#top 10 asks that terrified me into willingly looking for MCU news just to make sure they didn't touch her

[scarletfasinera]

Any thoughts on the recent revival of Scarlet Fasinera?

If by "recent" you mean issue #8 of MacKay's 2021 Moon Knight series, I actually have mixed feelings that I think about often.

Firstly, I think the design is dope, and there is some potential for cool things to be done with the character. But I don't think it's very LIKELY that Scarlet will be taken up in her current form in any kind of interesting way.

Like in all honesty, I think killing her and turning her into a minor god was more damning for her character than anything, as it sticks her in this weird place where she's actually less versatile than her original form. When there's less options for what can be done with a character, people just aren't as likely to touch that character. I'd love to be wrong though.

I want to know how this godhood has impacted her on a deeper level, because I'm a bit scared of just how much dehumanizing her can change her character for the worst.

Scarlet was a human, she had severe trauma, complex emotions, passions, idiosyncrasies. She was eccentric and clearly mentally impacted by her trauma, but she was still clear-headed enough to be able to coherently moralize & justify her actions in a manner that was meant to be sympathetic. She was an excellent narrative foil for Moon Knight, given how their differences complement each other just as much as their similarities do. In truth, it was largely her humanity that drew me to her as a character. She had a realistic criticism of the world that harmed her, and this was on purpose. She fits well into Moench's theme of the overall greyness of morality in Moon Knight's life.

So, how does this death and godhood REALLY impact her? Does it strengthen or weaken her convictions by putting them on a plane of gods rather than that of humankind?

I also do think it was a mistake to give that story to Hunter's Moon instead of Moon Knight, though I understand there was probably editorial shenanigans involved in that, as well as a need to cement Dr. Badr into the canon as a character in his own right. Don't get me wrong, I thought the issue was mostly "fine" as far as the writing goes on a technical level. I don't much like the little note that Scarlet's MO has changed so much that she's just killing people at random apparently, which leans in a direction I don't like for Scarlet, but "a story changes in the telling" I suppose. I wasn't bothered by her actual voice in the speaking parts of the issue where she's present as a character. I also liked that it kept Scarlet's story ultimately open-ended, and I liked the "gods are stories" theming.

I want to like it. I do trust MacKay from all I've seen, and I hope she wasn't just a one-off easter egg that gets thrown away after use, never to be seen again. I want to like it, but I have apprehensions, and the more time goes by since that issue, the bigger those apprehensions grow.

And I also just, like, miss her.