Okay, as I have gone off very emotionally on this on Twitter, Tumblr, and--in the meanest thing I've ever sent to someone personally--over email, I may as well bring the rational point that just barely got brushed onto for my blog.
The big problem of a dual Batgirl setup is John Stewart Syndrome.
Notice how, when Hal came back they promised they had BIG PLANS for each of the Lanterns... And Kyle and Guy got a mini, and Hal and John would get the JLA. And Kyle and Guy got great interaction in the mini.. And he got one storyline, then Hal was the lantern for the last storyline of JLA... which was rebooted as Justice League with Hal?
And then, Kyle got a maziseries and Guy led the Corpsbook and Hal led the corebook but John pretty much disappeared?
Then after the Sinestro corps War where Kyle and Guy shared the spotlight with Soranik, and Hal got the corebook, and John got his paperwork again?
This is not because John Stewart is a bad character. On the contrary, he's a fucking great character. He has been strong since his first appearance, and distinctive as a thinker/activist from Hal and Guy and now Kyle.
But John, despite having been given the mainstream paly with the cartoon most recently (and Hal is now getting the movie), is almost never used. Even now in GLC he's basically a bondage king while Kyle and Soranik lead the mainplot. He is constantly, despite the promises and attempts to the contrary, downplayed for other Lanterns.
This is what would most likely happen in the event of two Batgirls. Endless frustration as Cass is pushed to the side for Steph. I can be an optimist, and a pessimist, but here I am being a realist. It's cynical, and it's a wrong in itself that should be fought but this is the most realistic result of a campaign for two Batgirls rather than a campaign for the return of Cass to Batgirl.
So yeah, gonna resist this suggestion, guys. It's a lovely thought and I'm sure you have the best at heart, but it is not a good option.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Friday, January 07, 2011
Argent
There's a really weird phenomenon with me and DC comics. Of all the corners of this universe, there is one that I simply cannot get into. No matter how many times I try the franchise, no matter who they put on it as writer, no matter who's on the roster, no matter what era I pick up... I simply cannot get interested in Teen Titans.
I know I'm about to get comments asking exactly why, and to be honest it's a mystery to me. It's not an aversion, or a hatred, or disappointment... it's just apathy. As a franchise, it just doesn't offer enough to engage me. Somehow they take characters like Bart Allen and Jaime Reyes that I can't imagine not wanting to read and put them in Teen Titans and all of the life and joy seems to drain out of them. Honestly, I probably can't bring myself to care if they get killed during their time on the team, that's how much interest the book holds for me.
When the characters leave, I pick up their stories again and be interested, but there's just this big hole in continuity that I just can't get into. It is the weirdest thing. I've checked out different writers and different time periods, some of the Haney, the Wolfman, the Jurgens, the Grayson, the Johns run and so on... The whole franchise just seems like this nexus of All Boring Things to me, where characters I love just lose their spark and the franchise-specific characters like Raven are about as intriguing as a wet dishrag. There is one exception, though, from the Jurgens and Grayson runs: Argent.
Toni's a rich girl with a kind nature underneath a spoiled demeanor. Not a terribly original concept, I know, but I liked her. She has silver skin, dark hair, a high-fashion style costume (I like to ignore that rainbow thing), and silver energy powers.
Basically, she's a baby Silver Lantern. Of course I love that. I tend to pick up Teen Titans or Titans when it promises an Argent appearance, and while I continue to like her, I almost always find the book not worth continuing. So I've missed most of her story. I was surprised when I looked her up (to make sure they hadn't killed her on me) to find that she had a storyline centering on finding out her father was involved in a criminal enterprise. I mean, who ever heard of a character named Monetti having a corrupt father? That's so incredibly original, fucking DC. (God, I would love for one female Italian-American character in comics who does not have a crook for a Dad. Can I please have just that one nice thing?)
Odious stereotyping aside, it doesn't overcome her character enough to kill my joy at a baby Silver Lantern with internalized powers (especially one of my gender and ethnicity). She's still the star of the Teen Titans story I remember the most, which was a two or three page story in Titans: Secret Files before she developed powers. She and her parents were in a mall food court, ducked under a table while the Teen Titans battled a villain. The entire story was just images of her reacting to off-panel action, which I normally hate, but I liked it. She was a cute little girl, and the experience seemed to be what planted the seed of superheroism in her heart. I'm disappointed no one ever explored her real potential, but at least they haven't killed her yet.
And by rambling about her on Twitter I was reminded that she appeared in "Rock of Ages" so I'm off to find my trade of that. I think she dies, but it's a one-storyline dystopian future and she gets some panel time in a JLA comic out of it.
I know I'm about to get comments asking exactly why, and to be honest it's a mystery to me. It's not an aversion, or a hatred, or disappointment... it's just apathy. As a franchise, it just doesn't offer enough to engage me. Somehow they take characters like Bart Allen and Jaime Reyes that I can't imagine not wanting to read and put them in Teen Titans and all of the life and joy seems to drain out of them. Honestly, I probably can't bring myself to care if they get killed during their time on the team, that's how much interest the book holds for me.
When the characters leave, I pick up their stories again and be interested, but there's just this big hole in continuity that I just can't get into. It is the weirdest thing. I've checked out different writers and different time periods, some of the Haney, the Wolfman, the Jurgens, the Grayson, the Johns run and so on... The whole franchise just seems like this nexus of All Boring Things to me, where characters I love just lose their spark and the franchise-specific characters like Raven are about as intriguing as a wet dishrag. There is one exception, though, from the Jurgens and Grayson runs: Argent.
Toni's a rich girl with a kind nature underneath a spoiled demeanor. Not a terribly original concept, I know, but I liked her. She has silver skin, dark hair, a high-fashion style costume (I like to ignore that rainbow thing), and silver energy powers.
Basically, she's a baby Silver Lantern. Of course I love that. I tend to pick up Teen Titans or Titans when it promises an Argent appearance, and while I continue to like her, I almost always find the book not worth continuing. So I've missed most of her story. I was surprised when I looked her up (to make sure they hadn't killed her on me) to find that she had a storyline centering on finding out her father was involved in a criminal enterprise. I mean, who ever heard of a character named Monetti having a corrupt father? That's so incredibly original, fucking DC. (God, I would love for one female Italian-American character in comics who does not have a crook for a Dad. Can I please have just that one nice thing?)
Odious stereotyping aside, it doesn't overcome her character enough to kill my joy at a baby Silver Lantern with internalized powers (especially one of my gender and ethnicity). She's still the star of the Teen Titans story I remember the most, which was a two or three page story in Titans: Secret Files before she developed powers. She and her parents were in a mall food court, ducked under a table while the Teen Titans battled a villain. The entire story was just images of her reacting to off-panel action, which I normally hate, but I liked it. She was a cute little girl, and the experience seemed to be what planted the seed of superheroism in her heart. I'm disappointed no one ever explored her real potential, but at least they haven't killed her yet.
And by rambling about her on Twitter I was reminded that she appeared in "Rock of Ages" so I'm off to find my trade of that. I think she dies, but it's a one-storyline dystopian future and she gets some panel time in a JLA comic out of it.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Addendum to the last post, and a note on advertising
CBR is revealing more teasers of the characters we won't see in Age of X, because they're DEAD! I thought there was some merit in reading it because Jean's supposed to be around, but the blue-bordered image on top here has euthanized my dwindling interest. I know we can see that character in the regular universe, but for some reason a timeline without... it is just not terribly appealing? I don't specifically seek out a book for that character, but I enjoy the thought that this character is alive in SOME capacity and I hadn't realized just how much until now.
I'm sure for some of you this is riveting stuff. I like the characters they've confirmed too. There have been times that I would pick up a comic book to read solely based on Magneto's presence. He's great as an antagonist and a protagonist. I just find it so very weird how the more I see the advertising for this the less likely I am to buy it. Normally I am extremely susceptible to hype. Right now, I may be one of the few people on the internet not mocking the Fear Itself teasers, because they actually have me interested in the story.
I know exactly what they're doing, they're slowly rolling out the timeline to the start of the crossover, but... they're doing it by way of body count. "See, without the X-men all these characters you love to read would be DEAD!" Right now, Kalinara is telling me she's sure that last one is a trick and if she's right we'll find out fairly quickly on Tumblr and Twitter. Then my interest will likely reawaken and I can go back, reorder and I'll buy her yet another ice cream at the next convention. In the meantime, I really don't see how a bunch of teasers telling me that my favorite characters will not be appearing in this crossover is supposed to peak my interest.
I'd call this a step down from "One of these mutants will DIE" because well... if I like that mutant, I at least get to read a little of him before he dies and we all know this death thing doesn't last in genre fiction anyway. "One of these mutants will DIE" tells me "These mutants will be in it. Read it if you like them."
This crossover is going by "This world is so horrible that these mutants didn't even survive" advertising, which is telling me the opposite. And there just doesn't seem to be enough teased about what IS left and what exactly is going on to counteract that.
I'm sure for some of you this is riveting stuff. I like the characters they've confirmed too. There have been times that I would pick up a comic book to read solely based on Magneto's presence. He's great as an antagonist and a protagonist. I just find it so very weird how the more I see the advertising for this the less likely I am to buy it. Normally I am extremely susceptible to hype. Right now, I may be one of the few people on the internet not mocking the Fear Itself teasers, because they actually have me interested in the story.
I know exactly what they're doing, they're slowly rolling out the timeline to the start of the crossover, but... they're doing it by way of body count. "See, without the X-men all these characters you love to read would be DEAD!" Right now, Kalinara is telling me she's sure that last one is a trick and if she's right we'll find out fairly quickly on Tumblr and Twitter. Then my interest will likely reawaken and I can go back, reorder and I'll buy her yet another ice cream at the next convention. In the meantime, I really don't see how a bunch of teasers telling me that my favorite characters will not be appearing in this crossover is supposed to peak my interest.
I'd call this a step down from "One of these mutants will DIE" because well... if I like that mutant, I at least get to read a little of him before he dies and we all know this death thing doesn't last in genre fiction anyway. "One of these mutants will DIE" tells me "These mutants will be in it. Read it if you like them."
