Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The HIV-Positive Superhero Sidekick

I don't think HIV status is too serious for super-hero comics. I think presentation is what matters most. I'd rather it just be presented as a matter-of-fact situation rather than a major issue in itself. I don't see why it can't just be handled as routine for the character but not an issue on which to be focused.

The thing is I don't see how "matter of fact" it would be to someone who actually has HIV. You then have to get into the notion that this is HIV in the DCU where there's super-science and magic etc. Does she have more options than people in the real world? (no Winick pun intended) With Green Arrow's connections, I would think they'd try a few (I haven't read the issue so I don't know what they say about it in the story).

It's the same territory as famine and war. It exists here and it probably exists in the DCU, but it's too problematic to deal with in most comics in the DCU (or else you'd get something like "Authority" where they're allowed to recreate the world and make it different than the one we live in).

i don't know - i'm probably a little more sensitive about the subject than most

and i say: let's see what winnick comes up with

on the 1 hand, he has had a lot of experience with the daily and changing impact of HIV in people's lives (social, personal, sexual, romantic, familial, domestic, work) through the friends he continues to have who have HIV

on the other hand, it's a pretty mainstream DC book and there have been lots of times when a creator is given a green light that later changes to a blinking yellow before suddenly turning red

BUT the thing is: in terms of DC universe logic, it's pretty hard to imagine one of their urban vigilante types having HIV ... they're the ones who tend to get roughed up more in fights and transmission is a major concern for someone living with it ... i also wonder at how the other 'heroes' and 'villains' cope with the news ... it doesn't take *that* much savvy to find pharmacy, ADAP (basically Medicare for people living with HIV), clinic, organization or medical records, bills or documents to link a person with HIV (especially if you factor in DC Universe super-tech) and Oliver Queen is not the most secret hero id ... how long would it take anyone else to put it together? and what does someone like Batman think about making a uniform bleed-proof for the young archer? or the Bat-family's response to Robin being out and about in combat with the diseased & contagious hero?

lots of interesting possibilities; lots of ways to get lost, detoured or stalled

From my perspective of having dated someone who was HIV+, I think you can live you life without your status being the main focus. Sure, it's important, but why make it the main point of the character?

The reality is that famine and disease would have long since been wiped out in a world with super-geniuses - but that's not how it's played in comics, so I don't think HIV status would be any different.

I agree with Ferro-

We already have so much we face day to day. We all live our lives without forcing people to have to accept who we are..
Do you all think comics are forcing us to accept things..I know I like to read comics to escape reality.

Why can't there be a range of issues dealt with in comics? Some being more 'escapist' (or to put it another way, 'fantastic'), some being 'all-ages', some being 'experimental' and still others being 'closer to reality'?

OR another question is:
do you read Green Arrow already?
does this make you want to drop it or pick it up?

Here's my thing: why make this an "issue"? Just let it be part of the character's background.

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Interestingly, Mia has already been "introduced" as Speedy in the latest issue of Teen Titans. As the current team explores "their" HQ and come to realize that they're not really home from the future, one of the things they discover that is out of place is a picture of Mia as Speedy hanging on the wall.

If you found out a friend had HIV would you react the same as if they had said, "I was born in Ohio" and treat it as part of their background? I know I couldn't. The fact is, it is an issue partly because of the nature of the disease and also because Winick is the kind of writer to make it an issue rather than be subtle about it.

How is "costumed vigilante with bow & arrows" subtle? Especially when every battle she runs the risk of transmission if/when she's hit and bleeds from it?

in some states, that's considered attempted murder (and there are people doing prison time for it -- usually an extension of an already-existing prison term -- complaints filed by prison guards about exposure due to fights and subduing inmates)

i think GA is the appropriate superhero comic to bring up HIV/AIDS, especially when talking about a teenage prostitute working the streets of a major city, BUT i just don't know about the whole "and now she's a costumed vigilante!"

