Sacrificial offerings to the god of crossovers

Hey, Marvel and DC, there's something you need to know. There is no god of crossovers and you don't have to sacrifice your firstborn to them in order to make your event comics succeed.

When I say "firstborn" here, I actually mean the second or third string characters that you don't care about, and yet somehow think that killing them off will be a big deal. No, killing off the ones you do care about would be a big deal. Killing the easy targets you always go for just upsets the few fans who liked them and has no effect on the rest of the audience because they didn't care either, and the shock value of killing off any hero has long since lost any power because you keep doing it.

See, this is the big secret that you have somehow failed to grasp in all your history: offing Namorita or Pantha will not make your event comic more successful or more memorable. Only good writing will do that.



Rest in peace, Little Avenging Daughter. 1971 - 2006

I have a date with Judd Winick

No, I don't really. But I did try.

After all the mean things I said about him, it only seemed fair to give him the opportunity to respond, but he wasn't interested. He wasn't very happy about me calling him a misogynist, which is understandable. I have never met the man and know nothing of his life so I have no basis for commenting on him as a person and I would take this opportunity to publicly apologise to him. Okay, Judd?

It was sloppy wording on my part. What I meant to say was that in my opinion he had written a very misogynistic story, which is not the same thing. But don't take it personally, Judd. I'd say the same of anyone who wrote a story in which a woman was raped and left to die and her abuser escaped, whistling a happy tune.

The one thing he did tell me was that Kimiyo's race and sex had nothing to do with his decision to depower her and that he wasn't depowering an asian female character, he was depowering Dr. Light II.

Actually, Judd, I think you'll find you were doing both.

A brief review of Shadowpact #2

or, When Decompressed Storytelling goes Wrong

****Spoiler Warning****

***This review spoils the entire plot of Shadowpact #2 so do not read further if you want to waste $3 avoid finding out what happens****

The heroes fight the villains and the villains win.

You may now move straight on to issue #3, wherein the heroes escape their bonds and stage a comeback.

Your assignment for today

I just had the most cynical and thoroughly repulsive idea.

I think that one of the reasons why writers are still doing stories where women are sexually abused, either to motivate them, or worse, to motivate the men in their life, is because they don't get that everyone else is writing that story too. To the extent where, far from being the most horrific and dramatic thing in a character's life, it becomes a cliche on par with "the butler did it".

So in order to do my little bit to enlighten and maybe, just maybe slow it down the nasty, I'm going to do a monthly roundup to show what the current state is. I'll to need some help on this one, since I don't read a lot of current comics, and no Marvels at all. So if you see an instance of sexual abuse in a current comic (one published this month), stick a comment here and I'll do a list at the end of the month.

Trading Places

I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them. Some days my belief is under such extreme suspension that I'm afraid it will snap and take someone's eye out when it goes twanging across the room. Providing comic book physics is consistant I am willing to believe a man can fly, a woman in a minskirt can grow to sixty feet tall, and a dog can become a detective on a distant planet. But one thing I have a hard time believing is that super powers can be passed around like trading cards.

Now I want to make it clear that I don't have a problem with someone copying another's power. If you can have shape changers then it's not taking it much further to suggest that one character could mimic the structures of another's body that are responsible for the power; say they copied the physical arrangement of Superman's cells that enable him to process light into a form that gives him strength or the ability to fly.

Where I fall down is that I don't see how this process could remove those physical parts from the person's body and replace them with those of a regular human. I know in some cases you could explain it by saying that it's not the physical parts that have been removed, simply that the energy that powers those systems has been drained and so they will not work until the battery is recharged, and the character only assumes that their powers have been "stolen". But even if you drained Superman of all the converted light energy that powers his abilities he should still be Kryptonian and should still be affected by kryptonite. And it does not explain situations where characters have their powers removed permanantly, or are examined and found to be normal humans.

John Byrne does a nice take on this in Fantastic Four #250 where he suggests that it's a hypnotic effect to compliment the mimickery, and the person just believes their powers have been passed on to the other character. Superman's recent depowerment and regaining of those powers is written in a way that suggests the trauma that removed his powers damaged his ability to process sunlight, but that there was also a psychological element. He liked being depowered. He enjoyed being Clark Kent and for a while being free of the huge responsibility of being Superman.

