Just curious, with the recent acquisition of Marvel by Disney I was wondering if there are any parts of the Marvel or DC comics empire that would probably be too hardcore or adult themed for Disney or similar tastes.
Well, I recall a nude Wonder Woman in an issue of Infinity Incorporated in 1984. I’m guessing it’s been out-hardcored by several light years by now.
DC: Sue Dibny was raped by Doctor Light at one point.
Disney, through its Miramax production and distribution house, has been responsible for every Quentin Tarantino film ever made. There’s not going to be anything in a Marvel or DC book that’s “too hardcore” for Disney.
Yeah, Disney is not likely to change anything about Marvel except perhaps advertising. But I’ll contribute anyway.
DC and Marvel have both had rape and widespread murder in them, we’d best limit this to things happening on panel.
For DC:
Young girl tortured sexily on panel. (Robin 4)
Young man eaten by alligator on panel (Sobek I think)
Man’s head punched off on panel (Black Adam)
Woman’s head punched off on panel (Pantha, by Superboy Prime … actually, just add “everything Superboy Prime has ever done” to the list)
Marvel has Ultimatum, which is pretty much nothing but heroes being murdered. I haven’t read it and can’t give specifics, though.
Well, Marvel already has the MAX imprint, which they use to feature comics (oft with existing Marvel characters—I think at least some of them might even be “in-continuity”) with explicit content. The U.S. War Machine series, for example, had plenty of swearing, nudity, and killing, though probably not any worse than a strong PG-13 by film standards (or a light R, depending on how pissy the MPAA is being that year).
DC’s Vertigo imprint has some serious sex and violence. “24 Hours” from Sandman #6 is one example.
Not to mention all the nudity, swearing, and graphic violence in Preacher (DC’s Vertigo)
Supreme Power, which was under Marvel’s MAX imprint, had full-frontal female and male nudity.
Other books from both companies have contained depictions or discussions of rape, child abuse, molestation, torture, incest, murder, genocide, slavery, racism, animal and human experimentation, abortion, out of wedlock pregnancies and births, interracial relationships, witchcraft, atheism, religious extremism, and basically any other topic you can possibly imagine.
There there was the superhero duo Sodom and Gomorrah…
The Boys was originally published by Wildstorm, a DC imprint. It was pretty raunchy then, and under its new publisher, has gotten moreso.
Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Top Ten and (I think) Lost Girls were all done under the DC/Wildstorm imprint. They had their moments.
Garth Ennis wrote some pretty over-the-top Punisher and Nick Fury stories for Marvel. His War Is Hell was pretty violent, but could have been sexier.
Naah, Lost Girls is by Top Shelf. I really don’t see it done even by Wildstorm. It’s a lot more in theEros Comix mould.
DC’s Catwoman had a woman being force-fed her husband’s eyes. That’s pretty hard-core violence.
Marvel Comics of course has the infamous “rape of Ms. Marvel” storyline from “Mighty Avengers” #200.
The gist of it was - Ms. Marvel (a character originally written, ironically enough, as a 70s-era feminist liberated woman) abruptly became pregnant, sans having sex, and underwent the full nine-month gestation in just a few days. The son she bore rapidly aged from infancy to full grown man in just a few hours, albiet wreaking havoc on the local timestream (dinosaurs, ‘injuns’ and the like began showing up in & around Avengers’ Mansion.)
The son, who called himself Marcus, finally explains that he’s the son of Immortus. Marcus wanted to escape Limbo, but being a product of the timeless dimension couldn’t just simply traipse over to Earth. So, he abducted Ms. Marvel to limbo, wooed her and “admittedly with a little boost from a neural inducer” (that’s actual dialogue) got her to make love to him. Using super-advanced technology, he not only impregnated Ms. Marvel, he seeded her egg with his own essence, so that HE was her child. He’d hoped that if Ms. Marvel ‘bore’ him on Earth, he could stay there. That wacky plot didn’t work (LUUUUCEEEEE!) and he was forced to return to limbo, lest his presence continue to wreak havoc to Earth’s timeline.
