And now, extremely brief thoughts about American comics (which yes, I still read)

[nenena]

DOING IT RIGHT: Batwoman: Elegy. Holy shit, you guys. This book. THIS BOOK. Greg Rucka + J.H. Williams III + hardcover deluxe edition with an introduction from Rachel Maddow + the authors doing ACTUAL RESEARCH to get the srs bzns details right = pure, pure win.

DOING IT KINDA-SORTA WRONG: The new New Mutants series. On the one hand, hooray, all of my childhood dreams have been fulfilled now that Doug Ramsey is officially back among the living. On the other hand, WTF is up with all of these other characters suddenly saying that Doug is autistic? When and how did that particular meme get started? Doug's mutation literally makes him the exact opposite of autistic. The exact. opposite. What the hell, Marvel?

Comments

[philippos42.livejournal.com]

And Doug was never autistic before. Ever. He was normal, just with a very high-end specific super-intelligence power. A savant, but not a "savant syndrome" autist. Maybe the writer doesn't know the diff?

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't even call him a savant. Outside of his mutant linguistic abilities, there was nothing extraordinary about Doug except that he was good with computers. He wasn't notably better with computers than any other number of characters in the Marvel universe in the 80's, though.

I think maybe the writers just assume that anybody with geeky interests is autistic? I mean, that's literally the only explanation that I can think of as to why any writer would ever have any character label Doug as "autistic."

(Aside: I don't think that "normal" is the right word to be using here, especially when you're making a comparison to autism. Maybe "he was neurotypical" would be a more accurate statement about Doug?)

[philippos42.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, I regretted "normal" when I wrote it. Of course he's a mutant. Just mostly like a "normal" baseline human, except for the specific linguistic intelligence trick.

I'm not sure who in comics has that ability other than him & Wonder Woman--& I think she still takes time to learn a language, where for Doug it was practically clairvoyant. (Maybe he's like an Akashic?)

Neither of them are autistic, even if they have "geek" aspects.

[philippos42.livejournal.com]

And "neurotypical" is more precise, yeah. But of course, he's not completely so, he just has (or emulates) a typical/normal personality & emotional profile while having something extra in his ability to decode language (which may just be limited clairvoyance, in which case he may be mostly neurotypical?).

fucking allistics

[(Anonymous)]

im fucking crying "the exact opposite of autistic" have you met an autistic person (yes and you had no fucking clue)
im gonna shit this is so fucking funny none of you know what autism is

Re: fucking allistics

[nenena]

Yes, actually, I teach middle and high school students with autism.

Doug Ramsey's mutation is that he can instantly understand and replicate all forms of communication, verbal and nonverbal. He can communicate with any human being no matter what language they speak, and he can communicate with aliens, robots, and supernatural beings too.

Doug also happens to be interested in computer programming. So Marvel decided to label him as "autistic" because apparently autism means having a hobby that's considered nerdy, right?? Marvel is the one being ignorant here.

Or rather, WAS the one being ignorant. This post is six years old and Marvel has since retracted that stance on Doug.

Good job commenting on a six-year-old post with outdated information, though.