This crossover is going by "This world is so horrible that these mutants didn't even survive" advertising, which is telling me the opposite. And there just doesn't seem to be enough teased about what IS left and what exactly is going on to counteract that.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Disappointed before the first issue ships
CBR has a feature up teasing Age of X by showing the files of Henry Gyrich in the alternate universe, profiling several of our heroes. What really strikes me are the relations listings, and how many characters which are not being used by the X-office and haven't been used by the X-office for years are also missing and dead in this X-men alternate universe. (And I'm going to mention specifics soon, so consider this your spoiler warning.)
And it takes me back to how when Janet Van Dyne was taken off the board in the 616 universe, the Ultimate version of the Wasp was killed in Ultimatum. How when Wanda went crazy in Disassembled it was closely followed by Wanda getting killed in Ultimates.
It's very weird to me, because an alternate timeline storyline is a great opportunity to play with characters you don't normally get to play with, to have dead people alive and inactive people active, and make villains into good guys and bystanders into heroes. It's a really cool playground, but time and time again Marvel seems to decide that when something happens in the 616 universe it is reverberated across the multiverse! Hell, in "Ghost Box" Beast outright states that this is the case with M-Day, meaning that we aren't going to get to see an alternate timeline where mutants are the majority except for House of M flashbacks.
I know there's writers who get it, and we had a lot of variety in Hickman's Fantastic Four excursions and that Exiles is all over the fucking place, but it seems to me like ongoing things like the Ultimate Universe and large scale events like Age of X are squandering huge opportunities by having the same cast in a different setting. Don't get me wrong, Magneto, Rogue and Cyclops are awesome but we can read them together ALL THE TIME right now. We can't really read Cyclops and Havok at the moment because Havok is lost in space. We can only read Magneto and the twins in a single bimonthly series now, otherwise we haven't seen them since House of M. We can't read Rogue and Destiny now, ever, because they killed her off so damned long ago and she's just not a character who gets resurrected.
And these are things that would be fresh and unusual because we haven't seen them in the regular universe for so long. I still maintain that one of the greatest X-crossovers in history is Age of Apocalypse, partially because the only character who absolutely had to be absent was Xavier. With that rule in place, we got a lot of odd relationship stuff that we simply could never see the way 616 was set up. We had Nightcrawler and Mystique as a bickering mother-and-son team. We had Magneto as a loving husband and father, with a supportive relationship with his son (I am a bit irked they killed off Wanda in this crossover). We had Rogue as a mother and stepmother. We had Quicksilver and Storm in a romance. We had Cyclops and Havok raised together by Sinister. We had one-off death Blink alive and active, which actually led to the creation of the freaking Marvel Multiverse by being so popular she launched a series based on traveling through alternate universes!
It was a dystopian setting, but it was expansive and varied. Age of X so far strikes me as based on the same scarcity mentality that is driving the mutant plotlines in the regular universe. There was a "Decimination" and now the vast majority of mutants are dead rather than depowered, so it's a worse place where all the same characters are active. I like Mike Carey, but... it seems so small.
And it takes me back to how when Janet Van Dyne was taken off the board in the 616 universe, the Ultimate version of the Wasp was killed in Ultimatum. How when Wanda went crazy in Disassembled it was closely followed by Wanda getting killed in Ultimates.
It's very weird to me, because an alternate timeline storyline is a great opportunity to play with characters you don't normally get to play with, to have dead people alive and inactive people active, and make villains into good guys and bystanders into heroes. It's a really cool playground, but time and time again Marvel seems to decide that when something happens in the 616 universe it is reverberated across the multiverse! Hell, in "Ghost Box" Beast outright states that this is the case with M-Day, meaning that we aren't going to get to see an alternate timeline where mutants are the majority except for House of M flashbacks.
I know there's writers who get it, and we had a lot of variety in Hickman's Fantastic Four excursions and that Exiles is all over the fucking place, but it seems to me like ongoing things like the Ultimate Universe and large scale events like Age of X are squandering huge opportunities by having the same cast in a different setting. Don't get me wrong, Magneto, Rogue and Cyclops are awesome but we can read them together ALL THE TIME right now. We can't really read Cyclops and Havok at the moment because Havok is lost in space. We can only read Magneto and the twins in a single bimonthly series now, otherwise we haven't seen them since House of M. We can't read Rogue and Destiny now, ever, because they killed her off so damned long ago and she's just not a character who gets resurrected.
And these are things that would be fresh and unusual because we haven't seen them in the regular universe for so long. I still maintain that one of the greatest X-crossovers in history is Age of Apocalypse, partially because the only character who absolutely had to be absent was Xavier. With that rule in place, we got a lot of odd relationship stuff that we simply could never see the way 616 was set up. We had Nightcrawler and Mystique as a bickering mother-and-son team. We had Magneto as a loving husband and father, with a supportive relationship with his son (I am a bit irked they killed off Wanda in this crossover). We had Rogue as a mother and stepmother. We had Quicksilver and Storm in a romance. We had Cyclops and Havok raised together by Sinister. We had one-off death Blink alive and active, which actually led to the creation of the freaking Marvel Multiverse by being so popular she launched a series based on traveling through alternate universes!
It was a dystopian setting, but it was expansive and varied. Age of X so far strikes me as based on the same scarcity mentality that is driving the mutant plotlines in the regular universe. There was a "Decimination" and now the vast majority of mutants are dead rather than depowered, so it's a worse place where all the same characters are active. I like Mike Carey, but... it seems so small.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
If anyone's curious as to what my voice sounds like, I was a guest on the 3 Chicks Review Comics special Best of 2010 episode. Go listen to the 3 great regular reviewers and learn why I stick to typing out my thoughts. (Kelly has the covers up on CSBG)
Monday, January 03, 2011
First Rant of the Year (That didn't take long)
So this stuff was up on Tumblr...
Yeah, Marvel... We need to have a talk. This thing with Wanda, I know I've complained before but you are seriously out of your heads with this. Right now you are selling a maxiseries to her fans based on the idea of her CHILDREN finding her and getting her back to regular operation but everywhere but INSIDE THAT MAXISERIES you continue to push the idea that she hallucinated her children and lost her sanity. With zero textual clues to suggest that the characters are wrong in this assumption.
Don't get me wrong. I understand that you have to establish certain things in the regular universe in order to set up the premise, which is that everyone but Wanda, Magneto, and Billy think that the kids were just a manifestation of her mental illnessand out of control powers. I understand that this sets up drama.
The problem is that you're dragging this shit out so long, and fixing it completely underground. Disassembled interrupted half of your line and REBOOTED entire franchises. House of M took over the ENTIRE Marvel line and rebooted the OTHER half of your line! And since then, for at least SIX years every MENTION of Wanda has come with a nod to her being tragically insane and everything short of ominous music. You have spent SIX years and your two highest profile crossovers pounding ALL of your readers over the head with the idea that Wanda is BABY CRAZY.
Then, you offer us an option to fix her in Avengers: Children's Crusade.... A special that is entirely self-contained and not reflected in any of the other books published right now. A narrative thread that we have to go out of our way to find (again, there are NO textual clues outside of Children's Crusade and it's single sad prelude that the Avengers are wrong to assume Wanda's irredeemably insane), is being shipped ever OTHER month, and will last 9 issues that will total up to an 18 month storyline. The book itself is oddly out of time, and does not reflect any of the other developments in recent years despite using characters like Steve Rogers--who appears in half the books you publish--without reflecting their current in-story status, and PROMINENTLY featuring characters like Quicksilver and Magneto who are right now appearing in other books with no nod to the emotional build-up to this story (Magneto's heavy concerns involving his children, Pietro's conclusions that these are his nephews) or the fallout from its conclusion.
This, I believe, would be okay if you had made it as high profile an event as the TWO events in which you destroyed Wanda's image as hero, or did not insist on decompressing the living fuck out of this maxiseries along with dragging it out over 18 months WHILE you continued to use those 18 months to push the narrative of Baby Crazy Wanda.
Y'know, your distinguished competition had this problem with a Silver Age character once. They made Hal Jordan crazy evil and stuck to it for ten years and do you know what happened when they changed their minds? They built up to it. We saw Hal EVERYWHERE and we had foreshadowing all over the fucking place that he was coming back and that it wasn't his fault. After the build up they made him good again in a high profile miniseries... that had a compact six-issue storyline, shipped monthly, and led to the reboot of a franchise. And after that mini? We saw Hal everywhere again rebuilding all those bridges his time under mind control had burnt.
See, after you've dedicated so much time and energy to forcing a heroic character into the role of villain, and have enthusiastically sold the character that way to the readers for an extended period of time... You get a lot of readers and future writers who think that character is a villain. If you want to FIX that, you need to make their redemption a Big Fucking Deal, and make it easily seen by all those readers who gave been eating the shit you've been selling for the last six or ten years rather than just the die-hard holdouts who have been waiting for this since you made her nuts. Otherwise, you'll have a lot of confusion and you risk the right dumbass writer connecting with the right dumbass editor a year or two down the road and having this exchange:
Or:
And even if that seems too farfetched or just like something that happens anyway, you still have characterization creep. Your writers, editors and artists have been not only pushing this shit but they've been consuming it themselves. Future writers, editors and artists are consuming it. Even if they are ASSIGNED Wanda as a hero, they still have the impression of a weak-willed passive woman who cannot tell reality from fantasy. These traits will overtake her as they write, because you have been pushing them endlessly and this is the image they have of her now. This is just like Hal Jordan's inability to feel fear, Quicksilver's mental instability, and Crystal's wandering eye... All flaws never in their original concepts that now serve to completely define those characters to the point of pushing away their relatability unless the writer works their ass off at researching and restoring the original personality. With every reference to Wanda's insanity you are CONTINUING to destroy your second female mutant character and your second female Avenger--one of your few female characters with a solid profeminist Silver Age foundation. This is not only irritating, it is MIND-BOGGLING to me that you'd do this.
There's really only one way you can save her. When Wanda gets back, she needs to be directly involved in rebuilding everything she destroyed (Bringing Hawkeye back was a good idea, but you are really going to need to overturn M-Day through HER actions) and she's going to need to make those Hal Jordan style pop-ins where she teams up with everyone in the Marvel Universe and defends herself against their grievances. If you leave M-Day in effect, if you just have people drop the grumbling without actually interacting with Wanda, all this shit is going to remain and Scarlet Twilight II is just around the horizon.
