The Long Road

12/03/2004 Archived Entry: "Sex Kittens"

Some of you may remember The Thundercats. A cartoon back in the 80s about anthropomorphic felines and their struggles against Mumm-ra, a living mummy, and his hoard of Mutants. It was a fun and innocent cartoon, but 4th fiddle to Transformers, G.I. Joe, and He-Man.

About three years ago, there was a nostalgia boom in comics spearheaded by Dreamwave's excellent Transformer comics. Thundercats was picked up and many comics were published by DC. Most of the comics were pretty straightforward, telling some origin stories or more Thundercat adventures. And then they published Thundercats: The Return.

Thundercats: The Return began with Lion-O, the Thundercat leader, going into the Book of Omens to train for a few years; the book is a time warp though, years for Lion-O would only translate into weeks, or days for the outside world. Things go horribly wrong as Mumm-Ra casts a spell on the Book of Omens and causes time to elapse for Lion-O at the same speed as it does for the outside world. Leaderless for many years, the Thundercats eventually succumb to Mumm-Ra who takes over the world and enslaves them all.

So after this long-winded set-up, we come to what I actually want to talk about. Lion-O comes back to find his people suffering under Mumm-Ra. Willykit, a Thunder Kitten when we last saw her, is now all grown-up, sexed-up and serves as Mumm-Ra's CONCUBINE! Cheetara, the only female ThunderCat, is living bound as a prisoner of The Mutants (anthropomorphic Vulture, Monkey, Jackal, and generic Amphibian) and it's heavily implied that she is raped by the Mutants on a daily basis.

Now, I'm no prude, but it seems in extremely bad taste to take these characters that were innocent fond childhood memories and raping them. Any character getting raped is disturbing, but it's way over the line when it involves the Thundercats. It's so outrageous to put these characters in a story that they weren't meant for, and it most certainly does not help that the artist still tries to keep the girls looking sexy in their predicament. The contrast is just ridiculously jarring and downright innapropriate.

I'm certain that rape is a hugely traumatic event that someone would never really get over, to have these two go through it for a period of many years with a living mummy and a gang of mutants just does irreperable damage to the characters. I'm all for darker stories and forward movement of plot and characters but this was a terrible miscalculation on the part of everyone involved, they could have easily told more mature Thundercat stories, but raping the characters was not the way to go. Something like Thundercats: The Return should remain purely in the realm of erotic fan fiction.

Replies: 5 comments

The people afflicted by this nostalgia you speak of are your age or older. Most of them are male. What do men your age like? Sex. Sex sells.

(On a sidenote, rape & sex are entirely different things, but I'm not sure some people realize that.)

I agree, though, they certainly wrecked the characters and just threw the whole thing to the ground; y'know, a comic like that nowadays, if it wasn't riding off of the Thundercats' nostalgia, probably wouldn't fly.

..and I can't stand how they frigging picture women in comics, but that's another issue entirely. *sigh*

Posted by Arshwana @ 12/03/2004 10:10 PM EST

heh, no one's going to dispute that sex sells. I'd like to know what you mean by this here statement:

"a comic like that nowadays, if it wasn't riding off of the Thundercats' nostalgia, probably wouldn't fly."

Posted by Rayne @ 12/04/2004 02:25 AM EST

Funny I always thought the original cartoon was based on a sex joke. I mean how much more phallic could the sword of omens get?

Stays small for most of an episode, safely sheathed. When it's time for battle it tripples in length when weilded and then at the climax of the conflict fires a bolt of energy then, baddies vanquished, shrinks back to it's normal diminutive size.

I can't be the only person who has noticed this. It's sorta like the entire communist undertone of the smurfs.

All that being said, the scans you posted reveal a shocking lack of taste and are exactly the type of thing that makes comic book people seem so creepy. And operators wonder why women don't buy more books.

Posted by matt @ 12/04/2004 01:34 PM EST

I am one of those kids who saw the Thundercats many years ago, I have gown up and to be honest, I am happy these characters have grown up to, I know I will sound like the stupid fanboy who buys a comic because of the huge breasted chick on the cover, but belive me I´m not. I know the sex in this series is just an excuse to sell, but I try to see it like it gives more space to do diferent kind of stories and situations, and how would the characters responds to them, The Return is my favorite story so far, and it´s not for the sex, but for the possibilities the autors have given to future stories.
PD: I´m from Costa Rica, so forgive my bad inglish please!

Posted by Juan Carlos @ 12/29/2004 09:00 PM EST

Your english is impressive...no need to apologize.

Posted by dAN @ 12/30/2004 02:32 AM EST