Aquaman 6

Walking home from work today I had a brainwave.  You know those moments when things suddenly seem startlingly clear and you can't imagine why you didn't understand them before?  Well it was one of those moments, about Aquaman 6 and the role of women, specifically strong women, in comics.

Then about 40 seconds later I lost the thread of it and now I don't think I can articulate what the thought was.  So like me.  Anyway I shall have a go.  Aren't you all astonishingly lucky?  No.  Ahem.

Right, what I was thinking was, although I did like Aquaman 6, and felt the spirit of the sisterhood* cheering Mera on within me, and yes it was gratifying to see her break the man's arm (who was harassing her and had been harassing his staff member), I wondered why is it that to prove a woman is strong, or kick ass, we so often see her beating up a rapist or other man about to commit a sexual assault?

It's like when we consider how to make a woman strong, we think we have to show her doing something related to women's issues.  And we only understand women's issues as domestic violence and sexual assault.


I mean, when we see Batman or Green Lantern proving their bad assery it's because they've taken on an army and beat them, or Darkseid, or the Joker or someone like that.   But women get to deal with bastard men, or if they're lucky bastard supervillains who want to rape them.

It's like we can only ever associate or understand women as being merely bodies that are there for use by someone more powerful than them, but we know that's wrong, so we try to show women as breaking away from this (as a critique of it) but we can only  do so in a framework that reinforces that women are just bodies.  Because gods forbid we show a woman using her mind, or facing off against a bad guy that doesn't want to rape/abuse her or one of her sidekicks/female stranger on the street/female acquaintance.

Damn, I wish I'd retained that moment of clarity.

Now, part of me is saying that hang on, not all women are shown like this. Some are shown in the same way as men are.  Another part of me is going, yes but that doesn't count when the artwork reinforces them as being only bodies (and not minds) and encourages the reader to view them in terms of their bodies only.

Yet another part of me (I'm positively splintered tonight) says but women heroes also prove their heroicness by saving children!  That's not to do with their bodies!  and then the other (sixth?) part of me says yes but children are seen as coming under women's sphere of influence, as the domestic and the familial, so of course children fall under women's province of saving.


Does any of this make any sense?

*this isn't strictly true.  I don't believe in a sisterhood, but you get the general idea, right?

On the idea of 'sex sells'

Cross posted from here, the following is an comment on the idea of 'sex sells' in relation to comic book art, particularly women of the escher variety.  ----->>>>

Beast of the Sea, I don’t know who you are, since you only contribute Anonymously, but I love you more than words can ever express.