Also, that quote of hers bugs me on two levels. Continuity-wise that's a Lee quote, long before they ever found Bova and got the story of their birth. That story's set up so that Wanda has to be the older one, that's why Cthon would infuse her with power. (Unless you're planning something odd with Pietro and Oshtur.) Personality-wise, unless she's drugged out of her gourd like in House of M she knows better than to defer to anything Pietro says. That is hardly a quote indicative of her personality, and I'm a bit annoyed at your Polaris one too. It's awfully generic.
That said, the Quicksilver profile is very compassionate look at his actions and leaves open the option that Steve doubts Pietro's Skrull story. A previous one suggested Steve couldn't tell there was lying involved, this one may well have been after Pietro came clean and the "skrull interference" would be the Skrull that was in Attilan during Son of M. That one made me wince, because a) Captain America should be able to tell when someone as neurotic as Quicksilver is lying to him, b) Steve should know Pietro well enough to tell, and c) I was a little worried someone would have Steve on the less likely to forgive side of this one. It gives me some hope we'll see a little interaction between those two characters again, at least.
Yeah, Marvel... We need to have a talk. This thing with Wanda, I know I've complained before but you are seriously out of your heads with this. Right now you are selling a maxiseries to her fans based on the idea of her CHILDREN finding her and getting her back to regular operation but everywhere but INSIDE THAT MAXISERIES you continue to push the idea that she hallucinated her children and lost her sanity. With zero textual clues to suggest that the characters are wrong in this assumption.
Don't get me wrong. I understand that you have to establish certain things in the regular universe in order to set up the premise, which is that everyone but Wanda, Magneto, and Billy think that the kids were just a manifestation of her mental illnessand out of control powers. I understand that this sets up drama.
The problem is that you're dragging this shit out so long, and fixing it completely underground. Disassembled interrupted half of your line and REBOOTED entire franchises. House of M took over the ENTIRE Marvel line and rebooted the OTHER half of your line! And since then, for at least SIX years every MENTION of Wanda has come with a nod to her being tragically insane and everything short of ominous music. You have spent SIX years and your two highest profile crossovers pounding ALL of your readers over the head with the idea that Wanda is BABY CRAZY.
Then, you offer us an option to fix her in Avengers: Children's Crusade.... A special that is entirely self-contained and not reflected in any of the other books published right now. A narrative thread that we have to go out of our way to find (again, there are NO textual clues outside of Children's Crusade and it's single sad prelude that the Avengers are wrong to assume Wanda's irredeemably insane), is being shipped ever OTHER month, and will last 9 issues that will total up to an 18 month storyline. The book itself is oddly out of time, and does not reflect any of the other developments in recent years despite using characters like Steve Rogers--who appears in half the books you publish--without reflecting their current in-story status, and PROMINENTLY featuring characters like Quicksilver and Magneto who are right now appearing in other books with no nod to the emotional build-up to this story (Magneto's heavy concerns involving his children, Pietro's conclusions that these are his nephews) or the fallout from its conclusion.
This, I believe, would be okay if you had made it as high profile an event as the TWO events in which you destroyed Wanda's image as hero, or did not insist on decompressing the living fuck out of this maxiseries along with dragging it out over 18 months WHILE you continued to use those 18 months to push the narrative of Baby Crazy Wanda.
Y'know, your distinguished competition had this problem with a Silver Age character once. They made Hal Jordan crazy evil and stuck to it for ten years and do you know what happened when they changed their minds? They built up to it. We saw Hal EVERYWHERE and we had foreshadowing all over the fucking place that he was coming back and that it wasn't his fault. After the build up they made him good again in a high profile miniseries... that had a compact six-issue storyline, shipped monthly, and led to the reboot of a franchise. And after that mini? We saw Hal everywhere again rebuilding all those bridges his time under mind control had burnt.
See, after you've dedicated so much time and energy to forcing a heroic character into the role of villain, and have enthusiastically sold the character that way to the readers for an extended period of time... You get a lot of readers and future writers who think that character is a villain. If you want to FIX that, you need to make their redemption a Big Fucking Deal, and make it easily seen by all those readers who gave been eating the shit you've been selling for the last six or ten years rather than just the die-hard holdouts who have been waiting for this since you made her nuts. Otherwise, you'll have a lot of confusion and you risk the right dumbass writer connecting with the right dumbass editor a year or two down the road and having this exchange:
"Hey, wasn't she a bad guy?"
"She's been good since that.. Damn, I forget the name if the mini but it was mind control I think."
"I only know how to write her bad. Let's soft retcon it and use her as a villain."
Or:
"Hey, as a kid I read this cool story where she went nuts. Anyone ever resolve it?"
"... I don't remember, I think she jyst came back to the team."
"Okay I got this idea... We'll call it AVENGERS: DISASSEMBLED..."
And even if that seems too farfetched or just like something that happens anyway, you still have characterization creep. Your writers, editors and artists have been not only pushing this shit but they've been consuming it themselves. Future writers, editors and artists are consuming it. Even if they are ASSIGNED Wanda as a hero, they still have the impression of a weak-willed passive woman who cannot tell reality from fantasy. These traits will overtake her as they write, because you have been pushing them endlessly and this is the image they have of her now. This is just like Hal Jordan's inability to feel fear, Quicksilver's mental instability, and Crystal's wandering eye... All flaws never in their original concepts that now serve to completely define those characters to the point of pushing away their relatability unless the writer works their ass off at researching and restoring the original personality. With every reference to Wanda's insanity you are CONTINUING to destroy your second female mutant character and your second female Avenger--one of your few female characters with a solid profeminist Silver Age foundation. This is not only irritating, it is MIND-BOGGLING to me that you'd do this.
There's really only one way you can save her. When Wanda gets back, she needs to be directly involved in rebuilding everything she destroyed (Bringing Hawkeye back was a good idea, but you are really going to need to overturn M-Day through HER actions) and she's going to need to make those Hal Jordan style pop-ins where she teams up with everyone in the Marvel Universe and defends herself against their grievances. If you leave M-Day in effect, if you just have people drop the grumbling without actually interacting with Wanda, all this shit is going to remain and Scarlet Twilight II is just around the horizon.
Also, that quote of hers bugs me on two levels. Continuity-wise that's a Lee quote, long before they ever found Bova and got the story of their birth. That story's set up so that Wanda has to be the older one, that's why Cthon would infuse her with power. (Unless you're planning something odd with Pietro and Oshtur.) Personality-wise, unless she's drugged out of her gourd like in House of M she knows better than to defer to anything Pietro says. That is hardly a quote indicative of her personality, and I'm a bit annoyed at your Polaris one too. It's awfully generic.
That said, the Quicksilver profile is very compassionate look at his actions and leaves open the option that Steve doubts Pietro's Skrull story. A previous one suggested Steve couldn't tell there was lying involved, this one may well have been after Pietro came clean and the "skrull interference" would be the Skrull that was in Attilan during Son of M. That one made me wince, because a) Captain America should be able to tell when someone as neurotic as Quicksilver is lying to him, b) Steve should know Pietro well enough to tell, and c) I was a little worried someone would have Steve on the less likely to forgive side of this one. It gives me some hope we'll see a little interaction between those two characters again, at least.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Memory Lane, April 1998
I remember this fifth week event from when I was a kid. This was actually the first solo Lois story I ever read. (It was also the only of these one-shots with a female creative team.)
I can't say much for the event name (or some of the stories, why the fuck was Donna in a church?), but the cover theme was pretty good. The unobtrusive banner at the top identified the event, and each set had an image of the star in a pose indicative of her concept and/or role in the story. So we have Secret against a black background, obscured by shadows. Lois Lane sneaking around in spy-clothing with a camera rather than a gun. Tomorrow Woman's circuitry overlaid in the darkness. They're not astoundingly good, but they did catch my eye back in the day.
I wish DC would resurrect this idea. It's such a simple event, just pick an underused female character from each of the major franchises (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Justice Society, Justice League) and give her a solo spotlight. Something like Marvel did this year with their Women of Marvel one-shots. It could shine a little light on supporting characters and neglected superheroines again, if just for the fifth week in a month. I mean, they revisited the Tangent universe, why not this?
Or I wouldn't mind another flashback Tomorrow Woman story. Even for a one-issue wonder, she had some charm to her and was an interesting pick for the JLA franchise.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
2011
Last year was reasonably uneventful. The first half of the year was dominated by work, testing for promotion (no one in the office made it) and preparing to go to Afghanistan. Then, Afghanistan. I read a lot while there. A lot of old genre fiction I found on sites like Munseys, trades I ordered online, digital comics and religious materials. I started a Goodreads there, since the website was accessible, if anyone'sinterested in my books and thoughts about them most of what I read it on it. Didn't count most of the digital short fiction though, so there is a lot of REHoward, Leigh Brackett and PK Dick that's listed that I really enjoyed.
In the few months since I got back I've been blogging more often, which translates to writing more often which is a fairly good thing. I'm not much for New Year's resolutions, I tend to make mine at the end of the year. One was to post every day in December, and that worked out nicely. Sadly, I did not enter the new year with a clean house, my comic book backlog all read, the laundry all done and the dishes all done... But I had some decent food New Year's and a snow day on the solstice so all in all it was a pretty good month.
I do have some left over items. I still need to read some items that I wasn't in the mood for last month (I hate to force myself to read or watch anything, it makes me uncharitable towards the work and often leads to not enjoying something I normally would), and finish a few books. So I'm going to give myself an entire year for these:
The Kalevala (English translation)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Wiccan Mystic: Exploring a Magickal Spiritual Path (Almost halfway done with this)
Guardian of the Dead
Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars
Lorelei of the Red Mist
The Supergirls
Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors
Trickster Makes the World
Beyond Good and Evil (I have been a third of the way through this for a long time)
Legend of the King
No Good From a Corpse
Plus a bazillion superhero comics and anything else that catches my eye.
No promises, though. I have a criminally short attention span.
