older blog (2006)

Officially Moved

2007-01-16T16:31:00.000-06:00

Greetings, Gentle Reader! Please join me over at the new and improved Arrogant Self-Reliance, at http://amyreading.blogspot.com.

New Year, New Title, Same Joy (part II)

2007-01-04T18:16:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year, Gentle Reader, and I hope you are enjoying a wonderful start of it! I would like to direct your attention to new, exciting things happening in the Arrogant Self-Reliance world. I'm changing locations and names, to better reflect the direction I feel this blog is going in. Please update your links to
http://amyreading.blogspot.com
As this address will be null and void in a few days.
Please mind the dust and grime as I remodel!

Happy Holidays!

2006-12-24T15:56:00.000-06:00

It's Christmas Eve, Gentle Reader, and Mr. Reads and I are at his parents' house, ready to celebrate the Christmas Eve Pizza Tradition. Tomorrow morning, we head over to the Parents Reads' house for the Christmas Day celebration, complete with turkey and presents. There is creole cream cheese ice cream in the house, Pup Reads is having a blast playing with her puppy-cousins, and the tree is lit.

From all of those in the Reads and Reads-In-Law Households, we wish you the best and the brightest for this holiday season, however you choose to celebrate it! May your lights be bright, your comic books shiny and new, and your action figures poseable and articulated!

Corsets Do Not Work That Way (and neither do women's bodies)

2006-12-20T15:43:00.000-06:00

I believe I've mentioned before, Gentle Reader, that I currently study fashion in literature. I don't much care for Modern Fashion; anything after Dior's New Look makes me shudder, more than a bit. But I adore the Neo-Classicism of the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of the turban in the 1830s, the fall of the crinoline in the 1870s, the height of the Bustle in the 1880s, the rise of hemlines in the 1920s, and my favorite style of the 20th century, Depression and WWII era clothes. All of it, Friends, makes me smile, more than a little bit. Give me a man in suspenders and a fedora and a woman in clunky heels and an A-Line dress, and I am as happy as a clam.

But what Bogie and Bacall fashions don't have, and indeed, what most 20th-century clothing doesn't have is this:

The Corset.

Now yes, of course, the Corset was transformed into the brassiere at some point in the early-20th century. There are many, many books on this subject, Friends, and I urge you to check out Uplift, perhaps, or even the more simply named Bra, if you'd like to read up on the history. But there are equally as many books on the Corset as there are on the Bra.

Of my personal favorites, might I recommend Valerie Steele's Corset, Beatrice Fontanel's Support and Seduction, or Leigh Summer's Bound to Please? All are wonderful works and detail the history of the corset quite well.

These three books might tell you a secret, however. A secret so, well, secret that no one seems to really know it.

Corsets aren't very comfortable. At all.

Sure, the one tailor-made for you is more comfortable than others, because all tailor-made clothing has the fortunate side effect of being rather comfortable. But when you lace a corset around the middle to create that artificial hourglass effect, you are constricting the flow of oxygen throughout your body, not to mention smooshing and destroying your internal organs. This is why 19th-century women would use tightly-laced corsets as an abortefacient, or why young girls' bodies were deformed by age 15 (as most would begin wearing corsets around 12 or 13). This is also why women did not participate in sports, or why when they did, at the turn of the century, diary accounts record how in the dressing rooms of tennis courts, corsets soaked in blood would be strewn about, because the whalebone would pop the lining with all of the movement, and stab the wearer in the side.

Corsets have now become fetish or fantasy clothing, and tend to be represented as the sexiest article of women's clothing. But very few people can afford the tailor-made corset, or even know where or how to get one, so many simply buy the pre-made corset, which fits, but not very comfortably.

And trust me, Gentle Reader. I am a firm believer in Personal Choice. You wear what you want to wear, whenever you want to wear it. I think the corseted women at the Ren Faires are quite beautiful, and many women wear corsets on their wedding days. It's a special article of clothing, and despite its long dubious history in the annals of fashion, it was the only support women had for hundreds of years.

There is the crux of it, no? Women need support, and the corset was the best, and truly only option, until the end of the 19th century. Works like Steele's and Summers' tell us that women did not, in fact, lace their corsets as tight as we think, overall. That the ones who did were fetishists in their own right, or were urging bodies to do things like abort unwanted pregnancies. But the fact of the matter remains: the corset kept women somewhat immobile.

All of this preamble to say that I found This Young Woman's Livejournal this morning through When Fangirls Attack and Ms. Sproutie82 has directed our attentions to This New Statue of The White Queen, Emma Frost.

Now, Friends, much ink, literal and figurative, has been spilled over the Woman (in comics) Question. This Humble Author has, in fact, spilled much of that ink Herself. Recently, some of that ink has been spilled regarding the new Star Sapphire costume which is, as Our Brother and Sister Feminists remind us, fairly ridiculous.

And it is. Movement has been completely discredited in Star Sapphire's outfit, and as for the statue of Emma Frost, which is already sold out, my first thought was, "Dear Heavens, I can see n*pple!"

And here's the real problem: Sideshow Collectibles, I am your market! I am an employed, middle class comic book reader in the 25-35 age range, as is Mr. Reads, who often buys statues and action figures and collectibles for me as birthday, Christmas, or anniversary presents. But he would never buy something like this for me (or, thank heavens, for himself) because its very presentation is so preposterous that I want to laugh, or cry, but am not sure which.

And even Adam Hughes' original art, pictured below the statue, while obnoxious, does not even reach the levels of outlandishness the statue can claim. Perhaps my eyes are jaded; I am used to seeing such things 2D. But seeing it 3D has turned my stomach, and caused me to avert my eyes.

To return to corsets, as a by the bye literary tactic, let me also suggest to you that *corsets do not work that way*, and for that matter, *neither do women's bodies*. With the kind of movement Emma Frost does on a daily basis--the, I don't know, walking down the hallway or eating a bowl of cereal wacky movement of fun--she would soon no longer be employed as an instructor of impressionable youth, much less allowed to walk in public.

And yes, Friends, I know that some of my Dear Readers may Cry Foul and Exclaim, "But Ms. Reads, This Is Fiction!" or, "But Amy, this has No Bearing On Real Life!" To you I ask, but doesn't it? What does this statue say about our desire to see our comic book heroines about to fall out of their tops? Or, in the case of the new Big Barda collectible, to have barely visible tops at all? And all of this not only in comic books, but in $100+ collectibles?

I am not afraid of clothing that is revealing, or of corsets. Nor am I afraid of bodies, or male artists, or sexiness in clothing, art, comic books, or real life. But I am afraid of the message that this statue of Emma Frost sends. Not just about the accepted spectacle of women's bodies in our society, but about the mythical power of bust support, as well. We have fetishized the corset because it represents the Repressed Victorians to us, and the Victorians fetishized the corset because it represented, well, was actually Undergarments, which, for the Victorians, was Quite Naughty Indeed. But there's something unnerving about seeing this translation of print to statuary, of turning 2D to 3D that sends a shudder down my spine.

To wit, it seems Bad Enough that Emma Frost must be The White Queen *in her underwear and high heels*, but to make her bust defy gravity, logic, *and* common sense? That seems almost--just almost, Gentle Reader!--a tad insulting to women.

Quick Hits Through My Pop Culture World #4

2006-12-19T16:51:00.000-06:00

It's a big comic day for me tomorrow, Gentle Reader. Not only do we have new issues of Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Teen Titans, Civil War, and Y the Last Man, I'm also finally picking up the rest of my backlog from the past few weeks. Neither Mr. Reads nor I have read 52 for a few issues, at least, and we're finally, finally going to get caught up. I've averted my eyes from All Discussions Supernova, and am trying, desperately, to remain unspoilered.

In other news, The Family Reads is packing for our upcoming holiday trips, and so to distract ourselves from laundry, we have rented several movies. A few of those have made the rounds so far, and please, find their reviews (brief as they are!) below.

What I'm Reading

The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits.
It's a lovely blend of Freud's Dora, Salem witch trials, and 30-something visits home town after long period of absence story. I'm enjoying it, very much, and look forward to more reading time.

Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce.
I've recently received book 2 from the library, and really enjoy her writing style.

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson.
In anticipation of my second trip across the Pond, of course! Funny and irreverent and absolutely true.

Also in the Queue
Lisey's Story (Stephen King), Book of Fate (Brad Meltzer), Grave Surprise (Charlaine Harris), Machine's Child (Kage Baker), Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (Caroline Weber), and still working through The Thirteenth Tale (Diane Setterfield).

What I'm Watching

Stay Alive
Gentle Reader, have I ever told you my absolute love of terrible horror movies? Stay Alive definitely fits the bill, and it's better than the Grudge and Pulse--although I don't know if that's much of a recommendation! Bonus, it has the distinction of being the last movie filmed in my beloved New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina. I must admit that most of my viewing pleasure comes from seeing my hometown, whole and sane once again.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Cute, predictable, and slightly annoying. Perhaps the acting, the plot, or the ex-girlfriends are crazy storyline that never ceases to amuse Hoi Polloi, but never ceases to annoy This Humble Author? Although I must admit: live shark in the apartment=mad crazy fun.

Sports Night
Mr. Reads and I are huge West Wing fans, and a friend of ours loaned us the first Sorkin series. Rocky at first, but it finds its stride and eventually, you see the genius that went into West Wing. Definitely worth picking up.

Also in the Queue
All the King's Men, Lady in the Water, Wicker Man, X-Files Season 8, West Wing Season 7

What I'm Recording

Low and behold, I walked into the bedroom and saw that Pup Reads had nested herself in the blankets, and with the book currently abandoned on the bed. You may remember, Friends, Pup Reads' adoration for All Books Meltzer (she finds them The Tastiest). It seems that she has also expressed her admiration for All Things Whedon.

So, of course, I had to truly introduce her to the Wonder That Is Joss.

She gave the page a lick, and said that she would get back to us with a lengthier review.

I hope to have reviews of this week's releases before I leave, so tune in tomorrow, Friends, for Catwoman and Birds of Prey goodness!

We Are Outcast: Brief Reviews of Gail Simone's Welcome to Tranquility #1 and Gen 13 #1

2006-12-17T15:17:00.000-06:00

There are some people in this world, Gentle Reader, who would do anything to return to high school. They try to relive their "glory days," or, as is most likely the case, try to create glory days that never really existed. These people have fantasized and fetishized high school into a mythical time, and spend their entire adult lives trying to go back, back, back, never remembering how very awkward and scary high school really was.

These people, more often than not, are people afraid to grow old. Not that anyone truly longs to reach the twilight-—and hope for us all, healthy midnight—-of life, but there is something to be said for aging gracefully, and healthily. There is something to be said, Friends, for the Knowledge and Wisdom that comes with age.

To juxtapose Gail Simone's two new runs, then, is to look at these two extremes: Youth, and Age. It is to look at the knowledge gained and missing, the time wasted and spent wisely, the recriminations, the trials and tribulations with growing pains: at the pink flush of dawn, and at the darkening violet of dusk. Of growing up, and growing old. Neither are very graceful times, and neither are times of great social strength and respect.

We, as a society, tend to discount our youth and our elderly: one for not knowing enough, and the other for knowing so much that forgetfulness begins to rear its ugly little head. We trumpet our youth's failings at the same time we place the weight of the future entirely on their backs. We look forward only as we look back, forever expecting better of them, and forever comparing them to those that came before. And what an interesting time this all comes in, as the Baby Boomers are on the edge of retirement, as my Generation, the infamous Gen-Xers, settle uncomfortably into middle age, and as the new Generation, technologically advanced, computer-literate, shiny and clean and new, tries very hard to grasp some toehold of power as it trickles from high school to college as we watch, chewing on our fingernails, to see how it will take to it.

The old and the young. What came before and what comes next. Is anyone more outcast than those on the periphery?

Gen 13 #1 begins with a fairly harsh and stomach-clenching scene in which a party of onlookers, eavesdroppers, and overseers monitor, from the very confines of the car, one young woman's impending date rape. One voice, the mysterious Special-T, starts to express his discomfort with the scene, with his position as Onlooker as a young woman is raped. He is told, "you pay, you stay," and reminded that, for a "diamond mine owner," it is sheer audacity to suggest that others are cruel and immoral.

As the scene continues, however, we discover that the young woman's reaction, her metamorphosis, her mutation, if you will, into her power is the true spectacle of the evening, rather than the rape itself. That the flesh dealings of the evening are even more grotesque: teenagers, much like this young girl who mutates to protect herself, are the commodities of the day. Her rape and eventual murder are just a "taste" for the clients. Remember, Friends: the first one's always, always free.

Then, in quick succession, we are introduced to several teenagers all suffering, in one form or another, from the cruel realities of everyday life. Growing up for these kids seems to involve a great deal of suffering. The first young woman, Caitlin, asks, "do they hate me because I'm smart, or am I smart because they hate me?" A crucial question and an interesting dilemma: has she turned inward because she lacks social acceptance from her peers (started, perhaps, at a young age?) or does she lack peers because she doesn't need social acceptance?

This Humble Author has fiddled, briefly, with teenager-important issues on this blog, mainly in conjunction with one of the latest issues of Supergirl, but what I haven't said is that you couldn't pay me enough to go back to high school. Not that my high school experience was particularly brutal or horrifying; I believe I was luckier than most bookish, chubby girls stereotypically are. I escaped high school relatively unscathed. But does anyone ever leave high school without any scars? Do we not relive some of those most painful moments over and over again, just to remind ourselves that we don't, not for a billion dollars, ever want to be that neurotic and insecure and awkward ever again?

"I dreamed I was falling and never hit the ground," Bobby, our next character says, and how apropos this statement is for the high school experience. "Slut. Tramp. Idiot," goes through Roxanne’s head, while the skaterboi tell us, as he falls off of his skateboard, "I am overthrown." And the most poignant words spoken, by Sarah, level a wealth of outcasting at us; she, a lesbian teenager of American Indian descent, tells us, "I will never be invisible enough for them."

Five teenagers. All with different dreams and desires and needs, all trying desperately to keep their heads above water. All trying, with great hope and determination, to keep breathing. Then they watch as their parents die before their very eyes. When they wake up in the same room together, they wake up as five strangers, but five strangers connected, so very intrinsically, by an overwhelming bond: they have nothing left now, but each other.

At the very end of the book, Caitlin pulls them all in for a group hug, and this pure moment of genius is so typical of Gail Simone. She takes five strangers-—and who are strangers together more than teenagers?—-and makes them realize that there are no strangers in strange lands. That before this moment, they were separate, but now, they are a team. Together, united behind a common goal, whether that is revenge or loneliness or desperation, it doesn't matter. They are, as of now, a united front. Ms. Simone is a master of her craft, but most importantly, she is a master of the Team-Up. No one, no one writes a team of disparate characters and brings them together better than Gail Simone.

I was worried Gen 13 would remind me too much of Runaways, so much so that I would read it as DC's answer to the Runaway Dilemma. Not so. Not so at all. I've only read the first issue of Gen 13, Gentle Reader, so I can only speak to that issue. But I've read it three times so far, just in the course of writing this review, and I can say, with great authority as A Reader, that it is, without a doubt, some of the best that Ms. Simone has offered us. I read Gen 13 as I read Whedon's Firefly so very long ago: I loved all that came before, but in this, I see all of the genius that the writer has learned, over the course of the passing years.

Welcome to Tranquility offers us a glimpse into the idea of passing years, as we are presented with a superhero retirement community. Those Golden Agers, who fought for truth, justice, and The American Way have long since hung up their tights (too baggy) and flights (now too myopic), in theory at least. In actuality, they are menaces to society as they try to continue to do the work that they have done for years. The citizens of Tranquility are less trying to relive their glory days as much as they are trying to hang on to the life they've known for so long. The sheriff, Tommy, tries to protect her town from geriatric aviators, elderly mongoose-and-cobra-vendetta avengers, and lecherous but charmingly aging swordsmen while maintaining some modicum of dignity for the town's residents. Not an easy job, of course, when octogenarian Minxy Millions seems hellbent on crashing her plane in town square.

All fun and games, yes? A gentle guffaw at the gentle sight of aging. So it seems, indeed, until we see the former Maximum Man reading every word from a dictionary. He used to have a magic word that transformed him from Accountant to Superhero, but over time, has forgotten it. Desperate to get it back, he reads dictionaries out loud, cover to cover, in every language he can find. All fun and games.

That is, until someone loses an eye. Or a word.

What this comic reminds us of is simply this: aging is not a graceful process. Imagine the fluster of lost door keys, Elizabeth Bishop tells us, or the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. We lose something every day, and the longer we live, the more we have to lose. Maximum Man reminds us of our own mortality, of the sometimes undignified process that is part and parcel with getting older. Sometimes the growing pains are funny, worthy of a chuckle, but mostly they are of quiet desperation. We spend our whole lives accumulating knowledge, only to watch that knowledge fail us, in the very end.

Or as the sheriff reminds her journalist companion, "These people, Collette. They told the Nazis to shove it. Sometimes literally. Don't make them a punchline."

There are no cheap punchlines in Ms. Simone's delicate, funny, ruthless, beautiful little book. It's a fantastical world in which everyday things happen. Sometimes the young woman turns to the older man for sexual companionship, and sometimes people put themselves in danger for a paycheck. Sometimes, just sometimes, people die and stay dead. This is a comic book, certainly, but it makes no pretensions as one.

This community was formed, the mayor tells us, "As a safe haven for MAXIs and their families to live out their golden years in peace." But there is no safe haven anymore, even if there ever was, and there is no chance for peace when the very body you inhabit betrays you, again and again. And this "safe haven" still doesn't protect you from the knowledge that you formed it just so you wouldn't be an outcast anymore. A community of outcasts is still a community, yes?

What Tommy seems to want to remind Collette (the journalist) of the most is the fact that *others* judge the outcast and label him or her so. Because Collette is on the outside looking in, she is able to make judgments such as these. She's able to label Tommy the Hero because she doesn't see the legacy the hundreds of others in this town left behind. Or, rather, she's only able to see the legacy, and not the potential. What if Maximum Man were to remember his magic word? What then?

What then, indeed?

I, for one, am going to pick up the next issue and find out.

Holy Belated Postings, Batgirl!

2006-12-14T15:37:00.000-06:00

Gentle Reader, I know it's been a while since I've posted, but that doesn't mean that I've forgotten you. Nor have I forgotten the recent issues of Batman, White Tiger, Manhunter, and everything else I need to read and/or review. Nor have I forgotten that today is My Thirtieth Birthday, although to be quite honest, I maybe should. I came down with the consumption earlier this week, or perhaps the plague. We're not quite sure. Whatever it was, it warranted an overnight hospital stay (!) complete with IVs (!!!), and now, Poor Mr. Reads has succumbed to the same (!!!!!), but, thank goodness, to a much lesser degree.

So all's quiet in Household Reads on this, my second 29th birthday, but that doesn't mean I didn't get shinies.

There are more shinies ordered, according to Mr. Reads, in the form of Elseworlds Wonder Woman and Infinite Crisis Wonder Woman, to go, of course, with the burgeoning Reads' Wonder Woman Collection:

So plague, hospital visit, birthday, finals, dissertation, and Sickly Spouse all equal Belated Postings Indeed, but I hope, by offering photos, and reminding you, Dear Reader, constantly, of Today's Celebration Of My Birth, you will excuse my Bad Blogging.

In the meantime, I, too, have jumped on the bandwagon. Please, Friends, feel free to friend me!

Quick Hits Through My Pop Culture World #3

2006-12-02T22:43:00.000-06:00

It's Finals Week, Gentle Reader, which means that I am writing, and grading, frantically. No, no, please, don't worry about me, Friends! I no longer have Final Papers to write. That particular atrocity has long since Gone The Way Of Coursework. Rather, I've that pesky little chapter due, an overseas research trip looming in the not-too-distant future, several papers and essays to grade, *and* my 30th Birthday in a mere Two Weeks.

(And yes, I am always accepting small tokens of celebration and adoration, so if you find the Variant Wasps from the Marvel Legends Line, I would be Quite Happy with either the Red or the Blue. I'm certainly Not Picky!)

But in all seriousness, I have had little time for blogging, much less comics (still way behind), television (three episodes behind and counting for Gilmore Girls), and fun (hmm? I don't even know what That Is Anymore, Friends!). I feel as if I am neglecting *you*, my Darling, Gentlest Readers. So some brief little hits to tide you over until I come up for air once more.

What I'm Watching

Battlestar Galactica
Egad, last night's episode simply Knocked My Socks Off! I am ever the fan of Ms. Sackhoff, but in particular, her portrayal of the tortured, complicated Starbuck sets my knees to knocking. Is she talented? Is she ever!

West Wing
Mr. Reads and I have just finished Season Five, and we are waiting, eagerly, to get our hands on Season Six. Josh and Donna? They're my political Mulder and Scully!

X-Files
Seventh season and I'm back, after Quite The Sabbatical. Mulder and Scully dynamic more intense, solidified, and oh so juicy. I am a 'shipper, Friends. It's Just True. But this season, in particular, seems to be about their friendship conquering Evil, and that's Something Interesting Indeed!

What I'm Reading

Alanna: The First Adventure
At the urging of several of Ms. Pierce's fans, I have picked up the first book in her Alanna series. Not far in at all, unfortunately, but what I've read so far, I've greatly enjoyed. But then I am ever the fan of the 12th Night scenario!

Thirteenth Tale, a Novel
My library book became tragically overdue before I had a chance to finish, but thanks to the beauty that is the Barnes and Noble Membership Card, I was able to purchase the novel for an unbelievable price. Still reading, slowly but surely. Fragile Things by Mr. Gaiman was also tragically overdue, but I'm holding off on purchasing just a little bit longer.

Vanity Fair, a Novel (Without a Hero)
Always and ever, until the chapter is done.

What I'm Playing

Nancy Drew and the Creature of Kapu Cave
Finally finished the game, Dear Reader, and I must admit, it wasn't my favorite of the Nancy Drew Games. But, as always, I look forward to the next mystery, or to the purchase of the mythical Wii, and Ultimate Alliance, whichever comes first.

(My money is on the next Nancy Drew Game, but don't tell Mr. Reads I have so Little Faith!)

What I'm Listening To
Queen. Lots and lots of Queen. Also Tom Waits, Corinne Bailey Rae, Citizen Cope, Muse, The Veils, Journey, Styx, Jeremy Enigk, and Portishead are all making the rounds on the computer and the CD player.

What I'm Buying
Everything. And Anything. Christmas shopping has begun. Mr. Reads and I are almost finished, Gentle Reader, and on December 2nd, no less! It's never happened before in the history of Amy Reads's Christmases, so we'll see how long This Actually Lasts.

More soon, Friends. That, I promise you. Until then, I must bid you adieu, as the red pen calls to me with its sweet siren song.

Just Not Feminist Enough: A Brief Review of Wonder Woman #3

2006-11-24T23:06:00.000-06:00

It's Black Friday, Gentle Reader, and that means shopping, shopping, shopping. Like all good college students, I used to work retail (and food service, and I answered phones, and filed) so the Friday after Thanksgiving still fills me with a sort of anticipatory dread: I know something Is Going On, but I know that I don't want to be there.

Shopping always has been viewed as a quintessential feminine endeavor, no? The association of women with shopping, and therefore the willful spending of money, the capriciousness of material desire, and the fluctuation of fashions all lend themselves not to *things*, but to *women*. Because fashion is ever-changing, so, too, must women be. Because the desire for material things is a common women's concern (many people say so, Friends, although I think it An Odd Stereotype), women, therefore, must be greedy.

But the truth of the matter is that shopping as we know it is part and parcel with the invention of the modern department store (gratitude, Ms. Rappaport) and women's so-called affinity for shopping is connected to, yes, it's true, Friends, advertising (gratitude, Ms. Bowlby, Ms. Loeb). And all of these things-—fashionability, shopping, the spending of money-—have been viewed by some as counter to the Feminist Agenda.

You see the problem already, don't you, Gentle Reader? There is, of course, no single Feminist Agenda, the same as there isn't a single definition of feminism. When Diane Herndl and Robyn Warhol edited their collection of feminist literary theory and criticism, they didn't call it Feminism, but rather, Feminisms. This is deliberate, no? Embrace the multiplicity of it all, and understand that if we all have different agendas, then it doesn't divide us but unite us: under us all, we can accomplish more.

