Supernatural: Se2 Ep 5 - Simon Said

Spoilers ahead, plus discussion of non-consensual sexual relationships and invading people's privacy with telepathy.
I am discussing the episode not from an in-story viewpoint, but from a real world viewpoint, looking at the mechanism of how things were filmed and the culture of the show and TV industry at the time.
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In this episode the brothers meet another psychic kid, Andy.  Andy is portrayed as a good guy. He's totally average, has friends, doesn't stand out at all.  In a high school show he would be the nerd loser type, with a couple of close friends, who never gets the girl but is fundamentally a decent person.  A bit like Buffy's Xander, but less good looking.  Compared to the Brothers Winchester he's short and scrawny, he has none of their charisma and glamour.  He's got a van with a painting of a Barbarian Queen riding a polar bear on the side.  He's that sort of dude.

We find out he has telepathic powers - he can make people do things.  For example, give him their coffee, let him into the police records department, borrow their car (Dean's car, for reference), and tell him whatever is on their mind.  Sam is the only one immune to his powers.  We see that Andy reads philosophy, he talks about the ethics of telepathy (a bit), he says he has never used to harm anyone and that he has certainly never used it on his possibly-girlfriend, Tracey. 

Andy has an evil twin, Webber, who is using his power to force people to commit suicide, in order to persuade Andy to become close to him.  Webber is clearly the bad guy, and Andy is positioned as the friendly telepath who harms no one.  He's certainly not positioned as a danger to anyone.

Now here is the start of my point.

So, with all that in mind, I find it interesting that in the first scene where we see Andy, he's leaving an attractive woman's flat in the morning, with the implication that he has had a one night stand with her.  It's not explicitly stated that is what has happened, but given the show's attitude to sexual relationships (hello Dean), and our cultural understanding of a bloke leaving a woman's flat first thing in the morning, wearing a happy grin, I think we can assume that Andy and unnamed woman had a lot of sex.

Andy is presented as a sort of lovable loser.  An everyday guy who becomes the secondary hero in the episode (the Winchesters being the heroes obvs).  All the cues indicate that this sort of guy is not usually successful with women.  So how did he have this one night stand?  I guess we assume that he used his telepathic powers to get this woman into bed.

That's a bad thing.  That's rape.  If telepathy were real, there would be laws about it, stating that using telepathy to get sex is rape.

Now my point.

Given that Andy is portrayed as the good guy it's astounding/interesting to me that this particular opening scene with him was filmed in the way that it was.  The episode goes to such pains to show us that Andy is basically a good guy, using his power in a harmless way.  I wonder if no one picked up on the implications of the one night stand scene, or if someone did but was ignored.  It just screams of everyday sexism and this stuff just not being on the writer's or director's radar.

It was filmed in 2006, I don't feel that there is much excuse for being ignorant of gender politics back then, but I accept that many people were.

I think of how the supporting women in season 1 were portrayed, how they were mostly supporting characters but were given agency, proper roles and were treated with respect, as characters and actresses.  I see that changing in season 2, mostly due the show moving away from a monster of the week episode, but that we get recurring female characters in the form of Ellen and Jo (who in my opinion are truly magnificent).

I wonder what sort of atmosphere it was on set, I wonder how the women involved in the show (n any capacity) felt.  Was it noticed and ignored, did it feel like yet another micro-aggression, did any of the men notice it and feel uncomfortable with it.  How did the set culture compare to other American TV shows being filmed at the time.

I have no answers, I'm just curious.

Note - I feel it needs to be said that the episode, and to some minds the whole show, doesn't examine the abusive nature of telepathy - in that most sensible emotionally literate people can figure out that using mind manipulation powers on other people is a pretty awful thing to do.

Teaching women how to act and how this corresponds to rape

I just found this on One Dark Angel's tumblr, and it's brilliant. I've read something liked this before but it bears repeating, particularly because it articulates it so well (trigger warning):

If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.

And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.
Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.

Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”

Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”

Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.

Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.

Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.

Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.

People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.

And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.

On consent

I hope it's big enough to read.  I nicked it from someone on facebook.   It's worth repeating.  I like it. 

Link time!

Because I haven't thought of a real post, have some links:

Snell over at Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep! talking about how the comic industry should respect itself.

A take down of rape jokes and rape culture over at Shakesville.

A comic editor's response to an 8 yr old fan's upset at Jason Todd death, from Ragnell's tumblr.

A mash up of Van Halen's Jump and The Beatle's Imagine.

Zoe Williams talking about the stupidity of ruling that sex whilst HIV positive is a crime.

Kat Banyard on feminism.

OUT140 - telling your coming out stories in 14o characters or less.

A bloody fantastic American Sign Language interpretation of Marilyn Manson's The New Shit.   He's done it like a music video and it's amazing.

War of the Supermen, JLA (again), Supes/Bats, Brightest Day, GA preview (again)

War of the Supermen #1 and 3, JLA #45 (again), Superman/Batman #72, Brightest Day, GA preview (again).  Spoilers ahead!
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War of the Supermen #1 and 3
Hmm, looking at these covers I would be led to believe that each one is meant to mirror the other.
So, #1.  Zod wants to obliterate earth.  Haven't we seen something similar in Kingdom Come and other future stories?  Haven't we seen how this completey destroys Superman?  You'd think Zod would have more brains.  Anyway, I think this issue reinforces how Supes should have go a blue ring in Blackest Night.

Kara is very grown up in this issue, taking responsibility for Reactorn (without prompting), and understanding the politics of everything.  Give it a few more years and she could really be the icon that Superman is.  I say a few years because I don't quite want her rushed into that godlike status yet.  I'm enoying reading about the impetuousness and I want to see how she evolves into someone better.

The scenes where Reactron reveals the masterplan and New Krytpon is blown up are very powerful.  I think I will scan and post them at a later date, as an example of how sequential art can work really well.

After this we switch to Jimmy and Lois telling other Superman related heroes what's been going on.  And Krypto is there!  I cannot express how much this makes me smile.

The art isn't perfect in this, it;s not delicate or the work of a masterpiece but it works really well nontheless.  It conveys the information that we need, and the scenes in space are really effective.

#3 opens with the Kryptonians in space, suffocating under a red sun.  Thara'Flamebird sacrifces herself to change the sun back to a yellow one.  Out of all possibe ways to save the Kryptonians I did not see that one coming.  It made me very sad.  It seems that there is an awful lot of wasted potential in this series.

JLA #45 (again)
You know one of the worst things about this cover?  Kara and Karen aren't even looking at each other.  Instead, it appears that their eye gaze is positioend downwards, maybe in an attempt to steady themselves for the unnatural poses they are fighting in.  Yes yes I know this is probably happening in mid air, it doesn't make it any less stupid.

And once you get inside and start reading the darn ugly thing, you realise there are too many characters featured.  Gods this comic was crap.

Superman/Batman #72
This was a kind of compare and contrast story.  Supes is off saving distant planets whislt Lois gets attacked on earth.  The art is bizzare - it looks like someone is experimenting with a photo relastic style.  The overall effect is odd.

Kudos to the penciller who drew alien women without making them sexy seductresses.  Yah boo sucks to the penciller who then decided it made sense for Lois's shirt to be pulled aside to reveal a pink bra, whilst she's being burnt at the stake.  Earlier on she was being all kick ass and fighting her attackers off.  So what, did the penciller decide she had to be demeaned and shown her place?  Because that's how the narrative reads.

