Justice once

Showcase Presents The Justice League of America volume #1.

I wanted to compare the treatment of Aqualad and Wonder Girl in Teen Titans with their adult counterparts in early Justice League, but it took me a while to work up the energy to read the Justice League Showcase collection. Gardner Fox is not my favourite silver age writer, and if there was ever a poll of DC's all time most annoying character, you can bet that Snapper Carr would be a contender.

On the other hand I am surprised how much I warmed up to Bob Haney after a few issues of Teen Titans, and I can hardly believe I didn't like Robert Kanigher when I first encountered his work, so maybe some intense study of early JLA would help me find the fun a third time.

500 pages later I am still not much of a fan of Gardner Fox, but the volume wasn't quite the chore I had expected, and Snapper Carr doesn't appear enough to be more than an irritant. The plots are formulaic and dumb, but provide enough entertainment, often for the wrong reasons, that you don't completely glaze over.

As with the Batman volume, the stories often suffer from the "Schwartz cover" effect. That is, editor Julius Schwartz commissions an exciting cover and then hands it to the writer to tell a story around, but then doesn't seem to care how the cover image is shoehorned in. The result often being that the cover scene is a ludicrously contrived moment in an otherwise unrelated plot. Which is disappointing, as the covers, often very intruiging or exciting, promise so much, but deliver so little.

The cover to JLA #1, for example: an alien plays a strange boardgame against the Flash, with the rest of the team at stake. Except that in the story the entire thing is fixed and it's just an excuse for the alien to transport them all away which he could have done anyway as they were already within his power.

But back to my original motivation for reading the book. How does Gardner Fox's treatment of Wonder Woman and Aquaman compare to Bob Haney's use of their counterparts in Teen Titans?

Aquaman is less obviously useless because of the nature of the stories. Where Teen Titans is given a realistic setting, the JLA are usually thrown into a fantasy landscape, so tailoring part of it to suit Fishguy is less blatant. Plus the formula plot usually involves each member of the team being transported to an environment designed specifically for them, either on another planet or an alternate dimension.

Wonder Woman is not singled out in any way. There is even less characterisation in JLA than there is in Teen Titans, which hardly seems possible, but it's true. There are no distinguishing voices, and many of the team are differentiated by a single ability: Aquaman talks to fish, Wonder Woman has a rope, Flash runs fast, Green Arrow shoots stuff. These characteristics are applied to every possible situation. Green Arrow can't put handcuffs on a subdued villain without using a handcuff arrow, Aquaman can't make a cup of tea without the assistance of his fishy friends. Beyond that their abilities are a bit vague.

In Post-Crisis/Pre-Infinite Crisis Wonder Woman was retconned out of being a founder member of the JLA, which is little ironic when you read the original comics, where you find that she was the only one of the big three who put in serious time on the team. On the occasions when Superman and Batman actually do show up, they often find excuses to disappear for the bulk of the story.

It gets so bad that even the villains start to notice.

Go Go Gail!

In a recent interview, Gail Simone said:

Are you doing anything involving Dr.Light II (Kimiyo Hoshi) either in BOP or in something else?

A: Not right away, but I do have some ideas for how to renovate her character a little…

Which suggests to me that nobody else has called dibs on Kimiyo in the near future, or has any plans to tell the great story of her comeback.

That's okay. I'd rather wait a year for Gail Simone than get Judd Winick now.

Dear Kara....

I saw this and thought of you.


From Millie the Model #26 (1951)

Misogynist advertising again

First I couldn't drink Coca Cola, and now I can't eat burgers.

The Burger King ad for their double whopper has been around for a few months, but after disappearing for a while it's back on british TV. This involves a parody of the feminist anthem I am Woman sung by a lot of men who are so pissed off at having to do girly things like eat in civilised restaurants that they band together and run riot in the streets, smashing up cars and stuffing their faces with 990 calorie burgers.

Now microwave burger merchants Rustlers have jumped on the bandwagon with straplines that sound like leftovers from the Coke Zero ads in a new TV advert that involves a guy bringing a girl home. The clearly uncomfortable girl says she can only stay for a coffee. He goes into the kitchen and taps on a keypad next to a hatch that opens onto the other room, creating a frame that makes it look as though the girl is in a microwave. The couch on which the girl is sitting then revolves like a microwave plate and she transforms into a seductive lingerie model. The slogan being something along the lines of "If only women could go from not interested to hot to trot in 70 seconds without you making any effort, just like our tacky burgers."

Edit: While I was looking for the ad on Youtube I found another version where the revolving girl is replaced by a inflateable sex doll. Otherwise it is identical to the original. I have no idea where this comes from, but if it was a self-parody by the original ad makers intended to undercut the misogyny of the original it might work better if they ever actually showed it.

EDIT 2: I also found an Australian Coke Zero ad that has the same message as the UK version but without the misogynistic aspects. In fact it makes an effort to be female-inclusive.

EDIT 3: Huh?

Continuity Spaggetti

I realise that the absurd lateness of Wonder Woman means that all the questions of identity in the current storyline are old news in every other comic where she appears, but I'm curious where Atom fits in, since Dr Zeul (Giganta) appears to have a legitimate career in Ivytown, which must predate her being a known villain in Wonder Woman, which (initially) was published first. Either it's another multiverse thing (an all purpose excuse for continuity screwups right now, which is just as well given how many there are at the moment), or it's a symptom of Ivytown weirdness. Either way I'd like even a bad explanation somewhere.

And no, DC, the answer is not to have yet another fucking 'event' to explain it all away.

Since the writers appear to be incapable of this stuff, how about you hire someone to oversee each comic and check that if they are using characters that also appear in other titles that the various appearances fit together. This person could also be given the responsibility of ensuring that the comic was completed on schedule. You could even fire the current editor on most comics and give them the same office. I don't think anyone would notice the loss.

Supergirl/Batgirl

I tried to like Kara 2.0, I really did.

But the suckyness wore me down. Every time I was on the point of giving it up as a bad job, I'd hear that the current writer or artist was going to be replaced and I gave it one more go. I did actually quit after #12 when it became apparent that Joe Kelly was too little, too late, and we were stuck with Ian Churchill. I only read #14 because it featured Batgirl.

This was a mistake. The in-joke of having Kara dress in Linda/animated Supergirl's white costume was painfully unfunny, and simply served to remind long time readers how this previous wearer of the cape had been quietly erased from continuity - even Pantha went out fighting. Ian Churchill's big chin/snap like a twig ankles style seemed worse than ever, but maybe it's just because I've been reading too many comics where the characters have less ludicrous proportions.

But Batgirl?

Wait, I think I've got it. It's that multiverse thing again, isn't it. I mean I totally called the two Luthors before it was revealed, so maybe they are doing the same trick again. Originally there was good Batgirl. Then we were told that she went bad (Robin #151) to lead the League of Assassins and get revenge on her father because she found she had a sister (no, it doesn't make any sense), and stopped wearing the costume. But in Teen Titans #43 we are given a whole different explanation about her being mind controlled by Deathstroke. No mention of the League, and she's in costume. In Supergirl #14 she's back to running the League but she is wearing her costume. There's at least two different Batgirls here. Possibly three.