In the few months since I got back I've been blogging more often, which translates to writing more often which is a fairly good thing. I'm not much for New Year's resolutions, I tend to make mine at the end of the year. One was to post every day in December, and that worked out nicely. Sadly, I did not enter the new year with a clean house, my comic book backlog all read, the laundry all done and the dishes all done... But I had some decent food New Year's and a snow day on the solstice so all in all it was a pretty good month.
I do have some left over items. I still need to read some items that I wasn't in the mood for last month (I hate to force myself to read or watch anything, it makes me uncharitable towards the work and often leads to not enjoying something I normally would), and finish a few books. So I'm going to give myself an entire year for these:
The Kalevala (English translation)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Wiccan Mystic: Exploring a Magickal Spiritual Path (Almost halfway done with this)
Guardian of the Dead
Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars
Lorelei of the Red Mist
The Supergirls
Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors
Trickster Makes the World
Beyond Good and Evil (I have been a third of the way through this for a long time)
Legend of the King
No Good From a Corpse
Plus a bazillion superhero comics and anything else that catches my eye.
No promises, though. I have a criminally short attention span.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Happy New Year
This was my personal favorite cover from 2010. It's got 3 of my favorites and that fairy tale motif I love. I know some people don't like it because Wanda's in the wicked witch role in the back, but part of the appeal for me with Wanda is that she's the Fairy Tale Witch as a good guy. Since I was a kid I've had a fascination with the Witch archetype on either side of the moral divide, but especially as good guys. (And as cover artist Jill Thompson also created Scary Godmother, it's safe to say I'm not alone in that fascination.) For some reason, I just want it to turn out to be a misunderstanding, and for the fairy tale heroine to get trained as a witch after befriending her. Wanda's history is that of a fairy tale heroine (she and Pietro are very Hansel and Gretel and the Brother and the Sister to me) and her powers are that of a fairy tale witch. She's ideal for exploring feminine roles in fairy tales, as well as the overlap between folklore and modern superheroes.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Recommended Reading and Food for Thought on Silver Age Nostalgia
David's got a post up today on race and comics that's damned good reading.
Lately, I've been trying to put to words my problem with the assumption that "Silver Age Nostalgia" is what's wrong with comics (and I'll probably continue to), and a few paragraphs from that post really resonated there:
I know I have more to say about that when it percolates a bit, but that's a tangent that doesn't even touch on a fraction of David's post.
Lately, I've been trying to put to words my problem with the assumption that "Silver Age Nostalgia" is what's wrong with comics (and I'll probably continue to), and a few paragraphs from that post really resonated there:
I don’t think that DC is working of nostalgia at all, especially not for the Silver Age. The Silver Age, running from the ’50s up to the early ’70s at the latest, was a time when superhero comics turned soft and transient. Characters changed shape, gimmick, and styles issue to issue. The Silver Age is generally viewed online as being wacky and out-there, super weird and goofy. It isn’t known for Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, and Ray Palmer so much as for that time Superman had an ant head and Jimmy Olsen married a gorilla. Jordan, Allen, and Palmer date from those times, yes, but they aren’t emblematic of those times.I've been all about that when I'm complaining. The "Silver Age Nostalgia" is all cosmetic, and some of the best stuff out has been a revival of the spirit of the Silver Age, while some of the worst shit is just the Silver Age characters written in a modern age story.
If you skip across the street to Marvel, there’s an interesting parallel. Over the past ten years, several characters from the ’70s have made a return. They haven’t replaced anyone, but Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Werewolf by Night, Moon Knight, Spider-Woman, Nova, Iron Fist, Ghost Rider, Shang-Chi, and even Howard the Duck have made returns, no matter how completely unmarketable they may be. Does that count as nostalgia for the ’70s?
I don’t think that either situation counts as nostalgia. There is certainly someone’s fond memories of a character involved in the process, but nostalgia is a yearning for, and sometimes emulation of, the past. Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown is a love letter to blaxploitation films. The casting of Pam Grier, the soundtrack, and all the overt references to blaxploitation is proof positive.
If you look at Bendis’s Cage or Geoff Johns’s Hal Jordan, and I mean really look at them, you’d see how they aren’t really fueled by nostalgia at all. The stories aren’t even remotely the same. They star the same characters, sure, but casting Pam Grier alone does not a blaxploitation movie make. Johns’s Green Lantern is deadly serious and never boring. The goofy ring structures, the giant boxing gloves and baseball bats, have largely given way to airplanes and detailed rifles. It’s realistic, rather than whimsical. His Flash comes a little closer to emulating the Silver Age style, but even then, he’s taking one part of the past (the Flash Facts/science) and applying it to something new (giving us stories that let Francis Manapul show us how cool superspeed is). The characters are old. The stories aren’t.
I know I have more to say about that when it percolates a bit, but that's a tangent that doesn't even touch on a fraction of David's post.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Amendment to the Last Post
Yeah, I know there are comics fans who like Roy Harper. I don't particularly care either way about him, but here's the big thing: Nothing is more infuriating about Young Justice to me than using Roy. It's not because I absolutely hate Roy, or because I'm a fan of Mia (I really don't like Mia at all). It's because all the promos and the plot hints point to the idea that Roy Harper will leave the team and be replaced by a girl.
Roy Harper is the sidekick character who is the most easily replaced by a female character from the outset. There have been two Arrowettes and there is CURRENTLY one female Speedy.
Speedy is not an iconic character. Roy Harper fans are already knee-deep in comics culture. He's no more notable than Aqualad, who was judged unknown enough that they could swap him out for diversity. I actually think it was a good idea to swap out Aqualad, and would have been a better idea to swap out both Speedy and Aqualad.
Instead, because a conscious choice was made to start this cartoon series as a boy's club, we have Roy from the outset. And he is a jerk. And he is going to be replaced down the line, but because of Tradition we need to start out with a boy's club and women are not important enough to bring in at the start.
You know how the Tradition of starting with none or just one female character on teambooks started? Because they didn't think it was important to have women on the team at first. So in the Golden Age it took them 5 issues from the formation of the Justice Society to even have a backup of Wonder Woman. (Red Tornado was in the first issue, but she was laughed at by the boys and didn't formally join.) In the Silver Age, every team started with one girl (Wonder Woman in Justice League, Jean in X-men, Sue in Fantastic 4, Jan in Avengers) and it often took several issues to give her a good part (Okay, Jan was pretty cool from the outset but Wanda took the prize when she came in; poor Sue took forever to get some real cool moments) and years to add a second girl (Polaris was introduced in issue 50, I think, of Uncanny). Young Justice itself, as late as the 90s, took 4 issues to add girls even though it was launched as part of the Grrlfrenzy event.
This is not because it is good, or right, or "organic" for things to start out all-men and then add girls later. This is because the creators made a mistake early on, and acted to correct it later. The Boy's Club was a BAD thing, and they were trying to undo it. NOW we know better. We can start things on the right path. Continuing this silliness and calling it "Tradition" is wrong-headed and totally misses the point of expanding female roles as time went on.
And saying you're trying to lure boys in and "reeducate them" "organically" is bullshit.
Roy Harper is the sidekick character who is the most easily replaced by a female character from the outset. There have been two Arrowettes and there is CURRENTLY one female Speedy.
Speedy is not an iconic character. Roy Harper fans are already knee-deep in comics culture. He's no more notable than Aqualad, who was judged unknown enough that they could swap him out for diversity. I actually think it was a good idea to swap out Aqualad, and would have been a better idea to swap out both Speedy and Aqualad.
Instead, because a conscious choice was made to start this cartoon series as a boy's club, we have Roy from the outset. And he is a jerk. And he is going to be replaced down the line, but because of Tradition we need to start out with a boy's club and women are not important enough to bring in at the start.
You know how the Tradition of starting with none or just one female character on teambooks started? Because they didn't think it was important to have women on the team at first. So in the Golden Age it took them 5 issues from the formation of the Justice Society to even have a backup of Wonder Woman. (Red Tornado was in the first issue, but she was laughed at by the boys and didn't formally join.) In the Silver Age, every team started with one girl (Wonder Woman in Justice League, Jean in X-men, Sue in Fantastic 4, Jan in Avengers) and it often took several issues to give her a good part (Okay, Jan was pretty cool from the outset but Wanda took the prize when she came in; poor Sue took forever to get some real cool moments) and years to add a second girl (Polaris was introduced in issue 50, I think, of Uncanny). Young Justice itself, as late as the 90s, took 4 issues to add girls even though it was launched as part of the Grrlfrenzy event.
This is not because it is good, or right, or "organic" for things to start out all-men and then add girls later. This is because the creators made a mistake early on, and acted to correct it later. The Boy's Club was a BAD thing, and they were trying to undo it. NOW we know better. We can start things on the right path. Continuing this silliness and calling it "Tradition" is wrong-headed and totally misses the point of expanding female roles as time went on.
And saying you're trying to lure boys in and "reeducate them" "organically" is bullshit.
New Young Justice Trailer.
After being bored out of my skull by the premiere, I briefly considered checking in on the next few episodes of Young Justice in case the new characters are interesting and they manage to hammer out the kinks.
That might not work out for me now.
(Via DCWKA)
Let's see, still no Miss Martian. To the Creators of Young Justice: I'm sure you consider yourselves progressive for including a physical powerhouse female character, but this is the 21st Century and we would like someone who speaks, and says something of substance when they do. Now, this is difficult if you haven't ever stopped to listen to a girl speak before but I have a solution until you can find a writer who has. Just think of what a boy would say, and have someone with a higher voice say it. It'll be a little rough, and probably not sound entirely right but it'll be a start while you do some research.
Not that the rest of this is doing very well. Prior to this preview I really only hated Speedy because he was a jerk, everyone else was just boring. In less than two minutes, Kid Flash has been promoted to hateful. You might have gotten away with the hormone-driven teenaged boy shit if the girl had been seen enough to counteract the idea that she's little more than a sex object, but she's not so you don't. He's a jerk. Also, the other boys are jerks because they didn't even roll their eyes at him. And I don't care that a villain prevented that, because who wrote the fucking villain?
Robin's been promoted to irritating. That giggle is stupid. He's like a video game character. A+LEFT to hide in the shadows, B to snicker. It's annoying as fuck, and Dick Grayson shouldn't annoy me until he's Nightwing and being overtaken by angst.
