Comics are Awesome II

[Onslaught Six]

I don't like the way the costume doesn't cover up what would be her hip bones. Not on any kind of moral argument--it looks dumb, is all. The garters serve zero purpose and look dumb. The boots, I'm okay with. (Do they have heels? Because that's dumb too, but I accept it because comics standards; the same way JT dismisses the whole cloth argument in his post.)

Part of this problem comes from, I think, men drawing this shit. Men don't know what's comfortable for a woman to wear, and hence they don't bother researching that shit.

Also, I liked Power Girl's costume, damn it. Boobwindow aside, it worked.

[JediTricks]

All this, basically. I’m not denying that Supergirl’s current costume isn’t immodest, but it’s hardly anything new compared to, oh, almost every mainstream comic book published in the last forty years (remember that this is the same DC that was dressing a ‘Teen’ Titans Starfire in her stripperiffic costume back in the 80’s). Yeah, the costume is stupid, impractical, and obvious in its fanservice-y purposes (I’ve seen some photoshops of panels where people have filled in the costume across the full legs and erased the go-go boots and crotch plate, and it becomes rather more acceptable), but it’s hardly offensive in an industry that’s filled with a lot worse. My contention is with Dom’s assertion that this particular panel of Supergirl standing there is somehow this extra-exploitive borderline-pornographic imagery, when it… really isn’t. It’s incredibly tame, and the image by itself could hardly be called ‘iffy’, and I'm wondering what it is exactly about this panel that he seems to take such an issue with.

It's a little beyond the norm though, the outfit is cut so high that it's basically a small shirt and a chastity belt. Even Power Girl's outfit isn't cut that high on her pelvic region, it's more suggestive of wanton nudity and sexuality without the barest hint of justification - the character is fairly young for a superhero and doesn't seem to be presented in any other way as super-sexual. It's not tame though, just because it's not colored as flesh doesn't mean it's not getting at a lot of nudity, this definitely is. They may as well have given her a shirt and a diaper to wear. It's another chance for DC to move the line a bit further and then have people say "well it's always been like this", but it hasn't. You can't buy a swimsuit with bottoms this high that isn't a micro string bikini, and you don't see that level of nudity on the beach.

And since this supposed to be a minor character, it's pushing that line even further - that panel is highlighting that she's young and has a fresh, innocent look on her face, which is countered by the fact that she's wearing one of the whoriest outfits DC has evern produced despite how much is covered. The outfit is saying 'sex sex sexy sexity sex sex" and the character wearing it is pretty much the opposite, and is a minor.

I just found a quote that said the pubic shield here is an arrow pointing to her teenage crotch, and that's pretty much the problem right there, here's that article: http://maidofmight.net/2011/09/supergir ... -the-door/

I grew up reading New Teen Titans in the '80s, and even Starfire's costume there isn't as brazen - her pelvis is covered - yet she's intended to be overtly sexual as a character even making it part of her species' makeup with different societal norms. And that's exploitative for sure, yet I'd argue this is worse. Also, New Teen Titans nobody was really teen-esque at that point, I don't think Starfire was a teen there at all.

I don't like the way the costume doesn't cover up what would be her hip bones. Not on any kind of moral argument--it looks dumb, is all. The garters serve zero purpose and look dumb. The boots, I'm okay with. (Do they have heels? Because that's dumb too, but I accept it because comics standards; the same way JT dismisses the whole cloth argument in his post.)

Part of this problem comes from, I think, men drawing this shit. Men don't know what's comfortable for a woman to wear, and hence they don't bother researching that shit.

Also, I liked Power Girl's costume, damn it. Boobwindow aside, it worked.

Taking aside the morality, yeah, it's dumb, it's exposed for no reason and it's awkward.

The boots have wedge heels which is somewhat standard for superheroines - they almost always have either wedge heels or flats (the latter looks really odd on boots - even my boots have short heels).

Power Girl's costume is making a statement about who she is and her sexuality, but she's an adult, that boob window is a choice as is the ridiculous overinflation of her chest (super implants?). It also sets her apart from other heroines of the time, giving her more of a "bad girl" style - intentionally fetishized costume with exposed legs and exposed chest but sleeves and a collar, taking it back to the police officer halloween costume thing; Power Girl's boots are often boot heels, sometimes even stiletto heels.