Oh, and there's apparently a story running in one of the Batman titles where the League is being run by someone else. Does anyone at DC talk to anyone else at all?

Random manga

A few years ago, when I was into manga and there wasn't much of it about, I'd pick up a few random collections from the Japan Centre when I was in London, purely because the art styles interested me. I hadn't thought about them in years, but I ran across a couple of the volumes today and thought I'd share.

Balancer is an action adventure story, with the twist that the beautiful heroine is in fact a little old lady who is able to transform into a supermodel. It looks like great fun.



Karuizawa Syndrome is altogether stranger. Even with so much manga now under the bridge it still looks odd. The art style varies from realistic to chibi so much the characters bounce up and down like yoyos, sometimes even in the same panel. It appears to follow a group of characters who are possibly early twenties, though they spend so much time in chibi mode it's hard to tell. They drive hyper realistic cars and motorbikes, have chibi sex, and a couple of them seem to be nazis.

As far as I know neither of these series have ever been translated. But I guess neither exactly fit into what american publishers look for in a manga.

Robin's gang

I haven't been a big follower of Teen Titans in its various incarnations, but the team has always seemed like Robin's gang. Doesn't matter who is Robin, it's his team.

So I'm just a little sad that Steph didn't get to be Robin long enough to get that issue of Teen Titans where she's in charge.

Teamups we'd like to see for the sheer silliness #2

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel.


Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.

About damn time

The announcement that tells us of the Batgirl Showcase collection also lists, a month later, the following:

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: WONDER WOMAN VOL. 1 TP
Writer: Robert Kanigher
Artists: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito
Collects stories from WONDER WOMAN #98-117
$16.99 US, 528 pages

So the third member of "The Big Three" finally gets a Showcase collection after Superman, Batman, The Atom, Hawkman, Phantom Stranger, Metamorpho, Martian Manhunter, Adam Strange, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman again, Batgirl, Jimmy Olsen, Batman again, Green Arrow, Elongated Man, Shazam, Green Lantern again, Aquaman, Challengers of the Unknown, and The Haunted Tank. Oh yes, that's really showing the love.

Having said that, this collection is exactly what I wanted in a WW Showcase and I am hugely excited about it. It collects the never in 40 years reprinted before in any form first silver age issues of Wonder Woman starting from #98, where Ross Andru and Mike Esposito took over the art, and opens with the wonderfully deranged origin retelling that contains elements which no later origin story ever dared acknowledge. This volume also introduces Wonder Girl and (I think) Wonder Tot, but they don't get to team up with Wonder Woman until a while later. This is Robert Kanigher at his loopiest, so check your brain at the door and sit back and enjoy the pretty colours.

Yes, I know it's a black and white collection. Trust me.

Batgirl Returns

I haven't commented on the recent ups and downs in the life of Cassandra Cain. I hadn't been reading her own title for a while before it ended, although I did take a look at the last couple of issues when I heard about the fuss. I also read the issues of Robin where she is transformed into a villain.

My own theory was that the talk of David Cain training other girls was a clue, and that this chatty villain was going to turn out to be Cassie's evil twin. I mean it obviously wasn't Cass.

Sadly, I find that my guess was wrong and that it was Cass; just a very badly written Cass, who behaved and talked nothing like the character I knew.

But somewhere up at DC, whoever was responsible for this villainisation got overruled and Teen Titans #43 gives us an explanation that allows Cass to return to the good guys' team. It's a bad explanation, which doesn't begin to cover the changes that were made to her in Robin, and it's all about abuse and mind control, but I see a lot of fans happy to accept it because it gives them Cass back.

This in turn has prompted a reaction to happy feminist fans of Batgirl that can be summed up as "Oh, so it's okay to have a story of abuse towards women when it suits you, is it?" To which the answer is "No, but this bad thing fixed something that was worse. We do not cheer the bad fix, we cheer that the worse thing is gone."

In other Batgirl news, I'm intrigued to find announcement of a Showcase Presents Batgirl collection. This is an innovative move on the part of DC collecting the adventures of a character who never had their own strip*. So Yay! to DC for thinking outside the box, but a Wha? for picking this as their first collection starring a female character, and when there are so many great silver age comics waiting on dusty shelves that are being passed over in favour of obscure war comics and this collection of guest appearances.

Which is not to say that I won't be first in the queue for this book. It's a great collection and contains one of my favourite silver age comics ever.

*Okay, she did have a brief solo strip in the anthology Batman Family title, but it's not included in this collection.

Meme Culture

Having had some time to distance myself from recent events there's a general point that I'd like to address. The blogosphere is usually a pretty friendly place, and often when someone says something on one blog another will respond. There have been days when When Fangirls Attack is composed entirely of links to various points of view about the same topic, many of which will reference each other. One blogger will come up with an idea and another will take it up and play with it. Only a couple of days ago Sleestak made a reference to Editorial Swimwear and linked to a post of mine that defined the concept. But it wasn't my original idea. I think it was first used by Dave of Dave's Long Box, but I'm not 100% sure.

EDIT: Close, but no bikini. Dave first discussed the subject, but calls it the de-nudifying effect. It was Tom the Dog, responding to Dave's article, who first used the phrase, but even there it's only the title. Tom still calls it the de-nudifying effect in the article, and even says "I have no reason to call it anything else." I'm beginning to wonder if I wasn't actually the first to use it directly. This turns out to be a great example of the blogosphere group mind at work.

And then there are the deliberate memes, where somebody has a notion and actively encourages other bloggers to respond with their take on the idea. It's a friendly sharing community.

So when somebody stands up and says "I object to other people using my ideas or writing about my topics" it throws a spanner in the works for everyone. Particularly when he does it retroactively, which makes it appear that he has been uncomfortably tolerating the practice for a year and putting a brave face on it by commenting positively when people do it. It makes everyone stop and wonder if they have been unintentionally offending someone they thought they were sharing a joke with.

There isn't an easy answer. If everyone sticks carefully to their own schtik for fear of offending anyone then we lose all the fun and the interaction that makes the blogosphere a community. If someone doesn't wish to participate in this to and fro they can prominently display a notice on their blog to this effect, but would it damage the community anyway?

I don't have a solution. I'm just asking the question. Feel free to apply your own thoughts to the subject, either here or any other forum. Just let me know so I can follow it.

Return of the multiverse

So DC's next big thing is bringing back all the parallel worlds where different versions of their characters exist.

But you know what this means to me?

Handy guide to silver age writers

At the dawn of the Silver Age DC did not go much for crediting the people who created their comics. Even when Marvel arrived and made a point of including credits on all their books, it was a long time before DC followed suit in any formal way, so it can often be difficult to tell who wrote an given comic.

I've been studying the work of three writers in particular, Bob Haney, Bob Kannigher, and Gardner Fox. Although these three share elements of style and content, they can be told apart by their individual approach.

Bob Haney likes to ground his fantastic stories by inserting fashionable touches from the everyday world, but makes no effort to research these elements, and so often gets them wrong, with hilarious results. I particularly like the way the Teen Titans manage to be so popular with all the young people they meet while they are working for the government in the late sixties.