Aqualad... is actually okay in this... possibly because he doesn't have enough lines to piss me off. He's doing a little better than Miss Martian in that he actually gets to fight, though.
And Speedy's still here, oh joy. Oh seriously, why the fuck is Roy hanging out here? Is Tradition really that fucking important? We ALL see Artemis in all the fucking promos, we know that very soon the archer is going to be a girl and this asshole will be gone. Why are we watching him? Why does he need to be here in the first three episodes? Is anyone REALLY going to say "Where's Speedy?" FUCK NO! He's just as worthless as the original Aqualad, and the only reason Roy didn't get switched out from the start like Garth did is because someone on that writing staff inexplicably adores Green Arrow. No one outside of comics fandom gives a shit about Speedy, and this jackass we see on screen isn't going to change that! You could have used any reckless teen archer there! You guys just badly wanted to use Roy when Mia or Cissie would've done fine, and now you're doing some stupid story about him leaving or dying because it's "traditional" when you could have started out with this Artemis character in the opening instead. If you're gonna kill him off tragically, you could have done it in the first ten minutes of the pilot, and had room for the girls you left out.
Look, I'm a Silver Age nostalgia fan. I love the Silver Age, I read the old comics, I actually feel a lot of my favorite characters could do with a revival of their Silver Age personalities and elements... and I can't fucking stand what you've put on screen. You have the perfect place to play with the mythos here--a cartoon series where you can streamline major comics stories and can blend the best of the Silver Age, the 90s comics, and whatever new stuff you want to throw in--but you INSISTED on launching this with Roy Harper, Dick Grayson, and Wally West because it's traditional? Stop treating childhood wonder like something you can recreate with a fucking checklist!
Fucking nerds, I swear.
ETA: Addendum.
That might not work out for me now.
(Via DCWKA)
Let's see, still no Miss Martian. To the Creators of Young Justice: I'm sure you consider yourselves progressive for including a physical powerhouse female character, but this is the 21st Century and we would like someone who speaks, and says something of substance when they do. Now, this is difficult if you haven't ever stopped to listen to a girl speak before but I have a solution until you can find a writer who has. Just think of what a boy would say, and have someone with a higher voice say it. It'll be a little rough, and probably not sound entirely right but it'll be a start while you do some research.
Not that the rest of this is doing very well. Prior to this preview I really only hated Speedy because he was a jerk, everyone else was just boring. In less than two minutes, Kid Flash has been promoted to hateful. You might have gotten away with the hormone-driven teenaged boy shit if the girl had been seen enough to counteract the idea that she's little more than a sex object, but she's not so you don't. He's a jerk. Also, the other boys are jerks because they didn't even roll their eyes at him. And I don't care that a villain prevented that, because who wrote the fucking villain?
Robin's been promoted to irritating. That giggle is stupid. He's like a video game character. A+LEFT to hide in the shadows, B to snicker. It's annoying as fuck, and Dick Grayson shouldn't annoy me until he's Nightwing and being overtaken by angst.
Aqualad... is actually okay in this... possibly because he doesn't have enough lines to piss me off. He's doing a little better than Miss Martian in that he actually gets to fight, though.
And Speedy's still here, oh joy. Oh seriously, why the fuck is Roy hanging out here? Is Tradition really that fucking important? We ALL see Artemis in all the fucking promos, we know that very soon the archer is going to be a girl and this asshole will be gone. Why are we watching him? Why does he need to be here in the first three episodes? Is anyone REALLY going to say "Where's Speedy?" FUCK NO! He's just as worthless as the original Aqualad, and the only reason Roy didn't get switched out from the start like Garth did is because someone on that writing staff inexplicably adores Green Arrow. No one outside of comics fandom gives a shit about Speedy, and this jackass we see on screen isn't going to change that! You could have used any reckless teen archer there! You guys just badly wanted to use Roy when Mia or Cissie would've done fine, and now you're doing some stupid story about him leaving or dying because it's "traditional" when you could have started out with this Artemis character in the opening instead. If you're gonna kill him off tragically, you could have done it in the first ten minutes of the pilot, and had room for the girls you left out.
Look, I'm a Silver Age nostalgia fan. I love the Silver Age, I read the old comics, I actually feel a lot of my favorite characters could do with a revival of their Silver Age personalities and elements... and I can't fucking stand what you've put on screen. You have the perfect place to play with the mythos here--a cartoon series where you can streamline major comics stories and can blend the best of the Silver Age, the 90s comics, and whatever new stuff you want to throw in--but you INSISTED on launching this with Roy Harper, Dick Grayson, and Wally West because it's traditional? Stop treating childhood wonder like something you can recreate with a fucking checklist!
Fucking nerds, I swear.
ETA: Addendum.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The Allegory and the Amazon
I complain a lot about the the portrayal of the gods in Wonder Woman, and while the "Rise of the Olympian" storyline by Gail Simone has some openings for discussion and possibly complaint (I'm not sure how the Hawaiian culture views death for their gods, myself I'm generally against killing off gods but maybe Hawaii is like Scandanavia and gods die cyclically) she did one big thing right:
She used Zeus as her big antagonist, and she kept him in character.
I've blogged this before, but I was incredibly disappointed and pissed off by how Perez handled the Zeus-Hera relationship. He's always been a trickster when it came to sleeping around, and she's always been reactive and quick to blame the woman involved. In the Perez run, Zeus just comes down to Themiscyra AS HIMSELF and asks Diana for a roll in the hay, and when she refuses he makes her fight a whole bunch of monsters. Hera goes to her room and cries until Athena and Co talk her into standing up to him. (Oh, and if I recall correctly this mess leads to going to the center of Paradise Island where rapist Heracles is holding up the Island as penance, and Diana's gotta help him out and Hippolyta forgives him and suddenly he's a nice guy because even Perez after MAKING a rapist Heracles portrayal can't stand to have Heracles be a bad guy.)
Anyway, it fucks up the Zeus and Hera relationship in a way that strips Zeus of his trickster aspect (which is actually vital to his realm of patriarchal power, because this entire marriage is representative of how institutionalized sexism in the way women are raised and related to deceives women into supporting the patriarchal order against other women) and Hera of her personality. This is done in order to set up something that could be EASILY set up with having them act in character: Zeus just nods at the refusal, then comes back to annoy Diana in some sort of animal disguise. Hera catches him, blames Diana, orders her to fight monsters and Zeus and Hera have a giant fight on Olympus that leads to the goddesses offering their support to Hera when she stands against Zeus's violence, and convincing her to take back her rage at Diana (who by now has gotten to the climax of her quest because this sort of thing takes a while even when you have Hermes on your side), because really the whole thing is Zeus' fault.
That "Challenge of the Gods" storyline was also, I believe, where they established Pan was killed for the Millenium crossover, and it had a lot of brooding Hermes. Damn, the more I think back on it, the more I hate Perez's run.
I'm digressing again. Sorry. (I just really hate how Perez handled the gods.) So Gail Simone decides to use Zeus as a bad guy in "Rise of the Olympian" and the subsequent storyline. To this end, she has him decide that he's going to reward the Amazons and Diana by creating a race of equal men to replace them. That way they can retire, marry, and have lots of babies. Because that is seriously what Zeus thinks all women aspire to. He makes them in much the same way, animating clay using the souls of deceased warriors, with one exception. In a scene that occupies a strange gray area between a duel and a mugging, he kills a deity from another pantheon (who is the father of Pele, who is described as the goddess of violence when this particular shit hits the fan) and uses the heart to create Diana's equal: Achilles.
This is the aspect of her run I'm having trouble getting over. Surely a god can survive without a heart, but later Pele is very upset he's dead. And Simone never brought the guy back! Still, it's vital for how Achilles turned out and it does not seem, what with the stakes they had, like something Zeus would sweat over. It's got really good symbolism, because we have misguided Power embarking on needless destruction (of someone who seems to represent pure goodness and creation) and all the rationalization involved, with both the good and the bad results played out in the next couple storylines.
We also have an old white god killing a Pacific Island god and using his heart to make a blonde white dude. Which is in that area of horrible racial implications and colonization symbolism that I'm not really qualified to examine. This is brilliant or problematic, or both. The text certainly underlines that it is a horribly wrong thing, and the consequences of this action are visited on Diana rather than Zeus. I'm still against killing gods, but I'd say this is a correct portrayal of Zeus as a bad guy. He doesn't murder other gods much in classical stories, because gods don't die in those stories, but he does a lot of casting gods into Tartarus and gods trade body parts like MRE components.
What I find so incredible and compelling about this story is that throughout the whole thing Zeus is attempting to be benevolent, and missing the point completely. This is perfectly in character with the old time Zeus who considered himself the father and patron of all heroes, and it really supports his role as the personification of power and male-dominated establishment. He's convinced himself that acting in a sexist way is doing women a favor, much like chivalrous sexists do. When Diana and the Amazons react badly to this, he gets angry that his gift is unappreciated and out comes the pushiness.
Right about now Perez fans are asking how this is different from what Perez wrote. Well, back then he was dealing with Diana as a love interest and acting as the philandering husband. His relationship with Hera changes everything there. It activates the Trickster aspect, because 1) he does want to avoid a fight with her, and b) he doesn't want to ever piss her off to the point that she'll leave again. (There's a story where she does and he stages a fake wedding to attract her back. When she goes to the ceremony out of curiosity, she sees he's marrying a lifeless statue of her and is humored back into the relationship.) Perez wrote Zeus as the personification of patriarchal power in a way that minimized Hera's influence in the pantheon.
Simone wrote a story where Zeus approaches Diana as a hero, but a female one that he thinks will want to retire and have lots of babies. She weaves sexism into the assumption in a way that avoids contorting Hera's relationship with Zeus (by having Zeus perform an action that won't piss off his wife) and shows that Zeus does see Diana as a valued hero rather than just a potential fucktoy. She tells a tale about how a powerful sexist man can acknowledge an individual woman's accomplishments and claim to value femininity while still screwing over women with his assumptions.
