Who is... John Stewart?

There are some barely formed thoughts and ideas in the back of my head which may or may not turn into another John Stewart post, but they have me starting to wonder about something.

What does most of the superhero-reading community think John Stewart is supposed to act like? And what writer and/or media portrayal cemented that idea?

Do me a favor and (whether you have a strongly formed idea or just a general impression) comment with your opinion of what John Stewart the Green Lantern character is supposed to think and act like, and where you got that idea.

Oh, and I mean this John Stewart:


(Just in case there may have been some confusion.)

There goes my last Marvel read.

Daredevil #98:

Karen Page. Elektra. All the women Matt Murdock has loved have been violently taken from him, victims of unspeakable tragedies and in Daredevil #98, his wife Milla Donovan may be next! The Gladiator has returned, more enraged and brutal than ever, with one purpose in mind: making Matt Murdock suffer! With the defender of Hell’s Kitchen in police custody and the Gladiator alone with a terrified Milla, things aren’t looking good for the wife of Daredevil…and history isn’t on her side either. The penultimate chapter of “To The Devil, His Due” will have huge ramifications for Daredevil as he races towards the milestone Daredevil #100.

Brubaker shows and gets into an argument with an offended party, with the regular Newsarama peanut gallery in the background. Of course, this is a golden opportunity to tell a pro precisely what I think of this story idea so I couldn't pass it up (even though I hate the boards there). Here's what I posted:

Mr. Brubaker,
I like your stories and I don't think you'd kill Milla in a horribly tasteless fashion, and were it other circumstances I'd say you sound more reasonable and side with you, but here's the thing:

That solicit calls up the disposable girlfriend trope. It points out a trend in Matt's life. It plays it up for tension. And the disposable girlfriend trope, the "You touched my stuff" story (where the hero gets personally offended because his loved one was hurt/murdered) is sickening in all forms of media, and that article plays it up.

Milla is a fairly new character, she's not Foggy. She hasn't been around long enough to be an indispensable part of the franchise. She's not Elektra. She doesn't have the fan appeal to be brought back to life to kick ass on her own. She is to all appearances a disposable girlfriend, so its not a big stretch to figure she's on her way out when we see a solicit like that.

And in the comics world, where nearly all of the female characters are dating other heroes who can protect themselves, but the majority of the male heroes (who are also the vast majority of the heroes) have disposable love interests or set damsels-in-distress, its hard not to get the message that women are disposable to the writers and get really annoyed when you see advertisements that play it up as exciting.

And its really hard to get the motivation to spend money on something that sounds almost sure to offend, so if you'll excuse me I'll wait until after Milla's fate is leaked to decide if I'll buy another issue of Daredevil.

They probably won't notice me, though, as they are arguing over whether or not Scarlet Witch's breakdown was sexist.

(Whatever they decide about that one, it sure as hell wasn't in character.)

That's a cute coincidence.

I believe Duck Tales wasn't until the 90s and this issue of Green Lantern was in the mid-80s (right after Crisis). Unless, of course, the triplets joined the Boy Scouts knockoff early on in Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck and it wasn't a cartoon invention. Maybe some Disney scholar can help me out there.

Either way, its too bad that book didn't give him tips on crossing the street safely.

Sims just managed to break my brain.

Chris Sims found something in the back of his monthly Tarot research and just had to send it to me. It seems Balent weighed in on industry attitudes towards female readers.



For those of you who (understandably) can't read the scan, a male reader asks Balent why the lettercol always focuses on women, and sends his picture in, asking for a column about Guys instead.

The reason we celebrate Girls/Women at Broadsword is mainly because I was told by the so-called "Know-It-Alls" in the industry that female [readers] really don't read comics. While other companies ignore their female readers we glorify them.

Balent compromises by putting the guy at the bottom as the "Do you have dude."

As Sims would say, that was the sound of your mind being blown.

Anyway, before we get lost in a sea of confusion, Balent-bashing, Boobie jokes and feminist analysis of Tarot (which could take weeks), there are some things to keep in mind:

1) Tarot is an adult title and was concieved as such, is written and drawn as such, and is viewed as such by most casual readers.