Gardner Fox, on the other hand, is more inclined to throw in some ludicrous plot element and then spend a page justifying it. The more technobabble that he can stuff in there, the better.

But Bob Kanagher. Ah, Bob Kanagher. Big Bob just does mad stuff and feels no need at all to either justify it or make it relevent. Often his work reads like stream of consciousness, where logic is a toy, and Cause and Effect are just the names of the henchmen.

To give you an example how this works in practice, say you have a story where our hero encounters a crashed spaceship.

Gardener Fox would have the spaceship crash and our hero would be led to it by some convoluted plot of the pilot to trap him in another dimension where he would fight dinosaurs, which for some complicated reason would enable the alien pilot to acquire a thermometer, and hthis would include a whole page explaining why the alien pilot couldn't just walk into a shop and buy one.

Bob Haney would have our hero hanging out at a beach party, surfing and riding jetskis up the beach when the spaceship would crash into the car park, cutting all the hot rods off from the main road and making it impossible for the cool kids to get home before curfew without our hero battling the aliens.

Bob Kannagher would just drop the spaceship in front of the hero and have an alien made of flowers jump out and steal his hat, just as a pirate ship arrives, looking for a quiet spot to drop off some foreign saboteurs with a bomb made of cheese.

Bitter lemmings

I'll get back to some mad silver age fun real soon now, but in the meantime here's a lesson from Wonder Woman on the problems of being a super heroine.

Pants on Fire

It's small and petty, but I really do not like being called a liar.

Last March I ran a little piece about Hal Jordan's brother being as clumsy as Hal.

Yesterday Scipio ran the same comment over the same panel. I did not believe that he had deliberately copied my article, but I knew he had been aware of the original, so I lightheartedly pointed this out to him, expecting an "oops, sorry" type of response, and that would have been the end of it.

Instead he disclaimed knowledge of my piece, claiming he had stopped reading my blog before this article was published.*

Once I'd shown that he had to have read the article because he had responded to it in the comments section, he then changed his tune to "pardon me for not memorizing everything that has appeared on your blog! How silly of me!" which is interesting because it's still refusing to acknowledge any connection between the two near-identical articles, while attempting to fudge the issue by implying that it is absurd that he should remember everything I've written.

Of course I never suggested that he had done any such thing, but the possibility that when he saw the same panel again recently, the comment I had associated with it resurfaced in his mind seems far from impossible**. I know I look at images now and then that have all kinds of sensual associations. There was even one picture that would make me feel nauseous when I saw it for a long time because the first time I saw it I was sick.

But rather than admit the possibility that the two articles might be connected, even unconsciously, he takes pokes at me when responding to other people on unrelated matters. As if calling me names will absolve him of his error. At this rate it's only a matter of time before he blames me for the whole thing.

Update: Scipio has now locked comments on that particular thread so he could get the last word in. In this final post he:
a) suggests that I was copying him for posting at all on the subject because he was the one that started looking for examples of Hal Jordan getting hit on the head, so presumably anyone else who posted such images was also copying him rather than sharing the joke,
b) suggests that my post was so much in his traditional style that it's copying him anyway,
c) says that he'd consider it acceptable to steal stuff he'd seen on my blog and post it under his own name because I have so few readers that nobody would notice, and finally
d) sneers at my request that he show a little respect.

I'm actually quite stunned that something so trivial could spawn quite so much venom and all around nastiness.


*In fact the most recent comment I can find from Scipio is a response to a post published six months later.
**In his final word he alludes to a sense of deja vu about the article, but only wonders if he has posted it before. It doesn't occur to him that it might be someone else's work.

Get in line

Line by Yua Kotegawa

So many manga go on for volume after volume that it's a surprise to find what appears to be a single volume stand alone story. The trouble was that by the time I got to the end of this one I was so involved with the characters I wanted to know what happens to them next...

It's an intruiging, if not entirely original premise. Girl finds an abandoned cellphone and before she can hand it in to lost property it rings, throwing her into the middle of a fast paced thriller. I intended to just read the first chapter, but found myself unable to put it down until I'd finished. And I think I may reread it again in a couple of weeks. The first time you are mainly concerned with the plot, but there are interesting character developments, particularly in the relationship between the two main characters, and I think it might be worth reading again to focus on that aspect of the story.

The art is attractive, showing you everything you need to see in an uncomplicated fashion. It serves the story very well without being so flashy or clever that you stop to admire it - something a lot of comic artists should consider, whatever their nationality.

I liked this so much that I went looking for other work by Yua Kotegawa. The only thing I could find immediately was the multi-volume Anne Freaks. I may have something to say about that in the future.

Rape cancelled

While I still believe that there is a need to catalogue the number of times rape is used as a plot point in current comics in order to make it clear how overused it is I'm not in a position to continue with monthly updates.

I don't read many current comics and I'm not able to check every new comic published, so it's not possible for me to keep track without help. If someone wants to take over who can do a better job, let me know and I'll make sure to link to it.

There goes that meme again

It's too late for me to enter the contest, but I just thought of this.

Spoiled Space

Some people like to know all the exciting stuff first. They can't wait for Christmas day to open their presents and they can't bear not to know the big twists coming in their favourite comics or TV shows months beforehand.

Me, I'm more the sort that will give the boxes a shake and try to guess what's inside, but the last thing I want is for someone to tell me. So I avoid spoilers whenever I can. Unfortunately they are sometimes shoved in my face without my choice, and that really annoys me.

It's bad enough when some outside agency feels obliged to reveal all the good stuff for their own purposes, like TV stations running trailers that give away the big twist - I may hate them for it and plot to burn them down, but I can understand that their priority is to get people to watch the show. Once they are actually watching it, the PR machine is too busy screaming at you to watch the next thing to care about how they have screwed over the current one. But what's worst is when the guys producing the original feel the need to give away the ending. Like putting it on the cover of the comic.

The all time worst spoiler cover for me was the X-Men annual (I forget which one) where the story involved mysterious happenings and the big reveal of who was responsible didn't ocur until well into the story. Unfortunately he was prominently displayed on the cover, so the dramatic tension was nonexistant.

The latest issue of Manhunter isn't quite in that league, but cover featuring the old Blue Beetle and then not having him appear until the final page feels like a cheat. It's misleading, and does a disservice to an excellent comic that is worth reading for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with the cover.

Sign of Light

Fifty Two #35

First chronological appearance of Doctor Light II since her depowerment (officially 52 #2). It's only one panel, but she's in costume.

So my guess that the resolution to her depowerment story would occur in 52 is now completely busted (as they say on Mythbusters). Will we now even get to see Kimiyo's big comeback story at all? My magic 8-ball says "Outlook not so good".

Okay, the original story was bad in so many ways, but is Judd Winick's tawdry little opus simply going to be quietly ignored? Are those few fans who were emotionally moved by their heroine's plight now to be told "Get over it; it didn't happen"?

Not to mention it would be such an opportunity to produce a hugely empowering kick-ass story about a character coming back from the brink of death to confront her abuser and take back her power and her name.

I really want to see that story.