But even further, it does seem significant that early feminists divorced themselves from stereotypically feminine concerns. Things like fashion (including corsets and later, bras) and heterosexual marriage were, for the First-Wavers or Suffragettes, controlled by masculine ideology. They were objects set forth by the patriarchy to distract women from their real goals: suffrage, education, raising educated and progressive children, marrying for love and equal partnership and marrying the spouse of one's choosing, regardless of gender. Strangely enough, the Second-Wavers also picked up the anti-fashion feminism, and burned their bras—and discarded makeup, and fashion trends—in protest.

***SPOILERS***

All of this preamble to say the following four things: 1) My academic work is on fashion, and by extension, shopping, so the two are always on my mind, 2) it is Black Friday, so shopping is on *everyone's* mind, whether you want it to be or not, 3) fashion and feminism have had such a troubled relationship for the past 150 years, and 4) Circe accuses Princess Diana of being a rotten feminist.

Diana struggles the entire episode to keep from pulling on her satin tights and fighting for the good ole red, white, and blue. The issue begins with Diana detailing the remarkable events of Wonder Woman's, and not Diana Prince's, birth. She notes that the child had the wisdom, grace, and swiftness of the gods, and was "a child who would become the gods' own champion in the world of men." And in the next panel, she reminds us, "For a time, I was their champion...." The gods are gone. They have left this plane and with them, Diana's true calling. But apparently in her stead they sent Hercules, the man who tricked, and most likely raped, Diana's mother.

Already on page two, we are presented with binaries: male/female in Hercules/Diana, good/evil in Diana/Giganta, and past/present with Diana and the gods then/Hercules and the gods now. We see Donna Troy, Cassie, Diana Prince, all incredibly strong women lose their footing when Hercules swoops in to save the day. His machismo says it all, as does his statement, "You've already caused enough trouble, Diana. Besides, I don't want to have to rescue you, too." In that scene, he is lifting Donna bodily, and pulling her away from Giganta.

Diana has had many disappointments to live up to the past few issues, since even before Crisis: Cassie's, Batman's, Superman's, the world's, her sisters', Donna's, and now, Hercules' and her gods'. After the fight scene is over, she's chastised by Hercules, the same as she will be chastised by Circe at the end of the issue.

Hercules tells Diana, "Spare me your excuses, Diana. You abandoned your role as Olympus' champion. You renounced your mission of peace--turned your back on your birthright-—and betrayed your gods. So the gods have sent me to replace you." And while Diana argues that she has "not renounced [her] mission—-just the means..." Hercules accuses her of "pretending to be someone else" and "dressing [her]self in lies."

Gentle Reader, I posed the following question to Mr. Reads earlier today: when does Diana get to be her own person? In my last review of Wonder Woman (oh so many months ago!), I pondered Diana's constant role-playing. She even said she wasn't sure who she really was, and that’s saying Something Indeed. Mr. Reads responded that the moment Diana did something that she believed in, she became Public—-and Superhero—-Enemy #1; the murder of Maxwell Lord, regardless of intentions, bespoke of a Diana no one wanted to see.

But Diana does what she believes to be right, at every turn: she hands the mantle over to Donna, shares the burden of Paradise Island with Hercules, as the flashback tells us, even accepts, to some extent, Hercules' role as the gods' new champion. Because if Diana seems to stand for anything, it's equality, no?

No?

Not according to Circe.

Nemesis and Hercules are turned to beasts. Seeing the men change, Diana suspects the cause. "Looks like it's just us girls then," she says, and turns to see Circe.

(A short sidebar here, Friends, in which I express my utter admiration for the art in this two-page spread. The gorgeous pinks and purples seem to wash everything, and it's truly magnificent.)

And indeed, it is "just us girls." When Circe mocks Diana with her former title, Diana reminds her that she never called herself Wonder Woman: "The press did. She's an idea. A symbol. She's not me." Circe, however, disagrees that Wonder Woman is just an idea or symbol, because she knows that "symbols have power, Diana, and you have wasted yours. Pursuing an agenda so personal."

What is this agenda, you ask? Why, being a superhero instead of a champion, according to Circe. Circe accuses Diana of fighting herself and squandering her power "battling cyborg centurions and psychic despots when every day, thousands of women are beaten, raped, and murdered, because they have no one to fight for them."

In this moment, Circe accuses Diana of valuing ideology over life, of pursuing philosophical answers rather than solving real-life issues. It seems that Circe accuses Diana of the worst of feminist crimes: of not being feminist enough. She declares Diana self-absorbed, concerned with glory and rank rather than the plight of those women who need her, of those women she declares she is there to help. Diana's ideals are well and good, but for Circe, Diana never gets her hands or feet dirty fighting the good fight, fighting for the humans, for the human women.

This issue intrigues me so very much because despite the fact that technically she's not even human, Wonder Woman has been a symbol of feminism for at least 35 years, if not more. Feminists have used Wonder Woman as an image of women's strength and power since Ms. Magazine put her on the cover, and possibly, even before then. And for Circe to accuse her of not being feminist enough? Of not concerning herself with the very real plight of women across the globe? Of upholding ideals rather than valuing life? Well, that's very intriguing indeed.

What does it mean to be "just not feminist enough"? It's something This Humble Author has heard across the board, from my Sister Feminists, from women who declare themselves Not-Feminists, from men who declare themselves Feminists, from people who Couldn't Be Bothered With Labels, Feminism, or Ideals, and yes, it's even something I've heard directed at myself. How is someone "just not feminist enough"? Are we taking score, Friends? Are we judging this action as worthy of five points on the feminist Richter scale, but this action worth only three? I have aligned myself with feminist theory, political agendas, philosophy, and personal choices for so many years I can't remember them all, and still, while no one has given me the checklist, everyone expects me to have it on hand, perhaps pocket-sized, easily fitted into a wallet.

When we trap ourselves in tit-for-tat, in ideology-for-ideology, we accomplish nothing. When we accomplish nothing, no one is saved. When no one is saved, we all lose. Is fashion "not feminist enough"? Is shopping "not feminist enough"? Is Circe correct? Is Wonder Woman "not feminist enough"? Are there more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Amazonian philosophy? I don't have a definitive answer, Friends, but I have a suggestion.

Salvation comes from action and ideals, from deeds and words, from physicality and philosophy. And while I think the Amazon Princess may occasionally value one over the other, particularly on Earth, I think that we can certainly see the benefits of both.

At the end of the issue, it seems that all of This Humble Author's dreams for this new run have come true. The last panel reveals a change for the Amazon Princess, one I hope will hold true for a few issues, at least. I won't reveal Too Much, Gentle Reader, because I've spoiled the spoilers enough as is. But I think we're about to see a shift in Agent Prince/Wonder Woman/Princess Diana. I think we're about to see Diana, and that's almost Worth Waiting For.

Three issues in? I still adore this comic. I think Mr. Heinberg has done Wonders with the Wonder Woman. But I wish-—oh, how I wish!-—that this was issue #5.

Thanksgiving Means Delurking Week!

2006-11-23T08:13:00.000-06:00

Good morning, Gentle Reader, and Happy Thanksgiving! It's rather quiet in the Reads Household at the moment, given the early hour, and I wanted to spend a few moments with you. It is, apparently, Delurking Week in the Blogosphere, and I will now prove Parents Reads' Worst Fears by jumping on the bandwagon (or, as they always warned, jumping off the Mississippi Bridge), by doing What Everyone Else Is Doing.

So, Friends, who are you? Are you out there? Who in the audience has not spoken up until now? Come, come, we're all friends here. Wave your hand (hopefully with turkey leg held high) and declare your presence!

But only if you wish. I will not force you, Dear Reader, to surrender to peer pressure! Parents Reads taught me That Much, at least!

But in all seriousness, please enjoy Thanksgiving, and if you are traveling, please travel safely. Also, for the sake of the loved ones, do not eat and drive. Driving while on a Thanksgiving Full Stomach is Quite The Feat Indeed! Mr. Reads and I are joining Harrogate, Supadiscomama, their gorgeous son, and Supa's mother for a wonderful feast: maple-roasted turkey breasts from Tyler Florence's recipe, Mother Reads' recipe for amazing creamed potatoes, Supa's delicious macaroni and cheese, corn, salad, rolls, and apple pie, and Sandra Lee's chocolate buttermilk pie.

Tune in tomorrow, Gentle Reader, because I have a post in the works on the new (yes, new!!) issue of Wonder Woman, which This Humble Author didn't even know was coming out, *that's* how long it's been!

Until then, adieu, and may your pumpkins be pies and your turkeys moist and delicious!

Quick Hits Through My Pop Culture World #2

2006-11-20T23:32:00.000-06:00

It's late, Gentle Reader, and I've miles to go before Thanksgiving break. But things, wonderful things have come to light, and as always, I'd like to share them with you.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
Can "A Study in Emerald" and "Closing Time" be better stories? Not at all likely. I find this collection to be great fun but not, I think, as well put together as Smoke and Mirrors. Thoughts, Gentle Readers?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Oh my goodness! There is a Trailer Online, in Quicktime fabulousness! If you are in Any Doubt of This Humble Author's delight over This Upcoming Film, just watch the Parliament fly-by, and then, All Doubt will be erased!

Heroes, 11/20/06 ***Spoilers***
Friends, does anyone else feel cheated over the "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" resolution? I know I do. But Heroes gets better and better every week, although tonight, I found myself missing Hiro, very much.

The Observations by Jane Harris
Finished this gem of a novel just a few nights ago, and greatly enjoyed it. Although I must say that by the third page, I told Mr. Reads, "this book is greatly influenced by the diaries of Hannah Cullwick." Low and behold, the acknowledgements inform me that I am Right. Huzzah!

The Office
It's a sad, sad Turkey day because there is no new episode of The Office. This show, and Battlestar Galactica, are by far my two favorites on television.

Serenity
Yes, it's true, Friends. I am to begin my first Role-Playing Game, and in the Serenity 'verse, no less.
Remember, it's Not Nice to laugh at a Lady.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Just began this gem of the novel last night and already, it promises to be Quite Wonderful Indeed. I shall keep you updated as it continues.

Happy Turkey Day!
As my current Chapter is due to the Director Herself on December 1, and as Mr. Reads and I are celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary this weekend (!), and as there is a Large Turkey To Cook and papers to grade and The Fountain gracing the theaters, I may be a bit scarce until December rolls around. Until then, I bid you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, and, of course, a wonderful end to November Sweeps!

Very Brief Reviews of White Tiger #1 and Birds of Prey #100

2006-11-19T20:31:00.000-06:00

I am Very Far Behind in my Pop Culture World, Gentle Reader, but Thanksgiving holiday is rapidly approaching, and I hope to catch up on my comics and on my television.

Until then, I offer you brief hits through Birds of Prey #100, and the new White Tiger #1. More soon, including A Paternity Post for Batman and Superman, and, of course, thoughts on the most recent Catwoman.

Birds of Prey #100

Dear Reader, you should be well aware of how much This Humble Author adores Gail Simone's work, particularly Ms. Simone's work on BOP. But this issue, in particular, is nothing but sheer genius.

How to explain the joy I felt at watching Big Barda's charade? At Huntress and Zinda kicking Much Butt and taking Many Names? I miss my Canary, but I feel as if Manhunter, Barda, and a brief cameo by The Amazon Princess Herself well made up for Dinah's loss. If Barda or Manhunter would join the team, I feel as if the team would be very worthwhile indeed.

Barda. How marvelous Barda would be as an addition to the Birds! Thank you, thank you, Ms. Simone, for a wonderful 100th issue, and Congratulations.

White Tiger #1

I adored Ms. Del Toro when she debuted in Daredevil, and found her to be a fascinating legacy of a superhero I didn't know that well at all. Tamora Pierce's and Tim Liebe's first issue goes above and beyond the call of duty, and gives us all Quite the Wonderful Read.

There's humor, there's sass, there's content and purpose. There are cameos that never feel heavy-handed, and the interaction between Angela and Natasha (one of This Humble Author's favorite Marvel heroines!) is perfectly played. What's more, I like Angela, and her purpose, and, yes, I'll say it, even the new costume (particularly the reaction to the new costume!).

This one's added to my pull list, starting now. This Author bids you many thanks, Ms. Pierce and Mr. Liebe, for a fantastic first issue.

[edited to correct the co-authorship of White Tiger]

In Which The Author Polls Her Readers On The Originality of Powers

2006-11-14T22:41:00.000-06:00

Gentle Reader, what's your superpower?

Of course, I don't mean What's Your Superpower, but rather, if you were to have one, what would it be?

A silly question, perhaps, but I think the things we desire say a lot about us, as fans. Even further, the things we like, we appreciate, we *fandom* say even more.

Or, to wit, which of the existing superpowers do you think is the most interesting?

As you all know by now, I adore The Amazon Princess. But if I had to pick The Most Interesting Superpower, The Scarlet Witch's wins, every time. Control of probability? What in Heaven's name does that mean, anyhow? I'm not sure, but damn, do I want it.

Think of the possibilities. I could win the lottery *every day*. One percent chance of a cure for cancer? Done. .001% chance that cheesecake is no longer fattening? Welcome to My Perfect World.

But in all seriousness, we've seen strength, and flights, and tights, and telepathy. We've seen laser beams and perfect aim and sonic screams. But *control over probability* is just smart. Too damn smart for words.

I am currently working on a prose comic-book-type thing (which doesn't really mean anything at all, understand!), and in working on this piece, I marveled over the sheer originality of The Big Two of the publishing houses (the originality, I must admit, that I found sorely lacking in my own attempts). To wit, I wondered how Marvel came up with The Scarlet Witch's power? And how did DC come up with Black Canary's sonic scream? Both so fascinating, and so original, it all seemed too fantastical for words, and yet... and yet, it works. It's smart, it's original, and it very much works.

So tell me, Friends. In honor of originality, in homage to creativity, what do you think is the neatest, most original, perhaps, superpower out there?

Why I Read Comics (and books, and television, and movies...)

2006-11-09T09:01:00.000-06:00

Gentle Reader, first, let me please direct you to the sidebar on the right. Under "About Me," there is a blurb entitled "why the name Amy Reads." In that blurb, I state that "to read" means several things, including reading words on a page and critiquing and evaluating texts. It's what I do for a living, in fact. I Read Books. Also? I Write About Books. Sometimes, I Write Books, but no one's paying me to write anything but the Dissertation at the moment, so I don't believe I shall count that one.

But when we read, we don't just read a book. We take into that book, or television show, or play, or movie, or song, the things that we are. We take our gender, our sex, our privilege, our lack of privilege. We take out of books what we bring into them. It's just the way this works.

This Humble Author actually takes a lot to books, and out of books. I go into a book with ten years of training in literary criticism. I go into a book with me, all the parts of me: the reader, the writer, the woman, the feminist, the wife, the daughter, the friend, the pop culture lover, the David Bowie fan, the Whedonite, everything that I am. I come out of a book with certain readings because I go into a book with certain expectations.

To wit, We Read What We Are.

So, when I read a comic book, and I critique it, and I say things like "it's somewhat misogynistic," or "this book speaks to white privilege," or "holy crap! That's freaking awesome!" (not that This Humble Author would ever use such vulgar language, of course) it's not because I Dislike Comics. I *adore* comic books. I read them, I've written about them, I want to write on one (*cough*WonderWoman*cough*), and because I love them, I feel absolutely, 100% comfortable critiquing them.

Why do so many people believe that critique is hatred? That criticism can never be constructive? That analyses are judgments? When I declare my utter astonishment and dislike for the Sam Bradley Is the Father of Catwoman's Baby storyline, it doesn't mean I dislike the book, the writer, the artist, the publishing house, the fans, or even the characters. It means that *I don't like that particular part of the plot*. That's an opinion. When I declare that Sam Bradley shouldn't be the Father of Catwoman's Baby for the following five reasons, that's a critique. If I say "Catwoman, bleh!" that's "teh crazy" talking, and you should cyberly smack my hand, forthwith.

We do not exist in a vacuum; why should we pretend we read in one? Why should we pretend that race, sex, gender, economics, religion, and love of cheesecake have nothing to do with the books/television/movies we read? Once the book leaves the writer's hands, it's not just hers anymore. We get a tiny piece of the story, once we read it, because we remember it, we like it, we don't like it, but somehow, through all of that, *we're invested in it*. There are no "take-backs," or explanations, or justifications. I can't assume authorial intention, but the author can't come sit next to me and say, "well, when I wrote Wuthering Heights, I really meant..." not only because Ms. Bronte is No Longer With Us, but because it doesn't even matter what she meant.

I tell my students, every day, that they cannot assume authorial intention. They cannot tell me "When she wrote Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell meant that..." because *they don't know what Elizabeth Gaskell meant*, and further, does it really matter?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it doesn't change the way *I* read the text, any text, at all. And Gentle Reader, I can't control the way you read this post, either. Because some of you may read this as The Gospel Truth, while others may read it as An Attack, while others still Won't Read It At All. Fair, all fair, but unless I police every person who wanders by, and sit every person down and explain, "well, what I really meant was..." and even then, still never capture The Exact Meaning of the post at The Exact Moment of its creation, then you will interpret this post As You Will.

Or, in the words of Mr. Eliot,

Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (lines 106-110)

I read, because I love books. I read, because I love to talk about books. I read, because I think about books (and television, and movies, and...) all the damn time. And I read (critique, analyze, evaluate) because of all of those things and more.

I am, therefore I read.

Are you a Hal Guy or a Guy Gal?

2006-11-05T18:33:00.000-06:00

I know, Gentle Reader. It's been Some Time since I've graced your monitors with my presence. But the past few weeks have been, shall we say, less conducive to internet blogging than I would like. There was that Halloween party, I've been writing again (huzzah!), and speaking of huzzahs, I attended my first Renaissance Festival just yesterday. Yes, it's true, Friends. I held a turkey leg aloft with the best of them, and while I did not dress up-—my dressing up for outdoor festival days have long since gone the way of my black eyeliner and fishnet shirts—-I did admire the clothing of several of the attendees around me.

Well, let me clarify: I adored the children in costume, because they were adorable. I adored the Ren Faire workers in costume, because they were elegant. But mostly, I enjoyed seeing the variety of fan-shirts on my fellow attendees.

I myself wore a shirt with a skull and crossbones on it, in honor of my pirate Halloween costume, perhaps, or just because I find pirates in popular culture delightful. I saw a Serenity shirt, a Batman shirt, a Spider-Man shirt, an X-Men shirt, and 4, yes, count them, Friends, Four Green Lantern shirts.

Four, you ask? I know, Gentle Reader. I am wondering the same thing myself. At a festival with an attendance of at least 16,000 just yesterday, I was surprised to only see one Spider-Man shirt, or one Batman shirt. But to see four Green Lantern shirts on four different individuals-—three male, one female—-seems to defy the very odds.

That's not to say that Green Lanterns are unpopular. They certainly are not, particularly among my fellow fangirls. Now while This Humble Author is quite above pointing fingers-—she finds it vulgar and common and philistine-—she isn't above bowing in deference to her Sister Feminists who are Loud and Proud of their Love Of The GLs. Yes, Sisters. You Know Who You Are.

I, however, am not Gaga Over Green Lanterns. I swoon for Batman (how I love my dark, broody, Byronically broken men), and I adore The Wally West Flash (funny and charming and awkward weakens my knees), and sometimes—-just sometimes, Dear Reader!—-I have been known to find the growling, hulking Wolverine or the snotty, self-absorbed Daredevil deliciously delightful. But a Guy Gardner or a Hal Jordan? Not in a million years. Kyle Rayner? I don't feel I know him at all. John Stewart I know A Bit More, but that, I must admit, is entirely dependent on my Justice League/Unlimited knowledge.

But. But, and here's the rub, Dear Friends, I feel as if I *should*. One *should* have a favorite Green Lantern, no? And for someone as Devoted to the DC Universe as This Humble Author, to be as unacquainted with the Green Lantern Corps seems a horrifying tragedy. Oh, sure, I could spout Amazon Mythology until blue in the face, or recite the Origins of Linda Danvers or Kara until you yawn with boredom, and yes, even detail the tiniest moments between Wally West and Linda Park-West, but when asked who came first in this sector's Green Lantern lineage? I would guess Hal Jordan, until I remembered (and Wikied) Alan Scott.

But what this all really boils down to is this: I know enough to say that Green Lanterns, any of them, are not as mainstream-popular as Batman, or Superman, or Spider-Man. There is no Green Lantern movie (although This Humble Author is to understand that there is one in the works!). There is no mainstream Green Lantern marketing (which will come, inevitably, with the movie). So to see more Green Lantern shirts than, say, Superman or Batman shirts is to Say Something About Fandom Indeed. It is to say that these fans are vocal; they demonstrate to DC, to the Ren Faire, to the world, that they want to see more GLs. That they know the ring-—like Amazon fans know the lasso, or Flash fans the lightning bolts-—and they hold it dear.

Hal guy or Guy gal? Not sure. But My Fellow Ren Faire Attendees, you in your Green Lantern shirts, you've made your point. I don't know my Green Lanterns. But thanks to you, that's a problem that I shortly will remedy. Until then, I bid you fare-thee-well, or perhaps faire-thee-well (!!!), and return, once more, to my Dissertation Cave.

Ten! Ten Scary Movies! Ah ah ah!

2006-10-31T08:01:00.000-06:00

It's Halloween, Gentle Reader, and that means pumpkins, costumes, candy, leaves, scary movies, scary music, bats, mummies, and more! This Humble Author always has been a ridiculous Halloween fan, ever since she was a little girl. I dressed up every year for trick-or-treating or, as I got older, for parties, teaching, fun! This year, alas, Mr. Reads and I both teach until late into the evening, so we celebrated on Saturday with our Halloween bash. But we've the house decorated, the cauldron full of chocolate goodies for this kids, and the terrifying Wonder Woman costume for Pup Reads that I posted just a few days ago.

In honor of my favorite holiday season, I offer you my ten favorite horror movies, with links to their IMDB sites. Please feel free to suggest more; I'm always on the lookout for more horror!

Before I begin, a brief note: I adore horror movies, the smarter and more British, the better. But I also love movies that are Big Stupid Fun, and never have pretensions of being anything else. Slither, for example, is Big Stupid Fun to the nth degree, in a *good* way.

Ms. Reads Top Ten Scary Movies
in order, counting down to #1

10) Psycho - I would be remiss in my duties if I did not put Psycho on the list. Classic and perfect.

9) 28 Days Later - We are the scariest things out there. Don't let any monster movie tell you different.

8) Shaun of the Dead - I don't like zombie movies. I like this movie. A lot.

7) The Blair Witch Project - This almost didn't make the list because if you see it once, you lose interest in seeing it again. But it was scary and terrifying in so many great ways, so it belongs here, no?

6) The Shining - Heeerrreeeee's Johnny! Oh, and rivers of blood in hallways *shudder*. Look! Creepy children, too!

5) The Devil's Backbone - Combines ghosts and creepy children, along with post-war anxieties.

4) The Changeling - Haunted Houses and ghosts? A cinematic dream come true!

3) The Haunting - One of my favorite books brought to life on the big screen. The psychological twists and turns make this movie scarier than ghouls and goblins!

2) The Others - Why is it that creepy children are the creepiest horror devices of all?

1) Below - WWII, ghosts, and a sub. What more could you want? This is, in fact, my favorite horror movie of all time.

And some honorable mentions:
Dog Soldiers, The Bunker, Event Horizon, Scream (not necessarily scary, but very smart), Brotherhood of the Wolf, Descent, and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Mr. Reads adds his two cents:
The Thing, Evil Dead II, Slither, Alien, The Birds, and Dawn of the Dead.

Happy (early) Halloween!

2006-10-28T16:45:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader, I've been rather lax in my duties as a blogger. I have not reviewed this week's Heroes, although I watched it, on time. I have not reviewed this week's 52, although I read it, Thursday, and I do have things to say. I have not read any other comics, however, even though there is new Daredevil, and Action Comics, and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. Why, you ask? Well, Friends, it's quite simple.

The Reads Household is holding a Halloween Party this evening.

What time was not eaten up with personal and professional obligations this week was directed towards the cleaning, and the shopping, and the decorating, and the cleaning parts of party-planning. Yes, Friends, cleaning happened several times, and is Still Happening, as we have a pup, and it's been rainy and muddy, and cleaning is just not an activity loved by the Family Reads.

But I use this time to wish you, albeit early, Happy Halloween, and I hope that you enjoy this holiday as much as We Reads do. Pup Reads Herself has a special message for you, Dear Readers. She asks, quite simply, if you have a home to which she can escape the horror and travesty of the Halloween Season, as her Despicable Owners Made Her Suffer Last Halloween:

And are still making her suffer This Halloween:

She wishes me to tell you that if you see her walking down the street, please, for the love of all that is Canine and Pure, remove the tiara from her head, because it pins back her ears.

