The Star Sapphire Tutorial

Mallet asked for clarification on Star Sapphire's continuity last post. You see, on the very same day I had Star Sapphire guest-blogging, she appeared in Infinite Crisis #6. Two Star Sapphires? How is that possible? Was Wednesday's Carnival of Feminists a hoax, a dream, or an imaginary story?

No, actually, the explanation is very simple. Wednesday's Guest-Blogger was Star Sapphire II. The lady we saw in Infinite Crisis #6 was Star Sapphire IV.

Click Here for a Short Guide to Star Sapphire

The Zamarons are my favorite alien race in the DCU. They look like human women, and dress in Ancient Greek armor, because that is dramatic shorthand for Dominant Women. Culturally, all of the stereotypes traditionally assigned by our society to men, are traditionally assigned to women on Zamaron. The Masculinist movement (in fact, the only resident male ever seen on Silver Age Zamaron was dressed in medeval garb) has never started there, so these women are all still gloriously chauvinistic neanderthals. As extremely weird customs go, they have a doozy. The Zamarons are all immortal and ageless (The Only Resident Male Ever Seen on Silver Age Zamaron was an elderly man, but later issues revealed that the Zamarons are an all-female tribe who split from their mates and any males on the planet are displaced from their native world) except for their Queen, Star Sapphire. Their Queen is always an alien, an exact physical duplicate of her predecessor. I'm sure there's a heroic, touching story of the original Queen making a sacrifice for her people and a decision to honor her in a ceremonial manner, but to my knowledge it has never been written.



I love this species, mainly because I have a thing for stereotype-reversals. The masculine of their species are the Guardians of the Universe (Green Lantern's alien bosses) and the Controllers (also recurring antagonists, but much more malicious than their feminine counterparts), both tribes of males value cerebral ability and personal inactivity/distance, downplays individuality, but dearly love to stick their nose in other people's business. Both male tribes have formed and managed Universal Police Forces. The Guardians created the Manhunters, then the Green Lantern Corps, and the Controllers managed the Manhunters and managed the Darkstars. The female tribe of the species values physical ability and personal achievement, but are considerably more reclusive. They only show up when they need a new Queen.

Their Queen is called Star Sapphire, and it's presumably been a successful weird custom when they look anywhere but Earth. They generally use some sort of mystic mental control whenever they appoint a Star Sapphire. Each of the women has been a bit different, so I wouldn't call it a complete take-over by an alien entity. I suspect it's closer to the personality of the Queen merges with the personality of the host. On Earth, this leads to trouble. It's probably a cultural thing.



Notable Star Sapphires in Earth History:

Star Sapphire I: Profiled in detail here, all you really need to know about this nameless classic Flash rogue (one of two females in the Golden Age Rogue's Gallery) is that she lived in the 7th dimension, was apparently kicked off of Zamaron for incompetence, and spent the remainder of her years fighting Golden Ager Flash Jay Garrick. As I gather, he never actually defeated her, she managed to do all of the work for him. I'm slow on my actual Golden-Age Flash reading (we're still waiting for the first appearance of the Shade to get archived), so I don't know much about this character firsthand. She sounds like your average cosmic despot, only her oppressed people were strong enough to give her the boot. Score one for Matriarchal Alien societies.

As female villains go, she represents the Megalomaniacal Matriarchist. Basically, she figured women should rule over men and she should rule over everyone. Basically, she's a gender-inverse of your typical Magalomaniacal Conquerer male villain (DOOM!), who back then often agreed with the hero that the men should rule over women, but always added the "and I should rule over everyone!" to the end.



Star Sapphire II: Green Lantern's nightmare ex-girlfriend. Except, she was also his girlfriend. See, when Carol Ferris got a promotion at work, she dumped her boyfriend Hal Jordan because he was now a subordinate. The day before this happened, he had become a superhero. So, how did Green Lantern deal with being dumped on the eve of his superhero career? He started to date her in his superhero identity (without even trying to change up his personality or dancing style to throw her off). Hilarity ensued, as he spent half of his time with her thinking about how much he'd like to marry her, and the other half trying to keep her from asking him to marry her (as Carol was one of those progressive career women who would propose herself). Because he wanted to marry her as Hal Jordan, not Green Lantern. Ahhh, Silver Age Secret Identity Shenanigans. How many fine single-issue stories have you given us? Things continued with poor Carol as the underdog until the Zamarons came along and evened the score. Unfortunately, they forgot to tell Carol, and after every adventure as Star Sapphire, she forgot what's she'd been doing the entire time. She and Green Lantern were engaged for at least fifty issues without her ever knowing. It made for some wonderful "Courtship in Spaaaaace!!" type stories.



