Retconning My Brain

Our Love is Real

2011-07-08T11:25:00.000-04:00

Back in the day, right after Ellen Degeneres came out, her sitcom did an episode wherein Ellen was essentially transported to a world run by straight people, where gay people were the minority. It was meant to be social commentary, I guess, but I was a teenager at the time and the main thing I remember thinking was that it wasn't very funny.

Since then, I've read a lot of those kinds of social commentary, mostly feminist or anti-feminist dystopian fiction about societies run by women. With mixed results. Most of them aren't very good. I think it may be a genre I'm predisposed not to like, because I don't need to have reality turned on my head in order to show me that it's ridiculous. I know it's ridiculous. I don't need to have my power-holding group turned into the marginalized group so that I can wake up to my own privilege, because I'm aware of both my privilege and marginalization based on the various labels I slap on (and that are slapped onto me).

Then again, we can all use a reminder from time to time. Which is probably why I still reads/watch those kinds of stories. Plus, it can be fun to see the Oppressor become the Oppressed. Even if it's just for fiction. I'm human.

Over the past few days on Twitter, I'd seen a few people discuss this comic called Our Love is Real. I had no idea what the plot was, but I picked up from the context of the tweets (and who was tweeting them) that there was some sort of social and/or political message that had to do with sexuality and/or gender.

So I gave in and bought it last night.

[Technical tangent!] Incidentally, this is the fist comic I have bought and read using comiXology. I don't have an iPad, but I do have an iPhone 4. I know some people might be worried by the smaller screen size, but I found it a total pleasure to read the book. The GuidedView actually added a fun new aspect to reading, and the art looked crisp and "lifelike". I am the kind of person who loves technology, though, so take my rave review of the app (and it is rave, I may go to digital-only when I start reading regularly again) with a grain of salt.

[Non-technical point of the post!] This story takes place in some sort of undisclosed future, "five years after the AIDS vaccine". On its face, it's a story about a dog-loving cop who enjoys beating on veggie-loving deviants, then gets his world turned upside down when he meets a crystal-lover named Brin. And by loving, I mean having-sex-with. Our unhero has a girlfriend named Chynna, who is a poodle. They have sex, and this is considered the norm. He beats on people who alter plants so they can have sex with them, and then he meets someone who finds the idea of physical sex disgusting, because sex with a crystal is so much better.

Still with me?

It's also a social commentary (obviously) and... kinda a love story, too.

I really enjoy the art style, which makes Jok, the unhero, look like an overgrown bully and Brin like his polar opposite. I particularly noticed the really nice style during a fight scene towards the end of the book. I went back and read it a second time because I liked it so much. And I'm notoriously picky about fight scenes. So I'll say that Steven Sanders' art is right up my alley and is definitely a plus to the book (and it looked great on my retina display thingie).

There are a few plot holes that have more to do with world-building than anything else, and that I can forgive because it's a one issue sorta thing. For instance, I wonder how the human race procreates if the accepted sexuality is bestiality. I just assume that there are some people who still have sex with humans. Maybe there is a caste system, and all the cops happen to be into dogs. I don't know. Maybe if we saw more of this world, we'd get more answers.

The issue I've always had with these kind of stories is that you have to get past this ridiculous idea that will probably never happen, and the story that's told has to be universal anyway. That's sort of the deal with all science fiction and fantasy, but this subgenre of speculative fiction takes it to a whole new level. Do I really believe that five years after we eradicate AIDS we'll suddenly be a society that is okay with bestiality? Nooooo. Do I accept bestiality as a stand-in for homosexuality? Noooo.

[Tangent!] There are always issues of consent when something like bestiality comes up, and I think OLIR skirts them by imbuing the only dog we actually see with some form of intelligence and the context of genetically altering sexual artners, the way the "veggie sexuals" do. Maybe these particular dogs can consent, which is why it's become an accepted, non-deviant sexuality. I don't think that's the point of this story, though. I really don't. [End tangent!]

I don't have to accept one as a stand in for another. Because bestiality and homosexuality both exist in this world. And Jok makes it known that he has a bitch at home. His dog's a lady. And he's actually uncomfortable at the idea of being sexually attracted to males. About as uncomfortable at the idea of being attracted to humans, anyway.

This setting also allows Humphries and Sanders to play around not only with our preconceived notions of sexuality, but also gender. Does the fact that your partner may have two genders (a plant) or no genders (a crystal) make a difference? Does your gender matter if your partner is a tree?

I liked Our Love is Real because it created a world that made these questions come up, and forced the readers, even if only in a small way, to consider their views on deviant behavior. But when we put our preconceived notions of gender and sexuality aside, where do we end up?

Asari: Bluer than your matriarch's Orion slave girls!

2011-06-23T13:45:00.001-04:00

I was originally going to title this post "Asari: the unGender" before I realized that my whole point is that they're not ungendered (read on!). Whatever, I've been waiting fifteen years to make a 7-Up unCola joke; it was too good an opportunity to miss! See, one of my all-time favorite games is Cool Spot. If you haven't played it, it's one of the last whimsical, fun side-scrollers. In my opinion. I would venture to say that it's the best licensed-property game I've ever played. I would.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about some asari.

You want to talk about asari?

The reason I want to talk about the asari is because of their gender. As someone who identifies off the gender binary, I'm forced almost every day to consider issues of gender as they pertain to my life. I've found that a lot of people I interact with don't think about these things. There's "womanly" and "manly" and there are the "deviants" who act "too feminine" or "too masculine" for whatever gender we assign to them based on their biological sex.

As an aside, I'm writing with the assumption that the reader has a basic concept of critical gender theory. If you don't, uh. Google "critical gender theory" and go from there. Everything I write, as always, is only my opinion as I observe things with a critically trained, but still fannish, eye. I'm happy to answer specific questions about stuff, but I really am not a good teacher. I swear. I also write this only to start a discussion on the topic, not to complete one. My thoughts are scattered and unprofessional, for I am scattered and not a professional.

So the asari, we are told, are monogendered. Liara, the adorable archaeologist asari (see what I did there?), says "male and female have no meaning for us."

I think it's helpful to ignore the gendered pronouns and descriptors that characters use in-game to describe asari. I have only played the game in English, I'd be curious to know what other languages use for the asari. Arguably, we don't have words that are equivalent to the words aliens use to describe themselves. So we end up with our words used in the best way they can be, which may be lacking such as "mother" and "father" or "matriarch", "maiden" and "matron" (which are pretty much shout outs to the triptych feminine goddess/es of many cultures).

Basically, "the only water in the forest is the river." (Sorry, Doctor Who reference.)

But the codex exists to describe things in our terms. Theoretically. And this is what we get from the codex:

"[W]hile asari have only one gender, they are not asexual like single-celled life—all asari are sexually female."

The definition of sexually female that we've established seems to be pretty simple. Females produce ova (eggs!). Even plant-females. But that's not how the asari reproduce, so it's not really applicable. So if the asari are female, they are female in a way that females from our planet are not. But... what way?

I call shenanigans! And here's why.

First: they have mammaries. Or two sacs of something hanging off their chest. If they're not mammaries, they're a pretty good imitation of mammaries, and I find it really hard to believe that an entire non-mammaried species would get implants just to fit in. But since they don't reproduce the same way mammals do, these are apparently vestigial mammaries. Unless they produce milk, which just makes it even harder to buy that the asari are completely different from human females. Either way, the mammaries stand out. Er. You know.

Second, and more importantly: the Mass Effect series is written by humans for human consumption. We are applying our rules, values, and social mores to fictional species. For the most part, the people writing mainstream media think there are only two genders and that those genders are fixed, with only a little bit of wiggle room (such as "tom boys"). They also create games written for the eyes of a particular consumer. Despite what the game tells us about gender having no meaning to the asari, it has a lot of meaning to us. And all of the signs BioWare gives me are pointing towards the asari being, generally, feminine women.

When I see blue-skinned humanoids with what appear to be mammaries dancing up on tables or down in laps in Chora's Den, I immediately think of one thing.

Orion Slave Girl

When I find out that the main sex worker on the Citadel is a blue-skinned humanoid with what appear to be mammaries, who visibly only employs women, connections happen in my brain. For comparison here, the Blooming Rose in Dragon Age 2 has a variety of sex and gender options in your preferred sex worker. That says to me that BioWare probably knew exactly what they were doing, at least by the time of Mass Effect 2. They were stocking a brothel with one gender, made up of feminine women. (I know that ME2 was released first, but they were in development at the same time. And I've been told DA:O had similar options to DA:2.)

There are more signs. Liara's armor is the feminine version in Mass Effect, for example. Azure. Samara's outfit. Morinth's succubus-like story. The way the asari talk. Some are big and some are small, but there are plenty of parts of the games that scream "the asari are feminine".

There are two notable exceptions to all this femininity. Aria T'Loak, who is ruthlessly in charge of an entire space station, and Matriarch Aethyta, who's given a deeper voice and more predatory behavior that generally invokes a sense of masculinity. Considering she's probably Liara's father, I don't think that's a coincidence.

My point is that even if the asari have only one sex and one gender inside their fictional universe, and even though they say that human gender concepts don't apply to them, BioWare wants us to think of them as feminine unless they are in masculine roles (the head of a criminal society or a known character's "father"), and BioWare very clearly makes them appear female.

It's a missed opportunity to show us twenty-first century humans living in a very rigid culture what it means to really not have gender be a concern, to really be an ungendered species or a fluid-gendered species or an openly multi-gendered specie, to really be a species that is completely alien to our sensibilities, and to therefore knock our sensibilities around a little and make us question what we think of as the norm.

Is it a video game company's job to do that? I don't know. But they think it's their job to comment on racism (sorta) and deal with sexism (kinda). In a game series about a galaxy full of aliens, why does everyone have to seem so human?

Dear Comics: Stop Killing People

2011-06-13T13:40:00.001-04:00

As you know, if you read my blog or follow me on twitter (@retconning), I haven't been able to keep up with comics in the buy-them-every-week way. I don't have the money, as I am one of the horde of underemployed people in the world. But I follow in other ways, via comic blogs and twitter feeds, and I've kept pretty much up to speed on storylines and the various developments involving my favorite characters.

But somehow I'd missed the news that Bucky Barnes was dead.

When I finally found out, it hit my like a sucker punch to the gut.

I wrote about why I love Bucky in the role of Captain America nearly two years ago. Not much has changed in that time. And, yeah, I knew they were going to give the role of Cap back to Steve Rogers because of the movie. I was okay with it. I figured Bucky could head somewhere else, do good work, be the same interesting and intense guy he is, just without the shield.

But, nope. Had to kill him.

Why? Does this change anything? Help to character growth? Steve already lost Bucky once. The Avengers already lost Captain America. Natasha has lost lovers. This isn't new.

Then I got angry. I can understand how fans of Captain America felt when he was killed, but there was never any doubt he'd be back. And I know what you're saying now: "Psh, it's comics. He'll be back."

Maybe.

Maybe, but it was still a pointless death of a great character to "advance" the storyline of a character who hasn't done anything new in forty years.

I won't compare DC's treatment of legacy characters to Marvel's. They both have their faults. But DC doesn't seem afraid of letting its second and third generation characters exist next to its originals. There are currently three Flashes: Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West. There are two Green Arrows: Oliver Queen and Connor Hawke. The universe isn't worse for it, they're better, because those other characters are awesome.

Besides, Bucky isn't a second generation character. He's been with Steve from the beginning. He was never "Kid America", he was Bucky and then he was Winter Soldier and then he was Captain America. He wasn't a sidekick, he was a scout. And then he was a hero. And the he was a leader.

And now he's dead.

And it still feels pointless.

RIP, Bucky Barnes.

X-Men First Class: We Don't Need No Stinking Allegories

2011-06-10T11:11:00.002-04:00

I wanted to give X-Men First Class some time to settle in my brain before I wrote down my opinions about it. There have been a lot of fantastic responses on the internets regarding the portrayal of race and gender in a movie set in a time very unfriendly to people of color and women (more unfriendly than now), and they said a lot of what I was thinking.

There has also been a lot of talk about the continued use of the X-Men movies as an allegory for the struggle of GLBT people.

The day before I went to see the movie, I read a review on AfterElton.com (spoilers!):

These gay parallels were edgy and interesting in 2003 (and in 2000, when the first X-Men movie came out). But in 2011? It hasn't just been done — it's about as far from edgy as you can get. Why not an actualgay mutant, not just mutants as metaphors for gays? Even the "assimilation or separatist" debate has long since been settled by most GLBT folks.

Ignoring that last statement, which is completely ridiculous and fodder for another post all together, I think that's a valid question. Har har, there was a "Don't Ask Don't Tell" joke nearly a year after it was overturned. Timely! Don't worry though, that guy's in love with a lady (who likes ladies also, but only in the comics and not in the movies... yet), so you won't have to actually see anything involving same-sex affection. Whew!

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internets, I started to see a lot of fan reaction from a lot of people talking about the chemistry of Charles Xavier (James MacAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender). Not just saying they had good chemistry, or that they were great in their roles - there was that too - but sexualizing the interaction they had with each other.

What really blew me away about this was people with fairly progressive and critical mindsets walking out of a movie that's arguably about the terrible way we treat people who are different and deciding to fetishize the relationship between two men. And a few times actually getting defensive when called on it, criticizing people who didn't hold the same opinion.

If you're a comic fan, you may remember when Hal Jordan, in A Cry For Justice, mentioned having a threesome with Lady Blackhawk and Huntress. There was a lot of intra-community backlash, including a lot of people asking why two women can't just have a friendship without there being anything sexual about it.

I started to feel guilty about my reaction to the First Class stuff and my discomfort with the way people - mostly women, from what I saw - were sexualizing something that, to me, was platonic. After all, I completely hone in on subtext between two women all the time. I've been doing it since Xena: Warrior Princess, and I still do it in Rizzoli & Isles.

But then I realized: I'm looking for representation. Representation of me and the kind of relationships that I have. I'm not looking for two women to have sex to titillate me. I'm looking for myself on the screen. And I'm not finding me there.

Look at me, I'm back at my point.

I don't think we need gay parallels in movies. I don't think we need allegories anymore. I think we need actual legitimate, well-written, three dimensional lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters on our screens.

The X-Men titles have a few that could be used. One was already in the movie. Mystique is interesting! She can change her gender at will, and has been in at least one long-term relationship with a woman. But we don't see any of that. We see a girl with low self-esteem who throws herself at men. Okay.

People like me, the people who have longed for representation in the media we love, could use some real stories. Maybe the X-Men movies aren't the place to get those stories. But don't pretend. It's 2011, and we don't need allegories any more. We need our stories.

Goodbye, Sarah Jane.

2011-04-19T22:32:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, right as I was popping Portal 2 into my XBox, the news broke on Twitter that Elisabeth Sladen had died. I immediately freaked out, then decided to wait for confirmation, which eventually came.

For those of you who don't know, Elisabeth Sladen played Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who, a character who has been a companion of two Doctors, a friend of five, and has had two of her own spin-off shows. She started in the role in 1973 with the third Doctor, kept on with the fourth, came back for an episode with the fifth and the tenth (the first moment I appreciated David Tennant as the Doctor was when he saw Sarah Jane for the first time and his face lit up), and had the eleventh on her own show

She was an icon. Of feminism in the seventies, of aging brilliantly in the new century. She bridged the gap between the old Doctor Who and the new one. The now non-canonical Sarah Jane Smith audios are still some of my favorite Doctor Who-related adventures of all time.

It's funny, because the reaction to her death has been really strong. I felt like someone kicked me in the chest. A friend tweeted that she was almost crying while out shopping. Another told me she felt like crying, and asked if it was a stupid feeling. I said to someone that I felt silly feeling as upset as I do, and she said it's not silly at all.

And I think that's a thing that I love about Doctor Who. If you're really in it, if you're traveling along on the adventures with this crazy man, if you go to conventions or signings, if you really love what this show is and what it stands for (if you connect in any of these ways or in your own way), it makes friends out of strangers. It turns people into loved ones that otherwise wouldn't be. And when they go, it hurts.

Elisabeth Sladen's death is sad. I am sad. I wish the best to her family and friends, to those that really knew her. And to my fellow fans I'll just end with a quote that's been wandering around the internet today, because it's true. And it's time to say goodbye.

"No. The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... Everything has its time. And everything ends"

River Song and Lois Lane; Don't Call Them Cougars. They Might Hurt You.

2011-03-30T14:17:00.000-04:00

With less than one month until the return of Doctor Who (eee!) a new trailer was released today.

There's a lot of awesomeness right there, but mostly there's River Song. Because River Song is amazing. (If you don't like River Song, feel free to tell me why. Try not to base it on Rose Tyler, though, because then I will pay absolutely no attention to you.)

River Song isn't just amazing because of her innate bad-assery, intelligence, and beauty. River Song is amazing because she's being played by a forty-seven year old actress, in an action-heavy part, against a twenty-eight year old actor. In a love story.

Over the weekend, there was a lot of buzz around the decision to cast Amy Adams as Lois Lane, because she's thirty-six, and Henry Cavill is twenty-seven. The questions about whether she's too old are ridiculous, but keep coming. Mostly from big media outlets. And then the counter-voices mention that the classic Lois/Supes combo of Kidder/Reeves involved an older Lois.

There's a lot of talk these days of fanboys and what they can and can't handle, what they will and won't freak out about, and what studios will and won't do to please them (and whether they should).

I'm not saying there's 100% overlap between Doctor Who fans and Superman fans. And, sure, the Doctor is a 900 (ish) year old Time Lord who could regenerate into the body of a seventy year old man (though that doesn't seem to be the way the BBC is going, does it?). But we all know looks count, and we all know plenty of us have fandom overlaps.

I think maybe the media outlets who keep perpetuating this age thing should look around various fandoms. The people who care about the age aren't the hardcore fans. Because we know better.

Sucker Punch: A Dreamer's Nightmare

2011-03-25T15:32:00.001-04:00

I just got back from seeing Sucker Punch. Yep, opening day by myself. I'm working on getting over the idea that the movies need to be a social event, especially since I can just come home and be social about it with people on the internet.

While I was in the theater, a friend of mine tweeted a link to an article at i09 about how terrible the movie is. It makes a few good points, but I look at it in a very different way.

[Spoilers both at that link and in the rest of my post.]

First let me say that there are definitely some issues with the movie. I'm not into the school girl thing or the naughty nurse thing, so the outfits of Emily Browning and Jenna Malone sort of rubbed me the wrong way (as opposed to the right way, which I think was the intent). But some people are into that, sort of like I'm into the Grunge-Lady-Knight of Sweet Pea or the Steampunk-Soldier of Blondie (Abbie Cornish and Vanessa Hudgens, respectively). Their nicknames were ridiculous and seemed to come from nowhere with absolutely no explanation: a definite failing. And I really really could not get past Emily Browning's looking like a 15 year old - but that's an issue I have with her in everything, not just this movie. The fact that she's going to be the lead in a retelling of Sleeping Beauty is super disturbing to me.

Abbie Cornish as Sweet Pea. Included 'cause she's my favorite.

But this is a mainstream action movie release in which all of the heroes are women. There are no romantic sublpots. Please feel free to let me know if there's another "big release" action movie out there with no romance involved, especially ones with supposed female leads, because I can't think of any off the top of my head. So basically it's a pretty intense movie just for its mere existence.

This doesn't excuse it from its faults, of course. After all, mainstream action movies, no matter who the story is about, are marketed towards dudes. That's just how it is. There may be women who want to go see this movie, there may even be lots of them, but the marketing machine (and therefore producers and other execs that make decisions) aren't aiming for them.

Still, the main criticism seems to be in the form of "girl in insane asylum imagines herself into whorehouse and then imagines herself into cheesy action movies" makes no sense whatsoever.

Not gonna lie, that was pretty much the thing I had the least issues with in this movie. Why? Because I use my imagination to escape the often crushing anxiety and depression I face in my day to day life. I have since I was a little kid. And I don't face things nearly as frightening as what Babydoll (sigh) faced. I incorporate my friends. I incorporate my surroundings. And I definitely make myself the superhero in my own action movie (and though I may wear more clothes, sometimes the lady I'm rescuing doesn't). I create an augmented reality in order to process the real reality in a way that doesn't leave me completely paralyzed.

So I've got not problem with the final level of the dream. And the whorehouse level... I think it was used as a gateway. And this reminds me of the debates I'd listen to (and sometimes partake in) all through college and law school. About pornography/prostitution and women's agency. Maybe Babydoll was giving herself agency by writing herself into a story about a prostitute who gives herself agency. Maybe in her mind - which is clearly not fully developed - it's a step up. Maybe it's a way for her to translate the horrors she's facing into something more glamourous, but nearly as terrible.

And that is the real problem with the story: too many maybes. We spent a lot of time seeing stylized action, or long close ups of Babydoll's (sigh) childish face. We didn't spend a lot of time on character development. So this is a so-so story, but a fun action movie starring women who do their best to take their awful, terrible lives into their hands.

I'm not a Snyder apologist. This is still a film made by a man (I often wonder what Deborah Snyder's role in making these movies is) for an audience expected to be mostly male. And framed that way, there are plenty of reasons that this movie isn't empowering (plenty). But I don't think it's a misogynist film any more than 300 was anti-Arab. I enjoyed watching women kick some ass. I enjoyed them forming bonds that weren't destroyed by jealousy over men. I enjoyed the fact that none of them kissed each other (I know, I know). I enjoyed the bittersweet ending, and the fantastic feel of the whole thing taken from start to finish. I also really enjoyed Abbie Cornish and would like to see her in more action films as the lead.

Oh, small tangent: I really enjoyed the soundtrack, which was almost exclusively female-fronted bands. It also had "Army of Me", by Björk that was in the Tank Girl film during a big moment that took place in a stylized whorehouse. Yep. (Tank Girl was directed by a woman, actually. And there are a few other similarities that I noticed during the film, from animated, imagined action sequences to outfits.)

Where was I?

Lots of issues with this film. Absolutely. Definitely not the most empowering movie out there (though I don't find Steel Magnolias empowering, and some people seem to). But I (personally) enjoyed it, and my problems with the film don't stem as much from the plot as the characters. I think Zack Snyder thinks he's made the next Buffy (though probably not consciously). He hasn't. But Buffy wasn't really Buffy either, if you really look at the characters and the situations they're in (that's a death-wish-laden thought for another time, though).

I don't really have a rating system. I'm not sure if I'd recommend this film to a lot of my friends. But I'd recommend it to some. And I don't regret seeing it, unlike some other movies I've seen recently (cough, Jane Eyre, cough). So. Take that as you'd like, and feel free to let me know your thoughts.

The Responsibility to Educate

2011-03-16T13:07:00.002-04:00

One of the things that happens when you write about Stuff is that people ask you questions about Stuff.

About a year ago, I wrote about the portrayal of Batwoman, Kate Kane, femininity, etc. and received a lot of comments on that post. One of the comments (if you don't feel like reading the link) got angry at me for calling Kate Kane a femme (I think the commenter misunderstood, personally, because I was only calling Batwoman a femme) and we got into a "discussion" about gender theory. I asked the commenter to inform us, since she (self-identified as a she) was very angry and not very clear. The response I got was that it's not her responsibility to educate. I agree. In fact, I said:

I'm not here to delve into the trenches of critical gender theory, I'm here to use my background of critical gender theory, my love of pop culture and comic culture, and my personal experiences to rant, rave, and/or praise the comics (and comic-related things) that I read and see.

The same stays true (though obviously expanded from comics). Obviously, writing the blog - and ranting a lot on twitter - means I want to share my viewpoints with a larger audience. And to that extent, I always welcome questions and conversations.

But how much are we - whatever the we is that's being tokenized - expected by people to educate just because we exist? If someone says a homophobic comment, do I have to tell them why they're being a homophobe, or can I just walk away? Is it my responsibility, as self-identifying gay person, to step up? Is a straight person expected to step up, too? I honestly don't think they are. A straight person may choose to say something, but I think that if they were to walk away there would be a lot less judgment on them.

I hate to say that it feels like it's very much "us vs. them", but it too-often does. And sometimes the us are part of the them (I am white and I have white privilege, and that means I will often be part of Them, and that's something I deal with) and that's something a lot of people have the ability to ignore.

When I talk about a comic book or video game's portrayal of gender and sexuality, it's because I choose to. But a lot of times, particularly when talking about issues of non-binary gender identity, I feel like it's because I have to. There aren't enough people saying these things.

I thought about this question a lot over the last weekend, at PAX East. I was frustrated - not by anyone in particular - by this idea that you have to speak up when something negative occurs, that you have to work to educate the community, because they won't educate themselves. Why won't they educate themselves?

Because they don't have to.

I think about Audrey Lourde's The Master's Tools a lot. I think about the heavy gender assumptions that go along with a lot of the critical gender and sexuality pieces I read about things I'm interested in. I think about all of the very feminine teenage girls on television who are coming our or defying labels, and I think about Franky Fitzgerald and how she's one of the most radical characters on scripted television since Lieutenant Uhura.

Franky Fitzgerald, from series five of Skins.

It makes me think I have a lot to say. But that's my choice. Right?

Gender and Mass Effect. Part One: Why? And Why Should You Care?

2011-03-13T22:52:00.001-04:00

I just got back from a whirlwind weekend of gaming at the PAX East convention. The gaming there isn't just video gaming, which is nice. In fact, 90% of the gaming I did this weekend was tabletop. I discovered a lot of cool new games (co-op and competitive) and made new friends. It was a shiny happy weekend of gaming!

During the weekend, there were also a bunch of panels on a bunch of things. Two of them, as I wrote in my last entry, were focused on gender. The third was a talk about diversity in general but that, of course, includes gender diversity.

Two of these panels were awesome in very different ways. One, sadly, set itself up to fall by making the focus on female characters and choosing to then focus on their physical aspects. Failure or success of the panel, though, the Mass Effect series did not get enough mentions.

It's really hard to find Mass Effect marketing image that doesn't involve m!Shep. Shame.

Yeah, that's right. Anyone that follows me on Twitter will not be surprised in the slightest that I brought ME up. Still! I have a valid point! Lesley told me so! In fact, at one point during the second (better) panel on gender issues in gaming, I leaned over to her and said something along the lines of "dude, this could be a whole panel. better yet, I'm going to write something about gender in Mass Effect," and she said something to the effect of "you are awesome, and I support your idea" and then we high-fived (this is the gist).

Okay, so why do I think the Mass Effect series should get a series of blog posts (I know it's been discussed elsewhere, but I don't recall seeing something beyond the asari angle)? And why should you care if you have never even heard of Mass Effect?

Answer the first: 'cause BioWare kinda did a damn find job of portraying female characters in their universe. Not only that, they did a decent (which is less than damn fine, but better than a lot of the games I've played) job of portraying female sexuality in their universe.

They also, and I'll talk about this, did a good job of portraying a relationship/relationships that are either gender blind or same-gendered, depending on your view (more on that when I talk about Liara and the asari), and of setting up a feeling of queerness that's there if you've got your receptors tuned. There's also a big, unfortunate hole there, but more on that later, too.

Basically, in a nutshell (what kind of shell would have me for a nut?), I think MassEffect has done it as right as any mainstream game out there.

But the reason you should care if you're not a gamer is 'cause MassEffect has done it more right than pretty much any form of mainstream media out there (besides comics). And if you're reading this at all, it's because you care about media. Or because you're my friend and are supportive. Either way, I appreciate you.

Speaking of friends, this discussion is going to be focused on two games (and some comics maybe), with brief comparisons if I feel like it. If you want to read what will be an awesome discussion of gender in gaming as a whole, go read my friend's blog at www.your-critic.com.

In the next few weeks, I'm going to spend some time delving into the universe of Mass Effect with an eye towards a critical discussion of gender and sexuality. Hopefully it'll be fun, entertaining, informing, and vaguely interesting. At the very least, it gives me an excuse to play through the games again...