Money for old rope to hang yourself with

The Amazing Spider-Girl #3

It's like watching a car crash in slow motion. Very slow motion. Motion so slow that even a multi-car pile up gets boring. It's almost as if they are deliberately trying to kill this comic.

The plot from issue #1 drags on but we still have no idea what the maguffin is that everyone is after. May is still not back in costume properly, and just to bog the momentum down further we see the introduction of a new villain Bitter Frost; such a cheap Killer Frost knockoff that even the name is almost the same. And even though we get page after page of angsty backstory about what a hard life she's had so May will feel conflicted about preventing her from murdering more people*, her actual origin is restricted to a single small panel that doesn't actually explain anything.

Even the subplots about May's problems with her social life and her running for class president or whatever it is don't come off because it just makes her look like a self-centred diletante who is incapable of prioritising.

I find it hard to believe that many readers who were lured in by the big relaunch of the series are going to make it to the end of this grossly padded storyline. It's almost a textbook example of how to alienate your audience.

Unless this title gets a fairly radical quality upgrade in the near future I don't think it will last a year. On current form it doesn't deserve to.


*So how many people does she need to murder before "having a hard life" is no longer an excuse?

When is a monthly comic not a monthly comic?

When it's published by Marvel, apparently.

Newsarama's regular "suck up to Marvel" segment Joe Fridays gives us a memorable quote from editor in chief Axel Alonso. He says:

The problem is simple: Comics ship monthly and very few artists can draw 22 pages in a month, or 12 issues a year. That’s just facts.

Firstly, I have to call bullshit on these "facts". How many pages a month did Jack Kirby used to produce when he was at Marvel? There are plenty of artists that can turn out 22 pages a month, 12 months a year. Maybe not the ones you like to cover feature or who bring in the most fans, but then those are the ones who know they will still get plenty of work no matter how unprofessional they are.

Secondly, just in case you've forgotten, Axel it's your job to get a monthly comic out 12 times a year. That's what editors do. If you are so sure that the people you have hired to produce 12 issues a year are incapable of fulfilling that task whatever possessed you to contract them to do so in the first place? And if you know that you can't put a comic out monthly, why are you selling it as a monthly comic?

The Eighth Feminist Carnival of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Whether it's just that time of year, or that the email box I set up especially for this managed to delete itself while I wasn't looking, the Carnival is a little quieter than usual. But we still have plenty of attractions to amaze and inform, and since it is that time of year, let's start with Subversive Gifts for Girls and More Gifts for Girls.

Something that we missed in the previous Carnival was the announcement of the winner of the 2006 Womens Comics Podcasters Grant. This page has a lot of useful info for anyone who has any interest in casting their pods.

In Just Back from the Casino, Scott Lynch considers what an ugly spectacle the new film Casino Royale would have been if it really was as some critic described "Ian Fleming's Bond".

Over at Arrogant Self-Reliance, Amy Reads reviews Wonder Woman #3 and asks how much feminism you need in Just Not Feminist Enough.

Every Carnival should have one entry that takes the piss out of Frank Miller, so it's a good thing there are webcomics like Wonderella.

There's a thought provoking piece about identification with and attraction to fictional characters at Headpieces full of Straw, but the comments move it in a more female specific direction.

While it wasn't specifically submitted for this Carnival, I think everyone needs to know about Marvel's upcoming Bikiniverse imprint.

Anna O. is described by her doctors as a "female hysteric", who suggested she start a blog to help talk out her problems. Her contribution to this Carnival is Apple, but that's just the tip of a curious and fascinating iceberg.

In Feminist SF - The Blog! Ide Cyan says time is no excuse for sexism in Timeless.

Veleda K responds to the way weakness in men is considered a feminine quality in I was Sick of this a Long Time Ago.

Ragtime hunts for woman-friendly kid's fiction and strikes gold in a most unlikely place, over at Comic Book Thoughts .

Prejudice and privileage are found in many forms, and although it's not a female specific issue, the opinions Lake Desire addresses in an article about the Range of Wii-motion at New Game Plus are depressingly familiar.

As part of a continuing series Using Beauty to Establish Gamer Cred [The Gaming Beauty Myth, Part 3] looks at the problems of being female in the gaming community.

Apple Foot responds to CNet's odd choices for its list of Top Ten Girl Geeks.

Calico Reaction reviews Ursula Le Guin's essays in Dancing at the Edge of the World.

My own contribution hardly needs a link when you could just scroll down a bit to find it, but my exploration of the difference between misogynism and sexism is the most feminist thing I've written all month.

And finally, a quick plug for the Feminist Writers Livejournal Community, a haven for weird feminist fiction.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

I finally got around to seeing My Super Ex-Girlfriend and it's nowhere near as bad as I feared. Of course after all the negative things I'd heard about it my expectations were very low, so that wasn't a difficult thing to achieve.

The biggest problem people have with it (especially those who haven't actually seen it) is that it it takes the cliche of an ex-girlfriend who cannot let go and makes a comedy of it. I think the attitude would be the same regardless of whether she had super powers or not. They say it wouldn't work if the roles were reversed, but there are plenty of movies where the ex-boyfriend won't accept it's over. The only difference is that they tend to be the cuddly stalker type, rather than the cuddly psycho. That and they usually end with the woman realising her mistake and going back to him.

In many ways this movie is more realistic in it's treatment of the relationship than that particular cliche, or perhaps it's just a bit more cynical. The guy never loves her in the first place. He was just looking for some sex to tide him over while he works on the girl he really fancies. She doesn't really love him. She's just desperately lonely and clinging to anyone who shows her some attention. It's not quite my idea of comedy, but I'm definitely on her side when he dumps her.

Throughout the movie the boyfriend (whose name I've forgotten already) is the point of view character, the sympathetic character we are supposed to identify with, but the fact is he has treated this woman badly and her overreaction does not negate that.

Jenny, herself is very inconsistant at times. Characterisation and plot coherency is dumped in favour of comedy. The woman who has chosen to spend her life using her powers to help others is prepared to let millions die at one point because she's in a sulk and wants a night off.

On the plus side the movie does portray a romantic relationship between a superhero and a regular person that focusses on the petty difficulties that are glossed over in other superhero movies. Superman might be a creepy stalker in Superman Returns, but you know he's not going to do anything petty or spiteful to Lois. And it's never going to occur to Lois that pissing off someone who can move planets might be unwise.

The worst thing about My Super Ex-Girlfriend for me was the lack of consequences to the actions we see. Everyone is happy at the end and they seem to have forgotten that ex-boyfriend has lost his job and his appartment is full of holes. And no one seems to have a problem with evil villain Bedlam hanging around. Admittedly we haven't seen him do anything very illegal, but you don't get a reputation as an evil mastermind without doing something society frowns on.

So not a great movie, and a little annoying at times, but if it was on TV I'd still prefer it over most sporting events. Or reality shows. Or chat shows, soap operas, quiz shows, game shows, political debates, worthy dramas, breakfast shows, and gardening programs.

Definition of terms: Misogyny vs. Sexism

mi·sog·y·ny

–noun
hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.


sex·ism

–noun
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; esp., such discrimination directed against women.