In fact, the whole imagery of burnings at the stake thing is pretty misogynist.  It was mostly women who got burned as witches, accused of witchcraft for being differnet, or old, or practising herbology without the consent of the church, or having sex outside marriage, or pissing off the wrong people.  Now you putting Lois in that position and revealing her breasts?  The cult that has her isn't remotely conerned with sex! This has damn well better be corrected and dealt with in the next issue.

Brightest Day 2
I miss Kendra.  Arthur was the subject of this rather lovely cover but sadly didn't appear within the pages much.  Ronnie and Jason aren't getting on and then their face explodes.  Hmmmm.

I have a theory and a somewhat basic understanding about this new Firestorm duo.  It goes, Jason, the black guy, is the disembodied head, that only the white guy, Ronnie, can hear.  So, nominally Jason is an important character but in reality his character and personality is silenced.  Cos that's never happened in real life..

I can see how this may have played out at DC.  They wanted to bring the old Firestorm back (nostalgia of the all white silver age!) bu they want to remain modenr and edgy, so they combine Firestorm 1 and 2.  They kill Gen (cos killing women is tragic, innit), and they don't give a thought to the active portrayal of silencing one of the few black characters they have.  There's no reason for Jason to be the invisible one - both him and Gen were clever and both brought something to the Firestorm pairing.  Jason could be the visible one here with Ronie being a disembodied floating head, but oh no.  I sense a bit of white privelege being exercised here.  This stuff doesn't offend or effect powers that be at DC, so they don;t think how it could effect their readership. They probably think they're being progressive by keeping the black guy around.  Well, I don't to scrabble for crumbs and i'm pretty sure the non white comics readers don't want the scraps either.

This could all be turned around and improved.  It's a year long series, lets hope some of this stuff is dealt with.


GA preview (again)
I'm now thoroughly sick of this preview.  I was going to buy it, but now I'm so bloody tired of being confronted with yet more bloody rape scenes I don't think I can stomach the actual issue.  If you want to see what I'm talking about, go here.  I'd be happy for a return to Mike Grell esque days, I like the comparisons with Robin Hood, but this isn't the way to do it.  (Nearly) Every time I come to the last page of a comic and I'm faced with that fecking women make men work for it scene.  Ugh.

F Word article - Silence does not equal consent

Inspired by the Jack Tweed and Anthony Davis rape case.

How can people not understand this?

This whole rape culture we live in makes me feel physically sick.  I want to discuss and add to the article, but I can't, beyond saying it makes me sick.  There's just so much fucked up stuff about the case, about people's views towards rape, about everything.  I recommend you read the article (and the comments) because people need to know that this shit happens, and they need to know that it's wrong*.

But if you're feeling fragile the article is likely to be triggering.  Hell, if you're feeling confident the article could be triggering.



*I'm not implying that any of my regular readers don't understand that rape is wrong, but I honestly think that the more these issues are brought to the forefront of people's minds, the better humanity will get in the future.  Rape needs to be discussed.

Battlestar Galactica season 2

[Spoilers]
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[Rape trigger alert]


I watched episodes 9, 10, 11 amd 12.  The ones with Admiral Cain and her fleet of hideous people.
That was uncomfortable viewing wasn't it?  Actually uncomfortable doesn't quite cut it, they were horrible and disturbing.

For those of you that haven't seen it, the protaganists ship finds a second human run ship, who take command due to military protocol.  This new ship has a cylon (enemy robot) on board, as a prisoner, and has been beating, whipping, starving and gang raping her since the start of the conflict.  I say her, because the cylons look and feel exactly like humans, and if you were to do medical tests on them, they would appear to be humans.  They have feelings, morality, can think, reason and interact just as humans do.  They also want to wipe out the human race, which is the premise for the show.

Anyway, Admiral Cain's fleet takes over Commander Adama's fleet  (the good guys), and initially this is fine, because it's how the military works.  Everything's cool.  Then we learn about how Cain's soldiers have treated their prisoner, and we cut to the good guy's cylon prisoner and the chief interrorgator (of the bad guys) is beating her up and starts raping her.  Then a couple of good guys storm in, kill the rapist and attack the other soldiers.

It's a fucking horrible scene and throughout the episodes it is made quite clear that the bad guys do not think that the cylons are human, and they say you cannot rape a machine.  Which is odd, because the way they are talking about her indicates that they know her reactions and they want to cause her pain.  If you cannot rape a machine why do it?

In contrast the good guys also know that the cylons aren't human, and although they give their prisoner no respect, she is fed, given clean clothes and is well cared for.  She is not beaten, or raped, or abused.  She is given looks of disgust and comtempt and isn't accorded any friendliness.  The good guys are quite specific that they think she is other than human, but I don't think they think she is less than human.  Just other, and dangerous, very dangerous.

It's horrible viewing.  But I don't feel that it shouldn't have been done, I don't feel that it is gratuitous, and I don't feel like I do about most rape scenes or tropes.  That says a lot about the quality of the show.
But the gods help you if you have been raped and you watched this, because I imagine it would be very triggering.

Telly update, spendings and Taken

I watched the last 2 episodes of Smallville season 8, and holy macaroni!  if you don't like spoilers look way now..
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They killed Jimmy?  Jimmy Olsen?  Central figure to the Superman mythos?   He didn't even have a signal watch!  Did they take the Countdown ad campaign seriously?  I liked this Jimmy.  Sure, him and Chloe has fuck all chemistry, but Mr Olsen himself was quite charming.  I guess it made sense with the storyline, and it certainly was very tragic.  I was convinced Chloe was gonna bring him back with her magic tears.

Apart from that, the rest of the final 2 episodes were good.  I can cope with Ollie being all dark and vengeful.  It doesn't suit him, but it doesn't suit him in the comics either.  I am not convinced about Smallville's Bart being in agreement, it seems somewhat out of character.  Or maybe I just want him to be the regular DCU's Bart.  I don't know enough about this universe's Dinah to comment on her.

While we're talking about Bart , head on over to Crimson Lightning and check out this adorable kid dressed up as Bart.  He's perfect!

Back on Smallville, the Doomsday defeat was quite good, even if we didn't see much of it.

It looks like Lois has been transported to the Legion in the 31st century.  This should make for all sorts of interesting shenanigans.  Even with the use of magic time travelling Legion rings.  Which is ridiculous.  

I am very excited about season 9.   I haven't had a chance to watch any yet and probably won't for the foreseeable future.  Meanwhile, I will just go giddy over the inclusion of the JSA (with a winged, maced and hairy chested [i hope] Hawkman!) .

I also saw another episode of BSG, from season 2.  Starbuck is shot on Caprica, taken to the hospital, tended by Cylons and discovers the farms.  A well done episode.

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So, way back when, I decided to try and make an effort and seriously cut down on the amoount of stuff I bought.  If you click on the consumerism tag you'll see my other posts on this matter.

