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AVENGERS #71 – NOW RATED MATURE READERS
This morning, Marvel notified retailers that the next issue of Avengers, #71, originally due to be in stores next Wednesday will be delayed until October 15th, and its normal “PSR” rating changed to “MR” or Mature Readers due to adult content.

Marvel’s notification to retailers reads:

At this time, Marvel has decided to delay the ship date of Avengers #71 by one week. The book will now ship on October 15, and will be returnable. Please treat this issue of Avengers as a Mature Readers issue.

While a PSR rated title, this issue of Avengers contains mature content in the story (specifically a sexual situation, and domestic violence) which warrants an even stronger warning. The book was inadvertently not labeled as containing mature content.

Marvel Comics respectfully requests that all Marvel First Look retailers use discretion when deciding to display First Look copies of Avengers #71 (JUL031474D4).

Marvel apologizes for any inconvenience or difficulties that this situation may have caused.
The sexually suggestive scene in question relates to a scene with Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne in bed, with the strong suggestion made, as a moist Pym is miniaturized and crawling up Janet’s body from under the covers that he used his shrinking powers in a manner that was most certainly not related to crime fighting.

The issue also contains a scene where it is revealed that long-time Avengers enemy Whirlwind beats up a prostitute dressed as the Wasp (Van Dyne’s alter ego), confesses that he has always been sexually attracted to her, and then licks her face while she’s unconscious.

This is the first time a mainstream Marvel Universe title has been rated for mature readers, prompting some retailers to voice concerns that, if they are to be conscientious in the retail community, they cannot sell the issue to buyers who are under age, even if it means leaving a gap in their collection.

As one retailer expressed to Newsarama, Marvel assured retailers that when they abandoned the Comics Code they would maintain a consistency within their in-house ratings on a given title, ensuring that there would be no variation in ratings between issues.

The pages of the first scene are below. Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.

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Scientists have discovered fossils of the world’s oldest genitals — belonging to a 400 million-year-old arachnid — in ancient rocks in Scotland.

The penis of the ancient harvestmen insects, commonly known as a daddy-long-legs, was two-thirds the length of the body and remarkably similar to the modern-day species, New Scientist magazine said.

“The discovery of the world’s oldest genitals proves that little has changed over the last 400 million years — at least for daddy-long-legs,” the magazine said.

Jason Dunlop and a team of researchers from Humbolt University in Berlin, Germany, who will present their findings at a conference in Aberdeen, also uncovered a long egg-laying organ called an ovipositor from a female.

“As well as genitals, the fossils have the oldest known arachnid respiratory system, suggesting harvestmen’s ancestors had long since crawled out of the sea and learned to breathe,” the magazine said Wednesday.

Harvestmen arachnids are sometimes mistaken for spiders but they are more closely related to ticks or mites because they do not spin webs.

The previous oldest penis, which dated back 100 million years and was found in Brazil, belonged an ostracod, an early crustacean related to crabs, shrimps and water fleas.