I was in a discussion at girl-wonder where the art of Rob Liefeld and Greg Land was described as misogynistic. I disagreed and said it was sexist but not actually misogynistic. Rather than sidetrack that discussion I thought I'd address the difference here.

Misogyny is hatred. A writer or artist might claim to be pro-women and even give female characters overtly empowered roles, but when those characters are forced to suffer in degrading ways that their male counterparts do not, then misogynism is apparent in the work. When women are made to suffer or die purely as a way of motivating a male character it's misogynism.

I know it's a favourite example of mine, but Kimiyo Hoshi's treatment in Green Arrow is misogynistic, pure and simple. I don't care how feminist Judd Winick thinks he is, or how empowered his female characters are in other comics, the way Kimiyo is treated is entirely misogynistic. She is attacked and beaten, symbolically raped, and left badly injured. The hero finds her and is motivated by her plight (though not enough to tend to her injuries before he chases off after the villain), and having served her purpose she is dropped from the comic, her personal story unresolved.

Sexism is more about assumptions. It's about assuming women having a lower value than men in any given situation. It's objectifying. It's making decisions based on sex rather than any relevent data. It is not about hate. Rob Liefeld doesn't hate women. He likes women. He likes drawing hot women in skimpy clothing. His art exaggerates all the hotness to a level where they appear absurdly deformed, but although it is a level of objectivism beyond stupid, it's not hate.

That's what I think, anyway.

schadenfreude

Being american is one of those "unconscious privileage" things. It doesn't mean you are better than anyone else but it does mean that until very recently you get the cool comics, the big movies and TV shows before anyone else. Hell, some of the best known american TV shows have never been shown in the UK at all (I have never seen Gilligan's Island), and the ones that did turn up did so often years after they were first broadcast in the States.

Before comics were confined to specialist shops you could find them at selected newsagents (that's news stands to americans), but you never even knew if you would get to see the same titles two months in a row.

It's all different now. UK comics shops get the same selection as the USA only a day later, and if TV isn't broadcast here fast enough, who cares? We can download it the day after it appears in the US and get it on DVD within six months. Movies can still take a few months to roll around, but the pressure is on to minimise the time lag - at least to get it out before the american DVD release.

Even so, there's a lot of stored up resentment there. So anytime we get to see something before you guys, be it the season finale of Babylon 5, the climactic battle between the Daleks and the Cybermen, or the final race of Oban Star Racers (I know who wins! I know who wins!), I can't resist the urge to rub your faces in it.

Nyah nyah!

Carnival reminder

Tomorrow is the last day for submissions to the Eighth Feminist Carnival of Science Fiction and Fantasy, so get those entries in now or I'll have to make stuff up and pretend you did it.

A very careful review of Batman Meets The Spirit

Darwin Cooke's art on this comic is as good as anyone could hope for, and I look forward eagerly to his forthcoming Spirit series. I don't understand why an otherwise classic style features Catwoman wearing her latest costume rather than one she wore when she was a villain, but that's a minor niggle, and it might not even have been Cooke's decision. In all other respects it is gorgeous, catching all the nuances of every single one of the pointlessly large cast.

I know if I wanted to get a Batman comic in which all the villains were defeated off-panel by Superman on the final page, that also featured The Spirit, this would certainly be top of my list.

The dream team of suck

I have no idea if the original Onslaught event was any good, but Marvel have a worse batting average than DC with "event" comics, and it's taken ten years to revisit it, so I'm guessing it wasn't an overwhelming success. Marvel have a way of recycling even its worst excesses after enough time has passed - whoever thought they'd pry the lid off the toxic can of worms labelled "Spider-Man Clone War" so soon? Don't they ever learn from their mistakes?

So while it could be worse, it does seem that getting together Jeph Loeb and Rob Liefeld on the microwaved leftovers of Onslaught is the dream team of suck.

And no, I don't plan to review it. It is enough for me that it exists.

And yes, I know some of the proceeds go to a worthy cause. But that won't magically make Rob Liefeld a good artist (as can be seen from the cover image), or give Jeph Loeb any original ideas. It will just mean that some people will buy it despite the suck.

All this and Superman two

I first heard about Superman II having been substantially changed a couple of years ago, but I never expected the original version to surface. Too much time had passed, and anyhow, it wasn't even finished, was it? Turns out I was overly pessimistic, and last night I got to see what the movie was supposed to have looked like.

It is understandably a little rough in places. Restored footage was scavenged from all over, including screen tests, so you need to be a little forgiving. Some scenes are very underdeveloped, and they could have done with keeping in a little more of the footage from the release version in places, though I am guessing they were left out because they would clash too much - I'm thinking particularly of the scenes in the Niagara Falls hotel room. And I think they were right to redo that scene. I'm not going to give away any spoilers but how stupid is Superman to fall for that?

I can't do a big comparison between this and the released version. I'm sure there are plenty of those already available, and I haven't seen the old version in ages. I caught about half of it on TV when Superman Returns came out, but that's it. But I noticed one thing which has always irked me has been removed. During the big fight scene in New York the drama and tension of the scene is constantly undermined by the inclusion of bits of physical humour by the victims as they are getting blown away. I am delighted that these are gone. I think the whole thing would have been a far better film if this version had been properly finished. Except possibly for the ending.

I have a problem with the ending. If this was what Richard Donner intended, then he's an idiot, and I can see why the production was taken out of his hands. It's like an athlete running a good race and then three yards short of the finish line he trips over his own feet and lands face first in the poo.

I don't think it counts as a spoiler, since it happens after the villains have been defeated (what, you thought that in the original version they would win?). In footage taken entirely from Superman I or from earlier in the movie but shown in reverse, Superman causes time to run backwards so that everything that was damaged is fixed and Zod and co. never escaped the Phantom Zone.

How many kinds of stupid is this? If he could do this all along, why did he bother to fight them at all, or trust to a risky strategy to deceive them? When he saw how much trouble they were why didn't he go give the planet a quick reverse spin? Why does he need to fight any battle at all if he can solve every problem with a quick time reverse? Of course in the first movie I always read it that he was only sending himself back in time (flying faster than light and all that), and that's a very different proposition to reversing time for the whole world. Why would any director give the same ending to two movies?

There's reason to think this wasn't what Donner intended (stuff Superman does immediately beforehand in restored footage becomes totally pointless if he is about to go ahead and undo it, and how can the guys in the diner recognise Clark afterwards?), and I can only guess that this part of the movie was never made, or is completely lost, and this was done to cover the gap. It fails.

This may not be quite the movie Superman II should have been, but it's as close as we're going to get.

Just for one day

I still haven't been able to stop watching Heroes, but it and Torchwood are both one reason away from being dropped. And one minor point that is not enough on its own is the whole Americacentric thing Heroes has going.

It opens with "Ordinary people across the globe discovered extraordinary abilities..." Sorry, no. I don't care if you call an entirely local tournament the World Series, as far as everyone else is concerned America is not the whole world, and having one powered member of the cast start off in Japan does not qualify as "across the globe", even if half the cast is in Las Vegas and the rest are in New York.