2) In my personal experience with Tarot readers, I've only met female readers except for Chris), and there was a post by a shopkeeper a while back (that I can't find, but I know its out there) about how he sold a lot of Tarot to female fans. Those are both anecdotal impressions, but the complaint above was that the lettercol is female-dominated, which supports it.

3) I'm finding it really impossible not believe him when he says some know-it-all told him women don't read comics after all the backlash we've seen.

Now on one hand this is Jim "Boobie" Balent and that could be just a smooth way of telling the guy "I'd rather print naked and scantily clad girls, thank you." There's much argument to be had over whether this comic celebrates women or not.

On the other hand, "I have lots of female readers and they send me positive feedback" with the ability to back it up is quite a change from the usual "This is aimed at boys, so you shouldn't be offended" and "You're losing sight of the strength of the character by being offended" we hear when industry professionals talk about women and comic books.

There's also something in here about female spaces, male spaces and neutral spaces, but I'm not familiar enough with the Tarot lettercol to speculate on just what it is.

Now that that's been said: Bring on the confusion, feminist analysis of Tarot, Balent-bashing, and Boobie jokes!

Or feel free to say nice things, too.

Panel Excerpt

From one of Oyceter's Wiscon writeups:

Coniraya mentioned Phantom Menace (I think); he remembered being so excited about it, only to go in and be slapped in the face with Jar-Jar Binks, the Japanese-sounding evil traders, and the Jewish-sounding merchant/slaveowner.

Janine asked if Lucas was deliberately being racist; all of us thought no, probably not. Coniraya said that lots of cartoons that Lucas watched probably had the same accents and that Lucas might have just picked it up, but that that was why it was important to examine these things.

(Emphasis mine)

Green Lantern #19-20 Spoilers

(I'll pick up #18 over Reis and Acuna's pink slips, dammit.)

Yeah, I picked it up. Rachelle and Sally kept blogging the storyline and I had to check it out.

I should really fucking hate this storyline.

I don't.

I hate aspects of the storyline. I still hate the fucking costume. I fucking hate Acuna's art. I really fucking hate the emotional divide between the Zamarons and the Guardians, they get to study love rather than willpower*? Yuck! How fucking stereotypical can you be?

The most irritating part was the Dela Pharon retcon. The original story with Dela (Star Sapphire III) in Green Lantern #41 had a new Star Sapphire pretending to be Carol and trying to trick Hal into marriage. This was part of her usurping Carol as the Zamaron Queen. As well as defeating Carol in battle, she felt a need to steal Carol's position, identity, and boyfriend. It was an interesting story that played up the Zamaron role-reversal by making Hal the "bride" in an old plot. The story itself was about Carol.

By making the Star Sapphire parasite attracted to Hal, he destroyed that story and made the whole thing about Hal.

That wasn't the only point in the whole storyline that made me want to throw things at Johns, but its the part I find hardest to forgive.

But...

It fits in with Hal's character and Carol's character, and restores Carol to her proper place in the franchise. Carol's back to flying airplanes herself. There was an appearance by Tom. It adds the Zamarons into the franchise plotline, which they need to be into, and in the end they aren't so obsessed with love/lust anymore. (It also conveniently changes their appearance back to that of female Maltusians, rather than white human women).

The story is problematic, but moves towards a much better status quo. (Eventually this parasite crap will need to be retconned out, though.)

And the ending left me with a little smile. Cheered me out of a pissy mood. I'm back to reading the GL mainbook again.

Hopefully Acuna'll be gone next issue.

*Anyone wanna take bets on the Controllers' specialty?

Reminder: Why I'm a Pile of Rage and Gristle.

I've finished with the fucking backlog. This happens every time I go away, and every time I slog through days worth of blog posts and grow very greatly annoyed by them. This time was especially bad, because most of them were response posts to already-burning outrages. I've read too damned many of these.

