Monthly Archives: November 2010

Where’s that Girl?: The Young Justice Premiere

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Posted by Anika

Last Friday, The Cartoon Network aired a preview of its upcoming series, Young Justice, set to air regularly starting in January. My 14 year old daughter’s reaction to the show was to add the Teen Titans series on DVD to her Christmas List. It was at the 45 minute mark of the hour long premiere, just after she asked aloud “Are there any girls in this show?”

Well, with about five minutes to go, three female characters finally did show up: Wonder Woman, silently speaking in a background shot; Black Canary, who was introduced as the team’s main trainer — but also stood silently for it; and Miss Martian, the fifth member of the team, who said I think 4 words. Flirtatiously directed at Superboy. But Kiki had already tuned the whole thing out anyway. She’d decided watching Teen Titans (two of five main characters and most of the recurring characters are girls), Sailor Moon (pretty much everyone but Tuxedo Mask is a girl), and Macross Frontier (most of the Macross saga are well-balanced casts) videos on YouTube was a better use of her time and attention. And the fact is, none of those series are current and the most recent — Macross Frontier was released in 2008 — is not likely to ever be (legally) available outside Japan.

Now, no one is saying that Sailor Moon is a better superheroine than Wonder Woman. And I enjoyed the show — especially the characterization: all four of the main characters presented in the premiere were great. To no one’s surprise I love Robin — he was above and beyond the others in skills…well, superheroing skills. In terms of social skills he was awkward at best and Bat-arrogant at worst. Adorable. Wally is my favorite Flash and he was his goofy self and a social butterfly in contrast to Robin. I expect Aqualad to settle nicely into a leadership role. And Superboy, who I “put up with” in the comics because Tim and Cassie love him, is well on his way to being a favorite. I wanted to punch Roy, which I think means he did his job well, I very much liked flustered Superman, and Bruce and Ollie sniping at each other was, in a word, perfect.

And the tone — I love Teen Titans almost as much as my daughter. But as awesomely poignant as it can be (think the Terra saga, the introduction of Nightwing, or the arc of Raven and her father) it is also purposefully absurd (think Mad Mod, Granny Goodness, and the movie that took place in Japan). My first impression of Young Justice is that the tone will be more in line with (my favorite cartoon adaptation of all time) Justice League. And reasonably so. And that is actually why I am so disappointed. Shayera Hol, the version of Hawkgirl specifically from that series, is one of my top five characters in all of comic book fandom. Not just animated comic characters, not just DC comic characters, and not just girl-type comic characters. Of ALL characters in ALL of comics, Hawkgirl makes that list.

I do know that Miss Martian is a full member of the team and that Artemis — whoever she ends up being — is too. But this premiere was hyped up and scheduled for the Thanksgiving weekend to get us super excited (new episodes don’t air regularly until the new year) and I am not super excited. I am annoyed that I have to wait over a month to meet the girls. I am annoyed that I have to wait over a month to prove to my daughter who doesn’t read the internet hype that there are any girls. I am annoyed that I am stuck apologizing for this show that I did enjoy and want to be super excited for but I am not because instead of talking about how cool it is my peers and kids are asking “Are there any girls in this show?”

I do look forward to tuning in in January. But I wish I could say the same for my fourteen year old daughter.

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

Jennifer’s Writing Round-Up

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Posted by Jennifer

Recently, I’ve been posting some comics-related writing in a few different places, and I thought I should give Fantastic Fangirls readers a head’s up.

First, I wrote Your Friendly Neighborhood Araña: The State of Latinidad in Marvel Comics for Antenna, the blog run by my grad school department. The article discusses the recent higher profile of Latino characters in Marvel comics, especially given the release of yesterday’s Spider-Girl. And, on that note, you should all definitely pick up Spider-Girl if you haven’t already. The art and writing are both fantastic, and it’s off to a great start.

Second, I’ve begun to contribute to Newsarama as a member of their Best Shots team of reviewers. Last week I reviewed Generation Hope #1 and Avengers Academy #6, and this week I reviewed She-Hulks #1 and Batgirl #15. I should be contributing a few reviews each week from here on out, so be sure to follow me on twitter for links.

Here’s an excerpt from my review of She-Hulks, another book you should absolutely pick up:

A book about a woman mentoring another woman is significant enough on its own. Rarely does a female superhero get to play a direct role in shaping her legacy, particularly in Marvel. DC has done this sporadically in Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman, and Batgirl, among other books, but on the Marvel side even Jean and Rachel Grey have rarely interacted, and it’s a relief just to see two women presented as a team, rather than as rivals. But what makes She-Hulks so special, beyond this central premise, is the way it powers its storytelling engine with characterization first and foremost. Jen and Lyra have a basic mission – gathering up the escaped “Intelligencia,” a group of villains from the Hulk books who require no more background information than this issue provides. But those fights are choreographed with the girls’ personalities in mind, the mix of Lyra’s violent warrior ways and Jen’s lighthearted, bantering bravado, Lyra’s fish-out-of-water awkwardness and Jen’s complete comfort in her heroic role. Wilcox has a great ear for the characters’ voices, and his writing has a fun, humorous sensibility that sets an appropriately rollicking tone for two jade giantesses bringing down bad guys.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to keep you guys posted in the future!

By Jennifer Smith
E-mail: Jennifer@fantasticfangirls.org
Twitter: throughthebrush

Tuesday Trades Round-Up

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Instead of our regular Q&A this week, we thought we’d bring you our thoughts on some of the comics that have recently become available in collected form. Sometimes it’s easy to caught up in the rush of new issues so today we’re slowing down to share some interesting books of the past few months.


