DC New 52 Week 3

Week three was my most expensive week so far. Wonder Woman and Batman were a must. And, being the Bat completist I am, so were Nightwing, Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws, even though I was pretty sure the latter two would just give me something to shout about. But hey, I like having something to get indignant about. Which I will get to later. Let's start from the best and work our way down.

Wonder Woman

When everyone was busy ranting about how they didn't want the reboot to damage characters like Batman, Superman and the Birds of Prey, no-one really mentioned Wonder Woman. Everyone was just relieved that a reboot meant they could pretend that JMS' disastrous run never happened.

And my God does this pick up the Wonder Woman mythology and run with it. For a long time editors seem to have been scared of her Greek myth origins, fearing that it would scare casual readers away. Well, in a year where a film about a Norse god superhero attracted huge audiences, I think we can all finally agree that's not the case. Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang have put Diana right back where she belongs, in a world populated by centaurs and gods with the power to turn party girls into oracles. Superman goes toe-to-toe with the smartest man on earth. So what? Wonder Woman fights gods.

Azzarello's script throws us right into the centre of the action, setting up a great villain in the shape of Apollo and kick-starting the story arc. So many of these new 52 books have been concerned with re-establishing heroes, explaining their histories and motivations with an abundance of thought boxes. Blessedly, Wonder Woman doesn't have a single one. We don't get into Diana's head. We don't know why she's living in London and not Themyscira. The word 'Amazon' isn't even mentioned. Azzarello doesn't bash us over the head with the facts and it's refreshing.

It goes without saying, of course, that Cliff Chiang's art is just gorgeous. I'm a big fan (I'd kill for a commission from him - and in fact I'd have to kill for it, because I certainly couldn't afford it...) He draws Diana as the strong Amazon she is, not as some pretty girl to be fantasised about. His emotional story-telling is great (Zola has a whole heap of brilliant facial expressions) and his action scenes have a great sense of movement.

The storyline this sets up is hugely promising, and it's one I'll definitely stick with. I'm a trades girl, but I think I'll eschew that to keep abreast of Diana's adventures.

Batman

I never read Scott Snyder's run on Detective, but I heard resoundingly good things about it, so his Batman was one of the books in the New 52 that I was sure would be good. And I wasn't wrong.

This is a great Bat book and Snyder nails the Dark Knight and his supporting characters - including Gotham. A clever opening scene shows off Batman's rogues, a blend of classic and modern villains including Two-Face with a more, shall we say, realistic look. Snyder follows this with a glimpse of the Batcave, Alfred, Robins past and present and a typical Bruce Wayne fundraiser. This comic is saying, loud and clear, "everything you love about Batman is still here".

Snyder throws in some nice surprises along the way that I won't spoil here, but this is clearly going to be a title in which you can't always believe what you see. It also sets up an arc that looks set to be cross-over heavy with one other title in particular and which also makes sure that things stay personal for Bats for a little while yet. At the same time we get some funny lines and some excellent Bruce/Dick banter. This book isn't mired in darkness and misery - Bruce, for once, seems to be coming from a more positive place. Perhaps that letter at the end of Flashpoint did him some good.

Greg Capullo's art keeps everything nice and gothic (or perhaps neo-gothic is a better term, given the new WayneTech on display), although he draws Dick too small. And, frankly, when 'Dick Grayson isn't tall enough' is the biggest complaint you have to make, it must be a pretty damn good comic. It may not have got such wide, astounded praise as Wonder Woman but that's just because Batman has been great for years and Snyder and Capullo are just building on some sterling foundations, rather than re-establishing a 'broken' hero.

And, okay, there are thought boxes, but then they're revealed not to be thought boxes, so all is forgiven. I think I will now arbitrarily rate all comics by how many of these boxes they feature.

Nightwing

Well, he already loses points on the thought box scale. There are an awful lot here, drumming home the whole 'I used to be Batman, and before that I was Nightwing/Robin, and before that I was an acrobat and my parents died and I like red-heads...' All the stuff even casual fans know about Dick Grayson (yes, even the red-head thing). I would have liked to see Kyle Higgins forget some of the back-story and get stuck into the action a bit quicker instead.

