re: #10 SidewaysQuark

Great, so her family are fundamentalist weirdos. Hopefully the story shows her evolving away from her roots and becoming an atheist.

From a practical standpoint, the editors of the comic would like people to buy the book. If they have the girl reject her religion and become an atheist, it would alienate many readers, including, say, young Muslimas. Then, the title would disappear into comic book oblivion.

Second, just because you reject religion does not mean the whole fucking world has to agree with you, much less Marvel Comics. Also, if you have paid attention to comic books for the last bazillion years, they typically avoid explicit discussions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and atheism. Whatever gods and goddesses exist in the DC and Marvel universes are drawn from the Norse, Greek and Roman pantheons. Why? Because the publishers don’t want to piss off anyone, thereby losing readers. No one today is going to be offended by a book invoking Thor. There might be people offended if a hero were modeled after Joshua, complete with a superpowered trumpet.

In a sense, comics are quasi-atheistic, because they seldom mention God by name and the characters are usually not overtly religious. Some titles do presuppose higher powers (The Spectre, for one), but you should remember that comics are FICTION. They are not supposed to be realistic. Moreover, if you want to be consistent, you might as well condemn most of Western lterature since Beowulf for being religious.