It's PAX [East] Time!

2011-03-10T12:12:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the second PaxEast convention here in Boston. I'm more excited than I was last year because I'm way more involved in the gaming world than I was before. And a lot of that is because of last year's PaxEast. If not for the "girls in gaming" panel last year, I probably wouldn't have turned my critical eye towards games. I'd always had a kind casual awareness of gender/sexuality issues in gaming, but that panel lit a fire of rage in the belly of my... uh. Never mind.

Anyway, I'll be live-tweeting a lot of the panels I go to (it helped dispel my ire last year), but specifically the gender/sexualty based panels. There are a few on-topic ones this year:

Females on Female Characters (Saturday at 3pm)
The "Other" Us: If We're All Gamers, Does Our Gender Matter? (Saturday at 6:30pm)
One of Us (Sunday at 12pm)

I'm also going to a female gamer brunch meet-up on Sunday, which I'm suuuuper excited about, and not just 'cause it's brunch.

I'm also hoping to attend - and this is completely at the whim of my ability to schedule things - the Legal Issues in Gaming and the Video Game Comics panels (though I think the latter is scheduled against the keynote, so...).

For those out there with any interest in my opinion, the raw version will be on twitter @retconning and I'll try to condense and filter my thoughts into an eventual blog post here.

Also, my friend who writes way more often (and better) than I do is starting up a series called "Beyond the Girl Gamer", which you should go read at her blog, Your Critic is in Another Castle (www.your-critic.com).

So! Have a good weekend, hope to see people at Pax, follow me on twitter, etc. etc. etc.!

I Am Definitely Not Spartacus

2011-03-01T15:48:00.000-05:00

Over the last month or so, I've been watching Starz' (Starz's?) version of Spartacus, which is streaming on Netflix. I was resistant at first. I'm not sure why there was resistance. It's set in ancient Rome, an era I like, it's about fighting, an activity I like, it stars Xena (er, Lucy Lawless) and half the supporting cast of various episodes of Xena and Hercules, and I was told "it's a lot like 300".

Eventually, when I saw it streaming on Netflix and I was in between video game moods (I had beaten Mass Effect 2 for the fifth time and was getting stuck in a lot of subway tunnels in Fallout 3) I gave it a shot. (Also I found out Erin Cummings was in it.)

Woo boy.

Spartacus is sort of like 300 if they add in sex and Rome and the word "cock". A lot of the word cock. Mostly referring to Jupiter's. I can understand the comparison; stylistically it's very similar. There's a lot of CGI backgrounds (some better than others), muscley dudes wearing very little clothing, and lots of fighting.

Also Peter Mensah.

Doctore. Also the Persian dude that gets kicked into a well by Leonidas.

But there are a lot of differences also, and (blasphemy!) I sort of ended up liking Spartacus, overall, more than I liked 300. I think it benefits from the serialized nature of television in that it can tell a whole bunch of stories beyond just "buff dudes fight, blood, die!" (though the 300 movie fleshed out Gorgo's story from the comic, it was still pretty basic).

And that's where I stop comparing them, because Spartacus stands on its own. Despite the subtitle, it's about more than just Killing And Stuff. There's a lot of intrigue and weaving and interweaving of storylines, which is something I like. So props to the writers on that.

The acting's not half-bad, either.

I went into the show knowing that the lead, Andy Whitfield, wouldn't be continuing after s1 due to illness. So I tried not to get too attached. But the dude was so damn good. I'm giving Liam McIntyre a chance (he's a very charming, if not active, twitterer @Liam_J_McIntyre), but he's got a really large set of sandals to fill. Or boots, depending on the scene.

Andy Whitfield: Spartacus I

By now you can probably tell how they dress in this show.

Anyway, Whitfield brought a lot of depth to Spartacus that I wasn't expecting. He wasn't just sad, frustrated, smart, or arrogant. He was all of those things. And he evolved. I've written before of my love of character development, and Spartacus did well with it.

I think the most interesting character was the one I hated the most at first: Crixus. Crixus is the Alpha of the Gladiator pack, and is a big arrogant ass of assiness. For a little while. But by the end of the first season, I was actually sort of rooting for him to make the right decision (granted, history sort of spoiled me by being, well, historical... but still!).

And then there were the villains, Batiatus and Lucretia, played soooo well by John Hannah and Lucy Lawless. Lucretia especially. Being a woman in Roman times wasn't exactly the best situation, and Lucretia is basically one rung above a slave in the social construct, being the wife of a Plebian (not that they ever use the word). She is a master manipulator who, even when you think she's out-maneuvered, will somehow have gotten her enemy into a corner.

Well, until the end. (But that's history, so no one yell at me for spoiling.)

And after the spectacular end, we got a prequel. The six-part miniseries Gods of the Arena, which just finished up last week and managed to be nearly as awesome as the first season, with less episodes and no Spartacus. (It did have Jaime Murray, though. So there's that.) It rested heavily on the shoulders of John Hannah and Lucy Lawless, but they totally delivered. Someone give Lucy Lawless an Emmy or something, because Lucretia has become one of those most interesting, nuanced female roles on television. So give the writers an Emmy or something, too. And the relationship between Batiatus and Lucretia is really... strangely wonderful. They really love each other, they just happen to be twisted by their circumstances.

As you can tell, somewhere between the "this show is gonna suck" mentality I went into, and my annoyance that Netflix didn't have the finale of Gods of the Arena until daaaaaaaaaays after it aired, I got hooked on the show. I think it's because beneath all that blood, sand, sex (props again to them for having full-frontal male nudity to go along with the female nudity, because most "daring" shows don't give it the equal treatment) and cock-talk, there's actually a pretty deep show about class divides, social mobility, freedom, and the way human beings relate to each other.

The sex and violence are just sort of... red herrings. Pretty red herrings (yes, even the violence, because martial arts are neat), but not the point of the show.

By the way, the violence is violent. I'm not going to suggest this show to the faint of heart, even though sometimes it can be comic-style over-the-top violence. 'Cause sometimes it's not. And even the over-the-top stuff can be fairly graphic. So if you can't handle violence, don't watch the show.

And if you can't handle the sex, grow up. (Ahem.)

Shamim Sharif's Bookends: The World Unseen & I Can't Think Straight

2011-02-23T10:28:00.001-05:00

Shamim Sharif is - actually, I have no idea how she identifies herself, but she has a female partner and is of Indian decent - an author who a few years ago made a couple of films starring the same women, with similar underlying stories, but in vastly different settings.

The first to be filmed was I Can't Think Straight set in, mainly, modern London. The second was The World Unseen, set in South Africa right as apartheid was getting started. Both of these films are about two women who find each other and fall in love.

I can't really speak to the experience of women of color, Arab Christians, or Muslim women, let alone people living in apartheid-era South Africa. But I pride myself on seeing as many movies about women-who-are-into-women as possible (with the exception of movies that make me want to shoot the filmmaker, such as Kate's Addiction, which I refuse to even link to), as I am a woman-who's-into-women, and there aren't enough movies about us. Certainly not enough happy movies.

I think of I Can't Think Straight and The World Unseen as a pair not only because they share the same leads - Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth - but also because they seem like bookends, albeit in an oppositey sort of way. That's to say that in I Can't Think Straight, the two women you want to get together are finally able to overcome society and familiar pressures and have The Sex and to work through their issue and move on from The Sex to The Relationship (it's actually a lot like Imagine Me & You, but with way more issues of race and ethnicity thrown into the mix).

In The World Unseen, it's implied (in a very Fried Green Tomatoes way - there's even a cafe!) that they get to live happily ever after... giving each other longing looks and exchanging kisses in secret.

I don't mean to simplify these movies at all. They're very deep in cultural narrative, and I enjoyed both of them a lot, for different reasons.

The World Unseen was a more polished film. It was leaps and bounds ahead of I Can't Think Straight in production values (there were a lot of weird sound issues with ICTS) and editing. It carried the weight of its Very Important Issues well, touching not only on the forbidden love between two women, but the forbidden love between a black man and a white woman, rape, extra-marital affairs, and, of course, apartheid The title is very telling of what's going on: everything, and it's behind everyone's back.

I imagine that there are more realistic stories about apartheid-era South Africa (the violence seemed relatively minimal, but maybe this is my American bias expecting more), but it was still eye-opening in a lot of ways. And the scenery was beautiful. They actually shot it down in South Africa, and the scenery added a richness and a depth to the story that I'm not sure would have been there otherwise. Long-sweeping scenes of the plain, the wind blowing Lisa ray's hair and dress out behind her as she stared into the sunset... well, it was pretty to look at, and it absolutely drove home the issues of her isolation (and Shteth's characters old truck driving up the dirt road, leaving a trail of dust behind it, shattered that isolation really well).

This isn't to say the actors weren't great. They were. Shteth and Ray have amazing chemistry together, and everyone else was pretty good too, warring between self-repression and the desire to express what they really wanted. My only problem was that I went into the story expecting more of something like ICTS and didn't get it. I got a more subtle, nuanced story that wasn't just about two women meeting and falling in love, but about so much more.

And that's not to take away from ICTS, which was a good movie in its own way. Like I said above, there were some issues with sound, editing, and production value that took me a bit out of it, but it's a movie that I've rewatched a couple of times because it's happy. I want to watch a movie where women meet, fall in love, try to fight it, have The Sex, go through the inevitable Time Apart, but then Get There in the End.

Basically, I dig it when the girl gets the girl.

ICTS isn't completely removed from political and cultural issues, however, despite essentially being a romantic comedy. In this one we've got the wealthy Christian Arab (Ray) from Jordan and the middle-class Muslim raised in London. (Sheth) The latter expresses much more conservative opinions (there's a lot of anti-semitism thrown around, but in a smart way that is countered by characters who are saying what the average Western viewer is probably thinking), but turns out to be the free spirit.

There's a lot going on on the periphery of these two women's lives, but Ray and Sheth make that not really matter. Yeah, there's the coming out process, and it's important. Yeah, there's the cultural view of same-sex relationships both by a secular Arab world and western-raised Muslims. But the chemistry between the two leads is so encompassing that you don't really notice.

And that's why I think these movies are good book ends to each other. The chronologically (set) first ends with a vague sense of unease: these women, their friends, and their world, have fifty years of apartheid to deal with. Even now, same-sex couples aren't exactly looked upon kindly in most places (interracial couples too, depending on where you are). They're together, but the veil of secrecy remains there, blowing in the warm South African winds, over everything they do.

But the end of ICTS is all about embracing love through openness. And that's pretty awesome. It's doubly awesome when you watch it with The Unseen World in mind. These women have taken quite the journey, and where they end up feels like a nice place to be.

Leslie Knope: My Favorite Feminist

2011-01-21T11:05:00.003-05:00

NBC's Parks and Recreation returned recently to not nearly enough fanfare. It's one of the smartest shows on TV, and has been consistently good, after a rocky start, since the beginning of the second season. The entire cast is brilliant in their specific roles (Rashida Jones doesn't get enough love because she's playing the straight man to the wackiness of everyone else) and I honestly feel like the one loose end is now gone, with um... that dude... leaving. Brandanowitz. Or however that's spelled.

But the main reason I love this show is Leslie Knope. Leslie isn't like any of the other comedic leading ladies I've come to know in my life, except for one who I have vague memories of (more on that in a bit). Leslie is a feminist, and she wouldn't deny it if you said it.

Back in the nineties (remember those?) when "girl power" started floating around as a new term, and people were talking about new wave/fourth wave versions of feminism, they'd start talking about characters like Ally McBeal and Xena. More modern example are Liz Lemon or Starbuck.

Now, I remember Murphy Brown. Vaguely. I remember her journey through the male-heavy world of the news, and I remember the single mom kerfluffle when she became, well. A single mom. But I was ten. And a lot has changed in twenty years.

Right?

Well, supposedly.

See, if you call Liz Lemon a feminist, she'll probably crack a joke, freak out, then by the end of the show go on a rant about how feminism is great, it doesn't mean she's a lesbian, and she has a boyfriend, thank you very much. It's a mixed message, with a bit of what we need (a strong woman standing up for herself) and a bit of what we don't (the association of feminism with lesbianism, and the implication that both things are bad or abnormal).

If you call Leslie Knope a feminist, she'll say thank you and show you her signed copy of This Bridge Called my Back.

The thing is that there's a difference between a feminist icon and a feminist character. The former is a symbol for those of us at home, some sort of deviation (in a positive way) from the norm of the sterotypical strong male/weak female dichotomy. The latter is actually a feminist.

There aren't many of those on TV.

I love Leslie Knope because she's not an idiot (like Michael Scott, whom she is often compared to), and she cares about her community. And while it annoys her that she's single and makes her sad that she's lonely, it doesn't rule her life. I love Leslie because she's got a picture of Madeline Albright in her office (who, herself, looked up to Xena). I love Leslie because she's got civic pride and liberal pride and because she's completely and one hundred percent aware that sexism still exists (right along with racism, homophobia, classism, etc.) and she wants to do something about it.

My all-time favorite moment of Parks and Rec comes in the "Hunting Trip" episode. Leslie has managed to finally get herself invited to the "boys only" hunting trip, and brings the rest of the female cast with her. It's a premise that starts with the ridiculousness of someone who doesn't even like to hunt getting invited only because he's a dude, and builds from there to brilliantly and bitingly showcase the very real sexism that women still face every single day.

And then someone gets shot. Please enjoy one of the (arguably, and I'll argue it) single most feminist moments on television in the last thirty years.

I love you, Leslie Knope.

Greetings, programs. TRON: Legacy Review.

2010-12-18T10:20:00.007-05:00

I have been waiting for TRON: Legacy since I was old enough to know that movies had sequels. I've been nervously eying news about it since it was called TRON 2.0 or, worse, TR2N. I've had a google alert running for well over a year, slowly bringing me more and more news about the casting, development, filming, soundtrack, etc. etc. as each day passes.

To say I went in with expectations would be an understatement.

Still, as a fan of comics, I've gotten very very good at separating one iteration of something from another (a useful skill for things like I, Robot, I am Legend, and various other movies with Will Smith that start with both I and other letters).

So let's begin with my Twitter reviews posted last night:

Okay. Initial verdict: it was a pretty movie, not satisfying as a TRON sequel but totally satisfying on its own. #tronlegacy

I'm not just saying this because I follow her on twitter: @oliviawilde's character was definitely the most interesting (big picture-wise).

And a bit of a test on your SAT skills:

JJ Abrams Trek : Star Trek :: TRON Legacy : TRON

Yes, my iPhone has learned to correct Tron and tron as TRON.

I know that they keep saying TL is not a re-imagining, but a sequel. Honestly, as a fan of the original, it's much easier to think of it as a re-imagining akin to Star Trek XI. The things happening in this movie exist in a parallel world to those of the original, and yay everyone's happy.

'Cause, really, as a movie it's a lot of fun. It's beautiful to watch (I saw it non-IMAX 3D), the plot has holes but is saved by certain characters and actors, and the ending until the last sixty seconds is both satisfying and open-ended enough for a potential sequel. It remains open-ended during those last sixty seconds, but... well. I can't even tell you what it is a direct rip from, or it'll be some heavy spoilers (actually, I guessed it anyway about two days ago, but I'm trying to refrain from spoilers here).

So Sam Flynn is the cranky son of genius Kevin Flynn, whose ability to program video games and get digitized by an evil computer program have also imbued him with the ability to be a really good executive at Encom. Flynn the Elder disappears and Flynn the Younger grows up with various father figures and a big, archetypal chip on his shoulder that includes parkour skills, outrunning the police while his dad's old Ducati, having tons of money but drinking Coors Light, living in a swank bachelor pad, and pulling genius pranks on the company he now owns.

And then it gets interesting, because he gets digitized too.

There are a lot of questions that pop up for a fan of the original. Flynn yuppied out? Who's Sam's mom? Why won't Alan get contact lenses? WTF is Cillian Murphy doing at Encom? [Sshh, he's playing a completely inexplicable character that apparently exists as a shout-out to the original, which isn't really needed in the sea of other shout outs... but I hope they use him in the sequel.]

Who decided programs should have hair?

Luckily most of these questions can be answered by remembering that we're in an alternate universe ~~where Nero has come through and changed history~~ and not in the universe of the first TRON.

Flynn the Elder has basically become a cross between Gandalf the White and The Dude, which is absolutely fine because Jeff Bridges can pull that off in a heartbeat. He's not as adept at pulling off the bad guy, until the bad guy's real motivations are revealed. His origins are revealed in cut-scene flashbacks, some with animation lifted directly from Tron: Evolution, the video game that is supposed to bridge the gap between films (but is mostly just a digital version of Assassin's Creed 1).

The motion capture animation that made Jeff Bridges a younger Flynn the Elder was pretty neat. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that I bought Clu as a character. It helped that he was supposed to be a computer generated character, quite literally. And, overall, I have to say that this was a gorgeous film to watch. The world was exactly as beautiful as all of the released footage made me think it would be, but on a larger scale. I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever about the visuals of this movie, aside from the film's insistence on relying on physics that it doesn't need: evident in the first disc game, when gravity shifts and the camera inexplicably doesn't, something that looks particularly sloppy in the world after Inception.

The enemy's gate is down, guys.

The plot had its share of archetypes, tropes and holes. I won't go into too many here, because I really don't want to spoil the parts of the plot that were interesting and good, but Sam Flynn was pretty much the worst protagonist since - actually, I can't think of a protagonist I have disliked as much in the past. This isn't a comment on Garrett Hedlund; he was just fine in the role he was given. It's that Sam as written was unlikeable, stereotypical, and grating.

Until I stopped thinking of him as the protagonist.

Joseph Kosinski said in one of the many many interviews I read that TL was the story of two sons, and the TRON world let him tell that story in a new way. It wasn't and it was, but if you think of it as offspring and they are Clu and Quorra, and Sam is just the plot device that is being used to move you to the real characters - Clu, Quorra, and Flynn the Elder - then Sam is fine. He serves his purpose and does it just fine, with a bit of yelping and inexplicable martial arts skills.

And that's where Tron: Legacy gets good. The story isn't about Sam at all, so the fact that he's unlikable is something that can easily be ignored. As easily as James Frain's (love that guy) weird sycophant.

Olivia Wilde inhabits Quorra well, which is nice to write. I'm a fan of hers and Quorra is something different than her usual world-weary characters. She's naive, full of life and hope, and even though her shoulder-cut outfit makes even less sense when you watch the movie, she holds her own against the majority male cast.

The only other female character of note turns out to be exactly what you think she's going to be, and it's not a positive portrayal. But it was nice to see Beau Garrett have a larger role than I expected, and every movie needs its femme fatale. Well, no it doesn't, but screenwriters seem to think so.

All in all, the actors are fine. But what do you expect from the likes of Michael Sheen and Jeff Bridges? There's a reason they're big name actors that win awards: they're good at what they do. Garrett Hedlund does exactly what he needs to, and Michael Sheen is a lot of fun.

The main issue I had was that we're supposed to believe that Flynn created all of these programs. No one but a user can create programs, they can only repurpose or derezz them. So where does the free will come from? This was a question in the first movie, but because of the plot of this one it becomes even more of an issue.

But the plot isn't really the point of TRON: Legacy. The point is that it's a pretty movie with pretty people and a perfect soundtrack (many kudos to Daft Punk, who won me over with their gorgeous, ambient soundtrack and score, despite my love for Wendy Carlos) and it tells a familiar story well enough to be satisfying on its own. It's exactly what I want from typical Hollywood big-budget movies and even though it has the TRON name on it, it's better on its own as its own movie.

Go see it. If you're reading this blog, you're the the type that will enjoy it. Or hate it and comment here and tell me why. Either way...

End of line.

Queer in Albion: Fable 3 Playthrough One [and a half] Review

2010-11-09T11:18:00.004-05:00

Author's Admission of Idiocy: Uh, I figured out how to adopt without giving the orphanage money as the monarch. So that basically makes 2/3 of the following entry pointless. Leaving it up anyway, because I always enjoy revisiting my ignorant indignation. [11/10/10]

As I get a bit less immersed in comics (mostly because I let myself go crazy and started collecting too many titles and am now nearly-broke), I'm going to start writing about other things that take my time up. So here's the first one about video games. Enjoy, and I'd love to hear what you think.

Warning: This review/commentary/rambling will most definitely contain spoilers to the main storyline (and probably several of the sidequests) of the recently-released Fable 3. So don't read it if you don't want to be spoiled. The end!

Alright, I got Fable 3 the day it released. I'm a huge fan of the Fable series and see them as sort of a spiritual descendant of the Zelda games. They're ridiculously easy to play, but very immersive and with a good fantasy-era storyline. Instead of adding stupid 3D control styles (I haven't really enjoyed a Zelda game since "Ocarina of Time"), they introduce choice and customization and keep the fighting simple.

As with the Mass Effect games (which I intend to discuss later), most of the marketing showcases the male player-character. But as of Fable 2, there's also been a female choice. And along with that female choice comes all sorts of neat ways to customize your character. She can wear men's clothes (there's even an achievement for this), she can wear facial hair, she can marry another lady... but in Fable 2, a same-sex marriage (whether with males or females) meant no kids.

Fable 3 changed that with the introduction of adoption.

Except... not really.

Before I get into that, I would like to say that I'd give this game a 7/10 for a lot of reasons. The world is large and interesting, the continuation of the world of Albion into a steampunk type place on the brink of violent revolution is interesting, and the Road to Rule is a way better way of customizing than having to earn specific orbs for skills. But I found the main storyline abrupt in its ending (at least on the first play through) and the moral of the story was that the good leader is still the bad leader. I'm not sure how I feel about that at this point.

Still, for any fan of the Fable series, it's a great game and definitely worth more (with money-to-play ratio) than the other game I got the same day, which was Force Unleashed 2.

General Thoughts on the Game
And now, just to make this a quasi-legit review, here's my breakdown of improvements versus, um. Unimprovments (TM) between Fable 2 and Fable 3:

Improvements:

The Road to Rule. It's nice not to have to kill enemies in a certain way to be guaranteed an upgrade in that particular class, and I'm glad to have all the dyes and expressions in one area. Makes it easier to customize my character without hunting all over the place.
Weapon customization based on actions, instead of total body customization. No more disgusting evil characters. I've often said that evil would look fairly pretty.
The Sanctuary. Way better GUI for all your options than just the plain old start menu.
The gnomes. Way easier to find than those damn stupid gargoyles.
Job upgrades via the Road to Rule instead of through gold earned.
Multiplayer. Seems easier than before, though I'll admit that I haven't really gotten into it yet.
Using the map to manage properties, families, etc.

Things I miss:

The expression wheel. I've got all these expressions, let me choose different ones!
The ability to hold multiple types of food. If I want to get drunk I have to get rid of my carrots? Hell no!
Black dye. I hear it's in an upcoming DLC. Bring it on, yo.
The economy. I don't find shopping or trading to be as useful as I did before, particularly because you can only give gifts when they're specifically requested and because there are now only a few places where you can sell your items.

New things I could live without/things I'd like to see:

The Big Bad. I hope there's a Fable 4 to resolve all that. It seems sort of, like I said, abrupt. Maybe I'll catch more as I complete my second playthrough.
No integration of Fable 2 game saves. I know it's possible, since ME2 does it. My hero of the Spire was a woman, why is the previous hero a king and not a queen?
Relationship quests. Snore.
Why can't I set my spouse as a target? She's a pain to find in Bowerstone Industrial.

Having Kids in Albion: Where does the pollen go?

So. Kids. Let me tell you a bit about my first playthrough of the game. I chose the princess, who was forced to wear pink, bow-covered pajamas and flirt with some dude during the prologue. I usually make my first playthrough a good character, so the dude ended up dying and as soon as I was out in the world, I got my princess into some better clothes. Men's clothes.

I got married to the first lesbian character I could find, which was a pain in the ass (interestingly, now that I'm playing through as a male I'm having trouble finding straight women). I did it just to see what would happen. I was exploring the social aspects of the game as I ran through the main storyline (and some sidequests, which also forced opposite sex relations on me, such as seducing the bad husband in "A Marriage of Inconvenience").

So we got married in a nice ceremony on a bridge somewhere, and then I tried to figure out how to adopt kids. No luck. I made it to Bowerstone Industrial, where the orphanage apparently was, completed the quest to save the people who ran it, and... nothing.

Not until I became queen. By then I'd divorced my first wife and married someone hotter, because, hey. It's good to the the princess (that's a Mel Brooks reference, btw). I had to wait until half a year into my rule to decide to open the orphanage.

What?

So a heterosexual couple can have babies whenever, but a same-sex couple has to wait until the game is almost over. This honestly isn't much of an improvement. Not to mention that you can't adopt babies, only toddlers.

But the worst part of this, besides the delay, is that you make money from having kids. There's some sort of kid benefit (which later on you can abolish or increase) that a heterosexual couple can start collecting basically right after you open up Brightwall. A same-sex couple doesn't have access to that until, well. It might already be gone. It's at least 10 hours more into the game, though.

This sort of detracts from the the whole "you can choose whatever you want" idea behind the series. It penalizes you, literally, for choosing to marry someone of the same-sex. I'm not disappointed, really, because Lionhead has been so good about this kind of thing since day one. It's hard to say something this minor (relatively) could ruin the whole game for me. And it didn't, I still enjoyed the game.

But now I'm playing through as the prince, and it's a whole different world. I've got kids in every port, and I'm raking in the cash.

I also find, incidentally, that I prefer to play as males. I could get into my theories on my gender identity as expressed through games, but I think it comes down to the fact that males just look cooler (in a totally subjective way) in most of the games I choose to play. The only exception, really, is Mass Effect. In that one, I only chose a male!Shep so I could sleep with Miranda in ME2.

I'm shallow like that.

How Scott Pilgrim Got me back to the comic shop.

2010-09-15T11:03:00.006-04:00

I've been gone awhile. No big secret there. In fact, I haven't read a weekly-issue comic book in ages. They're sitting on my shelves, waiting to be organized and read, and I just haven't had the motivation. I didn't even have the motivation to go to the store to pick up my subs.

Why?

Not sure. Money became tight for a bit, and shelling out $30 a week, or more, just wasn't as viable for me. Blackest Night ended and Lian Harper died and Ollie killed a dude and Steve Rogers was back and Barry Allen was back and Bruce Wayne was on his way back, while Batwoman ended up off the pages of Detective Comics, Bart Allen was stuck as Kid Flash, and there were five billion new Avenger teams to follow. So there wasn't a lot drawing me to the titles I'd followed.

Then I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I'd never read the books before, but the adorable story and styling of the movie interested me. It's hard for me, in my cynical old age (har har)to really get behind another dorky-dude-gets-the-awesome-girl heterosexual love story. But this dorky dude wasn't exactly dorky. Or he was, but it was the sort of dork I saw in myself. Because what dork doesn't want to be the best fighter in the province? Right?

So I thought to myself "I will go buy these books and see if they are as enjoyable as the movie". So far, yes (obviously, as source tends to be better than adaptation usually). And while I was in the comic shop, I picked up all the books that had been waiting for me for months.

And a Flash plushie (in my mind, that's Bart).

So I'm back. And I've decided I'm going to expand my discussion a little from comics and comic-related things to other Stuff I Like. Science fiction, video games, television, movies, and the occasional random pop culture bit of fluff. I've been heavy into video games lately, and I have a a few things I want to say - mostly about Mass Effect - about those. It'll keep me posting more regularly as I catch up with what brought be here in the first place, comic books.

30 Days of DC Meme. Day 8: Favorite Film

2010-07-14T10:41:00.002-04:00

I'm cross-posting this directly from Tumblr, because I have no idea how the comments work over there, and was hoping to foster some discussion.

Okay. Hear me out on this. I've written a little bit about this in various places, but let me try to filter everything into a bulletted list of why I like this movie. I completely understand some of the criticisms (and welcome discussion), but to me this is my absolutely favorite comic adaptation. That should be considered something separate than a comic movie, really, since the Superman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc. movies may be based off a bunch of things (focusing on origins usually) but aren't direct adaptations of a singular story. Still, they're all comic movies and they should all be considered.