People of

I admit it. I think referring to those with a certain skin pigmentation as "people of colour" is idiotic and it offends me in some vague way. Everyone is one colour or another. In fact everyone is a mixture of colours (though rarely green), so using this phrase to describe a specific subset of people annoys me. As a response to this usage I shall refer to women as "people of gender" whenever it occurs to me to do so, and I would encourage others to follow my example.

The real secret origin of the Teen Titans

After reading through the Teen Titans there's one thing I don't understand (1). How did Wonder Girl ever get to be a member? The other members are always belittling her. She is always the last one picked to do anything unless it's "girl stuff" or flying. And even though the male Titans are strangely uninterested in girls most of the time they do occasionally get hormonal twitches, but none of the guys are remotely interested in Wonder Girl, and while she thinks romantic thoughts about any male that occurs to her, the other Titans are a total blank spot to her.

In their first adventure Robin, Aqualad, and Kid Flash are thrown together by circumstance and become friends. They decide to form their own little club and the only other person they invite to join is a girl that none of them is interested in or has ever apparently met before. How did that come about then? (2)

So maybe they all secretly have the hots for her but they are intimidated by her much higher power levels, and daren't make a move on her for fear of getting their arms broken and dropped from a great height, but I think the answer might be much simpler and more logical.

The Justice League of America's original lineup (3) was Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, and Flash. Of these six, four had teenage dependants (4), who are Aqualad, Robin, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl (5). They never get to go along on JLA adventures, so where are they when JLA stuff is going on?

You know what it's like when you are a kid and your parents get together with some other kids' parents and you are forced to spend all afternoon with a bunch of kids you don't know, don't like, and would never be in the same room with if you had the choice? That's what the Titans are, and that's why Wonder Girl is a member. The Teen Titans is the Justice League's day care center.

Notes

1) Actually there's plenty that makes no sense to me, but this question keeps recurring.

2) I am aware there is a later retcon in which all four teen heroes are thrown together by circumstance, but I'm not buying it.

3) ignoring retcons.

4) technically five, but Superman has stuck his young cousin away in an orphanage and is pretending she doesn't exist so he can keep milking the "last survivor of Krypton" thing.

5) Wonder Woman's relationship with Wonder Girl is a lot more complicated since they are both the same person, and in fact Wonder Girl had been retconned out of Wonder Woman completely before Teen Titans #1 was even published, but that's a whole other story. Come to think of it, it must be at least 10 years before Wonder Girl is ever mentioned again in Wonder Woman, by which time they've forgotten she doesn't exist.

Reasons to be Teens (part 4)

Teen Titans v1. #7

In the silver age DC wasn't big on character development. Which is not to say there wasn't plenty of characterisation. Look at Superman or Batman and each member of the regular cast has a distinct and individual personality. Early Teen Titans, on the other hand, is so completely plot driven and devoid of characterisation that three of the four members could not be told apart from dialogue alone. The exception, by an odd quirk of sexism, is Wonder Girl.

Wonder Girl's head is full of pop music and romance and nothing else. She pins up pictures of pop stars on the Teen Titan's notice board and spends any time she is not jiggling to the latest tunes in mooning over whatever male she has most recently noticed. Ghastly as this may seem, in portraying Wonder Girl as a bubble headed bimbo, Big Bob Haney has given his token female more depth than the rest of the team put together, as they have no interests at all.

Once again in issue #7 the Titans are called up by a government department. This time it's the Treasury, and the latest in a series of faceless government employees assigns them to go on tour with Wonder Girl's latest crush, pop star Holley Hip as they suspect Holley of smuggling, though any regular reader knows that he will turn out to be an innocent dupe. They fly to London, bringing pop music to the poor deprived british people who didn't have any of their own in 1967, unless you count the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and possibly Pink Floyd.

Arriving in London, Holley's clothes are taken to his tailor. The Titans suspect something is going on but at no point does it occur to them that your tailor delivers your clothes to you rather than the other way around. The tailor is in fact Mad Mod (not quite the Mad Mod seen in the Teen Titans cartoon), fashion guru of Carnaby Street, who must be making so much money legitimately that there hardly seems any point to him smuggling stuff in the clothes he makes for pop stars.

As usual the Titans get to fight the non-super powered Mad Mod and lose, and he is eventually defeated by Holley hitting him over the head with an oddly bendy guitar. You begin to see why they are only sidekicks.

Not a small town in Scotland

I've always considered space opera and sports to be a bad combination. When differences in climate of our own planet are enough to ensure that some nations will never excel at some sports, the idea that every alien race is at such a close physical or technological level to make for a viable competition is one step too far for my suspension of disbelief.

And yet I find myself enjoying Oban Star Racers. Of course the Earth team are going to win the competition, no matter how often their star racer is crashed, blown up, or chopped in half. But will teen pilot Molly ever reconcile with coach Don Wei who is unaware that she is really his daughter? Will Don ever come to terms with his wife's death while piloting a star Racer? Will gunner Jordan ever get a clue? Will the cute alien prince Aikka side with the Earth team when the chips are down? And is the Earth really doomed if they lose the race?

All this takes place on an alien world that really looks and feels alien, with a range of competitors that each have a distinct style gives the story a depth and richness you rarely see in TV animation. And the races are exciting to watch, too. There's enough variation to make each one different, but enough similarity that you know when they are nearing the finish line and it's our heroes' last chance to make the move that will win them the race or cause them to spectacularly screw it up.

One odd thing I've found while looking up Oban on the web: The show has been running once a week in the USA since June and has 5 episodes to go before it finishes, but although it only started a few weeks ago on Jetix in the UK it is shown 5 times a week. At this rate the final episode will be shown in the UK before the US.

Bwahahahahahahaha.

Minor hiccup

Dear customer,
This message informs you of recent email cleaning activity that has impacted your mailbox. In order to effectively manage and maintain our system storage, it is essential blueyonder carry out regular cleaning activity. As your blueyonder mailbox was not accessed for 90 days, our automatic cleanup programme has emptied the contents of your mailbox. In order to prevent this from occurring again, your maximum mailbox capacity had been reduced to 2mb.
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Please ensure that you check your blueyonder email on a regular basis.


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The team at blueyonder

Dear Blueyonder team,

I agree that this mailbox has not seen a great deal of use lately, but I would contest that it has not been used at all, since I went through it only yesterday and deleted a number of unwanted mails myself in preparation for using it as a contact address for my blog. I recommend you check your automatic programme if it is unable to spot my downloading over 100 emails as it would seem to have a fault.

Please restore my mailbox to 30mb. If it is possible I would also like to have any mail I received since I accessed the account yesterday to be undeleted. I suppose you wouldn't see any point in informing a customer before you trash their mailbox for lack of usage, and I admit that even if you had sent me such a warning I would not have expected it to apply to me since I had in fact accessed the mailbox, but maybe, I don't know, you could always send the message to the more active mailboxes on the account, so the customer would have some chance of knowing about it in advance.

A dissatisfied customer

Anyone who emailed me about the Carnival in the last 24 hours, please give it another try.