Anika

Here’s a list of some things included in Mark Millar’s Ultimate Avengers (recently released in trades as The Next Generation with art by Carlos Pacheco and Crime and Punishment with art by Leinil F. Yu):

The Red Skull
The Cosmic Cube
Ghost Rider
The Punisher
Strippers
Government sanctioned murder
Torture as a motivating factor
Some off-putting editorial choices (the secret underground assassin team is made up of three black men, two women, and a clone — interesting subtext)
Nerd Hulk, a clone of Bruce Banner who has all of The Lord of the Rings memorized
Tony Stark’s estranged brother, Gregory

Eight out of ten are things I would generally avoid and the last two boggle my mind. And that is my experience with the Ultimates in a nutshell.

But I do keep reading. Because in addition to the above there are also:

Colonel Carol Danvers, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Covert Ops
An artistic nod to Hannibal (possibly unintentional but it is still there)
All sorts of screwy relationships
A villain doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason with the saddest of intentions
A new take on established characters and stories
The Avengers avenging.

I’ve always found the team name “Avengers” to be curious. And in this arc it is explicitly used to differentiate what this team is doing from what the main team — the shiny, happy Ultimates — do. This team avenges.

I would suggest these titles to none of the other Fantastic Fangirls (unless it was an exercise in “read what you don’t like”). They are problematic. But I like how they play with what I think I know (which is ALSO my experience with the Ultimates in a nutshell). And if you have any affection for this scene from Pulp Fiction (warning for language and violence) (obviously), I might suggest this comic to you.


Caroline

Marvel Her-Oes by Grace Randolph and Craig Rousseau.

When the first issue of Her-Oes came out last spring, I reviewed it here. I praised writer Grace Randolph’s introduction of Janet Van Dyne and Jen Walters as interesting, relatable teenage heroines with their own strengths and flaws. I also loved Craig Rousseau’s fun, memorable designs, and the cover art by Sarah Pichelli. Now there’s a trade paperback collecting the four-issue miniseries. I’m happy to say that the quality of the series kept up throughout, and there’s now a complete story about Janet and her friends. I don’t know whether or not there will be more stories set in this universe, though, because Marvel seems to be better at creating high-quality all-ages comics than at figuring out who to sell them to. I encourage readers to buy this book and let the powers that be know there’s a market for it! It’s sold in one of the smaller sized TPB’s (not full-sized, but not quite a digest) and comes with a classic She-Hulk comic as a bonus.

Avengers: The Initiative: Dreams and Nightmares, by Christos Gage, Rafa Sandoval, and Jorge Molina

Avengers: The Initiative was a Marvel comic I never got into when it was coming out. It launched in the aftermath of the big Civil War event, telling the story of “ordinary superheroes” who played a role in a government-run heroing system. At the time, I picked a couple of similarly-themed books (Matt Fraction’s The Order and Warren Ellis’s Thunderbolts) and let Initiative go. The book ended with the Siege event (as did the whole concept of the government-run Initiative), and I might not even have noticed it was gone.

However, I recently started reading Avengers Academy, a new title written by Christos Gage. Academy is one of the best books Marvel is putting out, and Jennifer tipped me off that Gage had started writing some of the characters and storylines from that book when he was a writer for Initiative. That’s why I checked out the latest TPB, Dreams & Nightmares, which collects issues 26-30 of that series. I was always a fan of the Dark Reign storyline, where supervillain Norman Osborn took charge of the national security apparatus for his own evil ends. Dreams & Nightmares is set during that period, and it turns out to be a fantastic look at the nuts and bolts of Osborn’s evil empire.

The creators have a lot to juggle in these issues. There are a ton of characters, and having a general knowledge of the Marvel Universe is helpful in understanding the backbone of the story. However, there were a number of characters in this book that I didn’t know, and I was still able to dive into it and be thrilled and moved by everything that was going on. That’s because Gage, as a writer, never loses sight of the importance of character. He also understands social and political systems, including the way they can cause a good person to be a cog in an evil wheel, or an evil person to be a force of stability.

Gage also knows how, occasionally, a one-shot character can break your heart. Witness issue #27, the tale of Johnny Guitar and Dr. Sax. These two wannabe rock-and-rollers, best friends forever, once fell into a life of supervillainy — the cut-rate variety of supervillainy, anyway, where you just accept that if you run into Dazzler, she’s gonna kick your ass. Johnny and the Doctor get pulled into the Initiative’s evil machinations, and the resulting tale made me cry in a Starbucks. Gage mentioned on Twitter, recently, that he gave Johnny Guitar a daughter named Jenny Guitar, just in case he ever wants to re-visit the story. I can’t claim to speak for anybody else, but a comic featuring Jenny Guitar would instantly become my favorite comic of all time. Meanwhile, I can’t wait for the final volume of Initiative — assuming they ever put it out in paperback.


Jennifer

Astonishing X-Men: Exogenetic (premiere hardcover) by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez

The experience of reading this arc of Astonishing X-Men can best be described as a series of vacillating pluses and minuses.

It’s more Astonishing X-Men, my all-time favorite series! (+1)
It’s more Astonishing X-Men… not by Joss Whedon. I enjoy Ellis’ work, but nothing has come close to the Whedon run for me. (-1)
It’s drawn by Phil Jimenez, one of my all-time favorite artists! (+1)
It’s colored by Frank D’Armata, whose dark, murky coloring style covers up some of the best parts of Jimenez’s art. (-1)
It remembered one of my favorite obscure characters, Laurie Collins, of the Nunzio DeFillipis/Christina Weir New Mutants! (+1)
It remembered Laurie… so it could literally use her corpse as a plot device and make her explode. (-1)

I’m sure you’re beginning to get the picture. And this doesn’t even factor in the delays (-1,000) that caused me to wait for the trade in the first place — I realize scheduling conflicts are often unavoidable, but it was extremely confusing and frustrating when this stopped coming out and Ellis started an entirely different Astonishing miniseries with the same characters and a different artist.