OK, maybe not at the start, but I've known enough people who are HIV+ that I can't see how it's the central theme of this person's life.

So, it's accepted and then they move on.

I don't know what Winick has planned, but storytelling wise I imagine that's what's eventually going to happen after Winick has made the statement he wants to make (it would just get boring if they made it an issue all the time). However, considering his use of Terry Berg it might not be for some time - I imagine he has a lot to say about folks living with HIV.

Good for you Ferro - but the fact is HIV isn't like having diabetes (no matter how many times people who have say it is) it's a lot more serious than that - as I'm sure you know!

Having an HIV+ character in a book that features boxing glove arrows is ridiculous. I don't think in the straight forward super hero medium it can be "just something about the character" - it'll become totally what that character is about. Just like Northstar isn't just some random X-Man, he's always refered to as the gay one.

I dont read Green Arrow but if I did I'd stop right now! It's ludicrous!

Dunno if sports are the same in the states, but over here in aus, the AFL and rugby leagues have a 'blood rule'. Any player freely bleeding is sent off.

i work in the medical support industry and have had to deal with police and medical staff (and bouncer friends) coming in for testing over needle stick and bite wounds. HIV is not as easily transfered as Hep C, but seeing how the odds go,it's not fun.

while this sort of story may be different, (and more interesting)if the character had super human powers, 'Speedy' just sounds like a bad idea.

After all it's not that she can't have a normal life, but the heroic lifestyle isn't normal and having a 3 month wait to see if she has passed on the infection every time her blood is in contact with a wounded teammate (people seem to bleed a lot more in the books nowadays) sounds unworkable and irresponsible.

I don't think it's the same case. He may be referred to as "the gay one" by people, but the stories themselves don't treat him as such. His snotty attitude usually comes to fore more than his sexual orientation (though it's not ignored either).

I don't think it takes three months anymore, Kid Psychout. I've heard they can find out a lot sooner these days.

Drake, I agree with you on the Northstar thing. I don't think that fact that he was gay was ever central to the character until he joined Austen's Uncanny X-Men. He attitude definitely overshadowed his sexuality.

Yeah yeah yeah! But he's still best known to people who don't read X-Men as being Marvel's gayest character.

It's the whole shoe-horning a worthy topic into a super hero book that I have a problem with! I really loved Winick's Pedro And Me but couldn't be doing with his ham fisted Green Lantern Hate Crimes issues...

Well, I read GREEN ARROW # 44 last night, the issue that deals with the ramifications of Mia's iscovery in issue # 43.

It's beyond me how anyone could have disliked that issue.

The Connor/Mia scenes at the end were SOOOOOO sweet.

I do know, but my ex was a pretty active guy, into sports, working out, and he was never idle. HIV didn't stop him from having a very active life.

I guess I just don't see it. GA may use boxing glove arrows, but the character is played straight. I always thought this book was more on the darker side if anything.

I think I find this plot so repugnant because Winnick's just including it so he can be a "good liberal" and paint some fairy tale picture about HIV not "ruining" your life.

The fact is if you've got HIV you're going to die sooner, have to take loads of medication and can kill people by f***ing them.

Let's see a more realistic approach! So lets look forward to Mia contracting pneumonia, going to the doctors a bit too late, and dying in the next 6 issues.

Well, it would have to be a concern to anyone that she goes into battle with, both hero and villian.

My aunt is a nurse. She has been accidentally stuck by needles twice. Once more and she is automatically terminated from her job. This is a hard and fast rule. No violating it. What does this mean in practical situations?

Well, it is designed to make nurses more careful. But even the most careful have accidents. So what it really does is set up a situation where if she or another nurse is accidentally stuck for the third time, what is the likelyhood that she/any other nurse will report it? Unless she is a paragon of virture, not likely, because this is the job she trained for. It's all she knows.