She also tells the reconciliation story between men and women with Achilles, who is actually a pretty damned noble guy at heart from the beginning. He gets his position as the leader through Zeus's sexism, but eventually this gets reconciled and they all team up in the end. I actually really miss Achilles, he was a really good male counterpart for Diana. Fucking reboot.
Still, the real topper to all this divine symbolism is Diana standing up to Zeus, punching Patriarchal Power directly in the face. Funny thing about that essay, I really hate when the gods are made petty and bad for no good reason other than the writer wants to make Diana better than them. (And it happens all the time, see Perez and even Rucka's self-hating Athena.) Thing is, Simone did some great staging here when she picked just which gods Diana would tell off. Ares is the personification of needless violent conflict and Zeus is the personification of patriarchal power so it makes SENSE that Wonder Woman would conflict with them. They represent the exact energies that she is created to combat. She reveres Wisdom (Athena), Motherhood (Demeter), Sisterhood (Artemis), Inner Peace/Truth (Hestia), Diplomacy (Hermes), and Love (Aphrodite), but she rejects War (Ares) and she has some serious problems with Power (Zeus) from time to time. I think if Simone's run had gone on without a time fuckup, we'd have seen some very interesting things come from pledging herself to the Violence of Nature (Pele).
She used Zeus as her big antagonist, and she kept him in character.
I've blogged this before, but I was incredibly disappointed and pissed off by how Perez handled the Zeus-Hera relationship. He's always been a trickster when it came to sleeping around, and she's always been reactive and quick to blame the woman involved. In the Perez run, Zeus just comes down to Themiscyra AS HIMSELF and asks Diana for a roll in the hay, and when she refuses he makes her fight a whole bunch of monsters. Hera goes to her room and cries until Athena and Co talk her into standing up to him. (Oh, and if I recall correctly this mess leads to going to the center of Paradise Island where rapist Heracles is holding up the Island as penance, and Diana's gotta help him out and Hippolyta forgives him and suddenly he's a nice guy because even Perez after MAKING a rapist Heracles portrayal can't stand to have Heracles be a bad guy.)
Anyway, it fucks up the Zeus and Hera relationship in a way that strips Zeus of his trickster aspect (which is actually vital to his realm of patriarchal power, because this entire marriage is representative of how institutionalized sexism in the way women are raised and related to deceives women into supporting the patriarchal order against other women) and Hera of her personality. This is done in order to set up something that could be EASILY set up with having them act in character: Zeus just nods at the refusal, then comes back to annoy Diana in some sort of animal disguise. Hera catches him, blames Diana, orders her to fight monsters and Zeus and Hera have a giant fight on Olympus that leads to the goddesses offering their support to Hera when she stands against Zeus's violence, and convincing her to take back her rage at Diana (who by now has gotten to the climax of her quest because this sort of thing takes a while even when you have Hermes on your side), because really the whole thing is Zeus' fault.
That "Challenge of the Gods" storyline was also, I believe, where they established Pan was killed for the Millenium crossover, and it had a lot of brooding Hermes. Damn, the more I think back on it, the more I hate Perez's run.
I'm digressing again. Sorry. (I just really hate how Perez handled the gods.) So Gail Simone decides to use Zeus as a bad guy in "Rise of the Olympian" and the subsequent storyline. To this end, she has him decide that he's going to reward the Amazons and Diana by creating a race of equal men to replace them. That way they can retire, marry, and have lots of babies. Because that is seriously what Zeus thinks all women aspire to. He makes them in much the same way, animating clay using the souls of deceased warriors, with one exception. In a scene that occupies a strange gray area between a duel and a mugging, he kills a deity from another pantheon (who is the father of Pele, who is described as the goddess of violence when this particular shit hits the fan) and uses the heart to create Diana's equal: Achilles.
This is the aspect of her run I'm having trouble getting over. Surely a god can survive without a heart, but later Pele is very upset he's dead. And Simone never brought the guy back! Still, it's vital for how Achilles turned out and it does not seem, what with the stakes they had, like something Zeus would sweat over. It's got really good symbolism, because we have misguided Power embarking on needless destruction (of someone who seems to represent pure goodness and creation) and all the rationalization involved, with both the good and the bad results played out in the next couple storylines.
We also have an old white god killing a Pacific Island god and using his heart to make a blonde white dude. Which is in that area of horrible racial implications and colonization symbolism that I'm not really qualified to examine. This is brilliant or problematic, or both. The text certainly underlines that it is a horribly wrong thing, and the consequences of this action are visited on Diana rather than Zeus. I'm still against killing gods, but I'd say this is a correct portrayal of Zeus as a bad guy. He doesn't murder other gods much in classical stories, because gods don't die in those stories, but he does a lot of casting gods into Tartarus and gods trade body parts like MRE components.
What I find so incredible and compelling about this story is that throughout the whole thing Zeus is attempting to be benevolent, and missing the point completely. This is perfectly in character with the old time Zeus who considered himself the father and patron of all heroes, and it really supports his role as the personification of power and male-dominated establishment. He's convinced himself that acting in a sexist way is doing women a favor, much like chivalrous sexists do. When Diana and the Amazons react badly to this, he gets angry that his gift is unappreciated and out comes the pushiness.
Right about now Perez fans are asking how this is different from what Perez wrote. Well, back then he was dealing with Diana as a love interest and acting as the philandering husband. His relationship with Hera changes everything there. It activates the Trickster aspect, because 1) he does want to avoid a fight with her, and b) he doesn't want to ever piss her off to the point that she'll leave again. (There's a story where she does and he stages a fake wedding to attract her back. When she goes to the ceremony out of curiosity, she sees he's marrying a lifeless statue of her and is humored back into the relationship.) Perez wrote Zeus as the personification of patriarchal power in a way that minimized Hera's influence in the pantheon.
Simone wrote a story where Zeus approaches Diana as a hero, but a female one that he thinks will want to retire and have lots of babies. She weaves sexism into the assumption in a way that avoids contorting Hera's relationship with Zeus (by having Zeus perform an action that won't piss off his wife) and shows that Zeus does see Diana as a valued hero rather than just a potential fucktoy. She tells a tale about how a powerful sexist man can acknowledge an individual woman's accomplishments and claim to value femininity while still screwing over women with his assumptions.
She also tells the reconciliation story between men and women with Achilles, who is actually a pretty damned noble guy at heart from the beginning. He gets his position as the leader through Zeus's sexism, but eventually this gets reconciled and they all team up in the end. I actually really miss Achilles, he was a really good male counterpart for Diana. Fucking reboot.
Still, the real topper to all this divine symbolism is Diana standing up to Zeus, punching Patriarchal Power directly in the face. Funny thing about that essay, I really hate when the gods are made petty and bad for no good reason other than the writer wants to make Diana better than them. (And it happens all the time, see Perez and even Rucka's self-hating Athena.) Thing is, Simone did some great staging here when she picked just which gods Diana would tell off. Ares is the personification of needless violent conflict and Zeus is the personification of patriarchal power so it makes SENSE that Wonder Woman would conflict with them. They represent the exact energies that she is created to combat. She reveres Wisdom (Athena), Motherhood (Demeter), Sisterhood (Artemis), Inner Peace/Truth (Hestia), Diplomacy (Hermes), and Love (Aphrodite), but she rejects War (Ares) and she has some serious problems with Power (Zeus) from time to time. I think if Simone's run had gone on without a time fuckup, we'd have seen some very interesting things come from pledging herself to the Violence of Nature (Pele).
Monday, December 27, 2010
Character I Can't See Enough Of: Squire
I read Knight and Squire #1-3 and I can't say I was too impressed with the plot of any of the issues, but I'm going to buy it more. Why? Because there was one really enjoyable element to this mini, and she gets a lot of panel time.
No matter how weak the rest of the book is, Beryl just makes me smile whenever she does anything. This is a really great, really bright character and Cornell is capturing that in all her scenes, even if the rest of the book isn't really his best.
Squire's one of those characters that got a really solid start, though. She was the viewpoint hero in the first JLA: Classified arc, and I think she's meant to be a young teen in that. Certainly she's got a childish quality to her, though that could be the incredibly over the top situation or just her role in the story.
She's playing Kyle Rayner for this storyline. See, the first arc of JLA: Classified was after they switched out Lanterns, and John Stewart is no wide-eyed newbie so Morrison had to bring in a younger character so he could keep his team formula. So he tied it to the plot, and gave us Batman and Squire scenes with a classic "sidekick escapes" setup. Beryl's own superteam, the Ultramarine Corps, have been taken out by Gorilla Grodd. She's the youngest, least powerful team member and used to being paired with an older hero and she's all they have to get help. She contacts the JLA for help only to find that everyone but Batman is in another universe. It's an overwhelming situation, and she has just the right amount of concern and awed wonder without coming across as out of her depth. She has the smartass teen role, but it never devolves into obnoxious whining or losing her cheer.
I pretty much decided the second she landed on the UFO that she was going to be one of my favorites.
I'm not sure exactly what trait makes her so appealing, there's just something in her personality combined with her skills and concept. I love how Beryl is extremely low-powered (she seems to have gone from a communications expert to having communications powers), but still manages to succeed in the end. She's so bright and optimistic and gets along with anyone she deals with. She's just plain delightful. AND she can save England from Evil using social networking.
Also, there is something about that costume. I hate yellow, but on her? That whole Robin color scheme works.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
If anyone's looking for a fight, I'm up for it.
So much of female comics fandom has migrated from livejournal to Tumblr, which is a service which makes it damned near impossible to anonymously troll someone because the basic conversation revolves around reblogging and posting your statements on your own blog, and they reply on theirs unless they have a special plug-in. Like cloned dinosaurs and challenged misogynists, the Trolls will always find a way, and items from that troll-fallen tumblr account keep making their way via reblogs to my own dashboard. I know one person who's been trolled at least three times this week from there.
In the meantime, there's stuff that doesn't seem so much like trouble-making as it just seems like someone is scared to be the one person in their circle who doesn't agree with the rest, but does want to see if there's a circle where their opinion is the dominant one. It seems very... weak-willed, perhaps?
Either way, I find the whole thing disgusting and made the above image for an email joke. The text is small, but I had a lot to say. And now that I can no longer ruin Christmas, it's the best time vent in public: with my Fan ID attached, on my own blog, in my own space on the internet, where anyone who wants a fight can come get one.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Christmas Links
Here's some holiday reading for those of you bored enough to check out this blog today:
This is a really awesome charity idea, and I think we should all pull something similar next year.