In response to that anon, let me expand on the last point:
“P.s. the x ladies are looking mighty hot lately, hope Land doesn’t read your blog and tone down the ladies”
Tone down the “lady”, you mean, since all of Greg Land’s women look nearly the same. In fact, in a tutorial, he advises the potential artist to “Draw the kinds of features readers expect to see on this sort of character, including full lips, a petite nose, and eyes that have a nice darkness around them to draw the reader’s gaze to the pupils.” and “Since this is a glamour sketch, go for the aesthetic of the “ideal” female form. Draw longer, thinner limbs.” In short, he has an ideal in his head, and he draws women to strictly match that ideal.
Now, what’s the problem with this, you ask? After all, male superheroes are all drawn to match a ideal male form, too.
Well, because that ideal male form has variance. There’s the short and hairy Wolverine, the slimmer (sometimes) Cyclops, the bulky Colossus, etc. Robins have leaner builds than the Batman himself. Reed Richards is usually long and thin (as one might expect from Mr. Fantastic). Even with the mandatory Greek-god physique, there are different versions of that physique. And the faces! Even though there is a default square-jawed, glowering-brow facial structure, heroes do vary from that - Spiderman is usually one such, right? - and even within that structure, if Superman and Batman are in the same comic together, the artists usually make an effort to distinguish one black-haired Caucasian male from the other.
Greg Land’s women, on the other hand, all have “longer, thinner limbs”, big bosoms, wide shoulders, thin hips, full lips, petite noses, and heavy eyeliner. And they have a tendency to get caught with their mouths wide open in a certain manner, though I’ll omit the usual speculation as to why.
I’ll even concede that it may not be due to tracing similar-looking models, because his tutorial showed him transforming a model who did not look like his usual lady into one who did. He does it by choice, not by incompetence.
Riiight, you ask, so what’s the problem with this? It’s a hot lady, even if it IS the same lady modulo different skin-tones, hair-colors, and costumes, it appeals to you, it’s pretty art, so what’s the problem? Sex sells!
On the solely “sex sells” front, I have to ask why more male characters aren’t drawn to appeal to women or gay men, since they’ve got money too. Now, I like muscular fellows, so some comic art looks rather good to me… but I’ve noticed that How To Draw [American] Comics books tend to have one tutorial minimum on how to make women look “sexy and alluring” (sometimes an entire section), whereas the tutorials for men are more along the lines of ‘how to make the hero look powerful’, with notes along the lines of ‘A thin waist makes a character look sleek, whereas a thick waist just makes him look brutish’. That’s very nice, but where are the tutorials on making men sexy and alluring, again? If sex sells, shouldn’t we be aiming to sell sex to the widest market possible?
Again solely from a “sex sells” perspective, not all men will like the same body type and facial features that Greg Land apparently prefers! Some men like wide hips - the famed “hourglass figure” is not a “funnel figure”. Some men like women bigger, some men like women slimmer (Difficult, you say? Shrink the shoulders to match the hips), some men like women shorter, some men like women taller… and Greg Land draws each and every one with about the same height and build. In this sense, he’s actually shrinking the “sex sells” market by excluding every fellow whose tastes markedly differ from his. (And yes, it is possible to have athletic women who do not all look like Greg Land’s woman. They may all have the same muscles, but if you slap them down on top of different skeletons, they will not look the same up to a change of costume, wig, and skin-tone! I mean, is every superheroine Greg Land draws secretly played by the X-Universe’s Lady Gaga?)
Oh, and by the way, Greg Land has been criticized for making even middle-aged mayors and scientists look the same as all the superheroines, so the idealized-female-form argument wouldn’t apply to all his stuff even if I conceded utterly to it. But I think I’ve spent enough time on the “sex sells” argument as it’s currently used.
As for other problems with his single woman - that single woman has facial features typically associated with Caucasian supermodels. This may make sense when on a Caucasian woman, but not all the women he’s supposed to be drawing are Caucasian. I’m trying to phrase this delicately, and I think it works to say that this choice declares “mighty hotness” to be the exclusive province of women with Caucasian features… and not just Caucasian features, but a specific subtype of Caucasian features. Not only is this ludicrously racist (though I do not claim this to be Greg Land’s intent - I am sure he is a quite friendly and unprejudiced guy in person), but I am sure that many, many men (and women!) would disagree that only a specific subtype of Caucasian features grant a woman “mighty hotness” - Sorry, I said I would drop the “sex sells” argument, didn’t I? Well, it’s the supposed magic bullet against any objections to sexualization and stereotyping of women in comics, so I figure it’s high time for it to be used to return fire.
Back on the “men are idealized too” front - teenage boys and young adult males look markedly different from older men in comics. The Robins are not drawn as miniature Bruce Waynes, never have been, and never will be. Even the Dread Rob Liefeld did NOT draw all male characters with the same build and facial structure - he has two male body types (muscular and torso-wide-as-it-is-tall), but he has two different male body types. And since Rob Liefeld is all but regarded as the Comics Antichrist, I think that drives home that male characters really are given multiple body types. One could probably argue that he has two different female body types, too - close-to-normal and severe-scoliosis-sufferer - but that’s a subject for different blogs.
Greg Land, on the other hand, draws teenage girls, young adult females, and adult women as having no appreciable difference whatsoever. There is no change in facial structure or body shape to tell the two apart - 14-year-old Hope looks nearly-identical to Jean Grey in her 20’s or 30’s. All of his females after the age of menarche have the same body. And you cannot say that about his males.
Yes, his males have issues with exploding biceps, but that’s a different matter…
TL;DR - Greg Land’s art has problems with the ladies, and it goes beyond bad anatomy, tracing, and the possibility of needing to be “toned down”. Even if you look only with an eye to “mighty hotness”… there’s a problem.
[Final disclaimer - no, I am not calling Greg Land racist or sexist, I am not calling the anon racist or sexist, I am not calling your houseplant racist or sexist, I am not calling anyone racist or sexist. I am criticizing Greg Land here solely for his artistic choices, which have certain unpleasant side effects. I am sure any unpleasant side effects are wholly unintentional. Sorry, a recent binge on reading the comment-sections of Wundergeek’s excellent blog has made me paranoid.]
By way of an apology to the mod for clogging up her Tumblr, here’s a truly spectacular example of the big-shoulders small-hips thing I was talking about [Again, that Photobucket account is not mine - I don’t even have a Photobucket account], and an amusing collage of Greg Land’s women by a guy here on Tumblr. (Please note the tags.) I just wanted to go into detail on the ‘Well, at least he draws hot women!’ argument, since it’s apparently one of his big selling points.

Definitely not a Wonderful Wonder Woman Wednesday

Dear artists.
Pants like you've drawn on Wondy here won't stay like that. The gusset will shift about and expose her labia.  The only way it won't is if it's pulled really really tightly and then you'll probably see her labia anyway, and quite possibly it will cause a serious chafing injury.
Please, draw underwear sensibly, even if it's outerwear.

Thank you.
Also, those poses are candidates for Escher Girls.

Regards,

Saranga

Women's introduction in the new DCU - the conclusions! part 3

Phew.  Nearly there.

As a reminder, you can read the introductory post setting out what this mini project is about here.
You can read the findings, i.e. the nerdy numbers, here.

My first reaction upon looking at the numbers was one of pleasant surprise.  45% of women were introduced without reference to their sexiness and without establishing them as a love interest.  This is pretty good.  This means that the women  are introduced as just another character, and their gender/sexuality are not relevant to the story (at that point).  It would be nice if the percentage was higher, but actually it's not too shabby.

It's important to remember that these numbers don't tell you anything about the quality of the book, and certainly don't tell you anything about whether the depiction of the characters is sexist.  For example, the Wonder Woman book featured Hera in a cloak, clearly naked underneath, and also 3 party girls who served as Apollo's Oracles.  The Flash introduced Iris leaning over a hole and the image is all boobs.
The depiction of these are not sexist at all, but when you contract them with Catwoman or Starfire in Red Hood, you can see that those books are clearly sexist.  Yet each book gets a yes for drawing the woman sexually.

Having a woman introduced as a love woman is also not necessarily sexist, given that stories about human relationships are pretty important in the grand scheme of stories.  The problem (in my mind) would be if all storied about women put them as love interests.  But clearly that is not the case here.

