Mortlake on the Schuylkill

Quien Es Macho? Carol Danvers Es Macho!

2008-10-25T09:57:00.000-04:00

In fact, anyone making their way through Ms. Marvel #32 would have to accept that Carol Danvers es muchisima macho.

Two years ago I wrote a post about X-Factor #5, in which the character Siryn is held captive, beaten, and nearly tortured.

I concluded then that:

While it's clear that Peter A. David wants to subvert the sexist trope of the woman who needs a man to deliver her from a dangerous situation, does he succeed?

My answer: yes, just barely. (And I'd have major reservations if this storyline were dragged out into another issue.) Here's my thinking:

I understand that this is a comic book, and that a title gets boring fast if the heroine is constantly kicking people's asses, and never can get her own ass kicked by anyone. I also get that X-Factor is giving off a noirish vibe. Bogart, Robert Mitchum, and Alan Ladd were constantly getting their asses handed to them by minor gunsels and cretinous henchmen in the middle reels of their respective noir movies. And, although the "message" of noir is that the hero can never destroy the interconnected webs of corruption in which he's ensnared, the viewer is at the very least assured that by the final reel the hero will have administered compensatory beat-downs to any of the players who were stupid enough to have laid a hand on him. The comic works then, and doesn't offend, if we accept that Siryn is a noirish or Bogart-ian heroine. Final confirmation of this line of interpretation will come if David actually shows us how Siryn finds and "re-pays" her original assailant in future issues.

Rather than a weak-damsel story, Peter David wants us to read X-Factor #5 as if it were an episode in the comic-book version of the Saturday Night Live gameshow Quien Es Mas Macho? (Who is More Macho?) And I'm pleased to report that, in the match-up of Siryn vs. Dr. Leery, Siryn es mas macho. She proves herself to be, indeed, muy muy macho.

Ms. Marvel #32, is a flashback story, and pits a non-superpowered Carol Danvers, shot down over Afghanistan, against a sadist named Ghazi Rashid.

However, it presents the reader with an entirely different case, for two reasons. One is small, and the other is more crucial:

(1) Rather than a noir vibe, this comic deploys the “captured/tortured soldier/spy” trope that was recently played out in the first Daniel Craig Bond film, Syriana, Ridley Scott’s G.I. Jane (1997), and countless other movies. And given the season, a serious McCain-Hanoi-Hilton vibe is clearly in play.

(2) More importantly, the creative team chose to actually depict the torture of Carol Danvers -- and it’s bad.

Nothing is left to the imagination, here. It’s either depicted, or described. Ghazi is shown preparing to pull out several of Carol’s fingernails, and we learn a few panels later that he has indeed done so; he applies electric shocks; and beats and tries to dehumanize her -- in all of the most difficult scenes, Carol is clothed only in her bra and panties.

And there is this: Carol’s ultimate means of escape is provided due to Ghazi’s ineptitude in wielding the massive sledgehammer which he deploys to shatter her (shackled) fore-arm.

(Since I continue to get referrals to my X-Factor post from people directed to it by their Google-image searches for “captured superheroines,” I’ve decided that this post will be text-only.)

At the end of the issue, Carol uses the damaged manacle on her shattered arm to kick Ghazi’s ass and escape -- she’s got a long journey home.

One more distinction between this comic and X-Factor #5: a prior issue of Ms. Marvel (rather inexplicably) showed Carol beginning to re-kick Ghazi’s ass. So we now see that in addition to the escape beat-down she administered to the bastard, there’s more retributive violence in store. (In this regard, Brian Reed, the book’s writer, does for Carol what Peter David has not, to my knowledge, done for Siryn in X-Factor.)

So where does all this leave me?

I’m disgruntled. Although I know that people are being mis-treated in ‘the real world’ as I type this, I don’t read comics to see how it’s being done.

My considered opinion is this:

If you are a writer and you have made the creative decision to subject a character in your story to torture, I would urge you to err on the side of discretion. Suggest things to me. Let my imagination provide details.

Although extended depictions of righteous ass-kicking and retributive, justified violence are OK with me, the same is just not true for torture.