Read my lips

What with one thing and another traffic has been unusually high around here recently. Largely due to the Doctor Light essay getting widely linked across the net, we got over 1200 hits on Saturday, alone. It's great to see so many discussing something I've written about on several different message boards, but I'm a little stunned about how some of the facts get lost along the way. In some cases despite my repeating them when I see someone has failed to spot them. Several times in the same discussion thread. Until I reach the point where I'm thinking I can't say this again without looking obsessive but they are still not getting it.

The main problem was all the appearances of Kimiyo in comics after she was depowered. I mean, okay I was confused until I looked it all up, but I thought I had explained it sufficiently in the article that every comic she appeared in subsequently was either a flashback or due to the way officially it took place on May 15th even though it was published in a comic with a cover date of November the previous year. And yet I'm still finding responses from people who can't understand the fuss because obviously she's fine in this month's Action Comics. Not only are they not paying close attention to the article they are discussing, they failed to spot the scene in the comic they just read is a flashback.

It's like the woman who can't see the point of girl-wonder.org and doesn't have time to read any of the articles, so she's made up her mind about it entirely based on her own assumptions of what she thinks it is. The G-W guys were trying really hard to find a way to give her the coherent simple statements of purpose that she was demanding while she responded by slagging off Stephanie. She seemed strangely proud that she hadn't really read any of the relevent comics and that this was a perfectly reasonable basis for trashing her to those who had taken Steph as their icon. Me, I would have soon reached the point where I decided I did not need this woman on my side.

How about this for a plan? If people are discussing something you aren't interested in, don't take part in it. Just step away from the thread and go chat about something you are interested in. If you haven't made any effort to follow the subject, expressing opinions based on what you think it's probably about are just going to make you look like an idiot, and confuse the other people who haven't bothered to read up but who are genuinely interested. And trashing stuff other people like when you don't know what you are talking about just makes you look like a jerk.

The science of Superskirt physics

It's been known for some time that normal physical laws react unpredictably and are sometimes suspended altogether in the vicinity of scantily clad women, and I think it is time there was some serious study done into this "superskirt" physics.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that women wearing costumes with bare midrifs are less likely to get hurt than if they are entirely encased in adamantium armour. The flimsiest underwear can withstand damage that would tear a full body costume to tastefully arranged shreds, and Supergirl's skirt could easily resist the gravity pull of a black hole to cling to her thighs.

Think of the benefits to mankind that could be achieved if we could harness the power that enables cute girls in chainmail bikinis to survive unaffected by blizzards while heavily wrapped people are losing toes to frostbite!

Clearly other, more advanced alien races have mastered this science, so we have some catching up to do.

On a related note, I feel there should also be room for more 16 year old girls in the space program.

girl-wonder under attack

I hopped over to girl-wonder.org just now to find that some... I can't even think of a word to describe them adequately... How about weasel fuckers? That'll do. Some weasel fuckers have attacked girl-wonder.org by filling all the forums with really offensive pictures. I mean grossly nasty. I wouldn't recommend going over there until they've had a chance to clear it up.

I'm stunned. I mean I know they had some trolls in the responses to the first column, but this is on a different level. It's web terrorism.

Think I'm being hyperbolic for effect? The dictionary definition of terrorism is

the unlawful use or threat of violence esp. against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion

Unlawful? Check.
Use or threat of violence? Yes. It's the brutal invasion of a shared webspace to fill it with images intended to upset and intimidate its users, not forgetting the thread titles that are simply threats to rape the moderators.
Against the state or public? It's a community area.
Politically motivated? I think we can take that as read.

So tell me, what part of terrorism is not an appropriate description of this act?

I cannot imagine what these braindead weasel-fucker terrorists thought this would achieve. Sure, it inconveniences everyone for a few hours, and upsets us that our community space has been violated in this way, but it's not going to stop us.

