...and then all her clothes fell off

Nude villains of the DC Universe

I'd been thinking of doing a post about all the things that are wrong with Detective #823, but it doesn't seem to have happened, but I do have to wonder what it is with female clothing in the DC universe this month.

On the cover of Detective #823 Poison Ivy isn't so much wearing a costume as garnish. On the first page we find her tucked up in her cozy cell in Arkham wearing an orange prison uniform several sizes too small for her and apparently made of tissue paper. This is confirmed a few pages later as a fight with a monster reduces it to a few shreds (don't they let girls wear underwear in Arkham?). Batman later has a fight with the same monster and yet his outfit remains remarkably intact.

Meanwhile, over at the new Atom #3, which is generally pretty cool, the wonderful Giganta pops up and pops out. It seems she forgot to bring her costume, so when she gets big her clothes explode. She tries hard to do the manic villain thing, but it's difficult to posture like Doctor Doom when she keeps having to hide her scary bits.

I've nothing against cheesecake, but if you aren't going to make any effort to have it make sense in the story, then stop pretending otherwise and just do pinups.

Unscrewing the Inscrutable

In which I make a liar of myself by underestimating my own perspicacity

Over at the Absorbascon, Scipio has been throwing a few digs at feminst comic bloggers lately. After a recent comment where he says:

bloggers who shall remain nameless have made DC self-conscious about the use of prostitution, rape, and similar sexual story elements

I responded, doubting the influence that a few bloggers would have on the editorial policy of a major comic publisher, but it seems I underestimated my own powers.

In an interview at Avengers Forever, Molly Lazer says:

After my column in the Marvel Heroes Hotspot was published, an internet blogger pointed out that, of the characters I listed as examples of strong female heroes, the majority of them had been sexually assaulted at some point. I thought about it for about two minutes before I realized that, of my list of four characters, three of them had been assaulted in one way or another. We can point to the damage inflicted on male heroes, as a counterexample, but I can't think of many male super heroes who have been raped or attacked in the way that female heroes so often are. Storylines like that happen less often these days, possibly because more people are aware of the women in refrigerators phenomenon, but they haven't completely disappeared. Comics reflect the world in which we live, and when you consider the amount of violence towards women that has gone on in the medium's history, that's a scary thought. Still, I think we're on the right path towards remedying this situation and making the comics medium one that treats males and females equally.

That was me.

I did that.

I made someone at Marvel think.



But only for two minutes.

Skrull Culture

It's possible that the Skrulls might have conquered the entire galaxy by now, if only they had a little imagination. Luckily we are spared enslavement at the hands of shapechanging green guys with bumpy chins due to their lack of creative insight.

The story of the Skrulls was not exactly planned out by Marvel. It's entirely possible that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby never intended to use them again after their first appearance back in FF #2, but they stuck around and have popped up all over the Marvel universe in succeeding decades.

But I don't think anyone has ever really put all the pieces together and considered how Skrull culture actually works. Now I don't pretend to know all the details; I certainly haven't read every Skrull related story, and it's been years since I last read some, so set me straight if I'm missing something.

When the Skrulls first appeared in FF#2 (I'm discounting their retconned previous appearance in Marvel: The Lost Generation as the whole series seems to have been written out of continuity now) they pretend to be the Fantastic Four. They can shape-change, but do so only to copy the FF. In fact it is apparent that they have total control over their body shape, but they only use this to stretch when pretending to be Reed Richards.

Ultimately, and I'm sorry if I'm spoiling this for anyone, they are defeated by transparent lies and fooled into thinking that comic book art is a photographic representation of reality. CGI would be wasted on the Skrulls - they are completely taken in by line art and a four colour dot screen.

Looking at this now it seems absurd that they could possibly be fooled. The explanation given is that their eyesight is poor. I don't believe it. There is no way they could possibly have duplicated the physical forms of the FF so accurately if they are myopic enough to be unable to distinguish between comic art and photos. So what's the real reason?

Quite simply, the Skrulls have no concept of fiction. They are entirely devoid of creativity. If there is a picture of something it must be real because they cannot comprehend the concept of making a picture of something that does not exist. This is their one blind spot and the thing that cripples them. They have the ability to be anything they can think of, but they do not have the imagination to do anything other than copy the things around them. Sure, they have an empire. But I suspect if you looked into Skrull history you'd find they were just copying the imperialist activities of the Kree.