I’ll close by noting that I wouldn’t want to actually read a comic book in which a thoroughly loathsome character -- someone like the rapist Dr. Light -- were treated in the way that Carol Danvers is treated by her captor in Ms. Marvel #32.

Compare + Contrast

2008-10-22T07:18:00.000-04:00

Here again is Alex Ross’ wonderful cover for Batman #685:

Is this young woman, photographed at the San Diego Comic-Con, Ross’ model for Selina Kyle?

I think so, and I wonder if others agree with me.

You Gotta Have Heart ...

2008-10-21T22:17:00.001-04:00

Lame, reference, I know, but I couldn’t resist!

It looks like Selina Kyle’s heart is restored to her -- or she gets someone else’s heart, instead, or something ...

From the January solicits:

BATMAN #685
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs
Cover by Alex Ross
A “Faces of Evil” issue starring Catwoman! Continuing from this month’s DETECTIVE COMICS #852, Selina Kyle’s path of vengeance against Hush knows no bounds! After confronting the man responsible for nearly destroying her life, Selina’s wrath propels her into a downward spiral. With Tommy Elliot almost certain to suffer dire consequences, could Catwoman’s humanity be next to perish?
And be sure to check out part one of this story on page 77!
On sale January 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Though I know that I’m jinxing things by saying so, I am very glad that Catwoman survives!

Legions!

2008-10-16T12:10:00.001-04:00

I have a satisfied smile on my face after reading Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #2.

Geoff Johns nicely brings together plot-lines from across the DCU -- factoids that I rather desultorily absorbed during the JSA/JLA “Lightning Saga” cross-over now seem relevant to me. Superboy-Prime is still annoying, but the fact that he’s channeled his petulance in order to gather and deploy a formidable anti-Legion of baddies makes him a much more credible menace.

I can’t profess to being a fan of the Legion -- I didn’t grow up reading the books, and my experience with the recent iteration of the team is limited to the plot-line involving Supergirl’s travel to the 31st century (following the One Year Later stunt). However, what I am most emphatically a fan of is the cosmic-level visual story-telling that George Peréz seems to produce instinctively now. I liked his work with Mark Waid on the Brave and the Bold, and I like what he’s doing here very much.

Reading this comic brought to mind experiences I’ve had while listening to music: the sheer pleasure of appreciating the work of a fine artist in their maturity. While you can see how they might be hewing to some formulaic parameters, there’s joy in seeing someone master the form -- even the elements that might seem a bit shop-worn.

Bad News

2008-10-13T18:30:00.001-04:00

Tom DeFalco has made public that the final issue of Spider-Girl will be #30.

(Newsarama picked up a posting made by DeFalco at the SG page at the Comic Boards on Sunday.)

DeFalco reports that the character will regularly appear in the Amazing Spider-Man Family book.

I can’t say that this was an unexpected announcement: the title’s numbers have been at the same problematically low level since the re-launch.

I’ve enjoyed this book over the years, and will be sorry to see it come to an end.

Supergirl #34

2008-10-11T18:06:00.001-04:00

After several years of aimless meandering -- a problematic period marred by epically bad story-telling, idiotic plot developments, and some truly terrible characterization and art, this title appears to have righted itself.

Jamal Igle, an artist whose work I have followed since taking note of his assured penceling on Firestorm, is in fine form. Dynamic, well-wrought art makes a big difference -- there seems to be something always going on in Igle’s panels.

And Sterling Gates turns in a good story -- it’s not a take on earth-shattering, philosophic questions, or the crazy follow-up to Supergirl’s (stupid) promise to keep a young boy from dying. What’s on offer is just a competent, straight-ahead comic book story, delivered in three acts:

In the first, after Cat Grant writes an attack article on Supergirl in the Daily Planet, the public turns on the young Kryptonian. She’s seen as an irresponsible teen-ager unworthy of Superman’s legacy, and Kara takes the public’s disapproval to heart. Superman suggests that perhaps part of her problem is that she’s Supergirl 24 hours a day -- maybe a secret identity would help things? (This was the same advice that Supes offered to Wonder Woman at the end of 52 -- is this all he’s got?)