Hell, the biggest message it sends is that some assholes feel so threatened by the mere existance of girl-wonder that they tried to do the web equivilent of firebombing it.

Realism in comics

I love those everyday life moments in superhero comics. I think one of the reasons I lost interest in Batman (before Steph) was how he had no life other than the miserable avenger of the night. The grimmest dramas are ones that have light moments and the strongest comedies are the ones that have a touch of harsh reality to ground them. That's what Robin is for. It doesn't work if you make Robin all angsty or kill her off.

One of my favourite Batman stories ever is the one by Harlan Ellison where nothing happens. It's great. People witter on about realism, which they always seem to use to mean nasty, ugly, and vicious, but what realism actually means is that most of the time Batman would be very bored waiting for something to happen, or he'd just miss the important crime because he was across town getting a cat out of a tree.

Okay, not getting a cat out of a tree.

Something more Batmanish but trivial.

But realism also means unexpected random sillyness. Well it does in my life, anyhow. I want more of that kind of realism in my comics. I want more motivation by desire for ice cream and less by rape.

And I want to see large breasted women get backache. I want to see girls with massive hooters and not much holding them down to smack themselves in the face when they are running. I think there would be a lot less antagonism toward the typically overdeveloped superheroine figure if we saw them suffering realistically for it.

That's my idea of realism.

Incandescent: Losing the Light

Incandescent not only describes my subject, but my mood. It's time to set the rant levels to 11.

I'd start with a few words about writer Judd Winick, but Ragnell's got that covered.

Now I'm not sure how much time is supposed to elapse between Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis, but continuity is stretched past breaking point here, so it may get a little confusing. In Green Arrow #54 Winick writes a story that follows up on events in Identity Crisis, but in order to fit in with Infinite Crisis and 52 it officially occurs during 52 week 2, even though it was published 10 months earlier. Confused yet?

GA #54, the short version: Green Arrow and Black Lightning are looking for evil Doctor Light. Evil Dr. L. is conveniently only a few blocks away attacking Kimiyo Hoshi, the good Doctor Light. Evil Dr. L steals Kimiyo's powers and flies off cackling. Green Arrow finds Kimiyo in the hospital and is attacked by Mirror Master and Killer Frost, and runs off to fight them. Kimiyo is left bleeding on the floor and never seen again.

So what's wrong with this picture?

Well the continuity problems start with Kimiyo being seen in costume in Tokyo during Infinite Crisis, and then in America in 52 #1, and in flashbacks to around the same time in current issues of Action Comics. She's actually appeared more in costume using her powers in the last few months than she has in years, except that she was depowered and badly wounded months ago.

And to make it worse, in GA #54 it states quite specifically that she has not used her powers in two years. But then it also has Kimiyo Hoshi, astronomer, scientist, and medical docter who lives in Japan working as a business executive in Star City, America. Something is wrong somewhere and I think it's probably that Judd Winick is a lazy writer who didn't bother to research the character he was planning to destroy.

Winick writes the fight between Light and Kimiyo as entirely one sided, and Evil Dr. L. only wins because Winick ignores Kimiyo's established abilities, and worst of all belittles her character by telling us that she lacks the instinct to understand the situation. Frankly, I don't fully understand the situation.

Winick implies that they have the same powers, but that's nonsense. Although both are light based, their powers are not related in any way. Evil Dr. L got his from technology built into his costume, which he didn't even create; Kimiyo was zapped by The Monitor who channeled the power of a star into her. And even if they were identical, that doesn't mean that one can just take the other's power. It's like saying an athelete could steal another athelete's ability to jump by hitting them. Sure, super villains are always stealing heroes' powers, but there's usually some explanation for how they are doing it. Here there is none.

And then there's the problem that Kimiyo is magnitudes of times more powerful than Evil Dr. L. In Crisis on Infinite Earths she tapped a star to blow a hole in the Anti-Monitor. Although nobody bothered to write her at this level of power in later years, for raw power output she is in the Superman class. And unlike Evil Dr. L. she has been shown to tap other sources to boost her levels. There is evidence to support her taking his power, but not vice versa.

