The Tragedy Here Was the Marriage, Not the Divorce

I'll level with you right away that my first exposure to Pietro as a romantic hero was Age of Apocalypse. He had a sweet romance with that universe's Storm, and it really got me on the side of the character. I sought him out in X-men, in Essentials reprints, and in his own series during the 90s. There was something absolutely engaging about this woobie fanfic mode Draco Malfoy living Luke Skywalker's life at superspeed, so I ended up devouring any appearance he made in anything. I ended up really fond of him, his sister and his little daughter before I ever read anything with his wife.

Then I finally met Crystal in X-Factor back issues. There's a story where Pietro tries to mend his marriage by going to a little log cabin. External forces take pictures of Crystal sleeping with another man, and Pietro's approached by a shadowy PI type who shows them to him. he gets mad at the guy, denies the thing, but goes back to the cabin in a foul mood. He doesn't tell her what's wrong, and Crystal ends up crying and leaving early. I remember thinking at the time the pictures were forged and Pietro would eventually see the truth and feel horrible, and that he was in the wrong.

Then I read more of Crystal. The whole reason for the marriage breaking up was her having an affair, and there's the implication she's actually a serial cheater (and you know what, I'm not interested enough in Crystal to track down all the instances of her romantic tension with characters who aren't Pietro and analyze them for whether or not she slept with the guy just to quibble it out with Crystalfans on the internet. I'll do that for Sue Storm and Reed Richards in an online argument, but Crystal met Pietro while she was linked to Johnny, and she's got at least one established affair during the marriage, and from that point on any plot with her and Pietro either revolved around Luna or that threat that she would have another affair.) This didn't make me HATE her, but it did make me think that this was pretty doomed marriage as she had already broken the trust and a major character trait for her husband was that he didn't trust easily.

Aside from that, she just didn't interest me. She was flat, sweet, smiling and had a temper for the purposes of the plot. She seemed to exist to fret over the baby, and give Pietro a reason to act like a dick. Crystal didn't even fit the wife role very well before the writers decided to break up the marriage, because she was never as entertaining in a scene with her husband as his own sister was. She was never as entertaining in a scene with her husband as his brother-in-law was. Crystal just didn't compliment Pietro like Vision complimented Wanda. Vision and Wanda had opposite temperaments, but similar values and histories (Ultron is a mechanical Magneto, after all). Vision and Wanda shared their troubles and triumphs, and smoothed out each other's weaknesses with their strengths (Vision's logic and self-control to Wanda's emotion was traditionalist, but they suited each other). Crystal's flaws only amplified Pietro's flaws, which amplified Crystal's flaws. Their backgrounds were too different. Crystal was a princess and Pietro lived much of his life as a poor outcast criminal; and Crystal was a alien woman, a modern creature of science from the moon while Pietro was a gypsy boy with a witch sister from a fairytale mountain. Opposites attracting is a fine story when we have a common thread in the wildly different settings, but Pietro and Crystal didn't share enough of the "human experience" within those settings to bond over like Vision and Wanda did with their respective fathers, origins, and treatment from the outside world.

The marriage seemed like an editorial directive to free up Johnny Storm and get Wanda's overprotective brother out of the picture while Vision wooed her. Pietro's reasoning seems to have been that she was the first woman he ever got close to. I think Crystal just liked the old-fashioned romance at first. Really, though, I didn't want her to die but I wanted that marriage over with for good so that Pietro could have a new love interest.

I only hated her after Son of M. There's a scene where he gets jealous because she gets a flower from someone else, and I think he even hits the guy. Now, if I didn't know the history to this marriage, I'd say that Pietro was insane dick that she should dump and no one should ever date here. And if it were any other marriage at Marvel, and we saw T'Challa getting told off by Storm, or Scott by Jean, or Reed by Sue... Yeah, I'd side with Storm, Jean, or Sue because while the latter two have tension with other guys, none of them have done anything to justify jealousy. Hell, I'd side with Crystal, even, if her reaction was "Can't you control yourself? You're overreacting! He didn't mean anything, and it was just one mistake and you can't ever seem to let it go!" instead of what it was, which basically amounted to "You're a backwards human who isn't as enlightened as us. Stop acting like you own me. That's why the marriage didn't work out." CRYSTAL who actually had an affair and gave Pietro plenty of reason to be jealous, calls him "primitive" and possessive and basically lays the blame for the marriage not working out at his feet when the cause of the tension is her not keeping her word to be monogamous. Basically, she regards him as a caveman and feels she's never done anything wrong in this whole fiasco when she's the one who is OATHBROKEN at that point. Like many fans, she puts herself up as blameless and enlightened, when SHE broke the marriage contract. It comes off as her REALIZING she can't hold to the marriage contract, but saying "fuck it, I can do what I want because I'm an enlightened being and he is an asshole if he expects me to hold to it." Hell, under Hine all of the Inhumans look down their noses at him, and treat him as an irrational lower life form.

To make matters worse, the way Son of M unfolds I'm supposed to sympathize more with her because she's in the right when it comes to Luna, but I'm too busy being pissed off at her condescending attitude towards her ex-husband after all her bullshit to care about her anxiety as a mother. It would be different if they'd well and truly ended the marriage before like they did in Silent War, because they were such a bad match but they kept trying over several freaking decades to fix it so it came off very badly.

Honestly, she's supposed to be the sympathetic party in Silent War too but all I could think was "He's incredibly sick and needs someone to just grab him and toss him in Detox, and you are the only family around who can DO that right now since the rest are depowered/having a breakdown herself" but she cuts him loose THEN of all times rather than ending it during the several years when they knew it wouldn't work but he's strong enough to handle it and move on. She just kicks him to the curb. And it's irrational, because she's in the right to annul the marriage and I've been wanting them to divorce the two for years but this just served to get me pissed at her. Really, they need to catch him and toss him into detox and she just makes it so he HAS no one. But oh, she tried to make the marriage work because she LOVED him so much back when he wasn't in real trouble. That's probably also the fault of Son of M because that's she went from merely uninteresting to awful to me.

I'll admit that Abnett and Lanning redeemed her quite a bit to me. I've read some of Realm of Kings, searching for Lorna and Pietro, and they've managed to upgrade her from hateful to irritating. I still don't like Crystal, I don't want to read about Crystal, and I sure as hell don't want to read about Pietro and Crystal married anymore. She's probably a better wife for Ronan, and he's probably a better husband for her than Pietro. (Pietro would be a better husband for a lot of women than Crystal.) I do feel bad for her when she finds out about the Lie, and I side with her if she socks him in the face when he tells her. He deserves it for the Lie. But if she pulls this "You are so primitive, and this avoiding responsibility and openness is what caused our marriage to fall apart" bullshit, she loses that. It's good to see with her calling Pietro on bullshit, but when the blame is laid entirely at his feet and he's labeled as a "bad husband" to a "good woman" when really it was just an unsuitable marriage, I've got issues with that.

Maybe I'd side if there were something in her character I could relate to. But she's always been just generic and sweet with a hint of temper. She's no doormat, true, but she doesn't have anything going for her as I see it.

Add to that that in multiple Alternate Universes, Pietro is paired with the infinitely more interesting/likable Storm and shows none of the negative traits that feed his marital tension with Crystal. On the contrary, with Storm he's a sweet and devoted romantic hero. There's major differences in personality there, and while Pietro is more grounded and controlled in Age of Apocalypse, for example, he's also with a partner who never broke his trust, and I believe that's the bigger difference.

I don't want Crystal dead. That would suck, because then someone would bring her back to life and Luna would be sad. But the marriage was simply a bad match. They don't truly suit each other like Vision and Wanda did, and the big part where they differ (fidelity) is a dealbreaker for Pietro. Pietro married the first woman ever interested in him, and Crystal married the guy who seemed more stable than the Human freaking Torch. She needs someone less temperamental who can deal with an open marriage. He needs someone monogamous and modern, but who isn't condescending to him over his being old-fashioned. He needs a woman with a logical, stable outlook who controls her emotions, a female version of the old Vision, really. Someone who won't break his trust, and if the storyline happens that he thinks she's cheated it'll be revealed as a villain hoax and he can beg for forgiveness and she can forgive his flaws. He needs someone who can be his rock, really, like Vision was Wanda's rock. And even with all her strengths highlighted, Crystal's too soft and flighty to be the rock in a relationship. The best thing to come out of Silent War (even though it made me mad at Crystal and was set up to put the blame for the end of the marriage entirely on Pietro even though Crystal's the one who dissolved the bond to begin with) was they finally got the divorce, and it just needs to stick.

Update: Oh, Crystal. This is pretty low.

FINALLY

Released at the Cup O' Joe Panel:



Over on Formspring, brevoort's been fielding one or two questions a week asking about the Scarlet Witch and/or Children's Crusade, and he's pretty much had the same answer for all of them. July 2010.

It's going to be painstakingly long, 9 issues bimonthly, but it's Heinberg and not Bendis so it shouldn't be as miserable as the non-Maximoff parts of House of M.

