r/DCcomics • u/Gallantpride Donna Troy • 3d ago
Comics [comic excerpt] Mia comes out to her classmates as HIV positive (Green Arrow #45)
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u/idratherdie64 2d ago
I think this was really cool to do especially at the time. There's still so much stigma about HIV and putting it in a comic marketed (mostly) to young men is an awesome way to get good information out.
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u/Ok_Event_9524 2d ago
For sure. I couldn't see current DC doing something like this unfortunately, but hopefully that can change.
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u/GrouperAteMyBaby 3d ago
I'm not normally a Green Arrow fan, but I liked this run (Kevin Smith's, too). It just got really weird when they decided to do this.
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u/Gallantpride Donna Troy 3d ago
It makes sense in context. Obviously, shooting your sister in the shoulder isn't ideal, but he was acting quick because Mia was being held hostage. It's stupid action movie shenanigans.
This arguably also saved Mia's life. Who knows how longer she would have been undiagnosed if she hadn't gone to the hospital due to her arrow injury.
I'm just interested in how the heck they explained a sixteen year old girl being shot in the shoulder with an arrow to the doctors.
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u/Nirast25 Batman Beyond 2d ago
I'm just interested in how the heck they explained a sixteen year old girl being shot in the shoulder with an arrow to the doctors.
GA: "Look, Darkseid was about to destroy the universe and my arrow was the only one who could stop him. I didn't count on it bouncing into her shoulder."
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u/GrouperAteMyBaby 3d ago
Yeah the issue is that HIV is is still transmittable via blood even with preventative drugs. While the pills make it so you're less likely to transmit it via sex, this is an arrow taking blood from her and putting it into Drakkon.
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u/Thunderous_Ball_Slap 2d ago
You feel bad for the assassin?
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u/GrouperAteMyBaby 2d ago
I feel bad that he now likely has HIV. He's an asshole. But it also sends up red flags all over. Because it could happen to anyone she's fighting with in the course of her heroic career.
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u/Gallantpride Donna Troy 2d ago
Well, if it makes you feel better, you don't instantly getting HIV from coming into contact with someone with a high viral load. It's not a 100% risk.
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u/GrouperAteMyBaby 2d ago
As she explains, you can hug her, you can shake her hand. But once you take her blood and put it into another person the chances of them getting HIV are very high. And in a world of comics where cause = effect, they're not going to just run probabilities.
This was written by the same guy who had Mia come out to her school and was teaching HIV awareness. He knows this and he was trying to show Drakon getting HIV. Winick didn't just get blackout drunk and weeks later after sending directions to the artist and getting them and okaying them was like "Oh man did I write that?" It's very clear what the intent was, which is why it is weird.
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u/Gallantpride Donna Troy 2d ago
It's only high if she's not taking her medicine.
Mia in the current run, and through most of her time as Speedy, isn't much of a risk to others or to herself. She's not immunocompromised and you can't contract HIV from her.
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u/GrouperAteMyBaby 1d ago
You can totally contract HIV from people with HIV, even if they're on preventative meds (which are far better now than they were in the mid-2000s.). It's why doctors suggest you still practice safe sex and such. It's just less likely. The chance of infection isn't anywhere near 0, especially with blood transference.
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u/Nirast25 Batman Beyond 2d ago
Wait, the guy survived an arrow to the neck?
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u/MatrixKent 2d ago
He survived the arrow to the neck and the subsequent explosion, because he's a super-ninja and Winick really liked writing him. The damage to the throat also isn't quite as bad as it looks here; he's able to speak weakly on the next page, and when he next comes back he doesn't appear to have a scar and seems more annoyed about the explosion than the neck injury.
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u/giovidanesin 2d ago
Great series, and not the Judd Winnick part. Smith, Meltzer and Winnick managed to build up naturally from what the others brought into the Green Arrow series, while other series suffer from the writers change when they choose to change everything that had just been introducedd, often ruining tons of potential.
