beccatoria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccatoria) wrote2011-06-28 10:39 pm
beccatoria) wrote2011-06-28 10:39 pm
Entry tags:
I wasn't dead, I was reading comics...
Dudes, it has been nearly a month since I posted. Apologies, I'm not dead or anything. Honestly it's a combination of a fairly bullshit filled realworld existence right now - I've been pretty stressed out. Haven't even been vidding, though I have some collab work that'll hopefully ease me back into it. Plus there's just not been that much going on in the world of the livejournals; no telly to discuss during hiatus season, no one releasing any vids cus we're like a month out from VVC. It's summer, we're all too hot, too cranky and too sleepy, right? ;)
So, I did the obvious, and while everyone on my flist fell for My Little Pony as their happy animated stressfree escapism, I decided to get around to watching all those DC universe animated flicks they've been churning out for a few years now that I've been meaning to watch forever. Partly it was sparked by the DC reboot announcement, partly because - before the reboot was even announced, though it was nifty timing - we finally got back to our actual weekly Sunday DC-universe RPG game. We'd been playing with the Mutants & Masterminds rules way back, but now, with the actual licensed DC rulebook with all the licensed art, even with minimal rules changes, it feels all glossy and shiny, and it's kinda cool to actually get to look in the back of the book and see how you stack up against Superman. (Hint: poorly... :p)
So anyways, here's the lowdown on me and comics. DC comics specifically. Like every geeky girl my age, I hit fourteen and discovered Sandman. I also pick up monthly comics for Star Wars, at the moment for Farscape, previously for BSG. I like comics, they're a great medium. But I was never really a Marvel or a DC girl. Partly because it was just too damn big to know where to start, but that wasn't it really. After all, I worked out the Star Wars expanded universe just fine - in fact, it's why I buy as many comics as I do right now. And I grew up in a world with animated X-Men and JLA cartoons, in a subculture of geeks where no one needed to explain to me who Green Lantern was, even if they did need to explain Guy Gardiner.
Cus I love superheroes. Some of you might have worked that out from other characters: I like it when suddenly they are magical super heroes. I loved it when it happened to Olivia Dunham, it's the main reason I'm not freaking out about River Song, and I may have had a (TO ME) hilarious running joke with a realworld friend that Laura Roslin was secretly the Goddamn Batman and swooped through the lower decks cleaning shit up that Adama didn't have the guts to handle.
But...the comics. Eh. Bluntly, too many times when I did try to read them they weren't that well-written (in comics' defense, this was at a point when I was largely at the mercy of my local library's very old, very outdated graphic novel section), or if they were I didn't know what the fuck was going on because it was in the middle of a huge arc and I'd get frustrated with the little asterisks telling me to go read issue whatever of whatever so I could find out the rest of the story. (Once I tried, I honestly fucking tried, to follow a DC event and I managed to buy the wrong bloody comic twice and gave up). Plus, okay, let's be honest, we all know where the term "women in refrigerators" came from, and it doesn't look that much prettier on the other wrong sides of beingBruce Wayne a white, straight, cisgendered, able-bodied, neurotypical* dude either. *hence strikethrough...
Plus, everything you ever love will eventually be undone due to some kind of reality flux or a deal with a devil or an external reboot.
Still, though. Let's circle around to the DC vs Marvel question. I'm pretty much a DC girl through and through, and it's not just because I love an underdog and Marvel are currently riding higher on all their film successes, and I still, vehemently, stubbornly do not understand why Superman Returns flopped and honestly think Green Lantern was okay!
It's because Marvel doesn't have much to offer me to get past those gateway issues. (Although, caveat: I do like the X-Men as a...verse unto itself. I think it offers something different to the superhero genre in broad terms, and I do wish it wasn't confined to the same elastic timeframe and could instead spread out more like the Star Wars EU, but I'm also not really a big enough fan to feel comfortable getting into that debate, so I should probably leave that to more knowledgeable folks than me).
So what does DC have to get me through that? The characters.
People look at me funny when I say that. There's this perception, I think - I say from the periphery of comics - I say based on what I know as a quasi fangirl among other quasi fanboys (we'll get to that in a minute) - that Marvel write more rounded people. Characters with flaws. And I kind of see the point. I certainly think they're more relateable. But that's what I love about DC. Their characters feel mythic; they feel archetypal. It's easy to see that with someone like Superman who is a blunt stand-in for Jesus, really. Or Wonder Woman who is explicitly depicted in the context of a divine pantheon.
But even someone like Batman - the best analogue I can think of in the Marvelverse is probably Iron Man - both mentally unstable rich genius orphans who use gadgets - feels infinitely more like a legend - the Dark Knight Detective - than Tony Stark ever will.
Which in turn gives me a way to deal with those issues I mentioned. Not so much the representational ones, but the issue of how everything turns around, is retold, undone, done again. That's...frustrating in a longterm narrative but acceptable in a mythic cycle.
How I always used to read comics is, once every now and again, I'd be like, dammit, comics! I'm in the mood for superheroes, and I'd up and go get some graphic novels, and I'd tend to go for the Elseworld type stuff, the alternate universes, or the things that seemed pretty self-contained, like Supergirl and the Legion, or Red Sun, or whatever. Here is a story about this hero we all know already. If I was in charge of comics, that's probably how I'd do it. An endless series of what-ifs and could have beens. This series will run six issues, or sixty issues and within that you can really do stuff. You can break through the stasis that 70 years tends to bring to the major characters, without the inevitable need to reboot it again because the reboot becomes part of the experience. "This is an imaginary story, but aren't they all?"
Which isn't to say I'm at complete zen with it. It probably is why I don't know I'll ever really be able to get into DC as a serious fandom, because for that I do think I need to be invested in actual ongoing plots more than simply amazing one-shots for, what have essentially become, my pantheon of fictional deities.
Honestly, I think it's not overstating to say that, and I'm far from the first to do so. But DC superheroes fill that hole in my geek culture - they provide the mythic cycle, the pantheon of gods, the owned-by-everyone-always-been-there stories that you can invest as much or little as you want in, that are always changing and always staying the same.
