Okay...

Since I've been ranting about reactions to Amazons Attack, I may as well link one that made me laugh: Ragtime's Things I learned from Amazons Attack.

On #7: I would like to point out that through DC's shifting timeline Donna would be in the earliest part of the ADD generation (I really think we should just toss out the letter thing and do generations by most-commonly diagnosed childhood ailment anymore), and she was looking for Diana when Jason Todd showed up in a sidepanel. The next thing we all knew, she was hopping universes in Countdown.

So yeah, she got distracted and forgot about the war.

I wonder if the same thing'll happen to Kyle. The first Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer one-shot is due out this month, and the Sinestro Corps War crossover is not finished until December.

Can anyone else picture it? Kylelax raises his arm to throw an energy burst at a downed Hal, when just beyond his victim he sees an old girlfriend (and two other guys) appear out of nowhere.

"Hey Kyle! I found this guy who's taking us to alternate universes! We're looking for Professor Palmer! Wanna come?"

"Sure!" Kyle simply walks over to them, leaving a very confused giant yellow fearbug (from outer spaaace) where he was first standing. "Can we stop for coffee on the way?"

"Okay! He was just telling us about a universe where the guy who started up Starbucks is the Emperor of North America when I thought of you, actually..."

"Really? Do they still have the coffee bars there?"

"On every street corner," the Monitor assures him.

They disappear. Parallax is temporarily disabled because it just can't understand how it lost hold of that host. The other human host had had a normal attention span.

Unfortunately everyone else is also stunned by this turn of events for a combat round or two, so no advantage comes of it.

Its a good thing I'm not writing Sinestro Corps, isn't it?

Wonder Woman Sweater

Wabbitseason found this one:



Isn't that awesome? The blogger who made it has a few more pictures up.

For anyone living in the Oklahoma City area

Atomik Pop is having an anniversary sale this weekend. 50% off back issues and buy one get one half off for trades and toys. I don't remember the manga, anime and Hello Kitty deals, but at least everyone's reduced by 10% if someone's looking to save a little money in OKC.

Amazons Attack will not kill Wonder Woman.

Hey, everyone. I already spoke about those who seem to feel the changes in Amazons Attack were permanent.

Now I speak to two other camps.

First, to those of you who feel the changes are "permanent" because they are now in continuity, let me remind you -- so is Diana working at Taco Whiz, Hippolyta being Hercules' battered wife, Artemis as Wonder Woman, and Hippolyta arranging for Artemis' death. None of that killed Wonder Woman.

Second, to those who think that Amazons Attack is ruined because of simply how awful the story was, I just want you to know that you made me laugh. Do you know why? Because I started reading during John Byrne's Wonder Woman run. I also read through every crappy fill-in storyarc from Perez's reboot to Rucka's series ending.

There's been sexism (to an unbelievable degree at times), there's been shitty symbolism, there's been contrived plots, there's been stupid plots, there's been disrespectful ideas, there's been authors inserting themselves into the supporting cast and there's been downright crappy at times, but bad storytelling has never killed Wonder Woman.

This is not the worst Wonder Woman story I have read. This isn't even the worst Wonder Woman story that's been put out Post-Crisis.

Hell, this isn't even the worst Wonder Woman story involved that particular cliffhanger villain I've read.

She survived all that shit, and she survived the horrors of the 70s and the 80s.

Amazons Attack will not kill Wonder Woman.

If you realize what I'm talking about, this post contains Spoilers.

I wanted to not be pissed off in my 800th post (I've been going through my archives, I swear my blood pressure wasn't always in the stratosphere whenever I wrote), but Kalinara just can't keep her links to herself and just had to show me something that pissed me off. She showed me a post which had scanned pages from a book that came out today.

The events in the comic book did not piss me of.

The reaction of the fans did.

I know, I know, I've spent most of my time lately yelling at other fans for one reason or another but seriously, there's a lot of people out there who are annoying the shit out of me and some things need to be said about it. So I'm not going to link the post (so I won't be singling out just one idiot) or name the comic (because that will spoil it), but I am going to say some of the mean things that need to be said to keep my sanity.

I talk a lot about narrative clues and artistic clues, but there's another huge method by which writers communicate their intentions to readers, and that is by using tried and true narrative tropes that some people know as "genre rules."

Serialized superhero comic books are a genre, and most readers are intimately acquainted with the narrative clues, artistic clues, and genre rules for superhero comics and they know when a ending is actually the beginning of another huge storyline.

Despite the fact that it may appear that the character's setting is now in ruins from a "permanent" change, certain clues let you know that this is not the case. The situation is one that the writers realize is a state of ruin, the "permanent" change is anything but, and rebuilding the setting will be a future plotline.

One of those clues, ladies and gentlemen, is when in the last three pages of a storyline a major company-wide villain is revealed to have been disguised as the traditionally benevolent power behind the "permanent" change.

This usually means that the person who appeared to be the benevolent power is lying (lying is something supervillains sometimes do) and that the whole damned point really was to fuck up things for the hero but from and in-story standpoint and not from a meta-standpoint. Now the hero has to fix it.

And if I have to tell you this, you either need to read more serialized superhero comics or stop reading them altogether, because you are doing it wrong.

I didn't know there could be a wrong way to read something you enjoy, but if you are getting an impression that is so far from the traditional intent and the narrative mechanics of serialized superhero comics, something is going wrong between you and the page. As a result of this something wrong, you are going to be unable to enjoy these stories as intended because even when the writers blatantly violate these tropes they are still playing off of the expected result to get the effect they need from the reader for the story to work.

That's not to say that based on other factors that the whole thing was not just a crappy story. Its not to say the ending wasn't stupid. Its not to say the twist wasn't stupid. Its not to say its not annoying to read something and get a cliffhanger like that. Its not to say the entire thing wasn't poorly handled, poorly written, poorly drawn, or had some dreadful symbolism. Its not to say you didn't find it contrived or overly complicated. Its not to say that there's nothing to criticize or dislike or that all criticism/dislike of the story is stupid. No, no none of those. "You should be happy about what you just read" is not what I'm saying, that's not it at all.

However, this sort of thing is not called "ruining" or "trampling" a character or a franchise. This sort of thing (for good or bad) is called "Plot."

Next time, we'll discuss how when a hero is placed under mind-control and used as a villain in the kickoff issue of a large crossover it usually means he will be rescued and/or save himself from this state by the final issue, and how it is usually not the ruination of the hero unless the writer is playing on narrative tropes to surprise the audience.

Because that's another one a lot of people seem to be missing.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Darwyn Cooke's cover to The Comics Journal, as seen on various blogs yesterday.

I can't believe I didn't do this back in March, actually...

James Nicoll found a blog, and now his readers and the Howling Curmudgeons are discussing Dave Sim's "Fifteen Things."

In the interest of lazy posts I figured this would be a nice time to link my reaction from a few months back when I first read it.

And if that doesn't make anyone smile, here's Dave Sim through the Regenderizer.

Kyle has strange hobbies.

We all know Kyle Rayner as the Lord of the Fridge, Collector of Angst and Bringer of Death to Supporting Cast Members. Certainly the young lady in black (or dude on the skis if you so prefer) seems to follow Kyle like a lost puppy. I mean, she's picked up not only every woman the boy takes to bed with him but much of the Silver Age Green Lantern Corps during Kyle's early years. (Seriously, read the first 50 issues of Marz's run on Green Lantern. It was supposed to be all Hal's fault, but really it was everyone Kyle came into contact with who got folded, spindled, and mutilated.) Thing is, there's another trend that popped up toward the end of Winick's run and has stuck with the guy since.

Start with Green Lantern #150 where (along with the battery) he brings the formerly deceased Guardians back to life as children (with little girls too!).

Then look at the Obsidian Age storyline in JLA (JLA #66-76) after that, where he agrees to offer up his heart so that the souls of the rest of the League can be safely housed there for a few thousand years and then be brought back to life.

