Black Canary Barbie

Okay, Black Canary Barbie: too titillating? offensive? is the controversy justified? etc.

Black Canary Barbie is a $40 collector's doll. I used to collect Barbies about six years ago. The expensive collector dolls are not meant for kids. They have all sorts of stuff -- from possible "adult" subject matter to little swallowable pieces -- that can effectively place them out of the realm of your standard eight-year-old.

Now, they did put out cheaper versions of DC heroines that were theoretically targeted towards younger fans. This Black Canary is not one of them. It's a $40 freaking doll. Mattel has these "jazz" inspired Barbies that are even more extreme, with fishnets and sexy poses.

That said, the only Barbies I'd give a little girl are the ones where she's a veterinarian, or a police woman, or a teacher, or a journalist for the school paper. Something constructive.

You know what's really not constructive? A Barbie dressed in a pink tutu called "Princess Foo-Foo Flower."

That said, no, I wouldn't give this Black Canary doll to a child. It's not appropriate. A teenager, sure. Not an eight-year-old. It's just too adult. Not adult in a bad way. Just too adult, with no context for a little girl.

The problem is, many people assume, when they hear "Barbie," that we are talking about strictly children's toys. Whereas, like a large segment of the action-figure buying public, what we are really talking about are adult collectors.

Kinda like...comics?

(with a hat tip to Paul Duggan for the link)

Occasional Links: The Is This Gratuitous Edition

Playboy On Comic Book Sex Symbols

From the Playboy blog:

"It’s our cover, and while we don’t feel the need to explain in detail our thought process, perhaps a step back is warranted. The story is called “Sex in America.” Wonder Woman is sexy. Her costume is red, white and blue, and she has stars on her hot pants – it suggests the American flag almost as much as Captain America’s does. But we like to put women on our covers, so Steve Rogers is SOL in this case."

(found through Journalista)

Beware, folks: this is the nexus-point between where When Fangirls Attack and Playboy meet in the blogosphere! Comets and small asteroids get pulled in by the tractor beam of their conjunction and crushed into those little smooth pebbles you get with those good-luck bamboo stalks.


Topless "Superman" Stunt Gets Singer Banned

A Malaysian rock singer who stripped off his shirt and bared his chest to reveal a bright red Superman logo has been barred from television concerts for three months by the country’s media authority. The singer, Faizal Tahir, apologized last week for his behavior during the performance on station 8TV.

Seems that going topless -- even for men -- is a violation against local broadcasting standards.

Wondering what part the big Supes logo had in the furor.


Chest Implants On The Rise...For Men

Speaking of men of steel, Fox News reports:

There were 409 pectoral implant procedures performed in 2006, a 99 percent increase over 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

You know, Fox News should do one of those "crisis" special reports on men getting the implants. Like:
"Our World In Turmoil: Pectoral Implants!"
"Are Men Getting Too Damn Pretty? What Does It Mean? Are Our Children At Risk?"
"Terrorism and Pec Implants: The Next Weapon Of Mass Destruction?"



In A Dark Alley, No One Can See Your Fishnets

The first promo pictures of Black Canary on Smallville have been released...


And Ragnell gives her a thumbs-up for realism & plausibility:

The makeup mask is interesting idea. If she has some quick way to smear it on like a spray or something like a solid rouge applicator (one of those big old-fashioned round bars that you could just smear circles on your cheeks with), it makes for a good quick change and won't fall off. But makeup like that doesn't seem to obscure the face very well. I suppose you could say it's a distraction. Between it and the fishnets and the dark alley no one is going to be able to properly describe her. She must have to carry wipes to clean it off.

In other news, this still sucks:


Desperately Seeking Lynda


Megan Gale talks about playing the world's most famous Wonder Woman in the now-delayed Justice League film.

"People used to tell me I looked like Lynda Carter."

As an aside, go Google "Megan Gale" in Google Image Search sometime (with SafeSearch Preferences Off)

Go on, I'll wait.

Now go Google Search "Lynda Carter Bobby Jo."

Go on, I'll wait.

Yes, today's "Occasional Links" has, in a sense, come full circle.

(Sorry, Keri Russell, new voice of the cartoon Wonder Woman, just has a tasteful nude-but-you-see-nothing Vanity Fair shot.)


Wonder Woman On "The OC"
Video: This Never Happens In Real Life, Folks, Unless You Are Some Big Time Comic Book Writer Or Perhaps Charlie Sheen

The Happiness Never Ends For Green Arrow Family

Anyway.