The data also doesn't tell us about the ratio  of male characters to female characters (something I regret not asking about actually).

The data also doesn't tell us if the women were introduced with other roles as well as love interest.  Also something I regret not asking about.

Right now it feel that my conclusions are mostly about what the data doesn't tell us.  Hmm.

What do you all think?  What conclusions can you drawn from the data?  Is there any other way you'd like to see the data analysed?  Do you think I've missed something?

Let me know!  Let the discussion roll!

Women's introduction in the new DCU - the findings! part 2

You can read about my goals with this mini project here.  I recommend you do read that post as it will explain exactly what we were analysing, and without reading it, this data won't make sense.

Now, what did we find out?
We've got 52 titles..
In which there are 97 female characters (including one kid)...
Looking at the titles -
27 of the titles feature female characters that look sexual, either by their clothes or because of the way they are drawn.  That's 51% of titles.
29 titles introduce female characters as a love interest.  That's 55% of all titles.
Combine these, and there are 33 titles that feature female characters that are either drawn sexually, or are a love interest.  That's 63%.  Some characters are drawn sexually and are love interests, some are love interests but not drawn sexually, and vice versa.


Of the female characters themselves...
41 are drawn sexually, that's 42%.
41 are love interests, again, 42%.
53 characters are drawn sexually and/or are a love interest.  That's 55%.

4 titles had no major female characters in them (Batman and Robin, Detective Comics, Justice League and Men of War)
No women were introduced as the love interest of other women.

I looked at the ratio of titles per subgroup and female characters per subgroup.  You'd hope that if there was an even spread of female characters the ratios would be roughly similar.  They aren't.  Instead we have:
Subgroups: Batman:Green Lantern:Justice League:Superman: The Dark: The Edge: Young Justice
Titles per subgroup: 11:4:11:4:7:9:6
Female characters per subgroup: 14:5:20:6:15:15:19

So, no correlation between female characters and subgroups.

Justice League Dark, Suicide Squad and Legion of Superheroes all have 3 female characters that are drawn sexually.  No other comics had a higher number of sexually drawn characters.
Justice League Dark had 4 female characters as love interests, this is more than any other title.

As for subgroups:
The Justice League books had the most number of female characters (20).
The Green Lantern books had the least number of female characters (5).

As for which books has female characters drawn sexually and/or as a love interest.. here is the list:
Subgroup         Title                                   Sexual?     Love interest?
Batman             Batman: The Dark Knight    Yes           Yes
Batman             Birds of Prey                      Yes           Yes
Batman             Catwoman                          Yes           Yes
Batman             Nightwing                           Yes           Yes
Batman             Red Hood                           Yes           Yes
Green Lantern   Green Lantern Corps          Yes            Yes
Green Lantern   GL: New Guardians            Yes           Yes
Green Lantern   Red Lanterns                      Yes           Yes
Justice League   Aquaman                           No            Yes
Justice League   DCU Presents                    Yes           Yes
Justice league    Green Arrow                     Yes            Yes
Justice League   JLI                                    No             Yes
Justice League   Mr Terrific                        No             Yes
Justice League   The Flash                          Yes            Yes
Justice League   Wonder Woman                Yes            Yes
Superman          Superboy                          Yes            Yes
Superman          Supergirl                           Yes             No
The Dark           Animal Man                       No              Yes
The Dark           Frankenstein                      Yes            Yes
The Dark           Justice League Dark           Yes            Yes
The Dark           Resurrection Man              Yes            Yes
The Dark            I, Vampire                         Yes            Yes
The Edge           All Star Western                 Yes            Yes
The Edge           Blackhawks                       No                 Yes
The Edge           Stormwatch                       Yes                Yes
The Edge           Suicide Squad                    Yes                Yes
The Edge           Voodoo                             Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Blue Beetle                          Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Legion Lost                         Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Legion of Superheroes         Yes                 Yes
Young Justice    Teen Titans                          No                   Yes


Titles with no female characters drawn sexually or as a love interest:
Subgroup          Titles
Batman               Batgirl, Batman, Batwing, Batwoman
Green Lantern     Green Lantern
Justice League    Captain Atom, The Fury of Firestorm, The Savage
                          Hawkman
Superman          Action Comics, Superman
The Dark           Demon Knights, Swamp Thing,
The Edge           Deathstroke, Grifter, OMAC, Stormwatch
Young Justice    Hawk and Dove, Static Shock

Next post will feature my thoughts and musings on what this all means.  Or as otherwise known, the conclusions.

A note:  This may well make you lose faith in the entire thing, but I figure I should confess - my maths isn't very good.  I've gone over and over the figures (done using excel - it's a godsend) and I think that mathematically speaking, they make sense.  But now my brain is a bit fried so if you notice a glaring error in the results please tell me!  Then I will redo them.


I can send the findings as put into an excel chart to anyone who wants them.

Analysing the role of women in the new DC Universe - part 1

All the furore about the treatment of Starfire and Catwoman in the  DC relaunch got me to thinking about about how female characters were presented in the new DC Universe.  If you only read the reviews of Red Hood and Catwoman you’d think that the DC books were a hotbed of misogyny.  I started pondering if this really was the case – certainly the books I read seemed to treat their female characters fine. 

Then the thoughts expanded and expanded and lo and behold, I came up with an idea of doing a bit of research onto how women were introduced in the new DC 52.

