Page One...

That's how far into this year's issue of All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder I got before I found something that When Fangirls Attack will be bitching complaining talking about for the next week or so. (sorry to beg, again, but does someone have a scan? Thank you, Sleestak. May Haley Mills fill all your dreams!)


It's Frank Miller's Wonder Woman, angry at "Man's World," angry at "Man's Dreams", angry at "Man" and yelling at "Sperm Banks" to get out of her way.

And it just does NOT let up! She wants to kill Batman. She wants the Justice League to kill Batman. She wants to take over the world. And she is angry! ANG! REE!

But, SURPRISE! All she really wants is a good humping from Superman!


I mean, WOW!

Frank Miller is either brilliant or insane and I'm not sure I care. It's just so... so so AWFUL that it has gone around to becoming spectacularly entertaining, then terrible again, than ridiculously entertaining again!

It's obviously an enormous practical joke at this point, right? Since the rest of the issue is just Batman running around, thinking about how awesome it is to be, and I quote, "the goddamn Batman," Alfred hitting the gym, and Dick Grayson picking up an axe. And that's it! That's what we've been waiting a full year for! Andy Kaufman, in his prime, couldn't have figured out a more surreal product to unleash on the market.

I get the people who are offended by this book. I understand the people who are amused by it ironically. But is there someone, and I mean anyone, out there who loves this book AND takes it at face value? Is there really a reader who digs on Wonder Woman hating the Patriarchy, Superman blindly following orders, and Batman being a sadistic psychopath?

And is Frank Miller playing to that reader, or pissing in their soup?

And how weird is it that DC releases this absurd collection of adolescent male fantasies on the same day it releases The Plain Janes, their first book specifically aimed at teenage girls? And the same day they release Batman #665, which, with its hard-boiled narration, hookers with hearts of gold, uber-corrupt monster cops, and Andy Kubert's Jim Lee-esque art, reads like a knowing parody of All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, like Grant Morrison's trying desperately to out-Miller Miller, which, apparently, he just can't?

Because, let's face it, you cannot out-crazy crazy. You can't reason with it either. You can only try to contain it.

p.s. In the name of total honesty, I didn't actually buy All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, I skimmed it in the store. No, I saved my money to buy Satan's $@#%* Baby.

God help me.

"Quick, Eat the Children"

So Hippolyta turns to her top generals and says, "We're going to march on Washington D.C., slaughter their leaders, destroy their monuments, and kill one little boy."

There's some muddled confusion so Nubia steps up and asks "Why one little boy?"

And Hippolyta turns to Wonder Woman and says, "See, I told you no cares about Washington!"


Okay, so anyone who knows the original version of that joke knows I just did a bad, bad thing, but the point remains: no reader cares when they see Amazons blow up the capital building (which is certainly full of people) or invade the Mall by the tens of thousands. But kill one little child right in front of the reader, and everyone decries the violence present in Amazons Attack.

Or to put it another way, one dead child is a tragedy. One thousand dead children are a statistic.

I honestly don't get you people, sometimes. The ones that don't think such violence belongs in superhero comics. To me, that's just unfathomable. Superheroes use violence to protect people from extraordinary, fantastic threats. Those threats themselves have to be horrible. An army that has no mercy for children? There's a word for that... what is it? what is it?

Oh, I remember, "Bad Guys."

NEWSFLASH: The Amazons are the BAD GUYS of Amazons Attack. That's in case you didn't get it from the F*&^ING TITLE!

Within the first four pages, Will Pfeifer and Pete Woods establish the threat as a large, superpowered army that kills everyone they come across. We know what the Justice League is up against and why it NEEDS to stop them, immediately. That's called good writing.

And as for those who think that it's out of character for Amazons to be so warlike, all I have to say is, "ARE YOU HIGH?" The only consistent part of the myth of the Amazons is that they are a tribe of Warrior Women. Think Xena. Think the "Amazons" in Y, the Last Man.* Even if we limit it to DC Amazons, this was a tribe last seen pulling out the "Purple Death Ray" against a horde of invading OMACs. They do nothing but fight or train to fight! And considering they learned their combat strategy and tactics three thousand years before the Geneva Conventions, they're probably not taking many prisoners.