So we've got another death (or whatever passes for it) on the horizon for the Green Arrow Family:


Time to play "oh who can it be?"

I think Mia is the most refrigable. She's a) redundant. b) a female (always a liability). c) is HIV positive. and d) Winick has already admitted an interest in killing off a Black Canary.

That said, killing off Mia would be awful writing because it would be soooooooo predictable.

"Oh, her HIV turned into full-blown AIDS and she died! Look, my book is soooo relevant!"

It would be far more interesting to have Dinah die and have Mia, who is living with HIV, be the new Black Canary.

I mean, if Magic Johnson can live this long w/a drug regimen, certainly Mia can, at least for a while, continue to fight crime as B.C.

Now, I've heard it said that the dead person on the cover cannot be female because the breasts are not prominent.

However, the artist, Cliff Chiang, is not known for drawing tits like missiles. He is far more subtle. So that could be a male or female.

Now, either Connor, Roy, or both are in the crowd watching Ollie.

See, here is why I think the dead person is Roy Harper:

1) It would give a reason for the JLA to be there. Because he's on the current roster.
2) If Didio thinks Nightwing is redundant, what in the world does he think of "Red Arrow"? I mean c'mon really?
3) DC needs every ethnically diverse character they can get. So in my opinion, Connor stays. Connor is also a far more visually and thematically unique character than Roy.
4) This cover reminds me of that old Green Arrow/Green Lantern issue where Roy is on the smack. G.A. has that same sort of tenderness towards the figure on the cover, like he knows the person very well.
5) Roy Harper has plenty of enemies.
6) The best use of Roy Harper I've ever seen are the hundreds of slash Arsenal/Nightwing fan-fics:

"I get gutsy when I'm drunk." I said, and then drained the last of the Guinness. " And I'll need a lot of courage to...." I paused and took a deep breath to gather my nerve.

"To?" Dick prompted, leaning forward ever so slightly. Into my personal space.

"C'mon." I grabbed Dick’s arm and dragged him across the room and out the door. I pulled him into a nearby alley. I glanced around, making sure we were alone. I swallowed nervously and looked at Dick.

Dick looked back at me, obviously unwilling to make the first move. "I got it this far, Roy. Make a move."

I chuckled nervously. "You're a broken record Robbie."

Dick smirked and replied, "It's a training technique. Drill it into your head and you might obey. Make a move Roy."

My stomach was all butterflies, my nerves jumping. I reached my hand out tentatively and slid it gently up Dick’s neck, my fingers tingling. My hands tangled in his thick black hair and I pulled him closer to me. I closed my eyes and kissed him softly on the lips. My heart jumped, my stomach danced. My head went light and I knew that this was it. This was what I wanted.

Dick responded in kind. I pulled my lips slightly away from his. "Make a move Dick," I said huskily.

Outside of fic, I find Roy a little boring. Yes, he fell in love with a villainess. He was on the smack. He gets shot and beaten up a lot. But Connor is still, in my estimation, far more intriguing. And, unlike the real Roy, Connor has some "bi" subtext going on (DC officially denies this, but even a lot of us at the company way back when assumed he was) and that just textures his character even more.

So my money is on Red Arrow biting the dust.

That said, if it turns out to be Mia either dying of AIDS or some supervillain slapping the shit out of her, I'm going to roll my eyes.

And you don't want to see me roll my eyes.

Weddingus Interruptus (More Green Arrow/Black Canary B*tching)

From a Newsarama interview with Judd Winick on the "Wedding Special":

NRAMA: Speaking of fun, and speaking of it coming to a screeching halt – that last scene. That was something that a lot of people were picking up on even before the issue. Was Ollie’s death in the mix from the start?

JW: Yeah – but actually, it was supposed to be Black Canary, but we changed our minds. How do you like them apples?

Four things:

1) So Ollie is dead -- deeeeed. Again. It's official After all that s**t to bring him back.


2) Were gonna kill BC from the start, eh? What a wonderful way to plot an event. All this foo-foo nice wedding stuff just so you could kill her off. That would have gone over WELL! Yeah, take a character Gail Simone is known for writing and give credence to the ol' "Women in Refrigerators" meme she started.

3) Then again, "WIR" also referred to majorly f**ked up things female characters have had to go through. So under Black Canary, next to "sexually mutilated and made sterile," you can write: "was forced to kill her own husband just before coitus on their honeymoon bed because he was going to stab her."