NB: I couldn’t have put this together without the help of Eyz, theyallfalldown and JimmyMcG.  Major major thanks to these guys who re-read a lot of comics for me and answered my questions about the women in the books.

So, onto the work.  I summarised the research project thus:

“Basically, what I am interested in finding is how the major female characters are portrayed in their first pages of the new comics (the number 1s), mostly centring around whether they are presented sexually or not”

I asked my co researchers to report on the following:

A description of how the major female characters are introduced in every new DC book.

I am looking for things like -

State of dress

Style of art (tits and ass aka Starfire vs normal proportions aka Power Girl or Wonder Woman)

How they are described by other characters (If applicable)

How they describe themselves (if applicable)

If they are introduced as being in relationship, flirting or something else romantic/sexual.

I wanted to know if the characters were drawn overtly sexual as I feel that could indicate a sexist treatment.  I also wanted to know if they were introduced with a reference to their physical looks, or as the partner of another character, because if they all were introduced like this, it would indicate that women in the new DCU exist to be primarily sexual beings and linked romantically with men (or women, I’d be interested in seeing if any women were introduced as lesbians too).  I term this phenomenon, the 'love interest'.

I requested that the reporters look at only how the character is presented on the first page they appear, not in the rest of the book – I believe this is important because the first impression we get of them generates an image of the character that is difficult to shake off in later times.  Considering that this takes place in a relaunch, it is entirely reasonable to suspect that DC wanted the readers’ first view of a character to be the thing that hooks you in, that scene that tells you all about them and who they are.  I think the way the character is represented in their first scene is indicative of how DC views them and their role in the new status quo.

I specified major characters and I explained that major should be taken to mean:
Female superheroes and supervillains
The women who have historically been partners of a hero/villain (e.g. Iris West)
Any notable female sidekicks (whether new characters or old)
Plus those women we know from the old DC who may only have cameo (like Power Girl in Mr T).  Basically this equates to every female character excluding those existing in the background with a non speaking role, such as being a face in the crowd.

I gave examples of the following:

Selina Kyle was introduced by her breasts on the first page of her comic (very sexual)

In Teen Titans, Cassandra Sandsmark was introduced by Tim describing her as gorgeous (not sexual, but definitely introduced with an emphasis on her looks).

In Mr Terrific, Power Girl was drawn normally, but wearing just a t-shirt in Mr Terrific's apartment, implying she's been intimate with him (i.e. introduced as being in relationship/fling)

In Wonder Woman, we first saw Diana in bed, naked (but I don't think this was done in a sexually ogle-y manner).

After some queries I sent all reporters the following:

As a reminder about what I want - I am not so much interested in the value judgement we put on the images, e.g. whether or not they are sexist, more about what they show, as I mentioned below.

Your reports don't have to be really long - a  few lines will do, but if you want to explain your reasoning that's also fine.  Basically I am looking to discover what the DCU says about women, not assume I know what it says and then try to prove my hypothesis.  So, we need to look at the books with an open mind.

What I want to do is look at how the women are presented and then extrapolate about what this means for representations of women in the new DCU.   i.e. are they introduced as sexual/romantic beings, is the emphasis on their looks and/or their sexual relationship to them men around them. I intend to make generalised commentary and possibly do some statistical work too. 

I realise that the methodology isn’t completely robust, there’s a lot of human bias coming into play in everyone's reports.  This skews the results so without a really strict marking scheme and formal framework in which to work in, the reports from each person aren’t completely comparable.  However, if someone would like to take the findings and build on them to do a better study, please do!  Just let me know what you find OK?

The reason for asking other people to help was because I a) couldn’t afford each new DC title and b) didn’t have the time to report on all of them.

The type of reports submitted varied in style, some reports gave me a bullet point list, others gave me prose talking specifically about how the women were presented, others gave me mini reviews of each comic.  I tried to extract the relevant information from each report and put it all into an excel table where I then did some nifty sorting according to group of titles and the results of each question. 

N.B: Stating that the introduction of women has a sexual or romantic overtone, does not mean they are misogynistic or sexist.  It is perfectly possible to portray a female character in a relationship with someone else and not have it be sexist, and it is perfectly possible to portray a woman in sexual manner without it being misogynistic.  Determining whether or not the introduction of women was sexist or not wasn’t the point of this study.  What I wanted to discover was if there was an overarching similarity in the way the women were introduced in order to find out what the cultural discourse surrounding women new DCU is (and see if there is a set discourse).

So, onto the findings!  Or, see next post. Conclusions coming up in a third post. :)

An article on those Catwoman/Starfire comics

It's good, and can be read here.  Some of the comments are horrible.  Seth Vlan has a good point when he says that:

"Which brings me to my second point; nearly EVERY SINGLE MALE in comics drawn with an Olympian physique that's every bit as offensive as the equally exaggerated proportions of female characters. According to these comics, even Reed Richards could beat me at arm-wrestling without resorting to his stretchy powers. If you can't see that, if you can't even try to understand what it's like to constantly be told that you need to have huge muscles and bed lots of women to earn respect, then you're a hypocrite of the highest order, maim."

Apart from the last sentence which is rude, he has a point.  Then he continues with:

 

"As for how you view "sexually liberated women", stop hiding your true feelings. At the end of the day, you just don't like it when women go to bed with TOO MANY men. Probably because no one gives you the opportunity"

Whichmakes Mr Vlan a bit of a dick really.  Patriarchy and sexism hurts everyone.  To make a generalisation, under the patriarchy women get objectified to look like sexed up vacant dolls, men get objectified to look like strong muscle men.  These actions help no one.
 