Then he goes to outer space, and encounters the resurrected and possibly undead Kilowog. Kilowog had been brought back to life by Boodika and several other ex-lanterns in the Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan (I have no fucking clue what is up with this storyline since Green Lantern 10-13 because this is the storyline where Kilowog came back and where Oa was reconstructed so it can't be totally retconned out, but Boodika can't have been there and she was a major antagonist.) So Kilowog gets collected by the keepers of his people's afterlife because he's from one of those planets where they frown on this sort of thing. Which leads to the bright spot of Raab's run (Green Lantern #169 I believe, but I didn't like Raab's run so I've only read this one a few times) when Kyle literally follows a friend to Hell and physically pulls him back to the land of the living. We can count that.

And then, of course, there's the famous Rebirth storyline where Kyle retrieved the body of Hal Jordan from the sun so that Hal could be brought to life in a storyline involving Ganthet and the Spectre. Since Kyle was pretty damned active in bringing this about, I'd like to count that as well.

Then there's the end of the Ion maxiseries where Kyle brings his mother to life until she tells him that's a bad idea. This one probably only fell through because (unlike everyone else he's seen resurrected) she's a religious civilian woman and not a superhero who has actually spoken to various deities from a number of different cultures. Kind of a different view on the afterlife there. Still, despite being a tap back, this counts.

So, there we have it. Kyle Rayner has either actually performed or facilitated the resurrection of a dead person (or persons) on five different occasions. These aren't deaths that are just retconned away as never having happened. These are people who were in-continuity dead, and the plot was that he went out of his way and brought them back to life.

And, if you take into account that there were 5 dead Leaguers (not counting Kyle) in that JLA story, and the dead Guardians numbered 15, 31, or 35 (Kalinara and I are still arguing this one), that's actually quite a lot of people.

Under 5 different writers come to think of it.

I have no impressive conclusion to this train of thought. Its just one of those things that keeps popping up. Only while I'm absolutely certain they've done the dead girlfriend/relative thing consciously (so that Kyle can angst that he's cursed and be reluctant to grow close to anyone) I don't think they've realized yet that they created a character who raises the dead as a hobby (or that the two trends are intrinsically connected characterization-wise). There would be more in-jokes about it at convention panels I imagine.

Yes, another video.

But I needed one to illustrate my suggestion because I'm not sure everyone who reads this blog also watches Comedy Central and this guy just looks and sounds perfect.

Rob Riggle as Hal Jordan.



Who else can see it?

Yeah, that probably says a lot about what I think of Hal.

Because we haven't had a joke about this for a few months.

Venting

I know I complain sometimes, but I am generally happy with the comics I'm buying. That's why I buy them. There's just some things that need to be pointed out, particularly when the problem is harmful like sexism. However, as the editorial direction at DC goes, most of it kicks ass in various ways.

(On the contrary, I can't stand what Marvel's doing which is why you rarely see me on Marvel blogs trashing Marvel staff in the comments of perfectly happy Marvel fans.)

Unfortunately, I can't bow out of the online comics community without dumping WFA entirely on Kalinara's shoulders (and that's mean) so I get to go and read everyone constantly complaining about the stuff I really enjoy, and oftentimes marrying it to a complaint I have as though that makes it more legitimate.

For example, A) "There's a conspiracy to kill off JLI characters" is often connected to a complaint about B) the proliferation of rape in comics due to Sue Dibny's treatment in Identity Crisis.

The two opinions can co-exist in one mind, that's no problem for me. The problem is when B is used to prop up the legitimacy of "A."

It comes in a little tiny hint sometimes, like "You hated Identity Crisis, right?" or "You hate retconned rape, like what happened to Sue, right?" in a conversation about hating on a particular writer or editor at DC Comics. The crux of it is that I should agree with them and be hoping for the person in question to be humiliated/fired/maimed/folded/spindled/mutilated because I dislike that storytelling trend and so should dislike everything else associated with the person.

Because apparently no writer has ever written something stereotyped, had the sexism pointed out and gone on to be a better writer. And apparently no good writer has ever let anything slip past him on a bad day.

Its similar to the people who were defending the Killing Joke earlier this week, because "You can't say that about Alan Moore!" Because in that point of view, like the above one, we don't criticize anything unless everything connected with it is utter shit.

All or nothing with some people.

At best, its a serious misunderstanding of the nature of criticism. At worst, its a slimy manipulative technique that places a person somewhere between a worm and a fossilized trilobite in my personal estimation.

Now that I look at it.

I was writing up something on Star Sapphire for Blog@Newsarama and I realized something about this cover. Look at Hal's dialogue.


"She hurled a repelling ray at me! There must be some way I can defeat this mystery woman!"

That picture and those words. That's pretty much Hal and Carol's relationship in a nutshell, isn't it?

Also Unnerving

Someone in my comments recently called me a "Voice of reason."

How the fuck did that happen?

I'm a Green Lantern fan. I'm not supposed to be a voice of reason. I'm not supposed to be in the same room as Reason! I checked Reason at the door of my first GL fan-club meeting and lost the claim ticket while inside.

And I'm certainly not supposed to be the fan writing reality-checks. I'm not supposed to be the level-headed one. I'm supposed to be the one standing on the hood of a rusted lime green Oldsmobile waiving a Sector 2814 T-shirt in the air to distract Ron Marz while my deceptively mild mannered but similarly deranged sidekick fills water balloons with oil-based paint!

Yeesh, when the Lantern fans have to tell you to rein the fannishness a tad, its gotten bad.

Let's move this conversation here.

So, in my last post (which I figured was going to cause a fight, just not this kind of fight) I said that there was no conspiracy to kill off all old 80s and 90s comedy characters at DC, and some of the commenters thought that the way to refute that statement was to throw my own complaints about how women are treated by the company in my face.

Now, you'll have to pardon me if I misread the statements because my sarcasmometer is still in the shop.

It started here:

Well sure. But there is no conspiracy to treat female characters like shit. It just happens. DC still did a good job of pissing over Giffen's league. They appear to be trying to make up for it though, what with books like the new Booster Gold.

That irritated me:

Yeah, thing about that comparison is, whenever someone reacts saying "There's no conspiracy" we still get to point out that there's a huge system of societal sexism in place causing that to happen, and that people do things like that because of assumptions they were raised with. We also get to point out that this sort of crap is supporting a system of societal sexism that demoralizes people and shoves them into little boxes.

Giffen's league was funny, but DC killing off characters that were basically given to the guy because they were the second- and third-stringers the writers were free to turn evil, maim, or kill off is not the same thing as just about every company in comics falling back on the same shitty tropes, stereotypes and exploitation when it comes to an entire gender.

I should have chosen my words more carefully, because that left everything open for another commenter (yes, one of my regulars and not just some random anonymous person) to really piss me off with this statement:

Killing/maiming/turning evil of 2nd and 3rd tier characters is only a shitty trope if the characters are female?

My long answer (the one I posted):

Way to oversimplify my statement. You know there's a serious difference there.

Look at how Blue Beetle died and how Jade died. Who died having solved a crime and who was a "vessel" for her signifcant other's power?

Compare Phantom Lady's death scene to Black Condor's. Someone died quickly in mid-air and the other lingered with her clothes torn off and asked a miserable, scared "Why?" of a supervillain.

Stephanie Brown's to Jason Todd's. Who's costume went from loose-fitting to skin-tight? Who was drawn as if they were having an orgasm during their death? Who is now back to life?

Hell, even when they go bad, does Max Lord going evil and damned near managing to take over the world seem nearly as fucking pathetic as Jean Loring arranging for a friend's death to get her ex-husband back?

Tomar Re died during a battle in CoIE. Katma Tui died a few years later on the kitchen floor while her husband was at work, without ever getting to put up a fight.

The shittiness is not in the characters dying/going evil/being maimed, but the how and why and how it conforms to a shitty societal standard for what men are allowed to do and what women are allowed to do.

And guess what, even then its not a fucking conspiracy, but just a bunch of people who are used to thinking one way who need to learn to think another.

I'm not going to tell you what to like or hate, or what to complain about, but I am going to tell you that these things are not equal in any way shape or form. One is a hell of a lot worse than the other because of its real-life reflection.