May your Halloween be candy-filled and fun, and your puppies less stricken by shame!

Crises of Maternity: Brief Reviews of Catwoman #60 and Birds of Prey #99

2006-10-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

It's been a rather exciting week, Gentle Reader. Fall Has Come to the South, and right now, it is in the low 60s. Mr. Reads and I did some last-minute shopping for our upcoming Halloween party next weekend. I made reservations for my January research trip in the UK, and we scraped together enough money for Mr. Reads to accompany me. Our Dear Friends delivered a healthy baby boy yesterday. Oh, and Mr. Reads and I got the chance to catch up on our pop cultures. Not only did I get to read The 52 ("don't forget the fifty-two!" - gratitude, Legion), but I got to read Catwoman and Birds of Prey as well.

***spoiler warning for these two issues and for Fantastic Four/Civil War, recent events***

Both comics this month are, surprisingly, about Motherhood. Dinah leaves the Birds forever to be a mother to Sin, and Selina leaves Helena for the night to be the savior of Gotham. Dinah leaving the Birds I have no problem with. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want Dinah in the Birds! Dinah and Babs *are* the Birds to me. While I adore Helena B., and am Quite the Huntress Fan, I tend to side on All Things Canary, All The Time. But it makes sense for Dinah to try something new, and I know, deep down inside, that she will be back. Dinah can't leave the Birds for long; she's entirely too important to be somewhere else, even the JLA.

But Selina, Selina, Selina! The entire One Year Later storyline has revolved around her new duties as a mother. She had Zatanna wipe minds to protect Helena. She has Wildcat guard... I mean, baby-sit for Helena. I'm sure Batman has a video camera or ten installed in and around Selina's home to keep an eye on Little Baby Cats. She has said, ad nauseam, that her number-one priority is Helena. She has made Holly her successor so she can raise her daughter. So why, why, why would she ever act so nonchalantly about her own life? She is a mother now, a fact that she has made clear again and again. Yet the second she puts on the Catsuit, all thoughts of her obligations and responsibilities fly out of the window?

She breaks into the police station. She frees Holly. Yay, Catwoman! Let us Applaud Her For It. Not only does she ensure the continuation of her legacy, she does A Solid for her friend, as well. They escape to the roof, and decide that they need a distraction. Enter stage right: the eight-thousand-pound gorilla in the room.

Film Freak frees a giant, rampaging gorilla. Selina sees Gotham's Finest turn their lasers not to "stun" but to "kill," and decides that she Must Protect The Innocent Of Gotham, no matter the species. She goes to help, but before she can, Holly stops her and asks, "And what if you get killed?" Selina responds, "Then I get killed. Go home, Holly. Back to my apartment. I'll be there soon. And call Karon. Let her know you're okay."

Of course this could simply be Selina Being Selina: arrogant, confident, assured, so very charming and fabulous. This is the Selina we have loved over the past several years. But see, she *hasn't* been very arrogant, confident, or assured since Helena was born. She has new responsibilities and concerns, which she reminds us of, every month. And this *new* Selina is just as charming, perhaps even more so. Her awkwardness, her insecurity, her post-baby belly that is undeniably sexy, how can we not love Selina-the-Supermom? Yet her first response to Holly's concern over her safety is "then I get killed"?

Now perhaps I'm overreacting, and I admit, Gentle Reader, that I have A Tendency To Overreact. Maybe it's because I read books for a living; I'm paid to overanalyze, to discuss, ad nauseam, the implications of tiny moments of dialogue such as this one. But reading these two books back to back, and reading them so soon after Sue Storm leaves her children with Reed, I can't help but see a larger argument about Maternity and Superheroes, whether implicit or explicit, being made here.

Dinah hangs up the tights for her daughter; she decides she can't be a good mother and a good superhero at the same time. Selina, however, puts the suit back on and seemingly forgets that she has larger obligations now. Sue Storm goes off to Fight The Good Fight, and she leaves her children with their father in an attempt to force them to interact. Three mothers, three radically different viewpoints, and, while none of them scream "Bad Motherhood," all of them suggest something Different.

Friends, *I* like Different. *I* think Different is what Makes Us Great. But in these three different interpretations of Motherhood--the single, adoptive mom, the divorcee (for all intents and purposes), and the single, working mom--Different just skirts the realm of Social Not Good. *I* as a person may like different, but the *I* indoctrinated into social expectations--the *I* who is forever influenced by social judgment and stereotypes and genres--anguishes over Canary's decision to leave the Birds to raise her child, but judges Selina and Sue for leaving their children at home while they pursue their careers or ambitions. I guess I am suffering under That Greatest Of Feminist Quandaries: I want the job and I want to raise my children, too, and I want it for my female characters as well.

This issue has popped up again and again in my life, as more and more of my friends are having children *and* careers. Feminism gave us The Right To Choose: pregnancy, career, child, no child, child and career, no child and career, etc. Yet society sometimes judges women as Lesser Beings if they choose to stay home and raise the kids, the same as it sometimes judges women as Lesser Beings if they *don't* choose to stay home and raise the kids. Supermom or Superhero? Pick one or the other, Dinah, Selina, and Sue, because apparently, you can't have both.

There is no similar quandary for men, is there, Gentle Reader? I can't think of a Superdad or Superhero situation in comics, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, over and over again. But Mr. Fantastic is allowed to go off and work and still have children, as is Batman (who actually takes his kids to work, every day!), Green Arrow (who didn't even know he had a kid for a good long while), and Power Man (who sent his kid off with Jessica to protect them). Please let me know if you can think of any such situations in normal continuity (not in the "now retired and having kids" world of, say, future Spider-Man and his web-slinging daughter Spider-Girl).

These three comics, while perhaps not overtly judgmental themselves, offer up Motherhood in the Superhero Community for public scrutiny. Dinah, Sue, and Selina are all of them available for judgment, acceptance, and yes, Friends, even scorn. Readers can judge them as fit or unfit mothers based on how they balance life and career.

After I struggled with this, with social indoctrination, with gender expectations drilled into me from the moment of birth (gratitude, Ms. Butler), I discovered that I did judge Selina, but not for leaving her child at home, and certainly not for putting on the Cat costume again. I like Selina as Catwoman; I like Holly, too, but Selina Is Catwoman for me. There can be no other. And Selina will put the costume on thousands of times between now and retirement, and I applaud every single one of those times.

But.

But here's the thing: I found her nonchalant, laissez-faire attitude about the value of her life to be off-putting, even more off-putting than last issue's sex-with-Sam scene. More off-putting than the Sam-telling-Slam scene of this issue. Because it stings of the previous, near-suicidal incarnation of Selina that I thought we'd overcome. She fought, so long and so hard, to be who she is, to treasure her own life, to believe in herself and her self-conversion to The White Hats again. And in one sentence, all of that comes crashing down.

Perhaps it was meant as a sign of confidence, or perhaps a taste of nihilistic flair. Perhaps it was meant as all of those things and more. But I didn't read it that way. I read it as the Return Of The Repressed. I read it as The Taste Of Things To Come. And always, always the future smacks of the past, because no matter how far we shove it down, it always, always comes back.

Quick hits through my pop culture world

2006-10-19T14:54:00.000-05:00

Another busy week, Gentle Reader, and as usual, I'm behind on my pop culture addictions. I haven't watched Heroes, I haven't read 52 or Catwoman or Birds of Prey, and in fact, the only thing I have done On Time is watch Lost (oh my goodness! Lost!). At this moment, I am writing on tourism for the dissertation, so I decided to take a quick break and give you a brief tour through the pop culture I *have* managed to tackle this week:

***there may be spoilers below***

Gilmore Girls
I am very, very, very disappointed with the way this season is shaping up. In fact, I haven't even finished this week's episode yet. I will continue to watch, but only because I am that invested in the characters (several seasons in now). The writing is stilted, and the characters feel as if they are caricatures of themselves.

Lady Sovereign
How wonderful is she?!? Mr. Reads called me to the television yesterday to see the video for "Love Me or Hate Me" and it's true, I Love Her (and apparently, I am Thanked for it!). I find her talented and adorable, like an English one-woman Bis.

Lost
Egad! Lost! I think Desmond is either a) a time traveler, or b) another figment of Hurley's imagination. Locke becomes more interesting and more crazy, and Boone is still beautiful and creepy, even dead. Perhaps *especially* dead.

Muse: Black Holes and Revelations
Can this album be more beautiful than it already is? This Humble Author has read several people pooh-pooh the album as "too indebted to Radiohead," and I scream foul. The obvious influence for this album, and for the band in general, is Queen. Big beautiful arena rock. Watch the video for Knights of Cydonia and you'll even see the lead singer make Freddie Mercury Arms (held upwards towards the heavens).

Nancy Drew: Creature of Kapu Cave video game
Hush, Gentle Reader. It isn't polite to Laugh At A Lady. I don't play video games because I am Quite Awful at them, but I do enjoy my Nancy Drew puzzle games. I'm not very far in at all, but apparently with this game, I can play as both Nancy and one of the Hardy Boys. Unfortunately, I caught part of last week's South Park (blame Mr. Reads for this one) and I'm a bit jaded now.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Mr. Reads and I appear to be The Last Two People On Earth who love this show, and we will continue to watch it every Monday, or Friday, or at 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning, if NBC treats it the way Fox treated Firefly. I have never found Matthew Perry to be interesting, talented, or charming before this show, and I find all of these things true, and more.

Xanadu
While the movie has not come in on Netflix yet, your (yes you, Gentle Reader!) response to the post has inspired me to walk through my past every week or so. Next in line is the delightful, the fabulous, the "never-can-we-top-that" Teen Witch.

"That sunny dome! those caves of ice!"

2006-10-16T14:57:00.000-05:00

"in Xanadu did Kubla Khan / a stately pleasure-dome decree" – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Now that I'm here / Now that you're near in Xanadu" – Olivia Newton John

Parents Reads believed in Family Vacations, and you can imagine, Gentle Reader, what that entailed. The three of us—-Mom Reads, Dad Reads, and Amy Reads—-piled into the Reads-Family Van, a large white contraption with no seats in the expansive rear, and went Cross-Country. I rode in the back most times, with my sleeping bag, my stack of books, my individual serving cereal boxes, my individual serving cartons of milk. There were no curfews on Family Vacation, and if I wanted to lie on my back and read all day while Mom and Dad Reads navigated the Open Highway, I could do so, no questions asked. No chores, no homework, no rules. Bologna and cheese sandwiches, sugary cereals, and fast food ruled the day. We had ice chests, we had maps, we had a CB radio, and we had a marvelous time.

Like all good middle-class families, we went South, to Florida, to the great and fantastic Disneyworld. Even now, some twenty-five years later, Disneyworld beckons to me with its alluring siren song. Mr. Reads and I took that great and fantastical honeymoon to Disney, and loved every second of it. As I believe I've mentioned before, we even headed over to Universal Studios, and Marveled at the Marvel Islands of Adventure.

But Dad Reads also believed in Visiting America, and as we drove along the highways in the late seventies and early eighties, we caught the tail-end of the Great Roadside Attraction Boom. One of those said attractions was on the road down to Disney. One of those said attractions was Xanadu: Home of the Future.

Do you remember, Gentle Reader, the bizarre yet oddly seductive movie Xanadu? I honestly don't, since the last time I saw it, I couldn't drive, date, wear makeup, vote, or even answer the phone by myself or stay at home without a babysitter. But I've just (just, Dear Reader!) discovered it is available for rent on my beloved Netflix, and I've Moved It Up In The Queue. Please, don't tell Mr. Reads, but it's been moved to Number 6, right after Prairie Home Companion (Short Wait), Slither and Monster House (Releases October 24), Short Cuts (which Mr. Reads has never seen, and we can all shame him and mock him mercilessly for it) and Art School Confidential (Available Now).

But what I *do* remember about Xanadu the Movie is this: roller-skating, Olivia Newton John, rainbow colors, Greek mythology, and a white fluffy Styrofoam house.

What I remember about Xanadu the Home of the Future is this: standing in line in the Florida sun—-which isn't that much different from the sun in Louisiana, but to a 7-year-old, it seemed monstrous-—losing my mother because I wandered away during the tour, and a white fluffy Styrofoam house that I got to touch, yes, touch with my own 7-year-old hands. Well, a version of it, anyways.

But isn't that always the way? You only get to touch a version of Xanadu and never, ever the Real Thing.

The two memories are caught up in my head: discovery and loss, wonder and anguish, joy and suffering. For one single moment I was *lost*, alone, surrounded by strangers in the House of the Future.

Coleridge lost Xanadu, too, supposedly when someone knocked on his door and startled him out of an opium-induced dream.

We've lost Xanadu, too, surprisingly enough, when someone knocked on our doors and reminded us that The Future Is Now.

What happened to the Houses of the Future? The Cars of the Future? The Clothes of the Future? Is the Future Right Now? Or have we passed our fantasy future by, and our real future, the Future That Is Now, is entirely too bleak for words, speculation, fantastical constructions, and Styrofoam houses? Where are our utopias? Our dystopias? Our revolutions? Where are our flying cars, our dogs-that-walk-themselves, our bubble skirts and Lives On Mars? I'm better acquainted with the Flintstones than the Jetsons, and that makes me feel cheated, somehow. We bemoan every cent NASA spends on space exploration, but turn the other cheek as our brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and friends are sent to the desert. We have lost our sense of adventure, and instead of exploring, we sit in our corner, hoarding our toys, and growling at anyone who comes near.

What will they say, our children's children, when they look back on our quaint and archaic selves? Or will they not say anything at all, because our vision is entirely too familiar to theirs?

What are our visions of the Future? Hollywood and Fiction Writers give us dystopian military totalitarian structures (Equilibrium) dominated by technology (The Matrix trilogy) and taken over by the technology we've invented (The Terminator movies). We have fears of genetic testing (The Island, Brave New World), of each other (1984), of aliens (Independence Day, X-Files), of planetary destruction (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds), of friendly-destruction ("Last of the Winnebagos"), of self-destruction (Firefly, Serenity), of male-destruction (Y The Last Man), of mail-destruction (The Postman-—ha, ha). But it seems that more often than not, we've lost our sense of wonder of the unknown.

When did the unknown become frightening? When did we look to the future and see not flying cars and foam houses, but rather, war and destruction and totalitarianism? When did we hunker down and decide that This is Mine and That is Yours and Never the Twain shall meet?

I was seven-years-old when I saw The House of the Future, and I remember, so very distinctly, how it felt against my hand. It was made of foam, and I expected it to be soft, malleable, but instead, it was hard, tangible, and resisted the pressure of my hand. The future was *solid* and I felt it, against my palm. That night I looked up at the stars and wondered what was out there. I wondered, for a long time then and since, what the future might bring us.

And now, I can't help but wonder why we've *stopped wondering* about wonder, and instead, wonder only about pain and fear.

I'm guilty of this, too, Dear Friends, and a part of me can't imagine why I'd rather write about the fear than the joy. Is it because fear is complex, and joy simplistic, and complexity sells when simplicity does not?

I don't have the answers, but I do have the memory of Xanadu, the House of the Future, with its sunny dome, and its caves of foam, all of it honey-dew fed and drunk on Paradise's milk. And that might just have to do for now.

The Sixth Feminist Sci Fi Carnival

2006-10-16T09:33:00.000-05:00

The Sixth Feminist Sci Fi Carnival is up, with the best of the feminist sci fi blogosphere. They have reviews, comics, gaming, Supergirl, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and more! Enjoy!

Do Heroes Dream Of Their Own Salvation?

2006-10-14T17:14:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you remember, Gentle Reader, Gail Simone's Very Smart Essay on the preponderance of Women in Refrigerators in the Comic Book World. What the WiR theory sets forth is that in comic books, dead wives and girlfriends are used as plot devices to trouble our intrepid heroes. Their lives, the very meaning behind their existences, are whittled down to so much meat and bone and blood, and there is nothing left but body. My Sister Feminists and I often complain that women are reduced too often to the processes of their bodies, and Ms. Simone's theory demonstrates the starkest, deepest reality of that very fact in the Comic Book Universe.

There are fights against this, of course. Some women are represented as stronger, faster, better, more productive in comic books. Big Barda, Diana Prince, Power Girl, Supergirl, Wonder Girl, these women pack some mighty punches, and they fight back, hard. It's difficult to imagine any of them ever falling prey to the Refrigerator Syndrome. They are Too Mighty, Too Strong, Much Better Than Their Male Counterparts, right?

Right?

I have argued before that perhaps women like Wonder Woman are all body because they have superbodies. Unlike most of their female colleagues, they possess physical, i.e. tangible powers. Strength, healing, impenetrable skin, any of these could be considered tangible counterparts of, say, telepathy, control of the weather, intangibility, right? They are physical powers because they are both offensive and defensive powers.

A legacy of strong women. A great step forward for Us, The Feminists. Right?

Right?

Imagine my surprise, then, Friends, when I see this week's episode of Heroes. When I see something so incredibly horrifying, so tragic, so troubling that I believe we have taken Three Steps Backwards.

***Spoilers; you know the drill***

I still enjoy this show. Let me make that perfectly clear. I think the characterization is going quite nicely, and I am curious about the buildup and the plot. That being said, I would like to offer you my two favorite characters, Hiro, the teleporting Japanese office worker, and Claire, the invincible American cheerleader. I like Hiro for the same reasons I like Snow Crash's Hiro Protagonist (great name) or Buffy's Willow Rosenberg (contagious perky). I like Claire, because she doesn't fit neatly into an American high-school peg.

In my last post, I bemoaned the stereotypes plaguing Hollywood's portrayal of American high schools. Be it the Queen Bee, the Outsider, the Head Cheerleader, the Overweight Pariah, these stereotypes are, I believe, just perpetuating stereotypes. So to see the cute, petite, blonde cheerleader Save The Day and Save Her Own Butt at the same time brought back memories of Buffy for me, which means that I liked her. A lot.

Claire can't die. That could be interpreted as a variety of powers: advanced healing or invincibility, for starters. But that's not just it. She's a complex kid trying to sort out her own life. She's confused, troubled, not just about these powers (although she is well within her rights to be troubled about them!) but about her place in the high school hierarchy, her friendship with the geeky kid, her adoption and birth parents, and her crush on the school quarterback. In other words, she's not her cheerleader counterpart, the bubbly blonde who takes the credit for the daring rescue Claire performed. She's not a glory hound, as shown when she asks the cop after the man she rescued. The look of concern on her face, the look of relief when she finds out he’s all right, those things point to someone other than the "stereotypical cheerleader." You know, the one Hollywood keeps telling us about?

Yes, Gentle Reader, you're with me, right? I thought they were breaking stereotypes here, and I applauded them for it.

Then, oh, and then, the quarterback rapes Claire. He shoves her down and a sharp branch goes through her skull. She dies. Yes, the invincible, stereotype-breaking cheerleader dies, because a rabid, power-hungry megalomaniac thinks he deserves everything he wants. It wasn't even the disgusting, insulting excuse of "no means yes," but was rather, quite simply, "I want, I get."

The episode ends with Claire on an operating table, branch removed by an unknown hand, Claire coming back to life. The camera pans down, and her chest has been peeled back, exposing muscle and rib and bone. She has tangible, physical powers. She saved someone's life. She has moral quandaries and crushes and aspirations and a decent relationship with her parents (troubling as the one parent may be), and she is whittled down to so much meat and bone and blood that that very meat and bone and blood is *exposed*. It is *on display*, to the mysterious person in the lab, to the quarterback before this scene, even, to Me, to You, Gentle Reader. She has been objectified in such a way that there hasn't been a term invented for such a grotesque, horrifying, tragic, and belittling image. Woman on Operating Table takes objectification of women's bodies to a Whole New Level, and I, for one, am furious.

Friends, I would be disturbed had this scene happened to a male character. Please don’t doubt that. But I can't assume, ever, that such a scene for a male character would come about because he was almost raped by the head cheerleader, or even the quarterback of the football team. She saved someone's life. She survived dozens of should-have-been deaths, and she is taken down by a son of a bitch who takes whatever he wants, including women. She dies not by performing a heroic act, but by a boy her age shoving her head down on a branch. She struggled, and tried to get away, and she is killed for it.

Next week, I want to see retribution. I want to see trial and judgment and justice for this boy, not just for killing her (even though she now survives) but for attempting to rape a friend, a classmate, a girl, a young girl who trusted him enough to kiss him, to share secrets with him, to smile and laugh with him. I want Claire to escape and point at him in the cafeteria. I want him labeled Rapist. And I want Claire to fight back against this mysterious man that has objectified her even more than she already was.

Then, I will take three steps forward again. At least I'll be back where I started, right?

Right?

A Brief Review of Supergirl #10

2006-10-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader, I have to admit it. I've been wary of the Kara-Supergirl run since Greg Rucka left.

Now, I don't dislike Kara, not really. In fact, I find her quite fascinating, and her character written if not well, then charmingly. I love her alienness, her Otherness, her strange almost gut reactions to the scary things in her life. She has the darkness that Linda had, more so, even, and has retained it, fostered and nurtured it, and it has grown, by leaps and bounds, over the progression of her book. But in the same way that I was more interested in Linda trying to live as a superhero, I'm more interested in Kara trying to live as a human.

I like Otherness. I don’t know if I've mentioned this before this post, but I enjoy seeing characters put in Chandler-esque situations over and over again, just to see how they respond. Fishes out of water fascinate me, and in my own writing, I mess with my characters' world over and over again just to see what happens.

It's not even the fact that you see someone's true mettle in strange and threatening environments, although that's certainly a part of it. Rather, I just find the idea of people trying so desperately to fit in with something that they will *never* fit in with, or should even *try* to fit in with Good Storytelling. It's the Tale As Old As Time, no? It's the hero's journey, the extraordinary person trying so hard to be ordinary when ordinary is the very *last* thing she should try to be. Perhaps that's why I love Buffy, and Malcolm Reynolds, and Batman disguising himself as Bruce Wayne, and the Amazon Princess Diana.

There is no story if there is no conflict, and what Spider-Man II taught us, what The Odyssey taught us before that is that a *true* hero can overcome obstacle after obstacle. Fate, The Bad Guys, The Gods, whatever you wish to call it keeps throwing the hero tragedy after tragedy, and it is up to the hero to overcome them, become a better person, and then face the next, slightly-more-horrifying-slightly-more-tragic circumstance, and overcome that, too.

***Here Be Spoilers***

Kara has suffered, and is still suffering, so where better to let her suffer than an American high school? Because is there any place in America more tragic, more gruesome, more dangerous than the suburban high school? Well, of course there is, but Kara's faced down Luthors and Her Father's Dying Wishes and Darkseid. High school is just the next natural step on the tragic evolutionary chain.

The true strengths of this issue are the parallels it draws between Kara's horrific high school experiences on Krypton, and her horrific high school experiences on Earth. The issue begins with Kara talking to Boomer (Captain Boomerang's son) about her upcoming foray in an American high school. He gives her some prison movies to watch and says that "They're to help you survive." When Kara asks why, he asks, "You ever speak to a group of 16-year-old girls?"

Gentle Reader, I have to admit that the overbearing, omnipresent stereotype of the vicious, catty, cruel teenaged Queen Bee Of Maintown High School, USA is starting to get on my nerves. I hate it because it perpetuates a stereotype of cattiness among women. For those of you in the working world, I'm sure you've been told, by someone seemingly Older and Wiser, that your biggest enemy in the office is another woman. Or perhaps you've been told that women can't stand to see other women succeed. This insanity is, of course, The Grown-Up Version of the catty Queen Bee and her Drones stereotype that exists in America. Women have enough social handicaps to deal with; why add each other to the mix? But this stereotype exists, as does its Juniors Counterpart, and I don't know if I'm annoyed with the stereotype because it's believed to be true, or because I believe it's false. I'm just not *sure*.

All of this to say that what this issue of Supergirl does incredibly well is demonstrate how truly alien Kara is, and make her aware of it, so utterly and completely. In a previous episode, Kara asks Ma Kent why she was never asked to live at the Kent Farm. Ma Kent brushes her off, but for those of us who remember her arrival on earth, we know that Kara was deemed dangerous. And indeed, she very well was.