It's nice to see Dick back as Nightwing and this comic deliberately sets him up as a solo hero, not even featuring cameo appearences from the likes of Bruce and Damien (now that they're no longer partners I like to think that Damien comes up with flimsy reasons to come over and hang out with Dick). The first part of the comic focuses on just how together Dick is, only for him to make a massive mistake later on that costs two police officers their life. And he just shrugs it off. That doesn't really feel like Dick. It would have made more sense (and been more interesting) if his flaws as Nightwing were the result of that fact that he spent months with a sidekick, and he got used to it. He's got to learn how to go solo all over again.

There was nothing particularly bad about this comic, but there wasn't anything to make it really good either. Over the last few years, Dick became one of DCs most prominant and popular characters, and it feels like he's been massively demoted here and landed with a third-tier writer. Snyder wrote him much better over in Batman.

Catwoman

Now we're getting progressively worse. Thought boxes? Plentiful. Bras? Even more so. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that about half the panels in this comic feature bras. Judd Winick has been talking no end about how 'sexy' his Catwoman is, and fans couldn't help but feel he was missing the point. Yes, Catwoman is sexy. But that wouldn't be the first word I'd use to describe her. If you asked Ed Brubaker or Will Pfeifer, her last two writers, I'm sure they'd agree with me over adjectives like resourceful, smart, protective, crusading, witty, loyal, brave, and, yes, sexy. Winick only took one of those on board.

Worst of all, he has somehow failed to understand what makes someone sexy. Showing boob on the first panel isn't sexy. Even the sleaziest of strippers know that something needs to be saved til the end. In fact, that's just it. Catwoman should be sexy in a sophisticated burlesque way, teasing and playing with expectations, making you think she'll give it all up, yet she always leaves with her modesty in place and the audience wanting more. Winick thinks sexy is a back-room stripper who'll go home with you for a tenner.

But that's not even the worst of the comic - in fact, for most of it I was thinking that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I found the anatomically mind-boggling T&A shots amusing rather than offensive. But then, in the final pages... urgh. I don't want to see Batman and Catwoman having sex. I really, really don't. I want them to flirt on rooftops, kiss a little, and make suggestive comments. I don't want to see them going at it on the floor. And, I'm sorry, but can we have a little inter-comic continuity here? Snyder's Batman would not have sex with Catwoman on the floor of a random penthouse surrounded by kittens and bras.

Frustratingly, there were elements here that were good. Guillem March draws a great Selina (in the one scene that we get to see her out of disguise) and it seems a shame that he didn't have anything else to do with her bar suggestive poses on the other 18 pages. Those kittens were just joyous. I liked Selina's fence Lola as well, she felt real and different. But everything else was basically Judd Winick turning one of DC's three most recognisable female characters into a thoroughly uninspiring, insecure nymphomaniac. Get him off this book as fast as you can.

Red Hood and the Outlaws

And the winner for worst book of the week goes to...

I'll ignore the actual plot (what little there was), the characters of Jason Todd (disappointingly sane) and Roy Harper (disappointingly Ron Weasley), and the abundance of thought boxes and skip straight to my Rant of the Week: What the fuck have they done to Starfire?!?

I'm so angry about it that I'm going to give it a post all of its own straight after this one.

But, while I'm the subject of Red Hood, here's my a quick New Teen Titans in the New 52 update: Here it is revealed that Kory used to be part of a team that including Dick, Vic, Gar, Garth, Lilith and someone called Dustin. No mention of Wally, Donna or Raven. Surely this has to be significant? Surely they're saving these characters for something important down the line, right? Right?!

I also speed-read a couple of other books in my comic shop:

Supergirl: Great art, nice introduction, but it felt more like a prologue than an opening chapter. Frankly, I'd have been pissed off if I'd spent money on something that took 60 seconds to read.