Pietro Maximoff and the Soulsearingly Massive Lie

Yesterday I learned that Quicksilver is going to be a teacher in Avengers Academy. This makes me feel a lot better for really complicated reasons about the proper way to structure a redemption arc, and Slott's pacing on the Pietro subplot.

The Pietro subplot, which still gives me a nasty taste, is not a horrible idea for a redemption arc. It covers Pietro's major issues since at least House of M: he's lost trust in just about everyone, he's retreating into deception, and he is absolutely terrified of living without Wanda. He didn't trust the new Avengers to defend Wanda from the members of the X-men who wanted to kill her. (This may have been rooted in the fact that they were willing to discuss it, but Steve and Tony didn't have much choice in that Wanda was actually in Magneto and Prof. X's custody, and they couldn't just say "No, we can't kill her" and expect her to be given safely back.) He didn't trust his father to prevent Wanda's execution. (Okay, that may have been a reasonable one.) Wanda wouldn't let him just run away like he likes to, so he tried to hide her in a MASSIVE Lie. And to make the MASSIVE Lie work, they tried to make it as pleasant as possible so that everyone just got pissed off when they found out it was a lie. Magneto was so upset he killed Pietro. (But does he have the Furies hounding his ass to the edge of the world and back? No, he gets to have the moral high ground next meeting with Pietro, and then go be a "good guy" for a while after he spills his son's blood all over the place). Wanda brings him back to life, but is so upset by his death that she curses her father (but he gets his powers back, and no one calls the Furies on his ass), and the rest of the family (who eventually get their powers back), and all of the innocent mutants in the world who had nothing to do with this (They don't get their powers back. She gets all the blame for this, of course, even though she was kneeling in her twin brother's blood--the twin brother who'd been trying to prevent her death--and still suffering the effects of whatever actually caused her breakdown in Disassembled, and the effects of Professor Xavier's incompetence. I mean seriously, who the fuck treats being out of touch with reality by trying to convince someone parts of her life that happened, that she remembers happening, that other people remmeber happened, never happened? The demon babies were demon babies, but they were actually BORN, you arrogant jackass! What the fuck?). She runs off, but loses her depowered and thoroughly traumatized little brother somehow. He resurfaces in New York to offer us an unobstructed view of his heartwrenching descent into madness.

To be honest, Son of M is a compelling and disturbing story. I don't really want it wiped from continuity, even though it has my favorite character doing some really heinous things, because it strikes me as a genuine mental breakdown. This story is the result of being killed by his own father after becoming the submissive robotically loyal son the old man's always wanted. He's depowered, abandoned, suicidally depressed (Spider-man accidentally talks him into jumping off the roof), and seizes at the first chance to at least get his powers back. He's always put most of his self-worth in those powers and how useful they make him to the team, and how they allow him to protect his sister. He exposes himself to a dangerous chemical, and gets even further unbalanced by the substance and the powers he gains from it. Well, maybe not the powers so much as his manipulative evil future self. (Never trust any version of yourself you can look in the face without a mirror, kids.) The rest of plot in Son of M is really uncomfortable, because this is a father turning to drugs and then giving the addictive substance to his daughter while he's high. His last sane act is to send the little girl back to her mother before he just up and becomes the full villain. From there he descends to the lowest point, burns all the social bridges he can, and makes everyone who ever loved him regret having met him.

He plays around with X-Factor for a bit (I found myself rooting for him to kill Layla, actually, because she's a fucking manipulative asshole but now it's too late for that) before we get to David's shot at a redemption arc. I'm being generous when I say arc, because it's a one-shot (X-Factor: The Quick and the Dead) where Pietro spends a night in jail, hallucinating pep talks from loved ones who won't actually talk to him (the one offrom Magneto lets us know that even in his fantasies Pietro can't get a hug from his Dad). While he's being counseled by figments of his imagination that he's a person worthy of love and forgiveness, he's distracted when he sees someone else in trouble. When he focuses on getting help for that person, he suddenly just gets his original powers back (maybe that first hallucination really was Wanda popping in to check on him) and decides he wants to be a good guy from now on. We can only conclude from this that Pietro Maximoff's imagination is the best therapist in the Marvel Universe, and that Wanda would have been better served by her brother's hallucinations than by that fucking arrogant telepath.

All joking aside, there is an incredible display of conscience and determination in this issue. David actually took all the stories where Pietro was being used as a plot device to drive the mutants and the Inhumans into the worst settings possible and used them to support his point that Quicksilver is an inherently good person underneath all the manure.

Villainy in the superhero genre is normally the result of a spiral of misery that causes the villain to lash out at others. Many villains have misfortunes--often their own fault--that they blame on the hero or society. They might desire revenge. They try to get revenge and are thwarted, which they blame on the hero rather than their own actions, which leads to more revenge attempts, more failure, and more blaming external forces for problems that are really their own fault. Or they might feel they're shortchanged in life, and try to rectify this injustice. When that fails, they feel even more cheated and try to rectify the injustice again, making things worse, making themselves feel more cheated and so on and so on. A villain like that is trapped being a villain because he never takes responsibility for his own actions.

In House of M, Pietro blames his father for his sister's breakdown. He convinces her to fix herself and her own actions, and while she's at it to fix this and that and ooh, that other thing even though it's suspected that any use of her powers just worsens her mental state. He knows mind control is wrong. He knows lying is wrong. He knows his sister is not supposed to use her powers. But he rationalizes that this can save her life, and if they actually replace the old world with a better one it's not as wrong. In Son of M, Pietro still doesn't realize that the action wasn't justified, and has the further misery of not having his powers anymore. He thinks they could have done it better, but now he's lost his sister from the "imperfections". When he does get a brief glimpse of just how wrong his actions were, he attempts to kill himself. When Spider-man stops that, he goes back to blaming external forces for his problems. He sinks further into the cycle of villainy, destroys what little is left of his family (which I think was a blessing in disguise because he and Crystal were a colossally horrible marriage, Crystal is about as interesting as wet cardboard, and Luna has powers now so there's less chance of her being Lianed), and ends up deciding on Layla as the cause of his troubles.

But after he gets well and truly defeated by the good guys, this bad guy does something most villains don't. He drags himself out of the twisted wreckage of his life, looks around and sees that he's the one who destroyed everything, and rather than decide to continue blaming his father or Layla for his problems, he accepts that it was really his own idiocy and arrogance that caused it, and then concludes that he can move past that and be the sort of person who helps people again. That is a heroic feat. The lower he's sunk, the more enemies he's made, the more trapped in the villain mindset he seemed to be before this, the closer he is to the Point of Absolutely No Return Ever, the more difficult it is to make that sort of breakthrough. The more horrible the actions, the more dangerous it is for your own sanity to face the responsibility. And heroism is directly proportional to difficulty and danger. Really, I find this sort of turnaround so incredibly admirable that I'm glad they didn't wipe all of this experience away to make him turn out to be a Skrull.

I finished the X-Factor one-shot incredibly happy, and this lasted until I picked up Mighty Avengers and found out he'd been lying about being a Skrull. While it would be stupid to have Pietro completely fixed after one night of hallucinating, it still jarred me to see him lying. Pietro is a character with an honor debt in his origin. I was very worried that he was back in the cycle of villainy until they did the Unspoken storyline. Pietro's not externalizing the blame anymore. His thoughts during the battle with the Unspoken were that the entire mess was his fault because he caused that war, and he wanted to make it right. He doesn't blame Crystal for remarrying, and doesn't waste any thoughts on the new husband. He's not mad at Luna because she rejected him for lying. The primary thing on his mind is this Big Fucking Lie and how he can't get out of it. (And he contrasts Hank Pym here so neatly I get the impression one of Hank's tasks is to save Pietro.)

So he's stopped blaming Daddy for his problems. He still got three big issues, though. Trust, Truth and Wanda. He doesn't trust his friends to accept him after what he's done, he's still turning to deceit as a way to make his life easier, and he's still fixated on Wanda to the exclusion of everyone else's rights. (The Wanda fixation is just one of the reasons a proper Pietro redemption arc has to end before Wanda gets back, the others being that she's his reward and he's her reward. He needs to be redeemed before he deserves to be reunited with her. And when her redemption arc is finished? She's supposed to be rewarded by seeing the bundle of anxiety issues she loves and not the bundle of self-loathing we've had running around since she left.)

I was expecting that with Loki revealed in Mighty Avengers #34, Pietro would drop the deception but no, he kept with it and just rejected everyone else. It seemed like he was slipping back to blaming others so I got antsy for a while, especially as there were only two issues left to resolve the Lie. I was actually angry until I saw the last issue. All he gets is a half-page, but I believe it touches all of the issues I've noted. He even manages to blame others a bit (though after what Hank pulled I can't really call that bit of dialogue backsliding) as he wonders why the hell he acts the way he does.