Ultimately, my feelings are more positive than negative. The series improved as Ellis’ comfort level with the characters increased, and there are some great moments in this book, particularly between Hank and Agent Brand and between Logan and Hisako. The plot is, honestly, something I’ve already mostly forgotten, but I don’t tend to read X-Men stories for plot, and the character dynamics really were excellent. Ellis’ humor fits the series well, and Jimenez’s art… well. Just take a look at this page:

Let’s be honest: if every comic involved shirtless Wolverine and Cyclops (who looks like an underwear model here) bickering with each other to express how much they care, I would be a happy (if shallow) girl. (+1,000,000,000)


Sigrid

X-Men: Nation X by a whole bunch of writers and artists.

This trade collects the Nation X miniseries along with Uncanny X-Men 515-522 and Dark Reign: The List – X-Men. It’s a real mish-mash of stuff, and in that way reminds me of some of my favorite periods of X-Men comics. Uncanny 193-201, for instance. The common thread in this collection is not a plot, or a story, or an event — the common thread is “hey, these are the mutants and they live on this sinking island and, you know, stuff happens.”

This is not a trade to hand to someone who wants to get into X-Men comics, in my view. It is a nice collection for me, though, who can recite the personal histories and plotlines of these characters from 1977 until now. (It makes for a particularly long and boring party stunt unless one jumps around acting out the various parts.) (Yes, in my youth I spent two hours narrating the Life of Jean Grey.) (And it’s still long and boring.) What I mean to say is, not only would I buy a comic in which Logan and Bobby and Ali try to cook dinner for the students, I would enjoy that comic a hell of a lot more than I enjoyed the recent Second Coming crossover mess. I am one of those people who tunes in every month to see how my imaginary friends are doing, and whether their writers are treating them well.

The Nation X trade has some of my favorite moments from recent X-Men comics. Magneto putting the ghost of his former self to rest. Peter being a depressed artist. Bobby being a jester with a core of despair. All these vignettes show the X-men as people, not as heroes — and I like that. I like knowing the people who do the heroic acts. It makes me invested when bad things inevitably happen to them.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Big Event in this trade — the return of Kitty Pryde. It’s a good plotline, handled well — in that it doesn’t solve ANYTHING. Kitty’s return doesn’t actually solve anybody’s problems. Which, good. The mutants’ problems, and Scott’s leadership problems in particular, have no easy fixes.

My favorite story in all of this, though, is the epilogue to Uncanny X-Men 522 (written by Matt Fraction.) In which we see an alien planet, and we meet a character on said planet. And this planet and this character, they know they have five years to live because a giant bullet is headed for their world and there is nothing they can do to stop it. In a handful of pages I empathize with these people. With their fear and rage and helpless pain. With their acceptance. And then, nothing happens. Kitty, still alive and still full of incandescent will, is inside the bullet and saves the planet.

It is not emotionally charged to me when people who are better than human save worlds. That’s what we expect them to do. But when we see the flaws and the bad decisions and the anger and the fear, and then they go and behave brilliantly — lit from within by nothing but their own decision to be better than they could be. Those are the heroes for me. The flawed, petty infighting of the X-Men goes hand-in-hand with the heroism. As a collection, Nation X shows us both.

Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, and Scott Williams

It’s no secret that I don’t like Batman. He doesn’t really speak to me, and as a character he treats the characters I do like … poorly. So I got and read this in the hopes that the comic might explain why Batman matters so much to so many people. What is there to this guy, why do people like him and want to BE him?

The comic didn’t answer that for me, honestly. But there was a lot in it that I liked.

I like seeing what Batman meant to the other people in Gotham. I like how they construct him out of their own needs, make him whatever they want him to be. Yes, yes, obvious reader-stand-in is obvious. But that’s what I wanted. Bruce Wayne’s Batman, stripped of the meaning other people give him, is a self-indulgent control freak who can’t get over his emotional baggage. But that’s not what THEY see, that’s not who Dick and Tim and Selina and Babs and Helena and Alfred see. That’s not what Ivy and Harvey and Oswald and Joker see.

My favorite story in this is the one Alfred tells. It is a lovely description of the relationship between the writer and the reader. In this metaphor we are Bruce, demanding ever-more engrossing fantasies for our lives. And the writer is Alfred, pushed to elaborate deceptions to give us what we want. Until the whole damn thing takes on a life of its own with consequences that neither writer nor reader control.

That’s Batman. Bigger than any writer, than any fan or reader. That’s what happened to him — he has a life of his own.

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

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As I’m sure many of you already know, Marvel and Disney have put together a new Avengers cartoon. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is another attempt to get the kid market into these long-running, canon-laden characters. We at Fantastic Fangirls have all gotten a look at the first few episodes and wanted to talk about it. Like book club, we’ll start out with our observations and thoughts, then open the comments up to your input. Have you been watching the new Avengers cartoon? Why or why not? What do you think of it so far? What would get you to watch it, if you’re not already?

Sigrid: I’ve been trying to watch it on the Disney Go website. I don’t have cable, and I have to say that the means of my viewing affected my sense of the show. The Disney Go site is painfully difficult to navigate. I tried watching the show there for three weeks. I ended up downloading copies of the episodes from other sources.

Disney. I TRIED. I tried to watch your show on your site, for three weeks. I could not find the episodes. When I found them, they would not stream. I sat through all your ads willingly. But when the show doesn’t run, only the ads work, I give up. Make your website easier and more functional and we’ll talk again.