Kara's changed since the Crisis, and you know what? I think I like it. The Kara in Legion is different from the Kara here (although I admit, Gentle Reader, that I am no longer following Supergirl and the Legion), and I find that very curious—-what has happened in the interim? But even more so, I find the final scenes of Supergirl #10 very curious indeed. Kara is treated to some nasty little vengeance courtesy Maintown USA's Queen Bee, and there is a juxtaposition of Earth-Kara with Krypton-Kara. The issue teases us with images of Krypton Kara that are strikingly similar to the goings-on on Earth. Both Karas, caught up in petty high school politics. Both Karas, naive and vulnerable. Both Karas, suffering at the hands--and voices--of others.

Then we see the ultimate prank Worthy of Mr. King, complete with bucket of nasty filth. And, of course, we see the ultimate revenge Worthy of Mr. King: Krypton-Kara is shown with large crystal-gun in hand, complete with "S" logo, surrounded by dead and bloody high school Kryptonians, run through with crystals. Earth-Kara, on the other hand, goes red, literally, in the eyes, and there is a moment when the two images hang side by side in the balance.

And then Earth-Kara rises above the situation, again, quite literally. She walks through the crowded, whispering halls peeling off, piece by piece, her "disguise," which for Kara are her Earth clothes. Once she is herself again, stripped of the "secret identity" she tried so hard to form, she is an Angel reminiscent of the Fire Angel, hovering above the crowd, beautiful and terrifying.

She imparts words of wisdom before she leaves, and tells the crowd, "Do yourself and each other a favor... Be yourself. It makes life a hell of a lot easier." And with that, she's gone. Kara is able not only to triumph over her red rage, but is also able to accomplish the one thing that every kid who's ever been picked on dreams of: she shows them her true self. With each layer, the real Kara comes shining through, and what's truly fascinating is that real Kara is not pure Kryptonian or pure Earth or even pure Themyscira, but rather, a nice combination of all three.

Instead of resorting to death and destruction, Kara rises above it all, and she demonstrates that rage is not the only way out. She didn't need violence to show them that she was better than they were. She even takes the time to thank the faux-Queen Bee for helping her, and ponders, just for a moment, the marvel of everyone's need for secret identities.

The ultimate message of this issue is something stark, and a little tragic, but in the end, hopeful. We *can* be better than we let people tell us we are. We are not tragic stories, and violence solves nothing. To read this in the wake of so much tragedy this week-—the Amish school shooting, for example—-and this year-—torture, death, murder, mayhem—-is to see that pain, while a human condition, does not have to own the soul.

Earlier in the issue, Cassie (Wonder Girl), tells Kara, "We're all messed up, whether we know it or not. [...] In high school, everyone has a secret identity." What this issue demonstrates is that the secret identity is more complex than we've ever given it credit for. The new girl is a Supergirl; the Queen Bee has a heart of gold. The Nice Girl is a Queen Bee in disguise, and the Boy Next Door is as awkward and shy as we've ever dreamed. I wasn't crazy about the Supergirl run when Greg Rucka took off, but this issue sealed the deal. I'm Back In, Friends, and quite happy to be so.

We Could Be Heroes (for ever and ever)

2006-10-05T22:08:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader, what d'you say?

As I tend to stick to television and comics on this blog, I hardly ever end up talking about my other fandoms—-music, for example. As rabid as I am for the Amazon Princess, that's my rabidity for David Bowie. Seeing him live was one of the greatest moments of my life, and well worth the large amount of money spent. I love Ziggy Bowie, and Scary Monsters Bowie, Outside Bowie, and Reality Bowie. I love Suffragette City Bowie, although not so much weird synth-pop 80s Bowie. And of course, I love Heroes Bowie.

Rereading the lyrics to this song, I'm beginning to suspect that it's in some way about Kurt Vonnegut's dystopian short story "Harrison Bergeron." While that's neither here nor there, what is interesting is the dichotomy the song sets forth.

On the one hand, it says, "We could be heroes, for ever and ever," and on the other, "We could be heroes, just for one day."

Friends, must be choose? Must we be heroes *either* for ever and ever, or just for one day? What is the difference, and what does it mean? Even further, how does one even begin to define such an ambiguous, all-encompassing word such as "hero"?

All of this to say that last night, I finally scrounged up some time to watch Monday's airing of NBC's Heroes, and have since been singing this wonderful, complicated song by Mr. Bowie. By the end of this show's second episode, we are presented with several different visions (and revisions) of heroes, and the utter complications that heroism entails.

***spoilers for Heroes; tread carefully***

I was struck by the repetitive image of what I call the single-DNA helix strand: that weird loopy, armed snake-like image that is, among other things, a pool hose, a metal statue, the subject of a painting, the black spaces in a computer program, and quite possibly the laying out of a dead body struck through with arrows (but I couldn't tell for Certain). As reading and viewing are never isolated activities, and as both often lead to spiraling thoughts all on their own, I immediately jumped to the idea of genetic engineering.

Do you remember, Gentle Reader, the quiet but utterly fabulous movie Gattaca? The premise of the movie is pretty much, "you can do whatever you set out to do." In the futuristic dystopia the movie sets forth, genetically engineered babies are The Thing, and God-Babies (those born the old-fashioned way) are relegated to the lower classes and all that entails (poverty, little chance for career or educational advancement, etc.). Our truly intrepid young hero, played by Ethan Hawke, is one such God-Baby, but he doesn't let that stop him from his dream of going into space. It's Quite The Movie, Friends, and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

What Gattaca, and Brave New World, and Anthem, and The Giver, and "Harrison Bergeron" and 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale and "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" and V for Vendetta and Equilibrium and every other dystopian tale teach us is that *you can't regulate humanity*. You cannot genetically engineer a master race, or determine class systems for every person on the planet, or even plan out whether your baby is born with green eyes or brown. To do so would bring about Disastrous Results. But even further, what these stories teach us is that we *shouldn't* want these things. We should not desire sameness and continuity. Chaos lends itself so well to creativity, and creativity? Well, that makes Life Worth Living, no?

Now, don't believe for a moment that This Humble Author doesn't see the greatest of benefits in genetic testing, and stem cell research, and yes, even genetic engineering. But I am first and foremost a reader, and books have taught me, again and again, that people want to control every aspect of their lives, and their children's lives (will no one think of the children?!), and that explorations in genetic engineering may lead eventually down The Dark Road of micromanaging lives. Once we start planning out the eye color, skin color, sex and gender (and yes, they are two separate things), and of course, talents, we start placing cultural, economic, social, and class capital on those very things. Aren't we trying to move away from judgment based upon skin color, gender, sexual preference, and whether I prefer chocolate cheesecake to raspberry (although quite honestly, I like both at once)?

That is to say, I have another theory regarding Heroes, and the genetic testing on these characters by either the mysterious glassed man or by Dr. Suresh. I think in short order we will find out that more of our heroes are adopted, or have mysterious origin stories (such an integral part to the hero development, no?), or are so very connected socially (even in a six degrees sort of way) because they are so very connected genetically. Why else would we keep seeing the twisted image, so similar to a DNA strand? Why else would we follow Dr. Suresh's research, and his son (who seemingly has no superpowers and, indeed, no common sense, because doesn't he know that when someone's trying to kill you, you don't trust cute girls with big guns who just show up out of the blue??)? Why else would we have some similar-looking characters (Claire and Niki; Isaac and Peter, for example)?

But also, I think what this show ultimately will come down to is choice. Niki Sanders is choosing a different path than, say, Claire Bennet or Hiro Nakamura. And while I commend Niki for saving herself and her son, I question her blind obedience to this mirror self of hers. It seems as if she's digging herself into a hole from which she will never escape. In the long run, this will lead her, inevitably, to the dark side. And I believe her son will become a major player to get her back.

And finally, I have one remaining theory that I'm not even sure if I can support it. But theories are, in some ways, opinions. Sometimes you just feel it; you don't need to support it. And I feel this one, just a bit.

What if Isaac's power is to make things happen? What if he dreamt everyone's powers into creation? Because if I read this right, everyone's powers are recent acquisitions. Something triggered them, no? And I don't know if I know what did it.

***

Mr. Bowie's "Heroes" tells us,

"We can beat them
for ever and ever
oh we can be Heroes
just for one day."

This automatically sets up a framework in which heroes must conquer, must "beat them for ever and ever" just to be a hero for one single day. What Mr. Bowie reminds us of is this: it never stops, this heroism. The fight for right and justice is a never-ending, tireless, sometimes thankless task. But for one day, for one single, beautiful day, you can be a Hero, and that moment can be relived, for ever and ever.

And *that's* the moment worth waiting for.

We can be Heroes, Friends. For ever and ever, just for one day.

Pointing out the obvious

2006-10-04T14:21:00.000-05:00

This is quite the Week From Hades, Gentle Reader.

We lost power across several counties last night, and among many tragedies, including eating in a strange place in the dark, our DVR did not record Gilmore Girls. I had a massive deadline today, papers are waiting to be graded, books are waiting to be edited, and there *is* that pesky dissertation.

All of *this* to say that I am Quite Behind In My Pop Culture, as I have not read comics, watched much television, or even ventured places other than campus or home, which is in desperate need of a good housecleaning.

Therefore, patience, please, Friends, as I get caught up on Heroes, on books, on life. To pass the time--and because teachers never escape the classroom and that need to instruct and introduce--I leave you with a few things to admire:

Project Rooftop has a gorgeous reimagining of the original Teen Titans.

I found the smart, funny, charming, witty, and beautifully drawn webcomic Platinum Grit recently, and thought I'd share with you if you hadn't already seen it.

Megs over at Webcomics Are From Uranus! has some very interesting things to say about the reactions to the how-to-draw-like-Marvel guidebook making its rounds on the blog circuit.

Kudos to the Fifth Carnival of Feminist Sci Fi and Fantasy Fans!

2006-10-02T07:57:00.000-05:00

Good morning, Gentle Reader! I would like to call your attention to The Fifth Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans over at One Hundred Little Dolls. This Humble Author is Very Humbled Indeed to find herself among the mentions, but much more importantly, This Humble Author finds this Quite The Impressive Fan Feat. Very, very smart and fun, and really, the internet comic fandom should offer more things like this and When Fangirls Attack!

Bravo, Sisters. Bravo.

Possible Theory Regarding NBC's Heroes

2006-10-01T23:31:00.000-05:00

Two posts in one evening, Gentle Reader. One would almost think I was procrastinating.

But as this has been rumbling about in my mind since last Monday, I thought I would let it roam free In The World At Large.

***Do understand that this may reveal spoilers for the pilot.***

In NBC's new drama, Heroes, one of the characters, Niki Sanders, is a single mother who made a Very Bad Decision by borrowing money from some unsavory ruffians. When said ruffians come forward to collect the money she doesn't have, and then demand that they be allowed to rape Niki to "lower her loan," Niki loses time. When she wakes, she discovers that the odd reflections that she has seen of herself in mirrors have, it seems, slaughtered said ruffians without Niki ever even knowing it.

Now this show is titled Heroes, yes? And what do Heroes never, ever do, Gentle Reader?

Correct. Heroes never, ever kill.

(Well, except they do sometimes. But that's another post.)

Let us look further at Niki Sanders and what we know of Hero Creation.

1) She is desperate to protect her family.
2) She is in financial ruin.
3) She has been sexually threatened.
4) Her superpower is uncontrollable, as in, she doesn't know how to use it. It acts on its own accord.
5) Said superpower *kills*.
6) Said superpower also has a selfish core; it does things solely for her benefit. As a replication of self, or a mirror-image of her basest desires, this is particularly interesting.
7) She allows said superpower to kill without turning herself in to the authorities (see Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Dead Things" for an example of how heroes are traditionally supposed to treat situations such as this).

Few of these things really scream Hero Creation, do they? But they should be familiar to us, Gentle Reader, because they scream Creation Of Another Kind.

My theory, therefore, is that the character of Niki Sanders is not a burgeoning hero, but rather, a burgeoning villain.

Many, many villains are reluctant villains (again, I point to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the character of Faith), and many turn to the dark side for lesser reasons than these. And many villains begin their track on the dark side because they make Very Bad Decisions in trying to protect someone they love.

Just a theory, Friends. Any takers?

A Brief Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #535

2006-10-01T23:20:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader, a few posts ago I said that I didn't read any comic with the word "Spider-Man" in the title except if it were followed by "Loves Mary Jane." Well, not to call myself a liar, but Mr. Reads threw The Amazing Spider-Man #535 in my General Direction, and I did, indeed, read it. And it was, in fact, quite good. But that's not why I read it. I read it because I am in the throes of Marvel's Civil War, and this issue of Spider-Man contained quite The Big Reveal.

***spoiler warning here; please do tread carefully***

I will not plague you with A Lengthy Review, Friends, particularly in that I am not well-versed in the Amazing Spider-Man World. In fact, I know little about the vastly different publications of Spider-Man, which seem as tricky and as varying as the many different lines of X-Men comics. I read Astonishing X-Men, I read Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, and that is all for those worlds. But I feel somewhat obliged to talk about this issue, if only for the fact that Mr. Reads felt somewhat obliged to hand it to me.

Have I mentioned that Mr. Reads is to Spider-Man fandom what Ms. Reads is to Wonder Woman fandom? Rabid, frothy-mouthed goodness. But while I've never really cared about my friendly neighborhood Web Crawler, not really, I've got to hand it to Peter Parker. He recognizes Crazy when it comes.

Albeit several weeks too late, but hey, he recognized Crazy, so that counts for something, right?

Tony Stark and Reed Richards take Peter on a magic space ship/time continuum ride (I really can't tell you for certain, Gentle Reader!) to the Negative Zone, where every superhero and villain (but mostly heroes) who won't get with the registration program has been sent to live out his or her no longer valued human(ist/oid) existence. Peter wanders around, in shock, over the atrocity wrought before him. The whole time, I find myself asking, "Well, what did you expect from the Crazy, Peter?" but alas, my friendly neighborhood Spider-Man refused to answer.

Well, answer me, anyways. He tells Tony, in an effort to placate The Crazy, perhaps, that thank goodness it's temporary. To which Mr. Stark responds, "This isn't temporary, Peter. This isn't interim. This is permanent. Get with the program."

But Spidey *did* get with the program, Tony! He registered! He bowed down before your fascist act and is now having second thoughts because unlike you, he's a decent guy. I don't even read the comics, Gentle Reader, and even I know that Spider-Man is supposed to be A Decent Guy. So being that Decent Guy, Spidey says, "You can't just lock people away."

Mwuahaha, says Mr. Stark. "Yes, we can. And we have. And that's the end of it."

Yes, I know, Friends. This is a rather snarky and childish retelling of what I happily admit is a well-written comic book. I do not intend snark towards the writers, but rather, towards the horrifyingly awesome power of Tony Stark's mind. What frightens me the most about this very succinct final statement by Mr. Stark—-"Yes, we can. And we have. And that's the end of it."-—is the simplicity of it, the finality. At the beginning of Civil War, you knew Spidey would Do The Right Thing In The End. He's Spider-Man. That's what Spider-Man *does*. He fights for the underdog. Mr. Stark may have wooed him with big scientific compliments and promises of safety for the loved ones in Avengers Tower (Mr. Reads does talk, Gentle Reader, and I do listen), but in the end, Spidey will prevail, right?

Right?

Pardon the cliché, Dear Friends, but power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unfortunately, that's not what we have here. Tony Stark is not a megalomaniacal Dr. Doom, lifting his fist and screaming to the heavens. No, it's actually much, much worse. Tony Stark is a guy doing his job; a guy who, in fact, keeps reiterating that all he's doing is his job.

And as history has shown us, over and over again, *those* are the ones you have to look out for, no?

Missing: One Ivory Tower

2006-09-27T17:12:00.000-05:00

Last night, Gentle Reader, Pup Reads and I lay in bed, reading a Book For Pleasure. Well, I was reading it; Pup Reads, rather, was licking the spine, as Library Books apparently are, for the canine-inclined, The Tastiest Of All Books Ever.

I admit this book was For Pleasure rather sheepishly, because The Director occasionally graces this blog with Her Presence, as well as a few of my blog-friendly Colleagues, and if there is anything a graduate student is sheepish to admit, it is her occasional foray into pleasure fiction.

Not that anyone is ever in any doubt that an English graduate student would *gasp!* read a non-canonical book For Pleasure, because if there is anything on which we can certainly Bet Money, it is the propensity English graduate students have for Reading Books. But rather, when one is Dissertating, and Teaching, and Taking A Class, she imagines, quite foolishly, that everyone expects her to work All The Time, and she spends a lot of time worrying over just that very thing.

I offer you this scenario, Dear Friends, because while I, quite scandalously, read this forbidden Book For Pleasure—which now sounds like something Quite Naughty Indeed, but instead is just The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time--Mr. Reads, as he is wont to do, watched The Colbert Report in the living room. And as only one thin door separates our Private Boudoir from the Living Room, I heard him holler out, quite distinctly, "Brad Meltzer just got a shout-out on The Colbert Report!"

Now, Mr. Reads is a Degree-Carting Poet, so I'm sure he said something much more eloquent than that, but you get The General Idea.

Pup Reads and I immediately ran out into the living room, and as we are all proud owners of a brand-spanking-new DVR, I said to My Darling Husband, "would you rewind it, please?" to which he, quite proudly (it *is* brand-spanking-new, Dear Reader!), said, "yes, yes, I will," and rewound to said shout-out.

Now Mr. Meltzer is an absolute favorite in the Reads Household; even Pup Reads finds his books the Tastiest. In fact, the Reads Household marvels at the Marvel that is Brad Meltzer. He writes books, he writes comics, he keeps a blog, he has a family, he walks, he talks, he chews gum, and still, he finds time to be, apparently, The Nicest Person In The Universe. We've experienced this a bit firsthand, but we've also heard, from several sources, that it is just the Plain Truth. Mr. Meltzer is an amazing writer, and he finds time to be a Nice Guy to boot.

This morning, however, much to my surprise, I discovered another wonder about the Wonderful Mr. Meltzer: he watches The Colbert Report! In fact, he heard said shout-out himself! And despite knowing The Wonder of The Wonderful, the Marvel of the Marvelous, still, I found myself thinking, "Brad Meltzer has time to watch television???"

Yes, Gentle Reader, you may stop skimming now. I've come to The Point.

I should know, better than anyone, that it is possible both to produce and to play, yet even I had to feel a bit grumpy about the fact that Mr. Meltzer watches television. In fact, he watches television *and he blogs about it*. Isn't he supposed to be Too Busy to watch television? Are there not deadlines staring him down? I myself have three, yes, three large, looming deadlines in the immediate future, and I still find time to work, to play, to blog, to watch television, and yes, Gentle Reader, To Read Books For Pleasure, so I should have known better. But one cannot argue with years of mythology ingrained in one's head, no?

Today, I had a very interesting discussion with several colleagues regarding the lingering image we all have of the Lone Scholar, locked in her Ivory Tower, scribbling away at her originality and presenting to the admiring throng in a year, two years, three at the most, a work of Unequivocal Genius. Of course, the Ivory Tower Myth allows for none of the following: cooking, cleaning, romantic partnership, parenting, watching television, going to catch a film, vacation, committees, blogging, and certainly *never* reading for pleasure. But despite the fact that I'm sure Mr. Meltzer most likely enjoys and/or participates in all of those things and more, I was still astonished to realize his awareness of television, even though that television was, for the moment, *about him*.

But even further, The Ivory Tower Myth does not account for visions and revisions, all before the taking of toast and tea (gratitude, Mr. Eliot). Nor does it account for said toast and tea. The Ivory Tower is this bizarre and fantastical place in which hard work never happens and only genius (spontaneous genius, perhaps) takes place. Genius doesn't require work, right? And it certainly never requires revision. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we assume Genius Gets It Right the Very First Time. And therefore when we mere mortals don't? We get grumpy, and take it out on Brad Meltzer.

Or perhaps not Mr. Meltzer himself, but rather, what he represents. Because Mr. Meltzer and his like are superstars to me. He seemingly has it all: the career, the ideas, the genius, the life, the fans, the shout-out on the Colbert Report, the time to blog about it, and, most importantly, the novel and comic book contracts (unlike This Humble Author, who would love A Book Contract for Christmas, and A Job Offer for her next birthday!). The one thing Mr. Meltzer doesn't have is The Ivory Tower, and he apparently doesn't need it.

Connie Willis's brilliant novel Bellwether offers the theory that genius and inspiration happen not in a vacuum, or in isolation, but in the midst of chaos. Willis's novel proposes that The Ivory Tower, in fact, is counterproductive to production, to genius, to real work. This Humble Author believes that this theory is 100% Correct, yet still, I long for this idealistic, quite allegoric place. I long for the truth of the reoccurring thought: If I only had more time, I could produce.

The point in fact is that we will produce if we decide to produce. My dissertation will not write itself (more's the pity), nor will my novel publish itself (or even, seemingly, with my help, but that's another post entirely). Blogging, or watching television, or reading a Book For Pleasure will not distract from my purpose if I do not allow them to distract. And I don't. In fact, I believe that I am able to produce *because* I allow myself time to catch a movie, or publish a blog, or watch television, or read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Because with the Ivory Tower Myth comes the Myth Of Constant Production: we work, we only work, and that is all.

Let us instead embrace chaos, and the dirty dishes that must be washed, and the puppies that must be walked. Let us applaud Mr. Meltzer for being so very lucky to be #1 on the Bestsellers List and to have the time to watch Stephen Colbert call attention to it. Let us shun those Ivory Towers until they fall in disarray, and in time, become overgrown with weeds. Because really, no one was ever a genius in isolation, despite what the prevailing Ivory Tower Myth will lead you to believe.

A Brief Review of Catwoman #59

2006-09-26T00:32:00.000-05:00

Before Catwoman #59, Gentle Reader, I had a theory, a very viable theory regarding the paternity of Helena Kyle. It involved Infinite Crises, the compression of several Earths' versions of Selina Kyle, and, of course, Bruce Wayne/Batman. But what it didn't involve was the actual physical act of creating a child, and certainly not with someone Other Than Batman.

***There may be spoilers ahead, Friends. Please read with Caution.***

My theory was a simple one, albeit a bit complex in execution. I believed that when all of the Earths began to melt and disappear, former versions of Selina Kyle merged with the version we have on our Earth. If memory serves me correctly, there was the scene at the end of the Catwoman issue leading up to Infinite Crisis in which Selina is surrounded by a dozen versions of herself, all pressing on her at once.

This is it! I thought. They've teased me about The Birth of Catwoman's Child, and here it is. A spontaneous pregnancy brought on by the smooshing of several versions of her into the one we hold dear. And of course, that means it's Bruce Wayne's child.

It was at This Moment that I had to admit to myself that I was a Selina/Bruce 'shipper.

Now, I'm not a 'shipper in the sense with which we are familiar. I like Buffy Summers with Angel, and I like her with Spike. I love Lorelai Gilmore with Luke, but I saw benefit in Christopher, too. I don't get rabid about my fictional romantic pairings very often, but it seems that Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne bring out the worst in my fandom.

When Talia al Ghul showed up in Batman a few months back with a child, I was livid. Not because My Darling Bruce had been intimate with the few-bats-short-of-a-belfry Ms. Ghul, but because I knew, Deep Down Inside, that Selina Kyle would never have Bruce Wayne's child. Of course, I knew this also because I read books, and the amount of finagling the writers at DC would have to do to align all of Batman's books with Catwoman, just so she could have Batman's baby, would be Insanity of Awesome Proportions.

But as hope springs ever eternal, I kept my Fingers Cross'd.

Now I am well aware that the scene in Catwoman #59 with Sam Bradley (Sam?! SAM?! At least make it an interesting Catwoman secondary character, like Slam or Ted) could just be The Ultimate Tease, and I know that the One Year Later storylines are Far From Over. 52 has several weeks and months left to go, and one three-page scene in one issue doesn't mean squat in The Comic Universe. But if it is A Tease, and even if Sam did not father Selina's child, why is it necessary? The words seem forced; the language out of character. "We're getting ready to 'team up,'" Selina says to Sam. And before he can really respond to this rather blatant single entendre, she says, "Now shut up and kiss me."

Selina always has been a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. She wanted money; she got it. She wanted to go straight; she did (well, pre-Zatanna revelation, we can assume so). She wanted Batman; she got him. She wanted the East End protected; she did it herself. But not since before she went legitimate has an action of Selina's seemed so self-serving. Understandably, she was in a bit of a Crisis herself. She had killed Black Mask; she had found out that her conversion to The White Hats may not be a result of a change of heart but rather a change of mind, a la Zatanna. She was lost; she was desperate for comfort.