Well, I think I lasted til August and then somehow it all went to pot.  The net result is, I haven't stuck to my resolution, but I'm not buying random crap either.  I have bought new clothes - dresses (some new, some second hand), socks, pants, etc, I have bought quite a few books, I have continued buying gifts for people and I have bought some utterly useless crap.  Well, it's useless only if you consider memorabilia from the first Christoper Reeve Superman movie to be crap.  I say if it makes your heart sing then it's not crap.  But more on that later, because there's a post in there somewhere.  I still consider my main spendings to be on lunches, dinners out, and beer.

What have I learnt from all this?
1) If you want to monitor your spending and keep track of it, you have to write down absolutely everything you buy.  Including newspapers and 10pence fortune cookies.
2) I have a pretty low attention span and not much resolve.

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Consider the movie 'Taken'.  It's got Liam Neeson in it, fucking shit up.  By action movie standards it's a pretty good watch, and like most action movies, the actual plot is somewhat incidental.  But nonetheless go and read a synopsis here.  Unless you've already seen it.

Ready? OK.

First of all, the one line plot summary on the IMDB says Neeson's daughter has been sold into the slave trade.  Actually, she's been kidnapped and sold to a prostitution ring.  She is shipped around various places while Neeson is trying to catch up with her.  She doesn't get raped but that's because she's a virgin.  Her sexually active friend dies of a drug overdose - the drugs are forcibly given to her in order to break her in.

The movie makes a fairly good attempt at not glamourising or sexualising Neeson's daughter's plight, but it's not so good at race stuff.
As she's getting shipped around we see lots of asian women being pimped out.  The movie does nothing for these women, Neeson completley ignores them and we see nothing put in place to save them.  The end message seems to be that if you're a young, pretty and white virgin you deserve to be saved.  If you're anyone else you can rot in your hell.  The movie does portray the other victims situation as vile and desperate.  It demonstrates how horrific it is.

Towards the end of the movie Neeson's daughter is finally sold to her new owner. Guess who he is?  A rich. fat, oil dealing Arab man.  Not that they're trading in stereotypes at all here.  No siree.

The point at which this surprised me was that they'd tried to deal with the women's issues, the horribleness of the forced sex trade etc, which is impressive for Hollywood, but they'd failed so hard at the race stuff.  Especially as it wouldn't have needed much to rectify this.

Clouds Moving In also has a review of the film.  She focuses on the sexism but doesn't touch the race issues,

Buffy Omnibus volume 5

Writers: Various
Artists: Various
Set the summer after season 3 and also season 4.

Overall, this wasn't bad.  One story I heart so much, and we will come to that, and others that are fairly enjoyable.

First up is Haunted.  The Mayor has become a disembodied spirit and starts taking over dead bodies in order to haunt Buffy and kill her.  Of course.  She injured his Faith.  The writer has captured his voice surprisingly well, so even before he introduces himself you know it's the Mayor.  I've always found him an interesting character.

He is evil, obviously, but he also has old fashioned standards.  He doesn't put up with Faith being rude, he likes manners and cleanliness and he wants the young around him to learn and be educated and fill their minds.  He loves Faith.  Really loves her.  He may be immoral but he is (not yet) inhuman.  He just so happens to also want to be turned into a giant demon so he gain lots of power.  For the non Buffy fans out there, this may seem familiar, maybe it's been done before.  If it has, fine, but the particular execution of this character within Buffy is pretty unique.  Mayor Wilkins has his own flavour.

There's some great bits in this story where the Mayor takes over a dead crow and investigates other bodies.  Buffy has to deal with regular humans coming to her for advice on how to cope with death.  She also has to deal with prophetic dreams involving Faith and their relationship with each other.  We see the initiative for the first time and learn the origins of Adam.  I loathe the initiative, but this made me care more.  So, I say good job.

We'll come to Take Back the Night at the end.

Killing Time is about soriety girls initiating the new girl into the group by summoning Ragginor the Destructor.  Therets some cute dialogue and the demon is dispatched.  Now, I can't work out if Buffy is particularly bright or just average.  Historically, I think Slayers generally rely on their strength rather than their cunning, and Buffy has no time to do academic study, which is the reason she fails her classes.  She did get a higher grade than Willow once, which is pretty darn good, but in season 7 Willow tells Kennedy that Buffy is "a sweet girl, but not so bright".  She does think 'outside the box' (hate the phrase), and she does use her surroundings, assets and friends to best advantage, but I can't work out if she's clever or not.  What do y'all think?

Next is The Blood of Carthage'.  This is good.  It has lots of flashbacks to Willow and Xander's childhood, the art in which is adorable.  Willow is revealed to be far braver than previously thought and saved Xander's life when they were little.  In the present day, things get misunderstood, mistakes are made and the apocalypse has to be averted again.  At the start of the story Buffy feels out of sync with college life, she's totally apathetic.  By the end she's got her motivation back.  There are also Spike and Dru flashbacks and thousand year old Romans.  And a ghost slayer.  Which is awesome - I love other slayer stories.
One of the bad things about the story is the 2 vampire twins dressed in spandex.  Awful superhero costumes shouldn't be allowed near the Buffyverse.  It's demeaning, disrespectful and completely out of place.

The Heart of a Slayer features yet another slayer!  Oh, how they spoil me.  This is an eleventh century armoured slayer chasing a demon through time.  I cannot give away any more or it will spoil it, so just believe me when I say that this story is fantastic.  It adds more to the slayer mythology, it adds depth to Buffy's character and Giles' role as Buffy's Watcher and it complicates the relationship between them.

Cemetary of Lost Love has Baron Samedi.and a quite effective skeleton outfit.

Oz is about what Oz got up to in the himialyas, learnign to control the beast.  The art doesn't look like Oz but he does have a flame haired lady friend on his travels, who is mostly cool, apart from the abundant breasts.  There's a twist I didn't see coming.  It's not a bad story.

Now, Take Back the Night.  Oh I heart this!  There's horrible frat boys leching on the women and declaring them lesbians when they don't respond.  There is Maggie Walsh compering a Reclaim the Night rally!  She declares, and I quote:
'Rape is an act of violence and power.  Never of sex...Together we will show these beasts that the night belongs to us'.

Damn right!  How often do you see popular culture actually getting this right?  How often do you see the media stating that rape is about power, and not sex?  Fuck all is how often.  I am so pleased that the comic stated this.  The more people that understand this, the closer we will be to stopping it.

Then there is some demon fighting, and Buffy kills the demon, while army boys are a bit frazzled I might add, and the last panel is this:

Oh she is my hero!  Isn't one of the appeals of Buffy, that she's an ordinary slip of a girl but she's not threatened by anybody and she can't beat anyone up?  That just cause we're female doens't mean  we have to be at threat of attack by the rest of the world?  This is one of the few popular culture things which has women taking care of themselves.  We're not delicate, we don't get attacked as soon as we step outside of our house, and we're not gonna be framed as victims anymore, dammit.
Heart heart HEART!!

Where yet again I feel love (and some rage) for comics

Spoilers ahead for Action Comics #882, Green Arrow/Black Canary #25, Red Robin #5, Adventure Comics #3, Blackest Night: Batman #3 and Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps #41.


Action Comics #882
Part 3 of the Hunt for Reacton, and so much better than the Codename Patriot crossover.  Maybe because this directly concerns Kara, Thara and Chris.  Anyway, this is exciting, fast paced, has good characterisation and the plot is moved along well.  So, everything that is needed for a good story.  And Kara is pretty near centre stage again, so I’m happy.