Birds of Prey: I like Starling (although, really, just about everything she did could have been done by Lady Blackhawk) and Black Canary's still bad-ass, but this lacked the wow factor and the sense of cammeraderie that defined Simone's run. That might just be because the full team isn't together yet.

Talk Nerdy to Me

Recently I discovered a super power of my own, one shared by every one of my fellow nerdy ladies: the abiliy to turn any male geek in the vicinity into jelly.

I was at a party a couple of weeks ago where I got chatting to a guy. I mentioned comics in passing and his face lit up. We tiptoed around the area, sticking to the cool and acceptible bits. Are you DC or Marvel? What about Vertigo? Isn't Alan Moore great? Then he got a little nervous, clearly gearing up to a question that would either charm me or send me running for the hills in fear of his uber-geekiness. Finally he plucked up the courage to ask if I was aware of The Doom Patrol. Bless him. "Of course," I replied, "but I was always more of a Titans fan." At that his knees literally gave up on supporting his weight.

It's not the first time it's happened and I doubt it will be the last. One guy declared me to be his future wife when he learnt of my love of the Justice League cartoon. Another dated me purely because I watched Smallville. Most recently a man became a wee bit enamoured when he learnt I knew Blade Runner and Alien.

Now, I'm not saying my gift will ever allow me to pull a footballer, but that suits me fine. So long as I can go cruising for some hot geeks at Kapow in April. Because, in my humble straight-girl opinion, there is nothing sexier than a woman who knows what she likes and isn't ashamed of it, even if one or two people would snigger at it. And a woman in a home made costume having fun with a character she loves is so much hotter than any number of models who are paid to dress as Princess Leia and pose for photos while trying not to look bored.

So, as convention season looms and sales of brightly-coloured spandex sky rockets, I say to my fellow lady-nerds: Go get 'em, tiger. Just remember that with great power over awestruck male minds comes great responsibility.

Hot Pixels

Coming out of Tangled recently with two friends, we were happily discussing the merits of the film. But the one thing it took us a few drinks to work up the courage to mention was that, actually, is it just me or is Flynn Ryder the hottest Disney hero since Aladdin? Answer - well, yes, actually, he is. Look at him.

But the thing that got me thinking was that we were ashamed to admit that a cartoon character could be oddly fanciable. Which is weird, because for years men have quite happily discussed the merits of various animated hotties. I once walked in on a group of my male friends having a heated discussion about who is fitter: Belle or Jasmin (it was Jasmin, by the way). Ever since Jessica Rabbit was just drawn that way, hell, even before that, with comic book and manga heroines, men have been openly lusting after 2D babes.

But women can't quite get away with it. I once admitted to having a crush on Gambit in the 90s X-Men cartoon series as a kid and just got blank looks from my female friends. Is it because women are expected to look beyond appearences when they develop a crush, whereas men are happy with a decent pair of animated breasts? Or is it because most animators are men and they don't see why they would need to draw sexy males? It's a chicken and egg situation: do artists not sexualise male characters as much as female characters because women aren't attracted to cartoons, or are women not attracted to cartoon men because the artisits don't bother making them sexy?

Maybe Disney isn't the best example - it's Disney, it's not meant to be sexy. But it's a long-standing thing in comics that women can fight crime in a thong and contort themselves into bizarre positions where both boobs and bum are pointing at the reader, but the men are covered up like monks. Yes, every so often Bruce Wayne gets out his hairy chest, and yes, all the men are drawn as a physical ideal in the same way the women are, but the women are drawn sexy, and the men are drawn heroic. I have no problem with sexy heroines - if I looked like Starfire, I'd wear a crazy purple cut-away swimsuit all the time too. But I wish the artists would bring just a little more sex appeal to the male characters.

Now, Nicola Scott, she knows what she's doing.

If more heroes were drawn like this, more women would admit to fancying cartoons. That's all I'm saying.

Where did all the gay men go?

Let me start this by saying that gay people have more exposure than they have ever had in mainstream media, and that's a good thing. Every soap has at least one gay character, and dramas (on HBO, at least) are finally letting their gay characters be defined by something other than their sexuality (hooray for Omar and Lafeyette). It's also been said that the best place for gay characters is genre shows, where they aren't just dealing with coming out and homophobia, they also have to pilot spaceships and save the world.