Look at how Skrulls are presented when we get occasional glimpses into their society. In our world if everyone could shapechange, it would all be about fashion - everyone would look like the latest celebrity, fads in physical shapes would sweep through the world. Society would fall apart because nobody would be able to keep track of who everyone else was as they changed shape at whim. But the Skrulls keep their own shapes unless they have a reason to change. And they use tools when they could reshape their own bodies to be tools. In fact it is their lack of imagination that allows their society to function.

Robot sin disguised

I've never really "got" the whole Transformers thing. When I first encountered them I was already watching anime and they just seemed like an american take on Mecha, only where instead of being machines for Our Heroes to pilot, the machines themselves were anthromorphised into having personalities like Thomas the Tank Engine. That was strike one.

Strike two was the whole rationale of having a whole bunch of robots living on a robot planet who all turned into like cars and planes and VCRs and shit. I could never understand why they should be designed to do this, since the robot planet didn't seem to have any people in it anyway. Or why they should pretend to be consumer products from Our Planet anyway. I'm sure it's all rationalised somewhere in Transformers lore, but I was never that interested to find out. And how is it that untransformed they are all pretty much the same size, but transformed, one can be a fighter plane or a truck while another will turn into a CD player or a gun? How does that work?

So the appeal of Transformers passed me by and the only one I ever owned was the one that's basically a Macross Valkyrie, because some guys I used to hang with didn't believe it really existed, so when I saw it in a thrift store I bought it.

And now I just heard about Transformers Kiss. It's so utterly bizarre and fucked up I almost like Transformers now.

The failure of 52

Warning: contains spoilers for 52 #15

I'm enjoying 52.

It's an interesting approach to the anthology - turning it into an ensemble piece where different characters are off doing their own thing, but having it all occur in the same comic without any discrete separation, so the various storylines thread together and build up a rich background that informs all the characters' separate adventures.

Where it falls down is that the different stories are not integrated enough. So when the main character in one thread appears to die I am entirely unconvinced because there is nobody to continue his storyline. A storyline that is full of unanswered questions that is so clearly not over. It's a shame, because the format is ideal for a situation where the plot from one segment runs into the plot from another, but they just don't overlap that much. This is a comic where events in one storyline should affect the others, but other than in a general background way, it's not happening, and there is nobody in place to take over this particular plot. And 52 has been far too well organised so far to have this come grinding to a halt with so much unresolved, or for some new figure to come in and take over the story.

He's not dead, Jim.

Pigs fly

Geoff Johns has confirmed that he will be working with Kimiyo Hoshi, Doctor Light 2.

Which just leaves the mystery of why she was ever depowered in the first place, since it seems to have had no relevence to anything in the last year, and caused a big continuity screwup to no apparent purpose.

For a character who was created in the original Crisis the timing seems very odd that she should be depowered just before (in real time) the big sequel. Did some editor want her removed beforehand so she couldn't take part, or was Judd Winick the lone gunman who didn't bother to check whether she was scheduled to appear in the biggest companywaide crossover for twenty years that was about to occur? How is it then that she appears at all? Why is it that she subsequently appears in more comics than she had done in the previous five years, to the confusion of all the readers who assumed that she must have been repowered in a comic they'd missed? And will we now get a resolution to the storyline that's been left hanging for a year, or will one of Plotdeviceboy Prime's continuity punches have erased the whole thing?

After all, it wouldn't make much difference to any characters other than Kimiyo. Bad Dr. Light would still be a scumbucket, Green Arrow seemed to have forgotten her before the story was over, and Kimiyo's appearance was so lacking in continuity in the first place that it didn't make much sense anyway. We'd all just be left with a sour taste of a story that was bad, but which we'd still like to have seen the end of.

Losing the Green

I have continued reading the sequence following the Green Lantern comics I reviewed a few days ago, but nothing stood out enough to move me to writing about it specifically. There was some stuff about Sinestro escaping imprisonment yet again (1) and teaming up with a sentient galaxy, and everyone except Hal Jordon going off to fight them.