I can tell when someone has read most or all of it and is responding with a thoughtful argument. I can tell when someone has skimmed and is responding in anger. I can tell when someone just looked at the number of links and then decided to shoot their mouth off with their stupid assumptions about what feminists are saying. I've read them all. I've read your rants. I read your whining. I've read your attacks. I've read your defenses. I've read remarkably little joy and humor in the backlog (which is probably why my shoulders and neck ache so much). I find myself with a very short temper, especially for the little fuckers who are making arguments after not having actually read the complaints.

Anyway, I've made three WFA posts today, and I have enough for two more actually. I'm going to sit and spread them out a bit over the weekend. I also managed to get my Wiscon writeup -- Part 1 and Part 2 -- posted, and I've been really wishing I was still there today.

I was going to let you know that I hate you all, but I found this first. The title of that post is wonderful. I remember when I could only find a handful of people regularly blogging about this stuff. Now comics blogs devoted to feminism are fairly prolific. That makes me happy.

As does the Green Lantern spoiler I found earlier.

I still need to relax. I'm going to go find pictures of Green Lantern butts in my back issues now. I don't know when or if substantial content will return to this blog. Just be happy I'm not fighting in your comment sections like a rabid St. Bernard.

Friday Night Fights, Round 12!

Bahlactus requests violence for his weekend entertainment.



Valkyrie delivers.

Carnival Notes

The 14th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans is up at Heroine Content, featuring the highlights of the Mass Comics Outrage of May 2007 and some of the more interesting things that I missed while following that.

I'll be hosting the 15th Carnival myself on Feminist SciFi -- The Blog! on July 1. Deadline for Submissions is June 29th. It will be a special Wiscon edition, so I'd like to get as many Wiscon reports as possible. I won't be restricitng the content to just that, but I'd like a sizeable section on con writeups. Send them to my email address or use the submission form. Guidelines are here.

In the meantime, the 12th Erase Racism Carnival at The Angry Black Woman has a lot of scifi-related posts, and the People of Colour SF Carnival is due on June 15th.

I'm Back

Had a blast at Wiscon. Came home to a huge livejournal blowup and 2,573 unread posts on my Bloglines.

So instead I put a police uniform (bought in the dealer's room) on one of my blonde barbies and took a picture of my new Liza Warner Barbie doll.



I also found a discounted Supergirl (Linda Danvers uniform), and a brown-haired blue-eyed barbie, which was a joy because I could never find one as a kid. Now I just need that green-skinned Wicked Witch Barbie.

Actual content should resume as soon as I catch up, or find something that makes me extremely happy or extremely angry. Whichever comes first.

Seeya later!

I'll be at Wiscon. I've never been there before. I'm imagining tables of women in Star Trek uniforms (from various series) debating the lack of female mad scientists in popular culture. We'll see how close that idea comes.

(I cut off the title to that cover to drive certain readers insane. Don't give it away in the comments.)

Heroes for Hire #13

I'm going to weigh in on this one before I go on vacation, because there's something important about this (NSFW) cover that I'm not seeing mentioned in the posts.

Look at Black Cat, she's hiding rather than unconscious (see how her left eye is shut?). She's huddled and trying to shrink away from the tentacle. Very vulnerable, very scared, and she's the one with the goo on her chest.

What pisses me off more than anything else (more than the breasts, the tentacles, the for the boys mentality, the blatant disregard of their own rating system) is when you see that, and take this retcon into account.

Yeah.

Fuck you again, Kevin Smith.

And fuck you, Marvel Comics.

Carnival Time Approaches

Heroine Content (http://www.heroinecontent.net) is hosting the 13th
Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans, which will be
published on May 30th. The deadline for submissions is May 27th!
Please submit via email to skyekilaen@gmail.com. We're looking for
posts, web comics, and art with a feminist perspective on science
fiction and fantasy. This can include TV, Movies, Books, Comics,
Games, etc. For more information, see the Guidelines at
http://carnival.feministsf.net/?cat=3

Also check out the new People of Colour SF Carnival
(http://ofcolour.blogspot.com/). The first edition is scheduled for
June 15th, see their site for more details.