But, barring the technical problems with the show, I am basically in favor of it. I found the origin episodes to be clear, I liked the set-up — “Breakout,” much like the first story of New Avengers — and I like the animation and voice acting. Nothing about the show has made me fall in love with it yet. But I like Marvel enough to keep watching — that is, as long as I can watch it, through whatever means.

What did you guy think of it? Do you have a favorite character so far? Any peeves or irritations?

Caroline: First of all, I am glad that I happen to have the Disney XD channel on my cable because, like Sigrid, I tried to look for the episodes on the website and was defeated. Worst set-up ever! Trying to follow the show as it aired on TV was hard, too, though, because, as far as I could figure out, they aired (1) “Breakout Parts 1 & 2,” the (2) all of the origin episodes that had previously aired in chunks on the web and gave you the background to actually understand what was going on in “Breakout Parts 1 & 2.” I mean, I like that they are taking advantage of the web to grab an audience for the show, but ideally, it would make sense to put together a narrative that would work equally well for web and TV audiences. And one that would be equally easy to watch for both! Neither is the case, here.

But! Once I actually figured out what I was supposed to watch and took it all in, I found myself liking it a lot. I didn’t love the Breakout two-parter to start with. Partly, this was because I hadn’t watched the origin episodes and didn’t know everything that was going on. Also, though, the opening episodes were heavy on fighting and had fewer of the slower character moments. I was relieved that this seemed to change pretty quickly. So far, honestly, I like all the major characters. I’m shocked and surprised that this includes Henry Pym, who I’ve never seen characterized as anything other than a jerk or, at best, a jerk looking for redemption. Here he’s a rather endearing, socially challenged scientist (more like the movie version of Reed Richards than the one in the comics), and he also is presented with a clear moral stance. He’s the guy who firmly (perhaps naively) believes villains can be rehabilitated. I’m sure that’s a trait that Pym has exhibited at some point over the years, but the hardest job of an ensemble show like this is to pick character threads to focus on and develop, and that seems like a promising one for him.

I’m enjoying Wasp, too — she’s the most fun, so far, and she provides estrogen to a cast that badly needs it — and I was especially impressed by the introduction of Steve Rogers. But I have a feeling somebody else wants to talk about that even more than I do.

Jennifer: Would that person be me? ;)

I’m still trying to put together my thoughts on this show. My first instinct is to say that there’s just too much going on for a cartoon aimed at kids. I’m an adult who’s been reading Marvel comics for years, and even I had trouble disentangling all the different plot threads and keeping track of all the characters. If you don’t watch the mini/origin episodes first (and even they’re a bit confusing and overcrowded), you’re thrust into Breakout and meet Iron Man, Ant Man, Wasp, Thor, Hulk, Nick Fury, Doc Samson, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Maria Hill, Jimmy Woo, Pepper Potts, Jane Foster, Balder, and about five hundred gazillion villains, all of whom have their own stories and motivations. You get all of this, if you count both parts of Breakout, in a grand total of 45 minutes. Including extended fight scenes. That is INSANE.

But since that opening two-parter, the series has started to calm down and focus more clearly on the main team, which I appreciate. (I’ll admit — I’m not much of a cartoon person in general, and I get antsy waiting through fight scenes I would normally skim over in their comic form.) The character interactions have been a lot of fun, and I’m especially enjoying Tony and, like Caroline, Hank and Jan. The voice acting and animation are both pretty good (the only disappointment being Tony — sometimes he sounds like Robert Downey Jr., but sometimes he sounds like a 15-year-old boy, which is jarring), and I was quite impressed by the introduction of Captain America, which stayed remarkably true to the comics and hit all the right emotional beats, even the darker/more adult themes of his sense of loss and his feeling out of place.

I’m curious, though, about this show’s choices with regard to Marvel characters and continuity. My first instinct is to ask, “Why this team?” Hank and Jan aren’t going to be in the upcoming Avengers movie, so their inclusion is odd, especially with how problematic Hank’s character can be. It’s faithful to the comics, sure, but plenty of other things aren’t. Hydra, for some reason, has replaced Nazi Germany entirely in the history of this universe, despite World War II apparently being exactly the same. Nick Fury is an amalgamation of older 616 Nick Fury and Ultimate/movieverse Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury. Jane Foster is a paramedic instead of a nurse. Clearly, this isn’t your dad’s Avengers. And while I appreciate the inclusion of a black Fury (as well as Jimmy Woo, Rhodey, and the Black Panther) and the presence of Maria, Pepper, Black Widow, and Jane, it bothers me a bit that this core team is still so white and male, despite it not being 1964 anymore. They’re using the origin of the New Avengers team (and I understand why — Hulk-as-circus-clown isn’t going to fly on TV in 2010), so why not use more of those characters? Or any characters who aren’t this original lineup of white men?

I’m also curious what characters this show actually has the rights to — the Fantastic Four have been referenced, and we’ve seen a newspaper headline mentioning the Punisher, but it seems like Spider-Man and the X-Men are still tied up in other studios (though a mention of mutants did occur in one of the minis). How will this affect the huge Marvel Universe the cartoon is trying to create? It will seem almost bizarre to see the Warriors Three and Maria Hill on the screen, but not Peter Parker or Wolverine.

All of this is just musing, though — the best thing about the show so far has been the characterization and banter, and as long as that keeps up, I’ll keep watching.

Caroline Can I step in with a super-cynical theory? The reason to have this many characters in a cartoon for kids is that you can sell a lot of toys. The structure of this show reminds me less of something like the Justice League cartoon and more of the Transformers and G.I. Joe shows that I watched in the ‘80s. They threw a ton of characters and gadgets at the audience and didn’t put all that much stock in coherent world-building. Now somebody’s going to comment and tell me I’m wrong wrong wrong and I don’t appreciate the genius that went into Snake Eyes, or whatever, but most of us recognize that those were extended toy commericals.