It's not about being prudish though, it's about sending the wrong message. Superman doesn't run around in shorts, he's chosen a costume that covers his body for protection. Yet we keep moving the line on what superheroines should wear - at any age - and then act surprised when comics lose readers who cannot take those characters seriously because the creators only see those female characters in terms of their sexual value, or worse we get a generation of women who only see themselves as having a value of sexuality based on being exposed to that message. We act surprised when pre-teen girls aspire to wear "slut" shirts and to have sex with boys for attention as each generation gets younger and younger, but we don't consider that our own fractured morality has led us to choices which have exposed that generation to the material. Sexuality has a time and place even in the world of comics, but surely it shouldn't simply be stamped across the very essence of every female heroine. If Superman is defined by the choices he makes and the hero he is from the first panel you see him in, why is it that Supergirl is defined not by those same things, and instead by her sexuality and her second-class status as a female character at first glance and every glance afterwards?

[JediTricks]

Dom emailed me back and I wrote this as my reply, and I realized it fits for the thread as well:

Comics people are brainwashed, it saddens me to see so many female comic fans who draw sexy women and who cosplay as sexy women. It's like Star Wars female cosplayers, they dress as slave Leia rather than ANH Leia or ESB Leia because they identify the sexuality as their chief value - they ignore the fact that Leia is being sexually assaulted in that part of the film and is in no way interested in dressing that way, the message is "girl = sex" just like it is with comics, that women are a second class of people who are meant to be fucktoys first before anything else. Then it becomes cyclical, even artists who don't intentionally want to focus on sexuality end up having to stick to the comic norms either because that's all the artist knows or that's all the audience will tolerate. From there, the outside world makes comment and comics people feel persecuted for something that they see as being a wholesome tradition having gone on since the 1940s, not realizing that they themselves are the cause of that perpetuation of what was broken so long ago - Wonder Woman was created as a sexual fantasy, a fetish, and she's become the archetype for pretty much every superheroine since. It's like the heavy metal music scene in the '80s, everybody started dressing like Rob Halford from Judas Priest, but Rob Halford was dressing that way because he was a leatherman and it was part of his sexual fetish, so for a long time you had every metalhead and musician dressing like a gay leather daddy, but since that's the way all your buddies dressed you wore black leather with studs as your bracelets and hats.

Comics have sexualized minors before, and our society sexualizes minors more than ever before, look at pre-teen-girl clothes and halloween costumes, look how they're dressed for beauty pageants. Somehow it does come off a little worse than usual here though, maybe because it's Supergirl who is a fairly innocent character or maybe it's that foul crotch shield, but it's unpleasant as a statement and worse because of who it's attached to. I don't think DC and these artists are intentionally trying to say "come fuck DC child characters, you know you wanna", it's just part of the problematic DC comics atmosphere, partly an atmosphere of trying to cater to young teen boys - that audience is appropriate to fantasize about sexualizing girls their own age, but they should be making that choice themselves, not having adults make it for them. It's especially a problem because those adults aren't able to take into consideration the individual level of development each reader has, and because adults are clearly incapable of respecting and understanding the level of appropriateness so they substitute adult sexuality for pre-pubescent sexuality. In some ways, it comes off as "PG porn for teen boys" and I guess that's where the real line-crossing becomes an issue.

[Onslaught Six]

It's like the heavy metal music scene in the '80s, everybody started dressing like Rob Halford from Judas Priest, but Rob Halford was dressing that way because he was a leatherman and it was part of his sexual fetish, so for a long time you had every metalhead and musician dressing like a gay leather daddy, but since that's the way all your buddies dressed you wore black leather with studs as your bracelets and hats.

To be fair, everybody in the band was dressing like that, and it wasn't just them who started it. If I wasn't out the door, I'd find some Maiden videos.

[BWprowl]

Dom emailed me back and I wrote this as my reply, and I realized it fits for the thread as well:

Comics people are brainwashed, it saddens me to see so many female comic fans who draw sexy women and who cosplay as sexy women.