Probably it's because I only ever really had one friend who was a hardcore comics geek but I have had many, many friends who are softcore like me and none of us is ever up to date with what's going on, or read the same books, and when we talk about them we're like, "Wait isn't he the one that did that thing?" "Oh, no, no, he's the one that did that other thing - he's really cool because of xyz!" "Really? I thought he was more abc!" "No, dude, there was this cool story I read/episode of JLU I saw where he was definitely xyz!" And we sort of end up building up these characters in ways that don't always add up to the way we'd probably see them if we read their ongoing books or thought too hard about it and might make a different group of geeks with a different understanding ofZeus Superman look at us sideways and go, "Whut?" but...I dunno. It's kind of always what I've liked about it.
And, um, that's my rant on why I like DC more than Marvel and how I engage with it.
THAT SAID.
I'm...slowly being convinced that maybe I should engage with it a little bit more actively, the way it was originally intended. Maybe with this new DC reboot, I should dip my toe in the water and see and pick up some books on a monthly basis and see how it goes.
Among other things this has inspired me to watch the DC Animated Movies I mentioned above? By and large, they're fun enough, and range from the awful (Green Lantern: First Flight, sorry, but just...it was boring and Hal Jordan literally had no personality other than obnoxious), to the great (Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, Justice League: New Frontier), to the dammit-you-were-almost-brilliant (Wonder Woman - it was doing pretty great for a while, but honestly they either needed to tone down Trevor's asshattery or not have them get together at the end; one accidental foot through a lasso ain't enough, people!), to the utterly surprising (Batman: Under the Red Hood, I basically did not expect to enjoy 75 minutes of Bat Angst but bloody hell, suddenly that final Batman-Red Hood-Joker confrontation happened and it was un-fucking-believably tense and heartbreaking and good, and frankly I think Batman came out of it looking like a total moral hypocrit, which I'm not sure was the message I was supposed to take but whatever). Honestly, aside from First Flight I at least enjoyed them all. And a few were more intellectually engaging than I was expecting. I may have to vid bits of them sometime.
Then going on from there I decided to actually start reading through some of my husband's comics since they were lying around (he engages with them on a similar level to me, albeit he read them more during his childhood, while I didn't really find them til I was about 14 as I said before), since, like me, he's being a bit more comic booky lately since it's What's Going On Right Now. And one of them was Wonder Woman: the Circle which is the start of Gail Simone's run. And he was like, "Yes, you'll like that one," and I'm like, "Wait, this is the Wonder Woman run I've been told a bunch of times to read, right?"
OH MY GOD WONDER WOMAN. I LOVE YOU.
But, that is a post for another time. Like I think I should actually gather my thoughts on Wonder Woman and all the amazing things Gail Simone does with her and all the confusing things Gail Simone does with her, and all that stuff, and post on it separately because it's worth it.
And now I'm back to trying to find that Supergirl and the Legion novel I know I have lying around that I never got around to finishing (because let's face it, I love the Legion for their tacky 50s/80s mish-mash of weird Peter Pan hope and stupidity, but I wasn't enormously taken with the writing quality of Kara's first few adventures with them).
And I'm considering which comics to get come September. My husband is also interested in picking some up and there are quite a few we're both interested in, so we're agreed on seven right now. We don't wanna pick up too many - who knows if I'll even have a job by then, but ten doesn't seem excessive so there are about three open slots on the potential roster if anyone (okay, it ain't like I have a bunch of comic fans on my flist, but you never know!) has any suggestions:
In the order I randomly remember them:
Catwoman: This is mostly for K - he's an enormous Batman fan (though to his credit this includes a keen understanding that he's actually a pretty damn selfish character and dislikes it when stories try too hard to make him look Secretly Noble and Tortured), and considers Catwoman and Robin the two most important other characters in his mythology. Personally I think Joker needs to be in there too, but K disagrees and whatever, it's his pick. And I am interested to see where they go with a solo story for her - where she'll fall on the hero/villain line.
Batgirl: Okay, honesty, I have deeply conflicted feelings about this, and I'm not even deep into comics; I can't imagine how confusing it must be for people who are. On the one hand, I firmly believe that what happened to Barbara Gordon originally was an example of not refrigeration, but the related phenomenon of women being more likely to be tragically hurt/depowered/rendered less important on a more permanent basis than male characters. While it's true that specifically in Batman mythology we have the death of Jason Todd (who also eventually returned, but whatever, it was a long time), he was mostly killed off because he was massively unpopular - it then became a dark, integral, compelling part of the Batstory. Generally speaking, though, Batman breaks his back and gets better, Barbara Gordon breaks her back and is permanently paralysed. However, for almost my whole life, Barbara Gordon has been a superhero in a wheelchair. Which you know, hell with female superheroes, how many disabled ones do we have? Whatever unfair gender politics put her there, once she was there she became something pretty extraordinary - an incredibly popular, incredibly competent, physically disabled superhero, who, yes, retrained to use her brain more than her body, but who was also still depicted as an athlete, as someone physically capable despite being differently abled. Oracle was a freaking kickass superheroine. Losing that is also not something to be taken lightly. Honestly, one of the reasons I want to read this is because it's Gail Simone, who I previously knew by reputation and am now starting to know through experience has not been overhyped to me. The women who coined the term "women in refrigerators" is writing this. The woman who has, in part, made her name (or at least helped cement an already formidable one) writing for Oracle over the past few years is writing this. I'm not sure if anyone else could pull it off, but I will trust Gail Simone and I want to see what she does with it.
Supergirl: This is all me. I love Supergirl. I MAKE NO APOLOGIES! Though I am nervous to see what they do with her. I'll always love her, but she's at her least interesting when she's the impulsive teenager to Superman's controlling older brother. But I really love when they come at her from a different angle. That her desire for more direct intervention doesn't necessarily come from youthful impetuousness, or if it does, that doesn't mean it's ethically wrong or lacking in wisdom. My favourite way of dividing the two is that Superman catches you when you fall, but is afraid of intervening in free will and human history, so that's all he'll do. Supergirl wants to know, why can't we teach people not to fall? In a crude way it's like...humanitarian aid versus nation building and all the perils of colonialism versus shirked responsibility to those in need. But honestly, again, this is probably one of those times where I've grabbed hold of her characterisation in a couple of stories and put together my own mythic image of her, and I'm bound to be dissapointed. ;) But she's still be Super Awesome, so it's fine.