Five kinds of stupid

Teen Titans v1 #6

I admit I'm really starting to get into the sheer dumb absurdity of Teen Titans, but there's one scene in issue #6 that pushes the limit. Throughout the series Haney has been desperately trying to conceal how powerful Wonder Girl is, while at the same time trying to make Aqualad appear remotely useful (1). In this issue he also makes everyone else stupid in order to give fishboy something to do.

At one point in the story the Titans decide to hide in a magician's trick safe (2) The villain locks them in and then dumps the safe in a handy tank of water. Can you guess how the Titans escape?

A) Robin works out how the trick is done and they all escape through the magician's hidden panel.

B) Wonder Girl uses her super strength to break the safe open.

C) KId Flash vibrates through the wall, taking each member in turn with him until they are all out.

D) Kid Flash vibrates through the wall but only takes Aqualad, and then Aqualad cuts through the locks with Robin's pocket acetylene torch, which only he can do because the safe is in two feet of water, and although Robin keeps underwater welding equipment in his utility belt, he doesn't carry any breathing apparatus, and they couldn't use the acetylene torch from the inside because, um...



Other highlights of this issue include the Titans on matching motorbikes. My guess is that Kid Flash just desperately wants to fit in with his chums and hopes they won't notice how stupid he looks, and Wonder Girl just forgot she could fly again because her head is full of pop music and she has the attention span of a goldfish with ADD. There's also a cut-price version of Marvel's Circus of Crime (3), and a lot of nonsense about hypnotism. Once again Haney spoils the effect by going into great detail on a subject he knows nothing about, where it could have looked a lot less stupid if he hadn't tried to explain it at all. And I'm not sure how old the Titans are supposed to be in this series; I would guess late teens, but as with almost every issue there's at least one panel where they've been replaced by six year olds.

But this issue also includes one of the great stupid moments of the silver age. The Titans are in the middle of a big fight with the hypnotised Beast Boy who has turned into some kind of hybrid half-gorilla half-boa constrictor (4) and the real villain of the piece who has no super powers is so caught up in the moment that he ignores his minion's quite sensible suggestion that they run away with the loot and has climbed into the human cannonbal's cannon so he can be shot up into the middle of the fight that is taking place overhead, armed only with a couple of flaming torches (5). What he thinks this will achieve is never made clear.

Notes:

1) At some point I'm going to have to get hold of the JLA Showcase to compare how Wonder Woman and Aquaman are treated.

2) Why? To avoid being hypnotised by a baboon of course.

3) Which came first? I have no clue and I don't care enough to look it up.

4) can Beast Boy even do that?

5) Yes, I know you can't see the burning torches in this panel. He is holding them. Inside the cannon.

Announcement and Submission Call for Eighth Feminist Carnival of Science Fiction and Fantasy

It's that time again already! Dance of the Puppets will be hosting the Eighth Blog Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans here on December 10! All blogposts starting from November 18th to December 7th are eligible. The deadline is December 7th.

Please submit via emailing me at maricarnival@blueyonder.co.uk or by using this submission form. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or leave a comment.

The final product will go up on December 10:
As for guidelines, they can be found here:

“* All Weblog Postings on Science Fiction and Fantasy works in all media (books, comic books, television, film, roleplaying tabletop games and video games) written from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Fan fiction or fiction written from a Feminist Perspective is eligible.
* Posts about fan fiction or fiction written from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Posts about conventions and fan gatherings of a Feminist nature are eligible.
* Posts about conventions and fan gatherings written from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Posts about any science fiction or fantasy fandom written from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Posts linking to news and announcements are eligible, so long as they pertain specifically to the Feminist Sci-Fi Fantasy community.
* Considerations about science fiction/fantasy news from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Analysis of non-Feminist works from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Rants about any of the above written from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Posts which spell “Space” using 3 A’s and two exclamation points and are written from a Feminist Perspective are eligible.
* Posts about Green-Skinned Amazons (from Outer Spaaace!) with more than two breasts that are not written from a Feminist Perspective will not be eligible (and if they aren’t damned funny,* will be reproduced for mockery).
* Posts about Getting Your Girlfriend into [specific type of fandom] had also better be damned funny. If written from a Feminist Perspective (even tongue-in-cheek), they will be eligible.
*Sexist and/or homophobic does not equal damned funny, nor does it constitute anything approaching a Feminist Perspective.”

Teen Themes

Teen Titans v. 1 #5

in issue #5 the Titans get into a seriously mismatched fight with a villain called The Ant. In theory the Ant doesn't stand a chance. All he has going for him is a level of acrobatic skill (like Robin) he inherited from his acrobat mother and the strength he inherited from his father who was a circus strongman (1) and some suckers on his boots that allow him to climb walls.

My knowledge of Herolix is barely above zero, but I'm guessing that if you set up a Heroclicky fight between the Ant and Robin it might be an even match: Robin is more experienced but Ant has the wall climbing thing. Pit Ant against Wonder Girl or Kid Flash solo and Ant doesn't stand a chance. So how come Ant gets to defeat the entire team twice (2) in this issue?


By this issue recurring themes are starting to become apparent. The Titans are summoned by some authority figure to save some teenagers from going bad. The teens are always good guys even though at some point they appear to be on the wrong side of the law. The teens are always virtually all male (3).

I wouldn't go so far to say Haney is misogynist (4) but he is sexist. It's almost painful the way he continuely attempts to obscure the fact that Wonder Girl is the most powerful member of the team. It's as bad as his efforts to hide how completely useless Aqualad is. Perhaps he assumed that only boys would be reading the comic, and they wouldn't want to look at pictures of teenage girls, and it certainly wouldn't do to have a girl who was more powerful than the boys, but if so, why add her to the team in the first place?

The one thing that really puzzles me this issue is the cover, which suggests some kind of personal grudge match between Robin and the Ant. Not only does the scene not occur in the story, but there is nothing personal between the two.

Notes

1. because in Haneyworld you can inherit learned skills and the results of exercise from your parents.

2. once when he's not even in costume.

3. Even when the teens in question are the entire teenage population of a town. What does smalltown America do with its girl children?

4. he doesn't have bad things happen particularly to female characters; he does his best not to have female characters appear in the comic at all.

Go go Gail!

The story so far: Kimiyo Hoshi, the good Doctor Light was last seen depowered and left for dead in Green Arrow over a year ago. Her subsequent appearances in Infinite Crisis, 52, and other comics required the shiny new post-IC continuity be twisted into a pretzel in order to place this event during week 2 of 52, even though the story concludes several issues later with an event that clearly occurs during Infinite Crisis, and fans are so confused that most lose the plot and assume that she must have got better and regained her powers off-camera.

One Year Later Kimiyo is considered for membership of the Justice League. The dialogue about her is open to wide interpretation, but it appears that she has recovered both her health and her powers.

Now: Birds of Prey issue #100, page one. Kimiyo is alive and well and back to being the bitchy scientist we know and love. She receives an invitation to join the Birds of Prey.

WE LOVE YOU, GAIL SIMONE!!

Now, if you can only tell us the story of how she got her powers back and kicked the ass of evil rapist Doctor Light into the next galaxy, I'll never be snarky about the Atom again.

