Fantastic Fangirls: Comics and Culture

This week, Caroline and Jennifer are on vacation. Last anyone heard, they were scouting Golden Gate Park, looking for the tree in which Wolverine naps in Uncanny X-Men. As a result, Anika and Sigrid are sharing with you two conversations about their comics wish-list. In this installment they discuss the plots and character developments they’d like to see in Marvel. Later this week they’ll spotlight DC.

So, listen in and join the conversation in comments — what plots or stories to you yearn to see from Marvel in the coming year?

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Anika:

I will start with saying I love what has been happening with Carol Danvers. Ms. Marvel is easily my favorite ongoing title and the only one I follow without fail. I also love her in New Avengers. It’s fair to say she’s the one character in all of comics I am currently most invested in.

And being so invested is where I get worried that during and post Siege she will not be well-represented. While some rumors and previews excite me — the New Avengers Annual highlighting the women for example — what has been said about the main plot, and what can be extrapolated, is more concerning. My main fear is that she will be sidelined in the final confrontation in favor of the Iron Man and Captain America reunion and the triumphant return of Thor, both of which I have mixed feelings about. I love Cap and Tony as much as the next Marvel fan, but to be perfectly honest, I wish Steve had stayed dead. I wish most he’d never been killed but having been killed, and with Bucky in place as the new Captain America, I’d prefer he not return. And Thor — I just really don’t care at all about Thor. So, if I were in charge, the end of Dark Reign would be all about an Iron Man, Bucky!Captain America and Ms. Marvel team up.

That won’t happen. So what do I realistically want? More of the same really. I want her to continue in a leadership role, I want her to continue to explore the different and at times warring sides of herself (superhero vs. woman). I’m not opposed to a romance though I’m not really (read: at all) sold on Spider-Man (he is an improvement over Wonder Man but that’s not saying much). I’m really looking forward to Carol fighting alongside BFF Jessica Jones. Really, really. And I desperately want her reunited with Tony. I’m willing to put up with Thor if I get Tony and Carol banter and hijinks.

Sigrid:

I have to say, I’m hoping for more of her interpersonal relationships — her friendships, especially with Jessicas Jones and Drew. I would like to see her step into a, a mentoring role, I suppose, for the — Not the B-listers, but the people who are *not* Steve and Tony and Thor. I could see her giving advice on how you work with those guys to people like Luke, or Karla (if Moonstone gets rehabilitated in this go-round.)

Which, that’s another character I’d like to see sticking around. Karla Sofen, Moonstone. I’m not super-sold on her plot in Ms. Marvel — psychic space babies? Seriously? — but I am adoring her character moments in Dark Avengers. She’s never been that stable, but working for Norman, on Thunderbolts and on the Avengers, has made her worse. I’d like to see her brought into the rehab fold, given a chance to get saner. Perhaps Songbird can run a Thunderbolts team after Siege gets through and have Karla on it.

Are you following the Spider-woman: Agent of SWORD story, either in motion comic or in issues?

Anika:

I’d love to see Karla work through this whole mess. Redemption stories are my most favorite kind, and especially ones about unstable, overly-powerful people.

And Jessica Drew is another favorite. She just never catches a break and I do love angry women. In story! I like her in the various Avengers titles. But no, I have not been following Agent of SWORD because I have a serious aversion to comic book space stories. I know, it’s silly, and many, many people have said they like Spider-Woman and SWORD and that I would too. But I haven’t given it a go. I mean, I haven’t even followed all the Starjammers stories with Polaris and she is my most favorite Marvel girl. So.

I really can’t explain it. I love Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, I love Hawkgirl and Phoenix. And when I deign to read a comic-space-opera, like The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire, I like it. But I still go back to not following the story. So, tell me why I should be reading it?

Sigrid:

Ah-hah!! You should be reading Spider-Woman for two reasons — 1) it’s free, on Hulu, in motion comic form, and 2) it’s not in space.

I know, I know, SWORD is a space-type agency. But Jessica Drew is batting clean-up, on Earth. All the aliens that have wormed their way onto the planet, she’s the one who goes after them and arrests them. Think a non-comedy Men in Black crossed with that Keira Knightly film, Domino — you know, the one where she plays real–life junkie bounty hunter Domino Harvey?

TELL ME you have seen this film, mmkay?

Anyway, it’s not in space. Instead, Jessica Drew — traumatized, angry, isolated Jessica Drew — is given a license to hunt aliens. Her first mission? Go after some Skrulls. Oh, yes. Go after and arrest those who worshiped her face and form as the Skrull Queen. Go arrest people complicit in her imprisonment, in the theft of her life. As far as I can tell, this comic is going to be all about Jessica and the mess she makes of her friendships while she sullens her way around the world in post-traumatic depression, beating people up and avoiding the woman who claims to be Jessica’s mother — Madam Hydra. Guest appearances in the motion comic so far include Carol Danvers.