Wonder Woman: I probably would have picked it up out of curiosity even before READING ALL OF GAIL SIMONE'S WONDER WOMAN RUN. But it's a must-have now. I'm just hoping I like it better than the J Michael Straczynski run which I briefly tried to read last year but didn't get into. That said, armed with a better understanding of/more love for Wonder Woman, I do intend to revisit that and see if I like it better second time around.
Mr Terrific: This is K's pick, and I'm sad to say I don't know a great deal about him beyond what I've picked up from the cameos he's made in our RPG game. Therefore in my mind he's sort of like what Bruce Wayne might have been if he was, um, happier and not messed up and wandered around in the daytime with FAIR PLAY on his jacket instead of at night trying to terrify dock workers. And had a billion PhDs instead of one PhD in DETECTING ANGST. I am, however, entirely down with that kind of a person, so I will give this a shot.
Green Lantern Corps: We both wanna read this. I've always loved the idea of the Green Lanterns (and all the other Corps), for the way they are simultaneously surreal and odd and strange and full of bizarre Star Wars Cantina-style aliens, while at the same time being really pretty damn Epic and Mythic in a kind of simple, universal way. I mean, okay it was them blue dudes, but igniting a star with the power of hope? Epic. So yes, the Corps is more interesting than the human dude, sorry.
Justice League of America: Cus you know, might as well at least give it a shot. Though honestly, we're mostly picking this up cus I suggested it and it seems like a kind of flagship-ish book to get. Relatedly, I still think that if they wanted to live up to their declaration that they wanted a more diverse line-up in their reboot, it might have been good to put more than a token black dude and a token chick in the freaking Justice League core group. Sorry Aquaman, but I'd swap you out for Black Canary, and Hal, I'd toss you for John. I can just about get why they'd want Hal not John for Green Lantern since it's like, from the blurb, possibly their origin story, and they want the big, recognisable names. Not that that addresses the impossibility of getting to reboot and restart all the Iconic Characters when a lot of them were invented decades ago when comics was even whiter than they are now. However, as I said, I understand the decision even if I don't agree with it. But then, why the bloody hell is Guy Gardiner on Justice League International?! Jeebus, guys, at least give John Stewart that slot, he's a popular guy. HE WAS IN THE CARTOON AND EVERYTHING. BLAH.
You may notice that we're not picking up Superman (whom I love) or Batman (whom K loves). Can't really explain why other than to point back to that stuff about mythic figures, etc. Superman is probably my alltime favourite hero, but I often find it hard to connect to him in a monthly series; I think the thing is, he's really hard to write for because he's pretty perfect, and Batman kind of has the opposite problem, it's too easy to turn him into an angst-muffin or a psycho. Either way they aren't characters I guess we feel the need to read about monthly to excitedly find out more about them.
Aaaaaaand, that's my line-up. Any pitches for additions/subtractions?
(It does occur to me if I'd posted this in smaller chunks over the course of the months, it would be kinder to everyone. OH WELL. Don't worry flist, I really do know that 95% of you have no idea what I'm talking about and the other 5% are probably busy. But it was fun to actually write out the reasons I like DC cus I've never done that before, and I do so love to list stuff. Anyway, ♥ to you all!)
So, I did the obvious, and while everyone on my flist fell for My Little Pony as their happy animated stressfree escapism, I decided to get around to watching all those DC universe animated flicks they've been churning out for a few years now that I've been meaning to watch forever. Partly it was sparked by the DC reboot announcement, partly because - before the reboot was even announced, though it was nifty timing - we finally got back to our actual weekly Sunday DC-universe RPG game. We'd been playing with the Mutants & Masterminds rules way back, but now, with the actual licensed DC rulebook with all the licensed art, even with minimal rules changes, it feels all glossy and shiny, and it's kinda cool to actually get to look in the back of the book and see how you stack up against Superman. (Hint: poorly... :p)
So anyways, here's the lowdown on me and comics. DC comics specifically. Like every geeky girl my age, I hit fourteen and discovered Sandman. I also pick up monthly comics for Star Wars, at the moment for Farscape, previously for BSG. I like comics, they're a great medium. But I was never really a Marvel or a DC girl. Partly because it was just too damn big to know where to start, but that wasn't it really. After all, I worked out the Star Wars expanded universe just fine - in fact, it's why I buy as many comics as I do right now. And I grew up in a world with animated X-Men and JLA cartoons, in a subculture of geeks where no one needed to explain to me who Green Lantern was, even if they did need to explain Guy Gardiner.
Cus I love superheroes. Some of you might have worked that out from other characters: I like it when suddenly they are magical super heroes. I loved it when it happened to Olivia Dunham, it's the main reason I'm not freaking out about River Song, and I may have had a (TO ME) hilarious running joke with a realworld friend that Laura Roslin was secretly the Goddamn Batman and swooped through the lower decks cleaning shit up that Adama didn't have the guts to handle.
But...the comics. Eh. Bluntly, too many times when I did try to read them they weren't that well-written (in comics' defense, this was at a point when I was largely at the mercy of my local library's very old, very outdated graphic novel section), or if they were I didn't know what the fuck was going on because it was in the middle of a huge arc and I'd get frustrated with the little asterisks telling me to go read issue whatever of whatever so I could find out the rest of the story. (Once I tried, I honestly fucking tried, to follow a DC event and I managed to buy the wrong bloody comic twice and gave up). Plus, okay, let's be honest, we all know where the term "women in refrigerators" came from, and it doesn't look that much prettier on the other wrong sides of being
Plus, everything you ever love will eventually be undone due to some kind of reality flux or a deal with a devil or an external reboot.
Still, though. Let's circle around to the DC vs Marvel question. I'm pretty much a DC girl through and through, and it's not just because I love an underdog and Marvel are currently riding higher on all their film successes, and I still, vehemently, stubbornly do not understand why Superman Returns flopped and honestly think Green Lantern was okay!
It's because Marvel doesn't have much to offer me to get past those gateway issues. (Although, caveat: I do like the X-Men as a...verse unto itself. I think it offers something different to the superhero genre in broad terms, and I do wish it wasn't confined to the same elastic timeframe and could instead spread out more like the Star Wars EU, but I'm also not really a big enough fan to feel comfortable getting into that debate, so I should probably leave that to more knowledgeable folks than me).