Colin Smith writes up "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot", the Deadman and Kara Christmas story that really deserves a reprint.
I heartily recommend anyone read the classic Invincible Super-Blog review of Tarot #41, for an in-depth look at #5 on his Naughty List.
Bully and DCWKA have been posting holiday Wonder Woman this month.
I did my Dispatch today, and it is surprisingly full of positive links (mostly due to DCWKA's Memorable Moments showdown.) Anna got the Manga links last night.
Comixology has a holiday section today (at the site and on the iPad app) and a few Marvel specials are for sale, and this year's DC Holiday Special is free. Also, the free preview of the Larfleeze Christmas special has that cookie recipe that's been going around Tumblr:
And, if all of this is old or uninteresting, Ty Templeton posted this little story on his blog last year, and it's one of my absolute favorite Dark Seid appearances in history and should be read every Christmas.
This is a really awesome charity idea, and I think we should all pull something similar next year.
Colin Smith writes up "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot", the Deadman and Kara Christmas story that really deserves a reprint.
I heartily recommend anyone read the classic Invincible Super-Blog review of Tarot #41, for an in-depth look at #5 on his Naughty List.
Bully and DCWKA have been posting holiday Wonder Woman this month.
I did my Dispatch today, and it is surprisingly full of positive links (mostly due to DCWKA's Memorable Moments showdown.) Anna got the Manga links last night.
Comixology has a holiday section today (at the site and on the iPad app) and a few Marvel specials are for sale, and this year's DC Holiday Special is free. Also, the free preview of the Larfleeze Christmas special has that cookie recipe that's been going around Tumblr:
And, if all of this is old or uninteresting, Ty Templeton posted this little story on his blog last year, and it's one of my absolute favorite Dark Seid appearances in history and should be read every Christmas.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Merry Christmas
I found this one on sale fairly cheap, and it was bigger than mine so I bought it but every time I went to decorate it beyond the green ribbon it looked wrong. I like the minimalist bit with it. So, I set up my little tree behind it with the traditional pin-ornaments.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
My Year in Fannish Favorites
I'm going to go ahead and steal this meme off Caroline like I stole the blog every day this month idea off of her.
Your main fandom of the year?
As every year... Superheroes. Though while I was deployed I read a ton of pulp sci-fi, Classical mythology and King Arthur fiction.
Your favorite film watched this year?
I didn't watch many movies that I can remember this year, actually. The one I watched most was Sleeping Beauty but I'm not sure 50 year old movies count for this meme.
Your favorite book read this year?
I haven't finished Swamps of Venus yet, so I'm going to have to go with Black Amazon of Mars (aka People of the Talisman) because it was a chance find that keyed me into a pulp short story writer I hadn't known of before. It sent me on a month-long search for Leigh Brackett writing credits, and I just love her solar system stories so much.
Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
Ever since I got back from Afghanistan I've had The War For Infinity in my CD player. If anyone else has been listening to that one, he just did a commentary for each of the songs on Tumblr.
Your favorite TV show of the year?
I don't watch too much TV. While I was away I watched all of Stargate Atlantis, Seinfeld and every bit of 30 Rock that's on DVD now, but Fringe has seriously kicked the asses of everything else. This season has been amazing.
Sometime I will get off my ass and blog everything I love about Peter and Olivia.
Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Leigh Brackett takes this without breaking a sweat. I fucking love Munseys and all the old writers I've been able to find on there.
Runners up? I discovered Mage, Madman, and Incorruptible via the Comixology app on the iPad.
Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
I had to devote a whole post to this one.
Your TV boyfriend of the year? Your TV girlfriend of the year?
Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv on Fringe as Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham. As a couple.
Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Greg Rucka replied me on Twitter and Gail Simone commented on my Tumblr. I know comics fans are supposed to be blase` about creator interaction, it happens all the time, but for me I still get that fangirl thrill from it.
The most missed of your old fandoms?
I really miss the Green Lantern books from last year. That Blackest Night build-up was the best, and it wasn't just plain anticipation of an event. Those stories are fun and introduce so much potential.
The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?
Adam WarRock's an artist I found through comics, and his is the first rap album I've ever listened to. I'd like to hear more of the good stuff, but not sure where to start.
Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
I've been out of X-men because this Utopia stuff doesn't really appeal to me, but "Age of X" looks really damned interesting, and X-men was the franchise that got me into superheroes. I am just dying for an excuse to get back into it.
I can't wait for the Batwoman series to get started.
Steve Rogers will eventually be Captain America again. I freaking love Bucky, but I sincerely think this trial stuff will end with a handoff back to Steve. (Fingers crossed Bucky goes back to the superbly designed Winter Soldier identity.)
I've been complaining about Young Avengers: Children's Crusade, but I really am counting the weeks until it kicks into gear and Wanda starts acting like herself again. Avengers Academy #9 is supposed to have a lot of Quicksilver, and it's based around my favorite student Finesse going off to find her real father.
Your main fandom of the year?
As every year... Superheroes. Though while I was deployed I read a ton of pulp sci-fi, Classical mythology and King Arthur fiction.
Your favorite film watched this year?
I didn't watch many movies that I can remember this year, actually. The one I watched most was Sleeping Beauty but I'm not sure 50 year old movies count for this meme.
Your favorite book read this year?
I haven't finished Swamps of Venus yet, so I'm going to have to go with Black Amazon of Mars (aka People of the Talisman) because it was a chance find that keyed me into a pulp short story writer I hadn't known of before. It sent me on a month-long search for Leigh Brackett writing credits, and I just love her solar system stories so much.
Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
Ever since I got back from Afghanistan I've had The War For Infinity in my CD player. If anyone else has been listening to that one, he just did a commentary for each of the songs on Tumblr.
Your favorite TV show of the year?
I don't watch too much TV. While I was away I watched all of Stargate Atlantis, Seinfeld and every bit of 30 Rock that's on DVD now, but Fringe has seriously kicked the asses of everything else. This season has been amazing.
Sometime I will get off my ass and blog everything I love about Peter and Olivia.
Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Leigh Brackett takes this without breaking a sweat. I fucking love Munseys and all the old writers I've been able to find on there.
Runners up? I discovered Mage, Madman, and Incorruptible via the Comixology app on the iPad.
Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
I had to devote a whole post to this one.
Your TV boyfriend of the year? Your TV girlfriend of the year?
Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv on Fringe as Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham. As a couple.
Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Greg Rucka replied me on Twitter and Gail Simone commented on my Tumblr. I know comics fans are supposed to be blase` about creator interaction, it happens all the time, but for me I still get that fangirl thrill from it.
The most missed of your old fandoms?
I really miss the Green Lantern books from last year. That Blackest Night build-up was the best, and it wasn't just plain anticipation of an event. Those stories are fun and introduce so much potential.
The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?
Adam WarRock's an artist I found through comics, and his is the first rap album I've ever listened to. I'd like to hear more of the good stuff, but not sure where to start.
Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
I've been out of X-men because this Utopia stuff doesn't really appeal to me, but "Age of X" looks really damned interesting, and X-men was the franchise that got me into superheroes. I am just dying for an excuse to get back into it.
I can't wait for the Batwoman series to get started.
Steve Rogers will eventually be Captain America again. I freaking love Bucky, but I sincerely think this trial stuff will end with a handoff back to Steve. (Fingers crossed Bucky goes back to the superbly designed Winter Soldier identity.)
I've been complaining about Young Avengers: Children's Crusade, but I really am counting the weeks until it kicks into gear and Wanda starts acting like herself again. Avengers Academy #9 is supposed to have a lot of Quicksilver, and it's based around my favorite student Finesse going off to find her real father.
The Airing of the Grievances
I was doing a meme of Caroline's called "My Year in Fannish Favorites" when I came across a question so big it deserved a post on its own: Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? There were so many fuck-ups to choose from just involving Marvel and DC, and as it is Dec 23rd and I have been watching Seinfeld all day I thought I'd go ahead and give this one it's own post.
So this year Marvel and DC have disappointed me in the following ways:
First, there's Blackest Night. The 2009 lead-up to Blackest Night was fucking gold. Rage of the Red Lanterns, Sins of the Star Sapphire and the BRILLIANT Agent Orange storyline are still some of the best Green Lantern stuff I've ever read. I even like that fucking FCBD story with Barry and Hal at Bruce's grave. The crossover itself sucked shit. I stopped reading when I realized that the White Lanterns weren't going to be recognizably as horrible as the Black Lanterns, and Johns lost the potential moral of the story, but not after being horribly dismayed by:
Hal's prominence over Kyle in Blackest Night. After two crossovers that centered on Hal and Kyle, suddenly it's Hal and Sinestro. It's like a crossover trilogy bait-and-switch trick (and Marvel pulled this shit too).
Katma Tui wasn't actually coming back to life, she'd just be a Black Lantern for a couple issues.
Soranik bringing Kyle back to life by way of Miri's ability to manipulate love energy rather than her impressive medical skill.
The massive WHAT THE FUCK of Wonder Woman being the Star Sapphire while the Atom is an Indigo Lantern. No, Greg Rucka could not save that.
Then when we get to Brightest Day they kill off the better Atom, and bury him in a matchbox. So cheerful.
Beyond that, they put Judd Winick on Power Girl, which used to be one of my favorite reads.
Stephanie Brown is still Batgirl (yeah, I said it), Cassandra Cain is still not back.
I was horribly let down by the entire Flash series, which I am still picking up for Manapul's art.
And of course, Wonder Woman's relaunch which has been an incredible miss for far too many reasons to list here.
Over at Marvel, they lost one of Magneto's kids.
A lot of people have asked Tom Brevoort on Formspring about Lorna being Magneto's daughter, and he pretty consistently said he thought it was forced and unnatural. He also, early on, stated there were no plans to bring her into Children's Crusade but I can't find that link. It makes me a little sad that they're ignoring this rich mine of soap opera drama, and it makes me a little worried that someone's going to retcon it away again and Lorna will become the Power Girl of the Marvel Universe.
They squandered numerous opportunities to bring Jean Grey back to life.