Has anyone else noted the preponderence of the El family colours on the cover?  A family effort to defeat the evil, and very good to look at.

As for the second feature, well!  Now I’m sold on this and I won’t be dropping the title, because Natasha Irons has turned up!  She is on Mirabai and involved in espionage work, for both sides.  I like Natasha.  I first came across her in 52 and I find her a really interesting and compelling character.

Green Arrow/Black Canary #25
Ollie gets naked, we learn more about Cupid’s backstory and yet again rape is used as a device to show how evil someone is.  Except this time it’s to show Cupid’s evilness, and it doesn’t feel gratuitous, it feels like it fits in with what we’ve be shown of her so far.  It also isn’t glamourised, or sexed up, or presented as anything other than what it is.  Yes, Cupid is wearing a see through negligee, but that because in her head she’s about to make love to Green Arrow.

Mia and Dinah have to conceal the loss of Ollie from the cops, and I really want to see where Mia’s new suit came from.  At the end of the story we see another Olllie, this time with clothes and arrows.  I’m thinking a little splitting spell, a la Xander’s experience in Buffy.  I’m probably wrong though.

The blurb does say get the rest of the story on the next page, e.g. in the back up bit, but that’s a little misleading.  What we actually get is Mia babysitting Lian.  The story is pretty good and is all about how a strong princess (Dinah) doesn’t need to rescued by the prince (Ollie).  Except throughout this Dinah’s boobs are defying the laws of physics, so what I get from this story is it’s ok to be a kick ass ninja and rescue the prince, but you can only do that if you’ve got your boobs out.  Because damn, what are the ladies for unless they look hawt?
I appreciate Dinah likes to be sexy an’ all, but for the majority of BoP her suit was zipped up to her neck.  BoP, especially Simone’s run is pretty much the definitive Dinah.  So don’t fuck about with this.

Red Robin #5
Still good, gorgeous cover and setting up for some really exciting stuff.

Adventure Comics #3
It’s Connor and Tin’s reunion :D  Just wonderful.  I hope Bart gets a look in soon.


Blackest Night: Batman #3
Tim and Dick get well and truly manipulated by the Black Lanterns and work out what other folks have already worked out in another title.  Dick has a brilliant method of getting through and ending the melee.

Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps #41
A good instalment but mostly fighting.  Not a huge amount extra is revealed, but there’s a good set up for the next issue.

Roman Polanski case

There are some excellent articles in the blogosphere about this, dealing with the bullshit media reaction to the case.  I highly recommend you read them.
[UPDATE: also check this one out from Feminzary)

Making critically acclaimed films is not a pass to raping 13 year old girls.  Claiming she consented is pure crap.  a) if you read her testimony it is clear she said no.  b) at age 13 she is legally unable to consent.  Ergo, rape.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

Battlestar Galactica- 1st 4 episodes (spoilers)

(written with the disclaimer that I'm bleeding knackered and really can't tell if this is good writing or not, I just needed to get it off my chest)

I watched the first 4 episodes last night. On the whole it’s still good and still gripping. Episodes 1 and 2 were great, episode 3 I really didn’t like and episode 4 had a lot of flashbacks which were shot in that really bright light which makes everyone’s skin look really really smooth. A peculiarly American thing I think, or is that just cos I only watch (old) American (sci fi) shows? With no TV licence and a distinct aversion to learning how to download stuff I stick with watching only a few old shows.

Anyway, episode 3. I really did not like this. I do not like my TV shows
preaching at me
patronising me
moralising at me.

I watch TV shows to be entertained, I do not want some lesson in real life problems from them. If I want to be made to think and emote I will read a book or visit the internet, or watch the news. TV is my escapism and I dislike heavy political subjects intruding into it. With that in mind I was never going to be keen on this episode.

I heartily disliked the discussions concerning
Terrorism vs Freedom Fighters. I hate the phrase ‘we do not negotiate with terrorists’ – it’s overused and it’s too close to real life. No one came to a conclusion and it wasn’t looked at in any depth.
Whether it is prison that makes a man bad or whether he chooses to act that way. Again, no depth. At any rate, given the circumstances of the show it doesn’t bleeding matter. Just shoot the cunt.
And of course there was a lovely rape threat scene. Of course, because how else do you show the extreme evilness of men?

At least the intended victim bit the attackers ear off (good for her). On the other hand, they could have shot it completely differently – when the black lady (I’ve forgotten her name) said to the presidential aide dude that Callie can look after herself because she’s been trained, she could have sounded like she meant it. She could have been relaxed and less panicky. Callie could have been less scared and more in control. Then again, I guess that’s not in Callie’s nature, she’s a bit of a nervous one, very much like Kaylee in Firefly. It’s in Starbuck’s nature (who, if we’re going to be doing comparisons, is I guess more like Zoe from Firefly), but that’s why on these shows a character like Starbuck will never be abducted like this. Because apparently rape only ever happens to ‘weak’ women. Because apparently it will always be a threat and we have to constantly watch out for ourselves wherever we go.

I know BSG is very much about real people who haven’t changed that much between now and the year it’s set, so I’m not asking for some utopian ideal of society, I’m just asking if maybe for once we could leave the rape threats out please? There’s enough to contend with in real life, which may be why I’m taking this to heart so much.

But mostly, I disliked this episode because it brought nothing new the the 3 debates. It was lazy writing, reliant on cliches and I was expecting more. So far the show has been layered and has depth, it's been intelligent. They could have taken the stance that actually, there's a few precious people being held hostage, so we will negotiate. That would have allowed them to examine the morality and possible ways forward. The again I guess in a post 9/11 America being seen to even consider to kow tow to terrorists is an absolute no no isn't it?

Unfortunately this attitude led to a stifled, boring, trope filled plot by numbers episode that really wasn't very bright. Except for the last bit, which was...

...The exchange between Apollo and the President about the legality of her tenure and the promise of an election. That was ace. It was looked at in depth, it held arguments and counter arguments, it was an actual discussion and it contributed something to the make up of the show. It solidified the characters and add extra nuance. And it is fresh and new – how many other (sci fi) shows debate shit like this? The other 3 things that I’ve mentioned had none of that; they’ve all been overdone and overused.

The other plus point is Starbuck – is her real name Kara? If it is that’s fucking sweet. I heart Starbuck in a big way: cigar smoking, top pilot piloting, best (human) sniper in the universe, confident, butch wonder. Love love love her.

It’s the ultimate man-cave!

Featuring spoilers for Spider-Man and the Black Cat trade, Booster Gold #21 (+ Blue Beetle back up), Action Comics #878, the Flash Rebirth #3 and Red Robin #1
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Spider-Man and the Black Cat trade, comprising issues 1 – 6

I think you all know that I don’t usually read Marvel, but I saw this trade in the second hand shop and plumped for it. I’ve always had a soft spot for Spider-man - for years he was my favourite superhero, despite not reading comics or watching any animated shows, and the boyfriend bought me a wall hanging of Spidey vs Venom. I have been aware of the Black Cat for a number of years and have really liked the look of her – white hair and an awesome costume. So when I saw this trade and noticed the writer is Kevin Smith with art and colours by Terry and Rachel Dodson I went with it.

