Posted by Anika

Last Saturday my family, like many I know, went to our semi-local comic book store to celebrate Free Comic Book Day. In addition to picking up our free comics and War Machine heroclick, along with my pull for last week and a few trades and Heroclix booster packs, we had pizza and those Japanese sodas with the glass ball and hung out for a few hours enjoying a beautiful sunny day with hundreds of people just like us. Or at least a hundred people just like us and hundreds more who at least wanted some free comics. Because we were dressed like this:

I call this “What if Hit-Girl was raised by Black Widow?” and it features me as Natasha, as seen in the movie Iron Man 2, out this Friday, and my five-year-old daughter, Aeris, as Mindy, as seen in the movie Kick-Ass, in theaters now. A movie she’s not going to see for at least ten years but she loves the idea of a little girl who is a real superhero and at five that’s all she needs to know about it. Aeris was a huge hit. She doesn’t mind the spotlight and posed for many pictures, keeping her cool and her character the whole — long and hot! — afternoon. And, like all five-year-olds, she was excited to get her picture taken with Cinderella and Darth Vader.

As a family of comic book fans, to us Free Comic Book Day is a holiday. We had been preparing for the day for weeks and looking forward to it for longer. But it’s not just us. For the past few years Sarge’s Comics Etc. has been taking a big group picture of costumed fans that then goes on display for the year. According to Cinderella, when they started the tradition they had five people in the shot. Saturday there were about sixty of us, all ages and portraying a wide variety of characters from comic books, science fiction, fantasy, and anime. And according to the owner, some 2000 people had come by the store before 2:00PM. I know that the majority of my Twitter List were also participating in some kind of FCBD fun all across the country and it was trending in certain areas. On Friday it was a Google Entertainment News Top Story by virtue of this article in USA Today. With all the hoopla, especially coming as it does right in the midst of the summer comic blockbuster surge, you might think that comic books have arrived in the mainstream. I think it is more like the mainstream has become more “geek”.

A few weeks ago, purely by chance, I came across a magazine entitled Women of Marvel in Toys R Us. It was on a shelf alongside coloring books featuring Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Barbie. According to the cover it was “celebrating seven decades” of Marvel women and a quick flip-thru told me it was half old comics featuring Black Widow, She-Hulk, and various X-women, and half articles like “Bring on the Bad Girls!” and “America’s Next Top Mutant Model”. I was intrigued, but we didn’t find what we were looking for at the store so I put it back on the shelf. We next went to Wal-Mart (the only place selling How to Train Your Dragon merchandise) and on the off chance they might have it, I looked for Women of Marvel. They not only had it, they had a different cover featuring just Ms. Marvel (at Toys R Us it had been a group shot) so I decided it was meant to be and picked it up.

Now, I know Marvel has been promoting its Year of Women, so it makes sense they would have a magazine about that. It even makes sense to sell it at Toys R Us and Wal-Mart to entice new customers. Their choice of comics to include seems a bit mind-boggling at first. But She-Hulk has a relatively simple origin story, and with her co-starring role in the new Iron Man movie, Black Widow is almost obligatory at this point. And while the X-Men stories feature Lilandra, Rachel Summers, and Storm’s mohawk look (three things hard to explain to newbies) and highlight the dysfunctional mess that is Scott Summers’ marriage to Madelyne Pryor (also inexplicable), the point is Storm beat Cyclops for a leadership position and that is a good thing to celebrate in a magazine about women in comics. The articles are standard fare for the most part — an introduction to and history of Marvel women, a piece on female creators, an interview with Stan Lee’s Pepper Potts (Flo Steinberg), a discussion of Girl Comics, the aforementioned article on the villainesses, and a spotlight on Spider-Girl as the longest running female-headed title. The two on the X-Women are the most fun — the ANTM spoof and one called simply “X-Love”:

Everything you could possibly want to know about the many sordid affairs of the X-Men. Get the complete dish on the hookups, breakups and makeups of Marvel’s world famous mutants.

