Gore Watch! 15/04/07

And what, pray tell, is Gore Watch?

Welcome back, my friends of moral standing. I'm afraid to see the industry backsliding a little this week. Indeed, two of our offenders have been adapted over to the medium of film, attracting a significant young audience eager for life lessons and harmless entertainment. And that's why they're getting featured, even though they may be classed as "T+" or "Parental Advisory" under Marvel's wonderfully obscure age rating system. Take for example:

GHOST RIDER #10

Ol' GR whips out the Zombie Cheat this week. After all, performing acts of grotesque violence on an animated dead person doesn't really count, does it?

Well, colour me jaded, but one shotgunned head looks much like another to me. Ahh...takes me back. Anyway, to add dead-insult to dead-injury, our local sheriff decides to have a little fun. Hey, why kill 'em outright when you can get the wacky bastards crawlin'?

"T+" everybody! Burst heads and dismembered feet, but no "shit" allowed.

WOLVERINE ORIGINS #13

Sooo, I haven't really been reading this lately, but apparently in an incredibly shit twist of fate, Wolverine has a son! A son named...

Who makes the previous gore-applicant X-23 seem like a thoroughly good idea . Daken appears to have a chip on his shoulder, and like all disgruntled youths of 10 years ago he starts listening to nu-metal, gets an hilarious haircut, goes for some tribal tattoos, and slits his old man's throat.

Half the issue is Daken facing off against daddy, effectively torturing him: a claw through the leg, a claw through the arm, and so on. It's like an explosion in a ketchup factory. Okay, "Parental Advisory", sure. Tell that to Mary Joe Collins who just picked up a copy for her son. She won't be so happy when her husband's lifeblood is gushing on the floor in a few years, will she? WILL SHE?? Okay, that might not happen, and good parenting might, just might avert that terrible day. But then again, it might not. And Wolverine Origins #13 would be to blame.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #11

Green Lantern stories, when not written by Geoff Johns, are generally pretty innocuous. Either the violence happens on a huge, explosive scale, or it takes the form of a giant green hand punching somone's lights out. A bit of the ol' "blood from the mouth" is what you tend to get. So I was a bit surprised to be flicking through and come across...

Bad enough that a Green Lantern is getting pin-cushioned by little munchkin men, but what've they done to his eyes? Jesus, that would give me nightmares for weeks!

TEEN TITANS #45

Ahh, Geoff Johns. You just can't help yourself, can you? Just when, lately, you seemed to be toning down a little, along comes the Teen Titans, and a little thing I like to call "Raven Has Just Made Me Re-live Having My Arm Ripped Off In Technicolour Glory". It goes something like this:

EEEYAAAAA indeed! I guess Johns couldn't resist the bait laid down by Brad Meltzer in JLA #6, but held off enough to use the It's All In Your Head Cheat. That doesn't really count, does it?

Well, paint me in tones of jaundice, but one arm violently torn from the shoulder looks much like another to me. Oh yes, yes it does.

IRON MAN #16

Okay, I'm on safe ground here! This issue of Iron Man was labelled "A", for all ages. So, a few pages in, what should I see?

I've got news for you Jack: the exposed brains of a corpse are still exposed brains. But, okay. Okay, I can get with it. It's like a medical thing. Not really out of line of something they might see in the science lab. Okay...

WHOA! That guy just totally blew someone away from point blank range in the back of the head! But wait. Okay, so it's all silhouette, nothing really explicit. It might be a bit strong for a 6 year-old, but at least his brains aren't showing, right?

Hang on, what's this? Two Arab terrorists break into a place holding Chinese criminal mastermind the Mandarin prisoner? But things don't go as smoothly as they like? And the Mandarin uses one of the chains holding him as a lethal weapon?

Note to self: KRRENCH-POP! is the greatest beheading sound effect I have ever seen. Though I'm not sure why his skin was bursting off as well, but I guess that could qualify as artistic license. And in case it's not clear what happened to him:

All Ages, people!

ALL AGES!

But I gotta hand it to whoever had the idea for the sound effects. I also have to hand it to Iron Man's editorial balance. All Ages label aside, they've taken a mature, adult approach. After all, none of these other comics this week actually tackle the wonderful beauty of naked human sexuality.

I was talking about the nipple slip, but actually that panel is all kinds of wrong...

Hey-a! I's-a gonna go now, okay? Capiche? Ciao ciao!