A review by readalert
Daredevil, Vol. 1: Guardian Devil by Kevin Smith

1.0

I was always gonna read it anyway because it's an important part of Daredevil's story, but the main reason I wanted to read Guardian Devil was because I knew it was when Karen was diagnosed with HIV. And there are so few characters that have HIV, it's obviously a horrifically stigmatized illness, and it's one of the disabilities that I think is in the most desperate need of well done, informed, and compassionate representation in media. And I didn't expect Karen to be that. It was written in the 90s after all, and I was shocked when Green Arrow handled Mia's diagnosis well in the 2000s. But given that Karen is a well loved character and that Kevin Smith wrote, while not Mia's diagnosis, Mia's creation in a story in which he treated her and Dinah Lance with more respect and dignity that comic book women often get, I expected it to be okay. Far from perfect, but okay.

So to read the book and find that

she wasn't even HIV+, that Mysterio just got an actor to pretend to be a doctor and lie to her, that Smith used HIV and AIDS as a cheap, shock value fake out....

I didn't like this book anyway, but now I'm actively mad at it