Boy am I glad I did this is a bloody great book. Kevin Smith rocks, I loved his Green Arrow stuff and he has got a pretty good handle on these two. Black Cat is awesome – she’s flirty and glamorous and oh so cool and I am more than a little in love with her. The art is strong on the cheesecake and the low cut wardrobe but that’s part of who she is, it’s not gratutitous.

Hell, even the paper this is printed on is really nice, it’s quite thick, not quite card but definitely not thin like, say Dc’s Teen Titans trades.

Parts 1 to 4 are all very lighthearted and fun. Spidey and Felicia are on different cases but bump into each other when their leads take them to the same man. They then team up and there is much flirting and griping about how their previous relationship ended. They continue tracking down the bad guy, Garrison, Felicia decides to go directly for Garrison and leaves Spidey tied up so he can’t stop her. She then gets caught in a trap and arrested. Spidey gets Daredevil on side to help bust Felicia out only to find out that she’s already gone.

This brings us to part 5, Felicia has been teleported away by the brother of the bad guy and this is when it stops being quite so lighthearted. Felicia and the brother, Francis, are talking on a rooftop, I assume they already know each other, and it turns out Francis had been sexually abused by Garrison, his brother, for years, since childhood. Kevin Smith must have had an agenda writing this because there is a discussion on the motives behind abuse, the ‘fault’ of the victim, statistics on rape in America, the feelings after the abuse, how to deal with it and move on from it and the role of the police. It is also revealed that Felicia was raped at University (this had nothing to do with her decision to become the Black Cat).

It’s powerful stuff, it’s upsetting stuff. Not an easy read but really well done. Definitely recommended and if there are any more of these trades I’m gonna be hunting them down.

Booster Gold #21 feat. Blue Beetle back up.
More fun from Mr Jurgens. The title of this post comes from this issue and is spoken by Booster when he gets back to the Batcave. He has a point. I want a giant dinosaur. Good issue and Booster’s next task it to back in time and save Nightwing from the black Beetle who has just killed him. Should be fun.

The BB back up was also good and makes me wish that I’d bought the BB ongoing. Oh well. Jaime gets to fight a giant robot named Thinko. The fight goes on for three hours, much to the chagrin of his friends. Thinko is destroyed but a new threat in the form of an army of Unimate robots arrive declaring the human race imperfect and therefore in need of cleansing from earth. How does the dude who designed Unimate know that he’s not going to be destroyed after everyone else has been killed? Everyone knows robots can easily turn on their masters.

Action Comics #878
Again with the advertising for children’s books. The inside cover features an ad for fluffy children’s book with characters named Tumtum and Nutmeg (mice), Haggy Aggy and a book titled Jurassic Grampa and The Mousehunter. It even has a quiz titled ‘What (book) fits your personality best?’ which indicates to me that they think kids are reading the comic. Yet in the first few pages we see the bad guys land near an old lady’s house, ask about the state of her bed, kill her, destroy the house and have sex on her bed with the lady’s still frozen body next to them.

Not a kid’s comic!

As for the rest of the comic, not bad. Thara looks rather young in this, but that makes sense as her and Chris are revealed to be in relationship, and if she was in her mid 20s, as she’s looked in other books, that would be wrong and weird. As it is they make a lovely couple.

The art is good. Basic, not much detailing, but good. I really like Chris’ golden band round his forehead.

The Flash Rebirth #3
Wow, this was so much better than the previous two issues. No more long flashbacks (arg!), we’re actually dealing with the here and now. The first page featuring the puppets looked great. I really like how they are using representations of the heroes to move the story along.

Bart arrives and asks Barry if he knows anything about Max. Unfortunately he doesn’t. I’m really glad they are bringing that up and not just forgetting about Max Mercury. The power of the Black flash courses through Barry and he has to tell the other Flashes to run in order to save themselves. He then screams for Hal to get him out of the area. I think this is a really great touch – it shows how implicitly they trust each other and how well they work together.

Barry then asks to be let out and decides to run back to the speed force as he doesn’t belong back on earth and he doesn’t want to endanger those he loves. Superman races beside him and tries to talk him out of it. Flash easily outraces Supes. As it should be.

Barry runs to the speed force and meets Max Mercury and Johnny Quick there. Johnny is seemingly destroyed when he touches Barry but then we see it is actually the Reverse Flash who has done this. Obvious villain? Maybe, but it works, it fits. I like it. And I’m really hoping for them to bring Max back.

Red Robin #1
It’s Tiiimmmmmy! Oh yeah, I’m happy :D
My wallet and my shelf space won’t be happy as I see this is an ongoing, but I’m happy.

I hate the costume. It’s awful and doesn’t look like Tim. I can see why they’ve chosen that one, but I think it’s crap. Tim angsts some more, but I think he’s entitled to it. His world just keeps falling apart bit by bit. Family and friends all die, then Bruce his adopted father dies, and then Dick takes away the Robin costume. I mean, he’s only a teenager and we’ve seen his unstable tendancies, caused by grief – futureTim and attempting to clone Connor, so you’d think Dick would be drawing him into the fold and letting him know he’s loved. Or no he just gets pushed out. Dick Grayson, you suck. Tim needs to be with people, not be isolated. He now thinks all he’s got is Bruce Wayne and lord knows that man isn’t a healthy parental figure.
Hopefully Steph will catch up with him properly and he’ll get some support from her. Or Bart and Kon will come find him.

Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia by Louise Brown

The boyfriend's mum bought this book for me when she was travelling round part of Asia on a 3 week holiday. It's been sat on my bookshelf for a while and I suddenly had the urge to read it. There wasn't much going on this weekend and I wasn't looking froward to re-writing yet more CVs (job hunting sure is dull), so I figured I'd get through it now.

And guess what? Comics get brought into it, hurrah!

First we have the cover of the book:


Rather tabloidy, no? I was willing overlook the choice of image, reasoning that the publisher does want to sell books and what really matters is the content.

Brown is writing from a feminist (possibly Marxist) perspective. She is very very clear that she hates prostitution and thinks it should be eradicated. Whether this is a valid position is not what I want to discuss. Brown talks both about the life experiences of the sex workers and puts forwards explanations for why the sex trade exists. I have issues with the presentation of the information and also some of her conclusions and explanations for the existence of the sex trade.

There are 9 chapters in the book, as follows:
The Market (where the women/children come from)
The Commodity (the women/children themselves)
The Agents (those who find and traffic the women/children)
Seasoning (how the women/children are broken into accepting sex work)
The Customers (those who purchase sex)
The Management (those at the top of the sex industry)
The Law (national and international law and how it is(n't) enforced)
Life and Death (disease and daily life of a sex worker)
The Shame (how the sex workers feel about their jobs, also a conclusion for the book)

Initially this seems like a pretty good way to arrange the information. It appears to encompass all levels of the sex industry. However as you go through the book the details of each chapter become muddled and confusing.

Geography
I have few doubts that her report of life as a sex worker in Asia is fairly accurate. But you'll note I said 'Asia'. Asia is a pretty big area, each country is distinct and has it's own cultural norms, societal values, standard of living etc. Brown doesn't even examine every country in Asia - she focuses on Japan, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

She provides examples of sex work in each country and while noting that there are differences, and being explicit about these differences, she then uses these examples to make generalisations about Asia as a whole. This comes across as rather contradictory.