But I've noticed a bit of a bias over the years, particularly in the world of sci-fi and superheroes. Lots of fiesty, fleshed-out lesbians, and hardly any gay men. Look at Battlestar Galactica, one of my favourite ever shows. In the TV BSG movie Razor, Admiral Cain, a relatively minor character, was shown in a lesbian relationship with the not-unattractive Six. By the time the movie aired, Cain had been killed off and her background, while interesting, didn't really add anything. Meanwhile, there was Felix Gaeta, a solid supporting character who'd been there from episode one. He was revealed as bisexual in a web series, but his sexuality was not once referenced in the main show, even though it helped make sense of his motivations throughout the series, especially his somewhat personal reaction when Gaius Baltar betrayed him and the entire human race. The makers seemed happy to show lesbians on the main show, even when it was pretty much irrelevant, but a major plot development relating to an important character was sidelined to a web show.

Then look at He Who Can Do No Wrong Joss Whedon. Willow and Tara in Buffy were just lovely. One of the best and least provocative depictions of a lesbian relationship on TV, to this day. They fought, they had sex, they supported each other, and their friends excepted them with barely a word. Elsewhere, though, I give you Andrew, a character who was clearly gay. And yet when Whedon wanted to show how Andrew had matured as a person over on Angel, he had him going off to a ball on the arms of two beautiful women. How hard would it have been for Andrew to head off into the sunset with a hot guy in a tux? Again, a lesbian couple who were treated sensitively and sympathetically, and a gay character who was comic relief, and then inexplicably straight.

Comics are much the same. Marvel is doing better, in their earnest way, with Young Avengers Wiccan and Hulkling and X-Factor's Rictor and Shatterstar, but DC is disgracefully devoid of gay male characters. Not gay characters, I'll stress, because they currently boast three brilliant lesbians: Renee Montoya, Scandal Savage and even Batwoman. They are often sidelined by some writers, but in the hands of their principle writers (Greg Rucka and Gail Simone) they are three of DC's best characters.

But where are DC's gay male characters? Um... Todd Rice, his lawyer boyfriend, Creote... erm... Kyle Rayner's mate, who was gay-bashed... Please, tell me if I'm missing anyone, but those are the only ones I can think of. I'm not sure exactly what percentage of people are gay in the real world, but I'm pretty certain it's a larger percentage than is depicted in the DCU, male and female. Would it be that difficult for them to introduce a gay Teen Titan? (teenagers are meant to experiment with their sexuality, the Titans seems like the natural home for a new gay character). And there are plenty of existing characters who could fairly organically be revealed as gay or bisexual. Connor Hawke, Tim Drake, Dinah Lance, Joseph Wilson.

When it comes to the dominance of lesbian characters over gay ones in the sci-fi genre, I can only reach one (sad) conclusion: the male, middle-aged Powers That Be don't feel threatened by lesbians. They think they're hot. Gay men, however, represent the fear of the unknown, something they consider a little bit, well, disgusting. Something they don't want to corrupt the young male viewers/readers with. They recognise that in these modern days they need to acknowledge the existance of homosexuals, but they go for what they view as the 'safe' option: lesbians. Added to that is the assumption that lesbians are more masculine, and therefore more likely to be tough heroes, whereas gay men are considered to be effeminate, so hardly hero material.

Luckily, this thinking has allowed some brilliant female characters to sneak through the misogynistic net and carve a vivid, powerful route of their own. But the arse-kicking, swashbuckling gay heroes are still trapped in the red tape, waiting for a new generation of Big Boss Men to let them do their stuff. And who wouldn't want to watch a show about a gay space pirate?