Second Coming and Hope Summers didn't really do it for me.
They let Greg Land do the covers to their Women of Marvel issues.
They continue to hire Greg Land.
The Massive Fucking Lie told by Quicksilver wasn't resolved by the finale of the series he told it in, and instead they decided to carry it over to another series. All of this, of course, is giving me the impression that there is no plan to exonerate Quicksilver for Son of M in Children's Crusade, because I find it so hard to believe they're dragging such a thing out when someone has a clean mind control explanation up their sleeves.
The topper, though, was that Scarlet Witch wasn't the big reveal in Seige. Instead, for the final of a trilogy of company crossovers (and Marvel did admit that Disassembled and House of M led to Seige) where Wanda was the centerpiece in the first two they decide to give SENTRY the sendoff. And this is not just "Fuck the Sentry" (But seriously, fuck the Sentry).
They dropped a lot of hints about a big surprise world-threatening villain, and a heroic redemption and such so we were down to Wanda or Bob. I was really hoping that Marvel would use that crossover to fix the mess Bendis made of Wanda Maximoff but no, the actual cleaning up for this character is to occur in a maxiseries rather than a company crossover like they fucked her over in. Yes, Heinberg is going to write a much better story, but he's going to take 9 issues bimonthly to do it and it is a side-story that other books won't tie into. That is how Wanda will be returned to sanity.
The thing is, it took THE ENTIRE MARVEL LINE to turn her into a villain and code her as baby-crazy. Every book was hijacked by House of M, and every fan reading and every writer writing got Crazy Wanda into their brains, but a single writer and a book that ties into nothing is supposed to undo that? Fucking Marvel. All those fans who read those crossovers but aren't fans enough of Wanda to read Children's Crusade, how many of Marvel's next crop of writers will be coming from that group? How long before someone decides that Womb Crazy is the real characterization, because that's the characterization she had when THEY started reading? What the fuck, seriously? That's like writing obscene lies about someone in a phone booth right where someone's eyes are looking during a call, and then instead of blacking it out you write "Not really, she's a nice person" on the inside of the handset. It's not hidden, but you certainly expended more effort making sure someone would look at the lies.
So this year Marvel and DC have disappointed me in the following ways:
First, there's Blackest Night. The 2009 lead-up to Blackest Night was fucking gold. Rage of the Red Lanterns, Sins of the Star Sapphire and the BRILLIANT Agent Orange storyline are still some of the best Green Lantern stuff I've ever read. I even like that fucking FCBD story with Barry and Hal at Bruce's grave. The crossover itself sucked shit. I stopped reading when I realized that the White Lanterns weren't going to be recognizably as horrible as the Black Lanterns, and Johns lost the potential moral of the story, but not after being horribly dismayed by:
Hal's prominence over Kyle in Blackest Night. After two crossovers that centered on Hal and Kyle, suddenly it's Hal and Sinestro. It's like a crossover trilogy bait-and-switch trick (and Marvel pulled this shit too).
Katma Tui wasn't actually coming back to life, she'd just be a Black Lantern for a couple issues.
Soranik bringing Kyle back to life by way of Miri's ability to manipulate love energy rather than her impressive medical skill.
The massive WHAT THE FUCK of Wonder Woman being the Star Sapphire while the Atom is an Indigo Lantern. No, Greg Rucka could not save that.
Then when we get to Brightest Day they kill off the better Atom, and bury him in a matchbox. So cheerful.
Beyond that, they put Judd Winick on Power Girl, which used to be one of my favorite reads.
Stephanie Brown is still Batgirl (yeah, I said it), Cassandra Cain is still not back.
I was horribly let down by the entire Flash series, which I am still picking up for Manapul's art.
And of course, Wonder Woman's relaunch which has been an incredible miss for far too many reasons to list here.
Over at Marvel, they lost one of Magneto's kids.
A lot of people have asked Tom Brevoort on Formspring about Lorna being Magneto's daughter, and he pretty consistently said he thought it was forced and unnatural. He also, early on, stated there were no plans to bring her into Children's Crusade but I can't find that link. It makes me a little sad that they're ignoring this rich mine of soap opera drama, and it makes me a little worried that someone's going to retcon it away again and Lorna will become the Power Girl of the Marvel Universe.
They squandered numerous opportunities to bring Jean Grey back to life.
Second Coming and Hope Summers didn't really do it for me.
They let Greg Land do the covers to their Women of Marvel issues.
They continue to hire Greg Land.
The Massive Fucking Lie told by Quicksilver wasn't resolved by the finale of the series he told it in, and instead they decided to carry it over to another series. All of this, of course, is giving me the impression that there is no plan to exonerate Quicksilver for Son of M in Children's Crusade, because I find it so hard to believe they're dragging such a thing out when someone has a clean mind control explanation up their sleeves.
The topper, though, was that Scarlet Witch wasn't the big reveal in Seige. Instead, for the final of a trilogy of company crossovers (and Marvel did admit that Disassembled and House of M led to Seige) where Wanda was the centerpiece in the first two they decide to give SENTRY the sendoff. And this is not just "Fuck the Sentry" (But seriously, fuck the Sentry).
They dropped a lot of hints about a big surprise world-threatening villain, and a heroic redemption and such so we were down to Wanda or Bob. I was really hoping that Marvel would use that crossover to fix the mess Bendis made of Wanda Maximoff but no, the actual cleaning up for this character is to occur in a maxiseries rather than a company crossover like they fucked her over in. Yes, Heinberg is going to write a much better story, but he's going to take 9 issues bimonthly to do it and it is a side-story that other books won't tie into. That is how Wanda will be returned to sanity.
The thing is, it took THE ENTIRE MARVEL LINE to turn her into a villain and code her as baby-crazy. Every book was hijacked by House of M, and every fan reading and every writer writing got Crazy Wanda into their brains, but a single writer and a book that ties into nothing is supposed to undo that? Fucking Marvel. All those fans who read those crossovers but aren't fans enough of Wanda to read Children's Crusade, how many of Marvel's next crop of writers will be coming from that group? How long before someone decides that Womb Crazy is the real characterization, because that's the characterization she had when THEY started reading? What the fuck, seriously? That's like writing obscene lies about someone in a phone booth right where someone's eyes are looking during a call, and then instead of blacking it out you write "Not really, she's a nice person" on the inside of the handset. It's not hidden, but you certainly expended more effort making sure someone would look at the lies.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
March looks like a Marvel-heavy month for me.
Okay, one thing really stands out right away in the Marvel Solicitations:
I am definitely getting 3 of these Captain America specials, but I'm not sure about this whole... .1 thing.
Is that Dust on the cover of X-men: Legacy? All in all, this whole Age of X thing is appealing to the Age of Apocalypse fan in me, and Carey DOES write the only X-book I still read. Beyond that, Marvel's metaplot "Fear Itself" actually looks intriguing so far. Immonen and Fraction, not a bad team. And according to Gage's twitter this even is primed to tie big into the Avengers Academy developments I've been watching like a hawk.
DC's got me a little less enthusiastic. Batwoman #2 and Jimmy Olsen #1 seem the most interesting to me right now, along with Morrison's Batbooks.
This Generation Lost tease has completely failed to peak my interest, but it's got me annoyed for pretty much the same reasons it has DCW irritated. It's like back when I dropped Daredevil a few years back over a Milla death tease in the solicit. (I wish I could find the post, I think it was on Newsarama, maybe mostly an argument in the comments.) They're letting us know that they hear the concerns, but rather than make an effort to fix anything they're going to just try and play on our anxieties. It's really dismissive and insulting, and just makes me want to leave them alone a few years until they work out their issues.
I might drop the Green Lantern books for this War of the Green Lanterns thing. It's just not grabbing me. Wonder Woman, on the other hand, has me with the cover:
It's good they've realized there's really only one opponent who can match her.
AVENGERS ACADEMY #10 & #11But... WHICH Wasp? I'm torn. I'm already dying to have Hank back in wings, but I'm considerably excited at the slim chance this means seeing Jan again. (In the meantime, Gage has said that February's issue #9 will be "pretty Quicksilver-centric". That one is Finesse meeting possible Papa Taskmasker, so it makes sense to have Pietro on hand for damage control.)
Written by CHRISTOS GAGE
Pencils by SEAN CHEN (#10) & TOM RANEY (#11)
Covers by MIKE MCKONE
The return of the Wasp? The return of Korvac? It’s two book-shaking issues in one month – and issue #12 guest-stars the Avengers! First it’s a “day in the life” of the students, with special guest instructors Protector and Dr. Strange! Then Thor, Steve Rogers, Iron Man and more assemble as one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ most powerful villains storms the school as Korvac comes back! Enroll in AVENGERS ACADEMY now and find out why ComicBookResources.com calls it “one of my favorite new series to come along in a while.”
32 PGS. (each) /Rated A …$2.99 (each)
I am definitely getting 3 of these Captain America specials, but I'm not sure about this whole... .1 thing.
Is that Dust on the cover of X-men: Legacy? All in all, this whole Age of X thing is appealing to the Age of Apocalypse fan in me, and Carey DOES write the only X-book I still read. Beyond that, Marvel's metaplot "Fear Itself" actually looks intriguing so far. Immonen and Fraction, not a bad team. And according to Gage's twitter this even is primed to tie big into the Avengers Academy developments I've been watching like a hawk.
DC's got me a little less enthusiastic. Batwoman #2 and Jimmy Olsen #1 seem the most interesting to me right now, along with Morrison's Batbooks.
This Generation Lost tease has completely failed to peak my interest, but it's got me annoyed for pretty much the same reasons it has DCW irritated. It's like back when I dropped Daredevil a few years back over a Milla death tease in the solicit. (I wish I could find the post, I think it was on Newsarama, maybe mostly an argument in the comments.) They're letting us know that they hear the concerns, but rather than make an effort to fix anything they're going to just try and play on our anxieties. It's really dismissive and insulting, and just makes me want to leave them alone a few years until they work out their issues.
I might drop the Green Lantern books for this War of the Green Lanterns thing. It's just not grabbing me. Wonder Woman, on the other hand, has me with the cover:
It's good they've realized there's really only one opponent who can match her.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)