We're down to one issue to resolve his plot, but he's the sort of character who will impulsively blurt out a confession in a public place. And the news that he'll be in Avengers Academy with Hank Pym of all people tells me he's not still upset at Hank, and they will at least make some progress on his trust issues and his fixation on Wanda.

I really want them to fix the Lie next issue, though. I want them to fix it three issues ago. Until they do, he can't properly bond with a team, he can't be reunited with his sister, and he can't claim the moral high ground with his father.

Mutants, Cowardice, and a Severe Misunderstanding of Quicksilver's Behavior

"We're trying to completely reimagine the concept of the super hero team book here," Mark Millar told Wizard. "I mean, wouldn't it be interesting to see some people chicken out and call in sick when there's somebody they know can kick the sh-- out of them?"

--Mark Millar during the runup to Ultimates

"It's a cynical corpse of a superhero universe"

--Kalinara, Miller vs. Millar: A Rant About Cynical Superhero Storytelling

I must confess that back in the 90s DC I had no aversion to a Mark Millar writing credit. I remember my sister pointing out--when he wrote DC books--that he had an irritating "twist" ending at the end of all of his stories that was predictable in itself, but I never really had a problem with him. It wasn't until they launched the Ultimate Universe over at Marvel that I realized that I hated Mark Millar's work.

I initially liked the line, Bendis's Ultimate Spider-man was quite good and the first storyline of Ultimate X-Men featured my favorite set of villains--Magneto and his two brats. But there was something about Ultimate X-Men that rang hollow, though at the time I couldn't quite quantify it. This had been meant to be a slick, streamlined relaunch but there was a sleazy layer of grime to it. Wolverine in particular seemed... lesser. As a fan of Wolverine's more relatable aspects (the cranky uncle of the Marvel Universe, the guy who finds it all the more irritating that he can't really hate the man married to that girl he loves, the brooder who stays above his animalistic nature but doesn't let on about it, the smartass old bastard on the team) I'm not impressed by making him a more brutal or successful fighter. I'm not impressed with crazy eyes or hostility from this character. (He's blunt, not hostile.) Millar seemed to have lost thehuman side of Wolverine. I'm quite attached to him as the guy who stands around the breakroom in his cowboy hat drinking beer and being kind of a dick to Cyclops, who puts up with it because he knows they can count on him in any situation. The inherent trustworthiness of Wolverine wasn't there. Maybe it was coming on to a teenager instead of a grown woman. Maybe it was not enough standing around the breakroom in his cowboy hat being good-naturedly dickish rather than just dickish. Whatever the problem, Ultimate Wolverine just didn't work for me.

Ultimate Magneto was another problem. The common complaint is that Magneto is more honorable, but that wasn't precisely my problem. My problem is that Magneto is more mature than he was in the Ultimate universe. Really, attacking the White House and throwing around cars just seemed puerile to me. It wasn't something the arrogant old fuck we all know and love to hate would do. It's too small and childish for the guy who reversed the polarity of the whole fucking planet in the regular universe. The worst bit was him begging Xavier for mercy. Our Magneto is a sneaky hypocrite, but he has too much pride for that. He's a dignified bad guy. That's why he's such a big-name bad guy.

Still, Ultimate X-Men featured a genuinely creepy Professor Xavier and Pietro turning on his father (the look of shock on Magneto's face was a good moment) so I didn't consider the first arc a huge disaster. It was enough to bring me over to Ultimates, which promised an appearance by my two favorite Avengers (who also happen to be two of my favorite X-Men villains). That is where I realized exactly what was wrong with this entire universe.

There weren't any heroes there.

Seriously. Marvel has always been famous for the fundamental flaws in its heroes, but there were always redemptive qualities that balanced these flaws out. Mark Millar's reimagining of the "superhero" concept deliberately stripped the characters of their redemptive qualities. In Ultimates, Bruce Banner doesn't attempt desperately to cure himself while running from a man who wants to turn him into a weapon. He is addicted to being the Hulk and knowingly activates it again. Tony Stark doesn't seem to feel any guilt about his inventions at all. He is purely in it for the rush of being a superhero, there's no nobility or responsibility balancing his hedonism as there is in the mainline and the movieverse. Thor (who to be fair was one of the better re-imaginings just because here everyone assumes he is insane) is content to gather a cult and withhold his help based on politics. (Yes, it was funny, but it wasn't exactly a heroic idea.) Giant-Man and the Wasp were in a deeply abusive relationship that robbed both of their best qualities (his genius and genuine desire to do good, her strength in actively obtaining powers and leaving the relationship once the first punch was thrown).

Captain America is without a doubt the absolute worst. His core concept is that he is the absolute ideal of every American history book, the complete best that the country could possibly have to offer, the moral pinacle of the American culture preserved perfectly in time from what is almost universally regarded as the most just position the USA has ever taken in wartime. Instead, he is the embodiment of the most shameful aspects of his generation, and an indictment of the worst aspects of the prevailing US political climate.

That didn't make me drop it, though. What ultimately made me drop it was when Millar's above quote came into effect and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch sat out fighting the shapeshifting aliens because they were "sick."

When I first read Millar's quote on calling in sick, my traditionalist mind pictured one of the younger team members sitting by a toilet sick to his stomach with fear while Captain America talked some sense into him. Or, at best, the guy that calls in sick, then changes his mind and shows up at the climax. But that was the fault of my foolishly conventional mind, Mark Millar had other thoughts for a heroic story. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, my two personal favorites, chickened the fuck out the first mission and sat it out. Because giving in is apparently more interesting than someone transcending their weaknesses.

Now, I have an idea why Millar might have picked those two. On their first mission as Avengers, Pietro establishes his especially bad habit of running ahead of the group. Not two panels pass before a terrified Pietro runs back to Captain America.



I find this actually quite adorable, and not just because Don Heck drew an adorable Quicksilver. This is a necessary component of heroic stories. Fear. It's something you need to overcome to face the monster, and seeing one of the heroes get out of sorts when coming face to face with the bad guy emphasizes the danger. Pietro's a young man (I believe at this point he's a teenager, but that's a long unsettled argument between Kalinara and I), and this is his first time out as a hero. It is natural that he's going to panic a little. That's not cowardice, because he doesn't run off from the battle or hide from the bad guy. He just has the character trait of being fearful. It emphasizes his heroism rather than detracts from it, because it's something he has to fight through. Cowardice is when the character is fearful, but doesn't fight through it.

The Ultimate Universe is the Marvel Universe reimagined without nuance or complexity. (I've long argued that it is Marvel's answer to the DC's Crime Syndicate, and I eagerly await when the two meet and Captain America kicks Captain Jingo's ass while scolding him for disrespecting our oldest allies.) When Millar recreated a character, he first distilled them to his or her basic character components. Then he carefully discarded the merits and magnified the flaws, occasionally adding completely different ones. All he had to do afterwards was add profanity. Pietro and Wanda go from being wide-eyed and fearful on their first mission to being full cowards. Rather than joining the Avengers to build a positive reputation and prove themselves better than Magneto, they join to hide from Magneto who scares them shitless.

To be fair, this is reasonable considering he seems to have raised them in the Ultimate Universe. I'm not sure exactly how early he got them, but I imagine he would have fucked them up even more royally if he'd known they were his kids right away. Magneto somehow manages to be an even worse father when he actually tries to be a father. (See Magneto Rex, House of M.)

Still, as much sense as this chain of events makes in how people behave, I don't read superhero books to root for cowards and glory-seekers who never learn that it's bad to be cowards and glory-seekers so I dropped the book to preserve both wallet and blood pressure.

I'm glad I dropped it when I did, because subsequent scans have revealed the Loeb ran with the incest angle on the Maximoffs. That really pissed me off.

See, Quicksilver has long been criticized by the arrested development set as having a "creepy" relationship with his sister. I can only conclude that these critics are either severely emotionally underdeveloped, or they have never sat down and thought through Quicksilver's personal history.

Pietro and Wanda were separated from their foster parents (whom they believe are their real parents) at a young enough age they don't have a clear memory of them. They're twins so no one really has seniority, but they've been raised in an old world mindset so Pietro has picked up some sexist attitudes about male responsibility. He's not so much a chauvinist as a chivalrist, but still, quite sexist in that he believes that as the boy he's the stronger and should be the more responsible.

Couple that with their natural personalities. Pietro is an anxious, very grounded in reality, and holds a serious outlook. He has physical (or at least, manifesting as physical) powers, and wonderful control over them. They're nothing but a boon to him, and these speed powers seem custom-made to make him an excellent protector and provider. Wanda is a distracted romantic, a dreamer. She has trouble from an early age distinguishing truth from fiction (in "Nights of Wundagore", a 70s story, they establish that her foster parents told her stories about WWII and she believed that they'd happened to her), is much slower perception and reaction-wise than he is, and her powers manifest as bad luck/clumsiness. It probably took until Magneto found them before they realized she was powerful instead of simply clumsy and unlucky. Not only that, when they DO realize she has powers, they realize she has almost no control over them. (This is actually part of the appeal of Wanda. She is incredibly awkward and clumsy early on, and grows into being a pretty badass superhero. That's also why that West Coast Avengers storyline, Disassembled and House of M were so fucking infuriating. They threw away the growth and returned her to poor Wanda with the crazy powers who needs her baby brother to protect her.)