She was actually a very competent and viable threat to Green Lantern. In the first story, she very clearly did not want to win and was being forced to fight. She lost. Her second appearance, she competed with Green Lantern to see who could be the better superhero, with a trip to the altar as the prize. She won, but a fortunate bout of amnesia saved her from a lifetime of being Mrs. Hal Jordan. From that point on, every time she showed up she made reference to the impending marrige, but somehow always managed to be an antagonist. She's always proven a match on the battlefield, and at least once she stood toe-to-toe with Green Lantern UberNemesis Sinestro, the first and last time the two tried to work together. Her most villainous act was the kill Katma Tui in the ten most misogynistic pages in Green Lantern history. I've heard she was under mind-control by a male villain at the time, which actually makes it a lot worse.

Hal was more than willing to marry her, but somehow this relationship always fell through. Carol hasn't shown in up since Rebirth. She hasn't been Star Sapphire since before Hal caught that Giant Yellow Bug (from Outer Spaaace!!). She hasn't been a viable love interest since her marriage to cipher Gil Johns. Overall, she's the been the best Star Sapphire and the best love interest for Hal Jordan, and I very much want to see her back in those roles. And I know I'm not the only one.

Star Sapphire III: Dela Pharon. She showed up for one issue, and attempted to trick Hal Jordan into marrying her. That should give you an accurate assessment of her intelligence right there.

Star Sapphire IV: Debbie Camille Darnell. Debbie was introduced in the Secret Society of Supervillains, so I don't know too much about her (issues of that series are hard to come by in these parts) except that she never appeared after the series except in the recent JLA arc (Crisis of Conscience) with the rest of the old SSoSV. This tells me that she needs at least 6 men backing her up at every move, and is therefore a useless character.



She is the one who appeared in Infinite Crisis #6 on Wednesday, and it was revealed to me there that she was of the "Man-hater" type of Supervillainess. I see no usefulness in that sort of Supervillainess myself. I much prefer the subtle misandry desplayed by female chauvinism that's inherent in the Zamaron culture. It's a mirror to our own, and makes for much more compelling social commentary (compare to misogyny via chauvinism in our own culture) than "I hate men, so I'd like to kill Green Lantern." Hopefully, we'll get Carol back soon.

Carnival of Feminists XII

Greetings Earthlings, I am Star Sapphire, Sovereign of the Planet Zamaron, President of Ferris Aircraft, Super-Villainess, Much Maligned Strawfeminist, Recurring Green Lantern Antagonist, the Killer of Katma Tui, and, in the Grand Tradition of Supervillains Commandeering Comic-Book Blogs, your Guest Blogger for this evening. In a new twist, this was not a hostile takeover of this webspace, but I was actually invited to Host this, the Twelfth Carnival of Feminists, as Ragnell found the preparation too intense and Wonder Wimp--err, Wonder Woman couldn't make it. There was a slight problem with the Duke of Deception and apparently it could not be put off. In fact, they both insisted that I had do this before my wedding.


I have a superhero waiting at the altar right now, so let's get this show on the road.

Click Here for the Carnival

The first category offered was Influences. The hope here was for "posts identifying the attitudes and ideas that we are exposed to growing up, the things that shape who we are and what we think, and pinpoint the effect on how women are seen in society." Hmmph. Why didn't the silly woman say that in one of the calls for submissions?

Either way, the first post tells us the real reason Wonder Woman wimped out of this. Andrea offers a cutting image analysis, using the picture that accompanied the first submissions call for this very carnival. She examines how, even when she is not supposed to be sexualized at all, Diana is still specifically posed to entice male readers. I'm planning on stealing that last photo manipulation for the next time we fight the Justice League.

In a very tongue-in-cheek post, Jake considers what a young child may learn about women from reading Silver Age Supergirl Comics. If actually fighting the "Maid of Might" counts for anything, you can add my word to his on this subject.