She jumps between country profiles rather erratically. For example, there is one sentence about Thailand, one about Burma, then one about Japan. In my eyes, it would have been more logical to treat each country as a sub section within each chapter, and then done a mini conclusion at the end drawing together all the information. This would also have made it easier to drop back into and reference the book at a later date. But maybe that's just my personal reference for accessing information.

The work itself
She also seems to jump wildly between writing about the experiences of trafficked women, those forced into sex work and those who chose (or were coerced) to enter sex work. It makes it rather difficult to follow and it then becomes unclear what she is trying to prove. The method of entry into sex work does seem to have a big influence on the lives of the women and children, but I don't think this was drawn out enough. Similarly, the hierarchy of sex workers is not examined enough. She does talk about the differences between poor street prostitutes and high end call girls, but when it's all thrown in with other topics that also affect their lives and work, the distinction becomes blurred.

References and arrangement of the material
Although there is an extensive list of references at the back of the book, I get the impression that a lot of the content is her own opinion. This damages the book's credibility as a serious academic resource. As I said above, I don't doubt that what she's saying about sex worker's lives is true, but I don't think she's argued her case as to why the sex trade exists well.

There's a lot of repetition throughout each chapter. Part of this is an effective method for building up a full picture of the industry, part of it comes across as though she needs a good editor.

Why men buy sex - biological imperative and manga
Having said I agree with most of the information presented there was one chapter which really raised my hackles. This was the one titled The Customers.

My main problem with this section is Brown believes that men have a biological imperative to shag as much as possible. She believes they are genetically programmed to. constantly. have. sex. Because of this, (and because of patriarchy), prostitution, concubinage and polygamy have developed.

Ugh. It should come as no surprise that I have no time for biological justifications of human behaviour. As a species, we are not a bunch of hormones and instincts. We have brains, we have thoughts and we have more complex ways of deciding on a course of action. If we didn't we'd still be shitting in our pants and I wouldn't be here on the Internet writing this to all of you.

To argue that men sleep around because of a biological imperative is insulting and demeaning to both men and women. It also conveniently absolves men of any responsibility for their actions.

It's bollocks and I have no time for anyone who believes in it. To top it all off, Brown doesn't even present evidence as to why she is picking this theory. This leads me to believe she chose it because it's convenient and fits in with her world view, which incidentally, comes across as all men are evil.

The other thing which had me spitting feathers was her reference to manga. I quote:
'An element of sadism runs as an unpleasant undercurrent through Japanese society. Manga are like giant comics principally produced for Japanese men and boys. Torture, mutilation and rape of young women and girls are a regular feature of the storylines*.'

*this line is footnoted, the referenced material is Allison, Permitted and Prohibited Desires.

Oh god, where do I start? Manga is not 'like' giant comics, they are comics. And not necessarily giant. There are many many different types of manga. A small proportion focuses on torture, mutilation and rape. You may as well dismiss all written books as being misogynist and encouraging sadism because Brett Easton Ellis' Psycho exists.

This reinforces my personal view that Brown didn't really research the topic as well as she could have. It makes me wonder if she was only looking for stuff to back up her preconceived ideas about why the sex trade is so big in Asia.

Other
She didn't look at the issue of women buying women's bodies, yet we know it is a possibility because at one point she states that while talking with a sex worker she had to establish that Brown herself wasn't interested in buying sex. She also displays a shocking amount of Islamophobia - her writings on Sharia law were backed up with no evidence whatsoever and no view from Muslim women. I would also have liked to know more about the women who became successful and were at the top end of the sex market.

Conclusion
This book would have been vastly better with more evidence and research. Useful for finding out basic info about the reality of sex work in some Asian countries, but the explanations as to why it exists are deeply flawed. If you read it keep an open and questioning mind.

My beef with the Oracle mini

Well, I still want to get this off my chest, if only to get the thoughts out of my head (and possibly also the words out of my arse..) so I'm damn well gonna put something down and post it.
Then I'm gonna stop pressuring msyelf about writing.

OK, so I inferred in an earlier post that I thought the Oracle mini was pointless, and I feel I should explain. I'm not so much going to look at the quality of the writing, that's fairly subjective I reckon. Well I doubt anyone's going to say it's a masterpiece but I hear some folks did find it rather enjoyable.

I think my main issue with it is that the mini was set up as an important spin off, or at the least as an important episode in Babs' life. Birds of Prey ended, setting this up to (potentially) be an important examination of Barbara, her life and character. The mini came out under the header 'Battle for the Cowl'. The first issue introduces the anti life equation, so there's also a Final Crisis connection.

And yet, the conclusion of this arc did fuck all for Babs, for the question of who would be Batman or Batgirl or anything for the anti life equation.

What did this series reveal?

• The Calculator is the father of Wendy of wonder twins fame. Then did nothing with this information. It gave the calculator a reason to delve into the internetz and gather the anti life formula, but in the end it wasn't used.
• Babs agonized (again) over the Joker's shooting of her, then didn't get to walk again (which for political reasons I am thankful for).
• Oracle doesn't understand online RPGs - if you would grant me a moment of fan entitlement let me say that I consider that characterisation to be incorrect.
• Fat girls want to play naked blonde bosomy warriors in the aforementioned RPGs. Yes. This rankles with me.
• Oh look, rape threats again. Glad to see they are still common in the DCU. Apparently these drive Barbara into a near homocidal rage ---> on second thoughts if the joker did rape her after he shot her I can see why this incident, coupled with the murder of the cheese fiend and the recent ponderings over the shooting accident, might drive her to a battering frenzy.
• Wendy woke up from her coma, yells for her dad (did she not know he was evil?) and discovers she can't feel her legs.
  

Nothing very important is it?

There is no big Batgirl reveal, there's no big reconciling of Barbara's feelings over the Joker's attack and Wendy hasn't decided to become an Oracle copycat.

I think my point is that for such a hyped series I would have expected something big to come out of it, like a new Batgirl or Barbara being able to walk again. Instead this is just a run of the mill story that could have featured pretty much anywhere and been written anywhen. (OK you might need to remove the references to the anti life equation, but it wouldn't be difficult to come up with something else implausible to replace it.) Barbara is particularly angry and violent in this mini, but there's nothing to indicate this is a permanent personality change for her.

How does this segue into Batgirl? There are no links. You may as well have put 'Next: Batgirl /1' at the end of Booster Gold, or Green Lantern.

So yeah, pointless.

On the theme of Batgirl, I'd just like to add that I really don't think Steph (Spoiler) should be Batgirl.. Before her 'death' she really badly wanted to be part of the Bat family, but in her return I felt that she came back with her own distinct identity - she doesn't need their approval anymore. So I feel that she should be an ally of the Bat- clan not a fully paid up member. I also cannot see Barbara putting herself in the junior role of Batgirl either.

As for who's under the Batman cowl - I will try and buy the comic on Friday, please if anyone writes about who has taken up the mantle please hide the new identity under a spoiler banner!
Me - I'm itching for it to be Alfred.
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Just so long as it's not Tim. That would be very very wrong. But I guess with the advent of the Batman and Robin book it's pretty definitely not gonna be Tim as Batman right?