But maybe you just don't want to deal with the consequences of large scale violence on a personal level, or maybe you just don't want to think about children dying. I almost understand that, I guess. I suggest you read something more all ages appropriate, like Jeff Smith's Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil. Nothing bad happens to children there...

What?
Oh Dear!


*See, I do read non-superhero comics.

For Kaitlin...

... who bought me Bone, who had a bad day, and just because:

Wonder Woman and kittens:



via Yet Another Comics Blog

Who the Hades is Wonder Woman?

I just don't get Wonder Woman. I don't understand her character. I don't get her appeal.

I get Superman. I get Batman. I get Catwoman, Batgirl, Black Canary, Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Supergirl, Power Girl, Big Barda, Manhunter. I understand these characters. I understand what attracts me to these characters (or other fans to these characters). I feel that I have a good idea of what they would and would not do, say and would not say.

But Wonder Woman? Clueless.

Which is to say, I have no idea how to write her, what her reactions to the world are. How would she react to criminal, a dictator, a monster, a killer, in a way that is noticeably different from Superman, or Batman, or any other member of the Justice League?

Even the usually awesome Justice League cartoon couldn't quite get a handle on her, as her character slides from naive teenager in season one (worrying what she is going to say to her mother after running away from home) to angry warrior woman in the first season of Justice League Unlimited to Ambassador and inspirational Leader in the last season.

Who is this woman?

I understand her appeal as an icon, a symbol of women's power. I understand the appeal of a wonder woman, a being who steps out of myths in the "real" world, bringing a era of gods and monsters with her.

But who IS Diana, clay golem, Amazon princess, ambassador for peace, warrior for Justice? What does she like? What does she fear? What amuses her? What angers her? Gods, I don't even know her favorite cookie!

I've heard this complaint before, and people have said the problem is that Wonder Woman doesn't have a civilian identity, a place she can go to be human (arguably, this is what the new Wonder Woman series is about, but it's hard to tell). But I call shenanigans on that! There are plenty of superheroes with negligible civilian identities, but that doesn't mean they lack character!

Take the late Superboy. From 1993 to 1998, he had no name other than Superboy! A clone of Superman, a superhero literally since conception, no part of his background has anything civilian or human to it... but that didn't mean his character couldn't be defined, or his strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and tragedies couldn't be relatable.

Similarly, J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, is a shape shifting telepath, FROM MARS, who witnessed the death of his entire planet. We shouldn't come close to understanding him, but we do. We understand his loss, his alienation, his anger, his wry humor, his love for Chocos.

So what the hell is wrong with Wonder Woman? Why can't I know her, why can't I get her? Is there just too much there? Too many writers over too many years imposing their unique visions of a strong woman onto one character, until the original is lost? What is her core, her essence? What the heck is going on?

Quick Question

Anyone else read the news that The O.C. was cancelled and think, "Oh, good. Maybe Wonder Woman #5 will actually publish in 2007"?

Ah, So THAT'S What It's For

The bare midriff is an interesting fashion. As a heterosexual male with ZERO fashion sense, all I can say is, that's kind of a hot look, on girls who have a body that can pull it off.

What it doesn't have is a lot of authority. Which is fine if you're talking about someone like Supergirl, but probably wouldn't fly on someone like Wonder Woman, for example.

So it was sort of surprise that Terry Dodson, in redesigning Wonder Woman's foes for her new series, would put a human looking Cheetah, a.k.a. Dr. Barbara Minerva in a midriff baring halter-top, especially since he took Giganta, a.k.a. Professor Zuel, out of her fur bikini and into a more sensible jumpsuit. Even if clothes are a step-up from her usual nakedness, an exposed belly button doesn't exactly strike terror into the hearts of your enemies, so the design didn't make sense to me.

Until she first transforms into her Cheetah form:



Suddenly the exposed midriff seemed clever... necessary even!



Because the midriff allows her tail to stick out the back without making a hole in her costume.

Big Pile of Awesome

Damn you people! I'm buying more and more comics because you keep recommending them, including Action Philosophers and Batman and the Mad Monk.

'Course, I couldn't read The Mad Monk without first reading Batman and the Monster Men, which just so happened to come out in a trade today, so I bought that too.

All in all, I bought 10 books this week, including the trade, and half of them I would never have picked up had I not started to seriously read comics blog.

I hope you're happy...

'cause I certainly am!