New Eschergirls tumblr!

The wonderful Ami Angelwings has started a tumblr, titled Eschergirls, showcasing crap comic art. Actually the tagline is: 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a WTF!?  This is a blog for female characters in impossible or ridiculous poses because the artsist need to show teh sexy'

It's highly amusing.   Here are some fetaured pictures, but bear in mind that as with most tumblrs the brilliance is in the commentary:

  Go check it out! 

What do you want from women in comics?

@Mothee from twitter recently asked me "From a female's perspective, what are some qualities you'd like to see in a female hero?"  So, here we go, this is likely to be a loooong list:

• I want the characters to be people first and women second – if you think ‘what would a woman do’ I think you’re heading down the wrong path. If you think, ‘what would this character do’ you’re more likely to get a decent story.
• Let them win fights.
• Don't ever make them a rape victim.  Or a sexual assualt victim.  Just don't.  If you must have them encounter rapists and sexual assaults,have them defeat the rapist, by wit or violence, dependent on their personality type and skills.  Don't put any other women at risk and never, ever have them feel threatened by the attacker.
• Have them be funny.  Or serious.  Or cocky.  Or shy. Or friendly.  Or bad tempered.  Or a 'hit before they think' type.  Or a thinker.  Whatever you decide that their perosnality is.
• Give them a  fully fleshed out backstory.
• Give them a supporting cast.  With female friends.
• Give them a love interest, if that's where the story takes them, but have their primary role be to engage in superheroics.  What I really mean is, don't let the story get bogged down in the romance.
• Please don't have their primary motivation be a man.
• Have your comic pass the Bechdel test.
• Don't give them children and marriage, just cos you think that's what women do.
• Have them enjoy superheroing!
• Have them drink, and swear, and start fights, if that's the sort of person that they are.
• Don't turn them into a feminist cipher.
• Let your character just be their own character.  Don't make them progressive, or racist, or a homebody for the sake of it.  Treat them as a real entity.
• Don't have them drawn only in sexually titilating poses.  Give them agency.  They can have a sexy outfit if they want, but they shouldn't have one just because they are a woman.
• Let them enjoy sex (unless they are children, in which case that would be a bit off).
• Make sure the story is about them, if they are the lead.  Don't do like Green Arrow/Black Canary where Dinah was a peripheral character in her own series.
• I want female characters to be all that men can be and as less as men can be.
• I don’t want them to be oversexed harpies intent on snagging a man.
• I want them to have hobbies and interests outside of superheroing, or men.
• I don’t want them to be simpering, wet, gentle things.
• I want them to be able to cry and rage and laugh and chat and work hard, and struggle to make ends meet, and hit the big time and make it rich.
• I don’t want them making fucking cupcakes.
• I want their art to make them look human, not like plastic dolls.
• I want them to run the gamut of human experience!

What do you all want from your female characters?

JLA - Pain of the Gods

In my recenbt marathon run of JLA v3 I read Pain of the Gods.  As it's a self contained story and I enjoyed it I thought it would be perfect for New readers....  Upon rereading it prior to writing the review I changed my mind.

Whilst it is a good story it's also quite heavy handed.  Each hero comes face to face with death - either their own or a person they failed to save.  The story is about how they cope with the threat of mortality and how they support each other.  A lot of the dialogue, especially in the group scenes, reads like group therapy.  It's almost like Chuck Austen wanted to write a story about loss and had to fit the JLA into that story.  I'm not convinced that that's the best way to approach storytelling.

There's also the situations that they find themselves in - Green Lantern interrupts a couple of Domestic Violence incidents but one woman is knifed.  J'onn J'onzz does his undercover detective thing and confronts a cheating husband, who then threatens to murder his wife.  Violence against women to prove a moral point coupled with casual sexism makes me yawn.

Then I thought about the title some more - 'Pain of the Gods' is very grandiose and dramatic.  It seems a wee bit self important, like the genre is taking itself way too seriously.

Then again, some scenes are well done and the art is great.  Have a gander:

 

OK, one of those panels might be more scary than great and another one might be a reference to a Superman movie, which might be why I like it so much.

Despite the problems with some dialogue in this trade on the whole it is a enjoyable, but I think you need to be a dyed in the wool JLA fan to really like it.  It's by fans, for fans.  If it was produced differently, with the emphasis less on corny group support this would be far more accessible to new fans.  Which is a pity, cos I'd love to recommend the book for it's art.

Has anyone else read this?  Did you like it?

Extra daily link post

A week or so ago I mentioned that I wrote a guest post about Huntress for a tumblr account named DC Women Kicking Ass.  The post formed part of a series on memorable moments in the DCU for women.

Well, guess what?  Now there's gonna be poll!  It will be open Monday to Tuesday and you all have a list of 30 moments to choose form.  Ego says I should tell you all to vote for my Huntress entry.  But my gut says vote for one of the Wonder Woman moments. of which there's 8.  I'm torn between snapping Max's neck,  sacrificing her eyesight, putting her foot down on Batman or spending a day with Lois.

But then, there's so many other great moments to vote for..both great in themselves and also with great write ups... such a hard choice.  The full list is here, go vote!