What Women Want (from comics)

I'm as feminist as the next girl. As a reader/viewer of fiction I get annoyed by the lack of decent female characters and as a writer I make sure to write them. But what does slightly annoy me is the idea producers/writers seem to have that girls only identify with or enjoy female characters. That idea often ends up creating tokenism, a feeling of "right, better throw a woman into this film or no girl is going to want to watch it. We'll make her hot but relatable". Die Hard has one woman in it - one who is really little more than motivation for the male lead - but it doesn't stop it from being one of my favourite movies.

Comics are consistantly guilty of believing that women are only interested in female characters. They have their 'girl friendly' titles. You can tell that Supergirl is aimed at women because the logo is (oh dear God) pink. Still, at least DC are making a vague effort to accept that girls read comics. Marvel, with the exception of the X-titles, have been ignoring half the population.

The issue of women reading comics has risen its head with a vengenace since Paul Levitz pissed off thousands of fangirls by saying "The fundamental dynamic of the superhero story has historically been more appealing to boys than girls". Maybe that's true, maybe "historically" comics were more appealing to boys than girls. Historically comics were only drawn with three colours and were considered only suitable for kids to read. The comic book medium is new, it's still evolving. It took decades for novels to be considered art. In the last 30 years comics have been coming into their own. It's not all about heroes clad in the colours of the American flag lifting tanks over their heads. The stories are more complex now, more a blend of action, drama and soap. The characters have become more than just costumes and superpowers. They're fleshed out and far more interesting. And that, in my opinion, is what women are interested in.

We don't need a pink logo on a cover to pick up a comic, we just want good stories and interesting characters. Don't get me wrong, I love DC women. I came to comics through the New Teen Titans run from the early 80s, so I was lucky in that I was given good female characters from the get-go, and since then I've become a fan of all the Birds of Prey, Scandal Savage, Power Girl, Catwoman, Zatanna, Renee Montoya (as The Question and as a cop), Amanda Waller, even Wonder Woman, sometimes. But the characters I've always been most fond of are the Batfamily, especially Batman and his Robins. Boys. Not because they're the coolest or most heroic, but because they are some of the most developed characters in the DCU. I've seen Dick Grayson go from Robin to Nightwing to Batman, just as I've seen Barbara Gordon go from Batgirl to 'cripple' to Oracle. Most characters remain static over decades of comics, but the Batfamily grow, age, develop, change, becoming ever more complex, layered and interesting. That is what I'm drawn too, regardless of the gender of a character.

Comics aren't just about explosions and well-drawn fight scenes anymore. They're changing organically, just like their best characters are, and it's time the Big Bosses accept (and start promoting) the fact that their product isn't just for 10 year old boys anymore. Without realising it, they've created something that, when it's written well, is positively girl-friendly. But hey, maybe I'm not a great sample of the female population. The cover that caught my eye this year was Bane riding a dinosaur. But who says women have to be into cute puppy dogs and make-up?

Coming Out

Okay, deep breath, confession time. I've always known I was different to other girls, but I did my best to fit in. I'd talk about boys and shoes and hope no-one noticed that my heart wasn't in it. But now, finally, I feel like I can embrace the real me, the person I've always been under all the social conventions.

I'm a comic book geek.

There, I said it. Wow. I've talked a lot on this blog about film and TV, but that's more acceptible in some way. They are to comic books what marijuana is to heroin. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my gateway drug. Now I'm hooked on all things geeky (except gaming - I'm still a joypad-mashing hopeless case when it comes to games).

But comics have actually been an important part of my life since I was a child. My Dad was a comic collector before he had to sell all his comics to pay for nappies and baby food and other frivolities. So my destiny as a geek was sealed from birth (my brother has taken a different but similar path - he's into Manga and World of Warcraft). All of Dad's comics were gone by the time I was born, so he'd tell me the stories from memory instead. My bedtime tales were "once upon a time there was a Caped Crusader, and his name was Batman..." Dad was a DC buff, so I was too. We would stand in the kitchen for hours on end as he smoked out the back door, telling me the stories of Watchmen, of the Talia Al Ghul/Silver St Cloud/Batman love triangle, of Starfire arriving on Earth and snogging Robin to learn English.

