Supernatural: Pilot and Wendigo

We're in a bloody lockdown due to a bloody pandemic and I'm getting stressed to fuck so I decided to watch Supernatural again from the start.  Continuing my mainlining of it.  I have a big long list of things to write about it, so I think I'll get to them ad I rewatch the episodes.

So yesterday I put the Pilot on.  When I first watched it I thought it was dated and some bits were a bit cringey, mostly Sam's hair.  He just always reminded me of Tom Welling in Smallville.  But ona  the rewatch I got SO MUCH MORE out of it.

That's the joy of rewatching something you love, you get more, you understand more, you see foreshadowing (I remember when I first discovered the concept of foreshadowing, it felt absolutely magical to me), you can judge how the characters grow from that point, you can see the bare bones of them, what they started from and you can see the actors grow.

On first watch I perceived it all a setting up episode, the origin story if you will.  I didn't remember much actual plot.  But now, I realised it's the Woman in White storyline.  That has always stayed with me (partly cos I've read so much fic base don it, tbh, but still) .  The boys have stupid hair, yes, I'm not fussed about their origin, although of course it's important, I find the ninja fight scene when Dean breaks into Sam's apartment hilarious - the fights didn't continue like that, that's for sure.  Jared seems far more comfortable as Sam than Jensen is as Dean.

But.  But, but, but.  The groundwork is laid really well.  Their relationship is established well, their shitty upbringing is covered.  Dean's reactions and facial expressions when Sam pisses him off, that's the stuff that continues through all 15 seasons.  It's beautiful to see it start here.

The importance of the car and the music is there.  It's iconic.  The horror story of Supernatural is there - the mysteries, the folklore, the scary shit these guys deal with, easily and confidently.  It is really atmospheric.  It seems to flow much better than on first watch.

Maybe on first watch I was apprehensive because I really really wanted to love the show, and I was worried I wouldn't like it.  But now I know I love it.  So I can just settle in and enjoy it.

I then got half way through episode 2 - Wendigo.  Another folkloric story that I love.  It's not necessarily the way I would portray a Wendigo, but hey I'm flexible.  Then you've got the female characters.  Dean hits on them all, but they are never just love interests.  They are competent, brave, survivors, they learn about the scary stuff and they continue with their lives, dealing with that knowledge. They don't freak out permanently, they react, absorb and process it and then continue. They are competent and they keep on living.  In contrast, most of the fellas in their lives get killed.

I know the show has issues with fridging women.  Let's ignore Mary and Jess' stories just now.  The treatment of the supporting cat of female characters in the early seasons is superb.  When the women start becoming villains later on, that's when I felt the show started to lose it's way.  Before that it was a very male show, male oriented, male stories, male relationships.  But this wasn't delivered at the expense of the women.  I suspect that when this changed was when Kripke, the show's creator (and writer?) left.  I am not sure yet.  I'll work it out when I get there.

I love being so in love with something. Love, love, love it.

Brightest Day (ooh I get a bit cross)

Ok, so it's now all over.  I can't say I was too impressed.  I expected something bright and cheerful, perhaps along the lines of the (old) JLI.  What I got was more of the same (mostly) dull dramatics, misery, death and angst.

I liked the Hawks' story (to a point), and also Aquaman's (mostly because of Aqualad, who is a fantastic addition to DC's universe.  I didn't see any of Osiris' or Captain Boomerang's story in these pages.  That was disappointing.  Deadman's, Firestorm's and the Martian manhunter's story also did not intereste me much (and I thought I was J'onn fan).

If this story was designed to hook new readers into less popular B-list characters, it didn't work on me.  I was already an Aqua and Hawk fan.  I am not drawn into reading up on Swamp Thing or Constantine either.  I was however highy HIGHLY amused by the black and green Swamp Thing fight scene.  I guffawed.

The elementals idea was perfect, and it's a damn shame it wasn't continued.

Of course, this was somewhat ruined by the fatc that they killed off Sheira.  I sincerely hope that she comes back soon, and in her own right, because her death did nothing for the story except to provide another reason for Carter to angst.  Like he doesn't angst enough anyway.    It looks like a classic case of Women In Refigerators syndrome.