That’s where I realized my two separate worlds of fannishness variously represented by ifanboy and PopSugar were converging. And I think I have to give this magazine some props. It is trying to be a little bit different in its approach to getting women interested in comics. When Sigrid said she couldn’t watch Fringe because the science made her cringe, I said “Oh, no, no, no, it’s not about the science!” It’s not even about the science fiction. The best parts of Fringe are the interpersonal relationships. And so are the best parts of comics. Look at the current Big Thing at Marvel — Siege. Definitely the best parts of Siege for me have had nothing to do with the battle. It was the pillow talk in New Avengers 63, the brilliantly crafted Siege: Young Avengers, and the adorable Siege: Ms. Marvel Spider-Man. Maybe it’s girly of me . . . but all three of those comics were written by men. All stories are better if you care about the characters, right? And anyway, who cares if I’m girly, I’m a girl. A girl who likes comics. I’m not unique, there’s a lot of us, and if more girls knew big giant mainstream storylines sold under the very manly man umbrella of Siege could sometimes be described as “pillow talk” or “adorable” — and that’s OK! — I bet there’d be even more.

Back to X-Love. As I’ve mentioned before, my most favorite X-Men pairing is Polaris and Havok. Well this is what X-Love (written by Will Panzo) has to say about Lorna and Alex: “There’s nothing like a tumultuous love affair. History is full of couples who have ripped through their surroundings like a tornado. Lancelot and Guinevere. Sid and Nancy. Brad and Angelina.”

Lorna and Alex.

Best. Comparison. Ever. And, though probably not with intent, since Polaris and Brad are both listed first, that means Alex Summers is Angelina Jolie. Which is genius. She has a brother she’s sometimes fighting with, sometimes kissing “inappropriately” and a father she’s sometimes feuding with, sometimes trying to follow in his footsteps. She’s a do-gooder who’s personal life will always and forever bring her more attention and drama than anything else she accomplishes. Neither Alex nor Angie was ever going to be “normal” and both tried for a while, and failed, and finally decided to just live with the ups and downs and the public eye. I’ve always liked both and the idea they have anything in common just makes me happy. And here’s the thing, Brangelina — love them or hate them or wish they’d go away — they sell a lot of magazines and movie tickets. Why not comic books?

With the online explosion of Twitter and Facebook and all the others, being net-savvy is no longer reserved for geeks. We engage with our interests, whatever they are, in the way that used to be considered anti-social and is now considered social-networking. And as our interface moves from geeky to mainstream, so our definition of both shifts too. Soon the line between geeky and girly may be so faint you’ll need Hit-Girl’s night goggles or Black Widow’s spyware to see it.

All my pictures from Free Comic Book Day can be seen here. And Sarge’s has a huge gallery here.

Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl

Posted by Anika

This week Marvel Comics released a promotional image of their upcoming return to the Heroic Age.

It is, in my opinion, a highly marketed image. Meaning I bet it has less to do with the actual line-up of the New New Avengers Throwback Team, and a lot to do with getting us all talking about What Might Happen in May. My practical side believes this. My in-love-with-the-current-New-Avengers side doesn’t like that picture at all. Of nine characters only two are on MY team.

I don’t make Heroclix teams with winning in mind. For instance, in a game I recently played, the parameters were simple: 6 characters, 600 points, my team made up of Marvel characters only — my husband Christian would counter with DC. I build teams with characters I like best so mine was made up of Ms. Marvel, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones … and I had 49 points left over. Well, Veteran Havok from the Mutant Mayhem set is 44 points so Alex Summers got to hang out with the Avengers for a bit. We decided on a scenario where all but one of the team was imprisoned and needed to be released before joining the fray, so I gave Havok that job. Which made me imagine it as a comic:

The Avengers are imprisoned on an alien space station and only Captain of the Starjammers HAVOK can save them! Don’t miss this one-shot crossover event written by Jeff Parker with art by Paul Pelletier! AVENGERS: LOCKDOWN available February.

Okay, it’s funny to me. I bet my other Fangirls would be all over that! Actually, it is a space story even I could get excited about (Dear Marvel — let’s get on this!). And that is why Heroclix is so fun, win or lose.

But I do win sometimes. In the above scenario I not only won, all but one of my team (you guessed it, Havok) was still standing at the end. Now, my Ms. Marvel is widely regarded as the second-best figure in play (first place goes to Skrull Ms. Marvel, but I would never choose to play a Skrull over the real thing) so, in theory, I had the advantage. Coupled with Iron Man, they are a deadly duo and with Spidey and Jess backing them up with Perplex (+1 to attack, damage, defense or movement) they made short work of Christian’s (in this particular case admittedly thrown together) team.

