Issue(s): Sleepwalker #9
Cover Date: Feb 92
Title: "Sing a song of sin"
Credits:
Bob Budiansky - Writer
Bret Blevins - Penciler
Mike Manley - Inker
Tim Tuohy - Assistant Editor
Don Daley - Editor

Review/plot:
Sleepwalker runs into another sleep-themed villain. This one is called Lullaby, with the power to charm people with her songs.

She charms Sleepwalker into working as her muscle.

She actually got Rick first, and that's what caused Sleepwalker to manifest, and he's really only been pretending to be under her spell until he could learn how to free Rick. Once he finds out that her spell wears off over time...

...he stops pretending to work for her.

No point in going into a lot of detail about it since Lullaby never appears again. I do love her costume though. Looks like she's not fully committed to the sleep theme and is considering going over to Ireland to fight Shamrock.

This issue does introduce police detective Cecilia Perez, who will appear in a few more issues. And we also learn about a government organization, the OIE (which stands for the Office of Insufficient Evidence, but we don't learn that yet), led by a (not named yet) Tolliver Smith, who will be the villain for the next arc.

Since Rick is still on the outs with his girlfriend, our Bret Blevins cheesecake is provided by another girl filling her place in Rick's film school project, but she's not working out.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• The police have been investigating Sleepwalker because of all the wreckage he's caused since Sleepwalker #1 (the footnote says "as seen in most of the first eight issues").

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

One thing bothers me about this issue- in the above scans, Lullaby uses her power to compel two men to come with her while Sleepwalker can't intervene. Are we supposed to believe she had sex with them? Remember, Sleepwalker is only PRETENDING to be under her control. Why didn't he stop her? (Although granted he wasn't sure if they would wake up if she died resisting him. Still...)

Yeah, Lullaby definitely used her powers to make love slaves.

Part of Sleepwalker's non-reaction is likely due to a double standard--that the men wouldn't be THAT upset about being used as sex slaves, since they get laid. We have seen similar things before with male heroes reacting to getting controlled by people like the Enchantress. They didn't like losing their free will...but the sex part wasn't really a hassle.

Nowadays writers are more likely to be more sensitive about the subject, and show the male characters reacting more strongly to the violation--which is definitely a GOOD thing (although I do think the previous portrayal has *some* validity as well--there ARE some guys who wouldn't think of it as rape if it happened to them, as long as the women wasn't ugly).

As for an in-story explanation? Sleepwalker isn't human, so he may not judge such matters the same way humans do. He may not have recognized that the men were being subjected to something they didn't want to do. Or he might have felt that it was more important to not blow his cover of not being under her spell.

@Dermie: It would indeed be good for male and female victims to be treated equally. That said, I'm one of the ones you mention-- I enjoy sex so much I wouldn't mind the whole "mind-control seduction" at all, regardless if it was a male OR female zapping me.