My short answer:
Well, if no one gets to be hurt or in danger or have a moral crisis we really have no story. The problem is when it only happens in certain potentially cool ways for one gender and certain crappy ways for the other gender. Invisible Woman being mind-controlled and turned evil isn't shitty. Invisible Woman being mind-controlled and turned sexy-evil is.

Anyway, now I'm spoiling for a fight and I'd prefer to have it here and not in the comments of the other post which really had nothing to do with gender issues.

Thoughts?

Comic Foundry

I don't like reviewing. It makes this blog into a chore when I have to actively dreg up a coherent opinion on something substantial. Aside from the things I'm really fanatical about (which I obsess about endlessly and need to vent on) or the things that inspire some strange insight (that I need to write just to get it out into the conversation), I just enjoy reading and don't comment on it here.

But for whatever reason I accepted an early print copy of Comic Foundry this weekend, even though it meant I had to review it. And now I feel like a total sycophant, because I got something for free and really enjoyed it and now I'm in the position of trying to talk a bunch of people to pay for what I enjoyed for free.

This is awkward.

I tend to stick to comics and the internet for my reading because of my extremely short attention span (it was once described as "the attention span of a gnat on crack" by one of my sister's friends). The first half of Comic Foundry is very nice to my poor attention span. Most of the creator stuff is only a page long, which is good because they have a lot of different personalities packed into this little magazine (the table of contents "Creator Locator" lists about 50 different people). There's a page full of quotes from Darick Robertson [Pg ], a block diagram comparing the Kubert brothers' opinions [Pg 26] and Matt Fraction's guide to seducing Kieron Gillen [Pg 23] sprinkled in along with standard Q&A articles, so it tends towards the surreal sometimes.

The Life+Style section was the best part. It had a feature with four different women reacting to theoretical pickup approaches from five different comic book personalities [Pg 19], cocktail recipes [Pg 19], artists who also play music [Pg 22], a page on items of interest in Maryland [Pg 27], Brian Wood explaining his office decorations [Pg 18] and my personal favorite, tips for comic-themed home decor [Pg 17]!

The longer articles are in the second half of the magazine, and there's a couple that are of particular interest to my regular readers and When Fangirls Attack followers. "Heroine Addict" [Pg 74-77] ranks superheroines by comparing them to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and of course the ones I like score low, I'm not sure whether to bother writing in about that or not) and "Sex and the Superhero" [Pg 62-67], wherein a psychologist analyzes She-Hulk and several covers (including the controversial Heroes for Hire #13).

Which of course brings me to the big draw here. Now, I hear a lot of complaining about Wizard in the feminist comics fan community, and I know from back when I was reading Wizard they really couldn't give two shits about women. As it is, we've been blogging steadily for over a year about women and female characters and most of the online sources have picked up on the issues, and we've seen gender issues touched on in mainstream magazines and news publications but I can't remember when I heard of Wizard or The Comics Journal nodding to anything that's covered on WFA. But here, in black and white print and carried by Diamond Distributors, I see Storm in Black Panther [Pg 77], Wonder Woman in All-Star Batman and Robin #6 [Pg 66], the cover to Heroes for Hire #13 [Pg 67] and how hard it is to tell a sex scene from a cover illustration [Pg 15] all touched upon in the first issue.

I strongly advise anyone who complains about Wizard Magazine and their attitude towards female readers to support this magazine. And if you disagree or have something to add, please write them a letter and see if they print it next issue. Keep the conversation going. I really believe it would be in the best interests of most feminist-minded fans to see this one continue and possibly make it to being a monthly instead of a quarterly magazine.

Comic Foundry is quarterly, black and white, $5.98 an issue and out tomorrow (Wednesday, August 22nd).

Submission Call: 17th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans

What: The 17th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans
Where: Spawn of Blogorrhea
When: September 26th
Deadline for Submissions: September 19th
Contact: lee[UNDERSCORE]kottner[AT]mindspring[DOT]com or submission form

Notice: Accepting Volunteers to Host the 18th Carnival. Email Ragnellthefoul[at]hotmail[dot]com if interested.

Four Important Things All DC Fans Should Know

Since I'm already shooting my mouth off and possibly causing hurt feelings in my comments, let's go over some things here on the mainpage:

1) There is no pro-Hal conspiracy to kill/ruin Kyle Rayner. Kyle becoming Parallax just makes fucking sense from a narrative standpoint since that would be his (and the rest of the DCU's) greatest freaking fear since Kyle first found out what happened to Hal. This story had to happen, and it may as well happen now. If you are worried about how the writer feels about Kyle, reread Rebirth.

Since I've also seen this one theorized, Kyle Rayner is being moved to the Countdown books not to ruin Kyle, but to sucker his rabid fans into buying Countdown. (Seriously, check out today's solicits. See who is prominently featured on the cover of every Countdown tie-in they appear in? Kyle and Donna. Kyle and Donna. Kyle and Donna. They know why people would want to read this stuff, and its not the creative team or the storyline.) Its working for me, and I know its working on some of the rest of you too. If anything, this proves Kyle is safe because they need a character who can draw 40K readers into their crappy crossovers.

(Also, they finally gave him a good costume. Things are looking up!)

2) There was no plot to kill all of JLI and ruin everything Keith Giffen created. (If there was, why is Ice back?) That is why they joke about that at conventions. They are making fun of fans who think that.

3) There is no conspiracy to kill off Young Justice characters. Superboy's copyright was complicated. Bart wasn't selling (possibly because so many of his fans were boycotting DC over other matters, but I'm just guessing based on who I've seen complaining about what online). Secret and Arrowette were removed in the original series. Empress has a fucking stupid civilian name and will never be prominent again because her creator couldn't resist a stupid pun. Lil' Lobo was one of those jokes that was funny for one panel but got overused. (Like a lot of the jokes in Young Justice. I swear, that series was like the Saturday Night Live of superhero comics).

That team is down to two, but they'd be mad to get rid of Tim and I'm just not lucky enough to see Cassie die.

That series wasn't all it was cracked up to be anyway, take it from someone who was the age range of those heroes when they were created. It was good for a laugh, but in the end I remember preferring the big guns in the JLA or the grumpy old men in JSA than the heroes that were supposed to have been my generation's.

4) They actually do hate Kirby fans. Starlin was overjoyed to get to kill off the New Gods. Bastards.

(Or, y'know, that sort of joking around at a convention could be just them fucking with our conspiracy theories again like they consciously did leading up to Identity Crisis, GL: Rebirth, Infinite Crisis...etc...)

November DC

Its that time of the month again! (Shut up Sims, I don't mean that time of the month.) Newsarama has the November pre-solicits up. The full ones should be around by 5 PM on Monday, but it looks like all of the Green Lantern stuff made the early ones.

GREEN LANTERN #25
Written by Geoff Johns
Art and cover by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert
Variant cover by Gary Frank
This is it! The most talked-about storyline of the summer, “The Sinestro Corps War,” concludes in this double-sized anniversary issue! Why does Sinestro believe he has won? How will Hal Jordan stop his greatest enemy? What is the truth behind the prophecy of “The Blackest Night”? Where will the end results of this battle take the Green Lantern Corps? What is the bizarre fate of the Anti-Monitor? Why has Earth been assigned so many Green Lanterns? Learn all the secrets! Witness all the battles! Prepare yourself for the startling ending of the greatest epic in the history of Green Lantern!
Retailers please note: This issue will feature two covers that may be ordered separately. For every 10 copies of the Standard Edition (featuring a cover by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert, retailers may order one Variant Edition (featuring a cover by Gary Frank). See the Previews Order Form for more information.
On sale November 28 • 64 pg, FC, $4.99 US

"Why has Earth been assigned so many Green Lanterns?" There needs to be an explanation for that? Haven't they seen what Earth in the DCU is like? I'd stick a few extras there too! Hell the Guardians could save a lot of time by just basing the Corps on Earth, because if a universal threat isn't from there its headed there anyway.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #18
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art and cover by Pat Gleason & Prentis Rollins
“The Sinestro Corps War” epilogue! The fires still burn, the dead are many, and the Green Lantern Corps rises from the ashes to rebuild and continue their mission to protect the universe as the Guardians’ recent decision in the midst of the Sinestro Corps War reverberates within the ranks and alters the Corps forever!
On sale November 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Oa is seriously still on fire in November? This started in June and they still haven't managed to douse it. They need a Green Lantern Fire Brigade because this is hardly the first time in the last 25 years that place has been set ablaze.

TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS PRESENTS: ION #1
Written by Ron Marz
Art by Michael Lacomb
Cover by Ivan Reis
Ion is the chosen one of the Green Lantern Corps, whose coming was foretold as a prophecy in the Book of Oa. But now that Kyle Rayner has been possessed by Parallax, can he ever bear the mantle of Ion again? Or will it pass to a completely new bearer? This all-important Sinestro Corps tie-in reveals the answers, and sets the stage for Green Lantern — and Kyle Rayner — for years to come!
On sale November 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

That bug is still inside Kyle by this point? Damn, I was betting on the Parallax special being when it gets moved. DC, that's another dollar you've lost me.

Funny how every other special has been about an active bad guy as the title character, but this one is the second one about Kyle and instead of Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax #2 or Green Lantern Special: Ion we have Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Ion. It makes me wonder if Sinestro's going to try to place Ion inside one of his lackeys to make a second Parallax-level ally. I mean, everything we've seen has suggested that Kyle was in the driver's seat while Ion was boosting the engine. Sinestro himself said Ion wasn't a possessing force like Parallax, but a support entity. There's no reason to think that a bad guy hosting the whale would be anything other than a bad guy. Sinestro would be stupid not to try this.

Most importantly though, who the fuck is Michael Lacomb and can he get the hair right?

Now that I've recovered from actually attending the convention...

I thought I'd point out something I witnessed (I'll quote the Newsarama writeup, though) since I've had a few commenters on this blog worried about this:

- Will Kyle Rayner die?

Didio asked the panel: Should Kyle die?

Van Sciver: "Absolutely not"
Starlin: "I missed the question because I was talking" (to a woman in a Power Girl costume), but then he added, "yes."
Calafiore - Yes
Wayne - No
Jones- No
Levitz - No

Didio said "Stop right there."

Aureliani, who would have been next after Levitz, said - "What, you don't ask the cartoonists?" To which Didio said, "He's the boss."

There. The freaking Publisher telling the Editor-in-Chief he didn't want Kyle Rayner dead. If that Green Lantern was ever on the fabled kill-list, he's not anymore.

(Not to mention the Green Lantern artist sounded absolutely horrified at the thought of killing that character.)

Beyond that Didio said that Green Lantern #26 would lead directly in Kyle joining Countdown at the Friday panel.

Now will you guys please stop angsting about Kyle's fate and let me enjoy the current storyline?

Quote

Angband:

Yes, women are raped in real life. And the reason I read comic books is to escape from real life.

Once again...

Fuck you, Frank.

*Sigh*

Short notes.

I know I've been quiet lately, but I am still recovering from vacation. Posting will pick up soon.

I did a convention report with Kalinara here and here. (I also managed to get a very abbreviated version of my feature out as well.)

I also sold a story last month. Its only a two-page story, but its money. The book's been sent to the printers, and I'll link it here when its on sale.

And the 16th Carnival of Feminist SF/F Fans has been posted! I am still looking for hosts. Email me if interested.

Oh.

One of the first pieces of news I find when I get home is that Mike Wieringo has passed away.

He's one of the first comic book artists I learned to recognize, from his Flash stuff.

ETA: Athelind found his DeviantArt Gallery, in case you've already gotten through the sketchblog.

Wish You Were Here!

I'm on blog blackout from lack of a computer, but I managed to steal a few minutes at Kalinara's laptop. (She's cranky but she lost the keys to the rental so she's being nice enough now that it took twenty minutes of panic to find them in her suitcase.)

Anyway, guess which one is me:



The Donna Troy was very nice, I think she's the one who kept telling me to get in the picture while I was taking them.

After that, I managed to get a photo with Ethan Van Sciver, but when I went over to Patrick Gleason's booth my camera battery went dead. It is too tempting to get these two artists pictured with this particular costume I should probably do laundry before tomorrow so I can get Gleason's photo.

This con I have extremely weird timing anyway. On Friday, I asked a question at the DC panel which stuck with Didio because at the Saturday panel he mentioned it while everyone was taking pictures of Power Girl.

"Who says there are too many blondes in the DCU?" He was facing me when he said it. I looked up from behind my camera.

"I did!" (I don't know if anyone but me was amused that the girl in the Green Lantern costume was the one complaining about an excess of yellow hair.)

He laughed and backed away from the audience.

That's nothing, though. On the way to Chicago I pulled into a rest stop and almost immediately was offered help for a flat tire I didn't know I had. The very next exit was a town with a cheap tire place.

I'd meticulously packed all of my extra costuming stuff before I let home, only to realize four hours away that I had left the costumes themselves, the actual spandex, hanging in my living room. After I got to the hotel and we made a trip to the 7-11 to get some odds and ends we saw a dancewear store right next to it. I was able to make a costume for Saturday that actually looked better than the one I'd had.

However, I did get to attend something extremely fun that will make many of you very, very jealous. I also got to be an annoying loudmouth at DC panels. I have way too much fun at conventions.

New Frontier Preview

Its more of a "Making of" than a trailer, but it has a few clips of Hal and Barry in there.



(Thanks Lisa)

Quiz Time!

When Fangirls Attack is a blog created to link articles specifically about women in comics.

Many of those articles are fairly negative in tone.

What do these two facts in conjunction tell us?

• A) Women are often portrayed poorly in comic books.


• B) Women in comics fandom and the comics industry are often treated poorly.


• C) Both A and B.


• D) Women complain about everything.

If you answered "D", I have an assignment for you (And no half-assing it, because we'll know). If you choose a post linked on WFA to comment on about "an endless parade of rage" and "you're just happy about nothing", go to the main page of the blog and read the posts on their front page. See if they are generally happy or angry about other things before you go accusing them of being "rage-a-holics."

I'm not saying there aren't ranting blogs out there, but I have some of these people I link on feed. Even just searching, I still see a lot of normal posts. Many of them are deliriously happy over many things in comics that won't ever be linked on WFA because they aren't on-topic for the blog.

In short, stop and make sure you're not making stupid fucking generalizations before you comment.

There may be a simpler explanation to your predicament.

So, Kalinara wrote an answer to this Pink Raygun entry about how SDCC pros were tensing up when she mentioned she ran a female-centric website and wanted an interview for it (Sounds to me like a guilty conscience, but I wasn't there. Hell, it may have been heartburn). Alpha Girl's site-buddy John commented on the post and reminded me of something. Alpha Girl, who posts under her pseudonym (but uses her real name in the site info) is named Lisa.

I almost asked for him to please clarify his Lisas from now on, because I (Lisa Fortuner of Written World, When Fangirls Attack, and Blog@Newsarama in case you're new here) am always getting mixed up with fellow comic book feminists Lisa Lopacinski (POWER in Comics, Sequentially Speaking, Neptune Comics) and Lisa Jonte (Girlamatic, Women's Work). That's why I much prefer to be referred to as Ragnell the Foul everywhere but Blog@Newsarama. Simplicity's sake.

Anyway, I wonder if Alpha Girl is introducing herself with "Hi, I'm Lisa and I have a website for female fans"?

Because that might have a different effect than saying something like "Hi, I'm Charlotte and I have a website for female fans."

Just a thought.

In case you were curious.

I've had a few comments about it show up, and I keep meaning to make an answer to them but I'm made of procrastination this week. So, to answer some of the comments I've had lately, I thought I'd let you guys know that I'm pretty pro-violence in my comic book reading. I am a Geoff Johns fan.

Nothing too graphic mind you, but I think my line is a little farther than a lot of people's. There's a spread in Powers that grossed me out once. Nothing that's appeared in DC, including the Pantha decapitation (and yes, that includes the rolling -- It reminded me of a Hunter: The Reckoning game I ran once where one of the player characters died of decapitation in a fight scene and another player character picked up her head and used it to bowl for vampires) has really struck me as shocking.

