“The ultimate [act] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know. I don't really think it matters. It's the same as, like, a decapitation. It's just a horrible act to show that somebody's a bad guy.”

Over the weekend you may have noticed your comic book-loving friends or self-proclaimed geek girls were grinding their teeth or publicly denouncing comic book writer Mark Millar. Having penned Spider-Man and Fantastic Four comics as well as his own likeand, the Scottish writer is a big name in comics, and with more and more of his books like Nemesis and Kick-Ass 2 getting adaptations—not to mention his role as a comic consultant at Fox --he’s also becoming a force in film. Though we're hearing that Kick-Ass 2 is perfectly violent and button-pushing, that's not actually the reason that Millar is under fire this week. That comes down to a single word: rape.Millar is very fond of using rape as a plot device in his work, includingand(more on that later). He’s faced criticism for its inclusion, and when The New Republic asked him about that he responded:Millar has been a controversial figure in comics for years, thanks to books that are wildly violent—even for their genre—and are often considered boundary-pushing for the level of menace within them. For instance, in, a book that basically imagines what would happen if a billionaire opted to become a villain instead of, say, Batman, his baddie kidnaps a cop’s son and daughter, impregnates the latter with the former’s sperm and then “rigs” her womb to blow if an abortion was attempted. Millar claims his outlandish violence is meant satirically, but whether that message gets across is a matter of debate on its own. Still, his comments on rape open a whole other can of worms.First off, as the recent firestorm over rape jokes revealed, rape as a subject matter is far from taboo. Its inclusion in popular culture is so expected that the very suggestion an artist (be they stand-up comic or comic book writer) should be mindful about how they address it brought a relentless shit storm down on feminist blogger Lindy West Secondly, rape and decapitation are not the same. Both are horrible acts of violence, sure. But the latter is not one that causes people to ask, “Well, what was she wearing when she got decapitated?” There’s no victim blaming inherent in decapitation, but more to the point decapitation is not a thing that people fear in their day-to-day life the way that many women fear rape. Comparing the two so blithely just reveals how out of touch Millar is with female comic book readers, who yes, do exist To tackle Millar’s assertion that the difference between rape and decapitation doesn't really matter, I’ll refer to Comics Alliance’s John Hughes, “In a culture in which rape is undeniably endemic, Millar’s steadfast refusal to consider the potential ramifications of his work remains astounding, infuriating, irresponsible, and sad. In the United States, where the majority of Millar’s comics are published and sold, one in six women has experienced an attempted or completed rape, only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police, and only about 5% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail.” While I couldn't find hard statistics about beheadings in the US, I think it's safe to say fewer than one in six people have been decapitated.