Ms. Marvel - Issue 12 - Scream-from-the-rooftops Great

By Paul Webb

Every once in a while, a review is published that would seem to just be beating a dead horse. Everyone knows that Patrick Stewart is going to deliver an outstanding performance in whatever he does. Everyone knows what the next Call of Duty game is going to be like.

Ms. Marvel is Scream-from-the-rooftops Great

Sometimes though, you just need to scream it from the rooftops. Sometimes something is so good, that even if you know everyone is going to buy it anyway, you tell them anyway.

Ms. Marvel #12 is that kind of book.

Ms. Marvel has probably been one of the biggest success stories in recent history for Marvel. The mix of a fresh new take on a title, mixed with G. Willow Wilson’s pitch perfect writing of main star Kamala Khan, and Adrian Alphona’s great art, that I would put as some of the best of the past year (when he’s actually on the book).

The first and second story arcs are collected in the first and second trades trade out now. Issue 12 serves as a great jumping on point if you haven’t had a chance to check out the book. The recap page gives you just the info you need to know the character, and the issue is a fun one-off that doesn’t require much, if any knowledge, of the first arc.

A Fun, LOL Comic Book

Loki “Agent of Asgard” Laufeyson has been sent to Jersey City to investigate reports of evil at the Coles Academic High School, which just so happens to be where Kamala goes to school. What follows is one of the most fun, laugh out loud comics I’ve read in a while.

Fill in artist Elmo Bondoc does a serviceable job replacing Alphona for the time being, and continues the Ms. Marvel tradition of fantastic facial expressions. Wilson’s story gives us young love, fights, Asgardian truth elixir, and horse manure: pretty much everything a great comic needs.

Go buy this comic. Not only will you be getting yourself $2.99 of great entertainment, but helping to make sure this comic continues to be published. Plus, you can witness the birth of Loki’s new nickname: Hipster Viking.

Transformers: Windblade Issue 1

Windblade, Issue 1, Stone Cover

It's been a while since I read Transformers, but when I found out about the creative team on Windblade, I immediately picked it up.

Transformers: Windblade features the talents of two creative women, writer Mairghread Scott and artist Sarah Stone.

There are plenty of good interviews to be read in addition to some brouhaha over this female creative team. Suffice it to say, in the opinion of this humble reviewer, Mairghread and Sarah have written and drawn an amazing book, and it's exciting to see these two take on this Transformers story together.

Transformational Robot Art

I've read some Transformers in the past. The thing that gets to me sometimes is that the

The Other Heroes: A Portrayal of Women in Comics - Part 5

Editor’s note: This series of blog posts was adapted from a paper written by Erminia “Minnie” Saucedo. Minnie’s series on this topic will enlighten you on the portrayal of women in comics. We’re excited that she’s shared this with us. Enjoy this enlightening series.

By Erminia Saucedo

The Future of the Super Heroine in Comics

Whether it is in the tales of high flying heroics, the hilarious antics of teens or the swift heart beats of a first love, women have their places in the great place that is the comic universe. As the industry begins to undergo another set of culture changes, so to will the portrayal of female characters in the illustrated

stories. Like in the real world, being women in a world ruled more by men is always difficult at times and there are days when everything looks grim and bleak, but there are always rays of light within those dark days. Many more comic creators have realized the flaws and triumphs of the past and have begun to learn from them, building on their legacies. Writers like Wolfman have seen the abused female character as a passionate being and have created numerous super heroines that do the gender proud by each and every single one being real as well as an individual; there are no cookie cut outs from one female model. On the romance and comedy side, the sixty year run of Archie has finally solved the question of just who Archie would choose, girl next door Betty or rich, pampered Veronica. In an issue released last year, Archie proposed to Veronica, finally having the brunette win over the blonde and causing a gleeful war of whether or not he was right between long time Archie fans; giving the realistic portrayal that sometimes the most unexpected girl wins out in the end. Even controversial issues women deal with today have been brought into the comic book universe because of attention to who the real modern woman is and what she deals with. D.C. Comics has recently revived the characters of Speedy, the arrow wielding side kick of the Green Arrow, and Batwoman, independent off and on partner of Batman, in rather shocking ways that have both been heavily applauded and criticized. Speedy, Mia Dearden, is a seventeen year old girl who the Green Lantern saved from a life of abuse, homelessness, prostitution and drug use who five years ago in Teen Titans #23 came out and revealed that she was