And yeah, I don't mind gruesome deaths because I know I'll really enjoy the creative leaps future writers will need to make to retcon them away. My first big fan obsession was Sherlock Holmes (which, coincidentally, I discovered through a "Classics Illustrated" version of "The Speckled Band" in one of my brother's magazines) so I tend to take fictional death as less of an offense than turning a character evil or crazy or weak or all three.

Just in case you were commenting because you actually wanted my opinion on death by decapitation, people being torn in half, and characters melting to death.

Undershorts!

Praise heaven, Supergirl is wearing undershorts beneath her skirt!

Tell me this artist is permanent.

I miss Green Lantern: Mosaic

Was there ever anything so beautifully absurd as that series? The real beauty was in the consistent strangeness of the series. They could make anything fit.

Take Ch'p, for example. Here's Ch'p from the regular series:



Now, Ch'p was always kind of a Disney reference, and (as above) he'd be oddly cartoonish no matter who was drawing him and he was cute but it seemed to me he didn't fit in the far out space-setting of the Green Lantern Corps. Why not? Because he was too much of an Earth-cultural symbol. This was not only a creature that was native to earth, but personified in a wholly human tradition. He walked out of a human cartoon.

This is a fun idea, I am totally for Ch'p solo stories, but it was different with him in the ensemble cast. See, when it comes to creating a cohesive space opera feel he gets problematic. Ch'p was a character that was out of place in the classic pulp scifi stories that some writers tried to tell. He broke the mood. He took me out of the story. He was too Earthly and too cute to fit. (This happens less often with Arisia, but when you get the wrong artist and characterization, and they overload her with cuteness she can be a bit off in much the same way. Too earthly, too much of a fantasy cultural reference. Just plain not weird enough or grand enough for a sweeping space epic.)

I honestly didn't think Ch'p would work as part of anyone else's story (again, Ch'p-only stories are a different matter), until I saw him in Green Lantern Mosaic #2:



How miraculously appropriate is that panel?

No one has ever managed Ch'p so incredibly absurd and suitably alien as Cully Hamner did in that issue. He fit perfectly into the story without breaking the weight of the tale or bringing the reader too back to human culture, and part of it was just in how he was drawn. That was one freaking weird series that somehow managed to keep a straight face no matter what came into it.

I'm not saying it I suddenly loved Ch'p because Jones and Hamner made him all dark and serious. Yes, they did make him dark and serious, but it was a tongue-in-cheek thing (Think Morrison's Doom Patrol). The series kept a straight face while you giggled not only at the inclusion of Ch'p, but at the mind-dissolving oddness of the entire setting and story and the fact that all of it worked perfectly together!

Honestly, its a shame about that yellow truck (yes, I am totally serious) because Ch'p really worked in that setting without breaking the mood. That's tough with a cute character that's a cultural in-joke.

Of course, that's part of the absurdity, isn't it?

Because I think this is important to realize

Over on another blog there was a discussion over a comparison between how the treatment of black characters in comics has changed versus how the treatment of women has changed. The exchange got heated, the entire post was taken down and the cache only has the one comment now so I don't have the conversation on record.

Anyway, the blogger has put up a clarification, and chose two comments to answer. I had to say something, again, and I thought I'd put my comment up here for everyone's future reference:

Willow's pretty clearly upset because the problem was so much worse with African-American characters, and there are still unbelievable problems with African-American characters in all forms of media, and your comparison is sweeping that under the rug in favor of supporting your own personal agenda, which is examining gender discrimination. You are putting down her concerns to prop up yours. That is a problem.

Meanwhile, Betty was basically telling you to avoid this comparison, its useless and all it does is set people against each other. With this clarification attempt, you persist with the comparison. Why?

Next time you want to say that gay people have it better in comics than non-white people, or non-white people have it better than women, or women have it better than gay people, just stop. Its not adding anything worthwhile to the conversation, its taking away from the conversation. Its also arrogant as all-hell. You can only speak for yourself, who are you to tell someone else how to prioritize their troubles? What they should be more offended at? Even if you are a lesbian and a registered member of the Kiowa tribe, who are you to declare that "we've come far with race, but moved nowhere on gender" when talking to a Hawaiian woman who is grateful to be alive in this time period but can't manage to get away from the casual racism that invades her life?

Its all wrong, and there's more than enough of it for all of us to worry about anyway.

And stop wasting energy arguing about where everyone should direct their energy. I'm all for absurdity in an entertainment setting, but that's getting old on the level of people commenting on blogs about how blogging is a waste of time.

Blog Positivity Day

(Yes, seriously, a positive post! On this blog! Take that, Sims!)

By now you all know I'm more into "posts of passion" than premeditated theme days, so I normally don't participate in stuff like this. Still, I have a very happy start to this week and I figured I'd share it.

I expressed my usual enthusiastic adoration for Pat Gleason and got this comment yesterday:

thought Id clear it up
that is Katma Tui
actually Dave asked for a shot of it on the first panel where we see natu being introduced, but it was so far back I never got to do a nice close up, so i thought it would have a good impact there in that panel.
oh..and I love you too.

You have to love a fandom where most of the professionals are so down-to-Earth and part of the community that they'll just show up on your blog and comment.

Submissions Call for Carnival of Feminist SF/F Fans

Where: True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller
When: August 16th
Deadline for Submissions: August 13th
Contact: QMickle[at]gmail[dot]com or submission form

Notice: Accepting Volunteers to Host the 17th Carnival. Email Ragnellthefoul[at]hotmail[dot]com if interested.

Final Crisis

Okay, by now we should all know what crazy wonderful writer has been assigned to DC's Final Crisis crossover, its time to place your bets.

So, given the reign of the entire DC universe for one crossover, what is Grant Morrison most likely to do with them?

This person thinks they're clever...

...by commenting on a year and a half-old post:

At the risk of sounding somewhat curt, if you don't like the state of comic writing then, become a comic writer and begin to change it.

Yes, it's annoying that comic writing isn't more mature, but the only way to change it is if people with more mature sensibilities get in there and get to work.

Normally I ignore this stuff, but I had to give an answer to that one:

Baleful darling, its not that you sound curt -- its that you sound idiotic.

Your comment runs on a few assumptions: a) That I'm not trying just that, b) that my current lifestyle supports such a venture, c) that I'm talented/skilled enough at comic book writing to do so, d) that these problems are not editorially driven, and e) that it is just that easy to break into the comics industry and be handed the reigns of the most popular superheroes in comicdom.

To answer your assumptions: (a) I am but (b) it really doesn't and (c) I might be but (d) probably not enough so to override the editor and (e) it sure as hell isn't.

That's not even getting into the absurd idea that a paying customer should answer shoddy work not by complaining but by trying to do it better themselves. Try that principle on your car, see how far you go.

I'm getting really sick of people trotting out that answer like I haven't heard it fifty billion times already. Even if it wasn't so common, its certainly not insightful enough to be worth making on a 1 year and 7 month-old conversation.

Wonder Woman #11

I can't bring myself to read it. Its just sitting there on the pile.

Anybody have any thoughts on it that might make me want to read it?

Am I interpreting Gleason's art right?

In Green Lantern Corps #14, is that really a statue of Katma Tui on Korugar? I'm getting from the context that they were praising Soranik, but that looks like Katma's costume and hair in the statue.


Either way, nice panel composition. I love Pat Gleason so much and never want him to leave this book.

(Okay, I admit it, I just posted this to gloat that my favorite dead female character has a memorial now. But I do love Pat Gleason and this panel.)

Apparently...

Power Girl is too masculine for some readers.

The Nine

From Digital Femme:

"Can you imagine them doing this to black people?"

Oh God, I wish I could stop hearing those words. No matter what slight is being discussed, whether superficial or serious, the person discussing it never seems to be satisfied until he or she can utter that phrase.

Obviously I must be living in some alternate reality, because everyone else seems to be living in a place where black people are treated with the utmost dignity and respect while every other group from redheads to Christians are horribly discriminated against.

In other news...

I'd like to say that I am publicly annoyed at my sister, because this podcast was posted on July 12th and she didn't tell me.

Not only is it exactly the sort of stuff I link, but my own sister (Kimberly) is talking for most of the podcast and she didn't tell me.