Allison goes in-depth on the Duke Rape case, the offenders, and the permissive judicial system that enabled this to happen. For those of you who have been off-world, under mind-control, time-travelling, visiting an isolated society, in deep meditation, dead, or otherwise pre-occupied during the past two weeks, there is a blog created that follows the tragedy in its entirety, Justice 4 Two Sisters, so that you can catch up.

Verbify on Signifying Nothing shares a discussion on what makes a television character seem real to the audience. Is it true that the criteria for relatability is different on this planet because of gender?

Lucy, who's own words are far better than mine, gives us the "tale of an ogre - that would be me - who is uncomfortably roped into a world where she is expected to do tasks with delicate little fingers that she doesn't have; and to master assignments with strength that's already sapped."

Heart at Women's Space ponders breasts -- Real Breasts, fake breasts, and the effect that the obsessive oversaturation of Barbie-doll hotness has on Earth-women.

I see I'm not the only one unable to escape "raunch culture." If you think your teenagers are dressing too trashy, you should see what a Supervillainess is expected to wear. There's a large amount of criticism for this culture, but Natalie cautions against criticizing women for their personal clothing choices.

RJ, at Bark/Bite considers the symbolism of the Ooompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and what it implies about women in American society.

From there we travel back to the familiar ground of comic books, and what red hair signifies in a female character, at Redhead Fangirl.

On the Big Monkey Comics, Sherin wonders if sexuality or sexiness diminishes respect for female characters overall.

Aditya discusses rape, religion, and Garth Ennis' Hellblazer at Dog Day Afternoons.

The second category is Inspirations, and it turns out surprisingly few of you were given powers by alien matriarchies. Instead, other women, from Earth, seem to have influenced you to action. I never imagined such a thing!

Professor Pideritt compares Kim Possible to Wonder Woman, and asks if children's programming has made any progress in the past thirty years. Tackling much the same subject, Kalinara feels that He-Man and the Masters of the Universe raised the bar for portraying women in 80s children's programming.

100LittleDolls searches for progressive role-models in pop culture, and initially seemed to have found one, but wonders if sexualization counteracts the strength in this case.

The Concoction brings us news from Zambia, where women are actively taking part in politics and encouraging others to do so. Fikirte hopes that women in the United States will follow their example.

Deepa tells us about being interviewed by a class of young children in Kerala, the heartwrenching story of a young girl in that class, and the effect on her life.

A White Bear, guest-blogging for Bitch Ph.d, relates the surprising inspiration that brought her to Feminism, and in the commentary, readers share their own.

Cultural Reversal seems to be the most vague category offered up, and she doesn't clarify it for me in the program. Personally, I am fond of the Cultural Reversals that involve trading stereotypes to make a point about the silliness of stereotypes or trading up situations that traditionally involve one gender or another. It may refer to the slow backward trend that starts when we stop pushing for progress (as experienced recently in a backlash against masculinism on Zamaron), or a call to reverse the negative aspects of the Culture with positive action.

Mary Ann of Five Wells describes the male reactions to Mathmetician Sophie Germain, when they realized she was a woman.

Laura at Geeky Mom considers the negative implications of the word "Mom," how it reflects on her own identity, and resolves to reclaim the term as a positive name. Ragnell (owner of this very blog) is also interested in the negative aspects of language, and the label "Fangirl."

In the comic book world, analyzing Vampirella for offensive content is considered akin to using a four million dollar research grant to determine whether or not mice get scared by cats, so no one has ever bothered before. But Dan has found an essay by Andrea Dworkin which identified the precise problem with the closest thing the mainstream comic industry has to actual pornography, how what apparently stops it from "crossing the line" in fact makes it worse, and pounds out an overall worthwhile commentary on the portrayal of women in comics that has some fresh insights into the awfulness of Vampirella.

"Just when I thought I'll fill my blog with light, frivolous and cutesy, what-did-I-eat-for-brunch-and-other-enlightening-titbits-of-my-life kinda posts," Megha rants, "something comes along and schlep's me back into reality."

Uma is furious with the audacity shown when a woman gets shot from trying to stop street harassment.

Bumblebee Sweet Potato covers the modern woman's obsession with dieting, the reasoning behind it, the surprising mental strengths it makes visible, and what we could do if we focused our energy elsewhere.

Frankengirl ponders the value of common advice to "write what you know," and how limiting it is to women writers. I understand completely. My own autobiographical attempt had to be rescripted as a comic book before it was released, heavily edited.

