by aliens included all their psychologists too.

Because (1) it's Conversation On The Main Page, (2) "small farming communities" in the 2010s aren't actually mired in the values of the 1940s and it's a little insulting to state as fact that they are, and (3) it seems to be implying that if they had competent psychologists to advise them, the government would have sent their ultimate supersoldier off to live on a farm instead of using him to actually do things.