So... Three years after being introduced with much fanfare, Batwoman finally gets her own feature (and cover) in this week's Detective Comics. For the character who is supposedly DC's most prominent gay character, her profile has been extremely low. Heck, Obsidian gets more panel time. Not to mention Renee Montoya, who has assumed the identity of The Question, is a much better-established lesbian character. Then again, she gets the back-up feature in Detective, which they might as well name Lesbian Comics. It is Pride week, after all.

I'd be thrilled with all of this, except that after years of Batwoman making cameos and being Montoya's damsel in distress more often than anything else, what do we get when Batwoman takes center stage? Do we see the strong character hinted at from time to time? I mean, really, it takes some guts to assume the Batman's symbol, even when he's MIA.

No, we don't. Apparently Kate Kane is from a military family, and her father, whom she addresses as "sir", is supplying her and monitoring her during her superhero adventures. And to top it off, what is driving her? Her feelings as a victim from that time when the followers of the Crime Bible ran a sword through her near the end of "52".

I was hoping to see a strong, self-made woman. An analogue to Batman. I did not want to see some girl running missions for her dad and freaking out over having been a victim two years ago.

What a disappointment.

Tags: batman, batwoman, comics, dc, reviews, women in comics
Current Mood: disappointed

OK, when you run an issue of people reacting to a major event, it's customary to do so *AFTER* the major event has been printed. ( Read more... )

Tags: comics, dc, justice league, reviews
Current Mood: WTF

So DC's Final Crisis has come to an end. And while there is much about the story that I like, both my overall reaction and the sales numbers as compared to Marvel's Secret Wars tell me that this event was ultimately less than a complete success. There are numerous reasons for this, including several things that probably didn't impact the success much but nonetheless tick me off. I'm going to post my analysis in several parts because it's just too long and wide-ranging. This first part just covers the basics of why an event structured like Final Crisis would have trouble, ignoring most of the actual story content.

( Read more... )

Tags: comics, crisis, dc, grant morrison, reviews

Seriously, DC. WTF? You bring back Spoiler after treating her horribly. Chuck Dixon essentially uses the plot that fandom had long since settled on as how to bring her back. Tim's having trouble dealing, which makes perfect sense. There's something weird going on with Spoiler and Batman where Batman's giving her secret missions, which makes a lot less sense but whatever. So... Dixon's abruptly gone, what should we do with Spoiler?

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Tags: comics, dc, reviews, robin, spoiler, stephanie brown, tim drake, women in comics
Current Location: desk
Current Mood: angry

Chuck Dixon is no longer working for DC. For those who don't know, he had long runs on various Bat-titles in the 90's, including the first 100 issues of Robin, the first 70 issues of Nightwing, the first 50 or so issues of Birds of Prey (counting the numerous one-shots and minis that led up to the ongoing series), as well as a bunch of issues of Batman and Detective Comics themselves. He developed Tim Drake from a rather annoying fanboy into the fascinating character he is today, he did a lot of great work developing Nightwing, Oracle and Black Canary, created Spoiler and generally defined the Batman universe for many years. He recently returned, most notably resurrecting Spoiler (well, declaring she was never dead).

He's also quite the homophobe.

Although at times like this I want a wider set of descriptive words than "homophobe". As explained at in a comics news forum, he doesn't 100% fear gay people (the literal meaning of the word). He just wants us to be nice, quiet and invisible so he doesn't have to talk to his kids. The guy (or his wife) does get points for bothering to talk to his kids about the topic at all. But his example of his lesbian aunt is very telling. She lived an open but quiet life, and never did anything that made the kids wonder what was up with her and her "friend" even if everyone knew.

That would be called "living in the closet", or at best "semi-closeted". Oh, it's OK, just not in front of the kids. Although if Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary share a quick non-make-out-type kiss that's fine. But not you two.

Fuck off, Chuck.

As much as you try to justify it, as much as you argue that you don't want *any* "inappropriate" material, straight or gay, in comics you view as targeted towards kids, its clear that the bar for "inappropriate" gay material is much lower for you than straight. You might even write your gay and straight characters to pretty much the same standards. But it's pretty clear that you would be more likely to stick it out through what you consider "borderline" straight behavior in a storyline than gay. Or else you wouldn't be trying so damn hard to explain yourself.

In the end, I will console myself with the knowledge that it was Chuck Dixon's renditions of characters such as Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon and Dinah Lance that led to so much slash fanfic on the internets. That's got to piss him off.

Tags: birds of prey, chuck dixon, dc, nightwing, robin, spoiler, stephanie brown, tim drake
Current Location: home
Current Mood: angry
Current Music: King Crimson: "Cadence and Cascade"

It's been forever since I posted anything resembling a comic book review, so here are a few comments on recent releases:

Action Comics #863 Geoff Johns wraps up his tale of Superman working with what appears to be the pre-Zero Hour / pre-Crisis Legion of Superheroes. This whole story has been eight kinds of awesome, and the finale does not disappoint. There's a panel near the end that, while effective, I feel deserved an all-out double-page spread, but not only does this Legion feel real (although I also love the threeboot Legion), the deepth and significance of Kal-El's relationship with them really shines through. I can't wait to see what Johns does with the upcoming Final Crisis tie-in Legion of Three Worlds.