Melchior had a mixed reaction to X-Factor #5, caused by the disturbing images found within the comic book (that he's reproduced within the post). He reexamines the images, asking, "While it's clear that Peter A. David wants to subvert the sexist trope of the woman who needs a man to deliver her from a dangerous situation, does he succeed?

"Birth seems to be ignored as a feminist issue among the blogs that I've been seeing," Tina the Radical Feminist Mom worries, "Lots of stuff about reproductive rights, whether or not to have a baby, but nothing about the feminist ramifications of how one actually has a baby." Hey look, at the bottom there's a bullet-point outline of the maternity/nursing culture they have on Zamaron. Yeah, I'll be having my baby there.

Artemis has been watching women fight other women. "And I'm sick of it," she says, "Sick of women tearing me down. Get it together sisters." Meanwhile, Super Babymama (I wonder if she's related to that jerk in Metropolis) dreams about being a better feminist than anyone else.

AfroFeminista saw dancing on International Women's Day, which revealed a mixed messages for the young girls in the dance group. "To what extent" she asks, "should the feminist movement especially that populated by younger women, embrace and give space to these sort of expressions - be they art, dance or written word?"

A street poll conducted by a South African newspaper about a politician who is on trial for rape recorded some horrifying attitudes towards the accuser, and in response GGernst says it's time for women to start decolonizing their minds.

Femme Feral hits upon another evil of Reality TV, which has done more harm to society than the entire Legion of Doom (not counting Lex Luthor, who has a producer credit on Trading Sidekicks). She writes about the misogyny in Real Housewives of Orange County, a show that seems specifically designed to make you hate women.

And then the catch-all category of Other, in case of submissions that didn't quite fit the rest.

Leisha experiences the reopening of old wounds, and realizes that "healing a wounded soul is never a finished task."

When the British Royal Couple visited Saudi Arabia, it seems that Camilla was given "honorary man" status, as evidenced by her wardrobe when compared to what Saudi women are permitted to wear.

Emma finds an article on Feminist bloggers, who they represent and what value they actually are to the Feminist movement at large.

Muse at Me-ander rants about how people treat her as opposed to how they treat her husband.

Debbie and Laurie have discovered a brand new species of Strawfeminist! The Attention Stealer.

A new women's poetry blog, Womb Poetry, is now accepting submissions.

And finally, "My Head's Not Worth Stink" from Dementia Blues, which was among the first submissions. Ragnell notes that she intended to include it, but didn't notice the date until today. Because it was her own mistake, she's including the older post anyway.

There is plenty more reading at the Third Radical Women of Color Carnival, up at Blac(k)ademic right now.

And that's that. Ragnell would like me to thank everyone who submitted, and everyone for visiting, and to inform you that the next Carnival will be on I See Invisible People on April 19. Terry has the info up here.

I'm very happy to have had the opportunity to do this, and to see all of the submissions from the various blogs. I really wasn't aware of so many. I'm going to stick around and look through some of them (Ragnell should be back to blogging tomorrow), see if there's any advice for a newlyweds.

With much more gratitude than I'd expected,
-- Star Sapphire



Two Weeks Later...

Another Blogiversay

Didn't get a chance to check it out yesterday, but Ferret Press/Panel Weblog is now three years old. They're doing a week-long celebration with a lot of posting, and even offering free shipping for their orders this week. Drop by and wish them a Happy Anniversary.

Fan-What?

There's a conversation going on over at The Absorbascon about the Justice League, and what power combination a composite super-villain would need to beat them singlehandedly. To me, it's a given that all the villain needs is above average intelligence and the Flash's powers. You see, I've thought a lot about this. I've argued it in the LCS. I've used this to make a good case for why any one of Flash's seemingly incompetent Rogues' Gallery members should be able to wipe the floor with any entire team of heroes sans speedster.

This reminded me of a conversation Kalinara and I had yesterday that has me musing on the term "fangirl" today. It's a linguistic issue, mainly. In theory, Fanboy and Fangirl are simply gendered terms to differentiate a male fan and a female fan. In practical use, they have not only a different gender but an entirely different meaning.