First, please watch the gorgeous opening sequence. This is about 40 pages worth of comic (and prose) back story set to the perfect song and turned into a poignant, nostalgic, perfect look back at this past that is not-quite our past. They should have won an Oscar for Best Short Film for this. I could watch over and over.
Second, I know it wasn't completely faithful to the storyline. No giant squid (oh dear, I've spoiled you). But I felt that what they did do worked perfectly as a 21st century adaptation of the story. We're facing an energy crisis in a completely different way than they were when the story was written. Not giving us immediate access to the electric cars of the original story, having it be something tangible that comes out of Adrian's mass destruction (which was no longer limited only to NYC, thankfully), made the sacrifice of the people, and of Doctor Manhattan, much more poignant. We, as a nation, made it through 9/11. England made it through 7/7. Madrid... there are places where bombings and terrorism bring people together for a bit. And then we're divided again. I think Adrian's plan was a perfect way, in this new age of terrorism that is nothing at all like they were dealing with 25 years ago, to get his goal accomplished.
Casting. Damn fine casting. My only dislike was Adrian, and that was minor.
Get over the blue penis, people. Seriously.
They obviously put so much care into set design, costume, etc. that it really felt like the comic had come to life. Even if there were cuts from the story and things changed, I felt like I was watching one of my all time favorite comic books come alive in front of me.
This movie was made with love by a fan for fans. And as a fan, I appreciated that. And loved it.

Help, I'm Alive.

2010-07-06T16:14:00.003-04:00

Hi there.

In an effort to get myself back into the swing of things, I will be doing a "30 Days of DC" meme, in conjunction with my friend Anika (the Fantastic Fangirl), who's doing a "30 days of Marvel" version that she found on tumblr.

This was all her idea, and I love it.

I'll be posting the images to my tumblr, but I figured I could use this blog to write more detailed explanations, if there are some. I'll either consolidate or only post a few so as not to be annoying and have 30 days of posts.

Or maybe I'll be annoying and have 30 days worth of posts.

[BTW, 1979semifinalist, thank you for the nomination/award. I'm aware and am writing up a response, I just want to get a good list of blogs together and have been slammed at work. It's so so appreciated, though!]

Women Don't Sell (Unless they're in bathing suits.)

2010-03-16T12:39:00.004-04:00

At the recent Gallifrey One convention in LA, I went to this panel about transforming comics into other media. There was an interesting mix of creators there (6 men and 1 woman), and some guy who sat on the end and basically spent his introduction time telling us about upcoming comic movies we can go pay to see.

One of them was Ant-Man.

I was in the second row and had my hand up pretty much right away, to ask about the total lack of superhero women in comic movies, considering some of the awesome women flying around comics right now (Batwoman, Ms. Marvel, Wonder Woman, just to name a few). I said something about how even Wonder Woman has name recognition that they can play off of. Javier Grillo-Marxuach says she wears a bathing suit. Someone said Black Widow, who as far as we know so far is the coquettish yet deadly/sexy sidekick to Tony in the next Iron Man. My frown was probably fairly evident, and eventually Paul Cornell interrupted his way into the "heh heh Lynda Carter bathing suit puberty" tangent to actually talk about my question.

A little later on in the panel, someone asked why, with the success of the recent Wonder Woman animated film, a live-action WW movie seems so far-fetched. Marv Wolfman answered that the return wouldn't be worth the investment.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach made another joke about Wonder Woman's bathing suit.

Marv Wolfman did a "no, but seriously, not enough interest to generate return," and nobody but me yelled out "Ant-Man?"

Ant-Man

That's right, Hank Pym. Super scientist. That shrinks. Really really small.

Oh, and he beats his wife.

But it's okay, 'cause she's dead now and he took up her superhero name.

Well, at least he didn't kill her himself. There's... that.

How many non-comic fans have heard of Ant-Man? How many people think an Incredible Shrinking Superhero movie sounds fun? How about a Dude that Dresses Like a Bug movie? Sure, Spider-Man dresses like an arachnid, but he's also Spider-Man. He's also smarter and less of a tool.

Ant-Man.

The scientist who has a break down from stress and hits his wife. But it's okay. They make up. And then swap mildly-disturbing sex escapades.

Maybe Ryan Reynolds could play him. That's about the only way I could become less interested in a movie about Hank Pym.

Ant-Man.

Listen, I'm all for obscure, semi-obscure and quasi-obscure comic characters getting their due. But, I don't know, maybe we could, like. Have one of those be a woman? Most women in comics are obscure anyway, and all the best ones (Kate Spencer, Renee Montoya, Jessica Jones-Cage) would probably make even some comic fans stop, check out google, and then get back to you.

The deal is that studios want to sell tickets. So then, there shouldn't be any obscure characters having movies made about them. But if there are going to be, let's let some non-wife-beating-self-pitying characters shine, yeah? Maybe?

Hey, maybe Kathryn Bigelow can direct. She does action movies. And women go to see them. Shocking, yet true.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in random places.

2010-02-22T18:23:00.002-05:00

Atlanta right now, and I'm heading to LA on Thursday for the Gallifrey One Convention (that's Doctor Who talk). There are a few comic-specific panels (including one on 70 years of Marvel Comics, with Marv Wolfman) which I plan to live tweet (if I can get a signal in the rooms). Either way, I'll do a write up of what's said.

In the meantime, I finally read last week's comics (Barry's mini-speech to Bart almost made me cry on the plane), and will be missing this week's because they're being pulled for me back home.

Also, there was that whole True Geek Confession thing last week, and I wanted to do it and forgot, so I think I'll get that written up at some point this week.

Just a quick update. Off I go. Am.

Someone bring that dead horse over...

2010-02-11T13:18:00.003-05:00

I was actually busy working yesterday, so I missed the whole Captain America #602 kerfluffle. When I finally asked someone, and she told me what it was about, I laughed out loud.

Yeah, I LOLed, that's right.

I think it's no secret that I'm a too-liberal-for-Democrats liberal. Sarah Palin, in her autobiography, calls herself a "common sense Conservative." I consider myself a common sense Liberal, in that if you actually sit down and think about reality, you'd be a fairly liberal person. Or you're more self-interested than human-interested, which is a completely fine way to be. To each their own. Sarah Palin and I actually agree on a lot of things, except that the things she says and the things she does tend not to match up. I'm all about the government not putting their nose in my business, which I think means that I should be allowed to marry whomever I want that my local religious institution (if I have one) will accept. I don't think the government should use tax payer money to bail out large companies. Not because I'm anti-socialism, but because I think we need a total meltdown of our economic system in order to find one that's a little less archaic and better suited for a global economy with, literally, billions of consumers.

But these Tea Partiers. Woo boy. I kind of like them, in the sense that any vocal anti-government group always interests me and I really am a bit of a libertarian from time to time. I'd like them more if they would declare themselves a third party, but they want to latch onto the money and power of the GOP, and that's understandable. (Never mind that if you ask any Democrat in the US, they'd say they hate socialism, too.) They compare our current sitting president to Adolph Hitler, and they don't bat an eyelash. When people compared Bush to Hitler, I disagreed vehemently (despite actual similarities based in fact, not in a fear of socialism), and I will continue to disagree with that. You know who you can compare to Hitler? Hitler.

The kerfluffle I alluded to before was over the fact that Cap doesn't like the militia folk and Falcon doesn't want to mix with them thar angry white folk.

Let's take a look at a picture of an actual Tea Party protest:

Check out the token black guy front and center. Well, at least they all look happy. Except for the guy right next to the token black guy. [Feel free to check out some more from google and let me know what you find out re: the racial make up of Tea Party protests.]

When I read #602, and I actually read it, it reminded me more of a Tim McVeigh type militia than the Tea Party people. Why? Well, they were armed and run by a blonde guy who wanted to blow stuff up. So there's that. Yeah, the signs that Quesada apologized for (sigh), okay. I know it sucks when comics reflect current events instead of outdated things, but there you go.

Speaking of actually reading the issue, did you know that this Captain America isn't Steve Rogers? Most of the people getting up in arms about it don't. It's James Barnes, the kid who was Steve's advanced scout in WW2 (re: little dude that slit peoples' throats) who was brainwashed by the Soviets and became the greatest assassin in the world, before Steve saved him and he (James) took over the mantle of Cap after Steve's death.

Let's take a moment.

Here we have a guy who use to kill people for the American government, then the Soviet government, who now wears the American flag on his body (and, btw, stands up for those 2nd Amendment rights by using a gun where the previous Cap refused to). James has seen communism first hand. James has killed for communism as well as capitalism. James knows way more about socialism than someone who hasn't lived in that kind of society.

And James thinks the protesters in #602 are creepy mofos being led astray by a violent lunatic.

I'm gonna go with Cap on this one.

Oh, also, they're not the supervillains, the mentally unstable (due to an experiment by the American government) ex-Cap is.

And also, every American that is interested in pursuing their own freedoms and/or the freedoms of others and/or a better tomorrow blah blah is a patriotic American. Not just the conservatives.

And also, my liberal bias here is that I read the book, know the context of the characters and the story, and find the obvious non-researched response appalling.

But what's more appalling is that Marvel apologized.

Really? Seriously? You clothe your women in skin-tight, no-way-that-can-protect-you clothing, you let Bobbi Morse get raped and blamed by her husband and then forgive him, you have like two gay characters and only one of them ever actually gets even remotely close to as naked as the straight characters, and you apologize for reprinting actual signs?

Oh, and speaking of signs. There are some awesome ones. I think this might be my favorite (among the signs saying Obama loves baby killing, declaring this a Christian nation - wrong according to the Constitution they supposedly respect so much - and asking for members of Congress to be hanged):

Yup, totally the same. The taxes we pay that fund things like the military, road building, power plants, etc. (along with social programs like education and welfare) are exactly like being taken from your home, shoved into a train, sent to a camp, and then burnt alive.

I can see why Marvel would apologize, and why the gentleman that brought this to everyone's attention thinks that the Tea Party people are being victimized.

No, sorry, that was liberal sarcasm.

Best Books of the Week

2010-02-04T09:24:00.005-05:00

Hands down my favorite pull this week was the Blackest Night: The Question tie-in. This was the book I'd been looking forward to when DC announced that they were going to use this month to resurrect (heh heh) dead titles, with original authors, and tie them into the storyline. I was pretty much guaranteed to like the writing, since I haven't met a Greg Rucka story I don't like (I hate to sound like a fangirl, but I am) but the chance to read a Denny O'Neill Question story! With Vic! Awesome.

And I wasn't disappointed. It was a good story, that managed to be one of the least annoying resurrection stories of the entire saga. Also, and here's some more fangirling, I like that Renee is strong-willed enough to become invisible to the Black Lanterns. That's pretty bad ass. (So is her fighting Lady Shiva.)

I also loved the art. I'm not sure when I became a fan of "non-traditional" art in comics. This isn't to say I don't like the more traditional styles. My second favorite book of the week, Red Robin, was very classic looking, action-style, bright-colored superhero fare and was equally as enjoyable. I guess for me, it's about matching the art with the tone. Sometimes hard lines and bright colors work for the Question (I enjoy Cully Hammer's work, even if it's not my favorite) and sometimes distressed, textured watercolory looks work.

And this week's Red Robin, speaking of, was just really great. This is where I wanted Tim to be: still the Red Robin, questioning his own decision to live this type of vigilante life, but relieved by the knowledge that he was right. He's able to be more sarcastic and lighthearted now, and to notice that Tam is hot. Though Tim and Tam... really. Really. Also, his interaction with Conner was amazing and it let me know that Bart survives Blackest Night.

Whew.

Also, I really really like Tim in the Red Robin costume. I like the costume, I like the Tim, I want him to stick around this way.

And I want the new Titans to be Superboy, Red Robin, Kid (blech) Flash, Speedy (if she's, you know, not dead), and Wonder Girl. Can someone get on that? I would also be okay with Bat-Girl being on the team. There are some really awesome young adult superheroes running around right now, someone ought to get them on all on a team together so we're not stuck with the less awesome ones. No offense to, um. Any of the Teen Titans. They can stick around. Let these ex-Teen Titans be Titan Titans. Or have a new name. Or something. Just put 'em on a team and let me read that book, because it will be great.

I'm too serious about race and gender. But especially gender.

2010-01-28T14:31:00.004-05:00

A couple of months ago, I posted about my new dog, Ollie, who is a female but who is named after Oliver Queen. I also posted about the Lady!Ollie picture I found on the internets, and some brief thoughts on gender-swapping characters.

Actually, I enjoy the idea of gender swapping characters (or degendering, which is pretty much never done, since heaven forfend we not be either Man or Woman). When done right, it's really really interesting. It's not done right very often. The trick is to maintain the essence of the character while adapting him or her to a different gender, which of course affects the way he or she will interact with society, the kinds of experience s/he has had in his/her life, et cetera et cetera. It's not just about swapping around some parts of anatomy.

There's been this chromatic casting meme floating around. The idea is that you take established comic characters and insert people of color into the roles. But it's not just insertion, of course, because being a person of color changes your experiences and interactions. Just like your gender does. Anyway, it started, I think, on Livejournal and has gone viral. Got picked up, distributed and, as is the way with anything ever, offended some people. Then one of the creators wrote an excellent response.

Last night during the State of the Union Address, President Obama promised to push through an Equal Pay bill so that women earn 100% of what men earn. Not more. Not the same for less. But equal pay for equal work.

This is the year 2010.

My mom, who was one of two women in her medical school class in the late 70s, used to tell me about burning bras in college and marching down 5th Avenue for Women's Rights and having men spit on her. My mom, who used to add epilogues to fairy tales and Disney stories telling myself and my sister that it was okay if after we went off to the castle and lived happily ever after, we wanted to get a job and not just be a stay-at-home parent, as long as we made our own choices, is the first person that comes to mind when I think of a feminist.

I remarked to her via IM that it's sad that it's 2010 and there's not equal pay for equal work.

"I know," she said.

After the State of the Union, Chris Matthew said he forgot that the President was black, sparking off an uproar (and rightly so) about the remark. After all, why can't an intelligent man be black? That's not what Chris Matthews was saying, I think, but he said it stupidly.

But what no one else seems to remember is that he ended his train wreck by saying that men talk about The Godfather. "It's what we do."

Huh?

During the Presidential primaries and election in 2008, a discussion of race and racism was at the forefront of nearly every mention of Barrack Obama. But a discussion of gender was limited to comments on Sarah Palin's clothing or Hilary Clinton crying. In the recent election here in Massachusetts, the female candidate was portrayed as cold by the good ol' boy driving around in his truck. She lost (though that's not the only reason). Men who are portrayed as cold are strong. Women are frigid.

Here's my point: sexism still exists, but we are so convinced in this post-third-wave-feminist era that things are okay that we refuse to admit it. It's even okay to be sexist. Ever watched a commercial for Axe body spray? How about a commercial for Progressive insurance where they mock a man carrying a bag, who insists his wife bought it? How about that, again, it's 2010 and this is arguably the worst TV pilot season for women. Teen girls fawn over strong Edward and Jacob while aspiring to be Bella, who's off wilting in the shadows of her immense love for her stalker vampire.

Everything I'm saying doesn't mean racism doesn't exist. Not at all. And overt racism is definitely worse than overt sexism. But the subversive sexism that permeates our culture is still there, and it seems like something only a handful of people are willing to talk about. And those people are often called oversensitive (at best). Really, read some of the comments in this discussion about Marvel's Deadpool cover trade-in promotion (the one where you rip up DC comics to get a reference to a show that was popular 7 years ago with half-naked women that has nothing to do with the title, Siege).

Have some highlights:

"What I'm trying to get at is that sexism in comics isn't going untreated, and there seems to be a better balance nowadays. So to get all up in arms about this seems alittle [sic] futile and tiring."

So because it's being worked on (the author gives three examples of the umpteen comic creators out there), we shouldn't discuss it. Check.

"That cover is funny. Clearly, some people just don't appreciate humor. I hate living in a PC world, where people can't take a joke. Anyone who would call that cover sexist or racist probably has some personal problems that they need to work through."

No words necessary.

"Sorry I just find it funny people think this is sexist. I mean if you feel like that then go for it, but to say this is sexist considering a lot of comics from the 1940's to now have have naked women on the cover....that means the entire industry has been sexist since day one. "

Uh. Yes. I love the argument that because things were more sexist in the past (or racist), to think they're sexist now is ridiculous. Hey, look, in 1860 black people were slaves. So in 1954 when they were working on the Civil Rights bill to allow black people access to voting, they should have just let it go. And since women used to be the property of their husbands a hundred years ago, we shouldn't worry about equal pay because, hey. We're not property.

Check.

And let's end with how we started:

Well the only thing I can say that, [sic] your [sic] taking this way to seriously.

Okay!

So to wrap this all up, I wonder if the people up in arms over "Chromatic Casting" would have similar issues with Genderswap Casting. Maybe they would. I don't know. I think it's a lot easier to be offended by racism, because racism is still considered a Big Problem, whereas sexism is something that got fixed in the 70s so we should get over it.

2010 - Equal pay for equal work. Keep an eye out.

"Real" Men Can Wear Indigo (AND Violet!)

2010-01-08T18:05:00.008-05:00

I'm sitting in Logan Airport, which has no outlets in its international terminal, waiting to board my Virgin Atlantic flight, which has no outlets in its economy cabin, so I thought it'd be a good time for a long-needed blog update. When without the ability to recharge your laptop prior to a 7 1/2 hour flight, clearly you need to write about comics.

Clearly!

So you know what was cool this week? The Deputy Lanterns over in Blackest Night #6. This almost made up for the Black Lanternization of Bart, Ollie, and Kon. And, yeah, Superman. My friend pointed out that Ollie has to come back to suffer the post-Roy-becomes-Dark Knight-Ollie storyline from Cry for Justice, so he's going to be okay. And Superman is Superman. But I worry about my former Young Justice people.

Anyway, BN #6 was accompanied by Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2, which was yet another ridiculously awesome Greg Rucka book. This was a slam bang issue, man. I loved the overlap of Diana's thoughts with those of the Black Ring. And it was a totally emotional ride through her life. I had no idea it was fake until her mom showed up. Then I was a bit suspicious. Then Batman (can someone tell me why Bruce is Diana's symbol of love?), then Aphrodite.

Let me say, as an aside, that every time I think of Aphrodite I picture her like so:

Yeah, I'm a Xenite. I don't apologize. (Please enjoy Gabrielle's expression in that picture. For serious.)

Right, so the Deputy Lanterns. I'm not mega familiar with GL mythology. Has this happened before? I know the rings choose the right people, but I dig the emergency, planet-specific deputization. And I like the people they chose. One of the things I do like about the GL stuff is that there are good guys and bad guys in the good corps and bad corps. I mean, Mera's in red, right? Cool.

I guess there's been some kerfluffle about Diana's uniform. Yeah. It's a bit showy. So is her normal uniform. Now it's showier. Yeah. How about the blood running down Mera's face? Not an issue?

Okay.

I'll let other people go into that. Personally, I don't get why men can't be loving enough to be part of the Star Sapphires. If women can be angry enough to be part of the Red Lantern Corps, against the stereotype of meek and non-angry women, I don't get why a man couldn't have been chosen by the violet ring. I'm going to be honest, I'd probably have given the ring to Kal-El. But okay, give it to Diana. It's not like I'm a writer at DC or a Violet Ring. You know. And I did like how over in Action Comics he was a blend of all the colors. Or good colors, I guess. Green, blue, whatever.

Something I like about Doctor Who is that it makes Earth out to be this really special place. There's a reason the Doctor likes it so much. The people here are terrible and wonderful and they change the course of time itself. I sort of wish that attitude could be found in other genres. Maybe Earth could be the place of the first male Star Sapphire. What about planets with no genders or more-than-two genders? What do Star Sapphires do there? Just skip over that sector?

I liked this issue. Now let's fix Bart (I have a sad sad feeling that now that Irey is Impulse, Bart's not as necessary to the DCU) and finish up this Black Lantern stuff (I know, I know, April). It's been interesting, but there's only so much of the undead I can take.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to London. Cheers!

Why Avatar Didn't Suck Like I Thought It Would (A Review)

2009-12-26T21:23:00.005-05:00

Okay, first things first: go see Avatar and go see it in 3D (IMAX optional).

Good. Done? Great.

This entry will contain spoilers though, honestly, if the entire concept of this movie didn't give it away, go read more. Or watch more movies. Or both.

I think by now that the entire population of the world with access to movies knows about Avatar, probably knows the general gist of what it's about, and knows it's supposed to be a game changer. All the reviews pretty much ejaculate their praise all over it, pooh-poohing the idea that the rehashed, heavy-handed plot could, in any way, detract from the awesomeness of the tech that created this movie.

Dammit, they're sort of right.

I was one of the cynical, and a friend of mine begged me to go see it so that she could talk about it with me, because we talk about movies similarly. So I went, and I loved it.

Didn't just like it. Loved it.

I've been thinking about why on my car ride home. (A few of us from various points went to see it, and the most central location is about 35 minutes from me.)

Here's what I've got.

The Story

This wasn't the first time that I've encountered a story (I will use the word "story" to refer to pretty much any and all media... book, movie, comic, tv, video game, etc.) that was about a handicapped character (usually male) using some sort of tech to escape life. Sometimes that's into a computer, into a network, into another body, into a robot. Whatever. This wasn't the first time I've encountered a story where a member of the oppressing group (usually male) "goes native" and saves the more-complex-than-the-oppressors-think population, usually melting the heart of an icy, tough native (usually female) along the way, while butting heads with the don't-want-change voices of the group (usually the competitor for said female's affections), and completes that saviorness through some feat even the natives can't do, and usually be introducing them to his weapons and/or tactics. This wasn't even the first time I've encountered a thinly (or not-at-all) veiled allegory for the BS that conquering nations have pulled against indigenous peoples and the planet we all have to share (usually for money). Hell, it's not the first time I've encountered a story about a Great Tree with someone called Navi in it (hey hey, Ocarina of Time, 'sup?).

A lot of people have compared this to Dances With Wolves. I think it's more like Dune, another very ecological-minded story (well, the books anyway).

That's just it, right? This has all happened before and it'll all happen again. There aren't really any new stories, just new ways to tell the old stories.

So. This way rocked. And it rocked because of the 3D, which I'll get to in a sec.

Now, here are a few of my story-related quibbles, all of which I think were overshadowed by the finished product:

- Why, on this planet with a different atmosphere and a different gravity, where plants and animals developed very very differently to our planet, did the Na'vi develop as bigendered bipeds that can only reproduce through heterosexual intercourse?

- WHY NOT A FEMALE PROTAGONIST? Come on, Cameron. You made Ripley awesome. You wrote Sarah Connor. ! Exclamation! While it was great that Neytiri's dad handed her his bow and left her in charge of the people... uh, why didn't it end that way? I almost expected her to get to be People Leader and Jake to be the Tree Talker, in a gender-reversed ending. Which would have made sense and been satisfying within the narrative of the story. But, hey. Whatever. Notably, the only two females that We Care About that get to live are the protagonist's mate and her mother. Yeah.

- Did we really have to cast the voices of the Na'vi using only Native American and black actors? Really?

I think James Cameron is a smart guy. An I think he very very purposefully cast the parts the way he did, and very very purposefully made certain shots. Like Michelle Rodriguez (god I love her) as the only Marine to stand up to the scary white guy with muscles and scars. Or the long lingering shot over the collected Marines during the "kill 'em all" speech. The camera stopped on a group that was made up of a black man, a woman, and a couple of people who could definitely be classified, by our race-driven society, as "of color". Here's the best message, the most subtle one, the one that's beneath even the "don't kill our planet, assholes" message: for eff's sake, teach history, teach it right, and don't let corporations or the military run things.

The message of the story isn't really "stop killing our planet", it's stop putting people in charge and giving weapons to people who think it's okay to do these kinds of things.

That's pretty bad ass. Too bad most people mostly notice the SFX.

The SFX/3D

Okay, it's a game changer. There, I said it. I asked my friend why she thought this would be applicable to genres outside of science fiction or action, where we're in it for the "ooh" factor. The answer, which I figured out about ten minutes into the movie, is: because this type of 3D immerses us. This isn't about bringing the action out to our seats, it's about bringing us into the world of the movie. This can work for an alien landscape like Pandora or for a back alley in 1940's LA. Seriously, could you imagine a good noir in this kind of 3D? Really awesome.

She told me that by a few minutes into the movie, the alien landscape is no longer even alien because the effects are so good. True. The only thing that kept me from complete immersion was the alienness of the plants and animals, which went away after a little while spent with the Na'vi (so I get why they're a blue mix of cats, Native Americans, and tribal Africans, but I still don't like it). But what sold me on this was the shot right at the beginning, where Jake is sitting on the drop ship with a row of people, and I felt like I could reach out and if I did... I'd be reaching down the row. And it was reinforced everytime we panned through a room and it felt like looking at an actual room that I was standing in. A few times, I lifted my glasses up just to see the difference.

So the 3D blew my mind more in environments I could intellectually process than the alien world of Pandora.

But, you know, it still blew my mind.

Inna Final Analysis

This story had a lot of issues, as someone viewing it from a non-majority lens (i.e. the viewpoint of someone aware of the negativity of colonization, oppression, and marginalization who doesn't think that we're done doing this stuff yet... aka someone that's read Howard Zinn), with a bit of a critical view to directorial choices such as casting. It wasn't the best use of allegory ever, unless you peel back a few layers. It was cliché in all the wrong places (gender, racial politics) and the right ones (the deaths were correct, satisfyingish ending).

But for 2 1/2 hours I didn't just watch Avatar, I wandered the planet with the characters.

Now that's immersion

That's a game changer.

Fresh New Bats for Gotham. [Detective Comics #860 and World's Finest 3/4]

2009-12-24T10:03:00.005-05:00

This week Detective Comics #860 came out, wrapping up the origin story of Kate-as-Batwoman (And possibly ending Greg Ruck and JH3's run on the title? I guess she's getting her on ongoing or something. I don't know, I've fallen out of following rumors.)

It's not like my feelings on TEC have been unclear over the past few months. Despite a few quibbles, it's effing awesome.

This issue wasn't any different. I read a great explanation of why the art was so damn awesome at iFanboy. So go read that, because I agree and it makes more sense than I could.

What I love about this is the reason Kate becomes Batwoman. Not because of her trauma. Not because she's got a chip on her shoulder or something to prove to someone. She does it because she's a soldier.

A good one.

You know what that reminds me of? Carrie Kelly. And the more I think about Kate Kane, the more I'm reminded of Carrie Kelly. Carrie has literally zero trauma in her past, other than the trauma of being a teenager in a really nasty version of Gotham. Her parents are both alive, if inattentive. Her friends are around. She does well in school. And then one night she decides to throw on a Robin costume and go be a hero. This is one of the reasons I've always liked Carrie as Robin, and one of the reasons that I've always disliked Bruce as Batman and Dick as Robin. It's probably one of the reason I kind of like Damian, ass that he is. Bruce, Dick, and Tim later on... they were all forced to wear the symbol because they couldn't deal with their demons. Carrie, Babs, Damian, Kate, Steph... they want it. I like when the hero knows what they're getting into but makes that choice anyway. Bruce did it because he was broken. It was interesting the first time, with him, but it's been 80 years. Having new reasons is totally okay.

The difference between Kate and Carrie is that Kate knows what she's getting herself into. She's a soldier from way back. Carrie becomes a soldier through her life with Bruce. Bruce is the old soldier, like Kate's dad. Bruce turns Carrie into something special. But he couldn't do it if she didn't want it.

Kate wants it. (I think I'm getting repetitive.)