Nikki's a real lantern now!

I don't know how I missed this last month, but in accordance with DC tradition Soranik Natu (Kali and I have been calling her Nikki between ourselves) has finally gotten a butt-showcasing cover all her very own.



The artist has the concept sketches posted on his blog.

DC's WW Bust

Because of the current raging controversy I did something unusual and checked out the figures section of the DC solicits. I found something I have to buy.

I want them to make more like this.

50 Things I Love About Mainstream Superhero Comics

(Kalinara started a meme.)

1) Continuity Porn -- Yes, I am that kind of fan. The one that DC caters to. The one that keeps Geoff Johns in the job. The one who perfectly satisfied to read five different versions of the exact same story, published at different time periods and adjusted for continuity.

2) Time travel storylines, guest-starring the Legion of Superheroes from any publishing period.

3) Any version of Starman, because of the intricate history James Robinson set up.

4) That every Flash who has ever been published can team up to fight a single villain.

5) Power Girl's playful banter with Wildcat reminds me of me and the guys at work.

6) Coluans.

7) She-Hulk enjoys her super-strong green form.

8) The core team of the JSA is essentially a bunch of cranky old men who probably get together with old supervillains to play poker.

9) Characters I love who died (Ice) can be brought back to life. Characters I love who went evil can always have been mind-controlled.

10) John Stewart's first appearance when he steps in between the cops and the checker-playing kids.

11) Retroactive Continuity!!

12) I've been following these characters long enough to be able to fill in the spaces between the panels.

13) Quicksilver is an absolute jerk when he's good. He can also believably go insane and evil and I still adore the character.

14) Patrick Gleason's aliens.

15) Somewhere in the Multiverse there is an Earth controlled by Nazi Dinosaurs.

16) Multi-part serial stories which give me something to think about as I do mindless repetitive tasks.

17) Green Lantern's powers have as much visual potential as an illusionist, but all entirely in my favorite color.

18) I can read about both Kyle and Hal.

19) Spider-man interacts playfully with random New Yorkers.

20) Big Barda is the muscular ass-kicker in the Free family, and Scott isn't the least bit bothered by this.

21) A large percentage of the male population of Opal City wear fedoras.

22) Black Canary was still a hero when she lost her powers.

23) Manhunter is divorced. She is not a castrating bitch. Her husband is not deadbeat Dad. They are two decent people who couldn't make it work out, and there was no need to make anyone the villain to make the other look better.

24) The original Red Tornado was just a lady with a pot over her head and a blanket-cape, even came from a humor book, but in the modern DCU she's known as a hero and her flashback stories drive that home.

25) Tim Drake and Maxine Hunkle are overenthusiastic hero-worshippers who became heroes.

26) "When I'm no longer needed to battle crime and injustice" is a better answer to "When will you marry me?" than "When Hell freezes over"

27) It is almost completely random, yet very funny, that panels featuring Green Lantern are usually a rear-view.

28) Whatever damage is done by the current writer can be fixed by the next writer's retcon, reboot, or just plain redemptive writing.

29) That even the tropes I despise are so well-known that we have a staple of jokes to make when we see them. (Yes, I love Fridge jokes. Surely you all knew that)

30) The term "cosmic rod" makes me giggle like a 12-year-old.

31) Husk can shed skin like a snake.

32) Mutants like Domino, Longshot, and Scarlet Witch, who have vague probability powers that conform to the writer's needs.

33) Shining Knight is a teenaged girl with a sword, gold armor, an Arthurian history, and a flying horse!

34) The cover to Defenders #5 has a giant monster holding a blonde woman in his hand just like King Kong -- only this woman is swinging a sword at the monster! (And she's a valkyrie!)

35) Wonder Woman killed Medusa on live television, while she was wide awake. Touch that, Perseus!

36) Lois Lane is a driven, pushy, arrogant, complaining, sneaky modern career woman. As a result, she gets to see Superman with his briefs off on a regular basis.

37) Captain Comet still appears from time to time.