4) Ollie is DEAD! Deeeeeeed! Read:

JW: In Green Arrow/Black Canary #1, the world has moved on, but Dinah has only moved forward one inch. She’s having, to say the least, a very hard time coming to terms with Ollie’s death…almost to the point that she’s not going to come to terms with Ollie’s death. She’s going to set her own terms in regards to how she’s dealing with Ollie’s death, despite the fact that everyone else is moving on.

Deeeeeeeeed!!!! Deader than a dead parrot! Deeeeeeeed!!!!!

And Newsarama readers react:

"So glad I quit subsidizing Winick."

"L-A-M-E. They already killed Ollie, why do it again?"

"This was awful. In fact, it was so bad, I had to throw it away because the comic was stinking up the house."

"I really don't like wedding issue when we don't actually get to see them get married."

"Only in the Didioverse would they actually marry a character. Then kill him off... in the same issue. If it wasn't so pathetically predictable, it'd be funny."

"Canary is a master - a MASTER - of the martial arts having survived training by Shiva and that crazy woman sensei that she took Sin from. She has the canary cry - and her only recourse to save herself is to Jamie Lee Curtis him in the neck with an arrow??"

"This is more Final Crisis editorial stink! Yes, Ollie is really dead and a lot of the other icons are going to start buying it until FINAL CRISIS. DC Comics are going to blow for the next year and 3 monthes until this Final Crisis crap is over. Notice how everybook is taking a turn towards the worst?. Especially the memberships of the team books? I always feel like I wasted my money on Winick books. 5 minute read. Adolescent plots and obnoxious plot twists that destroy the characters for the sake of shock value."

"Absolutely f#cking amazing. No explanation for why the supposed martial-arts expert Dinah didn't simply render Ollie unconscious with her free hand instead of taking an arrow and stabbing him through the neck. And no explanation for why she didn't even attempt to use her Canary Cry. It's so laughably bad you expect this to be a deliberate red herring, but you know what? I honestly don't think it is. Winick is just that bad of a writer."

"when will Didio learn death doesn't sell unless if it's Batman or Superman."

and the immortal...

"I miss Kevin Smith."

There were some nastier comments that I've left out. And, on the positive side, feeling was pretty unanimous that Amanda Connor's art was great.

Hot Comic Book Action!

...dedicated to the roughly 30% of new readers I receive daily who stumble upon this site looking for some smokin' superheroine action.

Supergirl-as-stripper "Smallville" promo images from Comic-by-Comic

Picture from the window of Jim Hanley's Universe taken this Saturday

for those "fire and ice" more adventuresome members of the audience (because domestic violence can be *hot* -- and men are always more stronger than women so they can never *really* be physically abused, so cute with women hitting them with their itty bitty little balled fists...)

The Ms. Marvel Bingo Sheet

...and something for the ladies!

The real reason there are so many female Green Lantern fans

Penance: a very sensitive young man (at least his extremities are)

Fangirl Fridays

Welcome to the latest edition of Fangirl Fridays, featuring a whole bunch of damn nice stuff.

Longboxes
Good God! I finally set up an office in the house. It has bulletin boards, Post-It notes, the whole schmear.

Comic books are everywhere in the apartment. Do you have this problem? We're thinking of getting longboxes to put them in. They're in regular bookshelves now (that ones that fit), but we might take the plunge and get the longboxes.

Once you get the longboxes, you're pretty hardcore. There is no real way to disguise your longboxes from the judging eyes of the non-comics initiated.

Yes, you could turn them into the frame for a bed. I don't recommend it.

Anyway, we heard there are plastic-coated longboxes for extra-special comic book goodness protection. Can a little spreadsheet on my computer with spaces to tick off variant covers be far behind??


Emo X-Men Fan Music Videos: My Torture
So we had the following argument at home as to whether Rogue from the "X-Men" movie phased like Kitty Pride when Wolverine put his claws through her. I could have sworn that she phased, but the BF insisted that she absorbed Logan's healing factor and that she was really stabbed.

Well, I was wrong -- so I was forced to watch emo X-Men fan music videos starring Hugh Jackman and Anna Paquin. And so you must share in my pain as Rogue & Wolvie cast longing eyes at each other to the tune of "Invisible Touch" by Genesis:



"The Meat Locker"
What erotic entertainment for wimmins looks like in the DC Universe:


Bored and went home early:

Pfeiffer's Day Off
Speaking of "The Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special," the infamous last three pages of that book have really taken the heat off of Will Pfeiffer for the ending to "Amazons Attack."