Kate wasn't forced into being a Bat. The splash page of her going through training is brilliant for just that reason. It shows us that she's had it drilled into her over years: vengeance is pointless. You've already lost. Bringing them back won't work (erm). Do this to save one life. One night, one life. Another night, another life. That's victory. That's war. You kill to save.

The Bat becomes Kate's insignia. Not of fear or vengeance, but of war. And I may be a quasi-realistic pacifist (I understand but dislike the need for war), but it's damn nice to see a Bat start out for reasons like that. And in this world, in 2009, it rings absolutely, one-hundred percent true.

Hooah.

(Which reminds me that I enjoy the irony of her getting booted from the military only to go on and be a superhero. Suck it again, DADT.)

And then there was World's Finest #3 (of 4). I've been following this mostly for the next-gen team ups. Specifically Red Robin/Nightwing and now, the issue I've been waiting for, Batgirl/Supergirl.

I've talked before about why I love Steph Brown as Batgirl, right? LOVE. HER. And her team-up with Supergirl was both kick-ass and fun. I want to see them team up more often. After the battle of the Supermen, or wtf ever is going on with the Supes next year, let them be the World's Finest front-runners. Neither of them are going anywhere, probably, and the fate of all the other Bats and Supes is still up in the air.

What I loved about this was that it was two teenage superheroes going forth and bonding and kicking but. They were clearly having fun together without losing out on the point of why they were together: to save people. (Scene with Catwoman in the crate? Priceless.) They were both trained by Batman, to some extent. They both mourned his loss.

They both knew they had to move on.

(If only DC got that hint. You know, over in Marvel, Captain America just handed his shield to the guy who was wielding it while he was dead, his old sidekick, Bucky, and while it was totally awesome, it was underscored by the fact that there's this stupid Siege thing coming up and he'll probably just end up as Cap again anyway. But maybe I'm wrong and, if I am, I hope DC does something similar and Bruce Wayne finally moves on from being the Batman.)

Every issue that Steph is in is fun. She's like Power Girl, with a proportionate breast-to-body ratio. I don't feel guilty reading her title though, because it's just flat out awesome. And throwing a somewhat-snarky Supergirl into the mix makes it more fun.

Kon and Tim's friendship was great, back in the day (and made for some good drama after Kon died). Let's have a new Super/Bat friendship! I'm all for it. (Thumbs up from Kara, yo.)

Props, also, to Babs getting annoyed at Dick listening in. Because. Really. C'mon now. Also, Kara questioning Oracle's omniscience after an unknown answer... classic! I love it when smart, young women are smart and strong. It's so nice to see. Comics is really one of the few places to actually see that sort of thing, so I'm glad that, even with some of the bumps in the road, they keep on going.

Sports, Kick-Ass Women, MMA, and those creepy Female Force comics. Oh my.

2009-12-09T12:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, something different: I like sports.

Yeah, I know.

Get ready for one of my anecdotes.

I grew up watching baseball and hockey with my dad, and playing little league during the summers. Back where I lived in Illinois, girls and boys both played baseball. Then I moved to Massachusetts, good ol' progressive Massachusetts, where girls had to play softball.

WTF, Title 9? Softball =/= baseball. Yeah, it's a sport, yeah it's hard, yeah it takes skill. But I spent 6 years playing baseball and then was told I had to play softball instead.

So I didn't, I tried out for the boy's little league and I made the team. And then my coaches wouldn't tell me how to get to the field. Or how to get my uniform. See, I made Babe Ruth. I was one of the youngest kids on the team and the only girl in the whole league.

I was 10 or 11, so I didn't understand why my mom was so angry about what they were doing. And I was shy, so I didn't push it.

If I could go back now, I'd sue their asses. Or something. And I'd play baseball.

When I hit puberty, with relatively little activity in my life and relatively large amounts of depression (puberty sucks, puberty for a gay kid in the early nineties doubley so, puberty for a gender queer gay kid in the early nineties tripley so) I put on about five billion pounds. It took me about fifteen years and some therapy to feel ready to get back into athletic activities.

So I did. I started going to Tae Kwon Do. This was something else I'd done as a kid in Illinois that stopped when I moved to Massachusetts. I've been going to an awesome TKD school for a little over a month. And twice a month this school has a teacher come in to teach students grappling. I went to the first class, had a TKD black belt as my partner, and held my own.

It was awesome.

Grappling is a big part of Mixed Martial Arts, which is a sport I got into thanks to my old room mate. I watch a lot of UFC. A lot. And one of the things about the UFC is that there are no women fighters. The only women involved (besides judges you don't see) are wives, girlfriends, and the girls in bikinis who hold the round cards. The UFC is the fastest growing sports franchise in the world, or something like that, and its president, Dana White, went on record saying he didn't see women fighting in the UFC any time soon (that was a few years ago, andI don't think his stance has changed, but who knows).

I just assumed that women weren't involved in MMA.

What a dumb assumption. After all, women are involved in boxing (more prominently now, thanks to Girlfight, Million Dollar Baby, and Laila Ali). Women are involved in martial arts (certainly at the Olympic level). So why not MMA? After all, one of the main tenets of Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, a premiere ground game technique and the one that changed MMA forever back in the day, is that the smaller, physically weaker opponent can still win with the right strategy and technique. Seems like a perfect venue for women, right?

And I found some. 'Cause I flipped on American gladiators and I saw Crush. And when I went to look up more info on Crush, I found out that she's an MMA fighter.

And she's hot. Over the next year or so, as I got more into MMA in general, I started trying to find events where women were involved as fighters. Usually I just googled Gina Carano's name, because she was The female MMA fighter. The thing is that to be a bankable female MMA fighter, you have to be hot. To be a bankable male MMA fighter, you have to kick ass.

This is the guy that just won the most recent season of The Ultimate Fighter, the male version of a reality show, where 16 guys live in a house together, act homophobic and stereotypically masculine to prove that they're Real Men, and then fight each other for a chance at a contract with the UFC.

Basically it's a show that would be on Oxygen if it weren't about fighting, not that any of the MMA fanboys would admit that. (Seriously, I know professional sports are ragingly homophobic, but the UFC is like something special. I hope one day some dude kicks a lot of ass, wins a title, then comes out of the closet. Then defends his title.)

Oh, right, I was talking about Big Country.

Now, there's a lot of talk on MMA forums about how the UFC is basically going to try to drum this guy out as soon as possible because he looks like a fat hick. The fact is, he's a super-skilled ground fighter that uses his giant belly to his advantage and still has knockout power. That means he's a good fighter. And if he's drummed out of the UFC for not looking right, I'll feel a little better about the UFC as a whole, because at least they're consistent. Not that I like to look at Nogueira's face a whole lot.

But the deal is that they cast this dude in the first place, gave him weeks of screen time, and eventually a really big contract (which he did earn, yes).

And they won't give women a shot.

This goes back to what I was talking about in my last post, about female action heroes. You have to be hot to be an action hero, male or female. We're just willing to make more exceptions for the males. Would people think Daniel Craig was good looking if he didn't have a great body? Probably not. But no one calls him a "but his face" (you know, like a "butter face"?). Or makes remarks about it.

And when those male MMA fighters get in the octagon to square off, no one's commenting on how hot they are (or if they are, they're doing it in private). But it's pretty standard for female MMA fighters.

For the record, Gina Carano was recently beaten by a woman nicknamed Cyborg, who is significantly less traditionally attractive. And the female MMA buzz fell silent for a little while until a recent fight between the wife and ex-wife of some male fighters.

It's hard to find this stuff on TV, and it's hard to find a discussion of this stuff anywhere that doesn't involve comments on the attractiveness of the fighters.

So WTF does this have to do with comics?

Yeah, sorry. So remember that weird comic series Female Force? The biographical sketches of real women? Well, you know, they did a Barbara Walters one. So she mentioned it on her show The View.

Does anyone remember another time when a comic got a mention on a daytime, women-oriented television show? Anyone?

Bueller?

The deal is, this isn't a comic about female superheroes. It's a comic about real women doing real things. And it's "super" because it's effing hard to be a woman doing real things in this world sometimes. So, yeah, they deserve a bit of a shout out.

But maybe Barbara would like to show Detective Comics on her show. Or even the old standby Wonder Woman. Though at least Batwoman wears a full body suit, even if it has pointy nipples.

Or maybe they'd like to talk about how Batgirl (the current one) is juggling being a young woman, going to college, and being a superhero, under the tutelage of the old Batgirl, current Oracle, who is a woman with a disability.

Granted, it's not like male superheroes really get a lot of shout outs on national television. Not unless they're in the movies, anyway. Except, you know. They're in the movies.

Let me repeat that:

They're in the movies.

The women are few and far between, and usually relegated to the love-interested, ingenue roles.

Why?

No idea. Here's a thought.

So Robert Downy Jr. is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and brought Iron Man (the character) and Iron Man (the title) to national prominence. Hugh Jackman did the same thing for Marvel in the first place, back with the first X-Men. Meanwhile, check out the cleavage:

Gaaaaaaaaaah.

Sorry, I'm rapidly losing focus.

I suppose my point is that I'd like to see The View (or Ellen, since she's getting a Female Force comic too) take some time to put a spotlight on the positive women being written about and doing the writing/drawing in comics. So, mostly DC I guess. Though Black Widow: Origins and Spider-Woman have been pretty good.

Get some focus on those interesting character, make the companies and studios realize that women a) care and b) spend money on these things, and get them to do some decent, female-led superhero movies. Preferably written by Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Amanda Conner, or Paul Cornell. Or me. I'll take the job!

Heh, so I guess in the end the whole point is: give me a job writing a female superhero movie.

Anyone listening?

Why Hancock Didn't Suck Like I Thought it Would (Hint: Charlize Theron)

2009-12-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

Hancock should be taught in marketing classes as an example of how not to market a movie.

When the trailers were released, I basically thought it was going to be a knock-off superhero movie that had the "original" twists of 1) a black superhero and 2) a bum superhero turned good. I use "original" in quotes because, well, I read comics. Also I watched Superman 3. Remember Superman 3? I loved bum Superman. I don't know, there was something about him being all fake-five o'clock-shadowy and seeing Christopher Reeves play surly that I just was into. As a ten year old. Yeah I don't know.

By the way. Kryptonite laced with tobacco tar? You know the cigarette companies freaked when they found that out. Hilarious! Why confuse everyone with red kryptonite when you can demonize tobacco? (For the record, smoking is gross, and obviously Superman agrees. He seems to be a fan of the whiskey, though.) Remember back in the day when we admitted that everyone smoked by showing it on movies all the time? Way to take a stand, Supes. Way to take a stand.

So Hancock. I'll admit it, I giggle a little every time I say or write the word. I'm secretly a twelve year old.

Based on the trailers, I thought this movie would be fairly predictable. And in a lot of ways it was. But then Charlize Theron popped up. Now, I'd seen her in one of the trailers, walking next to Will Smith and Jason Bateman, and again in a dinner scene, and I was like "why is she not even billed in this"?

Except she is. Billed second.

Uh.

Obviously they were keeping a Big Secret under wraps.

Yeah, the big secret is that there's also a female superhero (or god or angel, more on that in a bit) and she's more powerful than the male superhero.

Also all she wants to do in life is have a family.

Uh.

Okay, so I know I said I liked the movie. And I did, because the existence of Charlize Theron's character was a pleasant surprise, and the ending was an even more pleasant one. I like the idea of immortals that understand that, while they may be fated for each other, they don't have to constantly be together every single lifetime. And sometimes, maybe, they shouldn't be.

Suck it, Stefanie Meyer. Stefenie? Whatever.

It made me wonder why they couldn't market this with Charlize Theron as the number two. And then I remember: oh yeah, the mass consumer doesn't buy female super heroes. There are no female Avengers in the upcoming movie, we'll be lucky if Black Widow doesn't fall in love with Iron Man in the upcoming sequel, and Wonder Woman will probably never be made.

Meanwhile Ryan Reynolds has been tapped to play every single wise-cracking superhero ever written.

Right now, there are some really really awesome women in comics. They're still sort of bumping up against the glass ceiling insofar as they wear the most ridiculous costumes ever, tend to use sex appeal more to get what they want, and have disproportional breast-to-body ratios, but they're still there kicking ass. I don't think I need to list them here.

But these women won't sell movies.

Why not?

I don't know. Lots of reasons, I'm sure. But male viewers appreciate female superheroes, and female viewers generate a lot of box office (hello, Twilight and every Sandra Bullock movie ever?), and I bet they'd be interested in female superheroes. There's this base assumption that women don't like action movies. I think women like intelligent action movies just fine. Listen, Iron Man and Lord of the Rings didn't make bajillions of dollars on male ticket sales alone.

Back to Hancock. So Mary was interesting (so was the name of Mary). I also liked the whole "we could be gods, angels, superheroes, the name changes" thing. It's an interesting idea, one which I recently bumped up against while playing Assassin's Creed 2 (play that game, the story is fantastic). According to imdb trivia, the eagle may represent that Hancock is Zeus, making Mary Hera. (Backed up by her brother/sister comment from the ridiculous Jiffy Pop scene. Jiffy Pop? Really?) That would explain her sudden bitchiness (for lack of better term), since Hera's generally not known for her pleasantness.

Would it explain her sudden heavy make-up and revealing all-black clothing, though? Yeah, no. That really got me. As much as I enjoyed the fight scene between the two of them, particularly where she was clearly much more powerful than he was, it seemed sort of random and weird.

She did look pretty awesome, though.

Ahem.

But the hospital stuff really won me over. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. Predictable, but really well done from the actors and the director.

Now, I had my quibbles. The random revealing clothing, the female superhero who only wants to be a wife and mom, the fact that Jason Bateman's character axes a dude to death and apparently is okay with that (I hope he and the kid are in therapy, because... really). Will Smith pursing his lips when he's playing drunk/bad as an acting technique, and the calling of every comic superhero a "homo" (though of course Hancock ends up in a tight outfit that looks like an X-Men movie cast-off... at least they throw the joke in).

The funny thing was that in the end I enjoyed this movie. It was almost nothing like what the trailers promised, and it was a far better finished product than I expected. Even with my quibbles, this was a superhero movie about not just a superhero guy but a superhero woman, too. That's rare enough to get me interested and it was handled well enough, despite some missteps, to make me like it.

Whoa whoa whoa, back the Speedy truck up.

2009-12-03T23:14:00.004-05:00

I don't really feel like writing about Blackest Night: Flash until it's over, and I can't find where I put my Blackest Night: Wonder Woman (so for now I'll pretend Manhunter is in it), and I enjoy Red Tornado for its randomness (what's he doing during the zombification of the DC verse?) but it was a pretty slow week as far as comics go. For me, anyway. I hear things were happening over in Marvel or something. Eh.

Right, so I find out form the internet that Speedy is back (making me suddenly interested in the Black Canary/GA books). I went and picked up issue 24 (her triumphant return) and then I got confused.

'Cause, like, Ms. Marvel was hanging out on a yellow crotch rocket asking if anyone missed her.

Okay, not really. Ms. Marvel doesn't cover her legs, wear a hood, or use a bow. But I submit to you the exhibits:

I rest my case! They're really freakishly similar. Maybe I have Ms. Marvel on the brain lately (thanks, Anika), but... y'know?

The shop didn't have issue 25, so I'll get it at the other store next week. Looks like I've got another title on my pull list, because I love me some Speedy.

Even if she looks like Ms. Marvel Jr.

Heh.

I sort of want her and Steph Brown's Batgirl to hang out. (How excited am I for the next World's Finest, with Steph and Supergirl? WICKED EXCITED.) I think that would be awesome.

Someone get on that.

Don't Ask Me, I Won't Tell You

2009-11-26T14:07:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers and happy Thursday to everyone else.

So this week's Detective Comics was pretty awesome. More of Kate's history, especially her days at West Point (ah, knew that was coming), the stepmother thing, her meeting of Renee (classic!), and her run-in with the Bat (I hope there's more to that, because it didn't seem particularly "fateful"; like Batman hasn't saved a billion women that are being mugged?). Which means this was a highly political issue, natch. Had to be, because Kate was washed out (well, dishonorably discharged) for violations of... uh, something numerical. I'm a little unclear on whether this was pre-DADT or post (DADT being Don't Ask Don't Tell), since, well. She was asked. Though she was also sort of accused. It seemed to be pre-DADT, but I don't think Kate's that old.

Back in the halcyon days of 2002, when my friends and I were convinced that President Bush was going to 1) re-instate the draft and 2) start drafting women in order to bulk up the military for the upcoming wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, my favorite law was Don't Ask Don't Tell.

I know, I know, Bad Gay.

Listen, I'm all for equality, but if someone asks me to kill someone else for "freedom," (or most other reasons, as I tend to be anti-killing) I'm going to go out and get gay married as soon as possible. Or make out with a lady. Or something. And I knew plenty of legit straight people who felt the same. My patriotism (and I am patriotic in my way, thanks) does not extend to ending other peoples' lives or being, in any way, responsible for ending those lives (though my tax dollars are, sigh).

So anyway, DADT is a really stupid law, which pretty much everyone ever agrees with. And Kate got herself discharged for making out with her room mate (wtf, why does everyone have a "room mate" story?) and her dad thinks that's just great. So her dad's cool, in case we hadn't figured that out before.

And her stepmom is cool too, but Kate doesn't want to give her a chance (understandable, if unfair). I didn't give my stepmom a chance. Then again, I was eleven (and she didn't really become my stepmom until much later). And I guess Kate's money comes from her stepmom now, and not old money? Maybe I'm forgetting 52, or maybe it was a retcon. Either one is likely.

I loved her meeting with Renee initially. Totally classic. I was hoping for a "frisk me officer" moment, but oh well. At least we got some ladies making out and in bed together. Huge! This doesn't happen anywhere but Showtime! And Logo, I guess. And independent cinema. Oh, and sweeps week. It really doesn't happen as often as I make it seem, particularly in a positive, normalized way. Props to Rucka for it, props to JH3 for the way it was drawn (the same way heterosexual love scenes are drawn) and props to DC for letting it through.

Hey, you know that American Idol guy who caused a furor over being gayish on TV? At least he didn't show nipple. Woo boy.

Quasi-random, don't mind me.

I was a little underwhelmed by her meeting with Batman, like I said. Wow, she beat some dudes up and then Batman showed up. She was living in Gotham, was it really that much of a surprise? I mean, was it really intense enough that she decided to slap a bat on her chest and become a vigilante?

I imagine the next issue will get more into that. How many times can someone see Batman (not even in action this time) and decide to emulate him? There's got to be something else, right?

While I enjoy that the reason she becomes a Bat doesn't seem to be directly related to her trauma as a kid (btw, I don't think Alice is dead for a second, weird Crime Bible people aside), I'm waiting for something else. Plenty of people don't become a Bat just because they see The Bat. So what's the difference between those plenty of people and Kate Kane.

I really enjoyed this issue overall, though. The art continues to be awesome and the origin story is engaging. There may be some clichés (the room mate thing, the hating the stepmom thing) but they work in the context of the story because the story is led by a lesbian. I dig clichés when they're being used in a way they aren't normally (and therefore normalize things that aren't considered normal).

I'm using the word normal a lot, but I'm not sure if I'm conveying what I'm trying to convey.

The reason Detective Comics can still kick ass where a book led by, say, Dick would be boring is because it's not a cliché for a woman to do these things. And while there are certain lesbian clichés that she's falling into, I'm okay with it for the purpose of this book just existing and being well written, well drawn and, most importantly, well received.

Go read this book.

(I also picked up a bunch of other things this week, including the entire run of Cry for Justice, because Supergirl and Captain Marvel were making out and I want to know what's up with that. And a bunch of Marvel titles, one of which was funny, despite my hatred of Spider-Man, and one of which almost made me cry, because Sam Guthrie is a Big Damn Hero. I'll write more on those later.)

And as a bonus, here's me in the 1991 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I'm one of the three Jewish elves on Santa's float:

We interrupt your regularly scheduled comic post...

2009-11-16T11:58:00.005-05:00

To gush about my new dog!

This is quasi-relevant. Her name is Ollie, and I named her after the Emerald Archer himself, Oliver Queen. (My sister has declared that her name is Olive, since Ollie is too much of a boy's name, but I don't really do that whole gender labeling thing anyway, and the dog likes it just fine).

This is Ollie:

She's guarding my apartment from unwanted attacks from the woods. Or something.

By the way, someone drew a version of a female Green Arrow, and this is how it came out:

Right. You know, maybe that's just one of those GA wannabes (like the ladies from Return of the Dark Knight). 'Cause even if gender-swapped (I am now getting fantastic ideas about a gender-swapped GA and her relationship with Dinah), I can't see "Olive" Queen going in for the midriff exposing, giganto-breast, green lipstick look. Maybe that's just me.

Actually, I enjoy the idea of gender swapping characters (or degendering, which is pretty much never done, since heaven forfend we not be either Man or Woman). When done right, it's really really interesting. It's not done right very often. The trick is to maintain the essence of the character while adapting him or her to a different gender, which of course affects the way he or she will interact with society, the kinds of experience s/he has had in his/her life, et cetera et cetera. It's not just about swapping around some parts of anatomy.

Wasn't I talking about my dog?

Anyway, she's awesome. I have the currently dorktastic plan of getting my photographer friend to take some shots of her in a Robin Hood dog costume. Because... why not?

The good "old" days.

2009-11-10T11:27:00.004-05:00

You know, I've realized that the more I get into comics themselves, the less I'm into the movie adaptations of comics.

That's not what I was trying to say. I've been away from home for four days, about to be five (am missing Wednesday at the comic store to go pick up my newly-adopted-dog-named-Ollie, and was hoping because of Veterans day I wouldn't be missing much) so I've been reading through some trades of stories that I'd like to know more about but never read.

Like that Black Glove Batman story, which is apparently a prelude to Batman R.I.P. Okay. I bought it for JH3, let's all be honest. The first half was fantastic. I love the international, Batman-inspired heroes. And I loved the mystery (though I feel like things were missing, since it ended so quickly). The second half was decidedly less interesting, mainly because I don't care much about Bruce Wayne (which is why I'm a fan of the Batman titles now). Christian Bale sort of ruined me on him (sort of like he ruined John Connor for me, and sort of like Ryan Reynolds is about to ruin Green Lantern for me). Anyway, like I said: I loved the first half. Brilliant stuff. Who came up with that international team of Batmen? It reminded me of Watchmen, and Captain Metropolis trying to get everyone together in the 70s, before the Keene Act, and how it all fell apart. They didn't really have a uniting member like Batman, but I got the same sort of sad-hero feel from it. I like sad hero stories.

I also started (but didn't finish) reading Green Arrow: Moving Targets. I'm going to ask again: why does everyone hate Judd Winick? Legit question. I enjoy his Green Arrow stuff. A lot more than I enjoy some characterizations of characters written by other, more popular (or at least less polarizing) authors. I love seeing Ollie with his now-large family. I enjoy the single-guys-traveling-the-world thing he had going with Hal for awhile, but seeing Ollie as the patriarch of this messed up but heroic family of archers is pretty damn awesome, from a character development standpoint. The way he reacts after Mia kills That Guy is a really brilliant insight into the kind of guy Ollie has become.

Once I finish that, it's on to Trials of Shazam, because I loved the Marvel family as a kid, and then Green Lantern: Rebirth (no, I haven't read it).

A Couple of Origins

2009-11-04T21:12:00.005-05:00

I left my comics at home this morning, so I can't do a real fitting review of my haul. That's okay, because this was a small haul week for me. I caught up on Red Tornado (there's just something about an android elemental that tickles the Piers Anthony funny bone in me), which is fine. I enjoy it enough, though I'm having trouble with Red Torpedo's penis head. It's a penis head, don't argue. Torpedo my butt. Actually, she's got a penis head. Please don't torpedo my butt.

So the rest of the titles I got, briefly because I want to focus on two of them (and give a third one its own entry):

Secret Six #whatever. I'm not actually current on SS, but I'm getting the issues because I'll catch up and want to have them. This is how I think.

Athena #2. Remember how I was excited that there was in independent press doing a Greek god story? And remember how I was disappointed by the end of issue one? Yeaaah.

Stumptown #1. Good good good good great. Pick of the week. It's getting its own entry, because I'm a Greg Rucka fangirl.

And then last, but not least, the two I'll talk about in this entry:

X-Men Origins: Iceman (one shot).

Black Widow: Unholy Origins #1.

First things first: Iceman. I'm an Iceman fangirl. Bobby Drake is pretty much my favorite X ever. Maybe it's because I met him before the other Xs, when he was hanging out with Spider-Man and Firestar on my Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe it's because I sort of like his personality and how a guy like that is one of the most powerful mutants on the planet. Maybe it's because I feel for his total and utter lack of ability to maintain a relationship.

For me, if you're going to do an origin comic (not to be confused with an origin movie), you should remain true to where the character ends up, while updating and changing things for the time you're writing. Also, maybe have some fun art. The art in this was fine. It was like a weird Norman Rockwell comic. I wasn't blown away. Also, I prefer Bobby as a brunette, but that's a personal thing.

Here's the deal: this retold Bobby's origins, but made his dad less of a bigot. What? The guy had to go back in time to work things out with his parents, and he still wasn't kosher with his dad until that whole Creed presidential thing. It also made him way more sure of himself. What? Bobby is not sure of himself in certain ways. This is why he'll date Mystique when she shows him attention: because he needs that sense of being wanted. I suppose we could still get that from what's-her-name's rejection of him after he freezes Rocky, but c'mon. His lack of self-confidence is why he needs Emma to unlock his most powerful abilities. His lack of self-confidence makes him interesting!

If you want to set up some origins universe that starts fresh, eh. But this seemed to be a one-shot trying to draw in fans of the movies. I can tell you that I wouldn't care about Iceman at all if I read this book. Considering he's already my favorite X, that means this book sort of failed. Immensely.

But Black Widow: Unholy Origins didn't disappoint. After I finished reading (and enjoying) it, I went back and looked at who the author was. Paul Cornell! I love Paul Cornell, because he wrote the best Doctor Who book ever, Human Nature, which was turned into a pretty decent episode (would have been better if it was the seventh Doctor still, but whatever). I also have met him a couple of times at the annual Gallifrey convention, and he is awesome. He's funny, witty, and loves the medium he's writing in, whether DW or comics. (I will also be bringing this issue for him to sign next year.)

So I know this is meant to stir up interest in ScarJo's Black Widow coming up in Iron Man 2. Whatever. She's not even going to get to be in the Avengers movie, so I'm still annoyed.

I've always had a passing interest in the character, but I started to get really interested when I started getting into Winter Soldier. I think I've spoken before about my love for the new Captain America, so when I saw this origins title, with a "also featuring Wolverine and Winter Soldier" I knew I had to pick it up. (I got the variation with Bucky on the cover, the one on the left.)

The artwork was good, but especially in the flashback scenes. Also, Bucky with that 50s-era chunky arm was priceless.

The story kept me going, and I think Cornell did a good job of finding the black humor in it, which is important. I like that it wasn't just straight origins, that it tied in the present with the past. Also that line about James Barnes being a good enough boyfriend to get to call her Natasha made me laugh out loud. Literally. I got funny looks from the people walking by me.

The reason this succeeded where Iceman failed is two-fold. First, it keeps the past linked with the present. I need that to enjoy an origin story. I like flashbacks that aren't heavy-handedly telling the story, while the present scenes create the framework. Second, the writing was stronger. The characters had good voices, voices that I'd associate with them anyway, and the plot moved forward towards an interesting climax (that was the first of many, since this is a miniseries).

Maybe Iceman didn't get the benefit of a miniseries, but I can't help but feeling it's more about what was told in the issue itself than having a chance to write a longer story. Iceman was schmaltzy, Black Widow was interesting. Iceman took a character I enjoyed immensely and made him less likeable. Black Widow took a character I enjoyed a bit and made me want to follow her more closely.

Success.