H.I.V. positive due to her past drug use and sex life. She now fights to protect other teens from ever having to go through all the pain she had to endure alone. Batwoman, Kate Kane, is a woman who was dishonorably discharged from her many years in the military due to being “outed” as a lesbian to her commanding officer, falling victim to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. She became an alcoholic because of the pain of losing all she had worked for but cut herself off and stayed sober as she alone took up the cowl when Batman left Gotham City for almost a year during the Infinite Crises war; protecting people and their rights the way her retired general father failed to protect hers. Comic book sales have been wavering for the past ten years and have finally started to become somewhat steady in 2009. As the industry races towards the future that looks as if traditional printed books will be replaced with online releases, things will get interesting for female and male characters alike. Boom or bust, it is going to be a bumpy ride for women in comics, as it always has been. Next time you step into a book store, stop by the comic rack and flit through the new, obscure heroines’ series, you never know just who will become the next big star to burst through the glass-ceiling like world that is Comics.

This concludes The Other Heroes: A Portrayal of Women in Comics series.

Works Cited

Madrid, Mike. Super Heroines: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy & the History Of Comic Book Heroines. United States of America: Exterminating Angel Press, 2009.

“Women in Refrigerators.”  Gail Simone page. Mar. 1999.

<http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/>

Wolfman, Marv. E-mail to author Gail Simone. (Date Unknown)

< http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/c-mwolf.html>

Hilty, Joan. E-mail to author Gail Simone. (Date Unknown)

< http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/c-jhilty.html>

“Gender Violence: A Look at Female Comic Book Characters.” Katherine Broendel blog. Dec. 17, 2009.

<http://blog-aauw.org/2009/12/17/gender-violene-a-look-at-female-comic-book-characters/>

Robbins, Trina. From Girls To Grrrlz: A History of (female gender sign) Comics From Teens to Zines. Hong Kong: Raincoast Books, 1999.

Johns, Geoff. Teen Titans # 23- Lights Out Part 3: Secrets And Lies. United States of America: D.C. Comics Press, 2005.

The Other Heroes: A Portrayal of Women in Comics - Part 4

Editor’s note: This series of blog posts was adapted from a paper written by Erminia “Minnie” Saucedo. Minnie’s series on this topic will enlighten you on the portrayal of women in comics. We’re excited that she’s shared this with us. Enjoy this enlightening series.

By Erminia Saucedo

Girls’ Comics

Comics have always been seen as an entertainment set specifically for boys, even from the creation of

the comic industry in 1938, however a small revolution of comic genres came about four years after the first golden year to change this thought. Although super hero comics were and still are a majority of the comic industry when it started, with each title proudly boasting a male hero, “Girl’s comics” came into existence and were geared towards the female audience. While hero creators attempted to draw women into series and even created a few new female heroes, they were nothing more than over glamorized women that were meant to attract men and, to a lesser extent, please women. Women, very obviously, were not interested in comics of that nature and shunned the industry for the most part until the tides turned in the year 1941. Comic creators had finally found the key ingredient for a “girl’s comic”: a wholesome self image and realistically relatable characters. In December of 1941 the Archie series was released from MJL Publications and was the first comic ever to be geared specifically for women as it featured romance and comedy at the heart of its stories. It flew from the stands quickly as girls between the ages of six and thirteen found female characters they could finally relate to in Betty and Veronica, two girls who were both rivals and friends vying for the heart of Archie’s title character Archie.