For Gods sake why didn't they kill off Carter and make Sheria angst?  Oh right, that's because male characters can exist in their right whereas female characters only exist as motivations or plot devices for the male characters.

*fumes*

Women in Refridgerators and female friendships in comics

[EDIT- I am referring to DC comics here as that is pretty much all I read. Should have made that clearer in the original post, but I wrote this about a week ago and knocked it out late at night. The shame.]

The WiR phenomenon -
I've been scrolling through the old WFA posts and came across this one by Kalinara dealing with the Women in Fridges phenomenon. To quote a few choice phrases:

it's not about them being women. It's about them being a love interest.....The problem is that there needs to be more female (or gay) heroes who have male love interests who can die/be brutalized just as effectively. The problem is that there needs to be more female heroes..... ...(GL Kyle's girlfriend) Alex was created to die. Marz saying this has been cited as an example of his misogyny. Which is idiotic. She's *backstory*. Just like Martha and Thomas Wayne. Just like the Flying Graysons. Janet Drake. Ted Kord's dead mother. Jor-El of Krypton. J'onn J'onzz's wife. Hell, even Abin Sur. Her death is a motivator and inspiration for the hero. That's it. The sole difference is that we actually got to see them interact for a few issues before her death. But you know what? That's actually *respect*. ...The thing is though, we can't shy away from killing female characters just because they're women. That's sexism as well.

I've posted about WiR before, I know I have. Initially I thought it was an example of sexism. Now, I'm more inclined to second what Kalinara said. The reason for these characters deaths are that they're the love interest, they're the significant other, the close family member or the friend. We're supposed to empathise with and feel for the hero who gets it all taken away. It's something I quite enjoy as a plot device, because I'm a fan of tragedy. It makes me emote.

I've come to realise that i'm far more bothered about fictional women's lives revolving solely around men, or about spine twistingly bad art, or ridiculously impractical costumes. I think those types of things are far more indicative of sexism than the WiR happenings. And, as Kalinara said, if we had more women superheroes then we'd (hopefully) have men being killed off to further the women's chaarcter/plotline.
Then again we'd probably start off by having the male significant others beocme as important as the women and then we'd have plotlines revolving solely around the women's romantic lives..but you can see how it would eventually turn out to be a good thing.

Which brings me nicely onto my next point...
Female friendships in comics -
(This is of course a reaction to Simone's reaction to Cry for Justice #3, wherein she points out the lack of female friendships in comics)

I can think of a few. One is Kara (Supergirl) and Cassie (wonder girl) but of course that didn't last very long, I can't quite remember why now, but I think it was to do with Cassie admitting that she only stayed friends with Kara because Kara was a link to Connor. Thereby making it all about the mens. Again.
Number 2 is Power Girl and Terra's new friendship - started in the Terra mini and continued in Power Girl number 4. Hopefully this will remain an actual friendship.
Number 3 - Fire and Ice in the days of JLI.
Number 4 - The original Batgirl and Supergirl. Or so I've been told.
Number 5 - Linda Danvers Supergirl and Mattie (non powered doctor friend).
Number 6 - Selina Kyle and whatshername from the Frank Miller Batman book..the prostitute.

5. In the history of DC comics I can come up with 5.*

Let's try male friendships:
Supes and Bats
Booster and Blue Beetle
Flash and Green Lantern (Barry and Hal, Wally and Kyle, Jay and Alan)
Green Arrow and Green Lantern
The Atom and Hawkman
The Flash' Rogues Gallery
Green Lantern and Green Lantern and Green Lantern and Green Lantern (Hal, John, Guy and Kyle)

In half the time it took me to come up with the women's list, I came up with half as much again for the men.

Wait, how about Harley and Ivy. But I could argue that a lot of their relationship is built around Harley' destructive relationship with the Joker (or, I could be wrong as I ahven't read much of Harley's series). As for Selina Kyle and whatshername..their lives were still based around men, both the good and the bad.

Who is Lois' good female friends? Who is Wonder Woman friends with?

Oh I just thought of another - Spoiler and Cassandra Cain.

So, there is a case for there being a fair amount of female friendships in comics, but they don't seem to be as long lasting as the mens. Part of this is due to the fact they are newer characters, or the characters were killed off. The list of male friendships feature far more iconic character and the relationship seems to be embedded much more deeply than the women's friendships.