I am a bunny in the headlights of Teen Titans

Teen Titans volume 1 #3

I've been reading the Teen Titans Showcase collection and one thing has been bugging me all week. How is it that I can cheerfully accept Wonder Woman flying a propellor driven airplane to Mars while fighting pteradactyls in space, or Lois Lane wearing a safe on her head because it's less embarassing than letting anyone see her face, and yet Bob Haney crosses some unseen line of stupid where I find myself rolling my eyes on almost every page?

After a lot of thought I've decided that the difference is that Bob Kanigher's Wonder Woman and a lot of the more peculiar 60's Superman and 50's Batman works because it is fairy tale fantasy; no effort is made to convince you it has any relation to the real world. You can take your brain out and just have fun, knowing that anything is possible. Conversely, Haney is forever attempting to ground his stories in realism and trying to tie it to the everyday world, and then doing something that flaunts his ignorance of his subject matter. That and Teen Titans tries so hard to be trendy that it's not only horribly dated, but it reads like your dad trying to sound cool.

I'd originally planned to just do one article on this collection but that would be a terrible waste of good snark, so I'm going to make it an occasional series. I may get back to earlier issues at some point but right now I'm going to focus on issue #3, as it's the one I just finished.

The story jumps right into the action with a bank in Gotham being robbed by a wacky looking custom car, (1). It's tough being a villain (2) in Gotham. Not only do you get chased by Batman, but the banks are equipped with machine guns.



The police are nowhere to be seen, but the batmobile is soon on the tail the hot rod. It attempts to lose the pursuit by driving into a river where it becomes a hovercraft (3). But the Batmobile continues the chase as a hydrofoil. Unfortunately in Haneyworld hovercraft are faster than hydrofoils. Even this one which has no skirt to trap the air shooting out of its undercarriage and no apparent means of forward propulsion.



The villains (4) get away. Where could they have got that fancy car from, muses Batman, as Robin receives a message that will conincidentally take him to the very place Batman is wondering about.

The Teen Titans are summoned to Washington to do a job for the President's Commission of Education. (5) The PCoE is running a campaign to stop kids dropping out of school (6) and it's just occured to them they don't have any actual teenagers associated with it so they want to bring the Titans in to help, because costumed vigilantes make the best role models.

So do they want the Titans to:
A) go on chat shows encouraging kids to stay in school?
B) investigate the high drop-out rate of some small town nobody has ever heard of?

Obviously it's B because government departments don't have staff to look into stuff like that, and it's not a ludicrous waste of resources.

Arriving in Nowheresville they talk to the school principal (7) who is particularly puzzled about one high achiever who dropped out. It's a shame he's not concerned enough to make the effort to find out that the boy left because he needed to earn money to keep his family after his father died, but it suggests that part of the problem here might be down to the way the school is run.

In fact this student and every other kid who reaches drop-out age has gone to work at Ding-Dong Daddy's Hot-Rod Hive. (8) Rather than hire skilled mechanics, Ding-Dong employs children who haven't finished high school to build custom cars. And it's not some kind of cheap wages scam either, as we are informed that he pays well. The Titans visit Ding-Dong and Kid Flash finds some kids tricking out an ice cream tricycle with a machine gun (9).

The Titans pretend to leave but in fact keep the building under surveilence from their helicopter, somehow assuming that Ding-Dong won't notice it. Three vehicles leave the chop shop at the same time, and Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Aqualad each follow one. It's just as well one of them takes the beach road or Aqualad would have been stuffed. Several examples of improbable physics later (10) all three Titans are out for the count, but Robin doesn't know because instead of backing up his chums he takes the opportunity to sneak in to the workshop and find the car he and Batman had chased in Gotham.

A brief scuffle later (11) and Robin is tied to a motorcycle with the brakes cut and the throttle wedged open and sent hurtling away to his doom (12). It's here we find that Robin may be the brains of the team but he knows nothing about motorcycles. If you woke up to find yourself tied to a runaway mororcycle with no brakes would you:

A) Slow the vehicle using the gears for engine braking?
B) switch off the fuel tank?
C) Pull out the spark plug cable?
D) Jump the cycle off a conveniently placed ramp into a conveniently placed mound of sand?
E) Drop the stupid bike and risk a few bruises because it can only have been doing about 20 miles an hour maximum?

So our heroes regroup and a convenient subplot occurs to help them on their way, as Ding-Dong attempting to murder Robin isn't good enough evidence to take to the authorities. It seems that the kids who work at Ding-Dong's have rivals who ride motorcycles and are armed with spanners, and are prone to random acts of violence. Forgetting that they have access to armour-plated hovercraft equipped with machine guns, they quake with fear until the Titans turn up in disguise and beat up the bikers for them. The kids are so happy that they cheerfully recommend the disguised heroes for work at Ding-Dong's.

A rare good point occurs when Ding Dong asks Wonder Girl if she is a mechanic, rather than assuming she is a bubble headed bimbo who intends to dance to music all day to "encourage" the workers like some kind of workshop cheerleader (13). She then takes him into his office and jiggles for him so the boys can get on with the real work while he is distracted.

Robin then uses a gizmo to broadcast what is being said in the "secret" room where someone is conveniently explaining the plot. The kids are shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find that all the bullet-proof, machine gun armed hovercraft they are building are intended to be sold to villains. Ding-Dong unleashes a robot gas pump but is quickly defeated by someone other than a Titan. The kids all decide to go back to school (14) and everyone is happy.

Good points:

Ding-Dong is visually based on artist Big Daddy Roth, famous for drawing weird vehicles.

It's very rare for the period to get a story that focusses on something like where villains get their fancy gear from.

The surfboard firing van and the robot gas pump.

Ding-Dong is an equal opportunities employer.

Bad points:

Everything else.


Notes.

1. because obviously if you are committing armed robbery you'd want a getaway car that was strange enough looking that you could spot it from orbit rather than one that would blend into a traffic jam.

2. or indeed a bank customer.

3. Artist Nick Cardy has no idea what a hovercraft looks like.

4. we never find out who they are.

5. Doesn't this conflict with their membership of the Peace Corps?

6. I know nothing about the american education system, but it seems to me it might be an idea to have the final exam while school is compulsory, rather than after a lot of people have left.

7. the town is so small it only has the one school.

8. Well, the male ones at least. We never see any female teenagers. Or adults. In fact the only female in the whole comic is Wonder Girl.

9. There is an effort made later to explain that the kids are all nice really and hadn't known about the illegal side of the business. The only way I can see this working is if the kids are too dumb to realise that the gun emplacements, robot arms, and bullet-proof armour are in any way unusual components. Though this could explain why Ding-Dong is training kids instead of hiring proper mechanics.

10. the van that fires surfboards is best.

11. Do the Titans ever win a fight without help?

12. rather than immediately stalling the second it was put in gear or falling over sideways.

13. which, sadly, is her actual plan.

14. including the one who only dropped out because his family needed the income to survive.

Spot the difference

Cyberman


Cyberwoman

Discuss.

The greatest crossover in history

Batman meets the Freedom Fighters.

Why? Because it will mean that the comic will feature a Dark and Stormy Knight.