Also, she has to be wrong about when she started reading, because she is the one who gave me my first comic and that was Generation X #1, which pre-dates Age of Apocalypse.

Strongly recommended reading.

I suggest everyone read this one, and take her challenge up.

Lazy Posting

Just thought I'd let you know I picked the proper name:

Which Lady of Camelot Are You?

You are Ragnell - Enchanted Beast/Unearthly Beauty:
People are often deceived by first glance, thinking you to be mean or brash. However when they know you they find out how beautiful, smart and sincere you are. Your heart is filled with pity for others, but you often remain with self doubt of yourself because of people's initial reactions.

Quizilla| Join| Make A Quiz |Grab Code

Hmm...

I finished the Last Book of Potter a couple hours ago, and I've been mulling over either gushing or ranting (I loved 99% of the book, but one little bit irritated me and another little thing makes me angrier the more I think about it) but I'm going to spare you my venting until its safe to spoil.

How long should I wait?

Friday Night Fights: Round 5!

For Bahlactus.

Thinking Blogger Meme

Yes, I know I've been tapped twice for the "Thinking Blogger" awards (and at least once for that 8 things meme). I'm not oblivious to memes, I'm just a procrastinator.

Here's the rules as relayed to me:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,

3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote. (Yeah, I'm not going to bother with that.)

I'm terrible about getting into the blogging community lately. Between my feedreader and livejournal, I read roughly 800 blogs. They don't all update at once, they aren't all good, and I tend to skim past a lot of wonderful stuff. I have trouble keeping track of where I commented, and sometimes I don't comment or link what I intend to because I don't like to just link with no commentary on this blog. Unless I'm worked up by joy or rage at the moment, I don't have the motivation to write coherently. (As a result, my to-link list for this blog is too long right now.) That's why When Fangirls Attack has no commentary. Too much volume for commentary.

Out of the over 800 blogs I normally read, who makes me think?

Ultimately, everyone. For different reasons and at different times. Not always for the reasons they want to, not always in the ways they want to, I keep reading those blogs and adding more because there's just such a wonderful variety of human experience and opinion on the web, and honestly what else am I going to do after work while Oklahoma sleeps and I lurk in my subterranean cavern? ( As my first profile said, my social life was no match for the Night Shift. Oklahoma City's loss is the Internet's gain, for good or ill.) In the end, though, I tend to skim through most of the blogs as I search for linkable content.

However, I've found some blogs that I try never to skim and I always read through because they regularly have quality commentary. When busy, I tend to save the posts then go back to reread them afterwards (I'm usually a bit behind so I rarely comment unless Green Lantern is mentioned). So, from my Must-Read List, here's five of the people who regularly make me think. I'm going to try and go with people who I haven't seen tagged yet but the past two or three monmths have been a bit crazy so I might fail in that regard.

1. Planet Karen -- Yes, that one is a webcomic. More specifically, it is a daily biographical comic on the internet, or a graphic weblog, so I say it counts.

2. 4th Letter -- Funny story about this one. I only found it after getting into an argument with David Brothers about Storm. Repeated disagreements, actually. We will probably never ever see eye to eye about that one but I'm a regular reader of his now and for good reason.

3. Days in a Wannabe Punk's Life -- I've been reading Megha since I found her through the mainstream Carnival of Feminists. She's smart, she's funny, she's from another side of the world from me, and I can still read her thoughts which is one of the reasons I love the internet.

4. Seeking Avalon -- I'm not sure what to say about Willow that's not obvious. If you are not already reading this blog, I'd advise you to watch it. She has some wonderful insights (for a Batman fan).

5. Center of Gravitas -- I am addicted to GayProf. He almost never blogs comics yet I am compelled to read every post the entire way through whether its on politics, Texas life, or whatever else he finds worth blogging about. Always worthwhile.

That's five. That's not all of my Must-Read List, but that's five and I am especially lazy when it comes to memes and praise.

What Teachers Make

I'm so obsessed, I thought of Guy Gardner for this one.



(Via)

Why does this piss me off so much?

I've been reading through the 1500 blog posts I missed over the weekend, and I just found the umpteenth post whining about Kyle.

I don't know why this pisses me off so much. Maybe because its a story idea that I like, and I'd been hoping for earlier in Johns run. Its a story I've been wanting to see, because this is Kyle's biggest fear. This is the one of those things that has haunted since the beginning of his career, the idea that he might end up like Hal did. Its something the character needs to go through, and to be honest I don't like the Uber-Kyle a lot of fans are attached to. Ion works temporarily, but really I prefer the character with his ring.

I also prefer the character as the lesser powered person in a situation. The best Kyle stories are Kyle as the underdog. Kyle started out facing fully-Parallaxed Hal. He had to face him his first week with absolutely no help. He came up with this unbelievably crazy idea of destroying the planet both characters were standing on, and Parallax is so thrown he lets Kyle through the mass purging of the entire Green Lantern mythos.

A little while later, Ganthet tries to fire him, and Parallax shows up again, scares off Ganthet, beats the shit out of the JLA, beat the shit out of Kyle and takes his ring. Kyle pops back up, powerless, armed by only a lead pipe and knocks Parallax over the head. There's some talking between Hal, Kyle and Ganthet. Hal decides that beating up Kyle is like the Hulk wearing cleats to step on a kitten and the situation defuses. (This one actually works really well with the fearbug retcon, because you can interpret it was Hal coming back to control for a short time.)

In JLA he had to overcome his awe and nervousness save the universe multiple times. Morrison's DC One Million crossover forced Kyle to hold together an exploding sun. He needed a pep talk from batman first.

In Rebirth, he's at death's doorstep and he keeps moving forward because he has to.

I like Kyle.

No, I love Kyle. He's one of my absolute favorite characters in the DC stable.

But I thought Ion was killing him. Both times. My Kyle is the toughest guy in the universe, but not nearly the most powerful. My Kyle is loaded with self-doubt, hesitation, and fear. My Kyle is often outgunned, outmatched, and overpowered by the energy.

My Kyle pushes past that to triumph anyway.

I am enjoying the hell out of this story, because Sinestro Corps was the beginning of a story about My Kyle. He was out of his element, he was alone, he was outnumbered, he was overpowered, and he was at the end of his rope. He faltered, just enough, to get into real trouble from there.

This happened in the first issue. This always happens to Kyle. The best stories are when he gets through that and wins in the end.

I can understand being pissed when this crossover is over and done with, if Kyle is a passive little victim who needs to be saved completely by Hal. But seriously, we're in the opening shots here and right now it fits the pattern of a really good Kyle Rayner story perfectly.

I don't see how these so-called devoted Kyle fans aren't seeing that. That's why I did the writer poll, because while Johns is a very intense writer, this isn't a pattern that only he uses. Marz and Morrison wrote this pattern. They set up the Kyle fears, falters, then comes back to win pattern. Kelly continued it. Honestly, the only writer who had his hands on the character for a significant amount of time but didn't do that was Judd Winick, and I believe that's why I despise his run so much. That wasn't My Kyle. I figured the people who hated the crossover must've joined during his run.

Johns, though he doesn't use him often, writes Kyle the way I know and love him. Its Johns style, so its melodramatic and the pacing's off. the jokes change from writer to writer, sure. but personality-wise and story-role-wise this is My Kyle. This is the Green Lantern I started with. This is the Green Lantern who brought me into Green Lantern. This story fits the pattern, and it promises to put an end to the Ion nonsense.

I'm really enjoying this story, and I'd love to be able to enjoy it without people shitting on it for particularly stupid complaints. That's why I'm so irritated with them. I've not been going through Kyle-withdrawal for the past two months. I've been going through Kyle withdrawal for a full year, dammit, and I've finally gotten this character back after all that time and I want to enjoy it dammit.

Now, someone's about to come here and say I'm trying to censor Kyle complaints or tell you to stop complaining about Kyle. No, I'm not. You are perfectly free to think that Kyle has been ruined and this is all some juvenile Hal-fan revenge for Emerald Twilight.