Casting the Batwoman Movie

2009-10-31T01:00:00.002-04:00

After my post on adaptations, I got to thinking about a Batwoman movie. So I posited a question on Twitter: Who would I cast as Kate Kane? I already knew who my Montoya would be. Then I started thinking about the other roles in the series, and I had a lot of fun just clicking around the internet looking for good fits, so I decided to turn it into an entire blog post, with pictures, pros, cons, and various geekery.

Enjoy.

Hopefully. :)

Kate Kane/Batwoman - My friend Stewart suggested Amy Adams. At first I reacted "huh, Giselle?" and then I remembered her as Amelia Earhart in that movie about the museum with what's-his-face from Zoolander. I know Amy Adams can be adorable. I know she has red hair and very little skin pigmentation. But can she be Kate Kane? I think playing Kate Kane may be even harder than playing Batwoman. After all, with Batwoman you have the costume to get you into character. Once you put that symbol on your chest, I think it makes a huge difference (even with nipples, Clooney did better at Batman than Christian Bale does). But Kate is a non-stereotypical lesbian. She's neither completely butch nor completely femme, and Hollywood generally doesn't know what to do with that (that includes writers, directors, casting directors, and actors). And of course there's that whole spectrum of what it means to be butch and femme, blah blah blah.

I guess I wonder if Amy Adams can pull it off. I don't know. I maybe wouldn't mind seeing her try. She doesn't make any less sense than, say, Heath Ledger, and everyone thought he was a great Joker. Okay, she makes slightly less sense than Heath Ledger.

For a very different and competing opinion, I sort of like Christina Hendricks in the role. I know, I know the curvy Joan of Mad Men is ultra feminine, and Kate isn't, necessarily. But, well, Kate's drawn busty (like almost every other comic book heroine), and Christina Hendricks has done a good job at playing kick-ass, during her two episode stint as Saffron in Firefly. And, actually, Joan is sort of kick-ass herself, in that bound-by-the-sixties sort of way. (For any MM fan interested in a really interesting article about how Joan is a more interesting character than Peggy, read this.)

Here's the thing. I think Hendricks could pull of not only Batwoman (who has a tendency to be hyperfeminine and sexual) but also Kate Kane, whose femininity is a bit more restrained, but who is still a ballsy, alpha-type woman. And, again, the way Kate is drawn is actually very similar to Christina Hendrick's body type.

Yeah, I think I've found my Kate Kane.

Renee Montoya/The Question: Sarah Shahi. Hands down, no questions, absolutely Sarah Shahi. I know there are people that like Michelle Rodriguez for this role, but no.

This woman should play Renee:

Uh huh.

Now, there's more than just looks to back this one up. First, she's played a cop before. Dani Reese in Life, who was a hard-ass, wise-cracking, recovering-addict detective. Basically Renee Montoya. Second, she's played gay before. Carmen de la Pica Morales in The L Word, where she had weird toilet sex with Mia Kirshner. Once you act out weird toilet sex, playing a faceless, kick-ass lesbian PI who macks on Batwoman and gets involved in a Religion of Crime should be a cake walk.

Third, she's a brown belt in karate, which means she could at least be quasi-believable in some of the Question's martial arts-heavy fight scenes.

Fourth, she's Renee Montoya.

Case closed, appeals denied.

Maggie Sawyer - With the understanding that she's going to be somewhat important as the series develops, I figured "what the heck." I like Laura Harris from Dead Like Me and Women's Murder Club, but she definitely seems a bit young/soft for the job. Then again, if Amy Adams is Kate, well. We're skewing a bit younger than I think the characters actually are in the books anyway. So maybe she could work.

Stewart suggested Mariska Hargitay, and I can't say I disagree with him. Around seasons 3 and 4 of Special Victims Unit, she was perfect. But that was a lot of years ago, and I don't know if she could pull Maggie off right now.

So while Laura Harris might be too young, Mariska Hargitay might be too old. Not that I couldn't see having Maggie be a bit older than Kate. That could work, too. And since this is sort of a dream cast, I guess we could just take that Mariska Hargitay from back then and put her in. Hm.

I could go either way, really. I'd have to sit in on the audition and see who has the best chemistry with our lead, because Kate and Maggie already have some very nice chemistry in only a few panels of one issue of Detective Comics. I am, however, a Renee/Kate shipper, so I'm sticking fast with that. Still, definitely important that the actress be able to do well against our Batwoman, since Maggie's apparently going to be her version of Commissioner Gordon.

Edit: A reader, Nikki, has recommended Katee Sackhoff for the role of Maggie. DUH. Wow, great suggestion. She's a great balance of feminine and masculine, can kick ass, and can command a group of people. Also I wouldn't mind seeing her in a tux, either.

Alice - Mia Kirshner. I know I'm sort of double-dipping in the The L Word pot, but take a look:

Now imagine her white-blonde.

Yeah.

Mia Kirshner is a fantastic actress. If you're not familiar with her work, go rent more independent films (she also played Sarah in The Crow: City of Angels, so there's that comic link), and her character, Jenny, on The L Word was completely nuts by the last two seasons (check out this great compilation from S5 NSFW). She'd be perfect.

Colonel Kane - I'm going to go with JK Simmons on this. I just really like the guy and think he has great range (have you seen him in Oz or Law and Order: Special Victims Unit?). I think he could pull off a ex-military, sort-of-traumatized, loves-his-daughter-but-worries-about-her kind of dad. Kind of like a cross between the Juno dad and the SVU shrink. Totally. It's also occured to me that I don't know Colonel Kane's first name (besides "sir" or "dad"), so maybe I'm not particularly wed to the character just yet. Still, I think JK Simmons could pull it off, and be good in the roll. And I'm a fan of the guy.

Okay, there we go, my picks for the main roles of a Batwoman movie. I'd love to get input if you've got any. Or if there are any other roles out there you think I ought to cast (I've already cast Kate Spencer/Manhunter, and am daydreaming of a legal drama where she defends Wonder Woman and they smolder and spar together. Cough.) let me know that, too. This is a fun way to pass the time.

Friday Question/Friday Answer: Adaptations

2009-10-30T09:14:00.003-04:00

Okay, here we go for real this time: an actual Question/Answer entry. I made this question up myself, with some input from Anika, but please feel free to ask me future questions because I'm just not creative enough to keep on doing it.

I've been wanting to talk a bit more about non-print media, so this seems like a good transition piece.

What is your favorite comic book adaptation?

Because it's hard for me to narrow it down, Anika recommended I list a few and end with a winner. It's nice to have smart friends!

By the way, I welcome discussion on this. These are all opinion, and I have some very interesting tastes that not everyone agrees with (Donner's Superman doesn't crack my top 10, for instance).

Honorable mentions: Supergirl (1984), Watchmen (2009), V for Vendetta (2005), Mutant X (2001), Batman (1988), Iron Man (2008), Flash (1990), Flash Gordon (1980), The Crow (1994), Tank Girl (1995).

5) X-Men: The Animated Series (1992). This show made comics cool for my whole group of friends and, more importantly, for people who would normally pick on my whole group of friends. I didn't know anyone in my age group who didn't watch this at some point. And because of this show we got all the other neat animated shows that followed in that decade, including DC's amazing, comic-inspiring animated universe. Not to mention that it followed so well with the comics, including the awesome Dark Phoenix storyline. This show made me love Scott Summers, which... is saying something.

Plus it had the one of the best TV theme songs ever.

4) The Adventures of Superman (1952). My dad used to record all the episodes that aired late at night and we'd watch them together. This was my first introduction to Superman, so it holds a special place in my heart. There's something about the fifties-era Superman that is so perfectly perfect that I can't help but love it. The great thing about Superman is that he really is just always like that. I know that makes some people have less of an ability to connect to him, but for me that makes him more universal. Superman is Superman. Even if he crash lands in Siberia and is raised by Communists (a perfect foil to this Cold War Era show, by the way) he will always have the same set of values and morals. He always wants what's best for his adopted planet, even if he doesn't always fit in with it, and there's something very childlike and innocent about that which, in my opinion, is perfectly showcased by this fifties-era version.

3) X-Men (2000). As much as I hate that it was a Marvel movie that did it, Bryan Singer's more-grounded-in-reality version of the X-Men is responsible for the current wave of superhero movies and current love of comics by Hollywood (and therefore the main stream consumer). But more importantly, it's a pretty damn good movie. It's well cast, with a few exceptions (why did no one think of Liev Schrieber back in 2000?), it's got an interesting story, and the effects are good. But most of what makes that movie great, because it does change some things I don't get (swapping in Rogue for Kitty, for example, when Anna Paquin could have played a perfectly good Kitty), is the fact that 95% of the roles were cast perfectly, including the three most important ones: Magneto, Xavier, and Wolverine. These people are the characters. Wow. The first time we saw Hugh Jackman (and let's be honest, how many of us had actually seen Hugh Jackman before?) leaning against that cage, smoking a cigar... sent shivers up my spine. That movie set the bar. Let comic fans make comic movies and you'll get a well-cast (mostly), well-written, well-shot movie. It's too bad that his Superman Returns wasn't as good.

2) Batman: The Animated Series (1992). Where to start. First off, another great title sequence that really pulled in the dark-deco-noir atmosphere of Gotham:

This show created a whole universe of its own, giving us both Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya, who made the transition (very successfully) into the comics. It developed an animated universe full of superheroes and led to its own sequel, Batman Beyond. It made Bruce interesting, it made its villains interesting (Mark Hamil is still the best Joker, period), and it was the first time I ever really looked forward to getting back to Gotham. This did for kids and adolescents what Burton's movie did for teenagers and adults.

And it was fun. It was good. I enjoyed pretty much every single episode, and I still think of it when I think of Batman. To me, this show is Batman. This is the Bruce Wayne I want wearing the cowl. This is the world of Gotham I want to see. Darker than Metropolis, but not as dark as the comic version of Gotham. It really can't rain all the time, guys.

1) Wonder Woman (1975). Ah, the height of the second wave of feminism and we finally got the most well-known female comic hero onto television. Please note that we still have yet to have a female comic lead for a movie, other than the much-lambasted (unfairly!) Supergirl from 1984 and the did-anyone-else-see-it Tank Girl (both in my top ten, btw). And that there have been precious few female-led comic shows since the 70s (Birds of Prey, which I enjoyed, Model by Day, which was awful but I enjoyed because of Famke Jansen but it was just a TV movie, so... and maybe the argument for Generation X, but that was more of an ensemble). Okay, there's one exception, but I'm saving that for my Grand Prize.

Anyway. Here we are 35 years later and the Black Widow has been relegated to Tony Stark's secretary, there will be no female Avengers in the forthcoming movie, and if they ever make a Wonder Woman movie... yeah, exactly.

But besides all of that, I loved this show because of Lynda Carter. Man. She's still Wonder Woman as far as I'm concerned. She made the character interesting, strong, smart, sassy, vulnerable... human. While still being Diana Prince of the Amazons. And she did all of this in an outfit no man would have been caught dead in until 300. This. Is. Themyscira.

Grand Prize: Lois & Clark (1993). Best. Lois. Ever. I remember the big to-do when they announced that it would be Lois' name up front. And now it seems so obvious. Teri Hatcher's Lois was absolutely perfect for the time, and as a 12 year old girl watching this show, there was nothing I wanted more than to grow up and be like Lois Lane (except maybe to grow up and marry Lois Lane, but that came a couple of years later). The leads and amazing chemistry, Dean Cain was a great Superman and Clark (in the more modern, less bumbling sense), and John Shea was a perfectly cast as the evil, strangely noble version of Lex Luthor.

Yeah, this show jumped the shark. But it took awhile. We got a lot of good episodes out of it. But more importantly, we got a pop-culture phenomenon. And us girls got someone to look up to that was just a regular woman, living in a super world with a superhero.

It was sharp, stylized, and witty. Teri Hatcher carried that show (not that Dean Cain wasn't great, and not that I don't give props to Margot Kidder, for being the best part of the modernization of Superman that started with Donner's movie). It was fun and exciting and bright and it got people talking about Superman again. And I loved every minute of it, even after the shark jumping.

So there we go. I cheated a little because I couldn't narrow it down.

What are your favorite adaptations?

Wednesday Haul. Sigh. More Zombies. (But also Batwoman!)

2009-10-29T09:10:00.004-04:00

Not that I'm on a strict timetable, but I meant to get this in yesterday and the day just sort of got the better of me. So here we go. Same idea as last week, bottom to top.

Necrosha (one shot) - Yeah, zombies. Yawn. I don't care if DC or Marvel came up with this first, DC got it out first, so Marvel is late to the game. The art in this issue is really nice. There are three separate set-up stories. The plot of the first one is okay, but mostly exposition from Selene (it seems) and... big reveals of zombies I just don't care about. I'm sure you're wondering why I bothered, considering my general disdain with Marvel's universe at the moment. Well, Necrosha is a big cross over with New Mutants, and NM is one of the two titles I regularly read from Marvel (though I may add a third). I know about Emma and the Hellions, so that was neat, but the rest... eh. Whatever. Good luck with the zombies, X-Force. I think the Cypher story was interesting but, again, I'm really only here for the New Mutants anyway. So naturally. And then, of course, they throw Destiny into the third one and I get all interested in X-Men Legacy just to find out WTF she said to Ruth, and who Ruth is (who's Ruth) and was she looking for Rogue?

Zombies are so complicated, man.

New Mutants #6 - The first Necrosha tie-in for New Mutants. Cypher's back and all evilish. Are zombies really evil? I mean, I realize that the Blackest Night and Necrosha zombies aren't really zombies. They certainly seem to have some choices in what they're doing. The Necrosha ones more than the BN ones even. I enjoy reading Cypher's thoughts, and I enjoy how he breaks down even body language and understands it. The scene with the Professor (he's walking?) and the newly graduated New Mutants is priceless. And thank heavens we don't have that terrible art style from last time. I enjoyed it enough this time, but I'm so tired of the dead coming back and punishing the living that I really can't get behind it 100% yet.

Blackest Night: Titans (3 of 3) - This resolution was much more satisfying than the resolution from the Superman tie in. I don't know why. The mystery of why Dove is a weapon against the zombies is interesting (I have theories), and it's cool to see Bart and Cassie step up and be part of the Titans now. For BN anyway. Also Bart had the best comedic line of the book (the fact that I could laugh in a zombie book is nice), and there was some real intensity with Gar and Dead!Terra and Donna and dead!Baby that not only rung true but was very powerful. I was pleasantly surprised by this. I've always pictured Donna as Debra Winger (I know, I know), but this sort of finally separated me from that image of her.

Now I want to know how they're going to bring Garth back from the dead, because... seriously. Once this is all over, I want some of these dead heroes back, guys.

Blackest Night (4 of 8) - "We need to run in, take charge and kick ass like we were born to. And Ray? Mera? We were born to." Damn. For the first time ever, I see why Barry Allen is such a big deal. So here we are, power levels 100% (finally), and Nekron rises and wants Barry Allen (and I'm going to assume Oliver Queen, Clark Kent, Bart Allen, and anyone else who's come back from the dead). There were some fine moments in this, but it's dead in the middle of the series, and I'm pretty sure January is a month off for BN (hey, maybe they can finish Rebirth) so I just feel frustrated and stuck. But these zombies still pack more of a punch to me than the Marvel ones, because these are characters I know and love rising and being tormented. Middle of the road.

Gotham City Sirens #5 - Wow, this title is like... full of super lesbian subtext. Jenna Duffy, The Carpenter? Hah! I love the way Paul Dini writes these characters, it's really fantastic. And a freakishly adorable reveal of the actual bad guy, Joker's old sidekick who doesn't like "Harley Come Lately" (seriously, gay subtext abounds). Great stuff. This is another one of those titles that I feel I should be annoyed at, but mostly just enjoy. The team of Harley, Ivy, and Selina is fantastic and I have a lot of fun with them.

World's Finest (1 of 4) - I like this idea of the young superheroes that stand in on a world without Superman or Batman (I'm assuming this is pre-Blackest Night?). Especially because I really like most of the young superheroes. And they started out with two of my favorites: Red Robin and Nightwing. I love Chris Kent. I love the idea of Chris Kent, I love how Chris Kent came to be, and I love what he's doing now. So I was happy with this.

It was just a small little story for the two of them, but it had a lot of good character development in it, which is nice to see in what is ostensibly a one-off for the characters. The contrast between Nightwing's blue and Red Robin's red is really pretty. Yes, I use technical words like pretty. I'm a professional, people.

Ms. Marvel #46 - This was my first issue of Ms. Marvel. Ever. And it's second on my list, so that's saying something. My interest in Ms. Marvel was piqued by Fantastic Fangirls' Anika, and when I saw the "Battle of the Marvels" cover, I knew I had to pick it up. I wasn't disappointed. Sure, I only had a slight idea of wtf was going on, but Carol/Catherine's voice and her character were so enjoyable that it didn't matter. The way she dealt with Moonstone was really... heroic. Like a woman who's made mistakes allowing someone else to reform, just like she is. I'm not sure if I'll continue on with the title. Maybe. But I know that I enjoyed this issue for what it was and what it did for a character that I've come to enjoy vicariously through a big fan.

Detective Comics #858 - The beginning of the next arc for Kate and the end of the first arc for Renee. And of course it had to be at the top. I go in not wanting to like this title (seriously, twins?) but then I can't help it. Between the great writing from Rucka and the amazing art from JHW3, I don't have a choice. Also, just keep drawing Maggie Sawyer in a tux. Seriously. Hot. I think they're setting her up as the Gordon to Kate's Batwoman, and that's fine by me. Except with more subtext and potential making out. Also fine by me (sometimes I'm easy).

One of the things that really stuck out to me (in a good way) was the difference between The Past and The Present. Artistically. The past had less detail, as if it really was just a memory that is fuzzy around the edges. I mean, I have no artistic talent whatsoever, but if I'm reincarnated as an artist, I'd like to be JHW4. His stuff is so amazing, and even though I still wish the Kanes could have some skin pigmentation (they used to have it! what happened?) that is seriously my only nitpick with the art. The part where Kate comes back into her HQ and sheds her gear before slumping in the chair... really great stuff. It's a two-page splash, so instead of scanning it poorly, I'll just say: go buy the issue and see it for yourself.

As for the story: again, I was okay with the reveal that Alice was Kate's sister, since that makes sense within the whole Alice in Wonderland archetype thing. The whole twin thing... less into that, but I suppose it makes the loss of Beth all the more painful to Kate, as they were able to literally be one another. Let's see where this goes, because I want to see why she becomes Batwoman in the first place (and... you know... Renee).

And then the end of Renee's story was fine. The solicits said "bittersweet," but it didn't seem that way to me. It seemed just fine. I continue to love Renee and enjoy Cully Hamner's art (I got his autograph!) and I'm excited for the next arc to start. I'd like to delve a little more into Renee's character rather than just have it be a mystery she solves, but as long as I get Renee kicking butt and being snarky, I'm unlikely to complain.

Prop X, Where X = 8

2009-10-26T10:45:00.006-04:00

Okay, I'm doing a switcharound because clearly I'd rather write about this than do a Q/A. So the Q/A can be Friday.

Apparently, over in the Marvel universe, a place I dare not look (Dune reference!), Matt Fraction had the "foresight" (self-proclaimed) to plan this story out two years ago, way before anyone even cared about Prop 8.

What story?

WTF is Prop 8?

Right, so Prop 8 is the California proposition to amend the California constitution to ban same sex marriage.

And Prop X is the thinly-veiled Marvel Universe equivalent wherein mutants aren't allowed to breed.

Here is why Prop X would never happen, even in a mutant-hating world:

Breeding and marriage aren't the same thing. Believe it or not, the Constitution actually establishes a fundamental right to privacy where it concerns what to do with your own body in the matter of conception. That's from Roe v. Wade, which lots of people hate but which is still law. The deal is that a woman can decide when, how, and if to become pregnant and/or stay pregnant. Granted, that's a very wide reading of the law, but considering the actual case law about procreation is very different than the case law about marriage, I could make the argument that it doesn't matter. The deal is that the federal Constitution serves as the entry-level for rights. A state can give more rights than the federal Constitution, but not less. That means that because of this fundamental right to privacy extended over the conception and pregnancy of a woman, a state constitution, no matter how amended, can not take away that right.
Too many comparisons to Communist China are never good for any right wing movement. Sorry, guys.
Unless you forcefully sterilize mutants, you can't actually stop them from breeding. And while various governments of the real world, including the United States, have been responsible for forced sterilization in the past, it's pretty much considered a horrible thing by just about everyone these days. Except more governments that a right wing movement wouldn't want to be associated with, such as Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and, you guessed it, Nazi Germany.
The reason Prop 8 passed was because President Obama got a whole heap of church-going African American and Latino voters out to the California polls in November that would not have normally gone. This was part of his grassroots campaign that worked beautifully for him and terribly for the separation of Church and State. There is no equivalent reason in the Marvel Universe right now for there to be a high voter turnout for Prop X.

Now none of this stops that whole Humanity Now! movement from trying, I guess. And maybe it's some sort of way for the writers and the readers of Marvel to feel satisfaction over the failure of a right-wing, anti-rights group's failure. Or maybe they'll (inconceivably, and that words does mean what I think it means) succeed, and that's a way to get us all angry and Doing Something.

Though unless we live in California, there's really not much for us to do at this point.

Well, unless we're self-proclaimed Comic Fan Obama. He could always repeal DOMA. That'd help.

Wait, sorry, talking about Prop 8 again.

Which is the point, I guess.

Wednesday Haul! Lots of girls, a few zombies, and a woman.

2009-10-21T21:41:00.004-04:00

So just like everyone else in the Comicverse (I blame Joss Whedon for everything being a 'verse now), here's the first of my official weekly haul responses.

Bad first, because I want to end on high notes.

Justice League #38. It wasn't really bad, it was just... there. I picked it up because of the new writing team, and because I like the idea of the Justice League, and I've got a soft spot in my heart for them, but... Vixen? Really? I didn't even know who half these people were (someone died in the first few pages, and he looked like a cross between Captain Falcon and Hawkman, and I'm sure I would have been upset if, you know, I knew him). At least Red Tornado was there. And then Zee showed up. And then it was all just a PRELUDE to Darkest Night: JLA. Ugh and blah. The art wasn't anything spectacular, so really this book felt like a waste of my money.

Supergirl #46 is apparently the conclusion of the Hunt for Reactron, but I really don't care so it doesn't really matter. I haven't read any of these Reactron tie-ins, even though I really should because I like Supergirl. Why do I buy them? I don't know. Maybe in some small way, I feel like my money will make a difference. Not that it did for Exiles. Jerks.

Azrael #1. Okay. The art is sort of weird-but-good and I sort of am interested enough in the story and the character (I never liked Azrael the first time around, but I like the idea of Azrael), so I'll stick it in the middle.

Blackest Night: Superman#3. Ah, the conclusion. Where Krypto and Kon both manage to kill some Black Lanterns and we get to... wait until the next issue of Blackest Night to see anything else. Sigh. I love the three main Supers (Man, Boy, and Girl) so I was happy to see Kon using his TTK and dealing with Clark issues and such, but... Kara's trapped on Krypton and... we have to wait for BN for any furtherance of plot. Sigh!

Streets of Gotham #5. This is something I picked up from the Manhunter co-feature. We've apparently moved on in the story, because now Huntress is the main character of the main feature. And even though Batman is on the cover, he's not in the story at all (woo). I like the Huntress. She's sort of cool. Like the Red Robin of the ladies. I dig it. And the weird homicidal priest guy is interesting. SoG is at its best when it's showcasing Gotham, and I think that this issue did that. And then there was the Manhunter, and I love her something fierce (more on that Friday) so all in all I was really happy with this issue, and it's reinterested me in the main feature. Also I really like the art of both the main feature and the co-feature. I've added Dustin Nguyen to my "favorite artists" list.

Power Girl #6. Man, do I hate myself for loving this title. But I do love it. There are breast jokes aplenty. There are more-than-half-naked women running around getting taken advantage of and then being brutally violent. And then... Terra is adorable. And Kara's awesome with her cat. And the bright colors and heavy lines really work (Amanda Conner is definitely on my list). And every issue is just fun. I'm glad this Space Girls Gone Wild (sigh) arc is over with, even if the ending seemed a bit too cut-and-dry for me. I'm sure those women and their "handler" will be back.

Ahem. Anyway, how adorable was the page of Terra and PG shopping for furniture? Super adorable! And on the rooftop? I mean, seriously. Seriously! Also, I'm really enjoying the movie parodies that are "real movies" in the comic world. Hilarity. Fat Guy and the Hot Chick. Too true! How does Power Girl manage to be both horribly offensive and totally spot on in its feminist/pop-culture critique all in the same issue? I don't know, but when it comes down to it, it's just fun. In a sea of waking-dead zombies killing everyone and torturing everyone else, it's nice to have a title that is just light and superheroy and enjoyable. So thanks, Gray, Palmiotti and Conner. You made Wednesday brighter!

And then my number one buy this week, which is completely unexpected because it's Marvel: Spider-Woman #2. Man. Man man man.

Erm, excuse me. Woman.

There is nothing I don't like about this book. From Jessica Drew's inner monologue to the noir-with-color style art which reflects the gritty darkness of the plot, to the fact that I don't really need to know any of the random junk happening in the Marvelverse (damn you, Whedon!) to follow along. This is a fantastic book. I'm actually tempted to spend some money on the motion comics just to see the different stuff in that format.

It's funny, because Spider-Man is probably my least favorite mainstream/well-known superhero ever. Ever. I just don't like him, never have, and probably never will. You'd think I would, because he's the geek-turned-superhero wise cracking guy that gets to fly around the city. Maybe it's the spider thing (I hate insects... and arachnids), but I like Blue Beetle just fine, so probably not. There's just something about the type of stories he has that I dislike.

But Spider-Woman is nothing like that, and is nothing like what I expected. After I read issue one I was surprised, and now to see it continue into issue two, I'm totally sold. I hope this creative team stays together for a long long time (Bendis said in an interview that he's got tons of stories to tell, and I totally agree with hi that Maleev is doing some might fine artwork), because this book is absolutely in my top three right now.

There we go. Wednesday done. Comment! (If you, cough, want. I like feedback! And discussion!)

Some more Olivia Wilde interlude.

2009-10-20T19:12:00.003-04:00

So I was supposed to start doing a Monday Q/A thing this week, but didn't. Oops! I don't want to do the same day as the Fantastic Fangirls, so it'll have to wait until next week.

But before my weekly Haul Post, have some of my fangirlish glee that 1) Olivia Wilde loved Wonder Woman, 2) Olivia Wilde wanted to be Wonder Girl, 3) Olivia Wilde said "Tron" out loud.
Glee!

(The emotion, not the TV show.)

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Also, I had no idea that this MTV Splash Page thing existed until I got the Google alert tonight. When comics and movies collide? I'm in!

Saturday Morning Miscellany

2009-10-17T09:49:00.003-04:00

In the interest of having at least one or two posts a week, I've decided to give myself some kind of schedule. The schedule will involve a reaction to my weekly haul, usually Wednesday night or Thursday morning, and then some kind of post where I, like, answer a question. This is totally a rip off of the Fantastic Fangirls, which I wholeheartedly admit, but I'll use different questions.

Unless theirs are good.

(Or they tell me to stop.)

I also have some other things I really want to write about, like the Dynamite Athena book (confusing up until the last page which just enraged me), the end of the first arc of Batgirl, and Manhunter. MANHUNTER. So I'm going to try to buckle down and get myself into a regular posting habit so there are no more long periods of radio silence.

I drove my friend (a Fangirl) down to the Baltimore Comic-Con last weekend, because I was headed that way for a wedding and wanted company. She got four of my things signed by four artists. Steve Lieber sketched me a Carrie inside of my Whiteout book! Eee! I also got Stuart Immoment (on Secret Identity 1), Terry Moore (Echo TP 1), and Cully Hammer on the cover of the reprint of TEC 854. The one with the cool Batwoman/Question/Lightning thing.