So, in Pietro's mind, he's got a slow, clumsy, gullible and chronically unlucky sister. He loves her very much, but as he can see it he's got the advantage and it's his job to take care of things. And to make matters worse, she grows up to be HAWT. I believe it's safe to assume that even before they ran into Magneto, they ran into a lot of predatory types.

Now we have a set of orphaned and alone twins, a girl who is chronically unlucky and a boy who is very athletic. The chronically unlucky girl is in the wrong place at the wrong time, a fire starts, and she gets blamed for it. They are now fleeing an angry mob when OUT OF NOWHERE, a man appears and fends off the mob with his fantastical powers. There's probably a great deal of bloodshed, but we don't know for sure because you couldn't show that sort of thing in a code book during the Silver Age. The man collects the terrified twins, who are in awe of his fantastical powers and the violence he's willing to put them to.

They were probably fooled early on into thinking this man is a benevolent protector (unless, of course, he graphically killed the whole fucking town in front of their tender adolescent eyes like I think he did), but I imagine that misconception went away the second the recruitment drive started and they saw the unsavory sorts they were forced to room with. What we end up with is two traumatized teenagers in a room filled with terrorists.

So we have Pietro--with what he considers his slow, clumsy, gullible, chronically unlucky sister--in room full of terrorists with fucking amazing powers. The old man has unimaginable power, designs on world domination and is perfectly willing to maim, kill, mutilate innocents and even let his own men (specifically, Pietro) die if it'll get them towards that goal. One of them casts illusions and doesn't even hide that he wants to fuck his sister. The other likes to gross out his sister and will sell them both out to the old man if it'll get him a treat. Oh, and the old man is perfectly willing to present his sister as an incentive for more powerful men to join the group.

Is the protectiveness not starting to look less like incest and more like a Type A personality's natural reaction to a truly fucked-up situation?

And as this happened during their formative years, it's a habit you won't discard even in the safety of Avengers Mansion. He might not trust unfamiliar people right away, especially as Magneto had presented himself as a savior. He might worry that allowing them to disrespect her will lead to them taking even further liberties. (This isn't so far off, considering that every male in the Avengers seems to go through a point of crushing on Wanda, Wonder Man even going so far as to prevent her husband's restoration to get in her pants. Hell, Hawkeye was willing to sleep with her while she was an amnesiac, which is pretty creepy.) He might not fully trust the robot who was made by their worst enemy to take care of her. He might react very badly to finding out all these people that he learned to trust slowly over time (overcoming the anxieties formed by spending his adolescent years in the Brotherhood working Magneto) are willing to--after not killing Kang, not killing Loki, not killing Dr. Doom and so on--discuss executing his sister while she's ill.

And the incest idea really annoys me because it shows me that either the writer has not actually sat down and considered where Pietro's character comes from, or the writer's just an incredibly cynical person who sees a sexual motive in any closeness between two members of the opposite sex. (I'll give you, this is one place Bendis managed well in House of M. He got where those two were coming from and wrote a tragically devoted relationship without creepy overtones.)

This is without going into the underlying truth of the relationship, which is that for all Pietro's worry and protectiveness, Wanda is the one actually in control. Wanda, the idealist, is the one with the real core of strength here. She's from a traditionalist mindset when it comes to gender, but that doesn't mean she lets her brother push her around. She'll defer to him on some occasions, but more often than not she knows better than to put baby brother in the driver's seat. Pietro's anxiety weakens him, and he has an inherent softness to him. He's an emotional, family-oriented worrywort who tags along to make sure she's safe. Wanda is the one who makes decisions for her own life and happiness, and progresses as a person. He just orbits her. He has no worth in his own mind except for his powers and how he can use them to help his family. That's why after House of M he starts to lose his fucking mind, while she's content to make a a secluded life without him or power. (Yes, even regressed as she was by those two crossovers, she still comes off stronger than her brother.) Part of why he's so zealous to protect her physically is because he can't handle a life on his own. It's a very old world gender dynamic.

Why bring this one up? Because it carried over into the Ultimate Universe. Wanda was the controlling twin. She was the primary decisionmaker. She comforted and supported him emotionally. So, if incest was going to happen, it was actually more on Wanda's head as the stronger in the relationship than on her anxious, needy brother. So the incest angle really tears her to pieces, and reduces the primary relationship in her life to a sexual one. This is especially problematic as Wanda is one of very few female characters in comics who places such importance on a nonsexual relationship.

Of course, I haven't read the actual issue, and the incest may not be Wanda's fault. But that's even worse because then the balance in the relationship between the Maximoffs is thrown out of whack. Pietro (and a version of Pietro that is inherently weaker as a result of Magneto's influence than our beloved mainline basketcase) the physical protector and provider is now also the decisionmaker, and Wanda has no pull whatsoever. Some 21st Century updating of the Avengers.

I shouldn't comment on this one.

I think what's making me irrationally pissed off about the "Silver Age had no meaningful women" argument going around is that I used to think that way.

I used to think that the female characters in the Silver Age were complete bubbleheads, bad sitcom women who stood on tables and cried "Eek a mouse" and spent all their time swooning over the male leads. There were a variety of "look at the sexism" scans in books and on the Internet to support that, after all. And we all knew the 60s were sexist.

Then, at my sister's urging, I read some Silver Age comics. The Essential X-men, in particular. And holy fuck, yes there was Jean mooning over Scott and the guy's making utter asses of themselves to get her attention. But there was also Jean throwing the biggest guy on the team across the room with just the power of her MIND, and Scott being the one who fainted, and the telepath/empath on the team was the old bald guy while the girl was the heavy artillery.

And there was Wanda Maximoff.

Holy shit, there was Wanda Maximoff the one-girl wrecking crew who just pointed at stuff and destroyed it. She was saddled with an overprotective brother... who ended up injured and on the ground much more often than she did. (Which made the couple stories where she accidentally takes him or herself out with her power much more humorous than insulting to me.) She was the pretty girl Magneto pointed out to lure guys like Namor to his side, but she wasn't there because she was pretty or had some controlling men power. She was there because she pointed at things and broke them. Behind that beauty wasn't the sort of fake power that girls get so much, there was real destructive power. She made bad things happen. She was the Scarlet Witch, and god help you if you knocked her brother down in the fight.

And then, in search of more Wanda, I found myself seeking out the Avengers. And the Essential Avengers features the fucking Wasp saving the asses of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America on a regular basis, dammit. Yeah, she was a clotheshorse and kind of frivolous, but she had the power to shrink to a fucking spec and they used it and her cleverness to make her a force on a team with a GOD on it.

And I know, some of you are going to argue "Well, our point was girls who weren't derivative and could carry a story..." Well, stuff it. First, EVERY superhero is derivative of Superman, that's just comics. Second, these women could carry titles if it weren't for the constant glossing over of everything appealing about their early appearances by people who haven't bothered to look.

Seriously, if you find yourself arguing that Silver Age Nostalgia is exclusionary to women? Do yourself a favor and go read some fucking Silver Age comics. And if you have and you think that, you seriously missed something there. Because buried underneath all that 60s sexist shit is some solid gold.

Tales From the Chatroom: Dear Pietro..

Tonight in chat, Kalinara and I realized that even though Scott Summers and Pietro Maximoff have so much in common that writers swap them during Alternate Timelines and What-Ifs and they were effectively counterparts in the Silver Age, but they interact much more rarely than they should. Then it occurred to us that they must be penpals.

Dear Pietro,
How are you? I'm fine. The Professor just developed an evil split personality and tried to kill us. Or something. I admit, I don't quite follow. On the plus side, he mind wiped your dad, so you should get a few weeks of vacation out of the deal. I have to go, he's trying to kill us. See you soon.

Dear Scott.
I'm glad you're well. So am I. I am deeply impressed that you can tell the difference between an evil split personality of Professor Xavier's and his typical machiavellian plotting. Thank him for the memory wipe, as it allowed Wanda and I to finally have a quiet Thanksgiving.

~~~~~

Dear Pietro,
It's possible you will get a package from my former father-in-law. It is advised that you do not open it. Have a happy holiday.

Dear Scott,
Thank you for the warning. Enclosed is a magnetic bumper sticker backing that should provide some amusement next time you encounter my father. Happy New Year.

~~~~~

Dear Pietro,
How are you? I don't know if you've been watching the news lately, but we have a de-aged and amnesiac version of your father staying with us. He apparently is hitting it off with Rogue. Gambit is annoyed. It's vastly entertaining. Hope things are going well with you.

