Superhero Shag, Marry, Avoid 3: Green Lanterns

Now, I know what the correct answer to this is: you shag Hal, marry Kyle and avoid Guy. But my relationship to the Green Lanterns of sector 2814 is a little more... complicated.

1. Shag - Kyle Rayner

Hal might be the stud of the Corps, but who wants to be a notch on his (possibly STI-ridden) bedpost? Kyle it is then, even if it would mean running the risk of winding up stuffed in a fridge.

2. Marry - Guy Gardner

Yes, he has stupid hair. Yes, that jacket is unforgivable. But Guy is far and away my favourite Green Lantern and is oddly adorable to boot, with his swaggering over-compensation, his general pig-headedness, and his cute little thing with Ice. Plus, any man who can moon Batman and live to tell the tale is surely marriage material.

3. Avoid - John Stewart

He's been knocking around the DCU for 40 years now and they still haven't managed to give him anything approaching a personality. Hal is the maverick, Guy is the loudmouth slob, Kyle is the senstive one - what's John? The boring one? Frankly, DC has far too few non-white characters to justify wasting their most prominant one.

There's a reason that a Google Image search throws up a bunch of pictures from the (brilliant) Justice League cartoon when you type in 'John Stewart'. At least they actually made something of the character, unlike in the comics. Hell, Aquaman has more cool moments than John Stewart. So, DC, either kill him off and start from scratch by introducing a more interesting black leading male, or do a complete retcon on him, throw a couple of defining features at him and make us care. Because at the moment he still reeks of tokenism, which is pretty much inexcusable in 2011.

(Well, actually, in real life I'd probably avoid Hal. And then he'd tell his mates that he totally did me and Lady Blackhawk AT THE SAME TIME. Whattaguy!)

Superhero Shag, Marry, Avoid 2: Secret Six

Secret Six is hands-down my favourite comic at the moment. It's funny, twisted and has the best group of weirdos ever to grace a team book. But which would I shag, marry and avoid? I fear the choices aren't great...

1. Shag

I'm a straight woman, and therefore should say Deadshot here, despite his taste in dinner jackets. But let's be honest, we all know Jeanette's the best lay on the team.

2. Marry

This has to be Catman, if only so I could shag him multiple times. Plus, the marriage would be clothing-optional, and if anyone insulted my honour he would straight up bite their face off.

Having said that, I think Scandal is the only Secret Sixer who's capable of monogomy.

3. Avoid

Sorry, Ragdoll. You're an oddball and we love you for it, but I don't want your non-existant danglies anywhere near me.

Or, you know, you could just forget all of this and have Catman and Deadshot finally give into the sexual tension and take their beautiful bromance to the next level.

Just because there can never be too much Naked Catman.

Superhero Shag, Marry, Avoid: The Batfamily

That old game, beloved of drunk people everywhere. Given a choice of (usually inappropriate) people, you have to choose which you'd have a one-off wild night of passion with, which you'd marry, and which you'd avoid like a cold sore. And for some reason I haven't played this game before with superheroes.

So, let's start with an easy one: Batfamily Shag, marry, avoid!

1. Shag - Jason Todd


Come on, this is a no-brainer. Anyone who can keep up with Talia's gotta be a demon in the sack. (See also: Bruce Wayne) Jason wears the constant smirk of a man who knows he'll be the best you've ever had and leave you staring at an unringing phone for weeks on end.

2. Marry - Dick Grayson


Tender, loyal, funny, passionate, great arse, heir to billions - is there a more eligible man in the DCU? Plus, he was an acrobat. There's not a single position in the karma sutra that he couldn't get into.

3. Avoid - Tim Drake
He's a lovely guy, but the sexual identity crisis would always be just around the corner. The double dates with Cassie and Kon would be plain awkward.

Plus, I'd never be able to wear heels on date night. Guy is weeny.

Incidentally, I'd go on a night on the town with Kate, shopping with Steph, and I'd be scared to death of Bruce, Babs, Damien and Cass. What about you guys?

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?

TV of 2010

2010 has been a rubbish year for just about everything except TV, and it's been a pretty damn great year (for once) for British TV! Here's my top 10 of 2010, the only criteria being that these are all shows that screened for the first time this year in the UK, so I might be a little bit behind the US shows.