Once Evil Dr. L has "stolen" her powers, we only get one more scene with Kimiyo. Green Arrow bursts into the hospital room where she is lying bandaged, with an oxygen mask over her face. She gets to deliver a message to GA from Evil Dr. L. that it is a trap, so that the villains can make a dramatic entrance. GA goes chasing after them and Kimiyo is left lying there, never to be seen again (not counting the many "flashbacks" that have appeared since). She gets no resolution to her story, no cathartic revenge on her abuser, not even an indication whether she survived the experience.

She didn't even get one of those little tag scenes you'd get at the end of the A-Team, where Hannibal would say "Well, Mary-Anne, your father and brothers may have been murdered and your family business burned down, but we brought their killers to justice so it's all better." And then they'd all have a big laugh and Face would hit on her.

But that's not the end of it.

Green Arrow eventually confronts evil Dr. L in GA #57, and Winick gives Light several pages to expound on the joys of being a rapist. He likens his attack on Kimiyo to rape "only more benefitting than usual." And having painted this character as the most vile abuser, Winick allows him to escape. Evil Dr. Light leaves the story without any kind of censure. Kimiyo gets no justice; her abuser who considers himself her rapist gets to walk free.


And I'd just like to mention that the only other female in the story, Mia, also gets badly wounded by evil Dr. Light and left for dead. Green Arrow is apparently badly injured right at the end of the story (not by EDL), but since he has bounced back by the following issue, it's not really the same. I don't know if Mia has been seen since she got shot and blown up by EDL but there was no mention of her in the two subsequent issues of GA I read.

To say that Kimiyo was badly written in this story is understatement. Her background details are arbitarily changed to fit the story Winick wants to tell, and the only reason she's in it at all seems to be to power up the villain and make him look even nastier than he was already (because being revealed as a rapist in Identity Crisis clearly wasn't enough). Once her purpose is served she is dropped from the story like a used tissue, and the fact that her story gets no resolution just shows how little Winick cares.

Is this the end of the road for Kimiyo Hoshi? With all of her subsequent "flashback" appearances one can hope not. It would be a sad and pathetic way to go out, symbolically raped and left to die, forgotten, while her abuser escapes cheerfully singing a happy little song, our last sight of her the back of her head in a flashback, or her broken body lying on the floor.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The Doctor is [in]

In case you were wondering what she was saying.

It seemed appropriate to the moment.

Plus I have a few words to share about Kimiyo Hoshi but I need to build up a good head of steam first.

Dagger envy

When Red Sonja first appeared in comics she looked like this.


















Then Esteban Moroto whipped up this little illustration.





















Which Howard Chaykin transformed into this.




















Other possible titles that occured to me for this entry included Is that a dagger strapped to your thigh or are you just pleased to see me?

Some time later they revamped this story. It's exactly the same story with the same pictures, but redrawn without the penis scabbard.

I just noticed something

While looking for a picture to illustrate the previous article I was looking through Robin #126 and noticed this.



Specifically, this:



So access to your secret plans in the Bat-computer where you keep all your paranoid little schemes for taking down every major superhero on the planet as well as for starting citywide gang wars don't qualify as big secrets?

You are such a jerk, Batman.

The forgotten Robin

I have to confess I jumped ship some time before Stephanie died. I could see where the story was leading the moment War Games started and it was clear that she was going to be the one sacrificed to give the event impact and shock value and I couldn't bear to watch. Call me cynical but I'm pretty certain that she was only made Robin in the first place to give her a higher profile so it would make for a more powerful story when she was beaten to death.



It's a practice that's been overused at DC and long past time it was retired to the cliche cupboard. Killing off a long established character is not a substitute for good writing, and when you make a big deal out of it and then forget about them the moment they are gone, it just shows what a cynical marketing ploy the whole thing was in the first place.

Stephanie was Robin and died in a horrible way, but Batman has no memorial to her in the Batcave like he did for Jason Todd. DC have no action figure of Stephanie as Robin, but they do one of Black Mask, who murdered her. He even comes with accessories like the power drill he tortured her to death with.