Amazingly, Ms. Marvel went with him to limbo! Not only was she not filled with murderous rage at the way she’d been manipulated, and used as a mechanism for his selfish plots, she actually said that ‘In a way, you ARE my son…and that makes me feel closer to you than I have to anyone else.’ So, she left with him - and the story ends with Ms. Marvel saying he “hopes Ms. Marvel lives happily ever after.”
To sum up, the storyline features a man kidnapping a heroine and using mind-controlling technology to make her submit to him sexually, the most twisted Oedipal complex EVER (Let me make love to you, so that you can give birth to me, and then I can return to being an adult and be your lover on your world), a SORAS-ed baby, and finally a woman who fell in love and sailed off into the sunset with her rapist!! (And Marvel’s premiere empowered feminist heroine no less.)
Until Kyle Rayner’s dead girlfriend got shoved into a refrigerator, this story was the gold standard for mysogynist storytelling in comic books.
And this issue was originally published under the DC imprint, so it’s not just Vertigo. Vertigo didn’t come for another 3 years or so later.
I was a little surprised in a recentish issue of JLA (I think) where Red Tornado comments on watching Hawkgirl and Red Arrow (or whatever he’s called) having sex.
That’s what I came in to mention, as it led to the creation of the site (and term) Women in Refrigerators. It’s a really interesting look at not only superhero comic violence but at the different kinds of violence (in this case, split along gender lines). There’s some really interesting stuff about violence and the industry from comic book creators who have responded to the site’s content (here).
She didn’t, though. Came back just in time to get attacked by Rogue (in her first appearance), losing her powers and a lot of her memories. With the help of Professor X, she recovered enough to rip into the Avengers, telling them in essense: “You fucking morons, couldn’t you tell I was being mind-controlled!”
I’ve read a number of MAX titles; the ones I remember best are US War Machine, Fury, and Welcome Back, Frank.
All are quite grisly, though not to a truly extreme level. The classic cut-his-intestines-out-and-choke-him-with-them is about as heavy as it gets. I’d say a solid R rating in the movies.
“Sexual content” is minimal at the very most. About the only things I remember is one not-quite-full frontal shot (her crotch is blocked) and someone finding a couple of used condoms in a car. And a bunch of breasts, the all-purpose lame-o copout “sex” material when you can’t have any acutal sex. Hmm, one postcoital scene, which of course doesn’t count. That’s America for you.
If you’re seriously looking for the heavy stuff, forget the mainstream lines. (DC was the company that refused to grant a license to a Mortal Kombat game wtih any M-rated material…think about that for a while.) It’s like hunting for decent “adult” games on console; you’re just plain barking up the wrong tree. Fantagraphics Books is a good place to look if you want to cut your teeth on fairly graphic stories without getting too grossed out.
Yes, I did know that, but didn’t bother to mention it because I felt that a comic book character it fell under the same general category of getting killed - they ALWAYS come back! 
And of course, as you mentioned, she had her powers stolen, was left catatonic and dumped off the Golden Gate bridge, revived in time to have a painful reunion with the Avengers, hooked up with the X-Men just in time to get kidnapped by the Brood and subjected to DNA altering experiments that turned her into a mutate, returned to Earth and got symbolically slapped in the face when the X-Men inducted Rogue - her attacker & would-be murderer - into the team, then inexplicably lost the powers that the Brood gave her, became an alcoholic, was kicked off the Avengers for disorderly conduct…Jeez, a girl just can’t catch a break!
Anyway, I came back to mention the HUGE!! controversy that erupted upon the first issue of “the New Teen Titans” - the second, deluxe format edition series, that is, the one that direct sales only. In it, an emergency alarm sounds in the middle of the night, awakening the team members. One panel showed Nightwing & Starfire waking up, in the same bed and both very obviously naked! (Despite the series’ name though, the Titans were no longer ‘Teens.’) Other series had broadly implied that some non-married characters had had ‘slept’ together. This was the first that showed two characters in flagrante. And as mundane as it seems now, it was SCANDALOUS!! back when it first came out. Anybody else remember this?
Does “Welcome back, Frank” have the line where the female FBI agent is lying wounded on the floor while Frank kicks some ass and says “I am so fucking wet right now.”