In the second act, Kara seeks advice on secret identities, visiting with the Teen Titans and Wonder Woman. Robin offers Conner Kent’s glasses to her -- a nice touch, and though a heavy-handed writer might have ruined the scene, it’s not over-played here.

Kara talks to Wonder Woman while they’re subduing a giant eagle that shoots flames out of it’s beak in a scene that acknowledges the inherent weirdness of the DC universe. (And deploys Diana’s invisible plane to good effect.) I appreciated that the writer didn’t see the need to stop and congratulate himself about how he had managed to bring together the strange and the mundane.

Finally, while licking her wounds in Smallville, Kara figures out what she’s going to do. Martha Kent engineers a meeting between Kara and Lana Lang -- it turns out the two young women are dealing with the same problem. They have given in to the tendency to hide from a world that seems to have rejected and wounded them. In the finest tradition -- one often on display in movies and comic books -- a single, meaningful conversation is enough to get both Lana and Kara to see the light. It’s on to Metropolis for these two!

Although it sounds like I’m being cynical, I’m not. I appreciated that this comic took aim at a single story and deployed Igle’s impressive artwork to very good effect. All of the parts of an enjoyable comic are here, and I don’t ask for all that much: a nice opening splash page, several decent fights, character development and motivation, all followed by a final splash image that delivers the hook for the next issue.

Astro City Character Special: Beautie

2008-06-02T12:06:00.001-04:00

I was killing time in the comic store on graduation afternoon, and picked up this comic, several months after it initially went on sale.

Although I have never read any of the Astro City series, I really enjoyed this.

Beautie, a life-sized cyborg with super-strength, invulnerability, and the ability to fly, is a protector of humankind. (Thank goodness.) Although she is a fighting member of the Honor Guard, and is valued and highly-regarded by her team-mates, she unable to interact or connect with them in a way that’s satisfying to anyone involved.

Kurt Busiek creates a compelling story for the character in this single-issue comic book. It’s a well-executed quest narrative: like Frankenstein, Data, Pinocchio, and the doomed clones at the center of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, Beautie is a near-human whose earnest search for her identity is actually a sign that she is already in possession of the humanity she craves.

Beautie poses a sequence of fundamental questions, asking: where did I come from? who made me? and why was I made?

In a final Memento-like touch, we learn that this is a quest that Beautie has actually initiated and completed more than once -- her creator’s programming actively frustrates her attempts to acquire and retain the answers that she is able to attain.

Although it’s not clear how many previous iterations of the search there have been, at the close of the story we’re offered hope that Beautie’s cycle might soon come to an end.

Attention, Fans of (Miss) Fury!

2008-02-26T08:24:00.008-05:00

The Comics Journal #288 includes 30+ color pages by Tarpé Mills, presented by Trina Robbins. The overwhelming majority of the comics reprinted are wonderful Miss Fury strips.

The color pages are a revelation, adding depth to Mills' characterizations. I was rationing my reading of the George Herriman cartoons reprinted in the previous issue of the Journal, and plan to do the same with these.

My fervent hope is that Trina Robbins is working on a complete reprint of Miss Fury (+ color), or, better yet, a biography of Tarpe Mills.

I would stand in line during a 12-hour thunder storm to buy either of those items.

(Image swiped from lambiek.net)

Thanks, Gail Simone!

2007-11-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

Although there's too much on my plate today to allow for a review of Gail Simone's nice first issue as writer on Wonder Woman, I wanted to comment on a particular panel from the book that made my day.

There's a lot going on in the comic, including the (re)introduction of a key character, but for my money, I found Diana's saying I know exactly who I am immensely satisfying.

Gail Simone made reference to this in her recent interview at Newsarama:

I can organically take the next step, a move I think is crucial to how she will be portrayed under my watch — my Diana knows who she is. She’s confident and at ease with herself. That’s not to say that she won’t misstep, but it won’t be out of doubt as to her self-worth or importance.