Yeah, not to mention movie people, video game people, it's like we live in a culture that defines people based on their sexual eligibility and ability to exploit that!

Okay, admittedly you do address that in the larger body of your post, but I just felt it was worth repeating that this sort of imprinting is hardly exclusive to the comic scene.

It's a little beyond the norm though, the outfit is cut so high that it's basically a small shirt and a chastity belt. Even Power Girl's outfit isn't cut that high on her pelvic region, it's more suggestive of wanton nudity and sexuality without the barest hint of justification - the character is fairly young for a superhero and doesn't seem to be presented in any other way as super-sexual. It's not tame though, just because it's not colored as flesh doesn't mean it's not getting at a lot of nudity, this definitely is. They may as well have given her a shirt and a diaper to wear. It's another chance for DC to move the line a bit further and then have people say "well it's always been like this", but it hasn't. You can't buy a swimsuit with bottoms this high that isn't a micro string bikini, and you don't see that level of nudity on the beach.

I still generally disagree that DCnU Supergirl's costume is any worse than any other costume, particularly that bit about spandex->colored flesh->suggesting nudity, since almost every costume on heroes, male and female, is drawn as just colored, defined anatomy rather than actual clothing (and again, has become so ingrained in how comics are done at this point that there's no escaping it), with guys like Superman basically looking like a naked dude spray-painted blue and wearing a red diaper. Really though, the differences in our opinions about how Supergirl (I keep wanting to just call her 'Kara', but I honestly don't know if New52 Supergirl is still Kara) is being presented here come down to how 'whory' we think her new costume is. While you think it's "one of the whoriest outfits DC has ever produced" with the fresh-faced smiling Supergirl in that image promoting a sick juxtaposition with said outfit, I don't find it any more offensive than the baseline level of fanservice nearly all superhero costumes end up providing, and thus don't get so wound up about it. It's a fundamental disagreement that'll likely lead to all sorts of delightful circular arguments at this point in the discussion, thus I'll just step down here and say that, with that perception of the costume, I can see where you and Dom might get the wrong idea from that panel.

But really, Julie and Katy Power wear skintight spandex suits, and no one ever accuses them of being pre-teen whores...

[andersonh1]

DC has clearly decided to amp up the T&A in their books. It's ironic that Superman has lost his red trunks, thus showing off more, while Supergirl has kept hers, only now it's a bright red arrow pointing right at her crotch. Classy, DC. But she's hardly the only one. Catwoman's #0 cover artist somehow found a pose that showed Catwoman's front and backside. It's clear what that book is selling.

It's not as though female comic book characters haven't always worn skimpy attire compared to the males, but I think it's gotten worse.

I never have been able to figure out the rationale behind Power Girl's old boob window. Her costume back in the 90s had a low cut neck, but showed off less cleavage. I'm not sure when it got redesigned with the window.

[Dominic]

You can't buy a swimsuit with bottoms this high that isn't a micro string bikini, and you don't see that level of nudity on the beach.

Point of information, JT is saying this as somebody who lives in Southern California. That is telling.

And since this supposed to be a minor character, it's pushing that line even further - that panel is highlighting that she's young and has a fresh, innocent look on her face, which is countered by the fact that she's wearing one of the whoriest outfits DC has evern produced despite how much is covered. The outfit is saying 'sex sex sexy sexity sex sex" and the character wearing it is pretty much the opposite, and is a minor.

In the panel above, she is asking "What do you think?" It is a really macabre combination of "innocent and sexy", including the way she is holding her cape (which is not fully clear in the picture above).

Dom emailed me back and I wrote this as my reply, and I realized it fits for the thread as well: (cut for space)

I agree in principle. I am assuming that JT makes allowances for booth babes (paid models) who where what they are paid to wear as well as artists (male or female) who are drawing what they know will sell.

My only real disagreement here is about DC's motives. Everybody, including the publishers knows that comic readers have been trending older. I would say that mid-20s is the median age.

Teenage boys are going to look for real porn, if not real girls. Shit like "Supergirl" being sexualized plays into and delivers on the stereotypes about comic fans being pathetic losers who cannot deal with reality. (Apparently, they cannot even punch one out to "real" porn, if we put aside porn as artiface.)