But Sam freaking Bradley??

I am not appalled by her taste, necessarily; rather, I'm astonished at her awkwardness.

Catwoman/Selina Kyle always has been undeniably sexy. That's part of her inherent charm. But Selina has never been less sexy than she is in this scene. And perhaps that's The Point. This isn't love. This isn't attraction, although methinks the Cat doth protest too much that it is. This is desperation, pure and simple. In the end, I think ultimately what disturbs me about this issue of Catwoman is not the suggestion that Sam Bradley may have fathered Helena, but rather the suggestion that Selina would turn to any warm body—-even the son of her former lover-—in a moment of crisis. The suggestion that Selina Kyle, The Catwoman who has never pussyfooted around (pardon the pun, Gentle Reader!) what she wanted and how to get it, including money, men, and saving the day, would resort to clichés and clumsy innuendo to get a man in bed.

If it were meant to be disturbing, off-putting, and out of character, I'd say Mission Accomplished.

Sue Storm Kicks Butt, Takes Names, and Finally (Finally!) Earns My Respect

2006-09-20T21:49:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader, I've never liked Sue Storm.

In fact, I've never really liked the whole Fantastic Four Family. Maybe it's the cookie-cutter family-ness of them, with their kids, their public profiles, their "tolerance" for the sad, angry Thing, which always felt forced to me. Or perhaps it's Reed's silly antics, or Sue's passivity, or Johnny's in-your-faceness. Whatever it is, it's turned me off, from the comics, from the movie, from The Thing action figure holding Mr. Reads' toothbrush in the WC.

Perhaps it's because I am a DC girl, through and through. We've discussed this already, Friends, and really, it doesn't bear mentioning again. But suffice to say that when I give kudos to Marvel, I truly, *truly* mean it. And I give Marvel Kudos for Civil War.

I am a DC girl, but even I admit that Civil War is infinitely more fascinating than One Year Later or 52. Perhaps it's the parallel to the real world (and if Marvel does anything perfect, it's write about real world issues), or perhaps it's the odd sides characters are choosing (Cap anti-reg? Spidey pro-reg? Cassie, freaking Cassie pro-reg?!), I'm not sure. But it's working. And it's Got Me, hook, line, and sinker.

Sue Storm always seemed traditional to me. I don't necessarily mean Suzy Homemaker traditional, but rather, a traditional superheroine. Mr. Reads and I have a Very Dear Friend who is rabid for the Marvel Universe, and Said Friend argued with me, just about every week, over the vast superiority of Marvel over DC. Knowing my feminist leanings, and being Quite The Feminist Himself, Said Friend would work through female superheroes on either side of the Publishing Divide in an effort to Convince Me that Marvel was Better than DC.

He said Elektra; I said Black Canary. He said Jean Grey; I said Zatanna. He said Sue Storm; I said Wonder Woman, Huntress, Gypsy, Big Barda, anyone else but Sue Storm.

Her powers changed over the years, he said. She's become the most powerful member of the team. She can turn invisible, and she can create force fields to protect others. She can even attack with force fields.

She's a woman, I said. She's a woman, and her power is invisibility. Wow, that's original.

As you can imagine, Friends, we never did see eye to eye.

But tonight, I Eat Crow, with the faint patina of Shoe Leather. I was wrong, and Said Friend was right.

***Dear Reader, here there be spoilers for Civil War #4. Read with caution.***

At the start of Civil War, I had a feeling things would change between Sue and Reed. They had nothing to gain or lose from Registration. They were already public faces, and they were loved by society (well, not Latverian society). But Reed became wrapped up in Reed, Johnny was beaten almost to death, and Sue began to suspect that her husband wasn't quite the noble figure she had thought him to be.

In this issue, yes, issue #4, Sue sees the extent to which Reed and Tony have gone over the edge. I don't see them as heroes anymore, and neither, I think, does Sue. In fact, they are perhaps more villainous than the villains themselves, and with Venom and Bullseye in your villainous roundup, that is saying a lot indeed!

Sue leaves Reed. She leaves her kids. She leaves the team. She and Johnny go off to fight with the resistance. She leaves her husband with a plea not to judge her as a bad wife or a bad mother. She puts the future, her children's future, above appearances, and forces Reed to take an active interest in children he's really ignored for some time. Sue sees true horror in the face of her friends and loved ones, in the face of her *husband*, and she stands up for what she believes in.

Civil War and its extending books have had some remarkable moments for me, Friends, and I remember each and every one. But the three that stand out above Spider-Man's unmasking, far beyond the fight between Cap and Iron Man, are the final scenes between Jessica and Luke, Sue Storm protecting the Resistance with her force field, and then Sue leaving, not invisibly, but visibly. She's not hiding her convictions, nor is she hiding behind them. She is walking, head held high, and she is walking towards family opposition. She takes the time to cook dinner, make love, write a long note, and walk out in plain sight, and Reed never once notices.

Sue isn't a passive woman, or a stereotype, or any of the other things I've accused her of being. Nor is she a coward, although in her letter to Reed, she admits that some may view her departure as such.

No, Sue Storm is not a coward. She is the bravest person in Civil War thus far. She, more than anyone else in the entire Marvel Universe, knows what it means to sacrifice for a cause she believes in, for the good of humanity, for the future of her children.

And I respect the hell out of her for it.

Darkly Viewing Dexter!

2006-09-18T09:09:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness, Gentle Reader! Jeff Lindsay's amazing Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter books have been turned into a television series on Showtime! What wonderful news! This ranks right up there with the Sookie Stackhouse series set to come out on HBO, and the Harry Dresden series to come out on Sci Fi! Let's hear it for good books becoming (hopefully) good television!

Why Publishers Do Not Read My Blog (because I know they have better things to do!)

2006-09-17T10:57:00.000-05:00

It has been suggested, Gentle Reader, that the feminist comic book fans are nothing but rabid, blinded, single-minded harpies. This Humble Author is quite above pointing fingers, but in this case, there really are too many places to point. A sly insinuation here, a discreet jab there, posters across the blogosphere are blaming female fans, yes, even We Few, We Happy Few, for executive decisions made by The Big Houses Of Comic Publishing. Without the prettier words, that means that some people believe that Publishers are making *executive plot decisions* because a hundred or so women call them to task in their blogs for not making comic books more feminist-friendly.

!!!

This kind of post hoc, ergo propter hoc publishing argument is quite ridiculous.

If The Houses are making *bad* plot decisions, i.e. tiptoeing around Big Issues, it’s not because they don't want the feminists to get in a tizzy. The notion that Big Publishing Houses would Censor their stories because of *bloggers* and *critics* is a Very Silly Notion indeed. By all means, if bloggers and critics are making publishers and writers become more socially aware and making them consider gender issues, then huzzah! That's a *good* thing. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the very idea that multi-million dollar corporations would *make plot decisions* based on their worry over the internet reaction. To wit, if it's true that Publishing Houses are beginning to consider controversial plot choices in an age in which many people are reconsidering controversial decisions across the board, perhaps brought on by a rather conservative and censorial air in the world and a desire to always, always "protect the children," that doesn't mean that they're doing it because they're afraid they're going to be blogged about.

Dear Reader, I have as much of an inflated sense of importance as anyone else posting his or her thoughts out on the internet, and even I know that there is a *very* slim chance that The Houses give two good what-fors about my blog and/or the things I have to say. And on the outrageous chance that they *did*? I consider it My Fandom Duty to make sure that I never, *never* pussyfoot around The Big Issues At Hand: rape, prostitution, preposterous body types, marriage, sexuality, motherhood, fatherhood, censorship, fashion, and the poor, horrific plight of the maligned partridges stuck in those wicked pear trees.

Why do people believe that when someone calls attention to a problem, then that person must automatically want to shield the world from that problem? That the person wants to *censor*? Rape is a *very real problem* in our society. Women and men are raped *every single day* and more often than not, a person who has been raped will *not* report it because he or she is afraid that *no one will believe him or her*. Therefore if I'm angry that Sue Dibny was raped, it is *not* because Mr. Meltzer wrote a rape scene, but rather, because *a woman, even a fictional one, was raped*. This Humble Author has applauded Mr. Meltzer, again and again, for his wonderful story in Identity Crisis. This Humble Author is currently working through Mr. Meltzer's thriller novel oeuvre because she enjoys his writing so. If I criticize Identity Crisis, and the depiction of Sue Dibny's rape, it is because I want the world to TALK about it, not brush it under a rug and pretend it doesn't exist. If we pretend it doesn't exist, then we allow it to exist, and we never, ever force ourselves to take action *against it*.

When I talk The Big Feminist Issues, when I call comic book stores to task for ignoring me in favor of their male customers, when I discuss the overwhelming amount of intangible powers female superheroes possess rather than tangible physical powers their male counterparts do, it's because I *want* people to pay attention to these things. I *want* them to ponder, to discuss, and, if they desire, then dismiss. I want the world to consider the impact that female superheroes' bodies have on impressionable youth (will no one think of the children?!?). But for Heaven's Sake, I certainly don't want anyone to *stop* talking about these things, whether in blogs or in the comic books themselves, because then, we have to pretend that they don't exist. And that is the True Crime.

And if These Wicked Rumors Are True? Well, then, I would call The Houses of the Comic Publishing World into question for *not* talking about these issues anymore. If any House decides to stop publishing controversial storylines, then I may just Stop Reading. Literature, and yes, This Author considers Comic Books to be Literature (with the capital L), is a safe space in which to talk about important social, cultural, gender, racial, economic, political, and personal issues. We discuss these very things as they happen in the stories because it's easier to discuss X-Superhero's drug problem than, say, our sister's or brother's or best friend's. It's easier to express horror over society's reaction to women's accusations of rape as it appears in Z-Book than as it appears in our own towns. It means that we are reading, we are aware, and we are trying to do something about it.

(Talk may be cheap, but sometimes, the best stuff in the world is cheap. Consider your favorite Burger House. Chances are, it's the cheapest place in town.)

Thanks to When Fangirls Attack!, I've recently found out that some Publishing Houses actually *do* read blogs, and actually *do* consider seriously what bloggers have to say. And This Humble Author would like to add that thank goodness they're reading smarter blogs than Mine! Marionette has recently announced that a comment she made caused a higher up in the Publishing Echelon to think, yes, *think* about important social issues and how they appear in comic books. Congratulations, Marionette!

It is this success on Marionette’s part—-getting The Houses to Actually Listen—-that caused me to retract the original version of this post late Saturday night and reconsider my somewhat snarky attitude regarding The Houses. It’s not that This Humble Author believes that Publishing Houses don’t care what their fans and customers have to say. Rather, I question Joe Blogger’s insistence that political correctness has gone “too far.” I question Janet Blogger’s argument that the rampaging feminists and their criticism of comic books have frightened The Houses so much that they have pulled storylines just so said rampaging feminists won’t get angry and blog about them.

That is Absolutely Ridiculous.

There is a huge difference between censoring material to appease fans and customers, and reconsidering a sexist or racist or homophobic or economic bias in a market product. If Publishing Houses are discovering that their expanding customer base includes educated/professional/working-class/what-have-you women in their twenties and thirties, then by all means, *consider comic books for this market audience*. If Publishing Houses discover that people prefer to wear purple hats while eating green apples, they will shift their marketing a bit to better suit those people, no? Don’t believe me? Then please, Friends, open up your latest issue of Z-Book and examine the advertisements contained inside. If you would buy or participate in any of those products, then they’ve done their job.

The very idea that The Publishing Houses are listening to bloggers who make intelligent and informed criticisms is a lovely one. The very idea that The Houses are considering their expanding customer base is a lovely one, too. If we are ever to elevate comic books to the arena of Literature—-and that means, Dear Reader, that they will be considered seriously across the board—-then we need not only to read, but also to examine, compare, contrast, argue, develop, and most importantly, critique. I take comic books seriously. I take them seriously enough that I discuss them as I discuss Eliot, or Bronte, or Gaskell. Because what is Good Literature but something you enjoy to read because it makes you think?

So, a message to The Publishers, just in case they really *are* reading, although honestly, I think they should have better things to do, like tell me who fathered a certain feline-esque superheroine’s baby! (Get to Work, People! I’ve waited long enough!)

Hi!!
I am a *huge* fan of your work! I've been reading comic books seriously for about 10 years now, but I read them when I was a little girl, too, so don't think I'm not a True Fan! No offense intended to The Big Two, but I'm a much bigger fan of one of you than the other. No, no, it's nothing personal! I just think that one of you writes better stories paralleling and allegorizing big social issues, while I think the other writes the more interesting characters, and I am ever the character-driven plot reader. Oh, and I have personally interested a couple dozen people in comic books who would have never touched comic books before, and I also teach comic books in my classes, so I'm fighting the good fight, too.
Now look, I've heard that you're reworking some of your books better to suit your expanding market, and if it's true, I applaud you for it. But Remember the Ladies, would you? If you give a female character a history of rape or sexual violence, *give it for a reason*. Don't just give it because of the staggeringly high statistics of sexual assault among women. And please, please reconsider some of the body types of the male and female characters out there. Exaggeration, while sometimes tons of fun, gets a little stale after a while. Because really, can Power Girl possibly fight with that belt around her bare hips? That *has* to chafe.

Thanks! Keep doing a great job!

XOXO,
Amy Reads

We are experiencing technical difficulties....

2006-09-16T22:55:00.000-05:00

I've recently deleted a post, Gentle Reader, not because I now disagree with my sentiment, but because new information has come to light, and I would like a chance to update my thoughts. Tune in tomorrow for further installments of Ms. Reads' blogosphere.
Until then, I bid you good-night.

And There Goes the Bandwagon....

2006-09-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

Hm.

Seems as if I'm a bit late to the party regarding Mary Jane and her supposed death, Gentle Reader. According to Powet TV, that scene is supposedly from an upcoming Spider-Man book by Kaare Andrews, set In The Future.

While the sentiment is true--so many people want to see Spidey single again--the rumor mill, at least, seems as if it's wrong.

Let us hope, Friends, that it is for its Wonder Woman information, as well!

(Here's hoping).

I Want to See the Wonder

2006-09-13T23:21:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader, I've Had Enough.

Every day, there's another rumor. Every single day, I check Whedonesque for information regarding the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. I follow link after link, hoping for something, anything about The Amazon Princess.

Instead, I get nothing but insanity, rumor, and speculation.

Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Whomever, Kate Beckinsale, pretty much anyone but Monica Bellucci and Gina Torres (who, along with Morena Baccarin, are This Humble Author's Top Three Choices to play the Amazon Princess) have been "slated" to play Wonder Woman, and the script Isn't Even Finished! The Woman Wonder's age hasn't even been established!

And please, give these three women some cheesecake already!

I am by no means An Advocate for Type-Casting, Gentle Reader, and I appreciate playing outside the box as much as possible. If an actor is talented enough, it doesn't matter whether she is a 6 foot tall dusky brunette or a 4'11 pale blonde, she will do the role, any role, even this role, Justice. But for the love of God, let us avoid the "she'll look H.O.T. in a pair of spankies and a bustier" line of hiring. For the sake of the children, yes?

Will no one think of the children?!

Baccarin, Torres, and Bellucci. Three Talented Women who have proven, again and again, that they can handle whatever is thrown at them. Baccarin has the wide-eyed wonder of a woman leaving Paradise Island for the first time. Torres has the strength, will, and determination to blaze her way to truth and justice. Bellucci has the alienness, the separation, the utter *difference* that one expects from the Amazon Isolated from Humanity her entire life.

To be fair, Lohan had Mean Girls; this is true. It is A Great Movie, and I enjoyed her performance in it quite a bit. But really, that's all she's had. And Beckinsale had The Aviator and Much Ado About Nothing. While her work is Hit or Miss, it's more Hit than Miss, and that's saying a lot in Hollywood, no? But Rachel Whomever... I don't know what she has but apparently, a brief scene in some television show I don't watch in which she appears dressed as Wonder Woman qualifies her to star in the movie.

(!!!)

Dear Friends, I don't care if the actress they cast as Wonder Woman is skinny, fat, short, tall, muscular, flabby, has a lazy eye, a third eye, a fourth, right in the back of the head, as long as she's a Great Actress. As long as she takes the role and makes it her own. As long as she loves, yes, *loves* what she does so much that Wonder Woman comes alive on the screen for me.

Because I've waited so long to see her on The Big Screen. In the late seventies, I had the Underoos, the lunchbox, and the television show, and in the late nineties and the early aughts, I have the comics, the Barbies, the action figures. But throughout it all I've had the Wonder, the Joy, the Amazement that a Woman could be so Powerful, and I don't want to lose that. Ever.

Gentle Reader, rumor has it that there is a young gentleman in Hollywood who is so in awe of The Flash that he is lobbying for the movie, and for the title role. Ryan Reynolds adores The Fastest Man Alive so very much that he is *lobbying for the movie and for the title role*.

That's what I want to see in the actress chosen for Wonder Woman.

I want to see The Wonder.

To the Moon, Mary Jane!

2006-09-12T09:48:00.000-05:00

I have been charged with an Awesome Task, Gentle Reader, which asks me to find an academic article representative of some of the best, most thought-provoking work in my critical field. I hesitate to reveal Too Much about my professional choices in this blog, as I suffer under a delusion of Pseudo-Anonymity, but suffice to say that I work with historical and cultural events and markers as they appear in Victorian Novels. Mainly, I work with women's issues, and most particularly, issues of women's bodies and how those bodies are written in the Victorian era; at one time or another, I have written on maternity, prostitution, The Contagious Diseases Acts, sexuality, fashion, marriage, and suffrage. Sometimes, all of them coalesce into One Giant Paper, but that's a Very Rare Occurrence.

But in struggling to find this Mythic Holy Grail of Academic Articles, I remembered a particularly favorite article of mine, written by a particularly favorite critic of mine, about the Victorian Honeymoon. And *these* thoughts, as thoughts so often do, led me straight back to comic books. Yes, I know, Friends, you marvel at This Humble Author's ability to relate Any Given Topic to Comic Books, but please, remember that This Humble Author is an English Major; she can relate anything to anything, given enough time and secondary sources.

Mr. Reads, as I believe I have mentioned before, is A Marvel Fan Of Preposterous Proportions. Of course, My Beloved Partner enjoys the DC Universe as well, but I am the rabid DC fan in the relationship. While I enjoy Marvel, I don't hear the pitter-patter of little mutant feet in my head the way Mr. Reads does. My obsession with Wonder Woman is eclipsed by Mr. Reads' obsession with Spider-Man. And Mr. Reads has been, if I may be personal for a moment, a bit upset about the supposed upcoming death of Mary Jane Parker.

Not that Mr. Reads is a huge Mary Jane fan. Rather, he's a huge fan of Spidey, and he really, really doesn't like it when he hears other fans say, "Peter's better single," or, "Let's get back to the 'Old' Spider-Man." Instead, he loves to see his Friendly Neighborhood Web Crawler grow and change, and see Mary Jane, a wonderful example of a wife in a medium (that would be Popular Culture At Large rather than just Comic Books) that shows too few wonderful examples of wives, grow and change, as well.

This Humble Author, in turn, is a Mary Jane fan, and can take or leave Peter Parker, but that's another post entirely.

Why are fans so eager to dispense with Mary Jane? I've read countless excuses, from the fact that Gwen Stacy is Peter's True Love, to Mary Jane is too Perfect, to, yes, Dear Reader, that excuse that plagues so many great things, like the character Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "we just liked her/him/it better the way she/he/it was!" This Humble Author has heard True Whedonites scream over the changes to Willow following season four of Buffy, simply because she was no longer awkward and cute. And similar people scream that a married, stable Spidey is no longer as much fun.

Heaven Forbid we allow our characters to grow!

I don"t read Spider-Man, or Ultimate Spider-Man, or any book with "Spider" in the title except "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane." This book examines the history of the current Web Crawler and his Lovely Partner, and is told from Mary Jane's point of view. We get the lead up to their relationships in the books, we get the result in their current marriage (which This Author only gets glimpses of in Civil War), but from what I can gather, we saw the honeymoon only through the super-villainous attacks.

The Honeymoon is an odd time because it is both so personal and so public. Mr. Reads and I took that greatest of Honeymoon escapes: Disneyworld and Universal Studios. We rode the Haunted Mansion, we ate our way through the Epcot World, we marveled at The Marvel Island of Adventure, at which Mr. Reads squealed like a school-boy and put us into bankruptcy buying all of the Marvel Legends Action Figures he couldn't find back home. But what we didn't do was wear those "bride and groom" Mickey ears, or matching shirts, or any other cute signifiers of our honeymoon-ness. Yet even so, people constantly stopped us and asked, "are you on your honeymoon?"

Gentle Reader, how did they *know*??

I can't ever recall reading a comic book that involved Honeymooners, and that's not to say that those books don't exist In The World. I just have never read them. Do we scorn the honeymoon texts because we *know* what's going on? Public and private, at the same time, honeymooners are instantly recognizable, more so than first love, or forbidden love. The Honeymooning Couple is a phenomenon that one can immediately see, and from which one must avert her eyes.

Or is it because The Fight Is Over? Sexual tension is gone, the guy got the girl or the guy, or the girl got the guy or the girl, and we've read as far as we want to read. We enjoy strife, heartache, and hardship, and for some strange reason, we enjoy seeing Spidey star-crossed, in pain, and *single again*. Because then we can relive the cycle over and over again. We never have to have the conclusion, only the tension and the hunt. Because the journey's the best part of the adventure, right? It doesn't matter where you’re going, only how you get there? Or is it because once we find love, we believe we have nothing else to do in our lives?

In a recent discussion regarding my blog and its potential audience, Mr. Reads said he believes Arrogant Self-Reliance suffers from "TL; DR" syndrome. As I had no idea what that meant (my InternetSpeak is not very good, Dear Friends!), I asked him.

"Too long; didn't read," Mr. Reads said.

Hm.

So therefore, a caveat before I cut this post short(ish). I am an ABD Doctoral Candidate in English Literature, Gentle Reader, which means that for the past four years, my written work has been *at least* ten pages or over. One of my dissertation chapters is 57 and counting. Therefore, many, if not all of my posts will be "TL," and it's up to you to declare "DR," if you choose.

Angels falling from the sky

2006-09-09T08:52:00.000-05:00

There seems to be a dichotomous standard these days, Dear Reader, that declares women cannot be both feminists and domestic goddesses. Oh, the Barefoot Contessa tells us otherwise, but really, it's a common assumption In The World that if a heterosexual woman is a feminist, then she must shun kitchens, cooking, knitting, fashion, makeup, shaving, men, bad foods, smoking, red meat, Christmas trees, baking, romantic comedies, mystery novels, girls' nights out, and, oh yes, marriage. The problem for This Humble Author is that she is a feminist, by self-declaration, by profession, by degree, and she enjoys all of those things and more.

Well, This Humble Author just (just, Dear Reader!) quit smoking in the last week, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, yes?

I come to you with this list of wrongs to redress because I had to ask a group of people recently if they knew what feminism is. Because of the strange, almost horrified looks on their faces, I amended my question by noting, "feminism is not a four-letter word." It alleviated none of the horror, and, in fact, made them even more horrified.

There is an image of Feminists In The World that calls to mind She-Woman Men Haters. Feminists are *angry*. Feminists are *rampaging*. Feminists are *misandrists*. These images are usually tied up with bra burning, keeping one's last name upon marrying, and letter-writing, sign-holding protests. This Humble Author agrees that yes, many feminists are angry and some, indeed, are rampaging. Perhaps there is the odd misandrist or two, but overall, feminists are your daughters, your sisters, your girlfriends and mothers and teachers and friends. They look just like you, or someone you know and now you're thinking, "Dear God, how will we ever recognize them when they move to our town?!?!"

*ahem*

But in all seriousness, let us return to the supposed flip side of that coin, The Domestic Goddess. Before her current incarnation as a gourmet cook, a decorator of Martha Stewart proportions, and a knitting-while-cooking-while-balancing-the-checkbook-while-changing-the-baby super-woman, The Domestic Goddess was most infamously identified as the angel sitting in the house, caring for her husband and children with all the duty and self-sacrifice one could ever hope for or expect in a woman. Yes, that cursed writer, Coventry Patmore, inflicted the image of The Angel in the House upon us in the 1850s, and we've been plagued by her ever since. She is selfless, modest, demure, concerned with keeping house (while never getting her hands dirty, Dear Reader, because an Angel never touches dirt or *shudder* raw food!), and always, always busy tending to the mending, or the children, or anyone or anything other than herself.