1. Wonder Woman beheading Medusa in Wonder Woman #210
2. Lois Lane and Wonder spend the day together in Wonder Woman #170
3. Lois Lane makes her debut in Action Comics #1
4. Stephanie Brown becomes Robin in Robin #126
5. Kate Kane resigns West Point because of DADT in Detective Comics #859
6. Huntress/Helena Wayne makes her debut in Secret Origins of Super-Heroes #17
7. Black Canary and past and current BoP operatives stare down Katrina Armstrong in Birds of Prey #106
8. Wonder Woman tells Superman, “there’s the door, Spaceman” in the New Frontier
9. Supergirl gives up her life to save the world in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7
10. Shiva and Cass fight in Batgirl #25
11. Stephanie Browns slaps Batman in Bruce Wayne the Road Home: Batgirl #1
12. Barbara Gordon/Oracle and Dinah Lance/Black Canary meet in-person for the first time in Birds of Prey #21
13. Renee Montoya realizes she’s going to become the next Question in 52 #42.
14. Batgirl/Barbara Gordon makes her first appearance and saves Bruce Wayne in Detective Comics #359
15. Lois Lane risks her life to save a soldier in Adventures of Superman #6311
16. Barbara Gordon becomes Oracle in the Batman Chronicles #5
17. Diana, after killing Ares with an axe, punches Zeus in Wonder Woman #33
18. Zatanna mindwipes Dr. Light and then Batman in Identity Crisis
19. Helena Bertinelli, the Huntress, stands her ground against the Joker in Detective Comics #741
20. Lois Lane refuses to believe Superman is dead in All-Star Superman
21. Batgirl tells Batman not to  talk down to her in Secret Origins #20
22. Cassandra Cain saves Jim Gordon’s life in Batman #567
23. Wonder Woman puts her foot down with Batman in The Hiketeia
24. Wonder Woman wins the contest to go to “mans world.” in All-Star Comics #8
25. Barda Free stops a tank in Justice League International Annual #4
26. Wonder Woman snaps Max Lord’s neck in Wonder Woman #219
27. Barbara Gordon/Oracle hires Dinah Lance/Black Canary as her operative in the first one-shot of Birds of Prey
28. Amanda Waller fights Granny Goodness in Suicide Squad #34
29. Wonder Woman sacrifices the restoration of her eyesight for the life of Martin Garibaldi in Wonder Woman
30. Oracle defeats Braniac in Birds of Prey #73

Superman/Batman: Apocolypse or, let's not publicise what the story is actually about

Ooh this made me angry. Over on Anj's Supergirl blog he posted about the Superman/Batman DVD that's coming out.  You know, the one that features Supergirl's arrival on earth and in the comics was collected as Superman/Batman: Supergirl.  The arc that's all about Supergirl.  Sure, in the comics we got to reflect on and consider Bats and Supes different upbringings and trust levels, but this came about because Kara landed on earth.  So you know, it's all about Supergirl.

Anj included a quote from an interview with the director Lauren Montgomery, which states:

"Montgomery discusses how Supergirl's name was taken out of the title of the story, which was called "The Supergirl From Krypton" in the comics. Montgomery said it happened after the Wonder Woman DVD-release animated film didn't meet sales expectations. "We had to fight to even put her on the cover, and then they put her skanky version on the cover. So 'those' boys would buy it." "

Motherfuckers.
THE STORY ARC IS ABOUT SUPERGIRL.


If they don't think she can sell a movie why do a movie about her?  For fucks sake.  I despair I really do.  As Anj put in the title of his post - Happy Birthday Supergirl, now let's get snubbed!


When will people learn that films don't fail because the lead is a woman.  They fail because of bad marketing, bad producing, bad casting, bad directing, bad dialogue, bad ideas.  Having a woman feature prominently in it will not make your film fail.


Men will buy films with women in them.  Men will even buy films (and books and comics) with women where the women aren't sexed up.  Look at the Aliens franchise.  Look at Whiteout.  Both feature tough women who aren't conventionally sexy.  Both did really fucking well and are extremely well respected.


Arggghh.  I think I'll be channeling John Stewart here.

I'm fucking fed up with this shit.

Ben Caldwell Wonder Woman pitch

Ben Caldwell did the Wonder Woman strip in Wednesday Comics.  That, next to the Supergirl strip, was one of my favourites of the whole thing.  Caldwell has put a pitch to DC for a manga Wonder Woman.  Usually this would annoy me as I'm not really a fan of manga versions of American books, but his work is so lovely I'm quite excited about the idea.

Here is some artwork and pitch info he has posted:

Steve Trevor's looking rather hot!

If DC ever get serious and decide to start marketing their comics to girls, they should start with Wonder Woman.  As someone (can't remember who tho) on Twitter said recently, Wonder Woman is a warrior princess.  She should be easy to sell to a certain age bracket of girls.  She's got a well developed history, a great supporting cast, lots of interesting mythological stuff and the purity of a hero.  DC could make a lot of cash out of this, and produce some great comics at the same time.

I wish they'd get on with it.

You can see the (nearly full) pitch here and some character sketches here.

Where stuff that gets made public reveals a nasty side

Having joined up on twitter recently I have been following various people.  Some are famous, for example Gail Simone.

Following Gail Simone has increased my respect for her a thousandfold.  Her tweets are funny, and she's so far exhibited only decent-person ideas.  Today (Tuesday 8th June) she has been talking about The Killing Joke, y'know, that comic where Barbara Gordon, then Batgirl, got shot in the spine by the Joker and paralysed.