Dear Scott,
As always, I am pleased to learn that Father has lost his memory. Today I ventured across the Island of Dr. Moreau Players production of Camelot. There is talk of some sort of scientific Grail Quest. I'd forgotten how little sense life makes at home.

~~~~~

Dear Scott,
How are you? I have unfortunately been trapped into working for my father again. I have been successful in curtailing his plans for light genocide this week, but this fixation with robots troubles me. Send Jean my well-wishes.

Dear Pietro,
I'm fine, how are you? I've sent you a package of electrical engineering text books. Use as you see fit. Jean is dead again, but I'll transmit your wishes when she comes back.

Dear Scott,
I am doing much better since receiving your gift. Father is rather upset about it. My condolences on Jean. I would like to attend the funeral, but am too busy preventing my father from murdering too many members of his Cabinet. Please accept this wreath and apologize for my absence when she returns.

~~~~~

Dear Pietro,
If someone comes to your door saying it is me, do not open it. I have been possessed by Apocalypse. DEATH TO ALL UNWORTHY!!! I am going to take a vacation on a fishing vessel. TREMBLE BEFORE ME MORTAL. Please tell Wanda I said hi. DIE INFIDEL. Best wishes.

Dear Scott,
Have relayed your greeting to Wanda, as well as your warning. Good luck with the possession. I am told that the trick is not to isolate yourself but to surround yourself with people who care for you, but I don't know anyone with a heart who has actually tried this. I certainly wouldn't risk my sister in such a way.

DEAR PIETRO,
HOW ARE YOU? I HOPE THINGS ARE WELL FOR YOUR SISTER. HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT OF A NEW CAREER ON LIFE? I HAVE A JOB OPENING AND YOU WOULD MAKE A GOOD PESTILENCE.

Dear Apocalypse,
I move far too fast for pestilence. My father, on the other hand, is a plague upon the entire species. Contact him.

DEAR PIETRO,
HOW ARE YOU? YOUR FAMILY IS A SCOURGE AND A BLIGHT ON THE PLANET. ALSO YOUR SISTER WILL NOT RETURN MY CALLS.

Stay. Away. From. My. Sister.

Dear Pietro,
How are you? Sorry it's been a while since I last wrote, I was amnesiac on a fishing vessel and then had to get exorcised.