Then there were the cartoons. Every day on one of my summer holidays I got up at 7am to watch X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series. Then, when I was old enough to know better, I was hooked on X-Men: Evolution, Batman of the Future, Teen Titans and Justice League (which, for my money, is the best of the bunch). Then there were Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Smallville, although, ever my father's daughter, I was never a Supes fan.

The first graphic novel I ever read was The Dark Knight Returns, the one comic Dad had managed to hold onto. Not a bad introduction to comics, but maybe a little heavy for a newbie. But it all really kicked off when I spotted a Watchmen graphic novel, long before the film made it cool again. I remembered Dad's stories, and decided to buy it for his birthday. I think I read it even before he did. It became a tradition. Every birthday and Christmas I buy Dad a graphic novel. Initially, I just got him ones that he reminisced fondly about. Then I nicked it and read it. V for Vendetta, Frank Miller's Daredevil run... Then I started developing my own tastes, and soon I'd even overtaken my father. The day I bought him a comic and handed it to him with the words "I read this the other day, I thought you'd like it" was probably the most proud of me he's ever been. That moment kicked my graduation day into the dirt.

Why is now the time for me to come clean about all of this? Because I've just booked tickets to my first ever Comic Con. In April, I'm off to Kapow!, the brand new British answer to the San Diego Comic Con (thanks Mark Millar!). I'm already excited and most of the line-up hasn't even been announced yet. For the first time I'll be in the company of my nerdy peers, and I'll probably realise how little I actually know about comics, compared to most other people who call themselves fanboys (and girls).

No-one is just one person. I'm about six or seven. The other mes get regular excursions: Professional Me goes to work four days a week, Writer Me never shuts up, Party Girl Me gets glammed up and dances crazily every weekend (ish), Intellectual Me loves the theatre and carries a book everywhere she goes, Lazy Me has her very own sofa arse-print, Friends and Family Me reminds me what's really important. But Geek Me has to sit quietly at the back of the class. It'll never be the loudest or most prominant aspect of me, not unless I achieve my secret secondary dream of being a comic book writer (I really want to write TV), but it's about time I stopped hiding it.

Besides, it makes me quirky and interesting, right?

Daywalking

Here's pretty much all you need to know about me: I'm a girl, I'm in my mid-20s (24 counts as mid, right?), I have a professional job, and I'm a total geek. Not a computer geek, mind, so expect plenty of glitches on this blog. Apologies in advance.

No, my geek leanings are more in the sci-fi/fantasy/comics/TV/films area. Positively socially acceptible, right? If you're a bloke, yeah. The 'Seth Cohen' mold of geek, if you like. Quirky, yet handsome. Someone who has seen every episode of Star Trek (yes, even Enterprise) and still finds time to work out. But where do us female geeks (feeks?) fit in?

I'm not a Goth. The word 'executive' in my job title rules out that form of self-expression (as does my laziness when it comes to make-up and my fear of body piercings). I don't walk around in 'Kneel Before Zod' t-shirts, although I do have a Vote Petrelli badge and a Join the Colonial Marines poster. I might not fit the cliche, but I am most definitely a nerd. I can talk confidently about the Wolfman/Perez era Teen Titans comics, tell you Buffy's home address and sing Red Dwarf's Tongue Tied from start to end, complete with dance moves. But I also love Ugly Betty, can quote whole passages of Shakespeare and secretly quite like The Saturdays (they make catchy pop, okay?!).

I practically lead a double life. Most of my friends know I like my Joss Whedon, but very few know about the comics thing. And as for blokes, if they're not put off by the academic geekiness, their smile starts to become a little strained when they spot my Batman collection. Sometimes, I even manage to look half-way cool, like this:

But most of the time, I look like this:

I am a daywalker geek. You wouldn't know it to look at me. And this blog is for all you guys and gals who struggle along with me, being forced to hide your geekiness during the boring nine-to-five that we have to call 'real life'. This is for everyone who laments the trauma of having to hold a conversation with your workmates about Cheryl Cole when you'd much rather be talking True Blood.

You are with friends here!