Meanwhile Hal is working on his secret identity and getting lots of subplot set up for the big Millenium crossover. Everyone else turns up in time for the main event (2). By this point Englehart seems to be running out of steam on the title, or perhaps he doesn't like where it's going. Either way, his writing is lacklustre and missing any subtext. Characterisation is practically at the level of everyone reciting their catchphrases at least once an issue.

I can see where Englehart might be fed up. It's clear that the entire storyline post-Millenium is a set up to destroy the team he's been building for the previous two years. This culminates in the trial of Sinestro where the Green Lantern Corps decides that since Sinestro always escapes from prison and goes on to commit genocide, the only option left is to execute him (3).

So they all zap him with their rings and he drops dead and the main power battery explodes. It seems that the guardians had programmed in a failsafe to stop them ever killing a male of Sinestro's race. Killing of any other race or sex is apparently fine, but they didn't like the males so they fixed it so they wouldn't be tempted to kill them (4). And just to make sure they were serious about it, not only would this make the main power battery implode, but it would turn OA into a black hole that would engulf the universe.

Seems like a touch of overkill, there.

And you know what? They totally forgot to mention this to anyone before they left. Isn't it always the same? You go away and there's always something. If it's not forgetting to cancel the papers, it's leaving a bomb that could destroy the universe on a hair trigger and not bothering to mention it to anyone.

Anyway, Hal Jordon saves the day, of course, because it's always about Hal Jordon, and all but a handful of Green Lanterns are depowered. What was an ensemble cast of equals is now Hal Jordon and his cheerleaders. And the comic is canceled so that Green Lantern can move into the experimental weekly anthology version of Action Comics that nobody liked much because it wasn't very good.

It's a contrived and sucky end to a good period in Green Lantern, where the focus was on the corps rather than a single ring weilder. Why DC felt the need to dismantle it, I don't know. My only guess is that sales were poor. It's not the only reason for canceling a comic or radically changing its direction, but it is the main one.

Notes

1. *yawn*

2. which I didn't have available, so had to do without. Thankfully

3. Which seems a bit harsh. I mean ok, Sinestro has warranted execution for some time, but they have changed their policy at this point not because he has done anything especially nasty but because their security isn't doing its job effectively.

4. which shows a lack of imagination on their part, if you ask me.

Curiously Bob

If there is one type of comic that is a prime target for ridicule, it's the DC comics from the seventies with a political message. I haven't actually read the Green Lantern/Green Arrow road trip sequence, though I know it has enjoyed a better reputation than most. But that may be due more to the Neil Adams artwork than the quality of the writing.

Other efforts have not fared so well, particularly the "women's lib" issue of Wonder Woman (#203) and Lois Lane's venture into racial awareness in "I am Curious (Black)" (LL#106).

I don't believe the criticism of this comic is entirely fair. I thought it was an honest effort to address the issue from a time when comics were expected to be light entertainment and political stories were virtually unknown. Not to mention that it was written by Bob Kanigher, an old white guy who was more used to doing stuff about haunted tanks and nonsensical superhero fantasies.

To complain about the clumsy politics in a comic from 1970 is like sneering at the poor quality of the computers in the Apollo space rockets of that period. Sure, today's digital watches have more computing power than the spaceships that went to the Moon, but they were the best available at the time, and they still got there. And look at the clumsiness of the social message in original Star Trek - having men who are half black and half white being prejudist against men who are half white and half black is at least as painful as Lois blacking up for a day, and yet it is hailed for its insight.

Rather than denigrate them for their faults, I think we should honour stories like "I am Curious (Black)" as the pioneers that opened the way for the more sophisticated comics we have today.

Nobody stays dead

On one comics messageboard I used to hang out at someone had a sig that went "Nobody stays dead except Bucky and Uncle Ben".

It's now got to the stage where you would be very hard put to find any character you could be reasonably sure would be pushing up daisies on a permanent basis. Hell, I would have considered Cir-El a safe bet and then she got a cameo in one of Jeph Loeb's guest star fests, which means that she's still alive somewhere.

I can't honestly think of any character too iconically dead or generally disliked that there isn't a real possibility they won't pop up again. I'm expecting Alex DeWitt to climb out of that refrigerator any time now.

Random comic review: Green Lantern (Corps) #212-213

Okay, so I should probably be doing something more retrospective to mark not only the first post of my second year at this, but also my 200th post, but I couldn't work up the enthusiasm, so you are getting a review of an old comic (okay, two old comics. It's only the one story) instead.