Years passed, and female fans of Archie’s Girls: Betty and Veronica, a spin off comic made to feature the pair and their romantic antics specifically, was joined by many, many different titles that found and used the key of the wholesome self image and relatable characters. Some of those titles were Patsy Walker, Taffy, My Girl Pearl and Candy, among a seemingly limitless list of others. Each more or less

about a girl who was in high school and being the typical American teen, shyly fawning over the hunky star quarterback, hanging out with friends and being the spunky good daughter. However there were a few titles like Sunny that completely missed the key ingredient mark and centered on a girl who flunked classes, flirted often and wore spiked heels and low cut, cleavage flashing tops to school. Trina Robbins, author of From Girls to Grrlz, points out, “Unlike many of the other curvy comic book teen queens, Taffy and her toothy friend Putty were…skinny thirteen year olds. The girls were no glamourpusses, but they were adorable…Like many of the other teen titles [another name for “girl’s comics”], Taffy included some stories about real movie stars, pop singers and other teen faves…On the other hand, Sunny, published that same year by Fox Comics and subtitled “America’s Sweetheart”, was the school tramp.” Robbins parallels the series of Taffy and Sunny in order to get a point across; it was and is all about image. Readers could relate a lot more to Taffy than they could Sunny.  Taffy was a normal ditzy girl who dressed just like the everyday girls of the forties while Sunny dressed like the loose floozy everyone talked about behind the gymnasium, which determined which series had the bigger fan base and it was easily Taffy. Sunny lasted only a year due to her poor image where as Taffy lasted for a long while. The creators of Taffy made sure to pay attention to who the modern teenage girls were, what they were interested in and found that not every girl was the same, each was special, giving them the upper hand to create stories that portrayed women and girls in the closest form compared to the real thing. While many of these “Girl’s comics” ended their runs long, long ago, they paved the way for  market to create romance, comedy and high school comics; all of which to this day have steady female consumer bases. Compared to the gritty hero side of the comic world that in a lot of ways does wrong to the female character, “Girl’s comics” have the foul-proof recipe for the realistic woman: Relation, Attention, Detail and Specialty. With this in hand, the comic world will always have a section ruled by the fairer sex for once. (From Girls to Grrlz)

The next, and last, post in this series wraps up our Super Heroines discussion.

The Other Heroes: A Portrayal of Women in Comics - Part 3

Editor’s note: This series of blog posts was adapted from a paper written by Erminia “Minnie” Saucedo. Minnie’s series on this topic will enlighten you on the portrayal of women in comics. We’re excited that she’s shared this with us. Enjoy this enlightening series.

By Erminia Saucedo

Gender Violence and Sexual Imagery

Another side of the comic book spectrum that paints an odd portrayal of heroines is gender violence and the overuse of sexual imagery with women. Amateur writer and blogger Katherine Broendel brings up the fan favorite classic and original graphic novel Watchmen, a comic about a team of heroes set in an alternate history earth during the 40’s and 60’s, in an entry on her online blog. She explains the

Silk Spectre

attempted rape scene between heroes Comedian and Silk Spectre, teammates on the hero force The Watchmen, as an example for gender violence. In the scene Comedian justifies his actions by saying, “C’mon, Baby. I know what you need. You gotta have some reason for wearin’ an outfit like this, huh?” A statement thrown at Silk Spectre about her crime fighting outfit, which was a short yellow and black dress combined with black leather gloves and black garter connected pantyhose that segued into black heeled boots. They fight and he beats his teammate, rather easily, to the floor then the scene is interrupted by Night Owl, another member of The Watchmen, who immediately stops the attack on the woman. While Night Owl helps the beaten and bloodied Silk Spectre he says, “Get up…and, for God’s sake, cover yourself.” Even though she was the one who was victimized by someone who was supposed to be her partner, Night Owl blames Silk Spectre for her clothing instead, leaving the feeling that while Comedian was being an utterly terrible person, he was only reacting like a man. Broendel writes, “While the sequence does not glamorize rape, it does contain victim-blaming language…This [Night Owl’s actions] solidifies the victim-blaming justification used earlier [by Comedian] and reinforces the notion that, even though she’s a crime fighter, she can still be degraded, overpowered and controlled by men. ” So even though Silk Spectre is strong and has kept up with her male teammates during all their endeavors, her strength as a hero as well as her pride as a woman is taken away in a quick moment simply because of her outfit. The pain she feels from her attack is even intensified when she is blamed for it; a harsh yet factual example of gender violence in the real world as well as the illustrated world of ”heroic” men and women.

