When Comic Love Goes From Whoa! to Woe
Sep. 28th, 2011 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saoneHere's a great article on why so many people are having issues with certain DCnU's books - A Response from a Female Comic Book Fan
This, especially, kind of hits the nail on the head for me - I’m a grown woman. I have sex. I have no problem with sex. I have no time for “slut shaming,” and I certainly don’t care who other women sleep with. It’s my personal choice an adult woman who I sleep with, and it’s every other adult woman’s personal choice as well. Not my business, and not anyone else’s either.
But what a lot of the commenters on Red Hood and the Outlaws seem to be forgetting is that Starfire is not a real person who made the choice to have lots of anonymous sex on her own. She is not a “sexually liberated woman.” She’s a character, who was written by a person – specifically, a man. Starfire’s preening in a bikini and talking about how she wants to have sex with people whose names she won’t even remember is not about celebrating the sexually-liberated woman of the Twenty-First Century, throwing off the shackles of male oppression. It’s about giving men the chance to fantasize about having a hot chick with big boobs want to do them without any consequences.
Ding, ding, ding. Thank you.
I haven't really weighed on the whole DCnU thing because I decided I was going to wait until the books were out, but, after last week's whole debacle over Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws (not to mention the thin-ification of Amanda Waller and the girlfriend-ification of Power Girl), I've made up my mind.
Like the author, I grew up on the cartoons/toy lines of the 80's/90's, and while She-Ra was the bomb to my nine year old self the shows I truly loved were Fox's X-Men and the various Batman series. When those shows ended I was upset because it seemed like good cartoons died with them. When I was around 19/20 a friend said since I liked those characters so much that maybe I should start following their adventures in comic form.
One day he brought a huge stack of X-Men and Savage Dragon over to my house and, I'm not proud to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon completely ignoring him as I obsessively poured over every single issue he had.
That's it; I was hooked.
The closest comic shop was about an hour away, but I made the trip at least twice a month. I started out with Marvel, then quickly transitioned over to DC. Nightwing became my favorite book, followed closely by Tim Drake's Robin.
Slowly but surely my interest in Marvel waned and tapered off, and I began picking up more and more DC books. I adored the original Young Justice team, and Birds of Prey (I do have a certain soft spot for Huntress, as you can see from my default icon).
I was a DC girl, and I was happy, for the most part. There were always decisions made by editors or writers that I didn't agree with (some I out and out hated), but I never let those things bring me down too far because the rest of the universe was still awesome. There was still all this wonderful history and mythology there. There were still all these wonderful characters - strong men and women with intriguing personalities.
For me, the DC universe as a whole made up for any misgivings I might have towards individual decisions.
When I heard about the relaunch I admit my first reaction was 'what am I supposed to read now.' I knew that DC could pull if off, but I had very little faith that they could pull it off well. The more I read, the worse I felt (No more Power Girl, Secret Six, or Robin books?! What do you mean, Barbara's going to be Batgirl?! What about Steph, or Bab's place with the Birds?!), but I decided to try and keep an open mind. Comic fans can be adaptable. And it wouldn't all be bad. Dick Grayson was going to be back as Nightwing, Virgil Hawkins was getting his own series, and... you know... other good things.
It would be fine.
Except it's not. Not really.
For every one thing that sounds or looks cool there are ten other things than make me cringe. I know that DC did the relaunch to try to attract new readers, but, as someone who's been giving her money to their company for well over ten years I'm feeling left out.
No, worse that that, I'm feeling apathetic. I find myself not caring about characters that I had so recently loved.
I'm not saying I'm never going to buy another DC book - there's always my unending love for Dick Grayson, and I still have a little hope for the Huntress mini that's coming out next week - I'm just saying that in August every book in my pull box was from DC, and in September there was just one.
And maybe things will get better - personally, I'm holding out hope that this will end up being a pocket universe a la Heroes Reborn, and everything will go back to normal in a year or so - but you only get one chance to make a first impression, and my first impression is that I'm going to head back to Marvel, or maybe visit Dark Horse for a while.