The Spoiler, assault, motivations and what could have been horrible clichéd, yet somehow works

As some of you more regular (ha! All 4 of them anyway ;) ) readers will know, I worked my way through the Robin series last year and I have been promising a couple of posts on the Spoiler. What with Christmas, New Year and work madness I’m only just now getting round to writing the damn things.

This first post will be looking at when Stephanie revealed her abused past to Robin, and I’m going to praise the way it was handled. Both the art and the writing, I think, did a pretty damn good job of examining what is a difficult subject area. By and large, the issue managed not to fall into cliché and was (mostly) sensible about it’s approach.
I forgot to take a note of the issue number so if anyone can confirm which issue this story is from, I would much appreciate it. It was written by Chuck Dixon, but again, I forgot to make a note of the art credits.

EDIT: Not written BY Chuck Dixon, actually written by Jon Lewis. Thanks to Nevermore for letting me know.

Now, the guy in the story is a paedophile, but I think the viewpoint given in the story is applicable to all people who rape or assault others. Not just men, and not just paedophiles, because I think all assaults are wrong and equally horrific, no matter the age of the individual victim.

WARNING: The story is potentially triggering. The guy in the story is a paedophile, but I think the viewpoint given in the story is applicable to all people who rape or assault others. Not just men, and not just paedophiles, because I think all assaults are wrong and equally horrific, no matter the age of the individual victim.

Context: Tim and Steph are out on a date, chatting and have ended up in a music store. Here follows the 7 pages (click to enlarge):


Lets look at the problems first. The 5th page, Tim’s response:
‘It’s just that you’re the second girl I’ve known who something like this has happened to! The only answer I can see is that all men are scum…’
Only two? Count your other female friends lucky then because I reckon 50% of my female friends have been assaulted at some point in their life.
And really? You think all men are scum? Do you count yourself in that bracket? Bruce? Nightwing? Ollie? Wally? Clark? Stating that all men are scum is an example of hackneyed dialogue and demonstrates a common kneejerk reaction that doesn’t help anyone or anything. I can understand why people do it, but it’s a stupid viewpoint.

Anyway, Steph answers:
'I’ve thought about that. I honestly think that men who have this…poison..in them are only a small minority. But each one who does it hurts a lot of different girls and boys.’

OK, so she’s pulled him up the all men are scum line, but in an equally crap way. I realise this could be Chuck Dixon’s personal political views getting an airing, and I’m all for seeing more politics in comics – it means I get to respond and debate. So, my response –
All the evil abuse in this world is not carried out by a small amount of evil men who then hurt many different kids. There are lots of people who do this shit, and guess what, they look normal, they look like you and I. They are not visibly monsters, we cannot easily distinguish them. I think that making out it’s only a small amount of evil men who do this ‘others’ the perpetrators and draws a line between us and them. Which is not very useful when you’re trying to stop this crap happening. Also, women rape too. But the way female attackers are treated would be a whole other topic and we could be here for days.

That simplistic viewpoint fails to take into account the structures and culture that allows this to happen. Look at the abuse in the Catholic church – someone high up made a decision not to investigate or bring to light instances of abuse, thereby giving implicit consent to what was happening. That means that everyone at every level of the church who didn’t speak up, who didn’t get the police involved, also gave consent to either what was happening, or the totally inadequate ways in which the attackers were dealt with. That’s a lot of people.

The message of ‘small numbers of evil men’ seems to be at odds with other (positive) messages in the text, that of Steph holding her Dad accountable. More on that later.

I can forgive the story the clichéd grooming dialogue provided by Jim Murray. It’s a fictional text and the comments re modelling, boyfriends etc codes the guy as a creep and lets us know what’s coming. The reaction from the man in the piano shop on the last page I can’t forgive though, because that’s just bad and lazy writing.

So now onto the good.

1) This assault is not used as a motivation for Steph becoming the Spoiler. Yes, one of her first jobs was tracking down the guy, but it has been stated time and time again that Steph became the Spoiler to get back at her Dad.
A woman’s experience of (in this case near) sexual assault was not used as a motivation for her becoming a crimefighter. Halle-fucking-lu-iah. That’s a bloody rarity.
And yes, I realise her dad was abusive, both to her and her mum, but I still think it’s worth highlighting that her near rape wasn’t what motivated her.

2) She holds her Dad accountable! She doesn’t blame herself! Damn right. I am so glad this was explicitly spelled out. There isn’t enough media out there where this happens. I am sure this is partly because she was a child of 11 when it happened, and maybe if she’d been an adult there would be dialogue surrounding the way she was dressed or acted, but that doesn’t make this specific instance any less valid.

3) She got away. She fought back and she got away. She fought back and she’s not a ninja, she was just an ordinary, scared little girl. I’ve written before how I hate the overuse of rape in fiction, it can seem like it’s a constant reminder that women are in danger wherever we go, and we should always be aware that at any minute someone might rape us. Fictional women don’t usually get away under their own steam, they always seem to be rescued (unless they’ve got powers, and even then that doesn’t always help, see Black Canary) and they don’t often seem to have much agency.
That doesn’t tally with my own experience. Women can fight back, we are not automatically gonna get raped if we go out at night and we’re not helpless.

So, for Steph to fight back, get away and take some sort of control I think is bloody fantastic.

4) Steph knew her attacker. Most people know their attacker. It’s nice for a story to recognise this.

5) I think the art and dialogue captures Steph’s terror and feelings wonderfully. From where she’s in school and hears male voices, to hiding under her bed (resourceful lass), to when she hits the piano in the store, and on the last page when we can see from her and Tim’s conversation that she has dealt with the incident and is able to move on with her life. A portrayal of someone who’s not been irredeemably scarred for life? That’s needed as much as portrayal’s of people who have been damaged for life.

So yeah, apart from the crappy evil men lines, overall I think this is a fucking awesome story and I think was handled really well. All the individuals are treated with dignity, and as well as working on a political level it also works on a story level too. Which is probably the most important plus point actually – it’s no good a story being a vehicle to showcase your political viewpoint if the story itself doesn’t flow and work. And if a story has questionable politics, well I’ll be turned off by it, offended and probably have a bitch on here. ;)

Reclaim the Night

I did have a whole long post typed up ready to go online about the march on Saturday, but i can't be arsed. It was fun, I went with 2 friends I haven't seen in a while, they got on, we marched and shouted, bystanders supported us, there was a signer translating the speeches and I saw a cool band in the evening - Zombina and the Skeletones. Check them out.

There's lots of stuff up online about the march - sadly no pictures of me or my friends, but if you want to read more here's some links:

The F Word
Reclaim the Night
London Feminist Network
Shut Up Sit Down - on sex workers rights

While we're at it, please all go help Rape Crisis. You've got no excuses not to do so. Do it.