Internerd Fan-Fiction is believed to be dominated by women. Particularly Slash Gay Fanfic (but really, how could we tell?). It's also widely accepted that Manga is more popular among female readers. There's enough of a stereotype that combines the definition of traditional femininity, the connotation of "girl" and the idiosyncrasies of fandom to get a very clear picture from the word. It conjures an image of blonde pigtails, a Sailor Moon costume, an armful of pink-covered Manga books and a notebook filled with ruminations on the romantic entanglements of dark, moody, brooding male characters. She's excited by the idea of two gay men not because it affords the opportunity to appreciate the male form, but instead because it showcases two males in a loving, caring relationship. Oh, and she can't get enough of The Angst, it has to do with all those afternoon soap operas she watched with Mama.

There's a mood associated with Fangirl, just as there is a mood associated with Fanboy. The mood associated with Fanboys is that of dimly lit comic book stores, with a table set aside for the Saturday Night D&D game, dark blue/black T-shirts with superhero logos/smartass phrases ("C:/DOS C:/DOS/RUN RUN/DOS/RUN"), an argument about whether the Hulk or Superman would win in a fight, wacky crossover ideas, lifesize cardboard cutouts of Lara Croft, and round the clock internet access. Gay or Straight, he wants to cut the Angst and get on with the Action, he feels the best reason for cheesecake and sexually explicit scenes is the titillating view it offers, and he just giggled at the first syllable in the word "titillating."

Fanboy is a "Blue" term, as in "Blue is for Boys." Whereas, Fangirl is a "Pink" term, as in "Pink is for Girls." There is nothing inherently wrong with blue or pink. Both are fine colors, moods, acceptable lifestyles. But these colors represent traditional gender roles. The pink term of Fangirl embraces traditionally feminine traits like emotional/romantic thinking, pastel colors, cutesy things, and an audible high-pitched squeal associated with hearing about an opportunity to meet David Cassidy. The blue term of Fanboy embraces traditionally masculine traits like logical/statistical thinking, primary colors, blood and gore, and manly grunting/deep voiced "oh yeah"s.

I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the term "Fangirl" -- mainly because I'm not fitting the stereotyped role very well. I'm not a big fan of angst. Not the long drawn out kind. One story of angst, okay, but on the whole I prefer to cut it short and get with the action. I've never been able to get into Manga. As fun as it is to make jokes about homoerotic content in the actual comic, I'd prefer not to read or write an entire fanfic about the encounter. I cheered on Obsidian's coming out partially because it offered a chance to see him in bed with a particularly handsome backup character, but mostly because it put an end to the Constant Angst that was Todd Rice's Personality. A lot of crap can be blamed on repression in this case.

Basically, I, and most of the fans I associate with (of either gender) are a mixture of both types, but leaning towards the "Fanboy."

And none of this occurred to me until yesterday, when we crossed the line. As usual, we were discussing Green Lantern. I'm not sure why the idea came about, but it did, and I asked Kalinara would would win if Guy Gardner (as Warrior, who was basically a shapeshifting Superman with energy blasts) fought Kyle Rayner (as Ion -- not the omnipotent version, but the upcoming somewhat-more-powerful-than-a-Lantern version). I said Kyle and she said Guy. We then proceeded to lay out the circumstances of battle, and hammer out a chart which stated who would win under what conditions, after discussing the planning and combat abilities of each characters.

During the entire conversation, we never once discussed whether they would kiss, or feel bad about the battle afterwards, or even if their clothes would be torn off. Once we'd ironed out the winner in each circumstance, Kalinara remarked that we'd given up female status on this one. I laughed then.

Unfortunately, it's not so funny when you think about it.

Posture Perfect

I was going to agree with the anonymous commenter on Katma's pose in my last post, until I found this picture.



Unfortunately, panels like this are few and far between. Usually, the poses are reversed.

The problem with female poses...

I'm actually a big fan of reasonable cheesecake in comics. So long as the art is well-done, and there's something in it for me. Unfortunately, Equal Sights will elude us as long as sexuality overtakes practicality. When learning to draw in comics, certain poses are the first you work on. Those become the default pose. The default posing for women emphasizes the hips and breasts as much as possible. It makes it easy to tell at first glance the gender of the character. This combines with the natural "Prettying up" of the art to make an appealing cheesecakey pose for the cheracter. The "Sexy Woman" pose becomes "Comics Shorthand for Girl." It's just easier to draw that way. Drawing a character to be appealing makes sense. The problem inherent in this is what kind of pose is considered appealing. More specifically, the problem is what kind of pose is considered appealing for each gender, as Male and Female characters are usually drawn with different posture as part of the "comics shorthand" for their gender.