Simone has certainly delivered on that promise, and this important shift in Diana's characterization contributes to the sense that the book has been positively transformed.

Let's Focus on the Positive

2007-11-03T17:06:00.000-04:00

Several comics related surprises this week:

(1) El Cazador, the adventure series about an early modern female pirate that I have rhapsodized about in the past, came out in a nicely produced trade paperback that I picked up at my comic store on Wednesday. Even though I have all of the individual issues in my possession, I bought the book anyway: the good ones that I like I buy in multiple formats.

I was totally unaware that the TPB of this series was even coming out, so talk about pleasant surprises! Best part of it all: the final page of the TPB contains a "To Be Continued" ribbon on it. I am hoping very much that the rest of this story, which was left unpublished due to the bankruptcy of CrossGen, will finally make it into print.

(2) I have been looking for issue #12 of Charles Burns' Black Hole for quite some time, and I finally acquired it.

Yes, I do own the hardcover book published by Pantheon, but I have been collecting the individual issues, too.

(3) Having heard good things about it, I purchased Nick Abadzis' book Laika (First Second Books), which is a graphic novelization of the life of the dog that the Soviets shot into earth orbit as a follow-up to their launch of Sputnik. Man, it is indeed a very fine book that I recommend to one and all.

(4) The best for last: JSA #10 has the Kingdom Come Superman informing our heroes that he has fought side by side with other versions of them.

It's a very nice touch to have Wildcat be the one to say: "Power Woman?"

Three Reactions

2007-10-18T10:30:00.001-04:00

Spoilers follow in abundance.

—Catwoman #72
To paraphrase Gabriel Garcia Marquez: never was the sundering of a mother-child bond more foretold.

Now that the character has been put through a soul-crushing, much-expected psychological trauma, can we all move on, now?

I'm going to pretend the whole "One Year Later" story-line never happened, and am using this as the image with which I move forward with the character:

—The Brave and the Bold #7
A satisfying story teaming Wonder Woman and Power Girl, who join forces to save a Superman-in-distress. Like Starsky and Hutch, Martin and Lewis, and Abbot and Costello: two great characters that go great together.

My favorite line in the entire comic is Power Girl's "No" answer to Wonder Woman's exasperated question.

—The Death of the New Gods #1
Upon discovering the body of his beloved, Mr. Miracle (understandably) begins to make use of the Anti-Life Equation, and then stops himself because, he realizes, Barda would not have wanted him to.

Scott, although you've pretty much been an exemplary husband up 'til now, you must realize that you can't really know what what Barda would have wanted unless you specifically asked.

I'm hoping, of course, that the impending changes to the DC universe fix this ... someway, somehow ... when the dust clears.

Cooke's Power Girl

2007-09-09T11:15:00.001-04:00

Dirk Deppey originally posted this cover to the upcoming Comics Journal #285 at his ¡Journalista! blog several weeks ago, and although Darwyn Cooke's magnificent drawing has been widely disseminated 'round the web, I wanted to post and briefly comment upon it here.

Although Cooke references the Power Girl's breasts, I think it's wonderful that he does so without actually depicting her characteristic "cleavage window." In fact, her mirror pretty much obscures her chest, something which enables the artist to make her eyes a focal point of the image.

Cooke's deployment of a mirror brought to mind two paintings by Velasquez. In "Venus at her Mirror" (1649-51), the painter reveals Venus' face through its reflection in a mirror; we're not able to see the godess' features directly "from life." Similarly, in Cooke's drawing the mirror obscures one of the subject's features, rather than reflect or reveal it to the viewer.

However, I think the trick that Velasquez pulls in "Las Meninas" (1656-7) is closer to the spirit of what Cooke does in his drawing.

Like PG's hand-held, the mirror on the wall at the center of the painting reflects an image back at the viewer. In Velasquez's case, we can actually see what's in the mirror: it's the king and queen of Spain.

In a metaphorical sense, though, the mirror actually depicts whoever stands to take a look at the tableau in the painting: if we entered that room, we would be reflected in the mirror. "Las Meninas" is about lines of perspective, points of view, and our ability and desire to look.