In this story Star Sapphire and Hector Hammond team up to make slaves of Hal Jordon and Arisa. Well, they initially try to kill Hal, but then when that doesn't work they mind control him.

It's a mixture of stuff I liked a lot and stuff I disliked a lot. Steve Englehart clearly had some issues he needed to work through, but I don't see this as the place to do it. The whole male vs female/mind vs body debate that he has going between the villains is not entirely out of place, but it sits heavily in the comic, repeatedly bringing the action grinding to a halt while the two vie for superiority.

The scene where Star Sapphire strips naked to prove she can even make the immobile intellectual Hammond sweat is particularly tangental, and I'm not convinced that she even scores a point there unless you take it as read that any woman can control any man simply by taking her clothes off. Affect them, sure. But control? I don't think so.

And where did all that hair come from? Star Sapphire's hair varies from waist length to below her knees, and in this scene there's so much of it that she can wrap herself in it like a beach towel.

The whole slave segment where Arisa and later Hal (at least it's equal opportunity) are degraded by their captors under mind control kind of fits the story, and it pretty mild compared with what I'd expect in a similar scene today, but there's some unpleasant subtext going on that I can't quite put my finger on.

This debate/contest is never really resolved. Ultimately they are stalemated until Star Sapphire gets Arisa to help her. Perhaps this is a comment on the duplicity of women, but it could also be read as their being more resourceful.

Anyhow, aside from Englehart's issues this is a well written story with clever twists and turns, and a great cliffhanger at the end of the first part where we see Hal Jordon burst. The first part revolves around Arisa being mind controlled to lure Hal into a trap, and it is explained that she is vulnerable because of her recent transformation, so there's no suggestion that it was because she was the girl. I particularly liked that at the end of the story she gets a good solid cathartic resolution. It is Arisa who rescues Hal, Arisa who beats the trap that caught her companion, and Arisa who punches Star Sapphire's lights out.

If they could do that in 1987 why is it such a problem now?

Rape of the month: July

Months without a rape in comics: 0

This is an ugly little regular feature that I am running monthly to highlight just how often sexual abuse appears in comics and to make it clear that it is neither clever nor original to address this issue. In fact so many comic writers have addressed it so often and so badly that it has become a ghastly cliche. It doesn't matter how thought provoking or moving your rape story may be, just don't. There are few enough unmolested women left in comics as it is.

Only one comic this month has include a rape as far as I am aware:

The Walking Dead #29

The serial rape we are promised at the end of last issue is not averted by a last second save, and the character is repeatedly raped during the course of this issue. But apparently the writer does not feel that he has made his point sufficiently, and it looks set to continue into next issue.

If you know of any other comics published in the last month that feature rape or sexual abuse, please leave a comment so I can update this entry.

I really don't like doing this feature so please, writers, stop abusing our heroines, and I won't have to do this anymore.

Happy Birthday blog

One year old today.

I should bake a cake.

Zero interest

Why can't all good things in life come without downsides?

It's like girlfriends without the five year plan

It's like bras without the fumbling

It's like stag parties without the wedding

It's like blind dates without the psychos.

With this kind of attitude you almost expect to see the slogan "Coke Zero: We don't want to sell it to girls".

Apparently Coca Cola were concerned that low calorie drinks were primarily favoured by women, so with the launch of their new product Coke Zero in the UK they have done everything possible to ensure that any woman who has actually seen an advert for the stuff won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Cathryn Sleight, marketing director for Coca-Cola GB, said: “We're launching Coca-Cola Zero to offer people as much choice as possible. The new brand joins the Coca-Cola family, alongside original Coca-Cola and diet Coke.

“With our creative and media strategy, we're confident that we've created a campaign that's not only entertaining and engaging for a young male audience, but one that will excite them and ensure that they can't miss the fact that Coca-Cola Zero has arrived.”

She did not explain why engaging a young male audience relied on alienating the entire female audience, but I'm sure it's some clever marketing strategy.

The advert containing the "psycho" reference has now been removed from adverts in Scotland after complaints from Scottish mental health campaigners, according to The Scotsman. Unfortunately it seems nobody has complained about the entire campaign being misogynist. But I suspect most people who are as irritated as I am by the whole attitude of the campaign will vote with their wallets.