When editorial approval was sought for this particular plot, the editor (Len Wein) reportedly yelled down the hall:

'Cripple the bitch'

Isn't that hateful?  Isn't it venemous?  Granted, I do not know the tone in which it was said, but the words are ugly.  What struck me after asborbing this bit of (old) news, was the way in which feminist are accused of treating characters like real people.  Isn't that just what this editor is doing?  Why ascribe the word 'bitch' to a fictional character, in that context, if they are not in some way real to you?

And if Barbara Gordon is indeed real to you what does this say about your attitude to real flesh and blood women and wheelchair users?

Which is why I find the statement 'Cripple the Bitch' quite disturbing.  It's along the same lines as Bill Wilingham saying:

"I wanted to gun down those girls who kept asking about the memorial case"

at the recent heroes con (reported on here).

I am someone who believes words are important.  I think those sort of casual throwaway line regarding violence usually betrays some feeling of anger, hate or violence within a person.  Or at the very least some sort of detachment towards others.  You certainly can't fully appreciate and support the full meaning of those phrases without being a very malevolent person.*

So this leaves me kind of sickened.  And this is exactly the sort of thing that says women (and people with disabilities) are not welcome.  It's the same mentality that puts rape scenes into comics (or any popular culture medium).  It's the sort of shit that makes me very wary about the types of internet sites I inhabit and makes me distrustful of any new people I meet (men and women, because these views permeate all genders).

*I am not in any way stating that using a wheelchair is a negative thing.  But I believe that the editor who uttered those words thinks that it is a punishment of some sort.

Where I weigh in and. give. my. thoughts.

So Cry for Justice huh?  I always like it when the blogosphere explodes, it's fun.  And Cry for Juastice has degenerated into being unbelieveably bad.  Issue #1 was a bit dull with nothing happening.  Issue #2 and #3 were hilarious.  #4 was boring.  Issue #5 had the Kara/Freddie kiss which didn't come to fruition and some truly bad costuming decisions for the ladies in the book.  Issue #6 had Donna being awesome and saving the day, which I loved - see posts with Cry for Justice labels for my previous reviews.  (And looking back through my old posts I've noticed some truly terrible typos - how do you all put up with me??!!)

Anyway, issue #7.  There's been a hullabaloo.  I was going to do a link round up but then I found out that WFA are doing Lian themed posts so I'm not gonna bother.

So, final issue, Prometheus is blowing up Star City, and many others, and all the the heroes in the DCU are out trying to fix this mess.  In the process, Lian dies.  Roy Harper's daughter, Green Arrow's granddaughter.  This allows Ollie to get very very angry and kill Prometheus at the end of the book, with an arrow to the head.

Lian didn't need to die for Ollie to get this angry, given the mood he's been in during the last few years of his run he could have got very angry over Roy losing his arm and thousands of people dying.
Lian was quite a cute character, there's not enough young kids of heroes in the DCU, and now there's one less.  Plus, given that a lot of us comics fans on the blogosphere harp on about wanting diversity in our comics, and I'm sure that DC are aware of this, to some degree, killing/getting rid of all the GA family kids (Sin, Lian, Connor), who just happen to not be white, seems a bit stupid.  I don't think DC are deliberately getting rid of the non white kids, but unfortunately this is what they have done.

Her death was treated as throwaway and used only as a tool to motivate the other heroes.  Or, Ollie.  Cos no one else is given time to give a shit.  I mean, if you're gonna try and positiona s a death as a pivotal moment in a story arc, at least demonstrate how it's affected the other protagonists, instead of just assuming all readers know who the kid is.

And, the whole issue was just badly executed.  Every hero is involved, but we don't know how.  I already blogged about the incredibly bad depiction of Mia, the women are all tits and ass with impossibly thin middles, Dinah is actually facepalming Lian's death, we don't get to see Roy's reaction to Lian's death, we don't spend long enough on her death, the art changes every few pages, Ollie does an inspirational speech which just comes off as cack handed and empty or devoid or all feeling, and not in an i'm so shocked i've just lost my gradnkid kind of way, and have I mentioned the bad art?


Some of the women's faces are just awful.  I think the pencillers decided to go with this approach to female faces - in that to make faces feminine you must draw fewer lines.  Hmmm.  I think someone needs to re-assess their definition of female.



I actually quite liked the last few pages, of Ollie killing Prometheus.  By this point I was convinced that Prometheus was a bad ass and so to see him get taken out like that was quite something.  Unfortunately the information about how Ollie got in to the other worldly dimensional portal was contained in the latest JLA issue, not this one.



So, more bad writing.  What a load of shit.  Still, I bought it, knowing it was gonna be rubbish, so I can't complain about it being a waste of money.  Although I feel I have every right to complain about it not being a good story.

Cry for Justice #7 preview

Hmm.  Can't seem to be able to download them, so instead got to the link.

And answer me why does Speedy appear to be drawn in a position that shows off her fab-u-lous body more than it shows her leet archery skills?

Even the commenters on The Source blog agree with me.

Fucking fail.

An slightly off topic, I don't think I mentioned before but you may all have seen it anyway, I've put a reactions type thing at the bottom of each post...any feedback to be given by the ticking of the boxes would be lovely!

Some excellent Supergirl moments

(Pictures pilfered from Supergirl Comic Box Commentary)

 

I just think this is a really nice picture, nicely composed, good colours and engaging.