Cooke's drawing reveals him to be interested in the same things.

The Summer of Supergirl, II

2007-09-08T22:05:00.001-04:00

The creative team of Tony Bedard and Renato Guedes have pulled off a feat nothing short of miraculous, setting Supergirl on a firm footing after a year or more of meandering, confusing, or just plain bad comics.

More to their credit, the two have done so while dealing with the restrictions imposed upon them by two lumbering company-wide crossovers, Amazon Attack! and Countdown.

In Supergirl #20, we're presented with a character who is young and flawed, but also a whole lot more: she's brave, and willing to take risks to make up for her mistakes. But more than anything, Guedes' fabulous art gets across the important fact that Supergirl is strong.

In contrast to recent depictions of her, Guedes draws a Supergirl whose best feature is not that she's a blond, or that she's a babe, or that she possesses a slim waist or impossibly spindly legs. Through care in pencilling the character, Guedes brings home the wonderful fact that what's crucial about her is that Supergirl is incredibly, self-confidently, unapologetically strong.

Supergirl #20 deals with the aftermath of the character's monumentally stupid decision to team up with Wonder Girl, capture the President on Air Force One, and deliver him to the Amazon Queen so that the two might then negotiate an end to the war.

Talk about a straightjacket of a plot element! The comic's cover says it all.

Supergirl's tears immediately brought to mind the fateful cover to Birds of Prey #42, the issue in which Power Girl, already in the midst of a spiral of physical de-powerment, was emotionally crippled as well.

As I've said, I needn't have worried. The writer takes the elements carrying over from Amazons Attack! and turns them into nice opportunities to develop the character. Supergirl #20 provides a Kara-centered narrative growing out of the aftermath of the downing of Air Force One. Bedard introduces a character, the husband of a woman who served with the President on Air Force One, to foreground the human ramifications of Kara's blunder. Rather than whine, act like the victim, or try to pass the buck, Supergirl gets it.

In Supergirl #21, Bedard continues the reclamation project, bringing home Kara's connections to the Kents as surrogate grand-parents to whom she turns for support following her bad decision.

And although I was both uninterested in and horrified by Supergirl's early appearances in the first arc of the Waid/Perez Brave and the Bold, things did improve, and by its close Kara actually makes the central contribution to the heroes' efforts to foil the evil scheme set into motion by the Lords of Luck.

With a new creative team poised to take over on Supergirl, I recognize that things could go south again pretty quickly. However, taking account of all of the recent developments, one could reasonably argue that the summer of 2007 was a good one for fans of Kara Zor-El.

Miss Fury!

2007-09-08T14:37:00.000-04:00

This TPB (Pure Imagination Publishing, 2007) is one of my most prized possessions.

Tarpe Mills is my hero.

Thanks, Trina Robbins!

One Can Hope ...

2007-08-01T08:29:00.000-04:00

From Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters:

Power Girl is to star in her own series, spinning out of "Countdown To Final Crisis."

Gail Simone at the Con

2007-07-30T09:35:00.000-04:00

Gail Simone fielded questions about Wonder Woman during various panels at the San Diego Comic Convention; my anticipation for her run on the title has been heightened even further.

I've reproduced my favorite responses, here:

— During the Big Guns panel, "Gail Simone was asked about her upcoming Wonder Woman run, and replied that she'll establish that the lasso is one of the [most] dangerous weapons in the DC Universe and that they'll make it clear 'who Wonder Woman is.'"

— "Another question for Simone is what she was planning on doing to establish Wonder Woman at an equal 'big gun' level to Batman and Superman.

'We are going to establish that she is the greatest warrior on Earth,' Simone answered."

There were several jokingly-posed questions about who might be killed off in the impending final crisis, which then prompted the following query (and Simone's priceless answer).

— At the New Worlds Order panel a fan asked the panel who they didn't want to kill. Here's what Gail Simone said in reply:

"I would protect every female character in the DCU."

Birds of Prey #108

2007-07-19T06:14:00.001-04:00

Gail Simone's final issue of Birds of Prey crept up on me; I found this comic as satisfying as the recent Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1, or Simone's own Villains United Infinite Crisis Special #1, and I look forward very much to her work on Wonder Woman.

I won't spoil the issue, but Simone clearly understands that certain kinds of stories have to end with the heroine and her antagonist squaring off against one another, mano a mano.

Here's a few of the many things Simone achieved in her run on on Birds of Prey:

— She successfully integrated the One Year Later concept into her book
— Never let us forget that Oracle is the Silver Age Batgirl
— Placed Black Canary at the top tier of martial artists and heroes
— Rejected the Huntress' midriff-baring uniform
— Originated Black Alice
— Integrated Zinda Blake (the Lady Blackhawk) and Big Barda into the team
— Re-wrote Ice's death
— Provided the only memorial (that I know of) to Ted Kord (Blue Beetle)
— Produced a humane, character driven, action-packed comic on schedule

Independence Day, 2007

2007-07-04T00:03:00.000-04:00

Alice B. Sheldon published science fiction under the name of James Tiptree, Jr., and I've been enjoying learning about her remarkable life through the recent biography written by Julie Phillips.

Sheldon served in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps during WWII, and two quotes from the journal she kept at Fort Des Moines in the early 40s seem particularly appropriate today:

What an awakening seeing for the first time in my life a world of women — women glimpsed through doors of canteens offices barracks kitchens guard posts — women plowing through the black mud into the pools of light — women in uniform, looking as though they owned the place — and owning it! Women seen for the first time at ease, unselfconscious, swaggering or thoughtful, sizing everything up openly, businesslike, all personalities all unbeding and unafraid.

***

... [T]he long green lines of women, for the first time in America, in the rain, under the flag, the sound of the band, far off, close, then away again; the immortal fanny of our guide, leading on the right, moved and moving to the music — the flag again — first time I ever felt free enough to be proud of it; the band, our band, playing reveille that morning, with me on KP since 0430 hours, coming to the mess-hall porch to see it pass in the cold streets, under that flaming middle-western dawn; KP itself, and the conviction that one is going to die; the wild ducks flying over that day going to PT after a fifteen-mile drill, and me so moved I saluted them.

(The quotes are from J. Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, [St. Martins, 2007], pp. 109 and 110.)

Amazons Adrift!

2007-07-02T14:10:00.000-04:00

I find myself in agreement with Heidi Meeley on the Amazons Attack! cross-over: the pointlessness of the storyline has pretty much drained any possible fun out of this series for me. The utter implausibility of it all is ruining the enterprise, and I'm not nit-picking about and fantastical elements like resurrections, thoughtless mass murders, or improbable giant bees, either. I'm hung up on the cross-over's problems with important story-telling elements like character motivations, pacing, and the absense of a clear narrative structure.

Even though we're only at the third issue, the story seems drawn out and stretched thin. The heroes have spent an inordinate amount of time simply standing around, making jokes, or, worst of all, crashing into one another: Black Canary's sole function seems to be to serve as a target upon which Wonder Woman periodically drops Nemesis when some jollity is required.

Getting Cassie and Kara involved in Teen Titans #48 was a good move. The government's decision to detain women who have associated with the Amazons certainly adds some dramatic tension. But I couldn't help thinking as I read the issue: shouldn't a team-up of Wonder Girl and Supergirl be able to free Cassie's mom (and everyone in the place) if they had a mind and the will to do so?

Diana has been searching for herself for the past year, and I think it's a major structural problem that part of the plot seems to hinge on the fact that Wonder Woman is unsure of herself, her abilities, and her sense of identity. This is a fairly stilted device through which to drum up dramatic tension, and a bit of a clumsy and empty one, because a hero as experienced as Diana is shouldn't be acting like a teenage girl. Batman and Superman got themselves sorted out in the year that they took off from the DCU, and there's no reason why Wonder Woman couldn't get the job done in 52 weeks, too. I cringed when I read the bit of internal monologue in Wonder Woman #10 in which Diana asks herself if she is good only because her mother taught her to be good.

On a positive note, Wonder Woman #10 closes with the confrontation we've all paid to see: Diana vs. the resurrected, mad Hippolyta. Surely Diana will sort this mess out! However, a major part of the scene's dramatic punch was stolen away by several previous (inconsequential) encounters between mother and daughter.

It's a shame that Wonder Woman and the Amazons have been placed at the center of a cross-over that feels so utterly inconsequential to the workings of the wider DC world. This aspect of things was driven home by a coincidental scheduling quirk: the third issue of the mini-series suffered the indignity of being released on the same day as the Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special, whose final page clearly linked the Green Lantern Corps to the continued existence of the DCU.

In comparison, the story-line I'm following in Amazons Attack! feels like especially small change.

minx 2.0

2007-06-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

How Jen Dik Seong Got Her Ki Back

Mike Carey's Re-Gifters, penciled by Sonny Liew, is an enjoyable read. Although the book is structured around formulaic plot elements and standard character accoutrements, these pieces come together in the service of a storyline that generates empathy for the characters and suspense regarding the final outcome.

Plot elements:
— Jen Dik Seong (Dixie) is a Hopkido black belt whom we meet in the lead-up to her prep for the national championships. Dixie is really good at Hopkido.

— Dixie is in unrequitedly in love with Brad, a white dude in her sparring group who is all wrong for her.

— Dixie's dad, who lost his business during the LA riots, is struggling to get back on his financial feet.

— Dixie learns that the neighborhood bad boy, Dillinger, is actually a really nice cool boy named Tomas.

— Dixie throws away the entrance money for the big competition on a birthday gift for Brad. (Brad turns around and gives the gift, a statue of a warrior, to the girl he pines after ...)

Character elements:
— Dixie is small, loud, and the school firebrand, known for her temper and feistiness. (Her teacher refers to her in-class eruptions as "visitations from Planet Dickson.")

— Dixie seeks to reclaim the inner serenity (ki) snatched from her by her intense feelings for Brad.

— Dixie's family is nuclear, supportive, and her parents are socially strict in the manner practiced, it seems, only by immigrant families.

— Dixie has one friend, Avril, who truly understands her.

Early in the book, Dixie gets into a scrape when she walks through the wrong part of town; the city's fractious racial geography emerges as a crucial plot element:

Dillinger is introduced in this scene; he talks down his buddies and defuses the situation. As the sensible alpha male of the neighborhood's Latino street toughs, he provides a stark contrast to the blandly white and weasle-like Brad.

As the plot progresses, Dixie earns the respect of the honorable boys, even those who earlier displayed racial animosity towards her, by decisively vanquishing each of them on the field of battle.

At a later competition, Dillinger himself goes from her street protector to the victim of her greater Hopkido mojo:

Before she does, the reader recognizes that Dillinger is Dixie's perfect match because he is man enough to accept that she can defeat him.

Re-Gifters cleverly combines the warrior's quest, the immigrant story, and a young love triangle. Comparing the first two Minx titles, I'd have to say that Re-Gifters is the better plotted and paced of the two, and proves that the building blocks don't need to be particularly original for a narrative to be satisfying.

As Pauline Kael used to say: it's corn, but it's good corn.

In Good Hands

2007-06-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

Marvel has announced that Terry Moore will take up writing duties on Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane.

This is great news! Although I had actually resigned myself to dropping the book because of the loss of both Sean McKeever and Takeshi Miyazawa, I'm more than happy to keep reading a Moore-authored book (whoever the artist might be).

Supergirl #18

2007-06-08T17:10:00.000-04:00

When I try to sort out how all the plot elements are supposed to fit together, things get impossibly confusing.

So let me just say that Supergirl has been put to the test, and she passed.

So spoke the Monitor: she is indeed the one true Supergirl.

The Summer of Supergirl?

2007-06-02T21:16:00.000-04:00

The online comic press brought some hopeful news regarding the direction of the Supergirl comic book, which has been going through some considerable growing pains over the past year.