Some other really good links along the same vein of the above article:
A 7-year-old girl responds to DC Comics’ sexed-up reboot of Starfire
Shortpacked does the math for DC
And now here are a couple links of awesomeness:
Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor
Fuck Yeah Warrior Women
This, especially, kind of hits the nail on the head for me - I’m a grown woman. I have sex. I have no problem with sex. I have no time for “slut shaming,” and I certainly don’t care who other women sleep with. It’s my personal choice an adult woman who I sleep with, and it’s every other adult woman’s personal choice as well. Not my business, and not anyone else’s either.
But what a lot of the commenters on Red Hood and the Outlaws seem to be forgetting is that Starfire is not a real person who made the choice to have lots of anonymous sex on her own. She is not a “sexually liberated woman.” She’s a character, who was written by a person – specifically, a man. Starfire’s preening in a bikini and talking about how she wants to have sex with people whose names she won’t even remember is not about celebrating the sexually-liberated woman of the Twenty-First Century, throwing off the shackles of male oppression. It’s about giving men the chance to fantasize about having a hot chick with big boobs want to do them without any consequences.
Ding, ding, ding. Thank you.
I haven't really weighed on the whole DCnU thing because I decided I was going to wait until the books were out, but, after last week's whole debacle over Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws (not to mention the thin-ification of Amanda Waller and the girlfriend-ification of Power Girl), I've made up my mind.
Like the author, I grew up on the cartoons/toy lines of the 80's/90's, and while She-Ra was the bomb to my nine year old self the shows I truly loved were Fox's X-Men and the various Batman series. When those shows ended I was upset because it seemed like good cartoons died with them. When I was around 19/20 a friend said since I liked those characters so much that maybe I should start following their adventures in comic form.
One day he brought a huge stack of X-Men and Savage Dragon over to my house and, I'm not proud to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon completely ignoring him as I obsessively poured over every single issue he had.
That's it; I was hooked.
The closest comic shop was about an hour away, but I made the trip at least twice a month. I started out with Marvel, then quickly transitioned over to DC. Nightwing became my favorite book, followed closely by Tim Drake's Robin.
Slowly but surely my interest in Marvel waned and tapered off, and I began picking up more and more DC books. I adored the original Young Justice team, and Birds of Prey (I do have a certain soft spot for Huntress, as you can see from my default icon).
I was a DC girl, and I was happy, for the most part. There were always decisions made by editors or writers that I didn't agree with (some I out and out hated), but I never let those things bring me down too far because the rest of the universe was still awesome. There was still all this wonderful history and mythology there. There were still all these wonderful characters - strong men and women with intriguing personalities.
For me, the DC universe as a whole made up for any misgivings I might have towards individual decisions.
When I heard about the relaunch I admit my first reaction was 'what am I supposed to read now.' I knew that DC could pull if off, but I had very little faith that they could pull it off well. The more I read, the worse I felt (No more Power Girl, Secret Six, or Robin books?! What do you mean, Barbara's going to be Batgirl?! What about Steph, or Bab's place with the Birds?!), but I decided to try and keep an open mind. Comic fans can be adaptable. And it wouldn't all be bad. Dick Grayson was going to be back as Nightwing, Virgil Hawkins was getting his own series, and... you know... other good things.
It would be fine.
Except it's not. Not really.
For every one thing that sounds or looks cool there are ten other things than make me cringe. I know that DC did the relaunch to try to attract new readers, but, as someone who's been giving her money to their company for well over ten years I'm feeling left out.
No, worse that that, I'm feeling apathetic. I find myself not caring about characters that I had so recently loved.
I'm not saying I'm never going to buy another DC book - there's always my unending love for Dick Grayson, and I still have a little hope for the Huntress mini that's coming out next week - I'm just saying that in August every book in my pull box was from DC, and in September there was just one.
And maybe things will get better - personally, I'm holding out hope that this will end up being a pocket universe a la Heroes Reborn, and everything will go back to normal in a year or so - but you only get one chance to make a first impression, and my first impression is that I'm going to head back to Marvel, or maybe visit Dark Horse for a while.
Some other really good links along the same vein of the above article:
A 7-year-old girl responds to DC Comics’ sexed-up reboot of Starfire
Shortpacked does the math for DC
And now here are a couple links of awesomeness:
Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor
Fuck Yeah Warrior Women