Who IS really plotting these DC events nowadays, anyhow?

Oh I know...



52.3 Gallons...
...the amount of collective snot punched out of Tony, Reed, and Stephen in "World War Hulk" so far. (One must assume somewhere along the line at least one of these gentlemen pooped their spandex as well)

The Character With The Saddest History In the Marvel Universe


His wife leaves him for Luke Cage, he gets cancer, and then he's killed in Civil War, draped with an ill-fitting tarp, and bulldozed into a grave.

Geez, somebody give this guy a one-shot or a Heroclix or something...


The Joys Of Comic Book Editing, Part One of Many


You really know you've been working in comics way too long when you get the spelling for "Dubbilex" right and the spelling of "Sterling" wrong. From "Countdown."


Special Thanks To My Sweet Babboo...


...for really helping me keep it real, honest, serious, on-track, etc. He takes a lot of interest in my work & my career and he's awesome!

See you next time on Fangirl Fridays!

What Happened Before She Was Attacked In Her Bed

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!

Yah, yah, context and all that. Still, the juxtaposition in "The Wedding Special" of Black Canary -- who has already been the victim of sexual violence, mind you -- allowing herself the vulnerability of being sexy for her mate only to have him inexplicably go crazy and try to kill her in their honeymoon bed makes me ill.

For DC to play off this wedding as some light-hearted, almost "chick flick" event in books like "The Wedding Planner" and then to present the cliche "sex and death" gambit just ruins the whole experience for me.

And what now for Black Canary & Green Arrow?

1) It was really Green Arrow (for whatever reason) and now he's dead.
2) It was really Green Arrow and he lives but it turns out he wasn't in his right mind when he agreed to the wedding.
3) It wasn't Green Arrow but some sort of Skrullian dupe -- and the real Ollie never consented to the marriage in the first place. <-------most likely

Feh. I think sometimes actually making a happy ending work takes more writing skill.

"Black Canary: The Wedding Planner"

Reading this preview on Newsarama for "Black Canary: The Wedding Planner" was the most fun I've had since watching "Must Love Dogs."

Is Black Canary
Sleeping With Connor Hawke?

The current topic of discussion in Casa Del Superheroine is the October solicitation information for Green Arrow/Black Canary #1:

The new Green Arrow/Black Canary team investigates the shocking results of the Wedding of the Century in an all-new adventure that brings the Star City-crossed
lovers together!

Exhibit A: "shocking results of the wedding of the century"

Exhibit B: "Star City-crossed lovers"

Exhibit C: See cover above.

Holy crap.

I really think this could happen.

Which brings me to this Salon article Superheroine's Sweetie just emailed me...

"I have the hots for my stepson. He's 17, and I know it's wrong, but I think he has the hots for me, too.

"I'm a 35-year old stepmom and mother of a 5-year-old daughter. I find myself attracted to my 17-year-old stepson and, more worrisome, I think he is attracted to me. He lives with his father and me half the time and with his mother the other half. I've been in his life since he was 9 and his brother was 7, and we're pretty much a blended-family success story. Everyone gets along, my stepsons are both great kids, and my daughter worships her brothers. My husband and I love each other and are good partners in working as a team, taking care of the kids, home, work, extended family, etc., though "marital relations" are close to nonexistent, due partly to the usual stress and partly to my husband's low libido.

"The kid I used to know has grown into a charming and attractive young man who looks even older than his age."

How old would Ollie be? I'm thinking mid-to-late 40s.
Dinah? 32-35
Connor? 18-23

If this is true, Ollie's gonna snap an arrow up somebody's bum...

Bridezilla.

Yes, she's faced off against the most fearsome superheroes in the DCU.

But one wedding and she's all fahklumpt.

Broads.

She Has A Suction-Cup Arrow On Her Ass

She Has A Suction-Cup Arrow
On Her Ass

No commentary, I'm just trying to capture what I spontaneously think

Gender Fairplay Comix!

Black Canary To Make Honest Man
Out Of Green Arrow

According to Dennis O'Neil on Comic Mix, the longtime couple are finally getting hitched.

But the real question is, will she do his laundry?

And will he shoot the ring from a custom-made "wedding arrow?"

Black Canary: "My Humps"
(click for larger image)