Trials of Shazam #12 As disappointing as the rest of the series. The finale is heavy on exposition and light on real drama and character development for Freddy. He's gone from being an interesting twist in the Marvel Family (probably the least white-bread despite his former "Junior" tag) to being a generic defender of magic. And Billy Batson is completely lost in the Marvel character (or whatever we're supposed to be calling him). 12 issues over two years to say nothing much of importance and damage two characters of major historical importance by making them less distinctive.

Blue Beetle #25 As always, one of the very best books out there. From the references to Ted Kord's history as Blue Beetle II (including the awesome Giffen-era League reunion) to touches like how watching the superheroes fight really brings home to Jaime's mother what it means that her son is one of them, this book is excellent in every way. This concludes the overarching plot that's worked it's way through the first 25 issues of the series, and Blue Beetle now has a fully developed backstory, position in the DC universe and supporting cast. Plus, Oracle compared Dani Garrett to Misfit. Even the throwaway lines are awesome in this book.

The Twelve #4 We're still exploring the difficulties our WWII-era heroes are having adapting to the modern world, but their personalities are all becoming fairly well established. So far, the Phantom Reporter (our narrator), Fiery Mask and the Black Widow are my favorites, but almost all of them are interesting and more important, distinct from each other. I just acquired a copy of Mystic Comics #5 which has the second Black Widow story in it, theoretically by her original creators. I'm looking forward to reading that- I also have U.S.A. Comics #5 which has her 3rd story, but the artist is different. Fiery Mask's origin story is in the newly released Daring Mystery Masterworks collection, and it is at least as far-fetched in the original as it was when he told it in #3. I'm really looking forward to finding out what more they do with him.

Young X-Men #1 This isn't as bad as I thought. The characterization of Santo is spot-on, and Blindfold's involvement is handled well. I'm still annoyed they are dragging in random new characters when there are so many excellent characters from the cancelled New X-Men that could be used instead, but I'm willing to see where it goes. I hope they give a good explanation for why Cyclops is recruiting this team instead of using more experienced X-Men, though. And I hope they have a good explanation for the proposed villain, but it's an interesting enough concept that I'm willing to give them some time to work through it. Plus, it picks up on a dangling plot thread from a few years back, which is nice.

Tags: comics, dc, golden age, marvel, reviews
Current Location: home
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Uncle Tupelo: "No Depression"

Mr. Terrific is one of my absolute favorite Golden Age DC comics superheroes. He's almost certainly my favorite among the 2nd-string DC heroes who never got their own solo book and just barely qualified for membership in a super-team (in this case, the venerable Justice Society of America). Fortunately for fans like me, DC finally came up with a good way to reprint the early stories of characters like Mr. Terrific- bundle them up five stories at a time in one archive dedicated to seven different features. So here I'll be reviewing Mr. Terrific's contributions to the highly recommended JSA All Stars Archives, Vol. 1.

As usual with Golden Age reviews, keep in mind that standards of plotting and character development were much more basic, and all of these discussions are in the context of those standards, and not the expectations of comics today.

( Read more... )

Tags: comics, dc, golden age, mr. terrific, reviews, terry sloane

If you're one of many who has been mad about the deaths and treatments of certain characters at DC over the last few years, you might want to ( Read more... )

Tags: booster gold, comics, dc, reviews, tim drake
Current Mood: happy

So in my grand tradition of embarking on massive review projects that I'll probably never finish and really barely even start, I've added a "DC Crossovers and Events" section to my memories, in which I intend to review the major events of the DCU starting from Crisis on Infinite Earths. The advantage in starting this project, though, is that I already wrote a massive essay on Crisis back when 52 came to a close, so I already have that key foundation entry written and tagged. Yay me for retroactive accomplishment! I'm also already part of the way through the writeup for Legends, the first post-Crisis crossover that helped establish the new status quo including the drastic (and much needed) revamp of the Justice League. Stay tuned! (I know you are all waiting breathlessly ;-)

Tags: ambitious, comics, dc, dc crisis, reviews
Current Location: home
Current Mood: sunny

Anyone else notice how neatly the emotions pair off as you move outward through the Lantern spectrum?

Blue / Yellow: Hope / Fear
Indigo / Orange: Compassion / Avarice
Violet / Red: Love / Hate

Neatly balanced opposites (think selflessness / selfishness for the Indigo vs Orange balance). Also, how cool is it that the existing lanterns happened to occupy the central spot on the spectrum, allowing for this arrangement? Particularly considering that "Green" was just chosen because Martin Nodell saw a green train signal lantern in the late 30's and thought it was cool, with no notion of an interstellar corps whatsoever. It's pretty amazing that Star Sapphire, originally a Flash villain in the late 40's, lines up so well, too. Although obviously both have undergone a lot of evolution since then.

Have I mentioned before how excited I am about the storytelling potential here? And about how it's not being done with a lot of hype about people dying or nothing ever being the same again? I hope it lives up to it's promise, and with Johns writing there's a damn good chance it will. And Van Sciver gets lots of credit for some amazing designs, especially for the Indigo Lanterns.

Tags: comics, dc, green lantern, indigo lantern, reviews, sinestro corps, star sapphire