DC knows what they are doing. And, know, they are presenting a sexualized minor. What does that say about their assumptions about what the readers want?

DC has clearly decided to amp up the T&A in their books. It's ironic that Superman has lost his red trunks, thus showing off more, while Supergirl has kept hers, only now it's a bright red arrow pointing right at her crotch. Classy, DC. But she's hardly the only one. Catwoman's #0 cover artist somehow found a pose that showed Catwoman's front and backside. It's clear what that book is selling.

I would argue that Superman losing the red trunks de-accents his crotch. Supergirl's crotch is now a big red delta.

The fact that DC is marketing tits and ass is a problem. Just saying.


Oh, and some comics thoughts:

Smoke and Mirrors compilation: Same story, differnt stuff in the back. The essays about magic and comics have been replaced with annotations about things in the background of the comic and the creative process behind the book. The essays from the single issues are better. But, if you cannot find the originals, the compilation is worth getting.
Grade: B

Mega Man #16 and #17:
Flynn does a better than expected job with these two issues. Flynn's handling of Protoman's origin nicely reconciles the character's 3 official names *and* delivers on the high concept that should have been dealt with in the previous arc. There is one particularly ham-fisted scene dealing with the religious implications of a beareded scientist named "Light" creating life. But, given the book's target audience, that is acceptable.
Grade: B


Green Arrow (freebie):
This is a tie-in to the "Arrow" series. I am not sure if the content (2 short stories, one looking to be a partial origin) is related to the show or is reprinted from recent New 52 books. The series has an on-line tie-in book with art by Mike Grell, who has no apparent connection to this book. This has not inspired me to pick up either the comics or to watch the show.


Dom
-picked up some "Avengers" related books as well.

[Dominic]

And, here are the rest of this week's reviews. (One or two books that I plan to read are shipping this week. I am not likely going to comic shop, as I have plenty more reading to catch up on this week.)


Avengers #31:
There is some AvX fall-out. Wonder Man comes sucking around looking for forgiveness. So far, Bendis' "end of the road" story feels like less of an ending than the beginning of his run on "Avengers" nearly 10 years ago, "Dis-Assembled".
Grade: C/D

Captain America #18:
Brubaker wraps up his last proper arc on "Captain America". For some reason or another, Zemo is a bad guy again. (I suppose this supports my assuming that the "Heroic Age" banner event is effectively a break between eras, as Zemo was a good guy up until at least "Secret Invasion".) Next issue is billed as the proper wrap-up.
Grade: B/C

Iron Man #526:
Fraction wraps up his last big arc on "Iron Man". The Mandarin dies......again. There is a really disturbing scene where Potts destroys the Rescue Armour, which is apparently sentient. This scene really bugs me because it was clearly written as a way to get Potts back to retro-spec, and it has the characters just "doing stuff" to make things the way that editorial needs them. (Potts just throws the Rescue Armour in to a furnace with a few perfunctory lines about how she is sorry. But, it is not played up as much as "Pepper Potts is murdering a sentient life form" should be.) Stark's armour gets cocked up and has to be remotely updated, not unlike a cell-phone. (Modern technology, and understanding of it, has advanced enough that it is possible to write a high-tech character like Iron Man without using gibber-speak and stupid McGuffins.) Fraction does a good job of conveying the idea that this is a large scale fight, but the the whole thing plays out by the numbers, and leads in to another reset. And, next month is going to be the real wrap-up.
Grade: B/C

Action Comics #13:
Morrison plays this one as a Halloween issue. And, Krypto comes back despite being strongly implied as being dead in the New 52, arguably giving DC another retcon to a major book in about a year. Rather than being an ambiguous beagle/retriever mix, New 52 Krypto is clearly a shepherd or some other herding/working breed. As much as I like dogs, I have never been able to understand why some writers need to keep Krypto in play.
Grade: C


Dom
-only about 2 months behind on the various "Ultimate" titles....erm.