(Incidently, if I was including all the programmes I saw for the first time this year number one would be The Wire, since I finally got the box set this year. People aren't exaggerating when they say it's the best show ever. Go watch it.)

10. Being Human - Series 2

Series 2 showed a drop in quality from the first series, but it was still must-see TV, and Russel Tovey is never less than heart-breaking as the werewolf trying desperately to lead a normal life and just getting werewolf Tourettes for his efforts. This series also introduced the wonderful Ivan (yay!) then killed him off (no!). If they'd let him live, this might have been higher on my list.

9. Nurse Jackie

This strange little beast - half-hour episodes but not a sitcom - has been overlooked a lot but is one of my hits of 2010. Edie Falco makes Jackie a real, flawed person, both hero and villain at the same time and the supporting characters were all fantastic. Jackie saying "fuck you" into the severed ear of a rapist before flushing it down a toilet was one of my TV moments of the year.

8. Ashes to Ashes - Series 3

A2A may be Life on Mars' jealous cousin but it finally hit its stride in its last series with the addition of the devilish Jim Keats and boosted roles for the supporting cast. But it only really makes this list for an ending that beat Lost to it - and did it better too. Although it did take me two viewings to get over my anger that - SPOILER - everyone was dead and to realise that it was actually the best ending they could have done.

7. Downton Abbey

This was a hell of a surprise - an ITV costume drama that was actually good. It was great fun, a soap for posh people, treading just the right line between class politics, romance and back-stabbing. Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton and Hugh Bonneville flew the flag for classy acting but the real stars were a scheming gay footman and his bitter ladies maid sidekick.

6. Mad Men - Series 3 & 4

British viewers got two series' of Mad Men this year thanks to the BBC rushing out series 4 before the rights switch to Sky in 2011 (boo!). Series 3, in particular, was sublime, shaking up the entire format of the show, finally giving Don and Betty their big confrontation (and a divorce) then dodging expectations to pull a light-hearted heist caper out of the bag for the finale. I found series 4 slightly weaker, but Don's arc was fascinating and The Suitcase, a near two-hander between Don and Peggy, was beautiful television.

5. True Blood - Series 2

Some say it was better than series 1. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it was damn good, mainly for the following reasons: Jason's adventures with the Fellowship of the Sun, the line "smite me, motherfucker!", Godric, Bon Temps unlikely A-Team, the adorable romance between Jessica and Hoyt, and of course, Eric. Lovely, bastard, naked Eric. Yum.

4. Glee

Had the quality not dipped in the second half of the first series, Glee would have been higher on my list. It's an absolute phenomenon and deservedly so. The mix of near-the-knuckle jokes, weird adults, high school cliches, soap opera plotting, song and dance and Sue Sylvester is spot on - when they get it right. I worry that it's getting too kiddie-friendly for its own good, but at the top of its game it's the best and most original US show of the year.

3. Misfits - Series 2

While Being Human's second series was a slight disappointment, Misfits managed to actually be a step up from its first. As filthy and funny as ever, it became darker and delved deeper into its own mythology without sacrificing tone or losing what we love about it. Simon became an unlikely sex symbol, Alisha became a good character and Robert Sheehan continues to be the best youg actor on TV. It also pulled off one hell of a game-changing cliffhanger. Nice work guys.

2. Sherlock

This makes the list almost on the strength of its first episode alone, which was the most perfect hour I saw on TV all year. Benedict Cumberbatch was magnetic as Sherlock and Martin Freeman surprised everyone. The two of them have been the best bit of casting all year - up there with Matt Smith as The Doctor - and the programme lives and dies on their chemistry. Mark Gatiss also somehow got away with giving himself the plum role of Mycroft. Luckily for him, he was good.

1. Doctor Who - Series 5

We all expected great things from Steven Moffat and he delivered on all fronts with a great series arc, wonderfully written episodes of his own (The Eleventh Hour and A Christmas Carol stand out), a great choice of guest writers (Richard Curtis and Simon Nye surprised with their episodes), and guest actors (especially Sophie Okonedo and Tony Curran). But the one thing we weren't expecting was for Matt Smith to be that damn good. Karen Gillan let the team down a little, but Alex Kingston is wonderful.