Speaking of comic cons, are there any readers in the Boston area who know anything about the upcoming Boston one? It seems really really small, almost third tier, and considering the huge Anime convention that happens here every year, I'm sort of surprised. It's like it's mainly there to showcase merchants, not artists or writers. I just feel like a city like Boston can pull in some big names. Not to denigrate the guests that are going, but as only a newly-back-in fan, I have a feeling there's not a lot of pull to go to this con for people like me or the casual fan. They also apparently have it twice a year, in October and April, which seems really weird.

So I'm looking for some input on that, if anyone has any. I've been chatting with some people and the consensus is that if Boston had a good con, they'd be all about going. The closest is NY,CCC and that's a circus since comic movies pushed everything more mainstream. A lot of New Englanders go down anyway, or go to Baltimore, or other east coast cons, and I think that's a shame.

Feedback! Go to it. (General feedback on comic con experiences, including small cons would be appreciated too. ;) )

And that's it for this Saturday morning. I'll be back regularly, though. Thanks for your patience.

End of the Elegy

2009-10-02T08:46:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm late. Sorry. TEC came out last week. But I was too busy writing about The Web and lesbian movies, and you know how I get about lesbian movies.

So back to lesbian comic book characters.

(Does anyone who reads this watch House? I'm angry at it right now and considering an entry-long rant.)

I was chatting with my comic book guy (not to be confused with the Comic Book Guy, since mine is not obese or an ass) about TEC when I went in to get this week's pull. He's bummed that JH Williams' awesome art is going to get less pages, but he and I agreed that having the Question have the main story for a bit will be cool. He also convinced me to buy the Shang-Chi title, which was a really good sell, because the art was totally awesome and made up for the dreck that was New Mutants this month. Plus, I don't like Deadpool and I still enjoyed immensely. So there's that.

Anyway, back to the end of the "Elegy" storyline in Detective Comics. I thought it was... fine?

Yeah, I don't know. There's something about Kate Kane that's just not selling me. I really really really really really like Batwoman, but I just don't like Kate Kane. Unless she's being Batwoman-esque.

Looks good in a tux, though.

I thought that image needed to be nice and centered and a bit large. Seriously, seeing a woman in a tux out on a date with a pretty blonde is really neat (especially with Bob Kane's name in the corner, bringing the history into it). If only that woman had skin pigmentation.

Though at least now I sort of get why she doesn't. The cover of the book (which has been well linked/publicized/whatever as an example of J.H. Williams' awesome art) sort of gave me a clue about where we were going with this. Also I watch too many movies, read too many books, and haven't been surprised by a twist ending since Wild Things (but only because I didn't expect a movie like that to be intelligent enough to have a twist ending). Okay, that's not entirely true. Mad Men got me this week.

Anyway, I should have known. The Red Queen and the White Queen are sisters, after all (of course they're also cats, but hey). And I don't care if she's calling herself Alice, she's clearly meant to be the White Queen to Kate's Red Queen. So there we go, sisters. I'm sure I'll feel way more interested in this once we get into her backstory and find out what the deal with her sister is. And hopefully their shared albinism.

I'm looking forward to her meeting Renee, too, because I enjoy their relationship.

But that's the future (erm, past). Overall I was happy with these first four issues that made up the first arc. They didn't blow me away, storywise, but they did artwise, and the story was certainly interesting enough that I didn't get bored.

I've got my quibbles (skin pigmentation, daddy issues, lesbian vampires, and so on) but I think this is one of my favorite titles I'm reading right now. Up there with Power Girl (I hang my head, but it's fun!) and ... actually, I'm mixed on everything else. Supergirl's stuck in a crossover, and I enjoy the Blackest Night stuff, but I couldn't pin down one specific title of those yet. I'm excited to read a Flash title, but I don't like Barry Allen's return, so that detracts from it. Sirens is fun, but some of the stuff really drags on me, and I'm completely out of Streets, except for the Manhunter co-feature. And I'm enjoying Adventure Comics, but we'll see how it goes with a new writer and artist (though yay for their Flash ongoing... as long as it's not Barry) ... and Red Robin is alienating me along with Tim, so we'll see on that, too.

So right now I'm just trying to figure out what it is about Kate Kane that isn't working for me and hoping that her origin story will help with that. At least she can stand upright without the aid of Kryptonian superpowers. Always a bonus. And she's got a sharp wit, which I generally like (hey, she can hold her own with Renee). But... something. I don't know.

But I still like Batwoman. It's funny, because I've never really felt this split between the secret identities and the costumed superheroes in the comics, only in TV and movies. Like my favorite Batman is Michael Keaton but my favorite Bruce Wayne is Christian Bale. Or my favorite Clark Kent is Dean Cain, but my favorite Superman is Brandon Routh (blasphemy, I know, but don't detract from his awesome performance just because the movie was bad).

I feel like I keep saying "we'll see" a lot. I just have to get used to reading ongoings again, instead of trades. I really do have to wait and see. At least I'm feeling a optimistic, right? Right!

Web and Hangman reviews. Also some more rambling.

2009-09-23T17:28:00.005-04:00

Yeah, I bought this just because Angela Robinson wrote it (see my entry from earlier today). Good thing, too, because the art wasn't supertastic. Or even something I liked. I didn't hate it, but it was sort of meh. Also this character looks like a cross between Marvel's Banshee and Spider-Man. Seriously, his costume, not so much guys.

This is obviously a reboot (who decided to reboot this particular character?) and is fine as a first issue. I've never read anything Angela Robinson has written, only seen it translated to moving pictures, and heard the dialogue spoken on my TV screen, but I was okay with this. We'll see where it goes. I'm not interested enough in the character to be immediately engaged, but I'll stick with it because I like the writer and the mystery that's being set up.

I also dig the dual meaning of the web. Is that why they decided to bring this guy back? Considering that over in Batman and Robin, the new (?) Red Hood is using the internet to broadcast his crimes, I have to wonder if anyone's going to care about this guy doing it.

I care, though. It's interesting. I want this guy to use the internet as one of his gadgets. Like a Batman that uses Twitter.

Do we even call the internet the web anymore? There are people alive who probably don't know what the www stands for, right? It's just been there their whole lives, starting most of the internet addresses they surf to.

Do we surf anymore?

Anyway. Browsing, surfing, web, internet (I started out using a dump terminal at my dad's, messing around in GOPHER and checking my email on PINE, and roleplaying on a BBS called AfterFive, even though I was way too young to be doing that, and an old 9.6kbps modem to dial onto AOL 2.4 at my mom's, and I'm not even an early adopter), whatever. I think I'm talking about comics.

I'll stick with The Web (har har, stick!) for now and see where he goes. It's definitely better than some of the stuff out there. But, as with Streets of Gotham, I enjoy the backup feature more. The Hangman's sort of interesting! And brutal. And I enjoy the art waaaaaay more than I enjoy the art on the main feature. Too bad Angela Robinson's not writing that one.

The DCU blog refers to it as "urban noir," which would make it perfect for her (seriously, go check out GirlTrash!) and it's definitely got a heavier feel to it than most superhero comics. Well, except Batman I guess. But even Batman... I know Batman's not going to kill anyone (hell, Colonel Kane even called it the "Batman rule" when telling Kate not to kill Alice this week - and don't get me started on Detective Comics, because that's getting a post of its own). Maybe Red Robin will, but not while he's Tim. I just don't see them crossing that line.

Yeah, that line. It's bad to kill people, right? We don't do it, especially not if we're heroes.

Eh. Sometimes you've just got to put a bullet into the Joker's brain, because there's really just no such thing as rehabilitation for him. We're not talking about the real world, where things aren't black and white, we're talking about THE MOTHER EFFING JOKER. Shoot that dude. Seriously. It doesn't make Batman more interesting that he won't kill the Joker, it makes him A VERY BAD CRIME FIGHTER.

Ahem.

Nobody really has bad guys like Batman has bad guys (I just started playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum, and am sadly underwhelmed thus far), and some of those bad guys should probably NOT BE ALIVE ANYMORE. I'll give the guy a pass for most of them, I guess. But the Joker? Come the hell on, dude.

Also, even cops kills people sometimes. It doesn't necessarily make them bad cops (not that there aren't bad cops), it just means that sometimes, unfortunately, they have to kill people to do their job. And those are people people not THE JOKER.

This is why I don't like Batman. This is why it's hard for me to get behind Batman titles, and why it takes a little something extra for me to enjoy it. The guy probably wouldn't even kill a zombie Joker. I mean. Really. Lady up, dude. (See what I did there?)

Uh, I think I was talking about something else.

The funny thing about this is that I'm really against the death penalty and lethal force used by police officers and all that jazz, but if the Joker existed in real life and was really the Joker? I don't know, man. If it were my job to protect the world from him I think I would... protect the world from him. Would that make me a criminal, too?

Supergirl killed someone. The Flash did. Lots of superheroes do. The deal is that they don't want to, and sometimes it's an accident and sometimes it's out of anger and it's always to protect people and they always regret it. So, no, they're not villains.

And Batman's still a tool.

But the Hangman is sort of cool. So far.

Lesbians write comics? Black lesbians? WHAT?

2009-09-23T09:06:00.006-04:00

So I was reading my handy-dandy email newsletter from NEC about the new releases this week. Now, NEC is my "neighborhood" shop and I appreciate them for their ability to Not Suck, despite mostly employing white dudes. Every week they send out the new releases to people on the email list, including their top picks.

This week, along with a bunch of Marvel stuff I wasn't interested in (Emma Frost finally comes clean? For what?) one Marvel thing I'm curious about (Spider-Woman), and a very thin list of my usual DC titles, was a top pick that I was totally surprised by (since I clearly do not keep up on solicits, thankyouverymuch).

Who the Hell is the Web? I have no idea. Who is the Hangman? Also no idea. But I know who Angela Robinson is. Oh yes.

Angela Robinson gave us Jordana Brewster doing a hilarious music montage to an Erasure song. That's right. An Erasure song. Jordana Brewster. Is there a better montage in the last decade of movies? No. There is not, my friends. D.E.B.S. is a satirical spy movie about a group of young college-age women that are superspies, and the one Perfect Score who falls in love with the bad guy (Lucy Diamond. Yeah. Like in the sky.) It's lowish budget but adorable and witty, and has a great cast. The original short it was based on also has a great cast, and I think it still may be up on PopcornQ somewhere.

Or Youtube. Okay then.

(I guess that's only the first two minutes. You used to be able to see the whole thing streaming on the internet, but apparently since they stuck it on a DVD with 9 other shorts you may not een want to see, that's no longer possible. Right. Ohoh, here you go, a slightly censored version.)

Angela Robinson isn't just responsible for superspies and the evil lesbian supervillains that love them. She also did Herbie: Fully Loaded (yeah, with Lindsey Lohan) and this great, unfinished webseries called GirlTrash, which was a female-driven modern noir.

She's also directed some of the best episodes of The L Word, including that one with that awesome phone tree. You know the one. If you've ever watched The L Word, which you're required to if you're a lesbian or bisexual woman, or you get kicked out of the club.

Speaking of the club, I know who Angela Robinson is because D.E.B.S. has become a part of the Lesbian Required Viewing List. What list? Oh tsk tsk. You know, the one with Desert Hearts, Personal Best, Go Fish, and more recently Imagine Me & You, Lost and Delirious, The Cave (just kidding!), Saving Face, those episodes of Once and Again where Evan Rachel Wood's character realizes she has feelings for Mischa Barton's character, the first three seasons of Bad Girls, anything adapted from a Sarah Waters novel, and the entire run of Xena: Warrior Princess. Among other things.

Where was I?

Comics!

Angela Robinson is writing a comic for DC Comics. Cool. I'm still not sure how cool this Web dude's going to be (and The Hangman looks a lot like Hooded Justice...) but I'll put it on my pull list, and I'll probably do a write up on that this week.

Don't want to get kicked out of the club, after all.

Batgirl Returns!

2009-09-17T08:45:00.003-04:00

You know who would be an awesome movieverse Batgirl? Steph Brown. She's funny, she's tormented (but not in a death-of-parents way, more like a I-screw-up-because-I'm-human way), and she's adooooorable. Seriously someone sign someone up right now and get this script written. I'm looking at you, Warner Brothers.

Of course, the Batgirl everyone knows is Barbara Gordon, so that's just not happening. Though they did try with Barbara Whatever that was somehow related to Alfred in The Movie With the Nipples.

I've already talked about how I'm pleased with the new Batgirl choice. In this month's issue, Dan Didio explained why it was Steph as opposed to, say, Babs or Cass (I'm glad something big is coming for Cass in 2010, and I'd really like to see her sack Damian around a little). Changing the Oracle would suck. Not just because the Oracle is awesome, but because I like Babs better in a wheelchair. It's bad (or good, I guess?) enough that people keep on coming back from the dead (btw, read Flash: Rebirth #4 finally), but giving Babs the ability to walk again would erase twenty years of interesting, painful, well-earned character development.

What can I say? I am a fan of the characters and their developing. And there was some nice development in this. And I love love love love love. Love. Steph Brown's voice. I thought issue 2 was stronger than issue 1, which is usually how it goes. We see some more of Babs' motivation, some more of Steph's motivation, and get a preview of how they're going to be working together. I couldn't help but think of the BoP, of course, but I have a feeling that that was at least partially intentional.

I think an excellent part of Batgirl is that they're setting it up very much as a mentor-mentee thing with Babs and Steph, and it's released the same week as Batman and Robin. This week's B&R had a great rooftop fight with Dick and Damian that ended with a small smirk from Dick that reminded me of my favorite Bruce (Frank Miller's), and was a very telling look into why Dick chose Damian for the job (sidenote: I think I missed the last issue of the last arc, which I'll have to find at some point, but I really love the way Phillip Tan's art works for this dark and brutal and creepy storyline). And in contrast to Steph's adventures (and foibles) this week and her interactions with Babs, it was really good.

Batgirl is both separate from and yet integral to the core of the Batfamily. You don't wear the Bat without being something important in Gotham, but at the same time she doesn't have Batman as a mentor the way that Robin does. And she's not entirely independent, like Red Robin. Also she's a female (hello!) in a very male-oriented family. Sort of like Mia in the Arrow family (I know Judd Winnick gets some flak for stuff, but I've never read anything of his I disliked, and I love the idea of making a young, teenage, white girl a victim of HIV. Also I was a huge Real World fan for the first few seasons. Ahem.) The idea of Batgirl teaming up with Oracle really appeals to me. And I think I'm going ot enjoy it as it develops, especially considering the revealed-this-week villain (I always appreciate when female heroes aren't patronized with female villains that didn't exist until we decided they needed to fight someone but it can't be a dude so it's just like a male villain, but is female. Yeah, Alice, you know who you are, Ms. Scarecrow+Mad Hatter.)

Anyway.

I like Batgirl. Some random guy on the T yesterday tapped me to get my attention, and asked me about the current state of Gotham city. "I heard Dick Grayson is the new Batman. Is that true?"

"Yep!"

"Huh. How'd that happen?"

I gave him a brief rundown of the death of Batman, the Battle for the Cowl, and then explained that I don't know the details because I really had no interest in Gotham City until Bruce Wayne had died.

"That makes sense," he said.

Thanks for the positive reinforcement, random guy on the T. Right back atcha.

Write What You Know?

2009-09-14T09:37:00.005-04:00

Okay, first things first: sorry for my lack of entries lately. I promise I'm not dead (see, I made it through two sentences without once asking for your brains). Regular followers of this blog probably know that I recently moved. It was a bit of a process and involved moving from one place to another to another, and I don't do very well when trying to adapt to new routines. I'm mostly adapted now, though. I've also had some medical issues, blah blah, and have spent most of my free time playing mindless video games or Beatles Rockband (buy it if you like The Beatles).

One of the side effects of moving (and last week's holiday) was being all turned around on my comics. I've only recently started catching up. I have yet to read the last issue of Exiles or the latest issue of Flash: Rebirth (they're waiting for me at my local comic shop), but I've read Adventure Comics (loved it!) and Red Robin (ooookay) and the Blackest Night: Batman title (meh).

Also, I bought the Secret Six trade and, on the recommendation of one of the Fantastic Fangirls, the two volumes of Whiteout.

I read the first one last night.

And I loved it.

As usual, the art first because I don't know as much about art other than my personal reactions. I normally don't like the black and white thing, unless there's some sort of hook (like black being the background and an occasionaly bit of color, like Sin City), because I just... like pretty colors? Actually, I don't know. I just know I tend to not like the style.

But considering the setting (Antarctica! Cool! Literally!) the very-white with some black worked. It made me feel like the Ice really did get to Carrie and become part of her. And by the end I really was into it. So way to go Steve Lieber, for having art that doesn't make me wish you also had a colorist. (I also like the way Carrie looks, short and with a button nose and freckles and an attitude, like a cross between a petulant kid and someone that can break your neck with one hand tied behind her back - and the other missing two fingers. I think Kate Beckinsale does not look like Carrie, but hey. That's okay. I get why she was cast, and I dig her as an action heroine in general.)

The story got me hooked, in a way I didn't expect. The trailers for the movie make it seem very supernatural, so I was expecting some kind of alien Yeti or something, but no. Just normal humans in an abnormal environment. Just your regular old murder mystery that happens to take place in Antarctica. As someone that likes my comics to border on the fantastic (I think V for Vendetta is the most "realistic" comic I've enjoyed up until this point, which says a lot), you'd think I would be disappointed. I don't like mystery books, I don't like mystery movies, and I do like superheroes and aliens and apocalypses and spirits and... yet I still liked this book.

So I started wondering to myself: why?

The women.

Seriously.

I mean, sort of a given for me right now, right? Strong and interesting women make me interested, even if it's in the type of story I normally wouldn't go for (erm, yes, I've seen every episode of Golden Girls and Sex in the City, why?).

I've been wondering recently why we're not allowed to have female action heroes anymore. I have a half-done entry about it. I mean, they're around, right? There was that one movie with Rhona Mitra. And that other one with Rhona Mitra that was a sequel to the one with Kate Beckinsale. And Lena Headey is sort of awesome in general. We've got a few on TV, but I think they're sort of watered down by other things now. Buffy wasn't so much a high priced hooker (Dollhouse, which I enjoy but which can be iffy with that sort of thing). And... actually, who else? Yeah, can't think of any other female action people on TV, but maybe that's because I'm multitasking.

Anyway, long story short (too late!) I was thinking about Greg Rucka, and the fact that I like all the women he writes. And I was trying to think about other male authors (in various forms of media) that I can say the same of. Joss Whedon, maybe. Sort of (I can go into the issues with the women and the negatives weighed against the positives, but that's a post for another time). Ron Moore, also a sort of.

When I was in AP Bio, my teacher told us to take an exam question and twist it around so we could write what we know (eight years later I'd wonder if he had ever been a first year law student, since we were given pretty much the same advice for our first advocacy memo). So on one of my AP exam questions I managed to turn it into a map of the digestive system from mouth to anus, with all the enzymes included (I was taking anatomy at the same time). I think I must have read the same thing about fifty million times in various "So You Want to Be a Writer?" books.

Write what you know.

I don't know anything about Greg Rucka personally, other than what he shares on his Twitter account (he's a Doctor Who fan! cool!), but I'm pretty sure he's not a woman or a lesbian.

So how come his women all rock so much?

Yeah, I don't know. Though I can maybe come up with a few male writers in movies and TV that write women with the same combination of humanity and kick-your-assery that Rucka does, I can't think of anyone who does that in comics besides Gail Simone (and I will then add the caveat that I do not consider myself to be a well-read person in the modern comic field, so please correct me if I'm wrong).

You don't really need to limit yourself to what you know, I guess. Or maybe it's more that you have to find what you know in lives you haven't experience.d I mean. It's not like Jerry Siegel could fly or Stan Lee turns into a giant green dude when he gets angry (or DOES he). But the little Jewish guy knows what it's like to be an outsider. And Stan Lee is a master of finding the archetypes in all of us and putting them into comics.

Archetypes come from some place, right? They come from the old stories which were told for a reason. Because we all want to Be Somebody, and we all need to be Saved, and we all have Daddy or Mommy issues, and we're all Totally Normal Until We're Special, and we all want to Fight the Good Fight (or Be Very Very Bad).

And then we don't get new archetypes, we get new applications of the archetype. We get Kate Kane stepping in with her mommy issues, being Someone Special in Gotham, and yeah she's a woman and yeah she's a lesbian and yeah her breasts don't defy gravity and yeah that is sort of groundbreaking for a mainstream comic title. And she's not just groundbreaking, she's cool.

Though not as cool as Renee Montoya, but we all know how I feel about that.

So my point is that when I read that the female co-lead had been cut from the Whiteout movie adaptation, I was not surprised. Having one woman that can be a woman and kick ass (and did they keep the references to her being called a dyke in the movie? because.. yeah) is a big enough deal in mainstream movies, which are of course more mainstream than the most mainstream of comics that you're definitely not going to get two on there. No matter how much that might change the story.

Actually, wait. That wasn't my point. My point was that Greg Rucka writes better women that I do, and I'm a woman. He probably writes better lesbians than I do, but I've honestly never tried. Most of the time I write, I write men, and I certainly don't write for a living. So props to Greg Rucka for continuing to create and write the most interesting women out there in comics.

And tonight I'm going to read Volume 2 of Whiteout, and we'll see how that goes, because I'm sort of worried Sharpe won't be there anymore.

Marvel Divas vs. Disney Princesses. Thunderdome style.

2009-08-31T11:15:00.015-04:00

Nah, just kidding. I have no idea what the fallout of Disney's acquisition of Marvel will be, other than having stupid Marvel-based rides at the theme parks.

Though Mulan vs. Laura Kinney could be sort of fun.

My money's on X-23. Just saying.

I've been pretty vocal about my disinterest in Marvel titles lately. I've also shared my dismay that Marvel's movies are better than DC's (though I have yet to complain about the lack of female Avengers in the upcoming movie, which believe me I will) since I like DC's characters better. I've also been very vocal elsewhere (including college papers, no lie) about my hatred of the Disney Princesses imprint. Like it wasn't bad enough we had to grow up thinking that a happy ending = Prince Charming, Disney now has to saturate stores with pretty pink and sparkly princess items that girls Must Have to Be Cool. Grr and argh, in that order. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I had a mother who would sit me down and tell me it was okay not to be like the princesses in the movies, because everybody is different.

So what is Disney going to be doing with Marvel? I've been told "something exciting," by an anonymous source that will probably kill me for even putting that in my blog. I have no idea how said anonymous source knows this, other than that anonymous source has been involved in some wheelings and dealings with some production companies lately and said to me, when I mentioned the news this morning, that "I knew it was happening, but couldn't tell you." Stupid non-disclosure agreements!

Yeah, I don't know. I guess we'll see if there's much of a shake up. I have a feeling this will affect the movie division more than the comic division, but I have no idea. I'm not a business-minded person. I'm a consumer, and I haven't been consuming much of either company's products lately (though I love the movies I grew up on and I love Enchanted, and we all know my feelings on Tron, which better have a kick-ass comic tie-in now).

What would I like to happen? I'm not really sure on that, either. This isn't as big to me as when Warner Brothers bought DC (which was only vaguely big, because I wasn't into comics as much at the time). I'm still a DC kid (girl, reader, whatever), and probably will favor DC for as long as they turn out better stories and more realistic cup sizes (yes yes, Power Girl, I know). It's all opinion, of course. I just prefer the world of DC and the characters of DC, and so the fact that Cinderella may join H.A.M.M.E.R. doesn't really worry me.

Please note: I don't really think that Cinderella is going to join H.A.M.M.E.R. Belle might, though. She's fiesty.

Okay, just for kicks, Thunderdome match ups I'd like to see:

Mulan vs. X-23
Maleficent vs. Phoenix
Megara vs. Carol Danvers
(What's with the M-ladies, Disney?)
Ursula vs. Emma Frost

And to be fair, some guys:
Prince Charming vs. Captain America
Aladdin vs. Spider-Man

Wait, why do women have to fight each other? Tsk tsk, Sam, you know better than that. Mulan could totally kick Spidey's ass. Illyana Rasputin vs. The Sorcerer from Fantasia? No contest. Oh, and who doesn't want to see The Incredibles vs. The Avengers? Crazy people, that's who!

And I bet Giselle would tame Wolverine in no time flat.

Now that's a movie I'd pay to see.

Sexuality in BSG.

2009-08-27T09:33:00.005-04:00

I'm a bit behind on my comics because of my week long moving process, so I'm going to write about something else, instead. The title does say "and pop culture," after all. If this goes well, I may have some more non-comic posts in the future, especially during slow weeks.

Okay, so this came up in my post about female friendships in comics. I said not to get me started, but then James asked if I would start. So here we go.

Boo!

Actually, I've talked about this a lot with one of my friends. Who would we like to see as The Token Not-Straight Character in BSG? The obvious choice is Starbuck, which is why Starbuck would be a no go (Billy would also have bee obvious). I personally vote Eight, but Eight 's line seemed to be particularly defined by her relationships with men, so meh! Dualla would have been good, or Roslin (though I loved the Adama/Roslin romance, and how it portrayed in a beautiful, tender, realistic way the development of love, romance, and a sexual relationship between older people) or Hot Dog (nope, had to spawn a kid), or Tory or... well, lot's of people.

But we eventually decided that the best would have been Lee. Why? Because it would have messed with peoples' ideas of what gay men "should" be. He's a soldier (suck that, DADT), a statesman, and a hero. He's a "manly man," and not overly effeminate (not that there aren't effeminate gay men, and not that I think there's something wrong with effeminate gay men, but if you want to mess with peoples' preconceived notions of stereotypes, you don't want the butch woman to be the lesbian - Starbuck - or the effeminate man to be the gay one. Not that there was an effeminate man on the show. Besides maybe Baltar. Cough.) Also he's a dude, and most Token Gay People tend to be women, and they're only Token Gay during sweeps week, so they can mack on other femmey women for ratings. Personally, I hated Lee. He was probably my least favorite character of the entire series, but a lot of that was because of his relationship with Starbuck, so maybe I would have liked him better as The Token Gay.

So now that I've rambled about who should have been the Token Not Straight Character, let's look at the ones we did get (spoilers):

1) Six, particularly her Caprica and Gina versions. Caprica really only had a threesome with Baltar and Three, so I don't think that should count. I'm also not sure that was Caprica, but I got confused by all the Sixes. You know the one. On the ship. In the bed. With Baltar and Three. She was a bad guy. And Gina detonated a nuclear bomb and killed a bunch of people. After having been tortured and raped for awhile (and was only Not Straight in the extended cut). Neat!

2) Three. But she got boxed, so that's some negative reinforcement for you. Also the whole threesome thing, which could be done in a very interesting "we don't think of relationships the way you do, you backwards humans" way, but wasn't.

3) Admiral Cain. But only in the extended version, and oh yeah SHE WAS A BAD GUY. Ahem, caps lock. A brutal killer. Shot people in the head for disagreeing with her. Super.

4) Hoshi. But only in the web series. The lone example of a decent portrayal of a non-straight person, if only because... well. Besides becoming Admiral at the end, he didn't really do much. Or express opinions. Or have screen time.

5) I saved the best for last. Felix "I'm Bastard" Gaeta. I lied before when I said Lee was my least favorite character. Gaeta was. To be fair, I hated Gaeta right from the very start, even before his whole mutiny thing. Oh and the VP to Baltar thing. He was a slimey, jealous bastard right from the start. And then he was VP to Baltar, and responsible for the death of how many people (I so loved the moment in the web series when we found out about that)? But it's okay, Felix, you didn't know. He was willfully blind, to the detriment of everyone, and I can't stand that sort of character trait. He's, arguably, one of the least sympathetic characters in the entire series. And if you felt sympathetic for him for anything but the whole leg-loss situation (which he then used as an excuse for later behaviors), please tell my why. I'd really like to know. I was actually satisfied when he was executed, which is saying something. So there we go. Plus he was only Not Straight in the web series, which was, coincidentally, the only time we saw a same-sex kiss on the show. Props for it being between two men, but boo because one of those men was Felix Gaeta.