Never once imagine that This Humble Author pooh-poohs the idea of caring for One's Fellow Human. But This Humble Author pooh-poohs the very idea of sacrificing one's life *solely* for the whims of society or another human being. This Humble Author believes in living one's life in such a way that caring for others and one's self go part and parcel, hand in hand, if you will. You cannot Save Others if you will not Save Yourself. Or, as Florence Nightingale reminds us in that angriest of nineteenth-century proto-feminist tracts, Cassandra, "[Women] have accustomed themselves to consider intellectual occupation as a merely selfish amusement, which is their 'duty' to give up for every trifler more selfish than themselves" (32).

This blog entry has been bubbling on the backburner for the past few days somewhat in response to the very interesting, very serious discussion taking place at Ragnell's Written World. The question posed regarding whether finding a mate is the "best thing" to happen to a woman in a comic book is a rather interesting one, and I began to wonder if there are examples in the comic book world that demonstrate marriage as the *worst* thing that could happen to a woman, particularly a female superhero.

My first thought was Linda Danvers.

Do you remember, Friends, the very end of the Linda Danvers' run of Supergirl? Do you remember the sacrifice she had to make in order to ensure Kara was sent Back To The Right Time to die? And do you remember, perhaps with a pained heart, the alternative life Linda was allowed to live, only to have all of it taken away from her?

Linda took Kara's place, intending to die as Kara was supposed to. She entered an alternate, pre-Crisis world and in an odd, unexpected twist, she and Superman/Clark Kent fell in love, married, and had a child. Then The Spectre came to visit her and took everything, *every-bloody-thing* away from her, including her child. Years of marriage, of love, of motherhood were snatched away from her in a second with no other explanation than "it had to happen the way it was supposed to happen."

In this instance, I believe that marriage, love, and motherhood are presented as the absolute *worst* things that can happen to a woman, this particular woman, in this particular comic book. In fact, the events are so tragic that Linda leaves Leesburg, never to return. She is so distraught (and rightly so, Dear Reader) over these lost events that she hangs up her cape and walks away. Again, from *every-bloody-thing*.

Before DC let go of the marvelous title Fallen Angel, there was the sly suggestion that Lee, the strange angelic woman in Bete Noire, was the former Fire Angel Herself, Linda Danvers, aka Supergirl. In fact, This Humble Author reveled in such a unique and marvelous storyline. That possibility no longer exists, Dear Reader, because the title has moved to IDW, and therefore has lost access to the DC Universe. But let us pretend, just for a moment, that it hadn't happened. Let us consider instead that run of Fallen Angel in which "Lee" is quite possibly "Linda Danvers" from Leesburg.

She is lost. She is hopeless. She is self-abusive and unloving and trapped in a hellish city that is, quite possibly, Hell Itself. And as far as we can tell, she ended up there precisely because she had lost everything that she had. She is no longer an Angel of fire or otherwise, but rather, a Fallen Angel. She was a strong, self-sustaining, artistic woman who fought through addiction and fear and hopelessness to wear the S with pride. She overcame enemy after enemy, including Bizarro Supergirl and Lilith, to keep her mantle as Supergirl, and in the end, she did have it all: she had the great career and the great family, only to be told it wasn't hers to have.

I don't know if I've said this before, Dear Reader, but the Spectre, whatever his incarnation, pisses me off to no end.

What the Linda Danvers' run of Supergirl represents for me, more than anything else, is not the fact that women "can't have it all," but rather, that The World At Large doesn't expect them to. And no, I don't blame this on the writers. I think the writing of this particular run of Supergirl was smart and poetic and thought-provoking and more than anything, it recognized a problem in our society that declares that Feminism can't meet Domesticity. Feminists can't enjoy cooking or children or red meat or trashy romance novels. To do so would be Bad Feminism. Not according to the Feminists, but according to the World At Large.

Over the past year, thanks to Dear Megs over at Ph(yphen)D, I've learned to knit. Over the past twenty-five or so years, I've learned to cook quite well. And I've heard, yes, I'm afraid it's so, Friends, that I'm Not Supposed To Do Domestic Things. I can have a Career, or I can Play House. I can't do Both.

Understand that My Dear Sister Feminists say otherwise. My Dear Sister Feminists prove, again and again, that you *can* have it all, however you determine "all" to mean. But society, it seems, is against the idea. Daycare isn't affordable. Careers require long hours away from home. Knitting is something Our Grandmothers did. Cooking ties women to the stove, and cleaning ties them to the glove and apron. Pink is stereotypically for girls, and a reclamation of pink is therefore Bad. The Angel in the House is alive and well, rooted deep in her mythology and never disappearing even in these seemingly anti-Victorian times.

Linda Danvers was an Angel, and she Fell, Hard. I believe she fell not because she was a superheroine, but because she was a superheroine, a wife, and a mother, and she was told she could be one or the other, but not all at the same time.

Are feminists angry? Do you doubt that they have reason to be?

Florence Nightingale ends Cassandra with the following: "Awake, ye women, all ye that sleep, awake! If this domestic life were so very good, would your young men wander away from it, your maidens think of something else?" (52).

Now, some 150 years since the writing of Cassandra, we believe we are past domesticity. We believe the fight for women's rights is done. We insist, yes, insist, Friends, that women must be *either* Career Gals or Suzy Homemakers, but never both, and never a third, or fourth, or eighteenth option. This dichotomous split is fracturing half the population and confusing our daughters, our sisters, ourselves. Now instead of telling our daughters that "football is for boys," we tell them, "knitting is no longer for girls, because it's a gender stereotype." I want the happy medium. I want my Sisters to make up their own minds, and damn the strictures society places on their gender. Thirty years ago, those strictures declared that women find their own paths. Now, those strictures declare that women find the path set forth for them *by someone else*.

To say that women can no longer enjoy domestic pursuits *and* fight for women's rights is to say that women can't carry careers, or go to school, or wear pants. To say that women *must* do this, or that, is to counter everything that feminism stands for. I support My Sisters in their informed choices, whether they choose to be Career Gals *or* Suzy Homemakers. But more importantly, I admire My Sisters who happily do it all: write, marry whomever they love, have children or not, vacation, read mystery novels, cook, knit, play football, drink beer, and whatever else they decide to do. Because they know that they can have it all *without* unraveling the Entire Universe.

Our Sister Linda Danvers, unfortunately, didn't have the same option. And she suffered, perhaps suffers to this day somewhere out there in the DC Universe, because of it.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2006-09-06T08:08:00.000-05:00

I write to you now, Gentle Reader, from my office, in which I have the windows open and a fresh breeze coming through. What's this, Ms. Reads? you ask. Yes, Friends. It's official. Fall is on Its Way. It is currently 64 degrees Fahrenheit in my oven-like little corner of my vast state, and although it will get up to 88 degrees today, that is a far cry from the 102 we saw last week.

Fall is, without a doubt, my favorite season. I've lived in the South all of my life which means I've really never experienced Fall. Leaves change... sort of. The temperature drops... a bit. But Fall brings all the things I love: Halloween, sweaters, crumply leaves, pumpkin spice coffee, school (yes, school—do remember that Your Humble Narrator is A Nerd of the Highest Order), and the prelude to all great things in December, including Christmas (presents!), my birthday (more presents!), and the tiny possibility of That Freak Snowstorm That May Hit Us.

I've never had a White Christmas, Gentle Reader, and Mr. Reads tells me I am Missing Out. I grew up in the South, have lived here all of my life, and while we've had two freak snowstorms I can think of, neither of them produced enough to leave anything on the ground. Mr. Reads, from Ohio himself, is horrified to think that the future Baby Readses may not know what it is to snow-sled or snowball fight or wear such large coats that they can't put their arms down (gratitude, A Christmas Story). Since my Christmas memories are tangled up in something quite different, I myself am worried that the future Baby Readses will not know what it's like to wear shorts on Christmas morning.

We all have our different traditions, no?

But above all else, except maybe Halloween, Fall means The Fall Lineup. Yes, Friends, our shows return to us after a summer hiatus, and we are ready to see what the new season brings.

Currently, Mr. Reads and I watch the following:
24
Battlestar Galactica
Family Guy
Gilmore Girls
Lost
The Office
The Sopranos (whenever it returns!)

We've lost Alias and Arrested Development in the last year, and have given up on Prison Break and Supernatural. We're interested in Heroes (sort of), The Traveler (probably), and a few others here and there. But I really can't imagine adding to my lineup any more than this, and Mr. Reads also has his daily dose of Stewart and Colbert to contend with.

24
Gentle Reader, can you believe I've yet to see the finale from last season? I was Researching In London at the time, and I've got the VHS tape still waiting to go. I can't explain it, either. I adore 24, and this season, in particular, was phenomenal. No Kim trapped by a cougar; no wishy-washy feelings about Chloe. Just straight up "Dammit!" goodness.

Battlestar Galactica
Of all of my shows, I am most interested in Battlestar Galactica. I didn't expect much from it when I first started watching, and the pilot/mini-series didn't wow me at all, but I was sucked in before I could sneeze and here I am, in awe over this odd little show.

Family Guy
I consider FG to be Smarter Than The Simpsons, and I know some of my Loyal Readers will Cry Foul over such a comparison. But it's just true. FG takes it farther than the Simpsons ever does, and just when you reach that point of annoyance, it takes it one step farther and you're laughing again.

Gilmore Girls
Lorelai, Lorelai, Lorelai!!! Why, why must you break my heart so? And Luke? What is going on in that crazy brain of yours? It's the last season for my Stars Hollow crew, and I am going to miss this show like crazy. But it's been a good run, and I've been there since the beginning. Let's just get these two together already!

Lost
Hm. Until that final episode, I was about done with this show. Not because it wasn't good, but because I got tired of the tease. I'm all for character development; most of the shows and books and comics I read are centered around it. But Lost was playing it a little too close to the chest, and I was getting frustrated. But now, four toes? Egad!

The Office
This show just gets better and better every episode, and if you aren't watching, then you must begin, forthwith. Trust me on this. I know good story when I see it.

If you can recommend any of the new shows, Dear Reader, then please, do that very thing. I'd like to know if I'm missing out on anything spectacular. As mentioned, I am very curious about Heroes, but I don't know if it's the superhero factor, or the Milo Ventimiglia factor. He's no Christian Bale (This Humble Author's Celebrity Swoon), but he's a good actor, and a cutie-pie of the highest order.

Holy Discontent, Batgirl!!

2006-09-03T16:21:00.000-05:00

(Crisis of Infinite Feminisms, Part III)

"Same job, same employer means equal pay for men *and* women" - Batgirl

Mr. Reads found this promotional video from the Department of Labor and Wage the other day, Gentle Reader, and gave me the link for the express purpose of talking about it on Arrogant Self-Reliance. Some partners bring their spouses flowers, or candy, or perhaps, if very rich, new cars. This Humble Author gets neither flowers nor candy (and certainly not new cars!). What I *do* get? Vamped Angel Puppets, and Harley Quinn Barbie Dolls, and Fantastical Seventies' Feminist Agenda as seen through the eyes of Batgirl.

My husband, if I may be so bold, is the keenest.

The year is 1974, the Dynamic Duo is in trouble, and it's up to Batgirl to save the day. But will she save Batman and Robin in time? Will she receive equal pay? And what the heck's going on in 1974 to give Batgirl some initiative, anyhow? Let's examine the Feminist Timeline and see.

(The internet is ever-surprising, Dear Reader. This Humble Author typed "feminist timeline" into Google, and found an Honest to God feminist timeline!)

1972: Title IX goes into effect
1973: Roe vs. Wade protects women's right to choose
1974: Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur refuses to force pregnant women to take maternity leave, and The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission bans AT&T's discriminatory practices
(Source: http://www.legacy98.org/timeline.html)

Many, many exciting events, including, it seems, the Department of Labor and Wage stepping up to the plate and reminding everyone, Batmans or no, that women deserve the same pay as men for the same job.

What do we see now, 32 years later?

One Batgirl is Oracle; the other is "Evil." There have been 4 Robins, one of which was a woman. A new Batwoman is painting the town red. Oh, and women still make less than men.

As previously mentioned, Birds of Prey is one of my Favorite Books Of All Time. In fact, Oracle is one of my Favorite Characters Of All Time. In a tradition that demands I name all of my major electronics (This Humble Author types to you now on "Diana"), I named my laptop "Oracle." But it's not just Barbara's background as Batgirl that intrigues me, but rather, the very idea of what she's become.

In the same way that my field is dominated by women, so is computer science dominated by men. The Chronicle of Higher Education, that occasional Harbinger of Doom for the academic set, notes that "only 17 percent of undergraduate computer-science degrees were awarded to women in 2004, down from 19 percent in 2000." In a generation after Barbie's misogynist verbal faux pas, "Math is Hard!" we still see the trend of Men Are From Hard Sciences, Women Are From Liberal Arts.
(Source: http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i19/19a03501.htm)

But in this world in which men are more computer-compatible than women, we have that Hacker To End All Hackers, Oracle. Batman: The Animated Series plays her as Batgirl *and* a computer genius; Gail Simone has written her as the computer expert that defies the laws of, well, computers, again and again. She does things with a motherboard and modem that the Batboys could only dream about, and that's saying something right there.

What I've always found so fascinating about the Bat Family is the wealth of intelligence located there. None of the Batboys or girls is stupid. In fact, we're most likely looking at some of the smartest non-metas in the comic book universe. I believe that Bruce desires to surround himself with intelligent people, but I also believe that intelligent people are attracted to the Bat lifestyle because of the very challenges it poses. But Oracle fulfills a function for Batman that he himself cannot fill. Bruce does not seem as computer-literate as one would expect from The Dark Knight.

Perhaps it's the generational gap; Bruce grew up pre-home computers, after all, although he does have that rather fantastically large computer in the Batcave. And certainly, he cannot hack street lights and fight crime at the same time. But with Oracle, do we finally see an instance in which another non-meta is better at something than the greatest non-meta himself?

I don't believe that Bruce Wayne/Batman is written as a Mary Sue, particularly not now. Grant Morrison, et al are writing Batman with the very joy and complexity that I want to see in my comic book writers. But let's admit it: Bruce Wayne is damn good at everything he does. Seducing the ladies, making money, saving the day, brooding (let us not forget the brooding!), he does it all and he does it well. But he couldn't do the things that Oracle could. Her kung fu is the strongest, and more importantly, *he knows it*.

The Department of Labor and Wages promo ends with the following questions:
"Will Batgirl save the Dynamic Duo? Will she get equal pay?"

It's been 32 years in the making, Batgirl, but you've gotten your equal pay after all: you are the head of a team of crime fighters, the same as Robin and the Teen Titans (or The Outsiders, whichever Robin we decide to choose!). But more importantly, you've gotten a version of A Book of One's Own in Birds of Prey. Shakespeare's Sister would indeed be proud. Let's not lose sight of all the aspects that make a superhero great: strength, tangible or intangible power, and intelligence.

Babs is a superhero, and This Humble Author thinks she's a better superhero as Oracle than she was as Batgirl. At the end of the day, Oracle is the better story.

And, of course, she defies the "Men Are From Hard Sciences, Women Are From Liberal Arts" bias we see in college graduates today. And anytime a character defies a stereotype or bias, This Humble Author feels the need to sit up and shout, "huzzah!"

(Huzzah!)

The Cult of the "Spontaneous Genius" Myth

2006-09-01T13:46:00.000-05:00

"I can't write five words but that I change seven." - Dorothy Parker

I am taking a much-needed break from The Dissertation, Gentle Reader, on which I have worked all morning long. I believe, in fact, that I have made A Breakthrough on this chapter, which has been a long while in the making. I passed my preliminary exams in April 2005, but due to two very time-consuming professional obligations Fall 2005 (which, to be fair, were excellent and necessary and quite career-changing), I feel as if I am a semester behind in my personal writing schedule. There is a chapter in the docket, and another that *shall* be finished at the end of September. After that, there are three more chapters to go.

I am a Reader and a Writer, Friends, by profession, by degree, by career choice, and, most importantly, by personal desire. It sometimes baffles me that I will be *paid*, yes, *paid* to read and write about books for The Rest Of My Natural Life, granted, of course, that I get A Job when I am On The Market. If that fails, Mr. Reads and I will put the puppy to work and turn her into a bitter Puppy Star who will emancipate herself somewhere around her 16th birthday, and forever blame us for stealing her puppy childhood away.

Hopefully, we never have to resort to such tragic and traumatic circumstances.

But in rewriting and rewriting this current chapter, I began to consider the very act of writing in our lives. There was a time, pre-prelims, during which I wrote Every Day. I woke up, made iced coffee, sat down at the computer and churned out 1 page, or 4 pages, or, on very good days, 12-15 pages in an hour or two. Then I would break, work on school work or work work or any other thing I needed to work on in the world. I am trying, desperately, to return to that schedule, and this blog, this odd little blog, feels like my way back in.

The World Of Writing is not a mysterious and mystical realm although we often feel that way about it. It is, quite simply, the result of lots and lots of work. I often tell my students that there is no secret to writing well; all it takes is lots of practice to do it. My idea of practice includes both reading *and* writing and so often, we, the World At Large, want to do neither.

One of the greatest travesties ever perpetuated on the World At Large is the idea of spontaneous genius. This idea argues that if we sit back and wait, Genius, or Inspiration, will strike us and we will write A Masterpiece.

What utter balderdash.

Gentle Reader, who was it who said, "Yes, I only write when I'm inspired, and I make sure I'm inspired at 9:00 every morning"? Darling Google is offering me various authors for the same quote. Regardless of the author, we must look at the sentiment because the sentiment, yes, the sentiment is Absolutely True.

Let's look to the idea of spontaneous genius. I have heard people, have heard my *friends* argue again and again that they write "when inspired." That "inspiration has hit!" Dear Reader, I must confess to you that I, too, once expressed such naïve statements as well. But what is "inspiration" but the reiteration of thought, the plotting out of a problem over and over again until we work towards a viable resolution?

In short, inspiration is nothing but the sudden realization of hours and days and weeks of continuous thought about one problem.

The dissertation chapter I'm currently working on, as previously mentioned, has given me fits over the past two months. The previous chapter, if I may be less than modest for a moment, is actually Quite Good. No, no, Dear Reader, I am not the only one saying this. The Director has said such marvelous things Herself! If my first chapter can be so good, then the second chapter must be even better, and even easier to write, yes?

No. No, no, no, no, no.

I have stared at the computer screen for an hour at a time, typing only a few sentences. I have written five pages, but then changed seven (gratitude, Ms. Parker). I have, in fact, screamed, deleted, cried, whimpered and butted my head against a wall in response to this travesty of the written word.

Until today.

Did spontaneous genius strike? Am I a recipient of that very thing I scorned? Did My Muse glide down gracefully from the Heavens to bless me with An Idea?

Heck no.

I have slaved, yes *slaved* over this problem for weeks now. I have forced myself to write because I needed to produce something, anything, to drain the muck and gunk out of my brain and let the Smart Words Flow. And in the shower, that very place where spontaneous genius often rears its mythical little head, I finally came up with A Solution To My Problem.

Not because of inspiration. But because of work.

The World At Large still believes in the mythology of the writer brought on, I believe, by the cult of genius surrounding such peoples as Thoreau and Whitman. If we lock ourselves in a cabin near a lake, we will be Inspired. If we lock ourselves in a house, a la Emily Dickinson, we will produce such wonderful words that a hundred years after her death, we still marvel. It's simply Not True. Edgar Allan Poe was not the broody, tragic genius we picture him as. No, no, Friends, he was A Writer By Trade. And he wrote. All the damn time.

At a party several years back, I sat next to two people discussing the Novel Without A Hero and its recent film version. Understand, Gentle Reader, that Vanity Fair is one of my Favorite Books Of All Time. Understand that I am writing an entire chapter of The Dissertation on it, that The Dissertation Itself was inspired (how I hesitate to use that word!) by the very novel of which I speak.

To wit, I know it, Friends. Backwards and forwards.

Victorian novels are quite long. So long, in fact, that This Humble Author jokes that instead of Victorian Novels, she should have specialized in, say, Modernist Poetry. The Penguin Edition of Vanity Fair itself is 797 pages. As Thackeray was a Professional Writer, he wrote, I'm sure, every day. He wrote, and revised, and crafted, and sweated, and perhaps cried and hit *his* head on the wall, repeatedly, in an effort to get rid of that idea of inspiration and make something else come out.

But still, despite all of these examples of which some *have* to be true, This Humble Author heard those two partygoers say, paraphrased, "I dunno. I read it, but it seemed like he just gave up at the end. That he just tacked on some ending just to finish the book."

Dear Reader, I fell on the floor in shock.

First came anger. How *dare* they? How *dare they* desecrate a beautiful and funny and wonderful book with such an asinine, bizarre statement? Then came self-righteousness. I wanted to smack Said Partygoers in their big, fat heads. Then came restraint helped mostly by My Dear Friend MGB over at Separation of Spheres, who held me back from doing that very thing to their big, fat heads.

Then came sadness. And finally acceptance.

There are people in this world who are so ignorant of the writing process that they believe, actually *believe* that a wonderful writer like Thackeray would just "give up" at the end of his beautifully crafted novel because he got tired. Or hit a deadline. Or, perhaps, was bleeding from the head after hitting said head against the wall repeatedly. How did this *happen*? How have we divorced ourselves so much from the very act of writing that we could actually consider a writer would just give up at the end?

Mr. Reads, who is a Degree-Carting and Published Poet and therefore An Honest To God Writer, reminds me, and reminds me often, that works are never finished; they are just abandoned. Gentle Reader, you see the difference, yes? How a writer can revise and revise and revise until she is bleeding both from the head and the heart, but the novel, or poem, or dissertation, will never be perfect? Not once in that statement is the idea of giving up because of deadline or boredom or hospital visit to fix said head. No, it's more the suggestion that we parents of works let our babies go off in the world, alone and exposed, and we sit back in the car and cry over the loss of something innocent and pure. It's the suggestion that eventually there comes a time when we just have to let go.

I have let go of my work again and again. I have exposed it to the harsh, ugly light of judgment. Sometimes, it has been found worthy; more often than not, it has been found wanting. But each time is a heartbreak. Each attempted selling of The Novel or each revelation of The Dissertation is a loss of a little piece of me. Each poem read at a slam, each blog entry posted to the internet, is not a window but a peephole into the very processes of me. I am a Writer, and therefore my job requires heartbreak on a daily basis.

But mostly, and most importantly, it requires work. Lots and lots of work. And it is time, Friends, to return to that very thing.

I bid you adieu for now, Gentle Reader, for I must continue to sort out this dissertation quandary. But as I am not only a Reader and Writer but also a Teacher Of Reading And Writing, I leave you with a homework assignment:

Write something this weekend. Write anything at all, and then let it go somewhere to be Read. Hopefully, you will find it in your heartbreak to let it come to me.

Because despite the heartbreak, despite the anxiety and the bills and the tiny little holes in me, I absolutely love what I do.

Crisis of Infinite Feminisms, Part II

2006-08-30T16:11:00.000-05:00

It has been suggested to me, Gentle Reader, that the comic book world is nothing short of a He-Man Women Hating Club. I see my fellow bloggers expressing disappointment after disappointment over the general male-bias of comics and the fan world (see, most recently, Ragnell's post at Written World). The readers and writers of comic books are overwhelmingly male, certainly, but why are they dismissive of the female comic book fan?

Let us look to one of the centers of the comic book arena: the comic book store. Several of my Sister Bloggers have discussed the isolation they feel when they walk into this male-centered arena. To walk into the comic book store alone, in particular, is a feat that requires Great Strength. The customer dismisses you. The proprietor dismisses you. And if you enter with a male companion, why, then the proprietor directs all of his attention to him, regardless of the fact that *you* are the comic book fan, and not your y-chromosome-enabled friend.

Can you, for a second, remember how it feels to be the only one of you in an enclosed space? People of non-white races often say they feel isolated and on display in an all-white environment. I have seen, time and time again, my Male Friends run practically screaming away from an all-female baby shower. But some people still refuse to accept the discomfort the female comic book fan feels when she walks into this mysterious, mystical realm.

I live in a Very Small Town, Dear Reader, that owes its population almost entirely to the large university housed here. As a result, we only have the following: 1 Target, 1 Barnes and Noble, 10 Starbucks (well, 3, but This Humble Author expects another 7 to pop up by tomorrow), and 2 comic book stores. Of those two stores, one is owned by a man, and one is owned by a woman.