So what does DC have to get me through that? The characters.
People look at me funny when I say that. There's this perception, I think - I say from the periphery of comics - I say based on what I know as a quasi fangirl among other quasi fanboys (we'll get to that in a minute) - that Marvel write more rounded people. Characters with flaws. And I kind of see the point. I certainly think they're more relateable. But that's what I love about DC. Their characters feel mythic; they feel archetypal. It's easy to see that with someone like Superman who is a blunt stand-in for Jesus, really. Or Wonder Woman who is explicitly depicted in the context of a divine pantheon.
But even someone like Batman - the best analogue I can think of in the Marvelverse is probably Iron Man - both mentally unstable rich genius orphans who use gadgets - feels infinitely more like a legend - the Dark Knight Detective - than Tony Stark ever will.
Which in turn gives me a way to deal with those issues I mentioned. Not so much the representational ones, but the issue of how everything turns around, is retold, undone, done again. That's...frustrating in a longterm narrative but acceptable in a mythic cycle.
How I always used to read comics is, once every now and again, I'd be like, dammit, comics! I'm in the mood for superheroes, and I'd up and go get some graphic novels, and I'd tend to go for the Elseworld type stuff, the alternate universes, or the things that seemed pretty self-contained, like Supergirl and the Legion, or Red Sun, or whatever. Here is a story about this hero we all know already. If I was in charge of comics, that's probably how I'd do it. An endless series of what-ifs and could have beens. This series will run six issues, or sixty issues and within that you can really do stuff. You can break through the stasis that 70 years tends to bring to the major characters, without the inevitable need to reboot it again because the reboot becomes part of the experience. "This is an imaginary story, but aren't they all?"
Which isn't to say I'm at complete zen with it. It probably is why I don't know I'll ever really be able to get into DC as a serious fandom, because for that I do think I need to be invested in actual ongoing plots more than simply amazing one-shots for, what have essentially become, my pantheon of fictional deities.
Honestly, I think it's not overstating to say that, and I'm far from the first to do so. But DC superheroes fill that hole in my geek culture - they provide the mythic cycle, the pantheon of gods, the owned-by-everyone-always-been-there stories that you can invest as much or little as you want in, that are always changing and always staying the same.
Probably it's because I only ever really had one friend who was a hardcore comics geek but I have had many, many friends who are softcore like me and none of us is ever up to date with what's going on, or read the same books, and when we talk about them we're like, "Wait isn't he the one that did that thing?" "Oh, no, no, he's the one that did that other thing - he's really cool because of xyz!" "Really? I thought he was more abc!" "No, dude, there was this cool story I read/episode of JLU I saw where he was definitely xyz!" And we sort of end up building up these characters in ways that don't always add up to the way we'd probably see them if we read their ongoing books or thought too hard about it and might make a different group of geeks with a different understanding of
And, um, that's my rant on why I like DC more than Marvel and how I engage with it.
THAT SAID.
I'm...slowly being convinced that maybe I should engage with it a little bit more actively, the way it was originally intended. Maybe with this new DC reboot, I should dip my toe in the water and see and pick up some books on a monthly basis and see how it goes.
Among other things this has inspired me to watch the DC Animated Movies I mentioned above? By and large, they're fun enough, and range from the awful (Green Lantern: First Flight, sorry, but just...it was boring and Hal Jordan literally had no personality other than obnoxious), to the great (Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, Justice League: New Frontier), to the dammit-you-were-almost-brilliant (Wonder Woman - it was doing pretty great for a while, but honestly they either needed to tone down Trevor's asshattery or not have them get together at the end; one accidental foot through a lasso ain't enough, people!), to the utterly surprising (Batman: Under the Red Hood, I basically did not expect to enjoy 75 minutes of Bat Angst but bloody hell, suddenly that final Batman-Red Hood-Joker confrontation happened and it was un-fucking-believably tense and heartbreaking and good, and frankly I think Batman came out of it looking like a total moral hypocrit, which I'm not sure was the message I was supposed to take but whatever). Honestly, aside from First Flight I at least enjoyed them all. And a few were more intellectually engaging than I was expecting. I may have to vid bits of them sometime.
Then going on from there I decided to actually start reading through some of my husband's comics since they were lying around (he engages with them on a similar level to me, albeit he read them more during his childhood, while I didn't really find them til I was about 14 as I said before), since, like me, he's being a bit more comic booky lately since it's What's Going On Right Now. And one of them was Wonder Woman: the Circle which is the start of Gail Simone's run. And he was like, "Yes, you'll like that one," and I'm like, "Wait, this is the Wonder Woman run I've been told a bunch of times to read, right?"
OH MY GOD WONDER WOMAN. I LOVE YOU.
But, that is a post for another time. Like I think I should actually gather my thoughts on Wonder Woman and all the amazing things Gail Simone does with her and all the confusing things Gail Simone does with her, and all that stuff, and post on it separately because it's worth it.
And now I'm back to trying to find that Supergirl and the Legion novel I know I have lying around that I never got around to finishing (because let's face it, I love the Legion for their tacky 50s/80s mish-mash of weird Peter Pan hope and stupidity, but I wasn't enormously taken with the writing quality of Kara's first few adventures with them).
And I'm considering which comics to get come September. My husband is also interested in picking some up and there are quite a few we're both interested in, so we're agreed on seven right now. We don't wanna pick up too many - who knows if I'll even have a job by then, but ten doesn't seem excessive so there are about three open slots on the potential roster if anyone (okay, it ain't like I have a bunch of comic fans on my flist, but you never know!) has any suggestions:
In the order I randomly remember them:
Catwoman: This is mostly for K - he's an enormous Batman fan (though to his credit this includes a keen understanding that he's actually a pretty damn selfish character and dislikes it when stories try too hard to make him look Secretly Noble and Tortured), and considers Catwoman and Robin the two most important other characters in his mythology. Personally I think Joker needs to be in there too, but K disagrees and whatever, it's his pick. And I am interested to see where they go with a solo story for her - where she'll fall on the hero/villain line.