You can see the main TV advert here.

Dooooooom!! Dooooooom!!

I know I can do cynical as well as anyone, and there are specific creators who do set the cynicism pumping through my veins at the mere prospect of them approaching any of the characters I like. Someone asked me yesterday if I was going to read The Ultimates when Jeph Loeb takes over and my initial response was surprise - why would I pick up a comic I hardly read in order to see what a writer I don't like does to it? But then I had a moment of Schadenfreude and thought "yes, I'll be interested to see just how appalling it is, and then I can gloat at the wailing and teeth-gnashing coming from Marvel fandom.

I do not believe that Marvel hired him for his writing skill. I think they hired him because his name on a comic sells a lot of copies. Presumably they were aware of his work at DC and knew he was likely to screw around with continuity and established characterisation, but that was less important than the dollars. They deserve to be taunted for it.

But I do try to keep my cynicism down to those that deserve it. You can't help second guessing upcoming events that have been trailed, but unless I have good reason to fear the worst (like it's written by Jeph Loeb or Frank Miller*) I try to wait until the comic arrives before passing an opinion stronger than "I'm looking forward to it" or "I'm not looking forward to it". The only times I've addressed Batwoman was to comment on the behaviour of the media to the announcement, and I haven't said anything about the news that Jodi Picoult will be writing Wonder Woman because I haven't read any of her previous work and have no idea what kind of job she will do. It's good in theory that a woman should write the title, but what that will mean in practice I have no idea. So I'll just wait and see.

One of the things that got people a bit exercised recently was Joe Kelly saying that the only reason he agreed to write Supergirl was that everyone else turned it down. This has led to a lot of speculation that the horrible mishandling of the big relaunch of the Girl of Steel has turned her from Hot Property into Unwanted in a very short space of time.

I see shadowy figures walking the streets of the internets yelling "Doooooooom!! Dooooom!!" but in fact it's another case of Brainiac's enlargement ray and a hill of moles. I first got suspicious when I saw a post from Gail Simone saying she would have been interested but she hadn't been offered the title. Now I know I'm biased, but if I was DC editor in charge of matters Supergirl, Gail would be high on my shortlist of writers to approach.

So then I looked up the source. The quote is from an interview last month at Wizard. What it actually says is:

With Rucka departing after one issue, Kelly claims he got the gig because of his helpful nature.

"Everybody else said no," Kelly joked.

The "Kelly joked" bit seems to be forgotten. At the very least it suggests that he is exaggerating when he says "everybody". In fact it could just mean that the first couple of choices for writer turned down the gig because they are everyone's first choices to write their comic and they already had a full schedule. The impression given by the interview is that they were in a bit of a rush because Greg Rucka was leaving earlier than expected (for unspecified reasons) and they needed someone at short notice to keep it on schedule. Hence Kelly helping out. There is no suggestion that the comic is any less popular, it was just a joke that got taken way too seriously.

*My response to hearing that Miller will be working on the upcoming Spirit movie was "If he turns Sand Serif into a ninja I will not be responsible for my actions."

I have seen the Light

I just saw the cover to the new JLA issue #1.



Let's look at that a little closer, shall we?



WHOOHOO!!!

Molly sez, Mari respondz

This week's Marvel comics (well the one I read, anyway) contain an editorial from someone called Molly. I have no idea of who Molly is or what position she holds at Marvel, but I was so gobsmacked by her words that I'd like to reproduce them here in full. Responses mine.

MOLLY SEZ

My roommate, who is a teacher, told me that one of her students had asked her if Captain America was real. The girl’s brother had told her that he was pretend, but she badly wanted him to exist When I heard this story, the thing I was most surprised about was that a ten year old girl knew about a comic book character who hasn’t appeared on the big screen. But the times, they are a’ changing.

At Wizard World Philadelphia this past weekend, another friend of mine remarked that she’s been seeing more women at the convention each year. It’s no longer a surprising thing to see fangirls pawing through the stacks of half-priced trade paperbacks with the fanboys. I’ve been a comics fan since I was five years old. Growing up, I didn’t meet any girls who shared my interest. But now the female comics fans seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Groups like Friends of Lulu have formed to unite women who read and work In comics. Many stores have ‘girl friendly” titles on display,

what, like Strangers in Paradise, you mean?

but the employees are just as willing to show female customers traditional super hero books if that’s what they’re looking for. And it’s not just the number of female fans that is growing. The women inside the pages are getting a better rap as well.