Dear Scott,
Quite well. How was the fishing?

~~~~~

My favorite Jim Hammond in uniform image.

This is my favorite image of the original Human Torch in uniform. I like the mid-change effect, and the face Parel draws on Jim. It has been the background on my computer for a few months, and I actually went so far as to inquire about the cover when ordering the comics. I almost never do that, but I like this image that much. (My retailer didn't get that particular variant, though.) I hope some day it gets offered as a poster.

Happy Birthday, Dad

One of the annoying things about being on another continent is that your timezone is shifted from everyone else's. This makes things like Birthday phone calls difficult to accomplish.

So, in lieu of the traditional phone call I would like to instead send a Birthday Blog Post to Papa the Foul. As a present, here is an in-uniform image of my current favorite among superhero cops: The Original Human Torch.



And for good measure, here are some pages of him on his day off.



Fortunately, Jim is a speed-welder in the off hours, and was easily able to stop the car. But the rest of his day off went pretty much as you'd expect.



Hope your leisure time is a little better than Jim's, Dad.

This is getting old.

Dear David,

I believe I aptly explained why I feel that Rucka has merely copied the Indigos with his rationalization, and that Diana was clearly placed in Violet due to the combination of her prominence and her gender and not because of any suitability in her modern age character. (Aside to the spectators, supposed pre-Crisis know-it-alls should RTFP and RTFC before piping up--DC's made a conscious effort to remove Aphrodite's influence as of the reboot, and it was quite successful.) As such, I figured you should understand just why I find the situation unacceptable.

Then I read your statement regarding love:

I think you could have as easily made the argument that Superman loves all creation and is willing to fight for it, and thus could have easily been a Sapphire. But perhaps Johns has a story reason for wanting Supes to remain undead a bit longer... or (more likely) no one ever thought Superman could rock the pink outfit. And at the same time, I try to see the positives here, in that we're talking about Love, dammit, and I actually LIKE the idea of super-heroes filled with love for humanity, love for the world, as the M.O. for doing what they do. In a world of vengeance-driven characters like Batman, I WANT someone to say "love must triumph," so I admit -- I can't get too outraged at the continuity/treatment/event/momentary-lapse-that-won't-affect-her-solo-title-four-months-from-now.

Before I get into the sweeping problem here, let me note that not wanting to put Superman in a pink costume but being willing to change Wonder Woman--who has the same hair/eye/skin color and costume color scheme--to a pink costume is homophobic and sexist and therefore wrong. So it's not a good excuse for using Diana rather than Clark for this particular twist.

But that's not where we get screwed up. You seem to find the idea that Love is what saved Wonder Woman from Death to be unequivocably positive, but even without the promblematic setup of the Star Sapphires Love is quite a loaded word, and there is definitely a gender disparity here. For male characters, Love is a positive addition to an already heroic character. It makes a powerful character more powerful. It adds to their supporting cast and gives them inspiration to achieve greater heights. They tend to be the hero first and the brother/father/husband/son/lover afterwards.

Female characters more often than not from conception have their LIVES revolve around Love and relationships. They are mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, lovers (even as bad guys, they are often potential lovers) to male characters first of all. They live, sleep, and breathe love and romance. Most of them are introduced as love interests and many that begin as heroes in their own right find themselves quickly paired off with the writer's and fan's favorite guys. Precious few gain and keep satellite male love interests that enhance their stories. Most female characters are used to enhance a male character's story, to teach them the power of love and the ways of the heart.

And outside the superhero genre? Men get to be reluctant romantic leads and learn to open their hearts, but they are also action and adventure and dramatic leads as well.

Women are overwhelmingly romantic leads and workers of love with hearts that yearn to be open. They are sometimes dramatic leads, but that's usually folded in with romance. They are RARELY solo action and adventure leads who explore their problems with wit and courage. Even when they get action and adventure roles, they tend to be romantic and emotional in nature, or learning the value of love for family, for men, or for strangers.

See, it may be an amazing and special thing for you to read a male hero learning to open up himself to love and it making him stronger. And it may be fun for you in the same way to read a woman tap into love to draw strength. That's because to you, it's not the same old theme to every story about you. You get a variety of themes about human nature.

We get love conquers all. In the large and the small, in the personal and the global. Love conquers all. All the time.

That's why for many of us the amazing and beautiful thing is watching a woman be independent and confident and hopeful without attaching herself as a helper to a man. The special thing is watching a woman reach wholeness by opening herself to other emotions--emotions like righteous anger (that we're often urged to repress) and enduring hope that aren't the theme behind every story we've ever read

And for a lot of women, there is nothing special in watching a woman tap into a reservoir of love so that she can draw strength from that because that's what 99.9% of female characters do when they're strong anyway. And though a lot of women still greatly enjoy it, it's as common as dirt and they can find it anywhere. And everyone enjoys variety. Even those of us who adore apples like to eat a pear once in a while and don't like when that pear we were in the mood for suddenly turns out to be another apple.

To clarify, I'm going to have to discuss spoilers for Green Lantern Corps #42-43 here.

Now, I have said in the past that I absolutely adore Miri, and I have blogged in the past that I was surprised at how well the Kyle and Soranik relationship worked out. Soranik is a very clinical, willful woman. She's never allowed herself to be in love because she's specifically been afraid of being hurt. And she has a superstitious streak (she insisted back in her first appearance her ring was cursed because Sinestro went bad and Katma died), so she must have been afraid of Kyle's fucking amazing bad streak. Not only that, she's from Korugar where Green Lanterns are despised and Kyle is The Green Lantern, the Torchbearer, the reason we all HAVE Green Lanterns right now. It's a beautiful blend of complementary personalities. He's artistic and neurotic. She's logical and hot-tempered. He's from a chaotic and diverse world and she's from a very well-ordered world that hasn't had freedom long enough to be accustomed to it. (We can infer the difference in natural states from how Sinestro reacted to Earth in the Secret Origin storyline, suggesting that Korugar was never so wild even before he took over.)

So opening herself up to love was a multifold experience. She was overcoming a number of fears and exposing herself to a completely different culture and mindset. It worked beautifully, and wonderfully. It wasn't innovative, but it was well-crafted.

Then Blackest Night started. And Kyle and Soranik's relationship was tested by Black Lantern Jade. It came out ahead. Then Kyle sacrificed his life, blowing up in the middle of telling Soranik he loved her.

It was heartbreakingly beautiful.

It was clearly not the end.

Kyle's sweetheart, after all, is a neurosurgeon, and the best medical professional on Oa. so one of the expected solutions is that she would be able to work through her panic, desperation, and grief to revive him from the dead. That she would, through her skill be able to save her love.

There are times when you expect a plot to continue in the obvious direction along a well-worn path, only to have the writer pull the rug out from under you. Before you know it you see the tips of your shoes cross the backdrop of a beautiful summer sky, but it doesn't hurt. You landed on soft grass and you can feel the warm sunlight on your face, so you laugh because you got surprised and you loved it and it was part of this wonderful game!

Kyle's death was one of those times.

Kyle's resurrection was not.

The plot had been marching down an obvious direction (though there were still many forks available that weren't cliched) but it was not a well-worn or unwelcome path. It was an unusual path because the Doctor with the material skills and logical mind was a female character and the one who'd sacrificed himself for love was a male character. This may not be as unusual as it used to be, but it was still a riveting departure from the typical setup and the romantic fairy tales of our youth. Tomasi pulled Miri--thus far the best of the Star Sapphires so I credit him with creating her--into the mix. Soranik finds herself without the skill to save Kyle, and is unable to balance her emotions in the center of the battle. Miri creates a link between the two lovers and uses Soranik's love to resurrect Kyle.

An inspiring example that love conquers even death, no? I'm sure Tomasi thought as much. He was thematically incorrect, though. Since it was Miri swooping in as a Deus Ex Machina, this was solely Love conquering death while Will sat on the sidelines. But if Soranik had done so using her measured skill with or without the quasimystical help of Miri, it would have been an example of will mixing with love to conquer death, and a better echo of the overall theme of Blackest Night--that these forces cannot prevail alone. You neglect in your argument that "Love Must Triumph" is most certainly not the only thematic alternative to vengeance-obsessed protagonists. I enjoy reading about people who achieve their goals through strength and intelligence and just plain never giving up. I enjoy watching a protagonist who wishes to preserve the thing they care for above all else, but I also like a protagonist who has a strong sense of what is fair and just and acts in order to correct injustice and balance. I like heroes like Green Lanterns, who apply their skill and their wits and their courage to make sense of the universe. Love's a wonderful experience, but it is not the prime motivating factor for everyone who does something altruistic or even just good, and stories where love alone doesn't get the job done can be incredibly uplifting.

More importantly, the sour taste I found in my mouth came from this: A woman's love can conquer anything is a theme that reverberates across fiction. You can find it anywhere if you want to look for it. But here Tomasi had a storyline that was different and exciting, and he threw it away for the sort of cliched climax that can be found in a 13-year-old's Mary Sue fanfic.

(I will give him that the potential fallout from this impromptu battlefield marriage is juicy as all hell, so I'll continue reading, but the resurrection sorely disappointed me. Also, Miri is a fairy godmother, but she's also fairly awesome--the first genuinely positive example of a Star Sapphire so far. This is a misstep that hasn't soured me on his using her.)

But I'll even give you that Miri's solution could have been quite ingenius if Kyle had been the one standing helplessly at Soranik's side (this wouldn't have sent Guy into a rage, but they could have placed it afterwards--like she got hit while reviving him), and Miri had linked hearts to bring her back to life. Why is it so different? Because a man's love in stories tends to be expressed by the physical deeds he does for it, and doesn't need to manifest as a mystical quality.

Female heroes don't often get to express love through feats of strength or skill. Love wells up from the bottom of their soul and springs forth as inspiration or magic, and puts things right on a spiritual level. (And at DC, love wells up from the bottom of a crystal cocoon and springs forth in a neat little pink package that shows lots of cleavage!) It would have been a hell of a thing to see Soranik Natu save her lover through her skill, and then be saved by the pure power of his love because that would be her love-driven skills and his pure emotion rather than the usual trope of emphasizing the woman's pure emotions and the man's skills.

Love stories may be an undiscovered country for men, but this is far from a new frontier for women. It's always been our playground. It's where we're assumed to have our greatest power, and it's the place we're relegated to in story and song.

Love is the kitchen of genre fiction.

So to a lot of us? Yes, this is a negative.

And the fact that in DC, love is overwhelmingly personal (Wally and Linda, Kyle and Soranik, Miri and her late husband are all examples of when the power of love has manifested supernaturally, and it has ALWAYS been personal), sexual and seems to be exclusively the domain of women--to the point that even a character like Diana who is established as downright virginal and much better suits another established realm is STILL rationalized into that domain (with the description of the other established realm, which went to a male character... which had a history that even suited the established description of what makes a Star Sapphire)--is an incredible negative.

I will say this much... I do want a love story. But not the one we've been getting. I want the undiscovered country.

I want something starring a male Star Sapphire.

I won't even come CLOSE to everything that's wrong with this picture...

Edit 8 JAN 10 1720 CET: I've promised to tell everyone know that Chris wrote his very astute Blackest Night: Wonder Woman review before I wrote this, and note that he is very handsome. At least one of these statements is objectively true.