Cops. These guys and gals deserve so much respect. Even something so simple as searching a drunk at a routine traffic stop can result in their longterm sickness and death. Being stuck with a needle from a doper who shares can give them hepatitus, or hiv/aids. Imagine the fortitude it take for emergency workers to stick their gloved hands into the blood of someone injured in a car accident, or someone shot. Bones are sharp, and can easily pierce latex gloves.

I quit reading GA when winnick took over. His writing is more than a little ham-handed for me, but the big problem i have is that he writes anti-climatic stories, and they are more issue driven than what i want in GL and GA. But to say that the natural fears that people would have in possibly contracting an incurable disease when working with someone are ridiculas or even bigoted is to ignore reality. Its a harsh and depressing reality, but it is what it is.

That's definitely a valid point. I guess it's always a fine line between wanting to show some level of acceptance and making it acceptable to be careless in behavior.

Some info from a past life of mine:
In the US, most health departments use technology that can identify the presence of HIV antibodies within 30-60 days of infection in the vast majority of people (the presence of certain drugs, a pre-existing medical condition, or other genetic/metabolic factors could skew the time on the test a couple weeks in either direction).

In a private facility, that can be even quicker, depending on the technology (you can get a rough picture based on the amount they charge you -- a rapid test which is supposed to identify the presence of HIV antibodies within 24-48 hours costs roughly $200 per test).

Many US medical centers will use health dept labs to do the testing because they're cheap. Each health jurisdiction chooses their technology depending on several factors: their budget, number of tests conducted per year, their target population, and the various strains of HIV present in the jurisdiction (there are at least two distinct strains and at least seven molecular sub-types therein).

The Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) - consisting of a 30-day regimen of AZT - used in the US for health care professionals with needle-sticks has not been proven to be effective either through cost or community-impact. The one study conducted in San Francisco on the 'general' population (where HIV seroprevalence rates are significantly higher than the rest of the country) was phenomenally expensive and had no discernible positive impact on various community standards, practices or transmission rates. (The one study on PEP that justified the SF experiment was on health care workers who had suffered needle-sticks, and it wasn't clear whether they were ever actually exposed to HIV in those needle-sticks.)

Look at the new Speedy's career another way: New York City alone has about 1/3 of the US AIDS cases. Factor in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami and Newark with NYC, and this accounts for about 75% of the US AIDS cases. I don't know the relevant epidemiology for DCU cities like Metropolis, Gotham, Opal City or Star City, but I don't think Winick does either. I just hope the reality of HIV and its attenuated issues in living with, transmitting, and getting sick or even dying from the disease stay in a 'realistic' sphere for him and DC (when Winick moves on).

Yes, it's realistic for Mia to contract the disease when she's a strung-out street prostitute (blood-blood transmission, like with junkies sharing a needle, being the second most efficient way to transmit the virus). But let's see how it's possible to shoot arrows, bleed and traipse about rooftops when your blood is a deadly weapon and you're on a regimen of medications whose most common side-effect is diarrhea.

Hard-travelling hero indeed.

Anyone here already reading GA? Ollie isn't thrilled about Mia putting on a costume. Maybe he'll use this the fianl arguement to end her hero career. Or, Winnick will have her get hurt in a future storyline, and the issue of contraction comes up. How will Mia feel about adventuring when she risks infecting someone carrying her to the hospital? Perhaps we'll get a day-in-the-life issue, where we see her taking her medication and the burden it can be. Judd might write her as a hero, before succumbing to pnuemonia after being positive for ten years.

These are all realistic possibilities, mentioned right here in this thread. I like GA, and Judd's writing. I'm going to let him write his stories and read them before saying it's a dumb idea. Knowing Winnick's history, he will likely use the book to inform a generally ignorant populace about the realities of beinig HIV+.

I've seen more informative discussion here than anywhere else in pop culture. Whatever he writes, I give him props for getting people to talk frankly and openly about the topic.

AMEN!
couldn't agree more

it's turned into a very cold and scared world when it comes to HIV/AIDS