There we go. That's what we were given. And here's why it was disappointing:

One of the beautiful things about BSG is that it was able to be an allegory for and a mirror in the face of our own society. It made us think about things. Things from the very obvious "what would you do for food" to the nature of what makes us human. It tackled subjects like torture,, terrorism, religion, democratic process, and abortion in very cutting edge ways that managed to both remind us of our culture and yet be something totally different. It made the bad guys monotheists, and then made them not as bad as we thought. The moment Roslin made abortion illegal was when this really hit home for me. I loved her. I wanted her to be my president. She was obviously, in my mind, the sort of liberal-leaning, civil-rights-loving, ass-kicking woman I wanted to my White House. And then she took away a woman's right to choose. She did it for a reason, and that reason was explained well, and her thought process was painful (kudos to Mary McDonnell), but here she was doing the exact opposite of what I thought she would do.

And it made me think. When you've only got forty-thousand people left, what's more important? The species or personal freedom? (I still say personal freedom, but that's okay.)

If they can handle the most divisive topics of our time in such a brilliant and bold way... why was everyone heterosexual? Why were the people who weren't heterosexual relegated to the web series and extended cuts, and why were most of them bad guys?

Rick Berman's old answer to the question of "why is everyone in Star Trek straight" was that it was a non-issue. It was evasive, since the complete lack of any representation in the twenty-fourth century made that non-issue a glaring oversight. But Ron Moore never said that. He even talked about including sexuality in the show. And it was a very sexual show, which focused several episodes on storylines revolving around, in no particular order: Starbuck and Lee, Starbuck and Sam, Helo and Athena, Chief and Cally, Chief and Boomer, Baltar and Women, Adama and Roslin, Cat and Random Drug Guy, Adama and Roslin, Billy and Dualla, Lee and Dualla, Starbuck and Leoben, Starbuck and Zack, Tigh and Ellen, Baltar and Caprica... I'm sure there are more. Storylines that were central to the entire arc of the series.

And so... and so I'm left unsatisfied. Could you imagine an episode where Roslin outlawed homosexuality? After all, if the survival of the species is tantamount to her, so much so that any pregnant woman is required by law to carry to term, you'd think she'd follow with the whole "homosexual relationships tend not to produce offspring so easily" thing. There could have been debates, gay couples that showed up with their kids, arguments about surrogacy and adoption, et cetera et cetera. It's not like they didn't have time for this, there was pretty pointless episodes/storylines along the way that could have been replaced with that storyline.

Maybe it would have turned into a Token Gay Storyline. And maybe not, because the writers on BSG were some of the best writers out there. Like I said, the tackled pretty much every modern issue interestingly and in a way that was obvious without being preachy.

So it would have been nice to have someone besides the villains, the barely-there dude, or the deviants be the people in same-sex relationships or having same-sex hookups or even just declining a Baltar advance because they're not into guys. It would have been nice to have something beside the usual parade of negative portrayals.

I guess I should at least be happy Cain wasn't pregnant.

Exactly.

A postella.

2009-08-26T09:11:00.001-04:00

That's like a novella. It's shorter than an actual post.

Since Flash Rebirth #4 releases today (finally!) I would just like to state once again my extreme and utter dislike for the Kid Flash costume which looks exactly like the costume of the Reverse Flash.

Okay, that's it. More later. Big day in DC, with TEC, Rebirth, the Secret Six TP, and Sirens out today. And possibly more zombies. I really don't know.

(Still no Marvel titles I have any interested in...)

Friends and Special Friends.

2009-08-20T12:23:00.004-04:00

One of Gail Simone's responses to the whole Cry for Justice #2 thing (you know the one, where Hal gets backed into admitting he had a threesome with the Huntress and Lady Blackhawk) was that it's troublesome to see people write strong female friendships in a way that inevitably lead to sex. Like two women can't just be good friends with each other, because if they're that close they obviously must have some sort of sexual interest in one another.

To drag out a good quote of hers:

"What IS it about female friendship that is so scary or impossible to imagine that it's so rare in comics? Honest to god, and I"m not talking about this book here, but it's something I've thought of often, it's just utterly baffling to me how poorly female-to-female non-sexual relationships are realized.

We have tons and tons of historic bromances in comics, but I really had to invent a superhero female friendship for Diana because she didn't really have one outside of Donna. How dumb is that, in seventy years of stories? The Jla, the Avengers, all that stuff, hardly any lasting friendships between two women.

Once again, JLI was ahead of the game with Fire and Ice. But the vast majority of female team books are of the dumbass Charlie's Angels mode, where everything is about fake lesbian posery and talking about men, as if the characters don't exist without them.

When I wrote bop, we went almost five years with no serious romantic subplot quite intentionally, with the idea of showing that women can actually have real friendships and arguments and all of that range of emotion without having to connect it to guys for it to carry weight and validity. And I think it worked, I think people understood that Canary and Zinda and Babs and Helena loved each other, genuinely loved each other. I think that was the pure joy of the book, really.

Why is that such an unbelievably rare thing, not just in comics, but in all media?"

Yeah. Seriously. Unless it's in a show, movie, or book specifically targeted towards a female audience. Certainly anything aimed towards the male gaze has a lack of them, and even "neutral" things, like, um. BSG (okay, arguable if that's a neutrally targeted show, but that gets into the whole women-liking-scifi thing and I'll save it for another day). Even BSG has a lack of female friendships. Tigh and Adama's friendship is one of the core relationships of the series. The [heterosexual] romantic relationships certainly are, and ended up being the most important plot points of the arc, by the end. (Don't even get me started on sexuality in BSG.) But there was no strong female friendship, despite having lots of strong female characters hanging around.

I'm conflicted on this one. On the one hand, I absolutely agree with what Ms. Simone is saying. In comics (and other media intended mainly for men), female friendships are rare unless there's some kind of sexual subtext involved. On the other hand... I ship it.

What I mean by that is something I've talked about before: subtext. I'm a Xenite. That's arguably one of the strongest female friendships in pop culture history. But if you asked me if they were having sex with each other, I'd say "yes" in a heartbeat and not feel a tad guilty about it because I ruined the portrayal of a strong female friendship. In my mind they remain great friends, because ... what's that quote? Love is friendship set on fire. Word.

Here's the thing. I'm not just a woman, I'm a gay woman. (I know, shocking.) And as a gay woman, I have been pretty much starved for representation in the media. Disney princesses end up with Disney princes. Everyone on TV, everyone was trying to be in a relationship, make a relationship work, or dealing with the hilarious hijinks of having a relationship (depending o the type of show), and all of those relationships were heterosexual. Even the cross-species love (Kermit and Ms. Piggy) was still straight love. Every movie I remember watching, re-watching, and eventually wearing the VHS tape out on had a heterosexual relationship at the center of the story (with the exception of maybe Mary Poppins, but I'd argue that).

I completely understand the frustration with turning close female relationships into sexual ones. But at the same time... I'd like to see some ladies lovin' each other. Even now, even post-Ellen, post-Xena, post-The L Word, we're not really well represented. (Yes, I'm a regular reader of AfterEllen.com, why do you ask?) And if we are there, we're usually chaste. Don't believe me? Compare the amount of times you saw Bianca Montgomery kiss one of her girlfriends (let alone get into bed wit one) to the amount of times you saw her sister Kendall get her freak on with various dudes.

Shuttup, I watched All My Children for the lesbian. Sort of like how I watched The OC for those 8 episodes where Mischa Barton's character (um, I don't even remember her name) was dating Olivia Wilde's character (Alex!). Sort of like how I've seen pretty much every movie on the Required List of Lesbian viewing, because it's not like there's a lot out there to go through. Sort of like how I spent hours back in 2001 downloading Real Media clips of the first two seasons of the British show Bad Girls because.. you guessed it: lesbians.

Or bisexual women.

Anyway, my point is that sometimes I really do think the women ought to be together. Not always, no. And I absolutely agree that there is a lack of strong female friendships pretty much everywhere ever (Sex in the City and its genre copiers are exceptions, but all of those women were also defined by their search for men). But sometimes, you know. I just ship it. And maybe I'd like to see some women in comics hooking up with other the same way guys hook up with women. We've got a lesbian leading a comic, let's see how long it takes her to have the amount of sex the current Batman has had in the pages of his older Nightwing and Titans titles. Let's see how long it takes her to kiss someone.

I know that Ms. Simone wasn't saying women who are friends can't have sex with each other (in fact she explicitly said that earlier), and I know that my point of view is vastly different than the intended audience (men), so the above should be read with a grain of opinion-salt. I don't want all female friendships relegated to the dregs of "heh heh, that's hot" land, but sometimes I really enjoy the chemistry between two characters and would like to see them get together.

Preferably without a guy involved, though.

Girls, Girls, Girls. And Manhunter.

2009-08-19T12:44:00.008-04:00

It was like Girl Power day today at the comic shop. Remember Girl Power? From back in the 90s? You know, Spice Girls and Xena and Ally McBeal and a female captain on a Trek show? Before LiLo and Britney broke down, and before Katy Perry fake-kissed girls, because Jill Sobule was busy real-kissing them. Hey, wikipedia has an entry on girl power. Now I don't have to explain it.

I wasn't actually expecting that sort of girl power from this week's haul. It's just what came to mind when I looked at the new release list and saw Power Girl, Supergirl, and Batgirl. Wahoo! (Except for the whole "girl" thing, which I've complained about before.) I figured it'd be same old same old, especialy since PG is just starting her "Girl's Gone Wild" arc, so we can cross that one off the girl power list, right?

Well, sort of.

The scenes of Karen and Terra at the movies were sort of adorable. Sure, there was the requisite breast-joke (har har, the sleazy guy is at nipple level), but their interactions to one another and reactions to the movie were really sort of nice. I know nothing about Terra. She's a teenager? Is it wrong of me to ship them? I'll assume yes.

Of course we fit in another breast joke, a teenager in her underwear, and a few panels about Karen's total lack of business acumen (her cat seems cool), before the real start of "Space Girls Gone Wild", which we'll get to.... next month.

Sigh.

So this was an interim issue. It was actually fine as one. I liked what it did (even the weird WoW/DoD-mocking villain) with the characters. Some nice downtime/development prior to the beginning of the next story arc. And I really like Karen Starr and I really like Power Girl and the way she's written and the way she talks. I think this is, despite the amount of breasts jokes (seriously, guys, at least one an issue?) and the "something's not quite right" with this feeling I get about the way Karen Starr is portrayed (oh, the dumb blonde that knows nothing about science or business) going to be a title I stick with.

Let's see, Supergirl next. I didn't actually read it. It's part 3 of Codename: Patriot, and I don't have 1 or 2. This is the tie-in I complained about before, swore to myself I wouldn't buy, then got confused and bought anyway. Go team me. But since we're talking Super, I did get Blackest Night: Superman, which... I don't know why. It was fine, really. I liked the part where Superman was basically every color of the lanterns. Damn straight. I'm sort of fascinated by all the BN stuff happening. Another promise I made to myself was to not buy all the tie-ins to BN, but I've been doing it anyway.

The continuity of all the comics I'm reading hurts my head. So BN takes place after pretty much every title that's currently running, yes? And Batgirl is after Red Robin, but both are before BN and after Streets of - nevermind.

I really want to write about Manhunter in her own thing, because this is an awesome character that I just discovered, but here's what I'll say: I am seriously buying Streets of Gotham only for the Manhunter co-feature. I am no longer engaged in whatever's going on with the back-up villains of Gotham. I only care about Kate Spencer kicking ass and making snarky remarks. Also her Hellraiser-reject villain was sort of gross in a good way. Ick. Yeah, no kidding.

Okay, I saved the best for last. Na na na na na na na na BATGIRL.
[SPOILERS. Um.]

I'm glad they didn't string out the reveal for too long. Also sorry about the pun with the Spoiler thing. Yeah. I couldn't apologize for the pun without spoiling the spoilers. Gah!

I'm glad it's Steph! I like Steph. Granted, I like the duo of Steph and Cass Cain, so I hope Cass comes back at some point, but I'm glad if we're getting a new, non-Cass BG that it's Steph. And I'm glad Babs will somehow be involved (but for the love of snap, I hope she stays in that wheelchair), and I'm glad that Steph hasn't lost her cool voice (I... have a thing for snarkers) and that there was some great deference given to the symbol of the Bat. It's one thing to be the Spoiler, but it's another to wear a Bat on your chest. And Steph gets (and doesn't get) that in just the right amounts. I'm optimistic for the future of this title.

So that was Girl Power week.

I was thinking about Girl Power, while I was writing my generally-happy reactions to the stories, and I remember learning about third wave feminism and discussing Girl Power in my class, and the positives and negatives. You had shows with strong (Xena) or complex (Ally McBeal) female leads, but they were wearing short short skirts (and some of them could have used a sandwich, ahem). You had the Spice Girls saying friends come first (in a way more empowering way than bros before hos, yo) but most of their popular songs were still about finding love or something. I think. I can't actually admit in public to listening to the Spice Girls. You know.

Anyway, the thing with Girl Power is that it's not Women Power. It's cutesy. It's cheery. It sugar coats feminism to sell it to the masses. I don't know if that's good or bad. Do the means justify the ends? Were there any ends for those original Girl Power People besides making money? How many people really want to change the world through pop culture?

Well, besides me. But I've just got a blog and a pechant for waxing dramatic.

What it came down to for me this week was that it was nice to buy a bunch of comics that are led by female superheroes, who are super with or without their male counterparts, but don't exist in a vacuum of femaleness or solely for the gaze of the male reader. They're there to kick some ass and be super.

Cool.

Y: The Last Man. Well. I'm done.

2009-08-15T13:00:00.006-04:00

You know when you read something or see something and you know that it will fundamentally alter the way you look at everything you read and see for the rest of your life? Not in the sense of, you know, a religious text or anything. It doesn't mean that you live your life in a different way (or maybe it does, but it doesn't have to), it just tells a story in a way that makes you reevaluate all the stories you've read before and gives you a new lens to look at all the stories you see in the future.

That's how I feel about Y: The Last Man.

Which is really just a long-winded way of saying: wow.

I'm sure a bajillion people have talked about how this book was amazing, but it's my turn, so here I go.

But first I need an anecdote, because I like anecdotes. In college, I had the phrase "the personal is political" smashed into my head a whole lot. To me, the world is personal. Everything is personal. Our lives are what informs our views and our actions. I am where I am because of who I am, and I read things the way I do because of who I am. So here's the anecdote.

I'm a lawyer, but I wasn't always. And to become a lawyer in the United States you have to pass this stupid exam called the Bar. This is basically somebody's idea of a way to test you on everything you've learned in your three years of law school, about 1% of which has anything to do with the actual practice of law (I've been a lawyer for a bit now, I feel like I can legitimately say that). It's the hardest test you'll ever take in your life (if your life is the lawyer-path), not because of the subject matter, but because of the way it's done. It's a marathon of shoving information into your brain and hoping the stuff you're capable of regurgitating during those two or three days at the end of July is the stuff that happens to be on the exam. And the entire time you're doing this you have "real" lawyers telling you that it's more of a rite of passage than anything else, because it's got absolutely nothing to do with what you're going to be doing with the rest of your life. So you know it's completely pointless except for that one, important point: passing.

I have no idea how this compares to medical boards or GMATS or anything like that, but I was an excellent standardized test taker until the Bar Exam.

Which is to say that I failed my first time. If any of you know attorneys in the United States, you may know that, despite the passage rate of many state bars, there's a huge stigma on failing the exam. It's shameful, whether we admit it or not. Needless to say, I wasn't in a good place that November.

Shortly after I received the results, I went to see the movie Stranger Than Fiction. If you haven't seen it, and you enjoy quirky movies with a vaguely science fictiony, romantic, quirky bent, I recommend it.

That movie changed my life.

The thing is, that I'm not really sure how.

The point of Stranger Than Fiction was that everything happens for a reason, and that even the smallest thing can be extraordinary, and even the most mundane person can be extraordinary.

There's nothing more I want in life than to be extraordinary. It's why I lose myself in books and movies, like Bastian Bux. This is why I become attached to the characters in stories, like they're friends of mine.

Which is why I cried when reading the last two issues of Y, and why I'm getting a bit choked up right now just writing about it.

The reason I mention failing the Bar and seeing Stranger Than Fiction right afterward is because I saw that movie at the exact right moment in my life. I needed to know that everything would be okay, because life moves forward and the decisions I make can be important ones, even if something bad happens.

I retook the Bar Exam and passed on my second go around. Not because of that movie, because I'm insane but not crazy, but because of myself. Because I wanted to be a lawyer since I was ten years old. And now I am.

Okay, anecdote done.

You know, usually I'm a lot funnier than this.

Anyway, I read Y: The Last Man at the perfect time in my life. I just don't know why yet. It's one of those things. To make a quasi-obscure law joke, I'll know it when I see it. Or when I experience it. I just have a feeling.

All the best stories, to me, are stories that transcend the literal. (Quote from Tron: "All that is visible must grow beyond itself and into the realm of the invisible.") Yorick's story isn't just the story of the last man on Earth (and I like what Vaughn said about the epilogue beying the story of the last boy becoming the last man), it's our story. My story. It's an epic. An Odyssey for the twenty-first century. It's about searching for love when it's next to you the whole time, and losing it when you finally find it. It's about an ordinary person stepping up and being what he (or she) needs to be, for the good of everyone. It's about how we're inherently good, deep down, and we want our loved ones to be okay... even when we're bad for a little while. Even when we're bad to them. It's about being extraordinary in an extraordinary world... and about being ordinary in that world, too. It's about surviving when you don't want to, and escaping to freedom when you need to. It's about the way lives intertwine even if we don't see it or realize it. It's about how everything happens for a reason, even if that reason is "just because".

It's about telling a good story (which I realized when Yorick responded to the meta of "Tragicomic" with a very telling "meh").

And this was a good damn story. One of the best I've ever read. The characters became my friends, the world became my world, and the story became my story.

So that's why I liked Y: The Last Man.

There we go. I'll try to make the next one funnier.

The characterization hurts. It hurts so badly I use capslock.

2009-08-12T16:55:00.006-04:00

Okay, so I think I've said before that Young Justice is pretty much my favorite superhero team, right? Well, they are. Like the Superboy, Robin, Wonder Girl, Arrowette, Impulse version.

If I haven't, well. Young Justice is pretty much my favorite superhero team. Probably because I was a teenager when they were wandering around be heroic teenagers, so clearly I was in the target demographic (except for being a female and gay, but that's neither here nor there... sorta).

So I'm pretty excited that Bart's alive, Kon's alive, and Tim's doing his own thing. Cassie's being kind of kick ass on a terrible version of the Teen Titans, and Cissie is - well, nothing, except for an oddly out of character appearance where she randomly offers to put the mask back on "anytime" to help out Cassie. Yeah, I don't know.

Naturally, then, I bought this week's Adventure Comics #1. Hey, Superboy was my favorite during Reign of the Supermen, so I feel like I've been with him the whole time, right? THe Legion back up sort of confused me a little, but that may have been the massively huge roster it seems to have. And the crazy dude. I dunno. Starman? To me Starman is Kevin Flynn, but whatever. He was wandering around that whole movie with Marion Ravenwood, so I'm certainly not someone to look to for any sort of legitimacy.

Um, anyway.

I mostly want to talk about Red Robin #3, which I also picked up.

Oh, first: I love the art in Adventure Comics. Love it. It's a style I really really enjoy. And I like the slightly-more-complex Kon that appears to be gracing the pages, plot-wise. Also, Krypto is both annoying and adorable. Perfect!

So RR 3. Blah blah Grail, blah blah Ra's. What really got me was how this title is turning into the "let's alienate Tim from everyone ever" story. It just makes no sense. I can get Dick not beleiving him, and I can get the frustration over Damian being chosen as Robin. But I can not get what happened this week with Wonder Girl.

So Cassie stops by to tell Tim that he's not alone. For about thirty seconds, until he tells her Batman is alive.

And then she doesn't believe him.

What?

Look, I understand that continuity is sort of fluid and whatever, but it is my understanding that this story is taking place after Flash: Rebirth (because it's concurrent with Blackest Night, and BN is definitely after the will-apparently-never-be-finished Rebirth).

So haven't Tim and Cassie both seen Bart?

"We've been through this before... with your friends." Yes, and then THE FRIENDS CAME BACK TO LIFE.

Sort of like everyone else and their mother, but we can ignore them (Hal, Barry, um... SUPERMAN), because BART AND KON ARE ALIVE.

Even if they've only seen Bart (and you'd think that'd be enough), Bart and Kon came back at the same time, so you'd think Bart would mention that Kon's alive. And, y'know, even if RR takes place before Superboy, fine. Except they know Bart is alive. So her whole entire disbelief of him is absurd. Besides the fact that I don't think Cassie would do that anyway.

This makes me dislike the plot of the entire title. Before it was dark and broody and even though I knew where it was going (to Ra's), I didn't mind because I wanted to take that trip. Now it's sort of stupid. So he has no friends (I'm sure somehow Kon will disbelieve him next month, even though Kon came back from the dead himself) so he gets angrier?

I don't know. I'll stick with it through the appearance of Superboy and see how that goes, but man, what a disappointment issue 3 was.

Also I'm impatient for my Kid Flash (sigh) ongoing. But you probably knew that already.

A confession.

2009-08-05T21:52:00.004-04:00

Another small pull list today (Wednesday Comics and Exiles #5, a title I continue to enjoy and will sadly miss after next month), and NEC finally had the first volume of Y: The Last Man in (no back issues of Secret Six, so I'm waiting for September's TP), so I picked up the first two (this is my logic). Yes yes, I've never read Y, I know. I know!

That was the confession, for those not paying attention.

But I'm reading it now. I'm about halfway through Volume 1, Unmanned, so... three issues, I think.

Yeah, I love it. The storytelling is snappy, the content is mature, a woman co-wrote it (and draws some mighty nice art), and the story itself is interesting.

When I was in college I took a class called... actually, I don't remember. But it was about Utopian and Dystopian fiction, and it was taught by a professor that had formerly been part of the Women's Studies department, but had left in a flurry of political intrigue and gone to the Comparative Literature department. Not that I knew that at the time. I was just into post-apocalyptic science fiction, and needed a Gen Ed, so I took it. We read some interesting stuff, some boring stuff, and some good stuff.

And we read this book called Egalia's Daughters. The premise was that this world existed where females were dominant and males were oppressed. But, like, just completely opposite. Like that one episode of Ellen where the majority was gay and the minority was straight. Complete opposite things don't really work for me, because, well. Reality. I think the intent was to say that women would be just as bad in power as men are, which makes sense in the context of that professor (like I said, she'd left the Women's Studies department, and I'd found out it was because she'd become a vocal "anti-feminist") but which fell really flat in the context of the story. I don't know, maybe it was the translation, or maybe it was the fact that the most memorable scene in the book was one where the male protagonist was gang raped by some women... who rubbed themselves against his thigh.

Not that that's not a violation, but I don't even recall there being any penetration. And this led to a quasi-interesting discussion about the nature of rape, which I had in a way more interesting context in my 1L criminal law class a few years later, but it just really took away from the book. The scene was almost comical. Also there were a lot of really ignorant things said during that discussion that got us off on tangents.*

Speaking of tangents, my point was that Y reminds me of that book, but in a good way. Like, this was what we should have read in class. It doesn't show women as the exact same as men, but it shows them acting similarly in difficult situations (okay okay, I'm only three issues in, so we'll see), thereby showing actual equality. It's not ridiculous, it's very realistic and that makes it much easier to connect to and much creepier. I love me some well-done post-apocalyptic fiction.

I'll probably write the occasional reactionary post as I read through the ten volumes. Last year Pia Guerra was supposed to go the Gallifrey One convention, but lost her passport (or something). I hope she goes this year. By February I'll have finished the books and would really be interested in talking to her.

Anyway. I'm finally reading Y. There we go, confessed and absolved.

*To be fair, I tried re-reading the book about a year ago. It was even worse than I'd remembered, and I failed to see the point to it at all. The males weren't "men that are oppressed," they were written like caricatures women in our culture, but with penises. And the same for the women: caricatures of men, but with vaginas. Satire!fail.

Lesbians Have Sex Appeal, Too. Damn. (Also some Batwoman.)

2009-08-01T10:54:00.009-04:00

Well. I guess from the amount of times we see girl-on-girl action in movie trailers and television sweeps week, that's probably a given. But we're talking comics here, yo. And specifically the latest issue of The Question (which I will pretend is an issue all its own, because it was way more interesting than the main feature this week).

Actually, let's break parenthetical again. Nothing against the Batwoman feature this week, but it seemed like just a bridge story moving things along. Here, learn a little more about Alice (she's insane, carries a lot of weapons, and isn't your typical Religion of Crime* ringleader), watch Kate's wig come in handy, and then watch her trip on weird gas and get a small clue into her past. Then cliffhanger. Okay. I'm not going to say I was bored with it, because the art is so damn stunning, but I don't feel like much happened in the issue and I'm waiting for the payoff of whatever the hell is going on. Though, to be fair, I did appreciate Kate's little "oh come on, another lunatic that thinks they're from Alice in Wonderland?" moment.

I don't see why that's so weird. Considering the fact that we've got Batman, Robin, Red Robin, Batwoman, Batgirl, the Spoiler, and the Huntress that are all wandering around related to the Bat-Family. Not to mention Manhunter (um, I love Manhunter and will be devoting a future post to her) and whomever else is wandering around Gotham being a vigilante. Do other cities have this many Masks (Keystone, I guess)? So you get a little bit of a repeat with villains. Whatever. Harley's just another card out of the Joker's deck (Har har! See what I did there?).

Anyway, so the co-feature was more interesting than the main feature this week. Again, not in a bad way. Just in a "this is clearly an interim issue" sort of way, and Renee's interim issue was slightly more interesting.

Now, what I mean by sex appeal is this little bit right here:

Aaaaaaaaaaaah! Come on. First off, you're really ruining the idea I had in my head of Renee. (Remember when I had that disccusion with a reader in the comments of that one entry? And I said that Renee strikes me as a butch despite her feminine appearance? Yeah.**) Okay, sure, that was just the idea in my head, fine. But she just doesn't, and hasn't, strike me as the type to do this. She had to practically be goaded into sex in the "Lust" part of Crime Bible, because she was being all "no no, sex is not used this way and I don't approve." Okay, and also issues with Kate and prsotitution, but whatever. Second off ARGH WTF, why? "Here, let me press my breasts up in your face, while appearing vaguely gayish, thus flustering you and making you give me what I want. I have now used both my femininty and my lesbianism as weapons! Because I am incapable of otherwise getting what I want and/or it's just easier this way! Yay!"

By the way, I think the receptionist looked more bemused (like, "did she just try what I think she tried?") than interested. So it was Renee sexing herself up for an arguably straight woman. That's a big assumption on my part, but it's a cherry of meh piled onto my sundae of wtf.

And it's not like this is followed by her kicking some ass. No. The ass kicking came first. In fact, the order of this issue was: Ass kicking/name taking, sex/sexuality objectifying, TASERING.

Head, meet desk.

Look, I've said before (and will say again) that I have faith in the creative team behind Detective Comics right now. If Greg Rucka ever comes to a con near me I will run there squeeing like a fangirl to get him to sign my Crime Bible hardcover (I sadly gave my issues away to an ex-friend) and both versions of Detective Comics #854 that I have (yes, I broke down and bought the second printing, but my pull list was small this week and it's very awesome!).

But that said (again), I'm wary of the way that women and queer women*** are portrayed in "mainstream" media. (Are comics mainstream again?) And I feel like that's a valid wariness, based on a bajillion years (that's an estimate) of negative portrayals.

