Another example of the curious phenomenon of swear words in certain comic books

The previously reviewed Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising #1 tells the story of a future, colonized Venus in danger of invasion by the marines, and the citizenry rising up to defend their home planet and government.

There are a lot of swear words in it. I remember coming across "dick," "asshole," "asses" and "shit." (The last one I remember quite clearly, as it was used in a strangely constructed sentence: "This war might'a been thrust on us like stink on shit").

One word you won't see, however, is "fuck." And yet writer M. Zachary Sherman writes a few lines of dialogue in which a form of the word "fuck" is called for—specifically, "fucking"— but rather than actually having his characters say "fucking," they say "effin.'"

Here, for example, is a marine, who's commanding officer has just said, "We're marines, and who can tell me what USMC stands for?" The marine responds thusly:

"You Signed the Mother-effin' Contract, sir!"

Seems strange that the marines would self-censor like that, doesn't it? It's my understanding that the military, they love the salty language.

At the end of the next scene, two miners who have been out drinking and gotten in a bar fight are talking about how things have changed for the worse since the solar war. The male miner, whose name I believe is Jammer, curses the alliance and the marines thusly:

"Effin' alliance, effin' marines..."

Of course, it is the future, so maybe over the decades or centuries "fuck" evolved into "eff." Well, at least it hasn't evolved into "frell" or one of those sorts of made up feature swears...



(Art by Bagus Hutomo and Leos "Okita" Ng)