Part of this may be due to the comparative lack of women superheroes, and within that group, the lack of truly iconic women superheroes. Then there's the old chestnut that women are still being written in terms of how they relate to men - i'm sure by now you've all heard of the Bechdel test, google it if not.

Sam at Retconing My Brain has just written about this very thing (her post inspired mine, actually) and in that post she writes about how women in sexual relationships with each other is still a rare thing, and how she would like to see more of it.

Which goes hand in hand with what Simone was saying, I think. Simone wants more rounded female characters and relationships, ones that don't focus on or relate to men. Well, writing a true lesbian or bisexual relationship between two women would do that. I don't mean writing something cheesecakey, ooh la la, nudge nudge wink wink, phwooar isn't she hot type of thing. That would be about the men, the male readers. I mean writing about women in relationships with each other as a real thing. I have a personal investment in wanting more (any?) bisexual people (women) in superhero comics of course, because right now I can't think of any bi characters. if you readers know of any, please tell me in the comments.

We need more real women characters in comics. It will make the artform better.


*I realise the lists are completely unscientific and generated off the top of my head. I make no claims to objectivity.

Things that make you go MMMMMMM (and ebay) Movies

At the very least, things that start with M, in a roundabout way.
Spoilers ahoy, for The Dark Knight and Hancock. .

But before that, can I start with a shameless self promotion of the stuff I"m trying to flog on ebay? Here is a link to my items for sale. Tell you what, if you buy something and tell me you found it from here I'll throw in a free comic. I can't promise it will be a good comic, as it'll be one I don't want anymore, but hey, comics!
(This isn't really working is it?) Please go have a look anyway!

OK back to the actual point of this post.
Movies
I saw The Dark Knight. Fuck me, it's fantastic. I finally like a Batman movie. Hell, I even like Batman in this movie. Favourite parts? The potato peeler. The fact we have no back story for the Joker. The ways his plans were so delicately and precisely orchestrated, and made fools of everyone else. The detaisl of it. Jim Gordon - wonderful tache! The normalcy of it. I mean, I can see a guy like the Joker turning up on the streets somewhere. It wouldn't be too outlandish. Aaron Eckhart was good. I experienced a moment of joy when I realised it was him from The Core, my favourite movie.
Maggie Glylenhall was also very good, there's alot of substance to her. Unlike the woman from the first film, who was awful.
I gather people have talked about the WiR aspect of killing off Rachel. It didn't bother me. It didn't feel cheap, we got to know her first, it wasn't sexualised, and yes her death was there solely to drive the plot forward and create Two Face, but it wasn't gratitutous.
Tis a shame Montoya wasn't included. Or Babs.

I also saw Hancock. An enjoyable way to pass a couple of hours. Had a twist I didn't see coming.
One of my non comicy friends said a whiel ago that he thought it was a pretty good concept for a movie - the flawed superhero. I imemdiately thought, but we've already got lots of them. And watching the movie Hancock reminded me of Guy Gardner. Ok, so Guy's way more arrogant and confident, Hancock is fundamentally lonely. But they're assholes in very similar ways.
Hancock's outfit just reminded me of the 90s Nightwing outfit. I say FAIL.

52 - Black Adam

Spoilers....


So I just finished reading 52. I was rather unimpressed with how Black Adam's story panned out*. I liked his relationship with Isis and Osiris. It was mellowing him out, bringing him back his humanity. I thought this was a good development for him. Now when they killed off Isis and Osiris, it seemed to be purely for an excuse for Adam to go evil again. *coughWircough*.
Now I appreciate they were writing cliches, the commentary said as much, and yes suddenly finding love and even more suddenly losing it does create conflict which is the basis of a good story. But, it's a crying shame that this relationship and Adam's personal growth was confined to the pages of 52. It makes it look like some sort of silly experiment.
Black Adam has now reverted to type and the status quo hasn't changed. I think it's lazy. was it all done so that Adam could be depowered? Did the end result drive the story or did the story drive the end reuslt?

And a special shout out to Greg Rucka - don't refer to Isis as an acquisition of Adam's. Don't compare her to a cape. Not cool, Greg, not cool.