So he wanted a rematch, except upping the ante. He’d play a themed team, too, and chose the Dark JLA (like the Dark Avengers but in the DCU). DC characters generally have higher point values than Marvel characters and especially to build a team made up of the Dark cousins of Superman or Wonder Woman required more points. So, 1000 points, no character limit, I’m still Marvel and he’s still DC. His Dark JLA was led by Lex Luthor (Batman), Mary Marvel (Wonder Woman), and Black Adam (Superman). I kept my winning team and added Polaris (Havok appreciated it) and all five Stepford Cuckoos. My reasoning was I love the Cuckoos and I hardly ever get to play all five together because I hardly ever get to play a game with such a high point value. But if you know anything about Heroclix you know that five Cuckoos, in theory, is another big advantage.

Let me explain. At the end of the day you can build the winningest team possible and still lose because of a few bad dice rolls. Which makes characters with the Probability Control ability (re-roll one die roll each turn) very attractive. My husband runs the Scarlet Witch whenever he plays a Marvel or mixed team because she is his favorite Marvel heroine and she has Probability Control. So do the Cuckoos. So properly positioned, my team could get to re-roll bad rolls four times each turn (my fifth Cuckoo, Esme, does not have Probability Control; she is more of a Mini-Emma Frost, powers wise, and actually didn’t do much more than follow Iron Man around just in case he needed someone to take a hit for him). My Cuckoos could also force my husband to re-roll good (for him!) rolls four times each turn. So, yes, that’s an advantage.

This time, Christian went after Ms. Marvel with a vengeance and even her Leap Climbing boyfriend (Peter Parker) couldn’t save her from being knocked out. But it all came down to the rolls of the dice and my Cuckoos helped the team fight back without her and again I was victorious. But this post isn’t meant to be about how I win (and for the record, I get beat 2/3 of the time). It is about how I play.

I play the characters over the abilities. My Havok will always, always jump in front of Polaris if she is set up to be hit, regardless of how many clicks of life either has. My Spider-Man loves to run (swing!) into danger. My Iron Man and Ms. Marvel are aggressive (Avengers Assemble!) while my Magneto hangs back (to pontificate on Mutant Rights and Moral Superiority). And my Batman is constantly leaving teammates behind to take a hit for him, believing, usually rightly, that he is the more valuable piece. But he’s a real jerk about it.

And my in-character moments are not limited to actions I can control. Mystique has the ability to Shapechange, which allows her player a roll whenever she is targeted; on a 5 or 6 the attack cannot be made. In one memorable encounter my Luke Cage moved in to attack Mystique, Christian cried out that she transformed into Jessica Jones — but he missed the roll and Luke saw through the disguise declaring he knows his woman, woman!. My next attack came from Carol, but she has Severe Mystique Issues and this time Christian made the roll, saying she transformed into whoever Carol is in love with. I told him she could stay Jessica and ran Carol off to attack someone else.

The end result of all this is no matter who wins or how the game plays out, it makes for a fun story and that makes for a fun game. And sometimes the story is so fun it turns into a Comic I Wish I Could Read, like the above idea starring the Starjammers and the Avengers. Imagine if our favorite industry creators played a game and based the plot of their next comic on the outcome. I mean, sometimes I read an issue and think that is the only explanation! But it wouldn’t bother me if it was true; it would make me happy. Everyone’s creative process is different. People, professional or not, are inspired by music, art, hair styles, news feeds, rain clouds, toddlers’ mispronunciations, Twitter feeds, LOLcats, boots, condensation on a glass, celebrities, neighbors, movies, quotes, umbrellas, bus stops, reality, fantasy, comic books and board games. And everything in between. My interaction with comic books is not limited to the solicitations from Diamond each month — comic book culture is much broader and more interactive than one traditionally thinks. So whatever the final line-up of the New New Avengers Throwback Team actually is, I can play my own line-up of the characters I love best, and I can make up their stories. And just as Peter Parker is now a mainstay on my Avengers team (thank you, Brian Bendis), and sometimes gets to date Carol Danvers (thank you, Brian Reed), I expect the New Heroic Age, no matter how it enfolds, will inspire me, too.

Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl