Women in Comics: DC, Batgirl Controversy, and Nothing Nice To Say
DC was my first comic book love, starting with Catwoman Year One on a grocery store spinning rack when I was about 9 years old. The women of the “Bat Family” have continued to enthrall me over the years, but around 2012, I stopped and dropped many of my formerly favorite titles due to changes in tone, direction and creative teams. Feminist dynamo was fired, then re-hired, then voluntarily left the Batgirl title, and things haven’t been the same since. I made no secret of the fact that I’m no fan of Dan DiDio’s practices as head of creative at DC or of the New 52.
Batgirl Flying shirt from out Batman Hoodie and T-Shirt collection.
I wanted to have something nice to say about DC and feminism—I met Babs Tarr, the current artist on Batgirl, and San Francisco resident, and she seemed really cool. But I don’t like the book any more than I did before and I don’t buy it, or any other DC titles anymore. They’re boring retreads of continuity with constant re-branding instead of hiring actually diverse creative teams. And anytime I’ve seen Batgirl in the news, it’s because of some new, unfortunate decision.
I read the Killing Joke a few years ago, and it’s a great book, but 2 things it is not: It was never meant to be in main Batman continuity, and it was never about Barbara Gordon. This is why making it the focus of the “Batgirl #41: Joker Variant Cover” was a bad idea to begin with. The cover showed a terrified Batgirl with blood-like makeup smeared over her face as the Joker threatened her in a sexual manner with phallic handgun. The sexual assault overtones are enough to make this inappropriate for a cover in a Teen or Family aimed female-led comic, but the fact that it isn’t about Barbera or the batsuit at all made it way over the top, making her an object, de-powered. Girls and women are not props to be used to evoke feelings in men, and especially should not be depicted that way in their own books.
Jupiter Ascending Review
Rocket boots!
My fandom of the Wachowski siblings tends to jump around a lot. It seems to me they always come up with some amazing concept and about half the time make something mindblowingly brilliant and the other half the the time trip on an unresolved plot thread from their last movie and fall on their face in the execution. Naturally I love the Matrix and V for Vendetta but all the other Matrices and Cloud Atlas all kind of sucked in weird ways.
However there is no one who can say the Wachowski’s lack ambition or vision and their films for good or ill don’t push the envelope. As for Jupiter Ascending it kind of reads like a mini map of the Wachoski’s total filmography: cool and up at times, lame and laughably silly at others. I walked into the film hoping for something great and was at times very satisfied yet at others bitterly disappointed.
Where this film rules is in some of the visuals, the scope of the story (truly the term “Space Opera” can be applied here), the acting (far beyond what the film called for), the art direction, the subtle details, and just plain being one of the few original sci fi concept films in current memory. 
Most of our science fiction derives from books, comics, or TV shows but let us not forget some of the great original concept films that defined our most beloved genre: Star Wars, the Road Warrior, Alien, Robocop, E.T., Avatar, District 9, Escape From New York, Time Bandits, etc. It seems these days Hollywood is terrified of doing a film that does not have a built in fan base and so we are stuck with a lot of retreads and sub-mediocre source material. I applaud the risk the Wachowskis are willing to take on something like this. (Image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirt category)
Image courtesy of the Jupiter Ascending official site
Plus the visuals were all great. Kind of a super advanced steam punk aesthetic. The universe created is potentially huge and contains a plethora of small details that could each in turn be fleshed out into it’s own movie. The costuming and sets were great. And of course my personal favorite: the rocket skate boots. Not only did they look and act super cool but they kind of looked like they could actually work. I sure as hell want a pair.
Where it falls apart is in what I like the call the “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” stage of script development. Wouldn’t it be cool if we wasted 20 minutes of the film having the main character go through a Brazil-esque bureaucracy for no reason? Wouldn’t it be cool if a billion year old human society were ruled by a 15th century backstabbing English royal family? Wouldn’t it be cool if we injected the main characters huge Russian immigrant family into this epic story to weight it down like a meal of pasta and assorted fishing weights? Wouldn’t it be cool if the main character started off as a housekeeper and then at the end after being named queen of the planet and insanely wealthy decide to keep on scrubbing toilets for…no reason at all? These and many more wouldn’t it be cool ideas are the ones you write on a dry erase board during the early concept meetings then steady erase them as you realize they are too ponderous, too complicated, or most importantly too off point for the film. Apparently the Wachowskis accidentally used a Sharpie instead of a dry erase marker.
Ming was Mother Theresa compared to this guy.
I also had a problem with the ridiculous level to which the evil of the villain and his plan was portrayed. Remember in Time Bandits how David Warner played the physical manifestation of Evil and in the end turned into a black powder so evil that if you touched it you would explode? Well that evil is a mild fart in a sewer compared to the evil that is the bad guy here and his plan. SPOILER ALERT In the movie they spoke of “Harvesting” planets without going into the details of what they needed all the humans for. At one point there is a scene where a chariot is being piloted by a human incorporated into the machinery and I thought “Hey, that’s kind of cool. Maybe they need humans to become cyborg slaves. Sort of like Servitors from Warhammer 40,000.” Nope. They need to literally torture humans to death in order extract their immortality elixir like high tech vampires and at that point I completely stopped taking the story at all seriously. I’d give my father more credibility when he’d play the “Got your nose” game by grabbing my nose and sticking his thumb out of his fist (plus the one time he actually cut off the end of my nose). Kind of silly fun but ultimately irredeemably comically stupid.
Speaking of stupid I’m also going to dump all over the character of Jupiter. One concept that did not get written in permanent ink on the idea board was making her a strong willed intelligent female capable of getting herself out of trouble. In this film she is a dope who listens to and agrees with anything any male tells her and constantly is in need of rescue by Channing Tatum. Also they injected an awkward and stupid romance into this film with all the subtlety of a colonoscopy performed with a harpoon gun. It’s unfortunate as I am a fan of Mila Kunis and have come to like Channing Tatum. I honestly believe they are both capably of better roles and also that they delivered way more acting than the script really called for.
3 of 5 phasers. OK
But for all that I can say: rocket boots. If all you want is great visuals and some decent action (although of course the fate of the universe once again devolves into a fist fight between two muscle boys. Why is it evil super villains and their good guy nemeses can never seem to recruit more than three guys each? When I move into the evil super villain stage of my career I’m going to have an army of henchmen big enough to overthrow most third world countries) this film will entertain you. If you want to take your sci fi seriously and are hoping for a new Matrix prepare for disappointment. However I am going to ask each of you to try to see it in order to support the much needed sci fi movie industry. We can’t have Tom Cruise carry it entirely on his shoulders. 3 of 5 phasers.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Women In Comics: Braga #1 Mini-Review
Rat Queens Special: Braga #1
Image Comics’ “Rat Queens” has courted controversy and critical praise for its intersectional feminist take on the oft-male-dominated Dungeons & Dragons inspired tales of high-fantasy action. For the uninitiated, the best-selling book was created last year by Writer Curtis J Weibe and Artist Roc Upchurch, who was asked to leave the book about an all-female and racially diverse cast of 4 merry mad mistresses of magic and mayhem, when he was arrested on domestic violence charges against his wife in December. Upchurch was then replaced by artist Stjepan Sejic.
(Targaryen In Red from our Game of Thrones t shirts collection.)
A one-shot side adventure focusing on a background character, the Orc maiden frienemy of the main gals, and leader of another adventuring party, Braga, was published in the interim. Braga just so happens to be a Trans* woman, as the issue reveals, with stunning art by female relative newcomer, Tess Fowler.
Girls Do It Better T-Shirt – DC Comics
The story of Braga herself is fairly straightforward: born the eldest son of an Orc chieftain, “Broog” as he was then known, was always rebellious, favoring peaceful negotiations over his father’s war-mongering ways. Broog’s younger brother challenged him for the throne, gouging Broog’s eye, but losing his good arm in the fight, and Broog left the land in his care. There are hints at a love story, left mercifully ambiguous, and overall, it’s a story of being self-defined in every possible way: it’s like any other Rat Queens tale: diverse, colorful, gory, smart and fiercely contemporary, with just enough sexy and silly to keep it afloat.
Even as Trans* characters seem to be having a “moment” in pop culture, I can not recommend this story enough. Rat Queens #9 is on sale from Image Comics now, as are Braga #1 and the first 6 issue collected graphic novel.
Movie review: Kingsman the Secret Service
The secret is it’s not total crap.
All three of our regular readers must have notice I backed off considerably on my movie reviews in recent months, leaving a lot of the real blogging to the well written Jae. The fact is I started this blog to help promote my t-shirt web site and it kind of took on a life of its own. I found I enjoyed writing and espousing my opinion on movies and pop culture and what should have been 2-3 paragraph mini posts turned into 3,000 word epics.
Then a few months ago the consultants I hired to help me with this blog and my site promotion read me the riot act on what a huge waste of content that was. Phrases like “Keyword phrase embedment”, “link density”, and “optimal content length” were bandied about and I shifted my style to breaking up posts into multiple smaller posts with cross links in order to get the best Google love. However I found that I really don’t function well as a writer under those strictures and the actual writing turned into more of a chore than something I enjoy. At the same time my actual job (you know, the thing I do that makes money) got busier as Jae was showing her considerable talent as a writer and queen of social media I more or less opted out of writing on this blog.
However yesterday while writing my tribute to Leonard Nimoy I was reminded that when the muse takes me I really enjoy writing. Last night my mind was aflame with things to talk about, new turns of phrase, and the need to express myself creatively so I decided this morning to just write these reviews when the mood and time are right and leave all the structured writing to Jae. This will also give me the opportunity to keep seeing all the movies (something I quite enjoy) and continue to be the pretentious movie blow hard all my friends have learned to despise. So keep an eye out for these post, although in the interest of having a real job I will probably keep them somewhat short and sweet. I don’t plan on doing the elaborate story recaps or detailed star/black hole rating system. I think I will keep the 0-5 Phaser system in continued tribute to the great Mr. Nimoy.
No sparkle here.
So Kingsman: the Secret Service. I did not expect much from this film. When I saw the trailers I pretty much expected it to be yet another Hollywood “youthification” of a beloved movie genre. Remember when vampires were creepy old dudes with Eastern European accents who crawled out of the grave and burst into flame in daylight? Or when radical revolutionaries were people who had read a book once in a while, not some chick with a bow who won the worlds most deadly reality TV game show? Well, into the dipsy dumpster with all that content related nonsense. Now all you need to have in order to be an iconic movie figure is youth and bland Caucasian good looks.
And so it seemed with Kingsman. This looked like a remake of James Bond done with the young love child of Doctor Who and Jason Stratham 
(one of the good looking Doctor Whos. Not the current guy). Young hot dude. Check. Older fatherly figure with good looks. Check. All white people in main good guy roles. Check. A charismatically cartoonish evil villain who overshadows all the other acting in the entire film. Check.
But as I watched the film I realized I wasn’t reacting with contempt as I expected and I think it has to do with the fact that secretly I really never liked James Bond that much. For the same reason I really don’t like Superman I find characters who are so unbeatable truly boring. I like my heroes flawed and human. I think I like Daniel Craig’s James Bond the most because at one point he got tied up and some weirdo beat his testicles for a while. That’s the kind of adversity I need in a film. Also he got shot in the last one by a hot chick (oh, the irony) and ended up an alcoholic bum on a beach. My kind of tragic hero.
So it was here. Eggsy (Taron Egerton) did not emerge from his mothers womb with a Bowie knife clenched in his teeth and kill a terrorist hit team that was taking over the hospital before cutting his own umbilical cord. He starts the film as a typical dumb teenager getting into trouble and getting his ass beat. In time through one of my favorite movie tropes ever the training sequence (thanks to seeing hundreds of Kung Fu Theater films) he gets to be a bad ass but even then you never get the feeling he is so overpowered that his life is not in danger and therefore you feel a real connection with him. He perseveres through a series of luck and determination like all great heroes and never seems like he could kill a platoon of soldiers with a carefully aimed fart. Nor did he cause women to fall into bed and spontaneously orgasm with one smoky glance across a darkened restaurant. The one time he got hooked up he had to work really hard for it and as a man who has to work really hard to get laid I appreciated that.
Plus there was a lot of other great stuff in here. As a tribute to Samuel Jacksons acting ability he started the film with a lisp I found distracting (sorry if it’s real and to all my readers with speech impediments) but by the end of the film I totally bought it and him as an excellent villain. His hench woman had blade runner legs that seemed dopey at first but kicked ass by the end of the film (and I was totally in love with the actress Sofia Boutella. Sofia, I know we have never met and I am nothing more than a broke opinionated movie nerd but if any of that is some bizarre fetish for you marry me). Plus let me say whoever they hired to do the fight choreography kicked serious ass. One fight in particular will go down in movie history as one of the greats. If you have ever wanted to see white trash homophobic racists meet a bloody end this is the film for you. The camera work and editing were nigh priceless and I appreciate wire work rather than more lame CGI.
4 of 5. Kind of great.
So I quite enjoyed the film. It dragged a little in the last half of Act 2 (oh, look at me Mr. Educated Film Critic) and they shoved in a clincher at the end that turned Eggsy into exactly the super human who bores me stupid but really I quite enjoyed it. The story is very comic booky but good comic booky (and comes to us from a comic book. What a coincidence) and zero of the characters annoyed me, the plot did not travel through any swamps or toxic waste dumps, and the action was both super fun and reasonably believable. 4 of 5 Phasers.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Farewell Mr. Spock
I’m sure by now you have heard the news regarding the death of Leonard Nimoy yesterday. Most of the nerdosphere heard it within about an hour. I was going to write this last night but honestly needed some time to collect my thoughts and feelings regarding the death of my all time favorite actor.
Readers of this blog back when I did a lot more writing on it and most of my friends will have gleaned that my childhood was not exactly a Norman Rockwell-esque wholesome love and kisses with fireworks on the 4th of July clone of the Wonder Years. My father was an abusive alchoholic rage monster who’s one contribution to my upbringing was a desire to “make me tough” with a Darwin/Nietzsche approach and my mother was so wrapped up in surviving him that she more or less left with zero attention. My so called peers and friends were to a kid hierarchical bullies with me inevitably at the bottom of the pile and my teachers oblivious to the crap I was dealing with. Each day was a miserable struggle with the only the question of whether school, after school, or home would be the most awful.
The one ray of light and hope in that experience was always for me Star Trek. The crew of the Enterprise was the friends I always wanted and Spock was the father I dreamed of having (with Kirk as the fun crazy but loving uncle who took me out to do stuff my mother (Nurse Chapel) would not approve of). When things were at their worst I could tune into any given episode and suddenly cease to feel like I was traveling this universe alone but instead had Sulu and Checkov piloting the ship with Spock as my eyes, Uhura as my mouth, Scotty as my heart, Bones as my immune system, and Kirk as my brain (plus a raft of Red Shirts to protect me from my enemies). For the 50 minutes or so the show was on I ceased to feel despair and loneliness.
It goes deeper than that. In spite of the craptacular example of what a male is from my father I have grown into a man of honor, honesty, integrity, kindness, generosity, temperance, and level logical thought and everything I know about courage, friendship, loyalty, fair dealing, and problem solving I can lay fairly at Gene Roddenberry’s feet. They provided me with an example of what a good human is at a time when I was surrounded by horrible ones and for that I will be eternally grateful. (This might give you an insight into why I am so constantly furious at the JJ Abrams reboot but we’ll save that for another day.) Every one of my current interest, hobbies, business, and all things that shaped me into who I am now stems from Star Trek.
So we come to the death of my dream father Spock and more importantly the wonderful man who played him Leonard Nimoy. I was such a fan of his that I would religiously watch In Search Of just to hear his voice. Many actors have been cast to play Vulcans and they do so to a greater or lesser extent but in general no one has ever matched Leonards ability to play actual unemotional punctuated by emotional bouts. Most people play Vulcans as just coldly angry but Mr. Nimoy managed to transmit his desire for non-emotion while plagued by his human side. Truly there will never be another one like him. For me he was the father/best friend I always wanted and the person Mr. Nimoy was always seemed not far from that ideal.
I admit that when Spock died at the end of the Wrath of Khan I cried like a little girl and even now thinking about it in context of Leonard passing I find myself tearing up. At the time I knew that the crew I grew up with was never going to be as cool and complete as it was in the past and I felt a piece of my childhood that I cherished dying as well. I feel that even more strongly today and am more sorry about Mr. Nimoy passing than any other celebrity I have ever been a fan of. However, I think his very last Tweet to be apropos of my own experience and feelings:
“A life is like a garden, Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.”
Farewell my dear friend.
David Inman
Feb. 28th, 2015
Michael Keaton and Me Part Two: RoboCop
Unlike most of my generation, I didn’t grow up with Robocop in my nostalgia filter. I only saw the original 1987 film for the first time last year, around the same time the remake was coming out, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Joel Kinnaman, Omar from the Wire and Rorschach, plus of course, Michael Keaton. Notice something missing from that amazing cast? There are no women in it. In the original Robocop film, there were two important female leads: Robocop’s partner (who was replaced by Michael K. Williams) and Robocop’s Doctor (replaced by Gary Oldman). I love those actors and the new movie was available on Netflix, so I gave it a shot.
(Robocop Detroit Map T-Shirt from our vast Movie T-Shirt catalog.)
What made the original a classic and the remake suck? It’s certainly not the cast, as Michael Keaton gives a subtle but slimy performance as the corporate bad-guy and the lead, Joel who plays Murphy actually reminds me of a young Michael Bhein more than a young Peter Weller (not a bad thing, either way). If anything, they wasted a perfectly good cast.
The two problems I had with the structure of the remake were evident in the opening of it: there is no protagonist to root for (we meet Sam Jackson’s horrible TV personality first) and instead of focusing on a gang and drug war torn Detroit, we see a stereotypical depiction of war torn Middle East needing the US to save the day. Worst of all sins however is just the new Robocop is boring. It’s shiny plastic PG-13 crap with no blood, no bite and no wit. The Paul Verhoven headed original was an epic blood-caked parable of Christ in a drug apocalypse interwoven with scathing gallows humor and sly satire of commercialism, indoctrination and addiction. The new one had… Black armor and some sloppy, semi-racist talk about police militarization and privatization.
Just watch DREDD for the 1000th time instead.
Michael Keaton and Me Part One: Birdman
I didn’t watch a lot of the movies that were nominated for Academy Awards this year, but I did recently watch Birdman. Was it the Best film I saw this year? Sadly, no. That dubious honor goes to the LEGO Movie. But I’m not a member of the Academy, so what do I know? Birdman was however worthy of praise, and far and away the weirdest movie I saw in the last year.
(Batman T-shirt from our Batman Hoodie collection.)
Michael Keaton, whose Birdman costume was molded from his own body form of over 20 years ago when he played Batman, did not win the Oscar for Best Actor. In fact, none of the nominated cast of Birdman won their respective statues, despite being front-runners and hailed with tons of praise by critic and fans alike. Were they robbed? Yeah, maybe.
Birdman is a funhouse mirror play-within-a-movie about a former blockbuster success star who made superheroes mainstream now a relic of his glory days, slipping ever more into madness and trying to prove he’s more than the gruff voice behind the mask, even if he doesn’t believe it himself. It’s kind of like if David Lynch directed Magnolia, and it was supposed to be a family comedy of errors. It was funny, but less funny ha-ha and more funny-weird. Spoilers: you get to see old Batman beat the sissy slapping crap out of former Incredible Hulk, so that’s great.
50 Ways to Consent
A Valentine’s Day PSA By Jae Gibbs.