Two very heartening quotes from Tony Bedard, who will soon take up duties as the writer of Supergirl, are contained in his interview with the Pulse:

I'm just sticking to the basics: Kara is from Krypton, she's insanely powerful, but she wants to be good. I also happen to think she needs to eat a sandwich and cover up a bit, but then I'm a father.

I have basic expectations about what's appropriate for a character with the "S" on her chest. I don't think that's a limitation -- it points the way toward the proper area in which to search for fresh material. She's not a dark avenger or Goth punk. She's a strange visitor from another planet who should embody all that's best in humanity and in America. That's right, America. The land of immigrants who make good.

The article is accompanied by a series of drawings by Renato Guedes, who will pencil for Bedard. As evidence of how he plans to depict the character, they point to a very nice change of direction for how Supergirl will look in her own book.

Filled with encouragement over this welcome sharpening of the character's focus, I was further heartened by this week's Action Comics #850, written by Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns, and Fabien Nicieza, and penciled by none other than Renato Guedes.

The story, titled "Superman: Past, Present ... and Future!" provides a well-written overview of Superman's career. What gives the story added punch, for me, is that the selected portions of Superman's past are witnessed by Supergirl and some of the Legion of Superheroes.

Brainiac5 builds a chronal machine that will allow Kara to look back a thousand years into her past. However, rather than look at her own life, which seems like a daunting prospect to the teen-ager, Kara decides to take a look at her cousin's life. Although everyone else thinks Superman is a selfless hero, Supergirl informs her comrades that she actually feels he's something of a superpowered, domineering jerk.

The issue works to show the reader that Supergirl finally comes to understand why Superman has been such an over-protective, bossy, and smothering elder cousin.

In particular, I was pleased to see this panel:

Although Kara's been through moments of enlightenment like this in the past, it's very satisfying to hear her say I get it with conviction, and in a context that leads me to believe that perhaps, after all this time, she might actually be on her way towards acting like a hero who understands who she is and how she might constructively interact with those who love her.

This development can only make her a more appealing, effective superhero, and I can say, at last, that I am looking forward to future Kara-related developments.

AH! Digs Deeper

2007-05-23T08:21:00.000-04:00

There were several things that I found discordant in Adam Hughes' defense of his Mary Jane statue over at newsarama.com.

Hughes' argument that our society's presumed over-sensitivity to race/racism is an analogue to the unfounded charges of sexism leveled against him is unfortunate. The interviewer tries to draw him back from this stance, but Hughes proceeds to wade in further and deeper on his own.

Hughes believes that he is in the clear because MJ is not doing Spidey's laundry: she's actually finding his costume in the laundry pile! She's discovering that he's Spider-Man for the first time. Get it now? Clearly, Hughes argues, this makes the statuette non-sexist or, even, anti-sexist.

Primarily, though, I am dismayed by Hughes' I-am-the-victim tone and his some-women-like-my-art defenses.

For now, I wanted to single out just one item from the exchanges for comment:

AH: Well, that’s how I end up looking at this – is it really a sexist or misogynistic act if it wasn’t intended that way on the part of the people doing it? If you perceive something that way, but it wasn’t meant to be that way, and it’s not sending people back to the stone age, is it really a sexist or misogynistic thing that’s going on, or are you seeing something that’s either not there, or that the artist never intended to be there?

My response to Hughes' assertion is simple:

Yes, it is indeed sexism no matter what you intended. What you intended isn't the issue.

Where I live, you still get the traffic ticket even if you tell the cop you didn't intend to run the red light.

What Hughes doesn't understand is that telling women who are already offended by his work that their judgment is ill-founded is not the solution.

The artist problematically presumes that those aggrieved would support rather than condemn him if only they knew more, knew what he knows, or simply knew better. This isn't a valid defense.

It is actually an additional offense.

The Chairwoman of the JSA

2007-05-20T20:00:00.000-04:00

In Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come, an alternate future universe that is partially being folded into the present-day DCU, Kara Zor-L was called Power Woman by her comrades-in-arms.

This is Alex Ross' impressive cover to JSA #8, posted at newsarama.com.

Now, more than ever, calling her Power Girl seems just wrong, doesn't it?