Coming out in comics: Maxima

Supergirl 40 (the new 52) is the last in the current series.  The last few issues have had Kara at Crucible Academy. a training school for super powered folk.  There she met people seen in previous DC continuities, including Comet (not a horse in this incarnation) and Maxima, who previously had been known as the woman searching the galaxies for a suitable male to mate with, so that she could repopulate her home planet.

In Supergirl 40 she comes out to Kara:

I think it's great we have another queer character in the DCU.  Maxima not liking men changes her history and motivations and experience quite a lot, and I'd really like to see that explored.  I'm just a little bit sad about the way it's been done.  I'm not having a dig at the creative team here - I think they were constrained by the series ending and so only had one page to show this, and it's better to canonically establish that Maxima is queer than not.

However, given the circumstances and the brevity of her coming out, it reads more like she's coming out to further Kara's story.  Take the bottom left hand panel,, Maxima says:
'I know nothing can convince you to stay, but I wanted to tell you this because you've given me hope for my future.  And that I thought you should know'.

It reminds of 90s films with queer characters, like Threesome, where the gay or bi ones came out and had their friends accept them, but never got together with anyone.  I remember watching Threesome with my straight friends and they thought it was sweet that the queer guys accepted their sexuality and that their straight friends accepted them.  They thought that was good and made it a positive film.  It's certainly better than films that condone homophobia, or ignore LGBT folk.  I disliked it because I wanted the queer guys to have the same as the het guys - a loving relationship and the ability to be themselves without fear.

This page in Supergirl reminds me of that film.  What about Maxima?  If she truly likes Kara in a  sexual way I can't see her (or anyone) just thanking their crush for being around and giving them a hug and being happy to say goodbye to them.  It's all rather chaste.  Maxima says:
"You're exactly the kind of person I envisioned being with and I didn't think that person existed until now".
If Kara represents that to her then I cannot understand why she's being so accepting of Kara leaving.  When I've crushed on straight friends it's been heartbreaking for me.

So on one level this scene works for me and another it doesn't.  I really hope it can be explored further down the line, perhaps when the Supergirl title is brought back after June.

Coming out in comics: Wonder Woman, Doom Patrol, Grace Choi and Thunder

I’ve thought of a few more:
Justice League Task Force #8: Diana admits to lesbian sex on Paradise Island. Sort of.

This issue, and the preceding one, is quite interesting as it’s women focused. Written by Peter David. it’s got his brand of humour. The story arc is titled Valley of the Daals, in a rip off from the Valley of the Dolls book, which I haven’t read but I gather it doesn’t have a lot in common with this comic plot.
Anyway, a couple of dudes crashland in the jungle. One gets eaten by piranha like fish the other survives the crash and the fish and finds himself in an underground civilisation, populated exclusively with green skinned half naked women warriors. They lock him up and send a message saying that he can be rescued but only by women.

J’onn J’onzz gets together a crack team consisting of Vixen, Maxima, Dolphin (yay! she’s far too underused), Gypsy, Wonder Woman. Under duress, J’onn shapeshifts into a woman, J’oan J’onzz, for the rescue mission. Somehow his boots become thigh high, his pants ride up to become a thong and he does something clever with the red straps to make an impromptu barely there bra. They get to the valley of the Daals and their leader takes a fancy to J’oan and demands that she marries her.

It’s a fun couple of issues and it’s probably meant to be a send up of the general depiction of women in comics, but Herland it ain’t. At any rate I enjoyed it enough to buy a few hardcopies from ebay. I like Peter David’s comics but since Racefail 09 I haven’t been too impressed with his politics.

Doom Patrol #34: Monsieur Mallah and the Brain admit their love for each other. The Brain is currently in Cliff’s metal body and they share a robotic/simian kiss. It’s very sweet. Then they get blown up.