But this next scan, this has become one of my favourite ever Supergirl moments:

(Hope it's big enough to see).  Earlier on in the comic Damian called Steph Fatgirl, now Kara has heard about it and is bawling him out for it.  As I said in the comments section on Anj's blog, I think this shows Kara as a great role model for younger readers and demonstrates that strength comes from sources other than raw physical power.  Kara picking up on the fat comment makes her a wonderful spokeswoman for young girls and I thoroughly applaud the inclusion of that scene.

If I didn't already have a banner for this blog I would use that scene.  Sadly, I don't think it's quite suitable for New readers.. so I've done a post about it instead.  Enjoy.

(Both images from number 4 of the World's Finest 4 issue mini series, out last week).

Comic review party time

Yes dear readers, it is that time of the week again where I wax lyrical about ther stuff I bought.  Sadly this will not include Batgirl #6 as I forgot to pick it up.  What a dunce.  Anyhow, there will be spoilers ahead for Adventure Comics #6, Action Comics # 885, GA/BC #28, Catwoman: Blackest Night # 83 (resurrected title), The Power of Shazam: Blackest Night #48 (resurrected title) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer #31.
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Adventure Comics #6
OK, the cover has a dinosaur on it.  I knew I was gonna like this issue.  Lex Luthor is a really manipulative, power obsessed bastard.  Superboy finally realises he can stop fretting about his genetic makeup and resolves to just be himself.  The art continues to be gorgeous and when Conner met up with Cassie, Tim and Bart at the end I probably gave a little gasp.  Manapul draws a beautiful Tim, not such a great Bart, but a great Tim.  (Image nicked from James Ashelford's blog)

Nect month is a Blackest NIght tie in, so I'll get that, but from March it's focusing on the Legion of Superheroes, who i don't give a stuff about, so I shall be dropping it.  Thsi may cause problems when folloing this years Super family event, but I'll have to cope.


Action Comics # 885
The art in this is sometimes wildly off key and it took several minutes of hard thinking to remember what had happened in this issue.  Maybe I should drop it.  But then I think that with the Superman crossover coming up, will I understand the main plot is I'm not reading Adventure Comics, Superman and Action Comics?

And then the odd issue of Action really impresses me and I'm sucked back in again.
But then I get an issue like this week's one, where I don't really care about the main story and I certainly coudln't give a stuff about Captain bleeding Atom.  I'm pretty certain that I won't be going back and re-reading these issues.  Maybe I should drop it.


GA/BC #28
Bad, bad characterisation of Dinah here - her dialogue seemed very strange.  We find out more about Cupid's background and see Mia get to be awesome again.  But honestly, when isn't she awesome?

Looking back at Cupid's background - the evil government have made her crazy by injecting stuff into her brain via her nose cavity (yes really) and this compound has induced memory loss, given her super strength and increased the levels of the chemical that people feel when they are in love.  So essentially they've made a super strong lady who's driven by her hormones.  Driven by her hormones to obssess/love/lust after men who she will then attack, fight, kill, rape, abuse or generally take advantage of.

Yeah, that's not trading in sexist steroetypes at all.

DC you suck.


Catwoman: Blackest Night # 83 (resurrected title)
Now this on the other hand, this did not suck at all.  This was awesome.  Selina has to rescue her sister from the crazy Black Lantern guy who tortured her before, and who Selina susequently killed.  Harley and Ivy turned up and came up with a pretty inventive way to dispose of the Black Lantern - a venus fly trap endlessly digesting him.  Yum.

Well, I say awesome. It was awesome up till the end when her her sister was turned into Selina's next nemesis.  That was a crap outcome.  Boring, old and tired.


The Power of Shazam: Blackest Night #48 (resurrected title)
This also rocked.  Osiris and his friendly Crocodile mate (last seen in 52) are given Black Lantern rings.  Osiris manages to fight off the urges of the Black Lantern (far more effectively than Wonder Woman did, let's be honest), and succeeds in destroying both himself and his crocodile friend.


Buffy the Vampire Slayer #31
Again, a good issue.  And for once a cover that isn't all about the sexy nakedness.  Buffy learns to fly, fins out about Xander and Dawn, is a jekr about it then gets better and combines forces with Willow to defeat the goddesses.

I must take issue with the blurb for next month's issue that states 'Buffy has fucking superpowers'.  We know she's got superpowers. She's a damn slayer.

Digging stuff out from the archives..

A while ago I wrote about J'onn J'onzz getting genderswapped into Joan J'onzz.  I never did post a scan, so here we go:

It's not the most progressive thing in the world is it?   It is however, a fun read.  And in it's defence it tries to be satirical.

Changing tack slightly, I think more people should be made aware of the existence of the Beefeater.  He had a Sybil Fawlty like wife and was created so the JLE could feature a caricatured, inept, posh Englishman.  He looked like a fool:

Lastly, there was a delightful Tremors rip off.  If you liked Tremors may I recommend you track down and purchase Justice League Europe 24 and 25.  Particularly because the man controlling the giant worms also had a giant tuning fork ready to hum with your hatred.  I shit you not:

Ragnell on the monstrosity of DC's treatment of Wonder Woman in BN

Go read it here.  She's put it far better that I could have done, even if I could write about it, I instantly lost the will to live when I saw the horrible horrible costume.

The rest of Blackest Night is pretty much great.  I did still enjoy WW: BN 2, but that doesn't mean there aren't a truckload of problems with it.