Green Arrow - finally

So, I've finally managed to get round to putting up Green Arrow stuff. My
main thoughts on these issues now center round the gorgeousness of the covers from the Mike Grell run. Have a look:
(I"m having a bit of trouble with the layout of this thing, and can't seem to get the pictures to sit on the right next to my text)

So, apart from the covers, what else did I take from this run? The Mike Grell issues had the most intelligent letters column I've ever seen. This was quite obviously inspired by the adult way in which the comics were written, practically every story arc dealt with one social issue or another. There were no crazy shape shifting aliens, no superpowers, just a normal guy looking after his family and city. The series had a mature readers tag until issue 63 and as such had some pretty heavy themes running through it. The stories treated the readers like adults. there was sex, but it wasn't gratuitous. There was honesty and the characters were all treated like real people - no gimmicks.
Back to the letters column, nearly all the letters on Grell's run were well thought out, debates over a specific views would last for months. Arguments, disagreements were conducted in a civil way. These weren't debates over characterisation or minor petty trifling things, these were debates about wars, animal rights, marriage, the environment, everything that the comics themselves looked at.

Dinah didn't get a lot of screen time unfortunately, not even as Black Canary. Now while I can see the argument that it's a GA book, not a BC one, you'd expect their costumed lives to intersect somewhat more often than they did. given the constant flood of letters urging that we see more of BC I can't help but wonder why she wasn't given more time. And was this Grell's choice or the DC editors? The editor of the letters page certainly seemed to be supportive of more BC.

But again, the issues featuring Dinah dealt with her very well - her recovery from her ordeal in The Longbow Hunters, finding out Ollie had a child with Shado and her then catching him cheating on her again with their lodger.
When Dinah met Shado she thought Ollie had consented, and with this knowledge she realised where the fault lay - i.e. with Ollie. She could have been portrayed as a screaming harpy but Grell didn't do that.
Having said that, Shado did rape Ollie and it's really creepy reading her rationale for doing this. This rape wasn't acknowledged until very recently, in a conversation between Dinah and Babs, before Dinah and Ollie got married. It should have been dealt before, by Mr Grell.

There was no gratuitous cheesecake in this run. All the women with panel time were there for a reason, and had a part of the story. Compare this to when Mike Grell left and pretty darn near immediately you have women in cheesecakey poses and with no real role in the story. Just there as background material for the readers to leer at. You also got aliens and weird baddies and the feel changed immediately to a more cartoony story. I preferred the grown up, mature readers feel myself.

Ollie got himself killed because he couldn't bear to lose an arm and not be able to shoot. So his pride killed him. Idiot.

I loved the introduction of Connor, but his GA was not as good or important to me as Ollie's GA. That's a personal thing. I enjoyed watching all the women Connor met eye him up, whilst he was oblivious. Entertaining. And creates an entirely different dynamic - for once the women aren't passive. That's good to see. I've read some views that Connor may bi, but from this reading, I don't see that. I just reckon he doesn't want to sleep around.

Now I've got to get hold of the Green Lantern/Green arrow run. But first, I'm working my way through the Connor Superboy books. And reading Beauty by Sherri S Teppler - really really good. A reworking of the Sleeping Beauty story and it's wonderful.

I also read The Boy In The Striped Pajamas last week. It's about Auschwitz and is told from the point of view of a 9 yr old German boy who's totally innocent of what's going on. His dad runs Auschwitz and the whole family has moved there and the kid thinks that people living in the camp have cafes and restaurants and he can't understand why they don't wear jumpers when it gets cold.
This could have been a trite terrible book but it wasn't. I didn't get too emotional reading it but that's because I didn't let myself - last time I read Primo Levi books I had nightmares. The book has just been made into a film, and I would recommend picking it up (the book not the movie, books are always better).

Link post from the Curvature

When a man is the victim - a study in rape apology
Interesting post. Go check it out.

Nightwing... (spoilers)

I've been hideously busy lately hence the lack of posts. I'm still hideously busy but today I've given myself a day off to just relax and do what I want, instead of what I should do. Hence lots of Nightwing reading and some blogging. I'm looking forward to getting my life back.

So, I am reading my way through the Nightwing series now and I must say it's pretty enjoyable. Far more so than I expected, and has a lot less problems than the Flash run did. Which means less indignation for me, hurrah! This will be another long post, interspersed with pictures.


Firstly, Greg Land did a run on this title and I was very surprised to notice a complete lack of pornface. Obviously I've been doing the guy a disservice before as he appears to be able to draw women in normal looking poses. Whether he's traced them or not I can't tell, and the art isn't particularly stand out, merely average, but still better than I expected. I'm considering giving him kudos for not constantly drawing pornface but then I realise it's a sad state of affairs to congratulate someone on not drawing porn in a non porn comic.

Tells you a lot about the state of American superhero comics doesn't it? *sigh*


Good aspect number 2: There's this new hero on the scene called Tarantula, she's a lady superhero. Her and Nightwing met then she tries to lose him. Of course, Grayson has been trained by the world's greatest detective so works out she's hiding under a ledge. Like a spider. Do you see what they've done there?

Here's the page:



She slapped him, hurrah! There's not enough of that going on. On a bad note, this woman has grown up in Bludhaven, she knows what it's like. And yet leaves her torso exposed. Shouldn't she be wearing Kevlar? Or something protective? Oh no, exposing flesh is more important than a coherent framework.
Now I think I mentioned before about how the Pied Piper's gayness wasn't really talked about in the Flash comic. They've done a lot better in Nightwing. Basically Dick gets partnered with a new guy who keeps getting beat up in the locker room by a bunch of homophobic policeman. Dick steps in, because y'know he's a hero and protects the innocent etc.
One of the muggers says 'What, are you Grayson, his boyfriend?'. There's a pause and Dick responds 'What if I am?'. We're meant to think that shows how wonderful Dick is, he's not a bigot and he doesn't care about what people think. A knight in shining armour for his abused colleague. I think that this is a very heterocentric way of viewing things. And this is dealt with on the next page!
If you can't read the text the dialogue is as follows:
Grayson: I'm going to file a report with Amy [the boss] OK? The problem's theirs not yours. And I'm here for you, you don't have to deal with this alone..
Gannon: No, you know what? As long as they're hitting me, the problem's mine. And I'm not alone, though that's got nothing to do with your smug little moment of PC bravado back there. save your speeches for your girlfriend Grayson. The only thing I need you to do for me is make sure I don't get shot in the back between 8 and 6.
Fucking score. It's really rare to see that point of view put across. To reinforce that gay people don't need to be saved by straight people, that we're not alone and we're not angsty. And in a later issue we go to Gannon's house and see his fella. And it's explicit they are in a relationship, it's not using hints!
Last point. This big guy called Roland Desmond thinks Nightwing caused his mother to have a heart attack and die. So he sets out to destroy everyone Dick knows. He blows up his apartment block, kills all the residents bar 2. He has Dick's circus set on fire, injuring and killing many. He blows up his partner's house intending t kill the whole family, he goes after Babs (who Dick obviously tries to save despite the fact Barbara is more than capable of holding her own. Pfft. Male heroes).
When Dick and Tarantula catches up to Roland he realises Roland will kill everyone he knows, everyone he saves, everyone he smiles at, shakes hands with etc. So Dick makes the choice to let Tarantula shoot him. Predictably this sends him into a meltdown as he's crossed the line. Then something weird goes on with the story. Tarantula takes Dick onto the roof to make their getaway:

Well blow me but that don't half look like they're having sex. Which is a fucking weird plot twist for a start. Now bear in mind that Dick is ranting and raving at this point and really isn't in his right mind..definitely not in terms of consenting to sex anyhow..which makes me think that isn't a sex scene, it's a rape scene.