The next post in this series discusses Girls’ Comics.

The Other Heroes: A Portrayal of Women in Comics - Part 2

Editor’s note: This series of blog posts was adapted from a paper written by Erminia “Minnie” Saucedo. Minnie’s series on this topic will enlighten you on the portrayal of women in comics. We’re excited that she’s shared this with us. Enjoy this enlightening series.

By Erminia Saucedo

Women in Refrigerators Syndrome

While a writer limiting a female heroes’ potential is a problem that has continued for generations, super heroines now have another modern writer created terror to fear: Women in Refrigerators syndrome.

Panel from Green Lantern #54

Women in Refrigerators, a term first used by comic writer and lasting comic enthusiast Gail Simone in 1999, is a throw back reference to an early issue of The Green Lantern. In Green Lantern #54, written then by Ron Marz, the Green Lantern of the time, Kyle Rayner, returns to his apartment to find that his girlfriend, Alex DeWitt, had been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed into his kitchen refrigerator; “Women in Refrigerators” was quite literally inspired by a murdered woman in a refrigerator. Simone used this term to describe the harsh condition of being a comic book super heroine, which many times means being either killed, raped, depowered, turned evil or having some other terrible life altering event happen that makes it less likely for a female character to bounce back. She started a website in March of 1999, which she named after her new term, that hosts an A to Z list complied by Simone herself of super heroines that have fallen victim to Women in Refrigerators syndrome. From the first Aquagirl, Tula, who was killed by drowning in poisonous waters while trying to protect the underwater city of Atlantis to even the second Wonder Woman, Donna, who has been killed, revived and has now ultimately lost her goddess powers. A character that stands out due to being an over all amazing character and a victim of both limited written potential and Women in Refrigerator syndrome is Barbara Gordon, the second Batgirl. She is paralyzed from the waist down after a battle and rather than asking the scientists of Wayne Enterprises to find some way to fix her injury with science, Gordon backs away from preventing crime without a fight and becomes the wheel-chair bound Oracle instead. Batman, on the other hand, breaks his back later in a story titled Knightfall and recovers with some training and is soon back to fighting crime on the dark streets of Gotham City. The only things that separated these two heroes was their written potential and had the writers given Barbra a fighting chance, as she was always written strongly in the series, she could have avoided being infected with Women in Refrigerators syndrome and could even still be a fierce working hero today, though, admittedly, her work as Oracle has been phenomenal.

 Barbara Gordon, Batgirl

Simone’s list has, for years, been reference for many comic book fans as well as feminist researchers, enough so that the buzz her now online famous list has attracted has caused other officials in her industry to write letters responding to her compilation of super heroines infected with the syndrome, putting in their own thoughts on the topic of Women in Refrigerators syndrome and how it has continued to take place. A few of the letters, posted on the list’s website had been sent to Simone in accordance to her list and term have been from writer Marv Wolfman, who was half of the imaginative team that created many powerful heroines in The Teen Titans, and D.C. Comics editor Joan Hilty. Wolfman wrote, “I think the wholesale slaughter is because there’s a lot of writers who think all major character motivation is made by killing folk and women characters are easier to kill than male characters because so few of them are major heroes on their own…The reason for that is, I fear, that most boys want to read stories about big muscled guy heroes showing off than a gal hero.” He makes a good point and he brings up character motivation, he is giving the explanation of Women in Refrigerators syndrome as being a cultural action rather than personal; he later says that acknowledging this does not condone it, but merely explains why it could be done.