The Outsiders Unknown (to me) #: I’m sure this was the series where Grace Choi and Thunder got together, so I am wondering if this is the book where they both came out? I adore Grace. Not enough to keep buying the Outsiders books, but she’s one of those characters who I love that they exist and I think has a lot going for her. And she just looks so damn cool. With her tattoos, her shortish hair, low slung trousers and general stance, she’s awesome. If she got her own book I’d buy it, but not an Outsiders monthly issue. Maybe it’s the Bat-clan connection. Mind you, now Bruce is dead maybe it would be worth picking up again. Anyone out there reading it? What do you think of it? Are there lots of Grace/Thunder scenes?

Dan Jurgens run on Justice League America

This run was pretty bad. Writing issues 61 to 77 Jurgens did some really odd things. It’s not the plots in particular that are bad, it’s the characterization and the art. When read immediately after the glorious Keith Giffen run (issues 26 to 60) the plots look staid, boring and very run of the mill. The humour went. Jurgens writes dark serious stories and takes all the jokes, lightness and a lot of the warmth out of the characters.

For instance, from issue 63 Fire is suddenly saying ‘like’ in every other sentence. What the fuck? She’s always spoken well in the past, did not use slang and isn’t a vapid American valley girl. Sure she’s vain, and conceited and wants to me a model, but she never ever acted dumb. She’s an ex spy from Brazil, she’s got a good command of English. Ugh, the near constant use of ‘like’ was horrible.

Secondly, Blue Beetle suddenly starts imitating an insect. Check these panels out:
(click to enlarge)
(Both from issue 63)

(Issue 66)

Since when does Beetle crawl on all fours? I don’t know much about his origin, I assume he has a link to the scarab, but i’ve never seen him having any affinity for insects before.

Lastly, I can only assume Ted is doing some sort of crazy jive thriller dance here (bottom left panel):

(Issue 76)

Superman turns up in this run and becomes the unofficial/official leader of the group. The effect is somewhat ruined by Supes being so angry, rude and just downright short tempered. I am very much aware that Superman gets angry, I know he’s not always polite, but he is usually written as having patience and grace, and not as if he thinks he’s morally superior. This Kal appears to find a lot of anger in everything – he’s lost a lot of the humanity.

Maybe I was just tainted by my bad feelings on the previous issues, maybe he’s not so inhuman after all. He does display a massive amount of deliberate superdickery though. For example, he apparently believes he can dictate how women on earth should dress:
In all credit to Maxima though she doesn’t take too kindly to this and chooses a suit more to her tastes and more in line with previous outfits:

Good for her! Check out the length of that skirt and the extra cleavage :D (Issue 66)

Guy Gardner is given unfair treatment as he suddenly develops murderous impulses, threatening Ted with a yellow (he’s been kicked out of the corps by this point) drill at one point (also issue 66). Guy may be angry, he may be violent, he may like fighting but up until this point I wouldn’t have said he was murderous. Has something happened in another comic to make him this way? If there was it would have been helpful to have a recap box somewhere. [EDIT – Now I’ve got to issue 85 I see that it was some sort of clone of Guy. Whew.]

To be fair, I should point out that there are good things about this run. Blue Beetle’s investigative and curious nature is brought to the forefront – he invents new gadgets to track all members of the JLA and is trying to work out who Bloodwynd is. He’s working in his lab a lot and being far more of a scientist. I also like the Martian Manhunter as Bloodwynd sub plot, and the Pawns of the Weaponsmaster story – the first time Beetle really starts to use his brains in this volume of the JLA. The Destiny’s Hand arc was also good and it was nice to see what the Atom can do. And some of the covers were absolutely gorgeous, but I shall include those in a later post consisting entirely of notably art from this volume.

Overall though, the negative parts outweigh the positives for me. While the overall themes and ideas worked, the inclusion of some odd (and quite obviously odd) character quirks did ruin it for me. I expected better things from the current writer of Booster Gold, but evidently 20 years ago he still had a lot to learn.

*SEE! I have no problem with cleavage and sexiness so long as it’s done in context with the story and in line with characters’ personalities.