Yes, everyone in comics gets sexualized. But the men (Once again, note Hal's pose, this time at right) get to stand tall and strong and practical and still be considered desirable, while the women look as impractical as possible. This is because of that "shorthand for girl" learning. It drives me out of my mind to see martial artists and experienced fighters in comics, standing with their backs arched, their breasts up, and their butts back, messing with their center of gravity and their final health when they should certainly know better. The better fighting position has your feet shoulder width apart and your spine straight.

To illustrate this, I was going to use the Phantom Lady S-Spine of Torment and Triple-D-Cup of Doom combination, but I didn't want to cause any physical trauma from the sheer awfulness of it. Here's a much more palatable example:



There is no reason Black firkin' Canary, one of the Top Ten Martial Artists in the DCU should be anticipating an attack with her heels together and her hip tilted suggestively upward. I don't know Judo specifically (so, please correct me if I'm wrong), but I do know that's a way to get seriously hurt.

Now, the above panel was rendered by Our Beloved Neal Adams, Wielder of Symbolism, Master of Visual Characterization, Patron Diety of Facial Expressions. As a fan of his, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. She's at a relaxed position, and just now getting into the stance as she sees the attacker.

Except for one problem, a woman who spends as much time fighting as Canary does would not have such as vulnerable posture as her "Default stance." She would naturally use something more in keeping with her training.

I took a couple years of Karate in high school, and during this I started unconciously adapting the stance in my everyday stuff. I kept my spine was usually straight and my feet shoulder-width everywhere I stood. It had the effect of sticking my belly out, and tucking my butt underneath my spine. I'm naturally top-heavy, so my butt effectively disappeared. A year or two after I'd been to my last class, I noticed my friend Liz was constantly flirted with, by the guys I liked. I asked about it, and she advised me to stand more suggestively. Stick my butt out, angle my stomach in, and arch my back so as to emphasize my breasts. It was quite a change in posture, but I tried it and it took.

None of those men were worth the trouble, and by the time I learned that I'd adopted the posture into my natural habits and didn't feel it was worth changing back.

Until the back problems started. They are still there. My Doctor prescribed two sets of medication, which didn't work, before he gave me a sheet of annoying exercises I now have to accomplish every day. I also have a seventy-five dollar back brace that I need to use occasionally. It's only a mild problem right now, but it still keeps me awake sometimes, and it makes working difficult on the bad days. And according to my doctor, it's because of my posture combined with my chest.

Now, as as Chris kindly pointed out, this was thirty years ago and Adams was just learning to handle martial artists. Canary's posture got better as the series moved on. More than likely, he needed an at rest pose and used a picture of a woman standing like that. This would be all well and good, if it weren't for the fact that artists still do this. Models still do this. Television stars still do this. The "Sexy woman pose" is one that we all learn and internalize as little girls. This is what a pretty lady stands like.

She stands with her chest out, her back arched, her legs together, and her center of gravity compromised.

She stands in the most vulnerable position possible, the one from which it is the most difficult to prevent an attack.

She stands in the posture most likely to cause major back problems in a few years.

But hey, it's hot, right?

Final Call for Carnival of Feminists XII Submissions

Everyone, you have until midnight April 3rd CST to send in your last-minute submissions for the Carnival of Feminists. See the First Call for the details. You can still use the Blog Carnival Submission Form (Warning: right now it's set right now for a early submission deadline of midnight, April 2nd GMT; I've emailed them to change that but y'know how that works on a weekend) or you can email me directly at ragnellthefoul AT gmail DOT com.

The Final Call's featured image is the first in-story appearance of Katma Tui circa 1964. Katma's special because she was the first female Green Lantern character who was not a villainess and/or somebody's girlfriend. She was a co-worker.



She died a pointless misogynistic death in Action Comics Weekly #601 in 1988, and was resurrected for three issues in 1993, which just about every writers at DC has forgotten. I've got my fingers crossed, though, since nearly everyone else in that franchise is returning from the dead.

Hal and the Guardian

I see nothing important or meaningful in this panel.

(Update: April 2, 2006 -- Ragnell the Fair and the rest of her Bizarro compatriots have been overthrown. I haven't saved any evidence of her work, as it made my eyes bleed. A Jade profile picture? *Shudder* Anyway, I don't have time to get into this panel at the moment, but I assure you I will be contemplating it)