Let me get one thing straight: I am not the Fun Police. I am not here to shame or judge anyone for enjoying the things they like. I am not trying to ban any type of books, movies or artistic expression, or tell people what they should or should not spend their money on. I’m just trying to be a good person, a good friend and a good feminist in a crazy, often scary world. I’m trying to be the change I wish to see, with my words, the articles I post, and most of all with my original writing.
When I was a teenager in a small town, I read Ms. Rice’s Erotic Sleeping Beauty books, some of them out loud at the public library in the children’s section (there were no children present at the time, it was making fun of the idea of a Fairy Tale for adults, and of the awful purple prose and Ikea nature of the sex in those books). And I think “50 Shades” is just more of the same bodice-ripper, Harlequin, free on the internet kind of immature “romance” fiction. There’s nothing new under the sun and no stories left untold.
I take issue with female protagonists written by female authors using tropes that de-power and rob agency (especially sexual agency) from supposed “strong female characters (TM)”. I take issue with abuse being mislabeled as romance or sexy. I take issue with bad writing and most of all, with authors not bothering to do any research on a subject as touchy as “alternative lifestyles” and presenting their fantasies as accurate portrayals of said lifestyles. But more than any of those combined, I take issue with censorship. We have the right to like what we like, frivolity, flaws and all.
I ask only that people think about what they are consuming, and maybe ask themselves why they enjoy something that’s controversial or a “guilty pleasure”. And please, don’t try it at home unless you do the research that the author failed to do. (Stephon from SNL “Spicy!” from our funny t shirt collection. Let’s not take ourselves too seriously.)
Know yourself, and know the difference between love and being taken advantage of. Have a safe and happy Valentine’s Day.
Women in Comics: Part One
Fairer Sex Heroes by Jae Gibbs.
Feminism Finally came to Asgard in 2014.
Did you know that the first masked super-heroes were created for and by women? In 1902, Emma Orczy wrote the Scarlet Pimpernel, about a masked vigilante, and in 1936 “The Phantom” was first published in an Australian women’s magazine. If not for women readers, would modern comic books exist? Doubtful, since in the early days of the medium, (1930’s-40’s) more girls read them than boys, regardless of subject matter. And now, studies show that women and girls are buying and reading about half of all comics and graphic novels, more than that if you include sales of Manga.
(The Mighty Thor from our Marvel T-Shirts collection.)
So, when I saw that Marvel’s THOR was going to become a female character, I thought it a ploy, as did many fans and critics. Then I read it. It was really damn good. The writer, Jason Aaron, denied that it was a ploy from on high and said he’d been planning this arc for the two years strong he’d been writing for Thor. Along with outstanding art by Russell Dauterman and colors by Matthew Wilson, the story of Thor Odinson losing his worth to carry the mighty Mjolnir, his arm and his heroic will, while Freya reigns as All-Mother of Asgardia, enchanting the hammer so that it says “If SHE be Worthy” was an amazing story to behold, even if you’re not a fan of super-hero comics or Norse Mythology.
“Hel Yes!” indeed.
Women In Comics: Introduction
“You know what they say about those ‘Fake Geek Girls’ don’t you?”
“Yeah, that they don’t exist.” –Dialog with a vendor at APE 2014.
I started collecting comics when I was about nine years old. Catwoman (DC) and Sam Keith’s the MAXX (Image) were my first loves, (Catwoman “Kitten With a Whip” from our Batman Hoodie collection) but as I grew up I found many more comics and graphic novels to collect, obsess over and love. The argument could be made that I was a geek because I had an older brother who was also a geek. It would be wrong, but it could be made. I went to Magic the Gathering tournaments, played tabletop RPG’s and knew maps in Zelda because of my brother, but I would have found comics all on my own. My tastes in them never matched at near 100% with my big brother’s anyway. Before long, my friends and family stopped giving me Barbie’s and cosmetics and began giving me art supplies and comics. I wasn’t ever just there as a passive spectator: I wanted to contribute.
In this series, I’m going to discuss the female characters represented on the page (in many forms) and the women who work behind the scenes in the comics industry. Some I admire, some I hold in disdain, mostly I just want to write about what I know: Chicks dig comics and these days, sisters are doing it for themselves (and for male fans).