I, however, am perfectly free to say you're a fucking idiot who obviously has never read a Kyle Rayner story in your life (Winick's run doesn't count, that wasn't Kyle. Though, as Kalinara pointed out once, it was sadly the most in-character Winick's ever written a DC property), or that you are whiny, panicky, annoying, and shitting on a perfectly good storyline and a writer that I happen to like.

And I will, whether you're normally an idiot or just a panicky Kyle fan who is otherwise sensible but is too damned spooked over Bart's death to see things my way. Because I have an extra-stressful real life right now, I've been relaxing by reading and discussing this storyline because I'm really enjoying this storyline, and complaints along the lines of "They're going to KILL Kyle" are really fucking annoying me more than they normally would.

It would be one thing if the complaint was over art or pacing (Johns-pacing is really freaking weird) or dialogue or mood, but this gloom and doom shit isn't cutting it as a justifiable concern.

I will also use this blog to alienate and deride anyone who shits on my good mood whenever I feel the need to, because that's what an internet blog is for anyway.

Solicits: Hal, Jaime, Diana, and... Mitch?

Full DC solicits up.

I already told you about the Justice League of America #14 cover, and the Countdown tie-ins.

The covers to Green Lantern #24 and Green Lantern Corps #17 look good, but I don't trust the solicits enough to try and derive any clues from them. Suffice it to say, I'm going to be reading and hanging on every panel of both books and the two Sinestro Corps tie-in specials.

Blue Beetle's getting in on the fun, too:

BLUE BEETLE #20
Written by John Rogers
Art and cover by Rafael Albuquerque
A “Sinestro Corps War” tie-in! The Lanterns’ war hits home as a yellow ring appears in El Paso. But is it being offered to the Scarab or to Jaime Reyes? And whose will is stronger?
On sale October 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

The cover to the Flash #233 has the kids in cute costumes.

Aside from that, this looks written with me in mind:

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #7
Written by Mark Waid
Art by George Pérez & Bob Wiacek
Cover by Pérez
Wonder Woman and Power Girl fight side-by-side against a foe who may be more powerful than both of them combined!
On sale October 17 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

And, of course, the one to wait for:

WONDER WOMAN #13
Written by Gail Simone
Art and cover by Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson
An electrifying new era begins for the world’s greatest superheroine! Gail Simone (BIRDS OF PREY, SECRET SIX) joins the phenomenal art team of Terry and Rachel Dodson for what promises to be one of the most exciting Wonder Woman stories ever!
What exactly is the Circle, and what deadly secret do they hold about Diana’s birth? What familiar face from Wonder Woman’s past returns with a mission to spy on Special Agent Diana Prince? Why is the Department of Metahuman Affairs on a collision course with the wounded remnants of the Society of Super-Villains? All this plus monkey assassins in a story that spans the globe and shakes Diana to her core!
On sale October 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

The other thing to catch my eye was this (emphasis mine):

DC INFINITE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL #1
WRITTEN and illustrated by various
Cover by Gene Ha
Don’t miss this collection of 13 stories of tricks and treats by some of comics’ top creators, including writers Steve Niles, Mark Waid, Steve Seagal, Dan DiDio, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Peter Johnson (TV’s Supernatural), David Arquette (Scream), Cliff Dorfman (Entourage) and many more with art by Ian Churchill, Dean Ormston, Dustin Nguyen , Bernard Chang and others! The inmates of Arkham horrify each other with terrifying tales involving Superman and zombies, Batman and vampires, Robin and werewolves, Aquaman and witches, Flash and the dead, and more! Plus, the return of Resurrection Man!
On sale October 31 • 80 pg, FC, $5.99 US

I think we can take it as a given that they're digging him up so they can kill him again.

15th Carnival of Feminist SciFi and Fantasy Fans Posted

The 15th Carnival (yes, it is very very late) is finally posted at Feminist SF The Blog!

I'm open for a 16th host. Email me.

(Also: Willow's got the First POC in ScFi/Fantasy Carnival Up. She needs hosts too.)

October Solicits

The full solicits aren't up until Monday, but they have some early DC ones up.

This probably spoils the end of the current GL crossover, but check out the cover to Countdown for a look at Kyle's new look. The design is nice, and I like it. Very close to traditional, but still Kyle and the hair has a bit of length that does away with the crewcut that scared me from that sketch last month. (Yes, that crewcut annoyed me more than anything in Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps.) Can't wait for an artist I really like to draw it.

Also, Kalinara has notes on the JLA cover and which Lantern is on it. I'll be doing my I Told You So dance in the meantime.

Oh, and if anyone would like to see an entertaining and rage-inducing conversation on race as Hal-only fans react to the JLA cover and cry because now their favorite's only dominating one book, check out the discussion thread on Newsarama. There's vague whining, then it gets cooking around Page 4 or 5 when someone mentions reverse discrimination.

The Newsarama forum debates the issue of racism with all of the class and dignity we've come to expect from a superhero fan-site message board.

Hal-fans take this opportunity to express the opinion John is a character with no personality other than being black while John-fans point out he has a rich and detailed history that stupid people like to ignore because they don't know enough about Green Lantern, but Hal-fans still insist that he's being thrown in for race. Someone who can't count thinks that half of the team is black now, someone says a third and members of the silent majority sensibly realize that they don't know how many people are on the finalized roster yet. There's the "editorially mandated diversity so it will suck" vs. "McDuffie loves John so its no surprise" argument, the theoretically intelligent point that there's more to diversity than adding a black character is used to support an extremely stupid argument, the required Didio-trashing and a "Did you know Kyle's Hispanic?" "WTF? Seriously?" tangent thrown in for variety.

Somewhere along the way someone points out that DC spoiled the ending to Sinestro Corps, but the "JLA is Kyle's book, dammit!" fans don't show up until Page 8.

Also on page 8, a reader loses his faith in the writer's word and someone finally brings up that there might be two Lanterns on the team or that Hal might have very good in-story reasons for dropping out.

On Page 9 there is a valiant effort at stopping the fight through logic.

My absolute favorite is the this post:

There are people of color in this country. They deserve super-heroes. You are a big doodee head.

See, being a Green Lantern fan is not all the Hal vs. Kyle war. Sometimes we fight about John too.

And as long as I'm going off on the Dark is Rising

Bellatrys sums up the changes quite nicely:

Will in the books is unselfish, concerned for his family's well-being ahead of his own, a serious and recollected kid who looks out for others. In the movie, at least from the trailer footage, he's a thoughtless brat who only sees in his newfound powers a chance to show off cool superpowers and give nothing in return, whining worse than Young!Luke to Ben Kenobi about having to go save the world. And Luke had more responsibilities, and fewer allies and resources, at the time!

Oh, and Soyo found the trailer:


What book did they get this from?

More Dark is Rising Angst

Its worse than even I had heard. This post at the livejournal community "A Blog of Authors" breaks it down in a handy chart. (Hattip Bellatrys) It does not look good.

I could handle the nationality and the plot changes, even removing my beloved Arthurian elements, but they are changing Will.

Will discovers his powers on his thirteenth birthday, because John Hodge says Will's extra years make him more "plausibly capable."

One of the things about Will was he always seemed like an old 11. He was like a thousand-year-old man wrapped up in a little boy's body. Why would they need to add two years to him if seeming older than his age is still a characterization point?

Will is assertive, challenging his older brother head-on, and doing many other things — as John Hodge says often — "head-on." I guess it's a pro to his being American, as Americans have a reputation for being more proactive than passive.

Yay for nationalistic stereotyping! Will he do rope tricks too? All the British kids'll be tea-drinking and uptight, right?

He is told of his powers, refuses to believe anyone when he hears of them, then goes home and apparently gives his brothers what-for.

Why? Would he think his brothers put the guy up to it?

At thirteen, Will gets disgusted at not being able to tell anyone. He blows up a car and acts out in some other ways. According to John Hodge, Miss Greythorne tells Merriman, "He's just expressing himself."

Remember the scene where he got especially curious and went out to the woods and set a stick on fire with his powers? Then realized what a humongously stupid thing he'd done?

Yeah, I bet that's gone. That way they get to blow up cars and shit whenever Will gets angry, because he doesn't have that natural "Old One" attitude, he's a spoiled brat with anger management issues who wants attention and glory! Yeah, way to keep with the unique spirit of the hero of these books there.