I have rarely had as high an enjoyment to total ratio as I did today.

The comic I enjoyed the least was Blue Beetle which still isn't living up to its very high potential, and even that was a lot of fun. (Though John Rogers, if you're somehow reading this, pick up the goddamn pace and chain Cully Hamner to a desk).

There's too many to review them all now, so I'll just hit one moment each that stood out.

Blue Beetle: The Phantom Stranger. Just seeing that guy's great.

Astonishing X-Men: Shadowcat-Fu.

Fell: Good old fashioned detective work

Wonder Woman: Twirling. Mother fucking twirling.

Justice League of America: The A.I. grapevine.

Action Philosophers: The Wandering Jew, which may be my next Halloween costume.

Batman and the Monster Men: The shadowy man training on the rings.

Batman and the Mad Monk: Good old fashioned Catwoman.

Batman: Andy Kubert cheeky use of Pop Art and a guest appearance by Sgt. Rock.

52: Montoya's prayer.

Yes, that is in ascending order of enjoyment. 52 was HANDS DOWN the best comic this week, with Joe Bennett bringing his A game to the art to support the head-on collision of two of the major plots, a genuinely tense sequence playing on both mystical fantasy and all-too-real violence, Talky Tawny and Uncle Dudley!!!, Black Adam getting nervous, The Question's role as a step ladder, the pay-off for the rat poison, and what a Marvel wedding looks like, the issue was great.

But what made it truly excellent was Renee Montoya's prayer. A lot has been said about her being a lesbian. Some people remember she's Hispanic (Dominican, to be exact). She's also a former cop and current alcoholic and, when it comes down to it, one of the baddest asses in Gotham.

But she's also Catholic, and her religion is very important to her. It's one of the reasons why she stayed in the closet. It is both a source of strength and of crippling guilt. And the juxtaposition of the Marvel Family wedding, where multiple gods are called upon to throw lightning around super beings flying through the air, and Montoya's quiet prayer to the mother of Jesus in the moment of her greatest need for personal strength, was genuinely moving.

So, what'd you think?

A PREVIEW OF ALL STAR WONDER WOMAN

All I can say of Adam Hughes:



He's got a sense of humor.

(Hey, Ragnell fans! If you liked this post, check out some of my other posts helpfully catalogued along the sidebar!)

She Wanted Out

Some people think Wonder Woman is a lesbian, just because she grew up on an island of only women. And is really strong and tough and ready to fight. And used to shout out "Suffering Sappho" when surprised.

But I don't. Oh, I'm sure she dabbled a bit in college (or the Academy as she probably called it). But look at how quick she was to get off her island, where she was a princess and had her pick of any of the immortal and impossibly beautiful Amazons that surrounded her, the moment, the second, a man washed up on her shore.

Ironically, considering that she herself was sculpted, not born, Diana was the only breeder on the island. And the thing she craved more than anything was something her sisters just didn't have to give her. Something she could only find in Man's World.

Superheroes and Politics

I think superheroes should be more openly political.



Like my man GA Superman did, I want them to deal with real issues and nitty gritty problems, using fantastic powers and extra-legal means to achieve real ends.

Now, this doesn't mean I want them to have my politics. I don't need to be flattered by having Green Arrow be right all the time. I love issues where Captain Atom's conservative, pro-government stance is the correct one, or The Question's terrifying Objectivist libertarianism sounds almost convincing.

And I don't want them talking politics all the time. I came to see them hit stuff. But instead of alien slave masters, how about smacking around a sweatshop owner, or a drug dealer.

I want to see them dealing with "real world issues" is because they seem oddly detatched otherwise, particularly modern Clark Kent. The guy works for a major metropolitan newspaper and his wife is a feminist icon, in the real world and the fictional one. So the fact that he doesn't seem to have a political philosophy, let alone belong to a political party, strikes me as rather naïve.

Couldn't Batman do more to bring down the crime rate as Billionaire Bruce Wayne than a phantom of the night? And Wonder Woman's supposed to be an ambassador who seems to have no interest in international relations.

The big punch outs against mad gods and sinister secret societies are fun, and they should remain the focus of the plots. But the characters should, at least in their off time, have some interaction with the problems of the real world. Otherwise they really do look like children fighting amongst themselves while the grown-ups do all the work.