Mr. Reads and I gravitated to the woman-owned comic book store quite by accident; it happens to be located next to our favorite restaurant in town. We entered, we browsed, we shopped, and over the passing months and years have become regular customers. It's where we have our pull list, after all. But the few times I've been to the shop owned by the man (Store B), I have felt out of place. I have browsed, for several minutes, with no offer of help from the employees. I have stood patiently at the register while the employees play D&D *right next to me*, until after ten minutes I finally tire of waiting and interrupt the game. I have been dismissed, out of hand, skipped over in line in favor of a male customer.

At the store owned by a woman (Store A), however:
1) I am known by name while...
2) My husband is known only as "Amy’s husband" (although to be fair, Friends, he is the bigger comic reader in the relationship)
3) I am known as "That Woman Who Buys Comics" by the other shoppers
4) Wonder Woman action figures and paraphernalia are set aside for me the moment they enter the shop, just in case I may want to buy them

Now perhaps this comparison isn't fair; we frequent Store A, after all, while we rarely go to Store B, and only if we're looking for something Store A doesn't have. But is it the effect or the cause? Do we go to Store A because it is more welcoming of the female fan, or is Store A more welcoming of the female fan because we go there?

Gentle Reader, chicken or egg?

This is not to say that I haven't been to stores owned or worked by men and made to feel completely welcome. Chicago Comics, for example, is a store that has happily served me, time and again, with complete and utter respect. I walked in as a tourist; I left feeling like a local. I also go home with a ton of local comics because the employee finds out what I read, and suggests books to me "because you just might like them!" But the reverse of this is also true. I have wandered into comic book stores and been stared at, ignored, ogled, questioned as to my true fandom ("really? You read Catwoman? Ugh..."), questioned as to my true purpose ("Can I help you find something for your boyfriend?"), and just, in general, Felt Unwanted.

This isn't just a strange form of masculine inclusion; this is downright Bad Business.

I've worked retail, Friends, and I worked it long and well. Why would you, as a business owner or employee, isolate part of your customer base? Why would you not instead foster it? I don't have many female friends who read comics, true, but my enthusiasm for comics has tempted some to try them (I point to Mommy, Ph.D. as evidence of a recent possible conversion!). I teach comic books, I write about them, and I am just one of a vast number.

It's a market that's practically untapped. Women read comics. Women write comics. Women write about comics. They are as rabid fans as their male counterparts and still, time and again, are pointed to the "girl standard" books in the store. I love Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane as much as the next reader, but I love it because it's well-written, not because it's "girly." I read Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, and Supergirl not because they're about women, but because they're *good books*.

Okay, so I'd read Wonder Woman even if it were written poorly. But that's just me.

I also love The Ultimates, and Daredevil, and 52 and Superman and Wolverine. I adore Batman, and Civil War and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and any other number of books that are male-centered and male-oriented. In the same way that I believe a man can write a feminist book, I believe a woman can love a book without a feminist agenda. Women have been doing just that very thing for hundreds of years, after all.

Another chicken or egg question: do women in general not read comics because they believe that they're "for men," or are comic books "for men" because no one believes women would read comics?

In a recent blog, Kalinara at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise called for a Big Barda book. I say Amen. Give us a Big Barda book, not because she's a female character, but because it's what your readers would like to see. Tap that untapped market; poll your female readers. Give us advance stories and get our feedback. Understand your entire fan base. There is nothing to lose in this scenario. All you have to gain are *more fans*.

I turn 30 at the end of this year, Gentle Reader, and yes, I am experiencing those first pangs of True Adulthood. But more importantly, Mr. Reads and I are beginning to have The Discussion. Children? No children? One child? Two? And Dear God, will no one think of the poor dog and how she'll feel about an addition to the family?

The one thing we've agreed on is this: if we have a child, that child will be introduced to comics. We coo over the Supergirl lunchboxes at the stores. We've already bought a baby Iron-Man for the future Baby Reads. We are scouring the internet for Wonder Woman baby tees for our goddaughter. Why? Because children need the fantastic in their lives. They need a true sense of Wonder. Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and most importantly, comic books, offer all of these things, and more.

Because I grew up with Wonder Woman and other strong role models, I believed that women could do anything. I believed that I could do anything. Because Mr. Reads grew up with Spider-Man, he believed that the dorky smart kid was cool. He believed that he was cool. We identify with characters like ourselves, and to see those characters save the world, again and again, is empowering.

Many comics inevitably reflect life, and I ask you to let them continue to do so. Continue to hire writers who treat comic books with joy and write their characters, both male and female, with complexity. Continue to understand your fans, all of your fans, and what and why they read. Experiment, publish, take risks, because *we're here*.

You had us from the moment you Bam, Powed!, remember? You had me from the moment I saw a woman twirl and turn into an Amazon goddess. And I'm not going anywhere.

NO(LA) Man's Land

2006-08-29T08:59:00.000-05:00

Over the past four years, Mr. Reads and I have been fortunate enough to live within a day's driving distance of our families, and we've recently returned from the biannual Trip Home To Louisiana. We go visit other times, of course, and more often, but the stars don't align often enough to allow me, my husband, and our dog an extended visit to both sets of parents. But this trip was different than others in that it reminded me of a year ago, when I made the same trip, sans husband and pup. When a year ago, I evacuated back to my new home, families in tow.

My father-in-law mentioned a recent news segment he saw in which a viewer wrote in and complained about the constant attention paid to New Orleans in the Post-Katrina World. This viewer argued that there was other news to be shared, and the reporter, in New Orleans at the time, gestured to the devastated Ninth Ward behind him and said, paraphrased, that while Katrina was year-old news to the World At Large, it was still today's news in New Orleans.

How to explain what New Orleans is like to those who don't see it? And how do our family and friends, who see it every single day, explain it to us? We're not tourists when we visit home; we stay at the parents' houses, we go to the grocery stores and restaurants we've always gone to, if they're open. In short, we *return home*. And my beautiful home, my beloved New Orleans, is broken.

Imagine, if you will, the following landscape: a suburban neighborhood, blue television lights flickering in windows, dogs barking in yards, white trailers parked on front lawns or in driveways, with blue television lights flickering, the house across the street abandoned to nature and smashed through by fallen pine trees. Or, imagine this: driving down a street with signs of life, people walking, businesses open and booming, and a boarded up storefront that still reads, "LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT." Or perhaps this: entire neighborhoods gone, nothing left but scraps of wood and trash. Or even this: driving on the elevated interstate, reading the word "HELP" written across a rooftop.

Katrina's one-year anniversary is today, yes, and while it may be old news to some, the people in New Orleans would beg to disagree.

Everything has changed since August 28th, 2005, and Nothing has changed since August 29th, 2005. Homes are still abandoned, families are still uprooted, military presence is still seen. There's work to be done, so much work, but with 50% of New Orleans not returned, there is little workforce to do it. Fast food restaurants hire at $10+/an hour, with several hundred dollar signing bonuses. There's work to be done, but with the price of available housing, few whose homes were lost can afford to live there. The levees aren't fixed, the people aren't healed, the houses aren't rebuilt, and the height of The 2006 Hurricane Season has arrived.

Earlier this year, I read my beloved Greg Rucka's novelization of Batman's No Man's Land, and all I could think about while reading it was New Orleans. Not even necessarily the destruction of Gotham, but rather the sheer isolation of a great American City declared Off-Limits by The Powers That Be. The despair, the hopelessness of the citizens. The sheer helplessness when imagining reconstruction. The people brought together, by desperation, by hope, by criminal or lawful suggestions. And I imagined all of the Reads' family members and friends who *stayed behind*, not because they refused to evacuate, or couldn't, but because, as members of law enforcement or medical professions or companies' essential personnel, they had to be there, in the thick of it, and they Reported Back.

Some people complain that there is too much Post-Katrina New Orleans in the news today. I say to you that there is not enough, now or then. No one's talking about it, yet everyone can't stop talking about it. Even me. Especially me.

After 9/11, Marvel presented an image of Spider-Man, staring out over New York, in utter despair over the devastation before him. That poignant image has stuck with me not because I'm a comic book fan, but because it was a real reaction from a fictional character. Some may Cry Foul over my comparison of a national tragedy to comic books or their novelizations, and I would ask why. Is it because fiction can never be true to life? Or is it because fiction, in all of its forms, is entirely too true to life as we know it? Can we possibly understand what New Orleans is like without being there? We've read about it. We've seen the news, the recollections. We probably donated money or blood or goods or services to the Relief Effort, even though We Weren't There. Because we empathized. Because we read, we therefore understood.

It bothers me that some people believe fiction is trivial. That comparisons to books, or poetry, or film, could never explain the sheer horror of New Orleans in 2005, and the continuing struggle in 2006. But what is fiction but pain and fear and hope expressed in words? What is poetry but, as Ms. Marianne Moore tells us, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them"? What is film but the visual image of our very selves reflected back at us?

Elizabeth Bishop, beautifully grotesque Bishop, said it best, and said it thirty years before Katrina ever hit. "The art of losing's not too hard to master, though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." Sometimes the writing of it is worse than the experiencing of it, because we have to relive it with every word, with every pause, with every comma and period and italicized word. And worse still, we have to *explain*. Sometimes there are no words.

Sometimes there are no words, but here are some, in a vain attempt to explain how even though I no longer live in New Orleans, my life has changed, irrevocably, since August 29th, 2005.

That image of Spider-Man reveals not the superhero who couldn't stop the tragedy, but rather the man, broken by the destruction of his home. Gotham is saved in No Man's Land not by Batman, but by Bruce Wayne and his manipulation of Lex Luthor. And likewise, New Orleans will be saved by people, too. Perhaps what the comic books remind us of is a simple fact: there is no one swooping down to save the day. We have to Save The Day ourselves. And that, indeed, is the much harder route. But as characters are inevitably painted from life, there are heroes out there, struggling, fighting the good fight, and proving to us that the day Can Be Saved, and a city, all the cities devastated by this national tragedy Can Be Rebuilt, one brick, one board, one levee at a time.

Crisis of Infinite Feminisms, Part I

2006-08-27T15:53:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, Gentle Reader, but the blogging community is rather new to me. Not to say that I haven't known of its existence, but rather, I hadn’t really delved into the non-personal blog before now. But sites like womenincomics.blogspot.com have introduced me to the marvelous world of intellectual blogging about comics, while others like mommyphd.blogspot.com or rhetoricalsituation.blogspot.com have shown me that it is possible to blog professionally about personal issues.

One topic that I've noticed over and over again over the past few weeks is the daunting attempt to define feminism. Not just the political movement, but also the attempt to determine if one writer or another is feminist, or if one storyline or another is feminist, or if one action or another is a feminist action. And I began to wonder: why are we so determined to put finite parameters on such a broad, interpretable topic?

As a Card-Carrying Feminist (I did receive the free toaster oven, Dear Reader!), I, too, suffer under the impulse that I must *define* what it means to be me. As an Academic Feminist (I did receive the certificate, Dear Reader!), I, too, suffer under the presumption that I must define what it means to be feminist. The two, as you can imagine, coalesce often, and in interesting ways.

Feminism is a tricky thing. No, no, I don't mean The Fight For Women's Rights, but rather, the Perception that The Public At Large has of feminists. The Fight is A Good One; women across the globe still suffer legal, economic, social, personal, and educational difficulties. The Perception, however, is forever entangled with odd, almost terrifying ideas. Unlike some other designators, "feminist" is both personal and political. I have never met a political feminist who did not fight for rights in her personal life, and vice versa. If you have met such a fascinating creature, then please, Friends, introduce me! But as the second-wave feminists reminded us over and over again, the personal *is* political.

How, you ask? Well, therein lies The Problem. No two people are the same, and therefore no two feminists are the same. My personal politics vary wildly from Jane's personal politics, and Suzy's, and Betty's. But if we four (or hundred, or hundreds of thousands) are to define ourselves as "feminists," then we are lumped into a mass category of strange, angry, rampaging women.

What is Feminism? Let us look to that most communal of all internet sites, Wikipedia.

Wiki says, "Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerned with the experiences of women."

Huzzah, Wiki! The very term "diverse" automatically negates the idea of One True Feminism. This "diverse collection" is composed of "social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies." Yes, yes, all of these things are true. What else does Wiki say?

"Most feminists are especially concerned with social, political, and economic inequality between men and women."

Excellent, Wiki! You even take this further by stating, "some have argued that gendered and sexed identities, such as 'man' and 'woman,' are socially constructed."

Here Wiki gives a nod to Those That Agree With Judith Butler, those Feminists who believe that we are Men and Women not because of biology, but because society determines those designators for us. But what does Wiki say about Feminists?

"Feminists differ over the sources of inequality, how to attain equality, and the extent to which gender and sexual identities should be questioned and critiqued."

Again, we see a variation of the idea of difference, of divergent ideas, with the verb "differ." And therein lies the rub. "Feminists differ." How true it is.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism)

Every feminist defines feminism in different ways; therefore, every feminist has different beliefs in what is feminist. Some feminists believe that men cannot be feminists. This Author has already pooh-poohed the idea, but perhaps it calls for further discussion. In a recent examination of The Blogosphere, I've come across various discussions regarding the possible feminism of male writers, most particularly, Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughan.

For those Not In The Know, Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughan are the writers of the comic books Astonishing X-Men and the Y: The Last Man, respectively. Let's start first with Mr. Vaughan, and his dystopian tale of The Last Man On Earth.

Y: The Last Man begins with a plague that wipes out every male on the planet except two: Yorick and his pet monkey, Ampersand. Over the past several years, Yorick and his various companions, Agent 355 and Doctor Allison Mann, have traveled the globe in search of the answer to the question, why did he and Ampersand escape the plague? and in search of his girlfriend, Beth, who was doing anthropological work in Australia at the time of the plague.

Some people have argued that Y is a feminist book because it deals seriously and respectfully with the idea of a mythological Last Man on a now female-exclusive planet. Some people have argued that Y is an anti-feminist book for the same reasons. And more importantly, some who believe it is anti-feminist also believe that a man should never be allowed to write such a tale.

This Author begs the question, why? The world in Y is most certainly not the feminist utopia some would expect; it demonstrates that the scrabble and grasp for power is not a gendered problem, but a human problem. But further, does Mr. Vaughan's designation as a "man" negate the validity of the plot, the structure, the sheer genius of the tale? Not in the slightest.

Yet people, men and women both, argue again and again that men cannot write feminist narratives. That because Mr. Vaughan is a man, he therefore cannot understand what it means to fight for women's rights.

Gentle Reader, you see it, don't you? How this argument becomes the same sort of argument that keeps women off the frontlines of combat, out of high-paying executive jobs, and not in control of deciding the fate of their wombs? It is a decision based solely on gender; by saying Mr. Vaughan cannot write a feminist tale because he is a man is comparable to saying that Amy Reads cannot fight in combat because she is a woman. Because my body performs the biological function of reproduction, I am therefore a fragile body that cannot be put into danger.

Or, to wit, toy soldiers are for boys; baby dolls are for girls.

If we are ever to escape gender stereotypes, then we must work past gender stereotypes. If we, as women, are ever to escape the biological or social constructions placed upon us, then we must escape the idea of biological or social constructions placed upon men, as well. I believe that I can write a machismo tale worthy of Hemingway, the same way I believe that Mr. Vaughan, or Mr. Whedon, can write a feminist tale worthy of me.

But further, I believe that Mr. Vaughan need not be defined as feminist or anti-feminist (Although This Humble Author firmly believes that Y: The Last Man is a book with feminist leanings). Mr. Vaughan presents several strong female characters, several, not-so-strong female characters, and an empathetic, engaging male character who not only is complex, but who also is *working through* any trappings of misogyny he may have had hardwired into his brain by those very social and/or biological constructions we abhor. What Y: The Last Man gives us is a vision of a world that has utterly failed its own expectations. Particularly in those key first issues, we see women who believed in the gentle and equal community of women violently and aggressively fighting for a toehold of power in a world that finally gives them access to such power. As the storyline continues, we see further violence, and murder, and racism. We see desperation. We see despair. What we see, Friends, is not a Herland utopia, but rather, a Dystopian Nightmare. And I, for one, believe it to be the more accurate vision of such a global atrocity.

We end Part I of this discussion with a return to Wikipedia, and its definition of dystopia. Wiki says, "A dystopia is usually characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government, or some other kind of oppressive social control."
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia)

Yes, all of this is true, and we see all of this in Y: The Last Man, but remember, Dear Reader, that a dystopia is at least One Person's Utopia.

Fall Semester begins tomorrow, Friends, and for those of you in school of some form or another, I wish you well in your academic endeavors. Crisis of Infinite Feminisms will continue as I try to determine feminism in my various pop culture adorations. But until then, This Humble Author must bid you adieu, as she continues to prepare for the return to campus.

...Before the Taking of Toast and Tea.

2006-08-25T16:42:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader, I just watched a movie in fast-forward, because I disliked it so. It was a film version of a video game, and while the trailers made me want to see it, thus fulfilling their inherent jobs as trailers, I regret the hour I spent on this movie. Why? Because in a world full of Really Smart People, we seem to suffer under the pain of The Remake. Not just the film remake of the video game, either, but all of these horrifying revisions of movies that don't do anything but update the clothes and the timeline. Because of the constant call back to the eighties, or the seventies, or the sixties, etc. for fashion. Because of the continuing trend of serialized or formulaic novels.

There are real, honest to God smart writers out there with *original*, yes, original ideas that Aren't Getting Published, or Bought, or Made, because someone somewhere decided that we needed another version of Can't Buy Me Love, or The Cutting Edge (two of This Humble Writer's favorite movies from The Eighties!). That what the public really wants to see is a classic movie remade with modern actors.

That's simply Not True, and when someone somewhere decides to remake Casablanca, This Humble Author is going to Scream at the Top of Her Lungs.

But Ms. Reads, you ask, how, then, are you a fan of the superhero movie, or the film version of some of your favorite novels?

Because most of those tend to be a *revision* rather than a *remake*. Think back to how smart the third Harry Potter is. It's smart because it didn't simply put the novel on the big screen. Rather, it took the idea, and turned it into A Film. Or, perhaps, Clueless, which is truly A Smart Movie, because it is a modern retelling of a classic novel.

There is a difference, I believe, between the remake and the revision. The remake simply takes a film, or book, and transposes it to modern expectations for scenery, actors, clothing, etc. The revision takes an *idea* from a film or book, and reimagines it in a different setting, or world, or plot. So when O Brother, Where Art Thou? takes its idea from The Odyssey, it reimagines the hero's journey in Depression-Era America. When Clueless takes its idea from Emma, it reimagines class dichotomy in 90s California. That, Dear Reader, is Smart.

But also, it relies on a writer creating an original idea. So little today seems to be based on original ideas, so that when a movie like Brick comes along, I get wowed. If someone were to take the idea behind Casablanca, and transpose it to, say, the Iraq War, we might see something very interesting indeed. But then, is it a revision of Casablanca, or is it a utilization of the idea of star-crossed lovers caught during wartime? We've seen that over and over again, since The Dawn Of Literature As We Know It: Tristan and Isolde, or Romeo and Juliet, for example.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Gentle Reader, I feel as if we are losing sight of creativity. Let's return to fashion for a moment. Some may make the argument that we bring the eighties back in fashion again and again because people want to wear eighties' fashions. That people buy these fashions, so therefore, they must want them. Instead, I say that people buy eighties' fashions because *that's all there is to buy*.

(This Humble Writer, for one, would like to say that if we are to bring back any era of fashion, why not the thirties and forties? A-line dresses are flattering on any body type, and fedoras and suspenders on men always stylish. But that's neither here nor there.)

I suppose I want more originality in the world, despite the fact that I know Everything's Been Done Before. I suppose I want someone to tell me that original books are being published despite the large amounts of similar plotlines in the stores (look, for example, at the vast amount of mysteries in which a cat is a major character, or ones that revolve around "gimmicks," i.e. recipes or knitting patterns in the back).

And this is not to say that I don't like sequels. That's simply Not True. There are many authors out there that write novels about the same characters that I adore: Greg Rucka, Diana Gabaldon, Charlaine Harris, Stephen King, Connie Willis, Jim Butcher, the list could go on and on. But I find there's a difference between an extended collection of works on the same characters and the serialization of formula-driven plots.

All of this to say that I realized most of my recent blogs were about the same things, over and over again, and that's not why I started this blog. So something different to chew on while I try expand my own horizons.

Tangible vs. Intangible, or, Mom, Why Are All The Strong Superheroines Aliens?

2006-08-24T17:13:00.000-05:00

A few posts ago, I promised you a discussion of tangible vs. intangible powers among the female superheroes, and never let it be said, Dear Reader, that I don't keep my promises! As a Card-Carrying Feminist, I've heard many strange things from my Sister Feminists, from my Sister Women, and from Others In The World. Some people say men can't be feminists (to which This Humble Author thumbs her nose!). Others believe that men can't write female-empowered characters or storylines (to which This Humble Author pooh-poohs!). Further still, some people believe that The Fight For Women's Rights is Over (to which This Humble Author faints in a fit of fury). It's simply Not True. As we enter what some may term the "fourth wave of feminism," we need to look not to the present but to the past. What has changed in the past 150+ years, since the first true struggle for women’s suffrage began?

Remarkable, vast legal changes: the right to vote, to divorce, to own property, to retaining children after divorce, to education, to employment, to career, to legal justice.

Remarkable similarities: women are still considered second-class citizens across the world, make less money than their male counterparts when All Things Are Considered Equal (education, experience, etc.), are relegated to the processes of their bodies (as maternal vessels, most particularly).

In that previous post previously mentioned, I discussed Wonder Woman as being all body by having a super-body, and thereby being relegated to the processes of that body. She is one of the few female superheroes that has meta-physical strength. While other non-empowered female superheroes physically fight (Huntress, Batgirl, Elektra), most empowered superheroines have intangible powers.

Black Canary has her ultrasonic cry; Kitty Pryde is intangible; Jean Grey is telepathic, as is Emma Frost; Vixen can summon animal powers, but they appear as ghostly images; Rogue gains power through touch (a vampiric lamia of sorts); Sue Storm is invisible, and has a defensive force field; Storm has power over weather; Gypsy is an illusionist; Zatanna has magical powers, the list goes on and on.

In summation, those female superheroes with tangible, i.e. physical powers are otherworldly: Wonder Woman from Themyscira; Big Barda from Apokolips; Hawkgirl from Thanagar; Supergirl and Power Girl from Krypton; Wonder Girl from Earth but empowered by Greek gods, as Mary Marvel is also empowered by gods; female Green Lanterns are aliens, all, as is Starfire; She-Hulk, when empowered, looks otherworldly; Molly Hayes, one of the Runaways, is super-strong, but a mutant, and therefore humans consider her questionable as a human.

I don't claim that this list is complete, Gentle Reader, nor do I claim that I am Absolutely Right. I am not up on my X-Men mythology, and I'm sure there are several physically-empowered female characters I am missing. But it seems for me an overwhelming number of otherworldly strong female superheroes.

Why must the physically strong woman be alien to us? And when I say physically strong, I mean the knock-'em sock-'em strength of the Big Boys, i.e. Those Women Who Could Hold Their Own Against Superman (and we've all heard This Humble Author argue that Wonder Woman could, indeed, hold her own against Superman, and, perhaps, kick his butt). Is it perhaps because strong women seem alien to us, overall? Biology seems against women. We are, in general, built smaller than men. We have lower centers of gravity. But is this because we haven't evolved to be bigger and stronger? Or because we're not encouraged to be bigger and stronger, and therefore can't evolve to bigger, stronger selves? What is evolution but necessary changes? What is survival of the fittest but the actual continuation of what is needed for existence? And if we keep telling our daughters that football and hockey are for boys, then we will never encourage them to strengthen their bodies.

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. Utter balderdash, of course, but it comes with heavy connotations. Men are from a symbolic warring planet; women are from a symbolic emotional planet. Mars, Venus. Ares, Aphrodite. War, Love. One is physical, and one is emotional. Emotional is sometimes hysterical. The word hysterical is derived from the idea of a womb (remember, Dear Reader, when women have a hysterectomy, their uteruses are removed). In WWI, men did not suffer from "hysteria," because that would be to suffer from an exclusively feminine malady. Rather, they suffered from "shell shock."

Even in emotions, women are separated from men.

Of course, we could argue that the superhero world is littered with otherworldiness, as powers have to come from somewhere, and I argue this gladly. Superman himself is an alien, and therefore otherworldly. Wolverine is a mutant, and therefore considered, by some, only human by default. But when do we see a female superhero at the peak of physical prowess who can outfight a male superhero of the same?