And that just makes me feel nauseous.

These guys feel the same way:

Because capes aren't just for boys.

46 to go

I could take or leave most of the mini-series that led into Infinite Crisis, and the event itself was, to say the least, disappointing. But so far I'm really liking 52.

The first lesbian superhero

I'm kind of a binge reader. I have books sitting around for ages that I never seem to quite find the time for, maybe I'll read a couple of pages here and there. Then for no obvious reason I'll sit down and read 500 pages in a day.

I'm currently at the "few pages here and there" stage with What they Did to Princess Paragon by Robert Rodi, so it may be a while before I get around to doing a proper review, but I wanted to say something about it now because although it was published eleven years ago, real life just caught up with it. See it's about the comic business. Specifically it's about how a thinly disguised analogue to Wonder Woman is relaunched as a lesbian. And the parallels to the current Batwoman situation are almost scary.

In an interview, the new writer of Princess P at one point says:

And, I mean, come on - we're not going to be doing soft core porn! We probably won't even have sex of any kind, beyond an occasional kiss or embrace. I'm writing about people, not bodies. I guess all I can say is, wait til the book comes out, then read it and judge for yourself. That's all - just judge for yourself.

Of course in this story the whole thing is a cynical move to work up interest in a dull and failing title, where the writer believes that doing something so controversial will be good for his own career. It perhaps shows how much the world has changed in eleven years, or that the real world isn't quite as cynical as we sometimes think, that when DC announced the introduction of Batwoman, they did so with no fuss. It was everyone else that made a big deal of it.

The media frenzy and the fan reaction is very closely parallel, though the internet is not a feature of the 1995 novel, which dates it rather. There are hysterical and obsessive fans claiming the character has now been ruined or perverted, and one particular obsessive looks likely to play a major role in the story. It's a shame that all the comic book fans in the novel are stereotype losers, thirty year old men still living with their parents, lacking social skills or any life outside comics. Couldn't they have included mention of one or two more normal people who liked comics, or *gasp*, female comic readers? When someone is satirising the prejudice of others, it's a little irritating that their own prejudices are so blatant.

More to come when I get a bit further into the book.

Pirate videos

Just say no!

It was a confusing juxtaposition of images last time I went to the movies; a trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 2 immediately followed by a new promotion against video piracy.

While I'm on the subject...

What is it with giant women and miniskirts?

Gorilla my dreams

Intruiged by her appearance in the new series of Wonder Woman, I was looking into Giganta's backstory and was surprised and more than a little confused by what I found there.

Giganta's first ever appearance in Wonder Woman v1 #9 is such an amazing story that it needs a post all on its own. Possibly several. Suffice to say here that in her original incarnation she is a gorilla who is artificially evolved into a large, strong human woman. She later teams up with other foes of Wonder Woman to become part of the original Villainy Inc in WW v1 #28, but is not then seen again until #163 where her story is revamped a little and Dr. Psycho is thrown into the mix, she gets bigger and goes blonde. Apart from appearances on Super Friends TV show (why pick Giganta who had only been seen once since the 1940's?) she vanished into obscurity again for several decades.

When John Byrne reintroduced Giganta in post-Crisis¹ continuity (WW v2 #126) he made her much more pro-active. The golden age Giganta was the experimental subject of Professor Zool. The new Giganta was Dr. Zeul. Instead of the victim of a mad scientist she had now become the mad scientist herself. In this version her motivation was desperation. She was dying of some vaguely unspecified disease and wanted to cheat death by transferring her mind into the body of Wonder Woman. I didn't quite get this part since at the time Wonder Woman was also dying, but we soon find that Dr. Zeul isn't exactly playing with a full deck.

Her attempt to possess the Amazon's body is thwarted and she appears to have died, but in fact her mind/soul/essence or whatever has been safely stored in some kind of battery and her faithful sidekick Bronson, doing an Igor to Zeul's Dr. Frankenstein, transfers Zeul into the body of the ape Giganta they happen to keep in the lab (WW v2 #136). She then has a brief fight with Wonder Girl and is not seen again for some time.