Batgirl: Okay, honesty, I have deeply conflicted feelings about this, and I'm not even deep into comics; I can't imagine how confusing it must be for people who are. On the one hand, I firmly believe that what happened to Barbara Gordon originally was an example of not refrigeration, but the related phenomenon of women being more likely to be tragically hurt/depowered/rendered less important on a more permanent basis than male characters. While it's true that specifically in Batman mythology we have the death of Jason Todd (who also eventually returned, but whatever, it was a long time), he was mostly killed off because he was massively unpopular - it then became a dark, integral, compelling part of the Batstory. Generally speaking, though, Batman breaks his back and gets better, Barbara Gordon breaks her back and is permanently paralysed. However, for almost my whole life, Barbara Gordon has been a superhero in a wheelchair. Which you know, hell with female superheroes, how many disabled ones do we have? Whatever unfair gender politics put her there, once she was there she became something pretty extraordinary - an incredibly popular, incredibly competent, physically disabled superhero, who, yes, retrained to use her brain more than her body, but who was also still depicted as an athlete, as someone physically capable despite being differently abled. Oracle was a freaking kickass superheroine. Losing that is also not something to be taken lightly. Honestly, one of the reasons I want to read this is because it's Gail Simone, who I previously knew by reputation and am now starting to know through experience has not been overhyped to me. The women who coined the term "women in refrigerators" is writing this. The woman who has, in part, made her name (or at least helped cement an already formidable one) writing for Oracle over the past few years is writing this. I'm not sure if anyone else could pull it off, but I will trust Gail Simone and I want to see what she does with it.
Supergirl: This is all me. I love Supergirl. I MAKE NO APOLOGIES! Though I am nervous to see what they do with her. I'll always love her, but she's at her least interesting when she's the impulsive teenager to Superman's controlling older brother. But I really love when they come at her from a different angle. That her desire for more direct intervention doesn't necessarily come from youthful impetuousness, or if it does, that doesn't mean it's ethically wrong or lacking in wisdom. My favourite way of dividing the two is that Superman catches you when you fall, but is afraid of intervening in free will and human history, so that's all he'll do. Supergirl wants to know, why can't we teach people not to fall? In a crude way it's like...humanitarian aid versus nation building and all the perils of colonialism versus shirked responsibility to those in need. But honestly, again, this is probably one of those times where I've grabbed hold of her characterisation in a couple of stories and put together my own mythic image of her, and I'm bound to be dissapointed. ;) But she's still be Super Awesome, so it's fine.
Wonder Woman: I probably would have picked it up out of curiosity even before READING ALL OF GAIL SIMONE'S WONDER WOMAN RUN. But it's a must-have now. I'm just hoping I like it better than the J Michael Straczynski run which I briefly tried to read last year but didn't get into. That said, armed with a better understanding of/more love for Wonder Woman, I do intend to revisit that and see if I like it better second time around.
Mr Terrific: This is K's pick, and I'm sad to say I don't know a great deal about him beyond what I've picked up from the cameos he's made in our RPG game. Therefore in my mind he's sort of like what Bruce Wayne might have been if he was, um, happier and not messed up and wandered around in the daytime with FAIR PLAY on his jacket instead of at night trying to terrify dock workers. And had a billion PhDs instead of one PhD in DETECTING ANGST. I am, however, entirely down with that kind of a person, so I will give this a shot.
Green Lantern Corps: We both wanna read this. I've always loved the idea of the Green Lanterns (and all the other Corps), for the way they are simultaneously surreal and odd and strange and full of bizarre Star Wars Cantina-style aliens, while at the same time being really pretty damn Epic and Mythic in a kind of simple, universal way. I mean, okay it was them blue dudes, but igniting a star with the power of hope? Epic. So yes, the Corps is more interesting than the human dude, sorry.
Justice League of America: Cus you know, might as well at least give it a shot. Though honestly, we're mostly picking this up cus I suggested it and it seems like a kind of flagship-ish book to get. Relatedly, I still think that if they wanted to live up to their declaration that they wanted a more diverse line-up in their reboot, it might have been good to put more than a token black dude and a token chick in the freaking Justice League core group. Sorry Aquaman, but I'd swap you out for Black Canary, and Hal, I'd toss you for John. I can just about get why they'd want Hal not John for Green Lantern since it's like, from the blurb, possibly their origin story, and they want the big, recognisable names. Not that that addresses the impossibility of getting to reboot and restart all the Iconic Characters when a lot of them were invented decades ago when comics was even whiter than they are now. However, as I said, I understand the decision even if I don't agree with it. But then, why the bloody hell is Guy Gardiner on Justice League International?! Jeebus, guys, at least give John Stewart that slot, he's a popular guy. HE WAS IN THE CARTOON AND EVERYTHING. BLAH.
You may notice that we're not picking up Superman (whom I love) or Batman (whom K loves). Can't really explain why other than to point back to that stuff about mythic figures, etc. Superman is probably my alltime favourite hero, but I often find it hard to connect to him in a monthly series; I think the thing is, he's really hard to write for because he's pretty perfect, and Batman kind of has the opposite problem, it's too easy to turn him into an angst-muffin or a psycho. Either way they aren't characters I guess we feel the need to read about monthly to excitedly find out more about them.
Aaaaaaand, that's my line-up. Any pitches for additions/subtractions?
(It does occur to me if I'd posted this in smaller chunks over the course of the months, it would be kinder to everyone. OH WELL. Don't worry flist, I really do know that 95% of you have no idea what I'm talking about and the other 5% are probably busy. But it was fun to actually write out the reasons I like DC cus I've never done that before, and I do so love to list stuff. Anyway, ♥ to you all!)
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That is all.
/ insightful.
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/equally as insightful.
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(Anonymous) 2011-06-29 02:06 am (UTC)(link)With 52 comic series to pick from torrents are your friend! You guys are really lucky that you support your addictions. My gal would probably chop up my credit card if I started spending anything resembling major money on comics.
Id highly recommend the Batman cartoon the Brave and the Bold. Quite a bit of its dull but i love the way it showcase lots of the obscurer DC heroes and villians. Plus it has entire episodes dedicated to Wacky Races rip offs and Super Dickery.
