I am very serious and I'm not talking about a larger male overpowering a smaller male. I'm only talking about a scenario were a woman has sex with a male. I don't think that an average sized woman can "rape" an average sized man.

Maybe not in a vacuum so to speak, since in a vacuum, an averaged size male is larger and stronger than an average sized female, but if weapons, drugs, alcohol, or even other threats are involved, or if the man is incapacitated physically in some way, or there is a psychological advantage over the man (ie power disparity, mental instability, etc.) or if there are some kind of environmental factors, it can be done. Most rapes don't happen in that kind of vacuum you're thinking of. Also, the ability to physically stop one's rapist is usually not considered as a factor in whether something was rape or not, at least not in modern times.

In that scene that was posted, explicit denial of consent aside, Nightwing is possibly injured (or at least worn down) since he just did battle with Blockbuster (I'm not familiar with these stories or characters other than a passing familiarity with Dick as Batman), he's emotionally not stable, and she pins him down and apparently has a gun on her or near her if she just killed Blockbuster in the preceding pages. Plus she's also some kind of superhero (I'm not familiar with her) so her strength levels could have the same if not greater than Nightwing's given the way cape-n-tights comic books work. Who is to say that an Olympic caliber female athlete isn't as strong or stronger than a male Olympic caliber athlete. One you're going beyond some average male vs. average female baseline, everything changes unless you're of the mindset males always overpower females.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not acting like females raping males via causing the male to get an erection then getting on him to cause the penis to penetrate the vagina happens often, but it can happen, especially if there are multiple other factors in play as there were in the Nightwing scene.

Also, I had no idea Devin Grayson was a female. I'm not sure I've ever seen the name Devin used for a woman. It doesn't change what the scene portrayed, but it makes the thought process (or lack thereof) a bit interesting.

Edit: And after reading an interview with her, she says she was a victim of sexual abuse sometime before she was in her 20s and changed her name to Devin Grayson to distance her from it. It's interesting then from that perspective that she says its non-consensual but not rape even though a lack of consent for what occurred is commonly known as rape or sexual assault, yet to her its... something else.

Did she say whether the "Grayson" name and its connection to Nightwing was intentional or coincidental?

The interview said its coincidental - picked long before she'd ever known about the Batman universe, and had she known she was going to write Batman comics she would have picked a different last name.

Okay, having not really followed any of the new books, the solicits are starting to sound like Age of Apocalypse-like shuffling of characters:

I mean, Flashpoint was basically DC AoA anyway, but geez.

DC once again shits in the face of Cassandra Cain fans and smears it all around.

http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2012/08...ightwing-13-14

Basically it says Shiva is going to be introduced in Nightwing #0, and she is going to be the same age as Dick, both in their early 20s. So in essence that further confirms Cass is gone for good since Shiva can no longer have a child the age of Cass.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that Lady Shiva shows up in the next Batman movie. Almost all the changes to the DC universe can be seen as what makes each character more amenable to Hollywood.

I think DC secretly loves driving Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown fans into massive shitfits

Barbara Gordon 4 Life

Get it Clark!

There's something kinky going on there with him tied up in the lasso of truth (or whatever it is these days) like that.

Reminds me of a bad joke. It may be best to stop reading now.

Superman is patrolling the city one day and spots Wonder Woman sunbathing nude on the roof of a tall building. He's always had a crush on her, but she ignores him. He decides to take advantage of her position and use his super speed to pop in for a split second quickee. He does the deed and flies off. Wonder Woman says, "What was that?". "I don't know," the Invisible Man replies, "but my ass hurts!"

Two things were made official today: Supes & Wonder Woman are getting nasty with one another on a regular basis and Rob Liefeld is leaving DC.

Byrne hinted at a Superman/Wonder Woman romance during his reboot run too. This won't stick anymore than that did. It will always be Lois and Clark in the end. With the Man of Steel film coming next summer, I expect Lois and Clark will be back together by then.

Yay. Liefeld is leaving. I can start buying Hawkman again.