To quote songwriter Anna Nalick, “I’ll go from bad to worse and later back to better / But I’ll never better bridges that I’m bent to burn.” Jessica is trying to figure out how to move forward in a life she can’t see ahead of her, trying to figure out which of her bridges are truly burnt and which are merely smoldering.

It is, in short, a personal redemption story.

And speaking of redemption stories, and speaking of space, I am tapping my fingers in impatience at the lack of more stories on the space crew — Lorna Dane and Rachel Summers, et al. I am still not in possession of the Rachel story I want — the story of how she redeems herself and the Phoenix, turning her alien guest from a planet-killer into a harnessed force for . . . . Well, for whatever Rachel wants to do. Ideally superheroing, but Rachel being Rachel, I expect it wouldn’t be that simple.

Anika:

Okay, that’s a pretty good sales pitch. Plus (1) I am a Bendis fangirl and (2) I follow Carol Danvers obsessively. So I will give the motion comic a try (I do also think I should support these alternate media choices), and yes, OF COURSE I have seen Domino.

I know you love your Rachel and I would certainly love to see a Phoenix story that was about “taming” the Phoenix? Maybe even using it, but for good. Or it would start out that way but then Phoenix would start gaining more control and we’d be on the brink of planetary destruction (again!) and the host would fight back and it would be the human element that triumphs. I prefer humanish Phoenix to your alienish Phoenix. And I prefer Jean as the host, honestly, but I do like Rachel and her proclivities, and I’ll take her — just not Emma.

In the same vein, I want a Lorna story. But I don’t want a Lorna in space story. I sort of wish Lorna was around in Uncanny X-Men right now. She’d be a good choice to be involved in the politics and PR — it was her role in X-Factor and now that she’s publicly Magneto’s daughter, well, I just think there is a lot of (missed) opportunity there.

But here’s what I want most in a Polaris story. I want her to replace Magneto. I want her to be proven his equal in power, but instead of it driving her mad or turning her evil, I want her to be the Barack Obama of the X-Men: Change you can believe in. Magneto and Xavier — and even Scott, to an extent — are the past, they are too old school. I want to see a new direction, I want to see a mutant-driven storyline that is about how to make the world better for everyone instead of how hated they are. That’s a tired plot. It bores me. I want something new, I want something political about desegregation (Utopia? WTF?) and I want Lorna to bring it.

Hey, I can dream.

Sigrid:

I especially have high hopes for Carol and the Jessicas, based on Bendis’s positive remarks when he signed your jacket at Baltimore Comic-Con.

I agree with you that a humanizing Phoenix story would be great. I think the Phoenix has moved from its original, more humanized, origins and become a definitely alien thing in the current tales. I would love to see it subsumed by a human host, brought to work for a hero.

I love your Polaris idea! I, too, would like a, a third option out of the mutant-politics problem. I think that’s what Fraction’s going at, with Scott declaring that neither Magneto nor Xavier are fit to lead the current mutant population. But Scott is . . . Well, as Whedon has him say in Astonishing, he hasn’t looked anyone in the eye since he was a kid. Scott is a good strategist and tactician, but is that sufficient to lead? A leader needs a certain amount of charisma, and it remains to be seen whether Mr. Summers has that.

Polaris — daughter of Magneto, raised among humans, trained by Xavier, related by marriage to alien royalty, articulate and intelligent and attractive — she’d be great. If she had a message, and if she didn’t cut her own feet out from under herself.

Anika:

Yes, that’s why I mentioned Scott. I understand that is Fraction’s intention but even in comics, intent has to populate to the actual work before it really counts. And while the direction may be evident, it still feels like the same story in a shiny new package. I’d buy change more from an “outsider” like Polaris than I do Cyclops. Alternatively, I’m not opposed to her actually BEING the new Magneto, and leading a new Brotherhood. Or, imagine if Alex and Lorna led the new Brotherhood together and Scott and Emma (or Rachel!) led the new X-Men. Because I grant that there are editorial issues that Fraction, or any writer, has to deal with that limit what new directions can be taken. But a Summers Brothers ideological war that mirrors Xavier vs. Magneto but is the new generation — I would be very interested in reading that. And can, in fact, imagine all sorts of twists and turns before it becomes clear which side is really Xavier’s or Magneto’s.

So, now that I will be wholly unsatisfied with anything that does happen in my comics because all these awesome things won’t…well, let me take a moment to say that the reason I care at all is because of all the thought, work, and consideration so many creators, writers and artists, have put into these characters and stories over the years. I’ll keep reading, discussing, and imagining, as long as that continues.

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So what about you? What plots or stories to you yearn to see from Marvel in the coming year?