We then get one of the most hamfisted pieces of continuity I've encountered in a while. Unless I've missed an appearance somewhere, Giganta is next seen in Wonder Woman v2 #175. She now most closely resembles the Super Friends animated version; a giant woman with a two piece leopard print outfit and big bracelets. It is not until #180 that we get any kind of explanation. Here we are told how circus strongwoman Olga is put in a coma by a shaman. Why we are given this detail I don't know as we never get to find out what the shaman was up to or what Olga did to upset him. All we get to see is the comatose Olga is stolen by Giganta the ape. The implication is that Dr Zeul then transfers her mind from the ape into the body of the strongwoman, but decides to keep the ape's name for no obvious reason. There is also no explanation given for the size changing powers. Did Olga already have this ability? We don't know. The next thing we hear about her is that she is now acting as heavy in Villainy Inc. who have taken over Skartaris. In fact we are told they have been there several years, so what she's doing in #175 at all is a mystery.

Subsequently Giganta appears now and again, even acquiring a first name, Doris in Flash #219, but she is largely ineffectual and usually either the heavy for someone else or the warmup act to give the heroes a chance to swap witty banter before the real villain shows up. If she is given any characterisation at all it is "big and stupid", even in the usually excellent Justice League Unlimited animation. But then Byrne's original characterisation was of the cardboard psychopath mad scientist happy to use her loyal follower as cannon fodder, so it's not really that much worse.

If Infinite Crisis did anyone any favours, Doctor Doris Zeul was high on the list. They might have reduced her bust size to the point where the other supervillains sniggered about the inappropriateness of her name behind her back, but Alan Heinberg and Terry Dodson have realized her potential and given her back her brain. I'm not wild about the jumpsuit, but it's more appropriate to an intelligent Giganta than the strongwoman outfit. Her past may have been a bit spotty, but it looks like she has a great future ahead of her.

Control-Alt-Delete

Wonder Woman v3 #1.

There was stuff I liked about this and stuff I was less than thrilled with, and quite a lot that I am willing to suspend judgement on until we've seen the whole story, because enough of it I did like.

I'm still waiting to find out the significance of the mini eagles on the cover. You can't easily judge the size of most of them, but one of them is in front of Wonder Woman, and it's tiny.

The story opens with a bang and I immediately have mixed feelings. It's a lovely double page spread, but it's the buxom Donna Troy. I don't like Donna Troy. She's one of those characters that are being perpetually reinvented and I have no idea who she is now, but I don't want her to be Wonder Woman. My fears are immediately increased as she gives us some backstory. In the new post-Crisis² version we are now told that Donna is Diana's sister.

It's been pointed out to me that right now we only have Donna's word for this, so it may turn out to be more complicated, but that's where we are right now. This seriously screws around with Wonder Woman's origin. Was Diana still sculpted from clay? And if so, did Hyppolita have another go a few years later with some leftover bits to make Donna? Either way Diana loses a lot of her uniqueness and Donna becomes no more than the spare Wonder Woman she plays here.

Enter the bad guys. The now-human looking and buxom Cheetah matches chests with Donna (Wonder Woman lite) Troy and wins. What, you thought that someone who regularly takes down gods and beings with enough power to change history by hitting it would be cowed by a couple of big pussycats?

We then get to the part of the comic I like best, and which has me falling about laughing. I haven't read any other reviews so I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but I think it's hilarious that the woman with the flattest chest in the new improved DC universe is Giganta. No wonder she prefers to be called Dr. Zeul. She is now officially my favourite villain.

Partly I'm just delighted to find that there's room in the DC universe for even this small deviation from the regular female bodytype (see Buxom above). Of course I'd like to see a much greater range than is currently on offer, but it's a step in the right direction.

And after some entertaining back and forth on the last page we are intorduced to buxom Agent Diana Prince. Agent of what, I'm not sure. Should I know who this Nemesis guy is and would that explain it? Well I don't so it doesn't. But a kick ass Diana Prince in a completely white outfit?

Two questions I have for next issue: does she have the realistic kung fu grip, and where's the little old blind oriental guy?