Here, you’ve got that going on, and as a bonus, you can sell the show to fanpeople in their thirties (and thus deliver a desirable demographic to advertisers) because those grownup fans will get a kick out of seeing how many characters they can recognize.

If anything resembling an interesting narrative develops out of this, it will be because somebody decided to work harder than they needed to to make this show be good. But people usually don’t bother to make things any better than they need to be, and I expect that’s the case here as well.

End super-cynical theory.

But, hey, I’m still watching.

Jennifer: While I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong, I think there must be more going on than that. For one thing, this is airing on a cable channel specifically targeted at children — the advertisers on Disney XD (almost all toys, from what I’ve seen) aren’t seeking the 18-49 demo that network TV of the 80s wanted and needed, whatever the program. The people behind this cartoon have the privilege of being able to narrowcast, and they’re clearly taking advantage of it — this is a kids’ cartoon through and through, unlike the more adult-fan-oriented DC direct-to-DVD features of the recent past.

On the toy front, we’ll have to see what comes out of this. The Super Hero Squad cartoon came from a toy line, much like Transformers and GI Joe, but I saw relatively little merchandise directly connected to the last major Marvel cartoon effort, Wolverine and the X-Men, which was made by many of the same people and shared a similar animation style. While I certainly don’t mind Marvel profiting from this and wish them all the best, I’m not sure how much their merchandising will really match this cartoon’s potential reach.

Anyway, that’s my TV grad classes talking. Back to the story!

Caroline

Well, there’s also the possibility that they just want to throw as many characters out there as they can for licensing reasons and don’t particularly care if the story is intelligible because hey, it’s for kids. Then again, I might revert to the even more cynical theory that one should never attribute sinister motives to things that can be explained by incompetence.

But yes, by all means, back to the story.

Sigrid: You know, I basically blew by all that sort of analysis. I’m glad you two did think of it, though! I was watching the show more-or-less waiting for the scenes with the characters I like, and sort of tuning out all the bits with characters I find uninteresting. Like, Thor. Never been a Thor fan. So I basically checked Twitter during Thor bits, and flipped back to the video when he was talking to Jane Foster. (Who I’ve never heard of, by the way. It’s amazing how many years a person can read comics and still not know everything.)

I initially tuned out the Hank and Jan parts because I have never liked them in the comics. Ever. Well, except for the recent miniseries that had Janet in high school with Jen Walters and Namora. Yet Hank and Jan have turned out to be my favorite parts of the show so far. Jan’s enthusiasm is great. And I am enjoying this version of Hank Pym as ethical in addition to being monomaniacal.

Anika: I only know who Jane Foster is because Natalie Portman in playing her in the movie. I’d say I agree she was the best part of any appearance by Thor but I have to mention the Rainbow Road. The fact that Thor travels by rainbow almost endears him to me and the fact that the rainbow comes out of Stark Tower in the opening — well, my five year old jumps up with an excited “Rainbow Road!” every time she sees it and that is very endearing.

My whole family watched the first seven episodes (the five origins and the two-part pilot in that order) on Disney XD when they aired the Saturday morning after the premiere. We watch a lot of Disney, a lot of Disney XD, and a lot of superhero shows so this was a given. I have to say I don’t have the same the criticisms you guys do. I do watch and love cartoons and what I liked best about this one was its scope. I loved seeing all those characters, even ones I only knew the name of, or didn’t recognize at all from the comics (which is, actually, a lot like my experience with Justice League: Unlimited).

Jen’s comment about this not being your dad’s Avengers made me think of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. That movie was successful because it paid homage to the original while presenting new ideas. I think that’s what this cartoon is trying to do, albeit on a smaller scale (but it gives me some hope that it will continue in the film series), by keeping the same line-up but tweaking the edges. So the core crew of five white guys plus Jan doesn’t overly bother me the way it doesn’t overly bother me that Uhura is the only woman and only black person in the core Star Trek crew. Because she’s not the only woman or the only black person in Star Trek. Star Trek spans six series (there is totally a cartoon) and eleven movies and there are thousands of characters of all shapes, colors, sizes and sexes. The same can be said for the Avengers and I don’t think they would introduce all these characters if they weren’t going to have some impact on the show. . .

What I love about the Avengers is that anyone in the Marvel universe can be one. Whoever you are, whatever you look like or act like, and whatever your particular power or skill or talent may be, if you are some kind of superhero, you can be an Avenger. So there is one for everyone to identify with and look up to. Or there is at least the possibility, the mechanism. I’m not saying we’ve arrived at blanket equality and inclusion, but maybe we’re not as far away. So, I’m an idealist. I’m okay with it.

And I haven’t seen any toys for this show yet but if they actually came out with a Jimmy Woo or a Maria Hill or a Bobbi Morse action figure that was targeted at children and not collectors I really do not see a problem with that.

Caroline: Well, since I’ve had some caffeine today, I’ll come back with my totally uncynical theory: There are so many characters in this because the people behind it are so excited about all the awesome characters and concepts that there are to play with. The more they throw out in the early episodes, the more possibilities there will be to work with. I think the proof of that is really in whether those characters come back and are used well. I mean, I squealed like crazy to see Jimmy Woo in “Breakout” as a SHIELD agent, but I haven’t noticed him since. As for Bobbi Morse, I don’t remember noticing her at all, but sure, it will be great if she’s around more.