I feel like I've written this before. Have I written this before?

So I'm hyperaware of the little things. I'm a nitcpicker of women and and queer identity. Context becomes important. The way female characters (and queer characters) are portrayed immediately sets me to Terror Alert Elmo.

Okay, the last few paragraphs have been me rationalizing my negative reaction to that panel. Or explaining. I like to think of it as explaining, since I know that my viewpoint certainly isn't shared by everybody.

Despite that Panel of Doom, I still liked the co-feature more. We got some ass-kicking, some Renee-snarking, and some detectiving. I like the way Renee looks with the mask on more than with the mask off. I can't remember thinking that before, but maybe there's just something about her face (which certainly looks different now than it did before) that doesn't work for me. But, and I think this is what we're seeing here, and some of what Greg Rucka has said in interviews makes me thinks this wil be the case as the series continues, Renee is different without a face. That makes sense. They're all different without their masks, to varying degrees. Usually I don't notice as much, because my favorite characters are that ones that really aren't all that different. But Renee is. And I just don't see Faceless Renee pressing her chest up into the face of a receptionist to get into the back office.

And, finally, I wonder what would have happened if the receptionist had been male. Wait, do male receptionists exist? I mean, besides in situations where it's funny just because they're guys doing "women's work". Yeah. Anyway, I don't find it very subversive to have a lesbian smooshing her mammaries together for another woman, just because it's a same-sex attraction thing. To me it's the same thing as a straight woman doing it to a bouncer in a club. Or even a lesbian doing it to a male bouncer in a club. They're objectifying themselves to serve an end that could probably be served just fine another way. And for all the joking comments I read about Superman's package and Dick Grayson's ass, I don't see them sexing themselves up just to do their jobs.

By the way, none of this is even touching on Renee's racial identity and the hypersexualization of Hispanic women. I'm not going there (today).

Renee is a smart woman and a talented detective. But when push comes to shove, she pushes her chest together and shoves it in this woman's face.

I don't get why.

I mean, I do get why.

But I don't like why.

*Still the stupidest name ever.
**Since I now feel this is necessary: all identity labels I apply to characters are opinion only based on a whole slew of personal experience, quasi-boring academic reading, and kneejerk reactions. I welcome discussion on the topic, but I'm not saying I'm any expert on anything ever, especially not something as fluid as personal sexual identity.
*** I use queer women for lack of better term to encompass lesbians, bisexual women, and trans women at whatever phase of transitioning they are at. I'm also concerned with the portrayal of queer men, but less so because it's just a personal thing. And that doesn't even get into the whole can of worms that is the spectrum of gender identity. So please take the term "queer women" to mean whatever you want it to mean that is vaguely feminine and vaguely interested in same sex relationships.

Milestone!

2009-07-31T08:52:00.004-04:00

I started this blog mostly so I could write down all the things I was thinking about when I started reading comics regularly again. I honestly expected about five people to read it, and those are the five people whom I linked directly to the blog the day I created it, because they're the ones I'd been talking comics with anyway.

But last night I reached over 1000 hits. I know that in the age a bajillion people on the internet, 1000 isn't tons (heh, math wordplay), and I don't know all the stats about unique visitors and page views and blah blah, but it's kind of cool for me. So thanks to everyone that's stopped by, and thanks especially to When Fangirls Attack for linking me so often (most of my traffic is from that site, and most of my time is spent reading through the other links they share) and to those of you who have taken the time to comment and have discussions with/make suggestions to me.

Expect dorky thank yous at every self-imposed milestone (let's say the next one is 5000). It's just how I roll.

Thanks again!

Bart Allen is back. More back than he was before!

2009-07-27T15:30:00.000-04:00

Comic Book Resources did an interview with Geoff Johns here that's mostly about his work on various Flash-related things, and a little bit about Blackest Night. But only as it's related to Flash-related things.

During the interview, which I've got mixed feelings about (more on that later), he mentioned that Sterling Gates is going to be writing a new Kid Flash ongoing. Yay, Bart! Boo, Kid Flash, but yay, Bart!

I love Bart. I think I've been pretty clear about my love for Bart before. He's definitely my favorite Speedster by far, and as one of the six people that actually liked him as the Flash, I was pretty sad to see him die. But he's back! And after Flash: Rebirth he's getting his own ongoing.

Of course, he's stuck with being Kid Flash. Meh. That's just never anything I'd imagine Bart would settle for. But I've written about that before. I'm looking forward to seeing him grow up some at the hands of Gates, who's done a great job on Supergirl.

Johns also mentioned in the interview that Blackest Night takes place after Rebirth, which means Barry is... fine. Well okay then, so much for that cliffhanger. And since we're seeing a new Speedster by the end of it, one who may not actually be new, and Barry sticks around as the Flash, I'm guessing Wally takes a new name, gets a new uniform, and on we go from there. I'd actually rather have that happen than have some brand new speedster introed (or have someone like Owen Mercer become prominent or whatever), because with Barry back we've got plenty.

Meh, Barry's back. Whatever.

Anyway, things I'd like to see from the Kid Flash ongoing, in case anyone that has any say in these things stumbles across my blog, decides I have decent ideas, and feels like listening:

Bart grows up. Not in a complete, lose -his-Bartness sort of way. But let him adapt and change and move beyond just being the guy who used to be Impulse that's now stuck being Kid Flash even though he's not a kid... but he is again. Ahem. Tim's doing this over in Red Robin, and hopefully Kon will do this in Adventure Comics. I want Bart to move forward, not just stay the same old Bart.

Bart deals with his death. Not just "hey, cool, I'm alive!" but in a legit way. He was brutally beaten to death. I don't care if they brought him back with no memories of the incident. That can be retconned.

Bring back Arrowette! Hey, Mia's over in England doing nothing in particular (or so I like to pretend). And Arrowette was first introduced in Impulse back in the day. Last we heard she was going to school with Cassie, who's still out heroing. And while it's nice to see a hero walk away, she's one I want back. She's a good foil for Bart (Don't believe me? Check out canon to the left!). And I think this could relate well to the first two requests: she's had to deal with both Kon and Bart's deaths, and we haven't really seen any of that. We focus on Cassie, but not Cissie, because Cassie is Wonder Girl and Cissie is just a retired hero. So that could be cool. Also it is my personal fanon that they would be a great couple. But that's really just a side-issue, I swear. (No, really, canon. I don't want this to turn into a Bart/Cissie post, but I'm just sayin'.)

So my favorite Speedster is back in his own title, written by a writer I already know I like, and I'm excited. I'm also excited that the entire Flash family is getting more attention (even though, again, I'm meh about Barry). I'm excited that they're all going to be involved in the upcoming Flash title, even Bart.

Some more positivity! Not bad for a Monday.

Some positivity: Supergirl #43.

2009-07-26T12:45:00.003-04:00

I liked it!

It was obviously a bridge between the Superwoman arc and the whole "Supergirl/Mon-El take on Nightwing/Flamebird" arc that's upcoming (and we were only anvilled once or twice about the whole Kara and Flamebird were friends things).

So it was Kara's birthday, which on New Krypton (and I imagine original Krypton) means choosing your guild. For some reason, it didn't occur to be that Krypton ran on a caste system based on guilding. But that sort of makes sense. Then again, they're also all heterosexual and seem to have the same kind of gender roles that Earth does, which doesn't make sense in the context of the universe. It makes plenty of sense in the context of having been written by humans.

Anyway, they had me from page one, which was a very cute, very aww-worthy triptych of Kara's desk in her room on New Krypton. Has there ever been an explanation of who flies after her and takes pictures of her flying? No? Okay, I'll pretend Jimmy Olsen got a jet pack. I really like the picture of her and Cassie, and the dorky BFF frame, because it's very humanizing. I also like the crumpled up balls of paper in front of the empty notepad. One of the characteristics of this Supergirl that has kept me engaged where other Supergirls haven't is her struggle with balancing her Kryptonian roots and her human friends and the fact that she's not very good at it. Not in a naive way. Not in a comic-relief way. But in a legitimate, "I have no idea how to connect" way. That's why I also appreciate the Daily Planet mug, why I wish there was a picture of Lana on the desk, and why the fact - as we find out later - that Lois wants Kara to stay off Earth for awhile is so sad. It's an injustice, but one that she weathers because she thinks she deserves it, even though we all really know she doesn't. But her connections on Earth feel so tenuous that she's not willing to risk pissing her cousin's wife off. She needs everythign she can get. Everyone she can get.

Poor Kara.

But this issue was nice not just for that. It was nice for me to get a look at Kryptonian society, and to see Kal-on-Krypton through Kara's eyes. I understood immediately what her mom was doing, but the fact that she didn't rang very true. And the fact that she's so wary of her mother's intentions that every single instant up until the very end was a fight... I liked that, too. I've read some response elsewhere that don't like that Kara picked the science guild. Maybe I'm not familiar enough with the character to know why this is such a betrayal, but her reasoning made perfect sense to me.

I can understand some frustration. But as someone in a professional field who would rather be a writer, who's been told time and again that I can always write, no matter what I do, I can sort of understand some of the rational behind Kara's choice. She can always pursue art, but she's got the chance to connect with her last living parent. Why wouldn't she leap at that chance? It's a shame she's apparently stuck there her whole life (caste systems are dumb, but I guess we have them in America too, we just do it a little differently), but it's not like that stopped her mom from becoming the leader of New Krypton.

Kara has her mother, she lost her father. She feels connected to her father, despite his death, but her mom is alive and Kara doesn't understand her. Why not try?

It's all about connection. And I really liked it. I really like this Supergirl. And I like Kara Zor-El. I want to stick with it and see where she goes. Issue #43 sold me on something I'd been unsure of before, mostly because I wasn't sure I'd make it past the Superwoman arc. But this glimpse into Kara's life, and into some of her motivations, hopes, frustrations, and thoughts has made me love the character.

Kudos to Sterling Gates. And speaking of Sterling Gates... well, I'll save Bart for his own entry.

Hey, you know what's awesome? Torture. Also: women's legs.

2009-07-24T21:43:00.007-04:00

DC released some Batman-related art over on the DCU Blog, for those of us who can't attend SD Comic Con. (Yeah, word, they actually talk about comics at Comic Con. Who knew?)

After I got over my joy at seeing The Question on a cover (I've been informed it's for Azrael, but as we all know I have had very little interest in Bat-related titles of the past, so I dunno), I looked for any Batwoman related art, and saw a bit of red peeking out at me.

Found it:

So I guess that's the trauma in Kate's past. At least she wasn't raped by members of her squad. Just captured by terrorists. And maybe raped. We'll see! (Unless she was also raped by members of her squad, then soldiered through - pun intended - the trauma, went to the Middle East, got captured and tortured... but that'd be too much. Right? Right?) The art remains very nice, though. I love the red and faded-blue/greens of Batwoman on the bottom contrasted with the sepiaesque top.

Anyway, the cover that really got me, and I mean that in a bad way, was for... I have no idea. Some Bat-title. Where Batman gets a little of the Mrs. Robinson treatment:

Remember back in 1969 when it was pretty awesome to see an older woman, clad in very little, show her still-in-great-shape legs to a younger man in an effort to seduce him? Remember when that was subversive and powerful because it messed with our ideas of gender roles and age?

Okay, technically I don't remember it since I wasn't alive, but that's not my point. My point is that this cover is more than half taken up by some woman's naked body. She's seriously only wearing a thong. And since this is Widening Gyre, that's probably Silver St. Cloud (and Bruce!Batman), which means that we're not talking about flipping things on their head anymore, we're just talking about a mostly-naked woman splashed across a comic page similar to, oh a Maxim girl or a Playboy playmate.

Awesome.

Hey, speaking of torture and half-naked women, apparently Silver has a history of getting the shaft (pun sort of intended, but I feel bad about it), despite being a strong enough woman to handle the whole Batman/Bruce Wayne thing. I admittedly know less about Silver than I know about Azrael, but wow. Wow.

I guess at least she wasn't kidnapped by terrorists, held hostage, and eventually - hey, do you think she has purple eyes? Too bad Widening Gyre is out of continuity, right? Perfect new Bat-Girl. You heard it here first. 'Cause you can't be a Bat without trauma, right? For some reason? Probably the same reason Gotham can't survive without Batman. Which is to say: no reason at all.

You know, with all my negativity lately, I forgot to write about how much I enjoyed the most recent issue of Supergirl. She doesn't have the shorts yet, but that's okay, I still managed to survive reading through it without feeling like a traitor to my sex. Anyway, I'll do that tomorrow.

So I hear people read Marvel Comics. Why?

2009-07-24T09:48:00.004-04:00

Nah, just kidding. I get it. There's some cool stuff there. Their movies are definitely better (sigh).

Anyway, I have exactly three titles in Marvel that I'm interested in: Exiles, New Mutants, and Captain America. We already know my thoughts on the resurrection of Steve Rogers, which has made my interest in Cap sort of waiver a bit (or a lot).

And then Marvel canceled Exiles. Blah! Yeah yeah, low ratings. I get it. I'm a Pushing Daisies fan, too.

I really liked the first run of Exiles, up until they killed Sunfire. 'Cause, you know. Lesbians generally have to die, go crazy, get pregnant, or some combination of those three. After that, I was out. What a wasted chance to write interesting stories about an Asian lesbian. How many Asian lesbians have you seen, um, anywhere? Unless you watch the Lesbian Required Movies and have seen Saving Face, I'm guess the answer is "Sandra Oh in Under the Tuscan Sun, but that was an accident because I just went to see a romantic comedy and there was a lesbian in it and she was Asian." No, really, think about it. There's going to be one on Stargate: Universe, but I haven't really been into that fandom since James Spader was involved. Also she'll probably just wander around and be asexual. At least Sunfire totally got it on with Mary Jane. Where was I? Lesbians always make me digress. Anyway, I liked the idea of a motley crew of mutants "sliding" around the multiverse and putting things right that once went wrong, hoping each leap would be their final leap home.

Ahem. I think I got my sci-fi tangled up.

And the new Exiles (not to be confused with the New Exiles, I guess, which I didn't read) seemed to have promise. Scarlet Witch and Polaris on a team together! A more bad ass and subtextually gay Beast! The token-black comic relief (not to be confused with the token morphing comic relief)! The mystery around why Blink is still there and what she's not telling us. Hopefully that'll get wrapped up in the double issue we're promised for 9/6, because I'm curious.

So now I'm down to New Mutants and a passing sort of interest in Cap, mostly because I care about what happens to Bucky. I guess one less Marvel book I'm buying is money for one more DC book I've been waffling on (probably Wonder Woman or Secret Six, though I really need to catch up on the latter and was thinking about just waiting for the trade and, oh Adventure Comics starts soon, doesn't it?).

Or maybe I should get into Spider-Woman. Haha.

Edit: I just found out that Paul Cornell, one of my favorite writers from Doctor Who and someone I've chatted with/heard speak at the Gallifrey One convention, is writing the Black Widow miniseries due in November. Fine, Marvel. You win this round!

Squee.

2009-07-23T18:57:00.002-04:00

iGoogle gets comic themes.

2009-07-23T14:59:00.004-04:00

Which is cool. I mean. Superman gets his own set, but the Women of the DCU have to share. (I picked that one because it's got The Question). And it's unclear whether Batwoman is in there, or relegated to the Batman Reborn theme. I'm assuming these themes are going to update with ongoing storylines, right?

By the way, Spider-Woman has her own theme.

Spider-Woman.

Have I missed something awesome about Marvel Comics' Spider-Woman? Because I don't think I have.

This doesn't really affect me much, since it doesn't change gmail and I don't really use iGoogle. (I search google via Firefox's handy search box). But I guess it's neat that if I ever accidentally click the wrong button I get a chance to see PG's giant breasts pointing at me over my news feed.

Right?

J.H. Williams III art is like a fairy tale.

2009-07-23T11:29:00.001-04:00

Ah hah!

I had this epiphany while looking at the previews for the next issue of Detective Comics (which you can also look at here). The artwork reminds me of illustrations in fairy tale stories I've read. Which I'm okay with. I'm not really surprised either. Did I mention in my last entry on Batwoman that I think Alice in Wonderland is just a "modern" fairy tale? I may have. Anyway, it makes sense, then, why the art would look this way. I mean, it's sort of a water-colory, fantasty-heavy kind of thing with faded pastels and bright prime colors and lots of black and white.

Of course, in fairy tales red is the color of the devil. Or evil. Or whores. Depending. Okay, and the loss of innocence. Maybe that's where this is going. The loss of Kate Kane's innocence as she becomes more ensconced in the world of Gotham and the life of a Bat. Let's go there. Let's make her Little Red Hood instead of one of the evil stepmothers with red lips and red nails (hmm), or Little Red Shoes who's so intent on being the best that she dances her feet off in devil-possessed shoes. Man, fairy tales are freaky. Good stuff to mine for a Bat-comic.

I swear I'm not getting this imagery out of nowhere. I took classes! I'm legit! (Actually, that whole "I'm a trained academic in [insert area of expertise here] thing doesn't mean tons when I'm just looking at something an interpreting it, but I wanted to use a few exclamation points.) Batwoman is obviously the hero, so it sort of sets up the whole "flip our ideas on their heads" kind of thing. Can we have a minute for Batwoman's mouth, though? Sweet merciful fang, those are some pointy teeth. Quite honestly, I'm more interested in seeing Kate Kane than in seeing Batwoman. Maybe that's because I've never been a big Bat-fan.

The Watchmen DVD. Also: in defense of Laurie Juspeczyk

2009-07-21T08:51:00.007-04:00

So Watchmen comes out today. But I'm not buying it. Because it's not done yet. Dagnabit. I'm so tired of companies trying to milk DVD releases for all their worth. It's bad enough that my 100+ DVD collection isn't in BluRay (and double bad that I picked HD DVD at first!) which means I've got half of BSG in standard def and one day will have half in high def, but why not just release the damn full version concurrently with the director's cut?

You know the one I mean. The one with "Black Freighter" and "Under the Hood" intercut with the movie. The one Snyder promises is coming. What if DVD sales of this version suck? Do we not get it? Will they poll how many of us are waiting for the full version before deciding?

By the way, now that Watchmen is dropping on DVD, it gives me an excuse to write about it. In case you couldn't tell. I was chatting about it with Anika of Fantastic Fangirls (whoa, I totally just name-dropped) yesterday, because I was thinking about writing this post and what I would say that would be 1) different to what I wrote in my livejournal when it came out and 2) hopefully different than what's been written about before. Though probably not, because the internet is big and mighty and I am small and uncreative.

Women! Specifically: Laurie! See? The title was relevent. (Oh. This will have spoilers.)

So I vaguely recall reading somewhere something about Alan Moore and women. I don't remember what it was, but I remember it being negative. I never really thought his women were particularly weak or anything, especially since the first thing I ever ready by Alan Moore was V for Vendetta. But in chatting yesterday, I could see how, yeah, the women of Watchmen (the few there are) could certainly be seen as weak. In a dated kind of way.

Like.

Nothing happens without Laurie Juspeczyk. That's it. She's the lynch pin of the entire story. But at the same time, she's defined by the men in her life. The Comedian (passively for most of the story), Dr. Manhattan, and then Dan Dreiberg. She's not moving forward on her own volition, it seems like, she's tumbling from man to man. That's pretty classic. We say women are important but we always then have to throw in this thing about some man they're with, to make them more human to us. A woman isn't human without a man, you know (this is why I have mixed feelings on the Uhura/Spock relationship of the latest Trek movie; it's very nice to watch, and Uhura is an interesting character, and I get that she's the exact opposite of Spock, but.. I don't know, let her me on her own for a movie... and NO LOVE TRIANGLES). Sorry, digressive parenthetical. Right, Watchmen, women, Laurie.

(By the way, I'm using the picture above because I love the art of the movie version of Watchmen. I want the photography book. I love looking at the stills. It's amazing. It turned a comic with art I wasn't too keen on - nothing against Dave Gibbons, but I'm just not into that style - and made it into something that blew me away.)

So Laurie is defined by the men she's with. Or... is she?

She's the one person that Adrian doesn't seem to have a handle on. He manipulates almost everyone else, but not Laurie. Of course, there could be a reason for that. He's pretty clearly, if subtextually, set up as either asexual or homosexual, so it's possible that's an anvil. But Adrian does just fine jerking Janey Slater around, so I'm choosing to ignore that possibility for now. Laurie, by virtue of being who she is - a second generation mask raised/pushed by another mask, a woman, and a daughter of a single mother - makes decisions that change the world, and that, despite the ending turning out the way Adrian wanted, don't fit into Adrian's plan.

Now, I'm not saying Laurie is the central character to this story. One of the good things about Watchmen is that it's everyone's intertwined choices and actions that lead them to the inevitable result (squid or no squid, it's all the same, thematically, to me). But Laurie is a woman in a man's world, and she's arguably the strongest of all of them. She can handle things Dan can't. She can know truths reserved for Doctor Manhattan. And she can make decisions without having her strings pulled. And it's the way people react to her decisions that change things, not vice versa. Dan puts back on the costume largely because of her. The Doc leaves largely because of her. Rorschach... is insane. But you get the idea. Laurie is important, and not just passively, but also because of what she chooses to do, how she chooses to do it, and who she chooses to do it with.

Oh, and she can kick your ass.

So Laurie's not as bad as she seems at first blush. Sure, she dresses awfully (like every other woman in comics, really). She's a bit angry. She smokes like a chimney, and has some weird mullet-like hair cut. She's got mommy issues, daddy issues, and probably a few other issue to boot (like every character in that story). But in the end she's not a weak character, and I don't think she's defined by her relationships with men quite as much as they're defined by their relationships with her.

This ain't your older sister's crisis.

2009-07-15T17:35:00.005-04:00

Okay, admission: I don't have an older sister. But my parents didn't read comics (that I know of), and did the DCU have Crises back in the day, when old people like my parents were reading them? I don't know.

Anyway, I appreciate that Blackest Night isn't being called a Crisis, even though it very obviously is the sort of imprint-changing, cross-title event that seems to get slapped with that title every few years. Which also makes me wonder why I'm not just waiting for the trade paperback, but I'm not. I'm also only buying the main title... and maybe GL Corps. And, okay, I bought Titans #15 today, too, but that was for Aqualad. Erm. Tempest.

Aw, come on, who doesn't like Garth? And his tragic story. That is clearly being brought up again (years later, people) just so his loved ones can come back from the dead and they can duke it out. But that's okay, because I got two things from this issue: Garth and Dick not being a dick. Har har, see what I did there? The transformation when he took off the cowl was literally the best moment of the comic. The second best moment was the rest of the conversation between Dick and Garth. That right there was some good Titans stuff.

Okay, onto the main event: I really liked Blackest Night 1. Now, this is said as someone who's been in and out of the DCU for 15 years. So this caught me up to speed nicely on everyone who's died that I may not have known about (I just read Identity Crisis, but I didn't know Ralph died also.). I've never been a superfan of the GL titles, despite liking individual GL characters, but I liked following Hal through this day of rememberance. The destruction of Coast City is actually one of my earliest, strongest comic memories, so it was a good way to draw me in.

I have also read zero (0) Hawk-whatever titles, and yet in about 5 pages Geoff Johns made me love this incarnation of Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Right in time for them to get killed and resurrected, so that sort of sucks (which is a feat: I had absolutely no emotional connection to these characters and was totally saddened by their deaths). But I'm sure it'll... probably... maybe... come out... I don't know.

Which is cool. I like not knowing. And I like that this crisis (erm) is bringing everyone back from that dead (that hasn't already been brought back, sigh) in a good way. Well, not good. Bad. But that's the good part. They're evil, rotting corpse monsters of death that know our heroes intimately. Creepy!

Given what the Black Lantern said to Hal and Barry (and wtf, isn't Barry himself the Black Flash? CONTINUITY!) I wonder how he's going to deal with Kon and Bart. Probably ignore Bart entirely, because god forbid we treat Bart like an actual character in the DCU (sorry, I'm bitter) unless he's comic relief. But he got a panel, so maybe. There was a lot to do in the issue, so I forgive them.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this story. I like the concept. I like how it feels pretty epic, and how, continuity with Flash Rebirth aside, it feels like this effects the entire DCU in ways that will probably be resonating for awhile. I like how it feels like a Crisis without being a crisis.

Though I wish that Black Lantern guy would stop making out with skulls. It's sort of gross.

I figured out the link-back function on blogger. Go me.

2009-07-13T09:22:00.001-04:00

Look Out! Here Comes A Comics Blog!: Giving back to the man who gave us an Oracle

John Ostrander, who brought Barbara Gordon back from the icy grip of, um... I don't know, I'm high on cold meds. Stuff. And things.

Anyway, this guy is great and brought us some of the best female characters in comics. And now he's got Glaucoma. K.D. gives us readers a good reason to fork out what we can for him, in the form of quotes and pictures and... seriously, cold meds. Even if you don't have money, you have good thoughts and well-wishes and, for the religious out there, prayers.

So there you go.

Escape to Wednesday (Comics)

2009-07-10T10:46:00.005-04:00

This week has been a bad week for me. Work, apartment, life in general... it's got me down. And during a particularly bad moment last night, it was said to me that you have to focus on the good things, even if those good things are little.

And, oddly, I thought about comics.

Huh.

I mean, I'm not completely insane. I also thought about my friends, video games, family, the occasional good meal, the (finally) beautiful weather, the upcoming All-Star game, my tickets to see the Red Sox at the end of the month, et cetera et cetera.

But also comics.

I haven't really felt that way about comics in a long time.

What a perfect time for Wednesday Comics to come along. One page spreads of old-school style comic storytelling. My first comics were in the newspapers, not the books. (I was a Heathcliff fan myself. Eff Garfield.)

And even though I wasn't around during the golden age (or even the silver age, I guess), there's something awesome about opening up some newspaper grade paper and reading about superheroes being superheroy. Even if there's more modern art (I'm not sure wtf is happening with Wonder Woman, but I think I like it), it still makes me feel like a kid again. It's nice to feel like a kid again, because kids don't have jobs (or... shouldn't), kids don't worry about rent or health insurance, and on beautiful summer days, kids run around the yard and climb trees and scrape knees and don't sit in little offices with no windows.

Okay, that's enough of that. (My other two pulls this week were Red Robin #2 a.k.a. the Emo Quest and Green Lantern #43 a.k.a. gory death drawn beautifully. So I'll stick with WC for my happy thoughts, thanks.)

I thought Wednesday Comics was great, and great fun. For nostalgia if nothing else (and there was plenty else to love; though the stories are hard to call at this point, I'm loving the various art styles). I read someone somewhere (brains no worky) saying they hope this becomes a summer tradition. I couldn't agree more.

Wait, what?

2009-07-07T18:51:00.004-04:00

So I guess there's this series of biographical comics about, like, women or something. It's called The Female Force - which really makes me think it ought to be a bit more action-adventury (c'mon, Clinton would so whoop Lex Luthor's ass) and a bit less... um. Boring?

'Sup?

Actually, I haven't read them. I'd never even heard of them until AfterEllen did an article about them today, even though apparently Bluewater (a company I'd never heard of until today, that seems to specialize in this kind of comic... there's a Michael Jackson tribute coming in October) has been publishing them since October of last year.

Apparently they're getting a lot of press.

Huh.

I mean, cool?

I don't know. Biographical comics are... neat? Woo for getting the details of these (arguably) strong and (definitely) powerful women out to the people who... read... comics.

I'm really curious, though. Who's buying these? How's the art? (The covers don't impress me much.) Which details are left out? Which are left in? Why Barbara Walters? Does Michelle Obama really have superpowers? Is Oprah the real Emperor of the Known Universe? Sarah Palin? Really?

And what would Christna Romer (oh yeah, who's the feminist political geek now, hmmmm?) think about me spending $3.99 for a graphical representation of a fraction of the information available for free at my local library/on the internet?

Has anyone read these? What do you think?