Im really intrested to see how this Reboots work when it comes to characters like batman. As from what i understand most of the comics are going to be set 5 years after the first apperance of superman as the first super hero in the world. Yet in these five years or less depending on when hes meant to have appeared on the scence Batman has had enough time to go through multiple robins and even father the current one. Now i know comic years are different (except for Captain America and Wolverine its laughable how many ongoing Marvel Characters are meant to have taken part in world war 2) but this seems to me to point to a half hearted reboot. Why keep so much of the status quo.
http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=28&Itemid=45&limitstart=2
I was mainly a marvel fan who had love for Superman, Batman and their villians but had written off the rest of the dc comics and characters as too dull and serious. At leaset from the little of it i has seen. B&B showed me the DC Universe could be equally crazy (Haunted Tank and MR MIND! comes to..) as anything marvel has in its past.
Similary the recent Young Justice Cartoon series takes Campy Villians like Mr Twister (homages almost every version of him in one go) and even Sports Master and makes them a threat again.
Im really intrested to see how this Reboots work when it comes to characters like batman. As from what i understand most of the comics are going to be set 5 years after the first apperance of superman as the first super hero in the world. Yet in these five years or less depending on when hes meant to have appeared on the scence Batman has had enough time to go through multiple robins and even father the current one. Now i know comic years are different (except for Captain America and Wolverine its laughable how many ongoing Marvel Characters are meant to have taken part in world war 2) but this seems to me to point to a half hearted reboot. Why keep so much of the status quo.
Now thats a reboot!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2005615/Holy-Batman-Matt-Smith-wows-audience-Hollywood-play-tries-make-U-S-Daisy-Lowe-side.html
http://splashpage.mtv.com/2011/06/20/doctor-who-matt-smith-batman-fantastic-four/
why is there no video of this :(
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My best friend doesn't read all that many comics himself but really loves the Batman cartoon set in the future and quite likes the Brave and the Bold one, I think. He's been trying to get me to watch them for years. Honestly, I'm awful in that I don't want to find cartoons boring but I often do. My mind wanders so I don't watch that many of them if they're not like, self-contained movies. But I will bear this one in mind.
I think the reboot isn't really rebooting so much as...creating a new starting point? Shifting history a bit, redesigning, making a welcoming point for new readers?
I'm a bit confused though because it seems that most of Batman's history is going to remain intact - all of the previous Robins are still doing what they were before, and even Damian Wayne - who's a very recent addition to the DCverse, relatively speaking - is going to be around. Whereas Superman apparently there are "lots of changes" including a rumour he'll no longer be married to Lois. Which makes me sad, cus I love Superman and don't really want him shifted around a lot to be more "interesting" because I think a lot of people find him boring for his perfection, but I really like him as it is.
Which reminds me, I think it's interesting to hear that it's the campy weirder side of DC that appeals to you as mainly a Marvel fan. It makes sense though because it's the serious more "boring" nature of the DC universe that means I like it more than Marvel. I can't really explain why, I just like that it seems more weighty and serious, even when it's doing really ridiculously daft stuff. ;)
Thanks for that link - it really IS a tragedy there's no video of it.
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(Anonymous) 2011-06-30 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)I only ever really watch thoughs cartoons as mini screens on the corner of my pc. Some episodes are great but most are dull kiddy stuff. Just every once in while they make me go into work the next day and say to the only guy i know who even remotly knows comics and say things like "MY GOD it was crazy Cave age Batman has a "Bat Tree House!"
I like the more serois stuff too. Its just growing up my aunty would randomly buy me a few DC comics and it always seemed to be Lex Lutthor or his red heading clone / son whatever just yapping on and on for like twenty page. I couldnt get into them.
Growing up I personally always found that Marvel always seemed to be more well known perhaps becuase the 70s and 80s were more full of cartoons about spiderman and the hulk. Where there were alot of dc cartoons but they never seemed to be shown over here. Shows like the simpsons and family guy always making fun of the old aquaman and suoer friend cartoons that i never saw as a kid. I knew of characters like the green lantern and green arrow but apart from the names and obvious things (must be a robin hood type character) they never really registered with me.
It always strikes me odd how many people know of the existance of characters like wonder women (see her on enough womens clothing and yucky http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/02/04/ame-comi-costumes-revealed/ ) but ask what her real name whats her origin and they would be stumped.
I love all the crazy stuff but like it when they try and mix the elements of the more serious modern while paying homage to their past. In a recent Batman Inc comic showed a visit to man-of-bats (Native American Indian Batman) bat cave, an old garden shed full of tacky junk from past adventures which you could get a tour of for a couple of dollars. Another issue showed a retrocon of Batmans early adventures "getting close" to the original Bat Women who rang away seriously saying "I DONT WANT BAT BABIES!"
Its thist weird mix of paying homage to the past which normally modern serious comics shy away from their more colourful past iternations.
Talking of which have you read the All Star Superman thats really the kind of thing i like.
Plus do you think that its true lot of the coming changes for superman relate to dc legally loosing the rights to parts of his origin?
I think its sad too splitting up superman from lois. Just like with Spiderman its always seems they think a younger audience wont like a more mature characters and things they cant relate to.
But thats the exact reason i really enjoy comics because they are so far beyond our own day to day lifes. If i was after that i just watch bloody soap operas. I agree they want to make it more accesible to new readers but i loved a character have a huge layered past even if it did mean that they had beaten every villian about 2000 times. Though perhaps they way comics are this day and age it does get a bit silly. A character may of been around 40 years and only "died" once or be cloned once or something like that but now that seems to happen evey other year or so.
Do agree loads with you that the DC characters seem alot more mythical than most the marvel and are the better for it. This translates perfectly when it comes to the elsewhere books. The DC characters and their origins seems to resonate so much more than alternative reality or historical versions of the marvels ones.
Yeah shame no video. Bad thing its was some exspenive paid event. No audience full of mobile phone waving masses.
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I'm not really sure I have any recs in return for you - as I said I don't read that many comics really. Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman is pretty nifty though - she might not be gay, but it does confirm she was raised by a lot of gay people, at least? ;)
Next on my list to read is Secret Six, also by Gail Simone (yes, okay, I'm turning into a fangirl!) which again isn't the sort of thing I'd usually go for (about a team of sort-of villains being anti-heroic), but I will try based on multiple recs. So I may end up posting about that too (I think it might be the sort of thing you'd like?), and if nothing else it's proof of my pliability in terms of giving shit my friends rec me a shot!