Blackest Night spoilers ahead, but you can't really be much further behind that I am.

I'm sure I've written about it before, but I absolutely despise the Wonder Woman bondage origin claims. Whatever creepy personal ideas Marston had that were leaking (or being leaked) into his creative life (and probably not coincidentally, the creative lives of just about everyone writing and drawing comics back then because it sure as hell wasn't just Diana getting tied up in that period), it is a documented fact that he pitched the character as a comic for girls. That he wanted to bring female readers to the superhero genre. He wanted to give girls a story they could read and enjoy.

So Wonder Woman counts among one of the very few superhero genre characters that are legitimately a gift to young women. She is not a character to be marketed to young men. Marston assured the company the boys would read as well, but she's custom designed for young women. For god's sake, she's a princess who talks to animals. Her entire supporting cast, with the exception of one blockheaded love interest, was women. She is a character made with little girls in mind.

The bondage urban legend always struck me as a mean-spirited attempt to rob us of that. To strip her of all innocent and generous beginnings in favor of something uber-sexualized. To say that we weren't worth our own superhero princess, she had to be secretly aimed at young men. That she was really meant for boys. It's a way to steal Wonder Woman, and claim she wasn't ever stolen.

To be honest, that's why I've always felt they had trouble with her. She is a female-oriented character that they keep marketing to a widely male audience. They fill her with T&A and hire writers who figure she should either be a complete bore or the "woman you wish you could date" in the hopes that men are biting. Then they further ward off women by spreading the story of bondage in her origins and skimp up the outfit even more than possible (No one's seen her in shorts in how many decades?), and wonder why no one is buying the world's preeminent superheroine.

In the past five years, though, I'd gotten the feeling that maybe this had changed, that maybe letters and postcards about other female characters had suggested to them that there was an opportunity to market characters made for female readers to female readers. They started hiring female positive writers and female positive artists for the character, treating her as an equal to Batman and Superman, propelling her to a more prominent place in-story, and just pushing her more greatly than they had been for decades. She even got an animated movie! There were stumbles, but I figured maybe they were giving it a shot.

Then I clicked a link on Twitter and saw this monstrosity.



Wonder Woman in a fucking Star Sapphire outfit.

Let me make this clear, as I have complained about her lack of romance as relative to having Aphrodite as a patron extensively. In the Golden Age, this would work. She followed Steve off the island for love. But Steve's not the love interest in the modern age. They made him too old, wrote him out and married him off. He's been replaced by Superman--No... Hermes--No... Guy Gardner--No... Trevor Barnes--No... Io--No... Batman--No... Nemesis... Oh wait, we can't decide on a major love interest because every writer has to make their own or pair her off with their favorite! (Funny, this never happens to Superman who still has his Golden-Age Love Interest.) And since she has been decreed by DC to be an eternal virgin, none of these relationships ever deepen to the point that she would be especially attached to this person over anyone else. They tend to be flirtations and infatuations. So Aphrodite is shuffled to the background in favor of virgin goddesses Artemis and Athena (both greener than a pine tree in the middle of December) as her primary patroness.

So even though with the character's current chastity (brought specifically about by them aging her boyfriend and marrying him off to the comic relief in the CoIE reboot) Love no longer suits her nearly as well as Compassion (or Hope, or Willpower), they stuck her in the all-girl Corps (WHY THE FUCK IS IT ALL WOMEN IN SLUTTY OUTFITS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES?! ARE MEN UNABLE TO FALL IN LOVE AND ACT IRRATIONAL OR WEAR SKIMPY CLOTHES?!!) because hey, that's just a bunch of Space-Amazons, right?

They see nothing wrong with tying Wonder Woman to some smartass writer's abysmal joke about how women go CRAZY in relationships.

They see nothing wrong with taking a character who's concept is the person girls should all aspire to be and placing her with the group of women who are DEFINED BY THEIR ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS!!!!!

!!

!!!!!

!!!

Motherfuckers.

You can't just ignore Aphrodite's influence since the 80s and then suddenly decide her realm is the primary motivator in the character's life just because the character is the girl. Not without laying years of groundwork suggesting she's been fighting her need for love, which just hasn't been laid. She's been fulfilled the whole time without a man.

And you know what? She should be, as she's WONDER WOMAN. I'm all for bringing Steve back in some form--retcon, reboot, long-lost nephew... Something to give her the equivalent of Lois Lane again. But there's a reason they don't and never should (even with Steve in the equation) portray her as feeling like only half a person and desiring a soulmate above all else. Because she's WONDER WOMAN and that would send a really fucking bad message.

And that fucking costume. That godawful costume. Like someone vomited pink all over one of Solomon's concubines. They took one of the aspects of the character that is CONSTANTLY picked on--her skimpy costume (which is considerably skimpier than the skirt she debuted in and the shorts she wore after or even the tasteful bathing suit of the Silver Age)--and went and made it even skimpier, and even MORE sexualized, and then SHOVED her into a group full of women who thus far have been characterized as ALL ABOUT SEX.

It's the Ultimate Reminder that Wonder Woman is no longer for girls. She's been re-purposed for the lowest common denominator or men who refuse to grow up and deal with women on equal terms. She's not going to be given back to us, even though she was conceived as a gift for us. Too many people have managed to convince themselves she was always for boys to begin with, and if they can just hit the right shade of sexualization and male fantasy--the magic balance that Marston had somehow--they can make her popular again.

And it never seems to occur to them that she is not and never was meant to be a male fantasy. She's meant to be everything a girl would fantasize about being. I know, you're saying she's beautiful and sexy but guess what? That's not the kind of beautiful and sexy meant for the boys. It's not the sort of sexy that's there to be desired by the reader, it's the sort of sexy that's there because the person reading her wants to be desirable and POWERFUL in that way, as well as strong and intelligent and POWERFUL in those ways too. The reader is supposed to want to BE her, not just want her.

Yes, More Twin Peaks

Don't bother with this one unless you've watched the whole series, because I spoil the shit out of the Martell-Packard storyline.

There's a point in the series where Deputy Hawk remarks that Josie Packard was "powerful woman" because of how she managed to affect the Sheriff. It was one of two points in this show--with all it's utterly horrifying gender dynamics--that I had to yell at the screen. Seductive ability isn't real power. It is the illusion of power, because the actual choice ultimately lies with the seduced who can throw you away at any time. Josie herself was all too aware of this.

Josie Packard begins the story as a woman with fair amount of power and influence from her inheritance. She's in a tenuous position, though, as her sister-in-law Catherine has a greater hold and she has a past that could tear all of it from her fingertips. She's in the middle of a subtle game of politics with Catherine Martell and Ben Horne, and she's the underdog here. So she plays at being too innocent to wield any of the influence she inherited, and defaults to the role of hapless damsel when in the presence of White Knights Pete Martell and Sheriff Harry (Yes, he's serious) Truman.

Now, I will say to Josie's credit that she is a really clever and willful woman. She know she doesn't really have any substantial power, and much of what she does is an attempt to get some substantial power from Catherine. She knows she's starting from the disadvantaged position. She's got age, gender, and racial expectations aligned against her. She's the outsider in the town. So she starts from there and lowers everyone's expectations so much that no one will believe she's actually playing this game. That's not to say there's no truth in her body language or her accent, but her behavior with Pete and Harry as well as her steeling herself against Hank shows that she's considerably stronger than she lets on. She knows she's the underdog, and she's seizing the advantage there. She's playing the Princess side of the chessboard to Catherine's Dragon Lady, and she's a formidable opponent. Ultimately, though, Catherine checkmates her and strips her of everything. She further humiliates Josie by making her become her maid. Still, it would be a disservice to the character not to acknowledge she played a good game.

But she is truly in over her head, and has way too much to lose, and Catherine is just older and better at this. Not to mention that her husband never actually died, so the small amount of power and money gained from her inheritance isn't really hers. That power's an illusion too.

So once she loses, she goes from simply being panicked from time to time to being panicked all the time. Her focus shifts from attempting to amass and solidify substantial power to trying to keep from losing every bit of personal power she possesses as Thomas Eckhardt, her old boss, comes to claim her as a wife or a mistress. No amount of manipulating Harry can seem to save her from this as Catherine and Andrew close in on her. She describes Eckhardt as seeing her as "property" and is terrified of returning to him. At least one of the four murder attempts in which she's implicated was so that she could escape him. It could be argued that all four are her attempting to wrest free of his control.

After Josie's end, Harry is so distraught at losing her that Deputy Hawk makes the remark about her being powerful. Josie's character arc only proves him wrong. Power attained through seduction is only an illusion, and she knew this. The second the seduced loses interest or feels wronged, they can yank any influence back because the power had always been theirs alone. This happens to Josie with three men. Andrew tosses her aside after discovering her complicity in the murder attempt. When Harry discovers too much evidence of her criminal acts, he joins Cooper to confront her. Most severely of all, Thomas Eckhardt's physical attraction to Josie leads him to put her under his power, making her charms more of a liability than a tool and fueling the greatest fear of her life.

In the end, Josie's spirit merges with the nightstand in Eckhardt's room in the Great Northern Hotel, literally turning her into a piece of furniture that belongs to a powerful man (Ben Horne). Given that so much of her character arc is dedicated to avoiding that, this seems an especially horrible fate.

The woman with the real power in the storyline was and always had been Catherine. Catherine had seniority, Catherine had experience, Catherine didn't need to gather protectors to consolidate power. She could be the biggest bitch in town and not lose for it. (Even Josie's sweet-natured ally Pete would never turn against Catherine for her, he loved Catherine because she was an exciting woman.) She had her wits and wealth to support her. Like Josie, there's a point where Catherine gets wind of the gathering clouds and forces (Ben and Josie) aligned against her, but she recoups to take a terrible revenge. This is the character who had all the cards all along, which is probably why I felt terrible for Josie even knowing she was the one who shot Cooper. She was severely outmatched and facing some terrible options.

There's an extra shade of troubling in that Josie--who never gets any real power and ends up with the worst punishment for crimes no worse than much of the rest of the cast--is the only woman of color in an almost-entirely white cast. She's the demure Asian woman sought after by colonizing white men. She gets objectified and ultimately crushed in the power games between rich white people. I'll note for fairness that the character was originally intended to be Italian, but the final result is pretty unsettling.

He wears a smile.

Among the many fine offerings of the base library are boxed sets of the Twin Peaks television series. I remembered the series from when it first aired but as I was only nine years old at the time and had no control over the television (though I managed to see a few episodes because I remembered the premise, the Nadine amnesia storyline, and Agent Cooper) this was my first chance to see the actual resolution.

I understood that it would be strange. I remember that the main character was basically a clairvoyant FBI agent, that there was at least one character with unexplained superstrength, and the Red Room dream is infamous. I was prepared for a mystery/horror series, but I expected it to be more surreal than petrifying. But I had missed one thing in my sporadic childhood viewing.

BOB.



Bob is, without a doubt, the most terrifying character ever to cross the screen. Mike Myers, Freddy Kreuger, It? They don't hold a candle to Bob. Jigsaw? Don't make me laugh. Bob is the scariest thing ever put on film, and they didn't even need to give him makeup.