Are you sure you didn't miss an "e" there? (okay, that was a cheap shot, but I just saw the latest issue of Walking Dead.)

Today, female comic book characters aren’t just the ‘women in refrigerators” of times past. Girls can admire Ms. Marvel’s strength, Kate Bishop’s bravery, She-Hulk’s Intelligence, and Spider-Girl’s determination.

Because at least one of those listed hasn't been sexually assaulted.

Yes, many of these characters still have gravity-defying proportions that would cause them serious back problems in real life. But we’re taking steps towards getting to a point where female super heroes get as much respect as their male counterparts.

what steps would those be, then? Your boss certainly doesn't seem to consider having any female creators to be one.

We’ve still got a ways to go before the general public sees comics as a medium designed for everyone—men and women, adults and children alike.

Kind of like how it was before the industry totally focused on superhero comics, you mean?

But with every new reader who picks up a comic book and likes what they see Inside, we’re getting closer.

You are? In what way?

So, yes, little girl, Cap can be real, If you want him to be.

But finding a female superhero role model might be a little trickier.

Huh?

While spell checking the last post, I find that Blogger's spell checker does not recognise the word "blog".

Fake out at Byrne Robotics

I was just reading some stuff on John Byrne's message board and I reached a post where he explains why he doesn't allow nicknames - he calls them "fake names" - on his board, and gives his opinion of people who "hide behind them".

I can see his reasoning, but it is simplistic to the level of uselessness to take the attitude that all pseudonyms are bad*, or that message board trollers can be defeated if you deny them the use of nicknames (unless you have some way of verifying the "real" names as being true, which they don't). That will only stop the ones who are stupid enough to buy into the "solution".

Now I have been writing about comics under the name of Marionette for several years, and even this blog is getting close to its first anniversary. I post and comment on a lot of message boards and blogs with this name, and wherever possible link back here. I recently broke one thousand hits in a single day, so I like to think that I have a certain reputation in this little online world of ours. But if I want to express an opinion on John Byrne's board I cannot post with this name by which I am well known because it is an "obvious nickname"**. So I have to post under a name which nobody recognises and which will not be traced back to me. It's not my real name either, but it doesn't look like a nickname, so I pass the registration. Thus I am prevented from using the identity by which everyone knows me and must use a fake name*** to pass the measures in place to prevent people using fake names.

See, that's irony.


*Pen names have been a tradition for writers since the invention of the pen. Magazines are full of "house names". Film stars never seem to keep the names they were born with, and I believe I'm right in thinking that even Stan Lee could technically be refused entry to this board.

**Bear in mind that the only criteria apparently in use is "does it look like a real name or not?" So if your actual name is something unusual like Moon Unit or Rainbow you will be judged fake and your only option, if you still care enough to continue, will be to register as Jimmy Smith or something.

***Actually I've registered several different names from different email addresses at Byrne Robotics. Not because I particularly want to comment there, I just see it as a symbolic act of giving them the finger.

Listen to the wind

Sometime last year one of the writers at DC (can anyone remind me who it was, and point me at the original quote?) suggested that they were going to use the big gear shift of Infinite Crisis to lighten up their comics a bit and move away from the grim & gritty approach that passes for "realistic" in the comics world.

This was later refuted, but somehow the idea took root in the Great Fan Unconsciousness and is still being sited as official DC policy even now. I don't think I've seen any comments from anyone who thought it was a bad idea. In fact the only negative response has been from people who thought this was happening and are now unhappy when they see no sign of it.

This isn't a pressure group demanding a change they would like to see, it's just everybody seeing an idea that seems so obvious and right that they just assumed it was happening. And now they are sad and disappointed.

We don't want a return to silver age silliness (well, we do, but that craving is satisfied by Showcase Presents), what we want is a definition of realism that encompasses the lighter side of real life as well as the darker.

And meanwhile DC is acting like the shopkeeper whose response to a request for an item they don't stock is to say "You must be the fifth person today I've told that we don't get any call for that." DC, you need to shut up for a moment and listen to the wind. It's blowing in a different direction.

Judd Winick is not a misogynist

He just likes taking women's power away and then dropping them from a great height.