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I'm actually not going to be reading much DC come September because I am SUPER pissed about what they're doing with the reboot. However, I would definitely recommend the new Blue Beetle (the old run of Jaime Reyes was amazing, he's got a great supporting cast, he's funny and his origin story is pretty damn mythic - if you read nothing else of his, you should definitely read 1-25 of his first series), Red Hood and the Outlaws (they are finally doing something with Jason Todd that isn't him moping about how he used to be Robin! they're using Koriand'r, who is amazing! oh yeah and Roy is there too, and I guess he's pretty cool?), and Batwoman (Kate Kane is really great, and the team that writes her is I think the same one who wrote her before and did an excellent job of it? If you want more info about Kate: she wanted to be a soldier because of her mother's murder by terrorists and her father's being one, but when charges were brought against her for lesbian behavior she wouldn't lie and therefore got kicked out of West Point, after which she felt really aimless for a while and then there are Spoilers. She's hard to describe, but really great). And actually weirdly enough, Batman Inc., because apparently that is where Stephanie Brown will be, that is where Cassandra Cain will probably be if they keep using her at all, and that is where Nightrunner will hopefully be too, but that's more of a case-by-case are-my-favorite-characters-there basis.
oh my god I could say so much else about the reboot, but I really do have to go to bed, so I guess I'll just stick to my biggest pet peeve about it. I would love to buy Batgirl and read it, because Babs is fantastic, but I just - can't. There's a lot of different reasons, but it boils down to three main ones. 1) Taking one of only two paralyzed superheroes (that I'm aware of) in the DC universe and somehow making her able to walk again is kind of fucked up on quite a few different levels, even if they weren't being all "well she's obviously better like this!" despite the MULTIPLE times in canon Babs has stated how she likes her life better, she feels like she's really become herself as Oracle and stepped out of the shadow of the Bat, that all the fighting she's had to do has made her stronger and that she loves her current life. 2) It's just really messed-up that there can only be one REAL Batgirl, while all (male) Robins get their own book and to move on with their lives. (Got to put that male in, as Stephanie Brown has once again been deemed not really a Robin and not only not given her own book but benched with a small chance of returning in Batman Inc.) But no, Babs must always be pulled back to being a girl, to being Batman's subordinate. She's not allowed to move on, to be happy in a new life like the other Robins are. And that's not even taking into account how it delegitimizes Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain's runs as Batgirl - you know, the girl from a poor family and the girl who was formerly one of their most prominent Asian superheroines before they basically tossed her aside. 3) I'm currently really angry at Gail Simone, for her statements talking about how Babs is the Real Batgirl, a tweet she made in which she stated how glad she was a female character in the Marvel universe had been killed off and tagged it #womenwhodeserverefrigerators and also for her defense of another comic writer who was being a douchebag. I like her old stuff, but I'm not interested in reading her new stuff right now.
Which is not to say I don't totally understand people who want to read it anyways. It's just that it's hit my personal level of "nope just can't do it".
But if you want to catch up on some older comics, I've got recommendations! OH BOY have I got recommendations. Just for starters, Cassandra Cain's run as Batgirl (73 issues, Batgirl vol. 2), Stephanie Brown's run as Batgirl (24 issues total once the last two come out, Batgirl vol. 3), and since you're into Wonder Woman right now I have heard REALLY good things about Greg Rucka's run on her, as well as Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia.
oh god I'm sorry this is so long. I only really got into comics early this year and I have So Many Thoughts about them.
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I'm not entirely sure I so much agree about the notion that it delegitimises their runs as Batgirl - though not having read either of them, I'm not best-placed to judge. But what I mean is, I think Babs as Batgirl is iconic enough that there's always going to be that connection, especially to the general public. Cassie and Steph are always going to be the latter ones, and, I suppose like the Robins, that comes with an expectation that they eventually outgrow the role and move on to other things. The issue that they're not being allowed to do so when Robins are is an entirely different and excellent one. The issue of whether Oracle should go back to being Batgirl is one I have...more complex feelings about as detailed in the post, but certainly is one I'm willing to admit I may be on the wrong side of.
To explain - I think one of the reasons why I am not as horrified by all the stuff that's going on as I otherwise would be is my distance from it as a fandom and a universe I want to 100% throw myself into; it allows me to be selective. (Which is not to say we shouldn't call out bad shit, it's just I'm better at separating the great/offensive divide in my brain for this than I am with other fandoms because of that distance). But I kind of already reached that personal, "I can't do this..." limit with comics way back when I first found them and tried to get into them. When I was reading the fifteen-year-old graphic novels my library had or chatting to all my friends who all Knew A Little. Shit like Supergirl getting fridged for Superman's angst or Barbara's broken back being permanent when Bruce's wasn't, or raping and depowering Black Canary.
Which is to say that...I'm emotionally coming at this from a position of angry feminism on behalf of Barbara Gordon's spine, rather than a position of angry anti-ableism on behalf of Oracle's sheer fucking awesome. But intellectually I have genuinely complicated feelings about the issue and am not sure I'm on the right side of it.
Similarly, I want to see how they handle it before I decide whether or not I'm for or against her going back to a more "junior" role as Batgirl rather than independent Oracle. A lot will depend on how old she's supposed to be, how she interacts with the Bat, that kind of thing, but I understand your concern. I think some is mitigated for me simply because Batgirl is mythic enough (partly due to her part in Oracle's origin story), it feels like a narratively epic thing to be revisiting rather than an attempt to put her back in place - but that doesn't mean it doesn't intersect with issues of ableism or misogyny.
But again, I hope I'm not offending. I come to all this acutely aware that I do so from a perspective of, I suppose, a feral and haphazard comic reader. I haven't read much on it, and in your single comment you've already given me a lot to think about re: the treatment of Robins vs Batgirls - I hope I don't come across as aggressive.
*hugs you, cus that's what Wonder Woman would do. Especially if you were a Polar Bear*
Anyway, long comments are ALWAYS welcome, as are recs! As I said, I'm not generally for the grittier streets of Gotham so I don't think I'll pick up Red Hood. Batwoman was vaguely on my radar, but I have a few flisters I know will read it so I think I'll see if it starts strong then maybe add it later, since we're already getting Batgirl and Catwoman. Blue Beetle is new to me (any incarnation of him) though so I might check out 1 - 25 of the new one when I have time as you suggested. As to Wonder Woman, yes, I've heard some good stuff about Rucka's run too, so I might have to find out when that happened and check it out.