Women are seen to be more emotional and expressive of those emotions, so to kill off a female hero or character could act as a strategy to elicit a reader response; however, the sad down side to this is that writers kill many characters that were still “young” and had the potential to possibly become their own major heroes. Some have tried to argue that male heroes have been killed or maimed too, however Hilty takes a drastic stand in response against those who state that logic. She wrote, “ The response that ‘male characters get killed too’ is completely disingenuous…It’s not how often it is done, it’s HOW it’s done and TO WHOM certain things are done. The sexually violent visual language of how these women get killed is remarkably consistent. Really, the larger reality is that American mainstream comics, built by guys for guys on the crumbling foundations of super hero fantasy, remain intensely hostile to women, consciously and subconsciously.” She takes the position that Women in Refrigerators syndrome is a conscious and almost personal action against heroines and women in the realm of male run universe of heroes; it’s the industry that allows this to happen. So it is still culture, but in a more personal form. It is true that many writers are male, making it easier to write characters and stories for men by men, giving the comic world an almost sexist take on their treatment of women. Drawing from Hilty’s own views, most men were raised to either see themselves as the better sex or to be better than women in some way, making them uncomfortable and insecure about a woman besting them in some form or another, so why should super heroes, and the men who write them, be any different? Taking a heroine who could grow too strong out of the equation would leave more for the hero to take: the sympathy for losing a comrade, gaining the “will to go on” factor and then more room for his own story arc. Whether it is personal or unconscious, culture is easily a big part of the treatment and portrayal of female comic characters.

The next post in this series discusses Gender Violence and Sexual Imagery.

The Other Heroes: A Portrayal of Women in Comics - Part 1

Editor’s note: This series of blog posts was adapted from a paper written by Erminia “Minnie” Saucedo. Minnie’s series on this topic will enlighten you on the portrayal of women in comics. We’re excited that she’s shared this with us.

By Erminia Saucedo

Of Men and Girls

Savin' the Day by Jen Monson
(c) 2014 Jen Monson

“It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…Superman!!” Ever since my early childhood years, since the day I first heard this everlasting cry, comic books and the memorable heroes within their pages have been in my life; an obsession passed to me from my father. My fascination with the super powered began with his old comic collection that had consisted of Spider-man, Batman, The Hulk, Iron Man and scattered issues of independent titles. As I grew, I began buying and collecting series of my own. Soon I began to see a bit of a trend in my beloved illustrated stories of might: the girls were almost always secondary characters. Though the heroines in Harley Quinn-esque romance comics ruled their stories, super heroines were in a limited supply when it came to having their own legacies. For this paper I will set out to understand the portrayal of female characters in comic books, looking back to comic history and connecting it to our own modern day issues and that may reflect or deflect the image of the modern woman.

Supergirl Tooned by Jen Monson
(c) 2014 Jen Monson

In the Prologue (Goddesses of Tomorrow) of Super Heroines: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy & The History of Comic Book Heroines author Mike Madrid recalls his first comic book, Superman #95, and its storyline “The Fury of the Kryptonian Killer!”. His young eyes surveyed the cover on which a Superman weakened by deadly Green Kyrptonite sits on his knees in pain; however it was the pretty blonde wearing a costume like Superman’s on the far side of the page that actually caught his six-year-old attention. She, he would later learn from his older sister, was Supergirl. Madrid wrote, “She could fly and was incredibly strong, and I could tell from the way she was drawn that she was brave and noble…Although I wasn’t sure exactly what her relationship to Superman was, I could tell she was somehow considered inferior. And I couldn’t understand why.” What Madrid unknowingly stumbled upon at the time was the sort of hypocritical creation that was Supergirl’s potential as a hero. In America we are told we can become whatever we wanted, so with that in mind American comic book writers turned and used that same vein for their heroes: raising seemingly ordinary people to a kind and just god-like status. While male heroes were written to reach, fulfill and sometimes even surpass their potential, female heroes were not often given that role as they had to settle for lesser powers than those of their fellow heroes of the opposite sex. Perhaps this is why writers, who have always been a majority of men, created more “men” in the comic book universes: Spider-man, Superman, Iron Man, Batman. Wonder Woman aside, the heroines did not and do not have many “women” but rather a large number of “girls”: Supergirl, Powergirl, Batgirl, Invisiblegirl. With today’s titles, Wonder Woman is still barely followed by a small handful of “women”, she is surrounded by more “girls”; now even her own sidekick, Cassandra Sandsmark, Wonder Woman’s Wonder Girl.  Writers limited heroines’ potential by dubbing them “girls”, already marking them to be lesser to the “men” they fought beside. They separated the “girls” from legendary status before the “girls” ever had a chance.

The next post in this series discusses Women in Refrigerators Syndrome.