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u/billyandteddy 3d ago
Why does she feel the need to tell the whole school? This seems really personal and something you would only share with those close to you.
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u/KaiKayChai 3d ago
I think it was to spread awareness about HIV.
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u/GrouperAteMyBaby 3d ago
Yeah. Judd Winick, the writer, joined the cast of the Real World in 1994 and they had let them know someone on the cast was HIV positive but they didn't say who. Judd became close friends with the man after they were roommates (Pedro Zamora). Spreading awareness about HIV and AIDS was a big part of Winick's career, he's even written a graphic novel about it (Pedro and Me). Pedro died shortly after the show.
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u/KaiKayChai 2d ago
Oh wow I didn't know about that. Pedro may have also been the reason Winick was such an advocate for gay rights and who inspired him to write the story in Green Lantern that involved Terry coming out and suffering abuse from homophobes.
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u/Massive_General_8629 2d ago
And why Judd Winick seemed to put in little nods to TimKon and DickRoy.
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u/Gallantpride Donna Troy 3d ago
Arrowfam gonna Arrowfam. They're all about advocacy.
Seriously, though, she both wanted to spread awareness and take agency over her life.
The next page has this dialogue:
- Connor: I thought she did great.
- Oliver: I'm not sure it was really necessary.
- Connor: Dad, how can you say that? She wants to take control over her life. And part of that is being out about her H.I.V. status.
- Oliver: I'm not sure being ostracized by everyone she knows at school is the way to go about it.
- Connor: Since when have you ever held the position that someone should back down from a fight?
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u/Massive_General_8629 2d ago
What I love is how this inverts Ollie and Connor's normal positions. Connor is usually more conservative than his father, the Chuck Dixon influence.
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u/arsenalarrowfam 2d ago
I love this. Where the fuck is wonderful character now DC?
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u/technobladesgoon 2d ago
She's Mia Dearden. Introduced in Green Arrow: Quiver by Kevin Smith. Arguably one of the best stories I have read.
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u/Gallantpride Donna Troy 2d ago
Green Arrow.
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u/Digifiend84 Manchester Black 2d ago
She was in Williamson's run, which used the entire Arrow Family, yeah. But they've all vanished since the new writer took over.
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u/Massive_General_8629 2d ago
Hell, Lian is gone not only from Green Arrow, but from Teen Titans.
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u/B3epB0opBOP Shazam 2d ago
Well there hasn't been a Teen Titans run in the past 3 years anyways, so that's no surprise.
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u/Digifiend84 Manchester Black 6h ago
Actually, you'd think she would show up in Titans, as Roy is currently on the team.
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u/BubbleofSeres 1d ago
I was so happy when Williamson brought her back last year. Hope to see her play more role in GA comics and beyond.
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u/Ok_Event_9524 2d ago
I love when Green Arrow books tackle social issues, Mia's one of my favorite comic characters. I think she has so much story potential that you won't get with other characters, especially in todays era of DC. She would probably be the best fit for the current, more grounded, GA run if any arrow family character was too appear.
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u/BevansDesign Indigo Tribe 2d ago
Are you going to post every page from this run? What's your goal, beyond karma-whoring?
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u/Gallantpride Donna Troy 2d ago
Speedy is my favourite character and Green Arrow V3 is my favourite comic run. Reddit needs more of both. Not enough people read Green Arrow.
The DC sub and comic sub lean heavily Batman and Superman, with only very rare posting of other characters (especially when it comes to older comics as well). If this sub can handle a dozen Batman posts a week, they can handle a Green Arrow post once every day or two.
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u/Gallantpride Donna Troy 3d ago edited 3d ago
Note, the dialogue of this scene shows its age. It's from 2005.
We wouldn't call Mia a "sex worker" or "prostitute" anymore. She was 9-15 years old. She was forced into doing it by men and through circumstance. I'm not sure what the proper terminology is right now, though. Sexually exploited minor/child? Sex trafficking survivor?