*I very rarely read about the Marvels so didn't know Adam had disappeared or murdered a country or two. So this story was a lovely surprise.

Smallville episode 8

Oooh I quite liked this one! After the disaster that was episode 6 I did think that only the odd numbered episodes were gonna be any good. I was wrong. Number 7 was awesome, number 8 was pretty cool. However, I did note some superdickery going on.

If Clarke had stopped to think for a minute he have realised that Lara can probably handle herself, under the yellow sun and all. Get over your hero complex mister. And secondly, leaving the very human (ex?) love of your life alone with Lara, who has a homicidal superpowered kryptonian after her? Lana's gonna be able to help how exactly?!

And Lana. Lana Lana Lana Lana! Clark whinges about his lost mum, and it's all about you is it? Oh I know how you feel Clarkie, I miss my mum too, moan moan moan. Huh? How is that relevant?!

But ooh, Richard is Julian Luthor! Ooooh! I thought they were going for homoerotic moment between Julian and Lex there. Until the brotherly connection was realised. Damn shame that. I'm up for a bit to man on man action in this show.

Overall, 4 out of 5 stars.
Back to how the shows been doing -
Bizzaro - tre Awesome. But the first episodes always are, finishing off the cliffhangers form the previous season and all. And this version of Bizzarro is sooo much better than the my-head-hurts-to-read-it comics version.*
Kara - Mmm. Good. I liked the snarky and the sizing up of each other.
Fierce- Absolute rot. I think I may have documented my thoughts before.
Cure - Hmm. As I recall, this was so so.
Action - ahh, knowing meta fiction narrative methinks! Yeah, this rocked. Nice WiR debate too. Made me chuckle.
Lara - was this the one where we learnt half of Krypton has visited earth? If yes, then this is the one that really sucked.**
Wrath - Oh yeah, evil Lana, plot and character development, oh yeah! good one.
Blue. Yep. Already done this one.

Which was the one with Lana keeping Lionel captive? Cos that was also the awesome.
I think I just

I had 6 mince pies and frozen mango for my dinner. Not at the same time. I'm not sure if I'm proud or not.

I think I've scuppered my even/odd number theory.

*except for Bizzarro Linda Danvers Supergirl. She's adorable and I think I want a pet one.
**I'm willing to concede that my views on this are down to the fact that I'm a it of a purist. Part of the pleasure of the Superman mythology is that he was sent to an unknown planet and there are very few others that share the knowledge. Allowing all his family to visit kind of ruins this. (Then again, I've very much enjoyed the recent comics third kryptonian storyline.)

Smallville episode 5

Ahh so much to love in this episode! Lionel's back! Lana shows more snarlyness - I guess this is the direction they'll go in to allow Clark and Lana to split? Clark gets the cape! Further persuasion to get Clark to be a superhero! WiR theory made into reality - ok so that's not so cool, but it made me giggle. Do we think they are addressing the blogosphere's concerns here?! A new character finds out Clark's secret identity and doesn't die or get mindwiped! Hurrah!
This makes up for the mess of last week's episodes.
Bad things - no Kara. Booooo. Good on Chloe for giving her a backstory though :)

In other news, I finally got and read the GA/Black Canary wedding special. Giddy Superman makes me laugh. He looks and acts like a 12 year old boy! The whole issue was pretty good actually, I like Dinah getting pissed Slade nicked her ring and I really liked everyone's reactions to the invite (especially Plastic Man's).

Also got ASBAR 7. Awful. but awesome. but awful. but awesome. And was that meant to be Black Canary, or some random Irish chick who dresses just like her? And do we think that Frank Miller may be writing himself as Batman? Or at least, writing himself as he wants to be.

WiR. I cry WiR!

Black Canary number 4. Making it look like Sin was killed by Ollie just so that Ollie could be made to look less selfish so that Dinah could than say yea to the proposal? Wir! What a load of crap.
And don't even get me started on the stupidity of not including Dinah in the faux death plan. (oh no, wait. if Dinah was included then Ollie couldn't be made to look better. of course.) Or how Dinah did not get pissed at Ollie for the effing stupid patronising plan. and for pretending to kill her daughter. and for such a weak way of ending an otherwise good mini. arg. losers.