I do wonder if Anika was the only one to watch the origin episodes BEFORE “Breakout”? Because I think if I had, my experience would have been different. I worked my way slowly through the episodes (it’s a lot to presume of the audience that we have 3 hours on a single day to devote to watching a bunch of cartoons in a row! I’ve DVR’ed them and been watching them slowly and I imagine a lot of people did the same). If I’d seen it all together, the story might have come together for me a lot better out of the starting gate.

I swear I’m done talking about the format, though! Let me get back to how I love what they are doing with all the characters (oddly, maybe Iron Man less than the others because his stuff all feels like a ‘light’ version of the movie). The Steve Rogers characterization, particularly, really reminds me of what Steve is like in those early Lee/Kirby Avengers comics. He’s not a Hawkeye-style smart ass, but he’s a little emo and a little ornery. It’s a non-Boy Scout characterization, without being the self-parodying jingoist from the Ultimate universe. Also, can I admit I kind of like the Thor stuff? Not just Jane and the Rainbow Bridge but the way they’re playing out the tension between his two worlds. Plus he flies by swinging his hammer around. That both cracks me up and is awesome, every time.

Anika: It is a case of wait and see, I grant you. But I’m going to bring up Justice League: Unlimited again, because it came after there were three seasons of Justice League with just Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, and showcased a bazillion characters (as if 7 leads isn’t already a large cast!). So maybe my hopeful attitude comes out of that experience.

But speaking of admissions, to answer Sigrid’s first question about favorite characters, I have oddly gravitated to Hulk. He’s being portrayed the way I like — as a tragedy instead of just a smashing machine. I sort of want Hulk and Jan to end up besties. And I want Hawkeye (and Mockingbird, who was very briefly in “Hulk versus the World,” a micro-episode) to show up again soon. Which is all kinda odd if you know me, but then, other than Tony and Pepper, my most favorites haven’t been introduced (yet).

Sigrid: You know, I hadn’t thought about the Justice League comparison — because, I liked Justice League just fine, but I LOVED Justice League: Unlimited. For pretty much the reason you mention, Anika — the scope widened enough to include the characters in the DCU that I actually care about.

I think that’s how I’m feeling about this Avengers. I think it has room to grow, room for more scope, room to include all the things that make the Marvel Universe so interesting to me. I’m not that invested in the core Avengers team, but I am very invested in the wider Avengers’ world.

And, here’s the thing — if the show never gets to be the show I want? Well, I’m actually okay with that. Because it will mean that this Avengers will become someone else’s Avengers that they love and hold to. I mean, I already HAVE my team, it’s Bendis’s New Avengers. And this Earth’s Mightiest Heroes version isn’t a bad one. It does have women on the show, it does have people of color who have names and faces and are more than background scenery. The show is well-written, the dialogue is snappy, I agree with the characterizations, and I like the opening theme music without any irony whatsoever.

Seriously, I do. I mean, I’m a person who loves the Pat Benatar song “Invincible”and thinks it should be the Xavier school fight song.

Jennifer: Is there a place to download that theme song? Because I’ve also grown to unironically love it. And as long as this cartoon keeps giving me Tony Stark trying to buy himself friends and lounging around in a red dress shirt while having meaningful conversations with Steve Rogers, well — who am I to complain? I may not always love the show, but I love the Avengers and I love the Marvel U, and I’m in for the long-haul.

We’ve said our piece. So what about you, loyal readers? Share your thoughts on Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the comments!

The State of Things

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by Sigrid

It seems that every week there are good comics that deal with women, people of color, and GLBTs in a well-written and thoughtful way. At least, that’s what my pull list looks like. I know that I want to see these books, or others like them. But, more importantly, I want to let the creators of these books know that I see their efforts and appreciate them.

Secret Six #27, Gail Simone and J. Calafiore. Great scenes with Scandal Savage (one of my FAVORITE lesbians in comics) and Bane. Great showdown between Spy Spasher and Amanda Waller. And let’s not forget that Secret Six never lets the reader down when it comes to eye-candy, pinups, and half-naked men.

Hawkeye & Mockingbird #6, Jim McCann, David Lopez, Alvaro Lopez. This. I want more of this. I want more of characters who remember Secret Invasion, who understand and remember how horrifically creepy and unsettling it was. I want more of people who aren’t over things yet, but who get up and keep going anyway. And I love, love, the sense that Bobbi Morse is coping in an less-than-healthy way by going Too Far as an agent. Bonus points for a great scene with Steve Rogers and Clint, and bonus points for no half-naked out of character cheesecake shots.

Generation Hope #1, Kieron Gillen and Salvador Espin. An international and multiethnic team, half women and half men, with guest appearances from the X-Men. The art is not exploitative — these characters are supposed to be teenagers, so a certain amount of skin makes sense, but they are not drawn pornographically. The writing — especially the internal monologues, which are key to getting to know these new characters — sounds individual and clear. I got a strong sense of the personalities and possible future conflicts while they were fighting a giant tentacle monster. That, I should note, is the kind of thing comics are SUPPOSED to be able to do. Show us the internal hopes and fears of a person while they punch giant tentacle monsters. Who may or may not be misunderstood.

Women of Marvel #1 of 2. Please note, Marvel Comics, I only bought this because the advertised Greg Land cover I’d seen in previews was NOT, in fact, the cover. I bought the Sara Pichelli cover, which is still cheesecake, still sexy, and still fetishy — but Pichelli manages to convey that the four women are women, are individuals, are human beings. Land’s art — which is still the inside cover pinup — makes them all look like plastic blow-up sex dolls, vapid and brainless and mere objects. More Sara Pichelli, please, and less Greg Land.

Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale, Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee. The tale of the life of a black man, a religious man, a fighter, a criminal, a strong man, a victim, a hero. This is what, in a perfect universe, we would get to see about all characters, eventually — complex and well-thought-out back stories that provide us with consistent and comprehensible motivations. I was particularly interested in this because Shepherd Book was given the kind of backstory that one frequently finds paired with female characters. A history of early abuse, flight, a determination to be strong at any cost, a driven career like a bat out of hell, an inevitable crash because that sort of things can’t be sustained, then a coming to a better understanding and true strength. On TV Tropes this character type is called the Broken Bird, and it’s one of my favorites. I was pleased to see it applied to a male character I like.

Young Allies #6, Sean McKeever, David Baldeon, N. Bowling. A couple things, here. First, Rikki Barnes does not presume that Toro must learn English — she presumes that she will learn Spanish and he will learn English and that they will come to understand each other together. This is a HUGE thing, people. How often, how often do you see in any sort of genre fiction, the idea that immigrants deserve respect and effort from the dominant culture? It’s a tiny scene, but a major sign of respect. Second, this is another great ensemble comic featuring people of color and women, who are all respected as characters not caricatures, who all have personality traits other than “the girl” or “the Latino.” Third — third, these scenes between Firestar and Emma Frost have been a LONG time coming, and I have been rooting for this confrontation for about twenty years. I really like this trend of Emma being forced to face the kids she abused when she was a villain. They are all adults now, and powerful ones, and they get to tell her she was an evil [expletive deleted] and walk away. And, for the record people, I like Emma Frost as a character, I’m a fan of hers. But part of what I’m a fan of is that she has this extremely complicated history in which she did evil. Consequences, y’all, I’m all about the consequences.

Fourth — Young Allies is cancelled. Mr. McKeever, I would like to tell you here — I love what you did with this book, and these characters. I love how you write them, and whatever projects you work on next, I hope you bring the same talent, dedication, and thoughtfulness to those books. Thank you.

Email: sigrid @ fantasticfangirls.org
Twitter: sigridellis

Q&A #87: What kind of rally would you like to see in a comic book universe?

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In Q & A, a weekly feature of Fantastic Fangirls, we ask our staff to tackle a simple question — then open the floor to comments.

What kind of rally would you like to see in a comic book universe?


Anika

On one hand this sounds like a really bad idea. There are so many ways it could go badly: the comic could be all politics and no story; the company could not support the comic and it ends up doing more harm than help; the comic could try so hard to avoid being offensive it ends up being impotent; and no matter what there will be an outcry amongst the fans.

On the other hand, I’ve been watching a lot of Macross. And whenever I hear the opening strains of Ai Oboete Imasuka (Do You Remember Love?) I tear up. In that moment it seems possible that one girl singing can end a war. I believe. So maybe it doesn’t matter that it could end badly and some fans would whine, maybe trying is the point.

And my answer is a rally for service — serving others. For the silly idea that “you” are just as important as “me”. And if it includes a girl on a Sentinel saying “I don’t know you and you are trying to destroy me but I love you anyway.” all the better.


Caroline


IDW has been making my life better, over the past year or so, by issuing very nice-looking Library Editions of Berkeley Breathed’s comic strip, Bloom County.

In honor of which, I’d love to see a resurgence of the Meadow Party, whose platform, at its best, calls for the appreciation of sunshine and flowers. Because now more than ever, America needs a Dandelion Break.

Rally to be held in the south meadow. Remember to leave the place looking better than you found it.


Jennifer

X-Factor has always been one of the more political X-books. It was the only mutant group to take an actual stand on the topic of registration during the Civil War storyline, and it has continued to deal with the politics of mutant, ex-mutant, and human interrelations in the Marvel Universe long after all of the other books moved to an all-mutant colony off the coast of San Francisco. The writer, Peter David, doesn’t shy away from involving real-world political issues, either, and lately he’s made comments about future topical storylines the will touch on Monet’s Muslim religion and the group’s encounter with a bullying suicide case.

Given all this, I would love to see what would happen were these characters to run into a conservative political rally. (Peter David, unlike some others at Marvel, probably wouldn’t hesitate to make the real-world allegories explicit.) The members of X-Factor not only represent fictional groups feared in the Marvel U (mutants, ex-mutants, aliens) but groups feared by the far right in the real world, including a Muslim and a queer Mexican (illegal?) immigrant. If the two groups ran into each other, the fireworks of highly contentious politics would be sure to follow, and I’d be fascinated to read that story.


Sigrid

All I can think of, in answering this question, is the protesters outside Magneto’s trial in Uncanny X-Men #200. You know, the scene in which Kitty realizes she needs glasses because she can’t read the signs to figure out which groups are anti-mutant and which are pro.

That said, I have to say I’m not much of a rally person. I think I’d like to see people protesting in comics for the same things I want to see protested in this universe. The E.R.A., protection for gay rights, a woman’s right to choose, and end to illegal and immoral acts of torture on the part of my government.

Yet, the more I think about this — If people in my fictional universes are holding a rally to protect Roe v. Wade, that means it’s still under attack. And as long as I’m imagining this, how about I make comics a world in which the causes I support are secure? Yeah, let’s say that the Equal Rights Amendment has passed. Let’s say that only the political and social causes I oppose feel a need to rally, because they don’t have the power to pass the legislation they want.

Yep. That sounds good.

PSA: If you’re in the U.S., and eligible to vote, please do so today. Thank you.

So What about you? What kind of rally would you like to see in a comic book universe?

The Walking Dead and the Benefit of the Doubt

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Posted by Jennifer

Note: The following post on The Walking Dead contains very minor spoilers for both the first volume of the comic and the first episode of the TV show, as well as one small event later in the comics. If you know the basic premise of the story through the first volume, you should be safe to read on.