38) All Brainiacs are pretty much dicks, whatever time period and moral alignment they show up in.

39) Grant Morrison.

40) No knockoff can hold up to the original Superman.

41) You can make an easy Jack Knight costume for any convention with a pair of boxers, a Hawaiian shirt, a leather jacket, ski goggles, and a broomstick that's been spray-painted gold.

42) The industry pros are part of the fandom.

43) The creepy visual effect of shadow powers when the Shade, Obsidian, or Nightshade show up.

44) That Blink was so popular after Age of Apocalypse she was the anchor for a new series.

45) Kyle Rayner, in the alley, with the lead pipe.

46) Everything is just so much bigger in the DC and Marvel Universes. The stakes are higher for everything. Aliens invade every week. The End of the World is nigh every month. People don't just have fist-fights, they have aerial battles over the mountains while the government calls out the Air Force to take out the winner.

47) At the same time, there's street heroes who handle normal crime and everyday accidents. They interact with the cosmic-level heroes and team-up.

48) Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, and Romance genre stories all take place in the same city.

49) "You made me lose my hair!" was not the motivation for a female villain.

50) The story where Power Girl lifts up an Arthurian-era knight and throws him into a lake after he tries to run off with her per the laws of Chivalry? Collected in trade now.

I'll hold your cape for you.

As long as I'm on statues showcasing domesticated women I have one more thing to get off my chest. (Others have pointed this out, but I still need to say it.) This whole MJ thing reminded me of this:



That one pisses me off more than any of the others, and its not the outfit. Kirby designed that outfit. Didn't bug me when he drew it. Its the pose. Do you know what would have been a better pose for Barda in that statue?

Any pose.

When Kirby drew Barda in that outfit she was doing strength exercises, lifting heavy things, and discussing the plot and battle plans with Scott. Here Barda is holding Scott's cape for him. Effectively the little woman is holding her husband's coat while he goes off to actually do stuff. It's Big Barda for heaven's sake. She should be kicking something's ass in any statue.

"Honey, here's your cape. Now go out and save the world without me."

"I'll hold your coat while you fight him, darling. Good luck."

Seriously, does that fucking sound like the quintessential Big Barda moment to you?

Yeesh, what is wrong with these licensing people?

About that hamper distinction.

I swore I'd do that 50 Things meme Kalinara set up, but before I do I just have to ask about the hamper thing in the MJ discussion.

We've established that yes it is a hamper rather than a washtub. That still means this statue shows Mary Jane doing Peter's laundry. How exactly does that invalidate all the complaints that she's doing menial housework chores for her husband? Does this even count as a Bad Reasons fallacy? The basic premise is still true, a slight detail was mistaken.

2007 Glyph Awards Winners

From Glyphs:

Story of the Year
Stagger Lee, Derek McCulloch, writer, Shepherd Hendrix, artist

Best Writer
Derek McCulloch, Stagger Lee

Best Artist
Kyle Baker, The Bakers

Best Male Character
Stagger Lee, Stagger Lee; Derek McCulloch, writer, Shepherd Hendrix, artist; inspired by the life of Lee Shelton

Best Female Character
Thomasina Lindo, Welcome to Tranquility; co-created by Gail Simone, writer, Neil Googe, artist

Rising Star Award
Spike, Templar, Arizona

Best Reprint Publication
Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda, First Second; Mark Siegel, editor, Alexis Siegel, translator

Best Cover
Stagger Lee, Shepherd Hendrix, artist

Best Comic Strip
The K Chronicles, Keith Knight, writer and artist

Fan Award for Best Comic
Storm, Eric Jerome Dickey, David Yardin & Lan Medina and Jay Leisten & Sean Parsons

The New Godwin

I totally missed it, but Dirk Deppey got the first 1984 Reference in the MJ debate:

Today’s When Fangirls Attack! link is a choice between your Scott Kurtz Two-Minute Hate and your Dirk Deppey Two-Minute Hate. Fun for the whole family!

Does anyone else think these are beating out the Hitler references on internet debate these days?