Your Weekend Moment of Psychic Nosebleed Zen: Lilith

May 18th, 2008

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Scene from Titans #41
In this scene from the long-gone-and-best-forgotten Titans series (issue #41 to be precise), Lilith uses her psychic abilities to peer into the mind of an “autistic” child and exorcise the psychic entity that has taken root there.

I use the word “autistic” in quotes because while the child was labeled autistic in the comics, she never met any of the criteria for autism; it was just a convenient and inappropriately used label.

Titans #41 was by Jay Faerber and Peter Grau. A new Titans series has started, but so far is no better than the last. Lilith remains deceased.

nosebleed zenAll previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags:

4 Responses to “ Your Weekend Moment of Psychic Nosebleed Zen: Lilith ”

  1. Graeme
    May 19th, 2008 at 1:02 am

    How exactly was the ‘autism’ misused? I haven’t read the comic, I’m just a tad curious.

  2. Mikester
    May 19th, 2008 at 1:31 am

    My sister is autistic, so I’m always curious about the condition’s portrayal in comics (earliest examples I know of: Abby caring for autistic children in Swamp Thing, and I think that X-Men character Legion was supposed to be autistic as well). A lot of times, people seem to think “autistic” means “Rain Man,” which is a tad annoying.

    I hadn’t read that issue of Titans, so thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out and see how they get it wrong.

  3. Keith
    May 19th, 2008 at 6:55 am

    OK, we really need a new psychic cliche…here are some ideas I’ll just throw out for discussion:

    – Explosive Diarrhea
    –Tourettes-like cursing
    –break-dancing
    –hair-standing on end
    –head-rotation, a la the Exorcist
    –eye-ball expulsion
    –ear-flapping
    –spontaneous erections lasting 4 hours or more
    –incontinence
    –inappropriate Nazi saluting
    –Flatulence
    –Animal noises

  4. Scott
    May 19th, 2008 at 8:00 am
    Official Comment

    The “autistic” character is present for about a year’s worth of comics leading up to this. Basically, she was 7 or 8 and perfectly normal, witnessed the brutal death of her parents, and then became non-communicative. That’s not autism, that’s psychological trauma with poor coping, plus probably some PTSD and survivor guilt thrown in.

Leave a Reply

« Your Weekend Moment of Psychic Nosebleed Zen: The 4400 House Challenge - Final Standings! »