Long comments are ALWAYS welcome! :D
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I'm going to give them a little bit of leeway, maybe wait to see how they handle it and what they do with Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain, because those are probably my two favorite characters in the whole DCU (though Wonder Woman, Huntress, Black Canary and Oracle are all ridiculously fantastic too, my heart). And yeah, a lot of it is just strong emotions from the other side for me. I really, really love Steph and Cass. (oh god there hasn't been any news on Huntress *terrified* I don't know if I can deal if they take out three of my favorite ladies in one blow.)
It is, though, a super complicated issue. Her being paralyzed was originally totally a fridging - it was only later that people turned it into a new career and direction for her. And now putting her back is good on one level and bad on others and it's just - ugh, DC, sometimes you really suck. Why do you do this to us?
*hugs* Wonder Woman - not so secretly RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME. Have you seen/read The New Frontier? It's a 6-issue miniseries written in 2003-4 as a sort of bridge between the Silver Age and more recent superheroes, and got adapted into an animated movie. She's FANTASTIC in it.
For me, yeah, the biggest problem is the difference in treatment of the (male) Robins and the Batgirls. It's really icky. I don't know, I just have so many feelings about all this and I'm so mad at DC for what they're doing to my favorite and for some of the nastier implications of the stuff they're doing and I really just want to read comics and be happy and it is really distressing that that is not really an option right now! There's a lot of other things with the reboot that are kind of 'uhhhh' too, but I got into comics through Cassandra Cain as Batgirl and Stephanie Brown as her adorable best friend, and so that's the one that's really just bothering me.
(I've been doing some Marvel reading, specifically Young Avengers, Runaways, and X-Factor, all of which were recommended to me by friends as having lots of awesome ladies. I needed that.)
Seriously, Blue Beetle's origin story, the 1-25. FANTASTIC. Ridiculously good.
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All we can do really is wait and see and see if it sucks or is awesome. I...guess we'll find out and if not there's always other comics? Though the idea of reading Marvel... I dunno man! I dunno if I can do that! ;) Or at least, I think I got a LOT of DC to catch up on before I make that jump; I really don't know much about that universe.
The New Frontier was one of the animated movies I watched actually, and it was by FAR the best of the lot (and I enjoyed most of them). It really is superbly good, and I agree, Wonder Woman's great in it, if sparingly used. Lucy Lawless does a fantastic job voicing her. It's...basically like Watchmen, but set in the DC universe and therefore ultimately hopeful rather than nihilistic. Like the DC take on changing historical eras and the whyfores of vigilantism and government control. It's a kickass movie. I haven't read the mini, but if it's collected in a trade (which I imagine it is) I'll keep my eye out for it cheap.
And like I said, I really get your angst about it. Especially if you just got into comics and it's your happy place. I'm in the weird position of having been around comics longer, I think, but also far less "in" the fandom than you. But yeah, the inability to just read and love them and squee about them without the complexities of the stuff I also didn't like was...always an issue to me. I imagine it will become so again, I guess...we'll see. But right now we're at the part where I decide I NEED icons of Wonder Woman and am about to go off stalking LJ for them. ;)
I'll let you know how I get on!
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Yeah, it's pretty much a waiting game now. Though there was an interview today about it, or with a quote about it, that was kind of. Icky. I don't think I've seen anyone involved with it say anything about it that makes me look forward to it.
Ha, yeah. DC I kind of fell madly in love with - Marvel I'm being a lot more cautious, a lot slower, and mostly just sticking to three titles that I KNOW are lady-friendly and gay-friendly. (Marvel is... slightly better than DC at this. I will not say much better, because they are still comics and I haven't branched out enough to know whether the rest of it still sucks in that regard.)
Yeah, New Frontier was excellent. There is, I think, more of her in the comics? I can't remember what the differences are off the top of my head, but I think there's more scenes with her in the miniseries. And yes! That was why I picked DC over Marvel initially - Marvel tends to have a much more pessimistic view of the world, from what I've seen, which can be offputting to me.
omg, if you find good Wonder Woman icons, do link me! I'm about to get more icon space hopefully and I want at least two of her. (Dianaaaaaaaa!) and good luck reading! I'm really glad there's someone else on my flist reading comics, especially since I tend to agree with all your Doctor Who meta and love your taste in shows. :D
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It's interesting to hear you say that about Marvel because it lines up with the way I tend to see it - i.e. it's a more gritty, depressing, possibly realistic take on the world. It makes sense that numerically, they do better with representational issues, they have more characters and they aren't subconsciously straightjacketed to an offensive, straight-white-male 1940s-60s era of iconic nostalgia.
My gut instinct (again as someone who's not overly familiar with Marvel) is that they do better on pretty much every representational issue except perhaps women? Which I only feel because while I get that they have more or perhaps sometimes better storylines and therefore it's arguable, DC is a land of myth and epic, and there's just no one in the Marvelverse I'm sure stands up to, say, Wonder Woman in terms of a leading lady, who, okay trails behind the other two of the Big Three in terms of sales and coverage but who is always included as one of them. Like, I'm not sure who Marvel's analogue to her would be. Or Supergirl or Batgirl really.
It's a weird argument to make because essentially I'm prioritising iconic nature and recognisability over actual portrayal which is a whacked piece of math and not one that has much play in terms of my enjoyment of reading the individual comics (which obviously to comics fans is more important, and obviously to the nonsuckitude of the industry is more important). But because a lot of my love of DC is about that powerful iconography, I can't help but swoon when I see Wonder Woman punch someone like she's a barbarian and get held up as a massive public cultural icon. I'm...so easy! *criez*
Which is to say, omfg, Storm and Emma Frost are amaaaaaazing but dammit, why aren't they publicly recognisable figures the way Wonder Woman and Supergirl and Batgirl are! (Stupid non-geeky mainstream culture...)
At which point I'm just babbling. I have yet to find Wonder Woman icons - *facepalm* but will probably announce them when I have them.