I don’t like zombies. I haven’t, historically, been a big fan of Robert Kirkman’s writing. But I love survival narratives, and as a media studies grad student I need to keep myself current in both comic book and television trends. (You could say I love “not failing out of grad school.”) So a little over a month ago, with the TV adaptation on the horizon (as commercials during Mad Men were eager to remind me), I decided to finally give The Walking Dead a shot.

Nine volumes later, I’m still not sure I like the comic. Sure, it’s very well-crafted, with some excellent dialogue and great pacing and suspense. The art, from both Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, has been exceptional. And yes, some of the issues I have with it are simply a matter of personal preference, not a value judgment, like my squirming discomfort with the genre-appropriate level of gore, violence, and death, particularly in the later volumes. But I’ve had other issues, deeper issues, that have made me question why I keep reading, volume after volume.

The same sense of obligation that made me start reading in the first place remains, in addition to my usual compulsive need to find out what happens next, no matter what I think of a piece of media. But I think the main reason I’ve kept reading, the reason I’ve stayed optimistic about the comic’s future at all, is a sense that I have to give the comic the benefit of the doubt. That, in a long-form story, I have to see where it goes before I judge what I’ve seen so far. That I need to know if it gets better, if the things that bother me are actually part of a greater plan, before I write it off.

Which begs the question: how long do you wait?

It’s easy enough not to judge a novel, or standalone graphic novel, by its first few chapters. Yes, certain things – genre, writing style, pacing – can make someone drop a book before finishing it, but it’s generally understood that anything in a novel that’s offputting or frustrating might very well be resolved or explained by the end. Novels are complete narrative entities at the time of publication; even if they spawn sequels, they can still be fairly judged on their individual merits. The novel is the unit of judgment.

Replace the word “novel” in that last paragraph with “film,” and you get pretty much the same situation.

But things get hairier when it comes to serial media like monthly comics and weekly TV shows. Suddenly, there are multiple possible units of judgment, parceled out over time. There’s the individual episode or issue. There’s the trade paperback or multi-episode arc. There’s the season or the multi-arc omnibus. And, finally, there’s the series in its entirety. The time between the release of that first potential unit of judgment and the final one can span years, even decades – or, in the case of some ongoing superhero comics, might never actually end. How, then, are we to evaluate the stories? How do we decide how long to wait before making our judgment call? Do we stick around for months and months to see if the hero who appears to be acting crazy has actually been replaced by an evil twin? Or do we drop a story when it offends us, knowing there’s a chance – but definitely not a certainty – that the offense might have been intentional in pursuit of a later conflict?

One of the biggest concerns for me with The Walking Dead has been the troubling gender issues. The book is structured around zombie apocalypse survivor Rick Grimes, a man who takes charge of a group of fellow survivors and expects everyone else to fall in line behind him. While I find Rick to be an obnoxious character, and I get annoyed when his stupid or immoral decisions are validated by his swooning followers, his wife in particular, I understand that this is mainly a function of protagonist privilege. The book revolves around Rick, and even if he does contribute to the long tradition of straight white males at the center of Western narratives, that in itself isn’t the problem.

The problem comes up when issues of gender inequality are present, questioned within the text, and then summarily dismissed. This happens in the first volume, when the women of the group are expected to take care of laundry and childcare while the men do the hunting and gathering. One female character is frustrated by this stereotypical division of labor and wonders, when the zombies are gone, if women will even be allowed to vote. But the other women in the scene laugh off her fears. They know nothing about guns, after all, and shouldn’t they do what they’re good at? The characters continue doing laundry, the matter settled.

Later, when the group elects a committee of leaders to mitigate Rick’s single-handed dictatorship, the elected group is entirely male. When Rick points out this imbalance (“No women?”), the other men assure him that the women wanted this team to be all male, because they don’t feel they’re cut out for leadership. Rick accepts this reasoning, and the leadership committee settles into its role.

These two instances, coupled with the general lack of agency or action for the female characters in the first few volumes of the book (and some other issues I won’t get into for the sake of space), were almost enough to make me stop reading. I was so frustrated with Kirkman’s recognition of the text’s sexism coupled with an unwillingness to fix it that I couldn’t stomach reading any more. But I couldn’t help thinking, “What if he’s driving at something? What if he’s setting up a new world order where these strict gender roles will eventually be broken, and has to create these instances as a status quo before he does that?” And, indeed, the gender issues have improved – not to the extent that I’d like, so far, but definitely to the extent that female characters have had more to do than fall into stereotypical roles and seduce people. But when it takes seven volumes of comics to get to that point, released over several years, how can I fault anyone for dropping it before then?

I’m left with a similar dilemma regarding the television adaptation. In the first hour of the premiere, the only women we see are dead, and women are only mentioned as objects of men’s grief or of men’s ridicule, as in Shane’s obnoxiously sexist monologue in the squad car with Rick before the apocalypse. If I hadn’t read the comic and known that female characters would, eventually, appear, I’m not sure I would have stopped myself from changing the channel after that first hour, with its complete absence of women’s voices. But in the last half hour we meet two female characters who actually have a few lines, and we see more evidence that Shane is not a character we’re meant to like or agree with. These moments, coupled with the stunning aesthetics and solid acting on display in the premiere, are enough to get me to keep watching. But I’m not sure I would blame anyone who turned off the episode early, or who chose not to watch future episodes, not knowing if these issues will work themselves out later.

So my question is, how long do you wait? When it comes to ongoing serial narratives, how long do you give a story the benefit of the doubt? What do you consider the proper unit of judgment? And how has that decision affected the way you consume and criticize media? I don’t have any answers, but I’d love to hear your suggestions.

By Jennifer Smith
e-mail: Jennifer@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: throughthebrush