It's amazing. It's just this guy. This guy in denim with scraggly long hair. In normal life he'd just look like someone's scraggly uncle, but introduced in the context of the Twin Peaks series, he is nightmare fuel of the highest order. And the freakiest thing of all? He was an accident. Frank Silva was a stagehand who trapped himself on a set, and then got accidentally caught in the mirror in one of the scenes.



From there he became the star of sudden cuts, dream sequences, and of course, my nightmares. Normally I despise the quick cut to a gruesome scene or image in horror movies. It seems like such a cheap way to build tension. But modern movies tend to add particularly shocking images. These aren't particularly shocking images when taken out of context. The quick cuts tend to occur only when someone has a vision, or when the audience needs to know he's behind something. They build on the character's concept as a supernatural entity. Bob's appearances aren't a clumsy insertion into an otherwise dull scene, they're artful reveals.

The character never really gets any dialogue, but he doesn't need it. He just has to look menacing and slink around. Lynch used him only in shadowy visions and--most creepily of all--mirrors. By using him so sparingly and only in specifically unearthly scenes, he turns this ordinary guy into something completely unnerving. There's no makeup, CGI or gore needed. It's just lighting and emotion. It's bare bones horror.

That's fucking genius. That's how a horror story should be made. People and things that would be otherwise unremarkable are cast in a strange light and turned into something sinister.

Recommendation Request

Since there's only one book coming out this week (and I order from a retailer that keeps to his agreements), I'm looking at the possibilities of waiting an extra week or paying more for postage than for my order. I like to avoid either if at all possible, so I'm thinking about filling out the order a bit with things I've been meaning to try out but haven't gotten around to buying.

Now, I already have a list of interesting things and I don't plan to go overboard here, but I'm open for recommendations right now.  So I ask you--the three or four people who haven't cleared this blog from your feedreaders--what single issue, story-arc, or miniseries should I order this Wednesday?

Girl Comics

Jeanine Schaefer in the interview:

It’s actually comics BY women—and I mean, top to bottom: written, penciled, inked, colored, lettered. The logo is by a woman, all the interior design, production, proof-reading and editing is all by women.

Although some creators have gravitated towards their favorite female super hero, it’s not specifically focused on our female characters, and I’m not trying to generate content that I think will appeal to more women. I don’t want to give away all the stories, but we’re really running the gamut of Marvel characters, from Punisher to the FF to Mary Jane. We’re making great comics by great women, period—when given the opportunity to create a story about whatever they wanted, the pitches I got back from everyone have been hugely diverse in tone and characters.

And check out the list:

Contributors include Kathryn Immonen, Marjorie Liu, Devin Grayson, Ann Nocenti, Trina Robbins, G. Willow Wilson, Stephanie Buscema, Amanda Conner, Jill Thompson, Louise Simonson, Valerie D’Orazio, Colleen Coover, Molly Crabapple, Nikki Cook, Ming Doyle, Abby Denson, and Carla Speed McNeil.

Louise Simonson? Ann Nocenti? Ming Doyle? Jill Thompson? AMANDA CONNER?!

She-Hulk on the cover. Bucky-Cap and Black Widow in the background. (Are we going to get a story with those two? Please!)

All female creators, writing about superheroes. There's no pushing towards female characters or girly stories, just the stories female creators wanted to make. With a stupid name, yes, but someone's even found a historical reference there.

This... might actually be a good idea... come up with by Marvel.

Marvel Catchup Reactions

Not all the Marvel I read lately, but the stuff that stuck out at me from the last two shipments:

Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1 -- I knew we were off to a good start when she went into the casino, because I've always argued Tasha was the James Bond of the superhero genre. Also, the artist does not spend the first scene lovingly rendering Natasha's breasts and butt. That may signal low expectations, but this IS the book about the redhead who runs around in the vinyl catsuit, and this IS a Marvel comic. We were at least as likely as not to start out on the wrong foot.

The story tells Tasha's background in flashbacks, with really stylized Russian art. As of this, her most recent origin story she is a lost Romanoff, a baby in 1928. She was active in World War II as a teenager partnered with an older soldier, and it seems like she was a pretty successful agent before being juiced with the Widowserum. All things I like.

I love how Raney draws Tasha's face (his waspwaists could use a little work, so could his Bucky). She's incredibly expressive, and she has a girlishness that pulls the rug out from under the ultra-sexy spy-girl concept. She doesn't have that predatory look that goes with the female Russian secret agent archetype. She looks innocent and fresh. There's a set of expressions when Ivan calls her that just seemed so human to me, even in Raney's cartoonish style. Raney captures the same quality that we see in the Captain America series. We see the softer side of Natasha. She's a warm person that you empathize with, not a slick, sexy construct.

I really freaking like that face for the same reason I like Ross and Epting's Black Widow. They draw expressions and posture that imply an open, caring person. She has a face that people trust, which when you think about it would make her a hundred times more effective than if she looked like she walked out of a 60s spy flick. Someone with that kind of icy, dignified, seductive demeanor--someone like Emma Frost--would be suspect immediately. But a woman like this? She has a variety of social tools at her disposal, a far better operative than someone who only has the option to intimidate or have sex.

Dark Avengers #11 -- Oh my god! They killed Kenny Sentry!

In all seriousness, this issue surprised the hell out of me with two things. First, it features a scene with a lesbian couple that just seemed to me like a couple rather than a porn scene, only they were drawn by Mike Deodato (which is why the girlfriend had such huge breasts, I imagine) and written by Brian Michael Bendis. Of course, I might be overlooking incredibly exploitative parts of the scenes simply because I would expect any flashback to a lesbian love affair done by the aforementioned creative team to be utterly shameless, but this could be any relationship except both characters were female and drawn with large, perky breasts instead of just one character being drawn with large perky breasts.

But I think it had the same sexualization that we would get from any two female characters boxing and drawn by Mike Deodato, and I'm not sure if that expectation says something about me, Mike Deodato, or genre.

Second, it made me empathize with Victoria Hand. This is the first time we go beyond her normal role as Normie's punk-streaked personal assistant, and her situation is surprisingly understandable. I wouldn't call her a "good guy" based on the decisions she's been making, but she displays some admirable qualities. She's certainly got guts.

Also every story arc of this series has involved the gratuitously violent death of a character I hate. Hell, if they were to simply put out a Sentry comic that was nothing but Bob being killed in horribly painful ways and returning the next scene with no explanation so he could die again, I would be on that thing no matter WHO wrote it. (But especially if they gave it to someone like Garth Ennis, because he could get creative.)

Invincible Iron-Man #20 -- That was perfect. Each of those characters reacted in exactly the right way. Bucky and Don just got involved, they're motivated by their own personal moral codes to even listen to the message in the first place. They're certainly not going to leave a man in Tony's situation when they can save him, even if he is a prick. Bucky won't because he's too much the hero, and Don won't because he's too much the healer. Maria and Natasha got through the last storyline by focusing on a mission, and they want to complete the damned thing. Neither woman is the sort to leave anything unfinished, they get too much satisfaction from a victory. None of these four characters should have a second thought.

Pepper, though. Being the only doubter in the room is supposed to surprise us, I think, but it makes so much sense storywise. Pepper just had her superhero origin finish up last storyarc. She's the closest in the room to Tony personally, and she's the only one of the group who spent any time with him after he lost his memory. She watched him deteriorate, she dealt with the fact that the man she cared about was fading away and there was nothing she could do about it. And now she finds out he manipulated an escape? And put her through all that shit without telling her? And her husband is dead and never (welll, as she knows) coming back but this guy who FORGOT her husband existed got out of it? Suddenly that tender time in the bunker is made meaningless because he wasn't really going to disappear, and only she will ever know it happened? She has to be pissed off, but how can you be pissed off at someone you just saw brought so low who now lies in a sickbed? So she's just plain upset.

She understands better than the rest of them that Tony's a good man, but also an amazingly selfish bastard. She'll say yes, but needs some time to be pissed off and upset.

Mighty Avengers #31 -- I've never been one for fridging, but they did something interesting here by stepping him into her shoes. As Kalinara is fond of pointing out, male characters almost NEVER take on the mantles of female characters even though the reverse is common. This in itself is transgressive, and it puts Jan at a higher respect level than the usual dead girlfriend. She's not a tragically lost innocent, she's a role model. She's his hero. She's important for her life, not her death. Other fridgings? They're the mistake, the tragic loss, the event the hero wants to prevent from ever happening to anyone. Hank lost Janet a long time ago. As he remembered it, she went on to be the hero and he became a failure. Now he's invested in living up to the standards she set. He know that even if she returned or hadn't died, he'd never have a happy life with her but he wants to follow her as an example anyway. He wants to make up for her loss to the world not just to him.

And I'd say the message board fanboy discomfort at it, the calling it creepy that he patterned his costume after his ex-wife supports the idea that this is a gusty move and the right move for working on Hank's particular insecurities.

Slott's taken this move and used it to start work on Hank's serious issues. (Eternity was not a bad move either, though the Scientist Supreme title sounds silly to me, having Eternity beat the shit out of Hank and tell him he's not only a valuable and unique individual, but vital to the continuation of existence was entertaining.) For the first time it seems like Hank Pym has some genuine self-respect. The Wasp identity is good for him. It's like he's shed all of his unnecessary ego and posturing in order to don those wings. Because he can take that step and let go of some of that petty ego shit, he's been able to uncover some of his real strength, the purpose he was too busy being insecure to realize he had. He IS a supergenius, and there's no reason he should feel inferior to Tony or Reed because there's plenty of fucking work out there to do and they have their own focuses.

I love Janet, and want her back, but I think when she does come back she should get to be Giant-Woman for a little bit and Hank can hold onto the wings a few more years. It works for him right now, to have an identity that's small but packs a decent sting and can still soar to great heights. Plus, this is the first time he's had a halfway decent costume, and he looks pretty handsome with those goggles.

I liked the little Bucky pat on the back moment he had. He gave his approval to Bucky without being written as an arrogant ass. Bucky managed in a few words to let him know that he always had that founder status and that much of his poor reputation is in his head.

Now, the reason I started picking up this series was for Quicksilver. I think he came off pretty well in this story, it seems like he's accepted the rest of the team. I like that it restored him socially with the Inhumans, but still kept him isolated. That moment between him and Luna? Heartbreaking. Pietro is one of those characters who is never allowed to be really happy at the end, though. His own past behavior keeps haunting him. He can't outrun the consequences of the poor decisions he's made, so he's always a little angsty and arrogant. He's resilient so he keeps coming back to the good side and trying to build a strong home and social circle for himself, but he can never quite get there. He's capable of doing this, but he cuts a corner or loses his patience/temper or panics over something and screws himself up most times.

I like how Pietro contrasts Hank here. Hank is his own worse enemy, and this storyline was him trying to move past that. He gets kicked around a bit and comes out in the end. It doesn't seem like a superficial change, it seems like actual character growth. At the same time, Pietro tries to move past the incredible fuckup of the Silent War storyarc, but it's all superficial. He gets his name cleared, but loses respect where it counts. Two characters with the same problem, themselves, moving in the opposite direction. Hank has some problems ahead, but he's strong enough here after this to move through them. Pietro ends this story shaken to the core, and he has at least one heartbreak ahead and probably more beyond it that will just batter him until he has another breakdown.