So, the thoughtful, introverted youngest member of the Old Ones? Our gentle little hero who was loaded with ancient power despite all appearances to the contrary? The guy who was responsible and thoughtful and didn't waste his power in showy displays? Gone! Replaced by a Harry Potter clone!

Oh, but they changed all the surface stuff that would make people mistake him for Harry, but they went ahead and took Will's unique personality and exchanged it for the more popular boy's so they could clone Harry Potter but not be accused of cloning Harry Fucking Potter.

Fuckers.

You know, I hate to be one of those fans who gets mad whenever they change any little thing about a book I loved, but seriously, this sounds like mass-produced shit that's trying to capitalized on the Potter popularity. They're killing this book, dammit. Killing it (And yes, you can quote that for your fan entitlement rants, thank you very much.)

Seriously, though, the Jack Black as Green Lantern rumor (it surfaces every few months) didn't induce nearly as much disgust as that chart does.

Its just as well, they probably wouldn't have gotten a good actor for Bran in the sequels, and Bran is the character I'm really a fan of in this one.

When this movie comes out I'm spending my ticket money on a bottle of whiskey and sitting home to reread the novels.

I advise you to do the same.

Friday Night Fights

At the behest of Bahlactus:

GWOG

Girl-wonder.org started a blog. Not a column-style one like their normal stuff, but one with links and short posts.

Let's play the reading comprehension game.

Could you guys do me a favor and comment paraphrasing this paragraph (from this post)?

Criticism is my small way of preventing future bad stories, because I know some of you out there are aspiring writers. Slowly but surely, we can fix some of this crap, one writer at a time. At the very least, we can let off some steam in the meantime.

I'm beginning to think its meaning may not have been as clear as I intended.

More Being Mean to Kyle-Fans

I'm so absentminded sometimes. I jotted down a note about a comment that said "I'm just not sure that Kyle won't be used to fuel angst for John, Hal, and Guy when they're forced to kill him during this" as one of the funniest and silliest things ever said by a Green Lantern fan, but I didn't write down where I saw it. It may have been on Geoff Johns' board.

Either way, it was really funny because there was a long ten year period where Hal and John were pretty much there to fuel angst for Kyle, and it was really silly in light of the premise of Rebirth (Parallax bonded to Jordan's soul so it kept control beyond that grave and tried to twist the Spectre's power), which makes it unimaginable that Hal Jordan would let anyone die with that thing attached to his soul, especially Kyle.

I was planning on digging it up to settle an argument, but now I can't find it. And I checked my comment section pretty thoroughly.

Rats.

Oh well, Green Lantern #21 is out today and I'm sure there will be a lot of complaining about it and I can find something else.

As much as I'm ranting, though, I am really starting to enjoy the fuss over this one and if anyone sees any really funny complaints let me know.

Wherein I Horrify Toy Collectors

Well, I was out earlier today searching the stores for that elusive blue motorcycle Dorian described in my Arcee post. I checked every Target in town (I even asked to make sure I got them all) but no on had a motorcycle Transformer. I finally found it overpriced on Amazon.

However, it still has a problem. This toy is a blue motorcycle. Arcee is a pink convertible and dammit, I want a pink car! To that end, I've decided to solve this problem the same way I solved my "No Female Green Lantern Toys" problem.

Well, not exactly. Tearing the wings off of a cheap Tinker Bell doll and repainting her as a Green Lantern (results pictured here) isn't quite going to work this time.

(As an aside I'm rather proud of the results on that one. I had trouble getting her to stand, but that's a makeshift never-dry clay base so I can still change her pose whenever I feel like it. I just wish I could get a decent picture that shows the little GL symbol clearly.)

Now, I know that people buy kits and repaint them and rebuild them and put a lot of effort into it. But I'm too cheap and lazy to get that in-depth. Painting is fun and messy, so I can justify doing that much. (Its also why I like Habitat for Humanity when it comes to volunteer work. They always need painters.) I'm going to need to pick out the right kind of modeling paint for the plastic Hasbro is using, something that won't eat plastic that'll probably need to be redone every few hundred shifts, but I am going to buy one of the car Transformer toys and paint it pink!

Right now some poor collector is shuddering in horror at the thought, but seriously, these toys are under 10 bucks right now and common as dirt.

Unfortunately, no one is a convertible (I mean, seriously, how obvious is that? A convertible Transformer!), but I have this one narrowed down to a few toys. I just need some help to decide which one.

1) Jazz. This one's my first thought because this toy is remarkably easy to find around here. I found a lot of them while searching for the motorcycle. The gray color is easy to paint over. He's also the cheapest, coming in at eight bucks at Target. The problem is his robot form is just a little too far from Arcee for me.

2) Bumblebee. The robot form is ideal and the car form is the next best thing to an actual convertible for Arcee's car form. However, this one's a bit more expensive, a bit harder to find, and the yellow plastic bits aren't going to paint as nicely as Jazz's gray. This one's also getting some poor reviews on Amazon.

3) Barricade. It has the advantage of being the one I would buy two of, because I like my Barricade figure too. Unfortunately, this iss a bad guy and his robot form carries that effect.

4) Starscream. Okay, this one is the most expensive so I probably wouldn't want to alter it. But isn't the idea of a pink jet just pure awesome? And I could always just buy two of this one.

[Poll Closed. Bumblebee beat out Starscream by one vote.]

Anyway, leave your questions, comments, advice, and "WHAT?! NO!!!! WOMAN WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!!" reactions below!

Attention Humanity!

I'm sure that Judd Winick is a really nice guy when you talk to him. I imagine Brad Meltzer is excellent company. I bet that Will Pfiefer did not intend to offend anyone with anything in Amazons Attack.

That does not change the fact that the comics suck and are often loaded with nasty symbolism and messages.

I love my mother, but she raised me on a diet of super-misogynistic fairy tales that were loaded with meaning and cultural tropes that remain with me and a few million other kids to this day.

I know there are critics out there who see writers with serious issues, but really we're looking at a society with serious issues here. They're in the art, they're buried deep in the culture, they've been influencing us since we were born. They surface at the absolute worst times and they need to be pointed out and faced or else we'll never fucking get past them, and we'll be forever doomed to this living hell of cliched, offensive entertainment that saturates our world.

From a less lofty perspective, sometimes nice guys just tell bad stories.

Criticism is my small way of preventing future bad stories, because I know some of you out there are aspiring writers. Slowly but surely, we can fix some of this crap, one writer at a time. At the very least, we can let off some steam in the meantime.

But before we can fix anything, we have to learn to accept Ragnell's First Law of Criticism:

Criticizing the story is not the same as criticizing the storyteller.

Quit popping up in my comments acting like I boiled someone's puppy because I pointed out something read really fucking wrong in their story.

It doesn't do anything to change my opinion. All it does is make me pissed off at you.

Since people have actually asked on this one...

I still maintain that Hippolyta has been portrayed as trigger-happy and impulsive since the Messner-Loebs run, and I still adore her for it. (I think Diana uncharacteristically in denial when she insisted her mother didn't act that way, because it contradicts at least 15 years of continuity.)

I also maintain that the Bana Migdall Amazons are unreasonably bloody, have always been violent and would do some pretty awful things during a war, including child-killing.

From the first issue, Amazons Attack could have developed naturally as a compelling drama where Diana has to play peacemaker in a cultural misunderstanding. The concept is sound. It probably would've worked well if written by Rucka, actually.

But the way its shaping up we'll have a Mind-Control/Manipulation excuse by September, and its not even an interesting way to use the plot. That's why I haven't blogged the last two issues of this one, its really not worth reading the crossover unless I need a quick jolt of energy from the rage at Piccoult's dreadful characterization.

Also, in the second issue, when the female pilot (you know, the woman who is an active participant in the war like men typically are allowed to be) is stabbed to death mercilessly but the matronly female tourist (the woman being a helpless bystander like women typically are allowed to be in these stories) is saved by Green Lantern? That's pretty much where Pfiefer lost me.

Bad symbolism. No biscuit.