After they nixed the Diana/Steve Trevor romance in the 80s reboot, I was really hoping they would bring Diana & Steve back together in this new universe. I think Wonder Woman as a character suffered without her "Lois" in the picture.

I love your optimism, but this editorial team turned to Liefeld to save this book... what makes you think the next creative team is going to be better? I mean, they have Marat Mychaels on Grifter... I haven't seen his artwork in a while but he was always Liefeld "lite' back in the day. Where's Dan Fraga nowadays, maybe he can do Hawkman.

I would think Bats would be angry at this Super/WW thing, but I guess he's always got the fan fiction in Catwoman to fall back on.

Dan Fraga is a director now at the Ricky Gervais Show and Warner Animation.

Once Clark and Lois got married in the old universe, you knew DC was never going to seriously explore the Superman/Wonder Woman relationship in the regular continuity. But I think it's time, as the relationship is very popular in fan fiction circles and alternative takes on the Superman character from other companies.

It's make some sense romantically pairing up the most powerful male and female on the planet together, at least to explore for a little while. Though as always with the big two now in comics, the sudden relationship feels like a gimmick designed solely to sell comics and generate mainstream press. I know a certain portion of the fans would hate it, but a modern love triangle between Clark-Diana-Lois-Superman might be very interesting to see develop.

I'm interested to see how much any of this impacts what's happening in the Wonder Woman solo title. That's getting rave reviews (I couldn't get into it), but it seems like it's taking place in an entirely differently realm than anything that's happening in Justice League.

Alright, we're a year into things. Here's my assessment:

Batgirl
One of just two titles I knew from Day #1 I wanted to read (the other was All-Star Western, which I've actually not read). Month in, month out, it's by far the most satisfying and a reminder of everything I ever enjoyed about monthly superhero comics.

Batwoman
I've made the decision to stop at issue #11. I enjoy the relationship between Kate and Maggie, and I like the supernatural stuff (uncommon for me), but the sloppy pacing and story structures, and the lack of attention to most characters has just irked me too long. I said I'd stick through the first arc, and then I decided to stick through the second and I'm done. I will take a look at the third arc in its collected form to see if it reads better that way, but that likely won't hit shelves until 2014.

Detective Comics
I loved the opening "Dollmaker" arc. Then the title began to adhere to the law of diminishing returns. I have enjoyed the back-up stories with Catwoman and Two-Face, but the main stories haven't lived up to that first arc. Tony Daniel is leaving the book after issue #0 and the annual, and I'll give the new creative team a chance. By dropping Batwoman, I feel I can afford to continue taking a chance on 'Tec...but I've dropped one book, and I can drop another.

Superman/Wonder Woman
Whatevs.

Here's Brian Hibbs take on the new 52 a year in, from a retailer perspective:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=40504

I disagree with comparing current sales to the last issues of the old DCU, because by that time it was a dead fish and everyone knew it, but DC had been in a sales and creative rut for years (with a few notable exceptions) and I guess sales are still way up overall. I gave up on the few monthly titles I had started with (Legion, Legion Lost, Action) long ago but I did pick up a few tpbs when they came out, but nothing really caught on except for Animal Man. Might try Batgirl, though.

I am still following Batman, Batgirl, Catwoman, Aquaman, Superman, Green Lantern, Justice League.

Aquaman has been my favorite, with Batgirl and Batman a close second.

I dropped Swamp Thing, Teen Titans, Action, Detective, Hawkman, Flash, Firestorm, Batwoman.

After or around 0 I am going to give Firestorm and Hawkman another try.

On Superman/Wonder Woman; I'm honestly surprised they never really explored it before. It just seems natural. If Lois and Steve had never been in the picture, those two would've hooked up ages ago.

For awhile I wasn't even sure if WW was in the main DC continuity anymore, though. I haven't read any Justice League, but she's been doing her own thing in her title. Hell, I don't think she's even met any other superheroes.

They did; in Action Comics #600 in 1988, where it was established that it would never "work out", because Diana was an Immortal Amazonian Princess and Clark was "just a farmboy from Kansas".