Featuring spoilers for comics that are 2 (3?) weeks old. Namely, Superman #689, Teen Titans #72, Gotham City Sirens #1 and Detective Comics #854.
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Detective Comics #854
Batwoman! Na na na na na na na na na na Bat(wo)man!
Shortly to be reprinted with much prettier art. The shame.
Anyhows, we’ve already seen the first few pages in previews, so we know Kate is all sultry and sexy to the criminal. Now I’ve only come across her in 52 before but this characterisation seemed off to me. And somewhat off given that she’s gay. Now, I’d understand Catwoman being all sultry, or Dinah (in a different manner) but I’ve yet to come across a lesbian who flirts with the mens like Kate has been doing. Someone who’s bi (Poison Ivy), yeah, but not Kate, and anyway she didn’t seem all that sexual in her other scenes.
Mayhap I’m being prejudiced. Maybe she’s putting on a personae a la Bruce or Clark. Either way, it wasn’t enough to make me dislike the book. I’m mostly making a big deal out of it because Sam commented on the lack of criticism in the blogosphere.
The layout in this book is great. The art will grow on me I’m sure - right now I’m not sure about the colours.
Good things: Kate proves her detectivey skills by knowing more than Batman does. Yay, it’s good to see a Bats that isn’t all knowing. We get to see her working out. I don’t know why this pleases me so much but it does. We see her with her lover, calling her out on the late nights. I like the villain, Alice.
Bad things: I hate Kate’s short hair. I hate her tattoos, I hate her makeup. I hate her clothes. I preferred the high femme Kate from 52.
It’s a half decent opening issue and I did come away from it so excited, but to be honest I think most of that is because she’s a lesbian wearing the bat symbol. Leading the book. That is rather important to me. And yes, right now it's tokenistic, but I have faith that Rucka will make it less tokenistic and then she'll be just another person fighting crime.
Of course there was also the Question backup. As much as I love the idea of Kate I love Renee more. Butch wonder. She’s down to earth, confident, capable and tough. Gods, I’ve spent years wondering where the confident chicks in popular culture were, I shoulda picked up comics earlier.
Good things: The Monty Python and the Holy Grail joke. The art. The fact that it’s Renee and she kicks ass.
Bad things: I preferred her long hair. The fact that her hair mysteriously changes colours from brown/black to blonde. Umm what? The first story arc is about forced prostitution/porn films/rape.
Gotham City Sirens #1
My winner of last week. :) Oh so the cover is completely cheesecakey but it is called Sirens after all. The art inside is gorgeous. Ivy, Selina and Harley rock, the story is fun, (a much better set up issue than Detective Comics, but then again, here we know all about the characters), Zatanna’s cameo was amusing and Harley got her hammer.
Loved it. :)
Teen Titans #72
Titled Girl Fight, this was certainly a women centred issue. Sort of.
It opens with Eddie and Static (who I recently learned is a Milstone character nto a mainstream DCU one) playing console games. Jaime gets agitated and his scarab fires up ready to shoot the others, haw.
Jaime spends a lot of this issue checking out the lady titans and getting really embarrassed. Bombshell and Megan discuss clothes then they all (except for Cassie) go out for food and dancing. Basically they are acting like real teenagers and this ex teenager approves.
Cass meanwhile is doing the rounds checking up on the prison and then gets into a fight, and then the Calculator turns up. I hate the Calculator, enough of the freakin’ Calculator.
*sigh* I bet this bleedin storyline will carry on and on and on.
The backup feature is Ravager. Woot yeah Rose! She seriously needs to dejunkify herself.
Superman #689
This month’s cover is not so good. Mon looks altogether odd. Almost Spock like, no?
In this issue Mon fights crime around the world. He meets the local heroes and kicks some ass. He also meets Congorilla, who turns up in Cry for Justice, although I didn’t make the connection at the time.
Jim Harper defends Mon live on TV and gets some crazed anchor off of Mon’s case.
The art remains very satisfying.
Ooh, and Atlas comes back. Bring on the Super titles crossover!
2 comments:
I was rolling with my coblogger/lesbro talking about Renee before this book came out a few weeks ago. She put forward how silly it was that Renee was this femmey, cheesecake character who had basically butch characteristics and acted like a hard-drinking womanizer. Now, this is not to say that such a character shouldn't exist, but at present almost all women in comics are visually these cheesecakey femmey types. To paraphrase Dwayne McDuffie, people are way more comfortable with lipstick lesbians.
I really like the awesome reveal of Kate's hair being a wig and the lipstick chic quality of Batwoman being a cover for her secret identity. I like that Batwoman is secretly a mousy dyke with short hair and military-themed tattoos. It fucks with the idea of the secret identity some in ways that I enjoy. I haven't quite worked it out completely in my head, but I think its cool and different. Incidentally, I also loved short haired Renee.
Alice weirds me out.
RE Superman, stay tuned for my post about the Death of Freedom Beast.
Peace,
Will
The new cover of Batwoman is way better than the original, I do think that her sexiness with men is part of the Batwoman character despite her being a lesbian but i find no trouble with it, once she wears the suit she turns to someone else.
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