[andersonh1]

Today's comics:

Daredevil #19
So, the villain of the piece that's causing trouble for Matt Murdock turns out not to be messing with his mind at all, but employing another way to make him think he's going crazy. Very creative twist by Waid, and one that ties back in to the first issue, making a throwaway fight more significant than it seemed at the time. I'm not sure I'm all that impressed with the villain's look or name though, but his methods seem to be more than Daredevil can handle at the moment. Another good issue.

Doctor Who/TNG #5
On the other hand, this series has been disappointingly uneven. It's got all the great crossover moments I'd hoped for. In this issue, Rory gets to wax enthusiastic about the sickbay and Picard gets to travel in the TARDIS. So the moments are good, but the plot has been dragged out, and the Borg/Cyberman alliance has broken up offscreen before we really got to see it in action, apart from the early pages of the first issue. And the art gets sloppier every issue to the point where some panels look nothing like the characters. Dom asked last time why this was a big deal to me. I remember Gordon Purcell pencilling DC's Star Trek series back in the day, and while he got most of the characters right, Kirk was always some generic face in Kirk's uniform. It just wasn't convincing. Normal superhero comics depict entirely fictional characters and so varying appearance doesn't bother me, but franchise comics are a supplement/substitute for familiar actors' faces, and should reflect that. If I'm to be convinced that I"m reading about Picard and the Doctor, the images on the page better do that.

Aquaman #0
Yeah, I bought another DC comic. Aquaman #0 suffers from too little space to tell Aquaman's complicated backstory, and as such resorts to two bad storytelling devices: the coincidence and dialogue as exposition. Out in the ocean, Aquaman just happens to rescue a boat that is captained by a man who knows Vulko, long time supporting character for Aquaman. Believable? Not really. Necessary to keep the story moving in the limited page count? I guess so, though there had to be better ways to do that. And then Vulko divulges pages of exposition with only a few panels to illustrate what he's saying. The rest of the time it's him and Aquaman in view talking. I'm reminded of Aquaman special #1, an origin story with art by Curt Swan of all people, which told a far different version of Aquaman's life and did so in a much better fashion than Aquaman #0, but to be fair it was oversized and had the luxury of more pages.

This book goes back to something closer to the Silver Age story and makes Aquaman the son of Tom Curry and Atlanna the queen of Atlantis. That's fine, it gives the character a reason to be in both worlds. I will say this: the art is excellent throughout, as one would expect from Ivan Reis. The panels with the shark and the pages with Arthur mourning his dead father are particularly good. And as much as a cliche as the "dead parents" are in superhero comics, it's carried off with some genuine emotion here.

The issue is a mixed bag: strong first half, unbelievable coincidence in the middle, weak second half. The art is great throughout, particularly the final two page spread of Atlantis.

[Dominic]

I have not read any comics this week. But, I did finish reading a novel.

Fear to Tread
by James Swallow

This is the ~20th or so book in the "Horus Heresy" series. (And, if I read the next one by the end of the year, I will be more or less caught up.)

Since a very strong start in 2006, the Horus Heresy has had its share of snarls including weak (at best middling) showings for the Space Wolves ("Prospero Burns") and the Thousand Sons (in the novel with the same name), lack-luster filler ("Nemesis") and at least one mind-blowing error that so far nobody has tried to reconcile ("The Outcast Dead"). "Fear to Tread" is a return to the standard of the earlier novels.

Swallow's handling of Sanginius perfectly balances the need to depict him as mythic with the need for him to be flawed. Swallow does a good job of depicting the easy brotherhood between Horus and Sanginius without it turning in to "wink wink nudge, you know how this story ends kids". There are plenty of Easter Eggs for long term readers. The idea that all of the Primarchs, and by extension all of the Space Marines, are touched by Chaos is given attention here. The Red Thirst is a main plot point and the first of the Flesh Tearers gets some page time. Hell, Swallow even manages to give the Space Wolves a significant role without having the book turn completely "awesome".

One of the thematic quotes at the beginning is from one of America's greatest generals (William T Sherman), "War is hell". "Fear to Tread" is a literal and allegorical descent in to Hell. The "happy" ending is, of course, a sham. While several possible futures for Sanginius are shown, long time readers know which one will come to pass. And, the end of the novel leaves no doubt that the Heresy has begun.

Grade: B