To wit, what if Huntress, say, and Batman, were to fight? Who would win?

Well, Batman, most likely. The reason would be that Bruce is in control of his emotions and therefore in constant control of his self, while Helena is always rash and somewhat out of control.

That begs another question: why can't Helena, who suffered near the same fate as young Bruce Wayne, control her emotions? Why is she sometimes "hysterical"?

But that is, perhaps, another post.

A Brief Review of Wonder Woman #2

2006-08-24T17:05:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness, Dear Reader! Wonder Woman #2 is out, and in my greedy little hands.

Well, not at *this* moment, as I am typing, but you get the General Idea.

I trust Allan Heinberg the way I trust Gail Simone, Greg Rucka, Brad Meltzer, and Brian K. Vaughan: utterly and completely. The Young Avengers has been one of my favorite runs since it started, and his work on Wonder Woman, thus far, has been truly great. My one complaint would be that we are spending a lot of time introducing the new storyline, and therefore not as much time on character development, but that feels in line with the One Year Later runs across the board. Time needs to be spent on the storyline, after all, before we can truly see how Diana, Donna, and Cassie have all changed since the tragic events of Infinite Crisis.

***Spoilers Ahead***

We begin with a beautiful image from The Past, of Donna in full Wonder Woman regalia, and the new suit is quite beautiful. My favorite WW suit is, surprisingly, the Red Son suit, but that's because it's just *pretty* (and scary, but that's another post). The Past Scene continues with a lovely and sad repartee between Diana and Bruce (in Batman costume) in which we get some glimpse of Diana's internal struggle in the wake of Maxwell Lord's death.

What surprises and pleases me is that neither DC nor Heinberg is tiptoeing around about the issue of Lord's death. Batman asks her, "So, killing Maxwell Lord was a mistake?" and Diana replies, "Some people think so." Thank you, thank you, DC. Thank you, Mr. Heinberg. I would have had a hard time forgiving either of you if you let Diana say "yes." Why? Because she made a decision. She made, for her, the right decision. Lord was trapped by the lasso, and when asked how to stop his mind control over Superman, he said, "kill me." So WW did. I'm not saying I'm pleased about the idea of murder; rather, I'm pleased that they have Diana struggling with a moral issue. To me, that defines humanity. We constantly struggle with moral quandaries, and Diana, more often than not, has not had the same struggle. Think back to the issue in which Flash appears to help stop a forest fire, and Diana won't let him. She tells him that the fire is the forest's natural way of cleansing itself, and we shouldn't interfere. In Rucka's run, he characterized Wonder Woman as having very black and white morals: either right or wrong, there was no middle ground. That felt very natural to me, because Diana, as an immortal princess from an island of warriors, would see things strictly in terms of right or wrong, of good or bad. Now, Heinberg's taking that and turning it on its head. We see her struggle, her determination not only to find herself, but also to find her place in humanity.

Diana says, "I think the only way I can accomplish my mission is if I don't have to be Princess Diana of Themyscira or Wonder Woman. If I can just be me," to which Bruce responds, "Who is that, Diana?" She doesn’t know who she is, or what it means to be happy. And she's determined to find out.

These inklings of characterization have me reeling a bit, because it's exactly what I want to see in my beloved Amazon (and how often does it happen, Dear Reader, that we see Exactly What We Want To See?). I want Diana to figure out who she is, and her place in a world than no longer supports Paradise Island or the Greek gods. Who is she outside of the costume, the title, the lasso, the mission of peace? Who is she beyond the warrior?

We jump forward months, or perhaps, a year, to present day, in which Diana is now Diana Prince, agent of The Department of Metahuman Affairs. She seems settled in her position, although her first impulse to deal with the Donna Troy kidnapping is to call in The Capes. But my one worry with the presentation of Diana in this scene is simple: this seems like yet another title for her. She's not *her*. She's playing a role that Bruce designed for her. Former head of security for WayneCorp, Army Intelligence, these are all bits and pieces of other Dianas, real and fictional, but perhaps not the Diana we came to love in Rucka's run. How can she find herself if she's still pretending to be someone else? Who, then, is Diana, if not Diana Prince, if not Wonder Woman, if not Princess Diana?

To be coy, who is this mysterious glassed woman?

I've adored Cassie as Wonder Girl for many reasons, but mainly for the humanity she brings to Diana. Cassie is a normal kid; sure, she has superpowers, but she didn't come from Paradise Island. She was Born of Human Woman, and she acts every bit of it. When she challenges Diana for leaving her in her time of need—-Conner's Death, the loss of the gods—-she is completely justified for it. Bruce didn't leave Tim behind, or Dick, but took them both, together, with him on his journey.

And what's this, Gentle Reader? Implication that he took Diana, too? The Mind Does Boggle!

I won't reveal much more, Friends, because I don't want to over-spoiler the spoiler warnings, but I will say this.

Um, that last page?

Hmm.

Very curious to see how this character introduction will play out in what I find to be a very female-centered book.

Elementary, My Dear Diana

2006-08-20T17:46:00.000-05:00

When I chose "ettacandy" as my blog address, I did it for largely three reasons. The first is, of course, because I am a rabid Wonder Woman fan; I collect All Things Amazonian, from action figures to daily planners to, yes, Dear Reader, drink coasters. I had underoos as a kid, watched the television show while growing up, and fought off imaginary Nazis with my bullet-deflecting yellow terrycloth armbands. Wonder Woman was *the* role model for The GOP (The Girl of the [Seventies/Eighties] Period). And I never got over it.

As far as I can tell, Wonder Woman is the only female superhero with her own sidekick(s). We have Cassie now, an intelligent young woman who fulfills her role as Wonder Girl not as a justice-blinded warrior, but rather as any teenaged girl would: in amusing, terrifying, emotional, conflicted, Amazonian ways. We had Donna Troy/Troia/the original Wonder Girl, who grew up to have A Name Of Her Own. But before the blonde daughter of Zeus, before the mirror image of young Princess Diana, we had Etta Candy.

Which brings me to the remaining two reasons:
Sidekicks are more human than their heroes.
Etta Candy is the first True Fangirl.

Sidekicks
Let's start not with the superhero sidekick, but rather, her more literary predecessor: the detective's sidekick. We could go farther back, all the way to The Beginning Of Literature As We Know It, but really, why be pretentious? Instead, we start with Edgar Allan Poe, "Murders in the Rue Morgue," and Dupin's nameless sidekick who narrates the story.
Dupin is what some would call an "armchair detective." He has extensive knowledge he's culled from the thousands of books he's read, and he stumbles upon the Murders down on old Rue Morgue because he reads the papers. He pokes and prods and clinically analyzes every detail of the case, and our anonymous narrator, and we, the Reading Public, sit back and awe at his massive brainpower as he solves, yes, *solves* the case without ever really doing any hard detecting work. Yes, of course, this is before the days of real detecting, long before fingerprinting and DNA testing and other sorts of things we see nowadays. But he's *smart*, Ladies and Gentlemen, very very smart. And if the story were written from his point of view, we would have stopped reading after the first paragraph.

See, that's what makes the sidekick so darn useful. Dupin's brain probably isn't a very fun place to be. But the sidekick, oh, the sidekick's a hoot and a half. Why? Because he's *just like us*. He gets some parts of the puzzle, but mainly, he's caught in Dupin's wake, trying to tread water, just as the reader is doing the same. He can crack sly jokes to the reader about Dupin, he can revere, he can be astonished, but most importantly, he can tell a story.

Let's shift forward a few years on the Literary Timeline, and look at the most famous of detecting partners, Holmes and Watson. These stories, too, are told from Watson's point of view. Holmes is quite out there, after all, with his violin, his chemistry experiments/tea servings, and Watson, Dear Watson, gives it to us straight.

The secret here is very simple: Holmes would never explain how he got from point A to point B, but Watson gives us Holmes's every step, every one of his own missteps, and we end up liking a guy we probably wouldn't like very much at all, if the story were all in his point of view.

Moving farther and faster, we have Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane (although I hesitate to call her a sidekick!), Nancy Drew and Bess and George, Joe and Frank Hardy (partners, sure, but Joe's always struggling to catch up), Buffy and the Scooby Gang, and, of course, Batman and Robin.

While we don't get many stories from Robin's point of view, outside of his own book or Teen Titans, of course, we do see a different side of Batman because of Robin. We see the man struggling to form a family. We see loss and pain and hope, especially hope in the recent runs (how This Author melted into a puddle when Bruce asked Tim The Big Question a few issues back!). We see the human side of a hard, clinical man.

Of course, like any theory, this doesn't always work, and can't be proven definitively. But when faced with a hero and her sidekick, more often than not we are presented with the hero's human side through the people with whom she interacts. Not only do the sidekicks present the human face of the sometimes inhuman hero, they also critique, speculate, support, and judge as needed. Buffy was never so weak as when separated from the Scooby Gang. Batman is never so broken as when losing a Robin. Angel chooses Cordelia as a sidekick specifically because she is his connection to humanity. Holmes needs Watson to point out those ordinary details that he, as a somewhat extraordinary person, overlooks.

Even Nancy Drew, Girl Detective, forgets to fill her gas tank unless Bess and George remind her and that, Dear Reader, is quite an interesting thing.

Which brings me back to Wonder Woman and Etta Candy.

Fangirls
Etta has utter faith in Wonder Woman. In fact, she knows that Diana will save the day, and more importantly, she knows that Diana relies on her. That means something. Two things, in fact: 1) that she trusts in Diana as a hero, and 2) that she respects her for it.

What is a sidekick but The Ultimate Fan? Therefore what is Etta but a fangirl? And what is a fangirl but someone with enthusiasm for a character, a show, a person, a book? What is a fangirl but someone who trusts the character, the writers, the readers to Do The Right Thing? And what is a fangirl but someone who is confident enough to support, to criticize, to recommend, to analyze, and to have an opinion?

Fans, in general, suffer under the outsiders' mass assumption that We Do Not Criticize. Firefly's Browncoats, Buffy fans, X-Files aficionados, and yes, especially comic book fans, are painted as panting dogs, waiting for their masters to throw that plot bone. But frankly, that's simply Not True. Who is more critical than the true fan? Who has more respect for the story, the character, the writer, the vision, than the fan?

Look about at some of these great websites that list the rapidly growing comic book blogosphere (in which This Humble Author was surprised to find herself mentioned!), and we decidedly do *not* see panting, rabid fans. We see intellectual discussions, critiques of plot choices, general awe or dismay or fascination. We see *discussion*, and we see people who aren’t afraid to discuss.

That's a Sidekick.
That's a Fan.
That's a Fangirl.
That, my Friends, is Etta Candy.

The heroes learn something from the sidekicks, and not a tripe and tried Moral Lesson. No, the sidekick teaches something intrinsic, something almost primal, about the way the world works. The hero is often off in her Ivory Tower (or her Island of Paradise) and she forgets to get her hands and feet dirty. That, Dear Reader, is where the sidekick comes in.

Holmes often explained things away to his sidekick with the catchphrase, "Elementary, my Dear Watson," and that phrase has been used to mark the mentoring relationship, the near-arrogant explanation of Important Goings On. But I feel we need to reverse that and look, truly, at how the sidekick teaches the hero. Therefore, it is not Elementary, my dear Etta, but quite the reverse.

I am experiencing my own Identity Crisis at the moment (apologies, dear Mr. Meltzer) in that I did not expect an audience for this blog. I started it as an experiment, to see if I could write about my interests without writing about myself. Or perhaps I started it because, "Mom! Everyone else has a blog!" Or perhaps I felt a sense of restlessness, a desire to write thoughtfully about something other than The Dissertation. For whatever the reason, I began blogging a few weeks ago and woke up one morning to find that People Were Reading. Therefore, Dear Reader, my name may undergo a few fluctuations over the next few weeks as I struggle towards a blogging identity. But as my job is to read books, and write about said books, I plan to do a lot of that, recreationally, with this blog.

All of this to say Stay Tuned, Friends, for more installments of the Fangirl's Geekosphere Blog Index, and keep your eyes on the sidebar, as my name promises to change with the wind.

But hey, really. It can't change more times than Donna Troy's has.

Wives Under Tables, Crawling Across Floors

2006-08-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

There are times, Gentle Reader, in which I wonder about the various hats I wear. You are familiar with this, I'm sure; we change, subtly, our speech and action and mindset with our different environments. I am a scholar, a feminist, a writer, a reader, a geek, a "cool chick" (well, I was, once), a daughter, a puppy-mother, and a wife. Once or twice the stars align and the moon shines down on the me that is all of those things, combined. But more often than not, I have to put aside the student hat, say, and wear the daughter hat, or exchange the geek for the cool, etc. Tonight, I am the pseudo-intellectual, pondering the meaning of The Wife Hat in the comic book world.

I don't wear hats well; no matter the literal hat, I look like Debbie Gibson, circa Electric Youth, all round cheeks and glossy eyes and radiating 80s innocence. But figurative hats chafe as well, and the fit is just as uncomfortable. Perhaps it's the sheer fact that I grew up at the tail end of Gen X: not as rebellious as those who came before, but not as needy as those who came after. Or perhaps it's that grunge streak still lingering in my bones. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I'm Mary Contrary, refusing to admit how my garden grows.

Gail Simone's article "Women in Refrigerators," and my recent rereading of it, got me thinking about the role of wives in comic books today. The wife is a different hat than, say, the girlfriend or lover. The wife's attachment to the husband is preceded by a wedding, an announcement, perhaps a gimmick or two. But no matter what it is preceded by, it is followed by a Huge Shift In Storyline. What to do with her once she's on board? We have to give her *some* role, right? If she's a superhero as well, then fine, no worries. Sue Storm and Reed Richards form a family, and their marriage works (well, pre-Civil War, but that's another post) precisely because they are in the same profession, and understand the dangers. But what of the others? Not an infinite group, certainly, but there are several wives we can, and will, talk about.

But first, a caveat. Understand I'm speaking strictly of comics within, say, the last ten years. And also, please understand that I am speaking only of the comics I read on a regular basis (see the current list in my previous post, "Wednesdays (and sometimes Thursdays)..."). With those concessions in mind, let's move on.

In the finite group of wives in comic books, cross-universes, who has the healthiest marriage? I posed this question to Mr. Reads, and his immediate reply was "Sue Dibny." Hm. Well, I definitely see this pre-52, and yes, Dear Reader, I even see it in Identity Crisis in Ralph’s reaction to Sue’s death. But the most recent issues of 52, and in particular, those dealing with the Superboy cult, are twisting this healthy marriage into an unhealthy obsession. But as Sue is deceased, perhaps we should move on.

My reply was, "Linda Park West." I would scream it from the mountain tops, if I could. But as I am 8 feet below sea level at the moment, I'll settle for posting it on the internet. Wally and Linda, even when they had problems, were *real*. Their problems were mirrors of every marriage's problems. Work, public and private faces (as a reporter, Linda exists in the public as much as Wally does), miscarriage, these are real problems that real people deal with on a daily basis. And they worked *through* those problems, and made their marriage work.

But what truly makes Linda a fascinating example of the superhero’s wife is this simple fact: she’s utterly human. She responds as a “real person” (whatever that is, Dear Reader!) would to all the situations she is faced with on a daily basis, and, in particular, those that involve her husband. Think back to Infinite Crisis, when the Flashes push Superboy Prime through the Speed Force. Wally is about to be sucked away, and he uses the last bit of the Force to see his wife. He tells Linda that he loves her, and the twins, and will see them as soon as he can.

Linda says, basically, “to hell with this!”, grabs on to the twins and her husband, and we are presented with one of the most beautiful images in recent comic book history: Linda, refusing to let her husband sacrifice himself and leave her and their children behind.

But why is this such a healthy marriage? The Flashes, as a whole, tend to take to marriage well, but I believe there's something more to this. Linda Park West is a character drawn from life. She wasn't a main character in the Flash series, nor was she a sidekick or partner. She was a woman, married to a man. She did her job, he did his, and sometimes, the two collided.

Perhaps, then, I should revise my earlier statement regarding superheroes marrying superheroes. Is it easier to marry someone in your profession? Does it allow for sympathy or understanding? Or does Linda Park West, and to some extent her counterpart Lois Lane, counter that assumption? Lois Lane, too, is a reporter, married to a superhero. But Lois’s tendency to put herself in harm’s way because she knows her husband always saves her speaks to something a bit deeper and darker, something, say, that we might see in The Ultimates.

We turn now to The Ultimates (and yes, Dear Reader, I *do* read Marvel, despite my DC-blogging-evidence to the contrary) and the marriage of Hank and Janet Pym, Giant Man and Wasp.

Remember the image I mentioned earlier, of Linda and Wally and the twins? The polar opposite of that image, for me, is in an early issue of The Ultimates, during a disturbing scene of marital abuse between Wasp and Giant Man. Janet shrinks down and hides under a table, while Hank, normal sized, looms over her, a can of insect spray in hand. It's been a while since I've read it, and my memory may be faulty, but I believe he asks her, "Why must you make me feel so small?" before he sprays her with insecticide and attacks her with ants.

Like Ms. Simone and her image of a woman stuffed in a refrigerator, I am haunted by the image of a wife hiding under a table and being attacked by ants.

Now, let's do remember that The Ultimates is a comic that is rather brutal and nasty, on all levels. That's what makes it so smart. But this scene, this very frightening scene, demonstrates a level of reality that we don’t normally see in the comic book universe. Giant Man and Wasp feed each other’s abuse cycle. She is written as a classic abused wife, and he is written as a classic abusing husband, and they torture each other, and return to each other, ad nauseam.

Superheroines hiding under tables to escape their superhero husbands. Janet Pym, burnt and attacked and so very small, cowering away from Giant Man, who in this scene is not Giant at all, but rather quite normal sized. This image has a long legacy in the history not only of comics, but of literature at large. Of the world at large. Her power is to shrink down in size; his power is to grow taller. She is “the classic abused wife” (and although I say it, I quibble with that terminology), and she participates actively in the abuse. She gives as good as she gets in the scene just prior to her cowering. She fights back. And then Hank takes it even farther.

What does this *mean*? *Why* is her power to shrink down? And why, why, why do I remember this image before I remember Linda and Wally? Why do I think back to the wife under the table instead of to the wife jumping into the speed force, children and husband in hand? And why, oh why, does it only rank just a point above Sue Dibny's corpse crawling across the floor in last week's 52 on the Amy-Reads-Freakout-Richter-Scale?

One answer, simply, is this: The Ultimates is a scary little book. Captain America is a jock jerk, Tony Stark is a frightening obsessed man, Natasha is an immoral wench, the list goes on and on. But to look at this scene as it exists not in The Ultimates but in The World, is to see what some envision the role of the wife to be. Gail Simone said it better than I ever can, and I fully admit this. But I think it’s worth reconsideration. Wives under tables, crawling across floors, we live with these images every day. We can’t escape them. Sure, we try to turn a blind eye to it, and pretend that it doesn’t exist. Or, even worse, we admit that it exists but we refuse to talk about it. Why? Literature, whether defined canonically or loosely, is a safe space in which to talk about huge social issues. And this is, indeed, a huge social issue.

So I leave you with this, Gentle Reader, and I promise a more upbeat post soon. But this has been brewing on the backburner for some time now, and who better to inflict with my thoughts than The Internet At Large?

Exactly.

Your batarang, your gobbledygoo

2006-08-14T21:29:00.000-05:00

If you were ever in doubt, Gentle Reader, that New Orleans has become A Different World Post-Katrina (tm), I am here to tell you, that doubt is misplaced. Mr. Reads and I just spent 30 minutes in the 20 items or less line at the local grocery store, at which every single line was open, and every single line had 20+ people in it. I have a post brewing, a very odd "when comics meet real life" post regarding Batman's No Man's Land and New Orleans Post-Katrina, but I believe that topic is better discussed in retrospect. I am, as they say, too close to the situation now to be objective.

So instead, I bend your ear about a conversation Mr. Reads and I had in said line, waiting for said checkout of water, Barq's Red Creme Soda, Hubig's pies, lettuce, and microwave pizza.

Why do we swoon over Batman?

This topic came up after Mr. Reads slyly posted the following poem in an earlier entry of my blog, with thanks (or apologies) to Ms. Plath.

I have always been scared of you
With your utility belt, your gobbledygoo.
And your batarang
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Fledermaus, Fledermaus, O You--

Not God but a bat-signal
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like Bruce.

Yes, Friends, Mr. Reads is a Bonafide Degree-Carting Poet (tm), which is why I feel it is safe to say that the above rewriting of "Daddy" is not at all snarky but rather brilliant.

Why *do* we love Batman?

I don't think I'm speaking to the incarnation of the batusi Batman, but rather to the morose, Byronic, meta-ist, possible father to an illegitimate Ghul child Batman. I'm talking Dark Bruce Wayne, the one who Selina Kyle swoons over, who Talia al Ghul would kill for, who women always, always want to love. And always women, I've noticed, unless anyone can point to a same sex crush on Batman/Bruce Wayne that has escaped my attention?

I believe it is very much a feminine malady in the comic book world, this love of the Byronic Hero. He's broken, Ladies, completely and utterly. He's a little boy still crying out into the night over the death of his parents. He's paranoid, he's racist against metahumans, he's been terrible and rotten to women (look at his treatment of Sasha, for example, in the Bruce Wayne, Fugitive run), and he desperately attempts to build a family, only to destroy it from the inside, over and over again.

And we, Those Who Love Batman, gush over him for it.

Oh, don't worry, Gentle Reader. I am, of course, including myself in that number.

We have many, many smart female characters in comic books today, on both sides of the DC/Marvel divide. Speaking specifically of women who have been involved in one way or another with Bruce Wayne/Batman over the years, we can start, of course, with Catwoman. Selina Kyle is a woman who knows what she wants and goes after it, and that has been, many a time, Bruce Wayne/Batman.
And Lois Lane? She loves Bruce, but hates Batman (in the same way that some would argue she loves Superman but merely tolerates Clark Kent). Sasha Bordeaux, the current Black Queen of Checkmate, wouldn't break in prison and refused to implicate Bruce Wayne in Vesper's murder in any way. Even this author's favorite superheroine of all time, Wonder Woman, was romantically linked to Batman in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon.

But *why*, Dear Reader? Why, why, why? Why do we kowtow to this complicated, quite-destructive man? Is it because he is so very broken? Do we Batman adorers, and these multitudes of strong female characters, imagine that we can fix a man like this?

The Batman/Bruce Wayne Byronic Hero archetype has a long history in literature, of course, which dates back to this author's beloved Victorians and beyond. Rochester, Heathcliff, Lord Byron himself, are men who are "broken" somehow, and must be fixed. A strong female character--a Jane Eyre, a Catherine Earnshaw, a Selina Kyle--falls back on some primitive and archaic notion of a "maternal instinct" and insists, *insists*, Dear Reader, that she can "Fix Him," when she darn well knows that you can't fix anyone who won't fix himself.

Most recently, however, the brilliant genius Mark Waid (whose story brings hope and sunshine to rabid fans everywhere!) has declared that yes, the comic writers can fix Batman. They can take this broken man and make him whole again. This author, for one, sat up and shouted Huzzah! at such a notion. Finally, the responsibility is taken *off* a woman and put onto the figure of Batman himself. What inspiration! What foresight! What...
But wait.
*I* wanted to fix him.

Perhaps Sylvia Plath was right: some women adore a brute brute heart, and try to get back, back, back to that brute heart, over and over again. But more so, I believe that we women who are Batman aficionados see the little boy inside, and crave to protect him from the horrors that he will, inevitably, grow up to face. The batarang becomes a security blanket, the utility belt a teddy bear. The darkness is ever-present, and we strive to keep it at bay, the batsignal trying, desperately, to illuminate.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, Gentle Reader, we find the pain sexy, the brokenness attractive. At heart, we desire those qualities in a man so that when we get him, we can pretend we are The One Who Brought The Light To His Life.

I've only seen one female character romantically attached to Batman that I believe Can Save Him, and that is Selina Kyle. Why? Because she herself had been in pain, had been broken, and she *fixed herself*. He becomes a better man when he is with her, and I think that is A Very Good Thing.

DC? Please take note. This Humble Author waits with baited breath to find out the identity of Helena's father. And This Humble Author begs you to let it be Bruce Wayne. Because why else would you tempt us with such a delicious image of Batman bringing Helena a college fund *and* a large teddy bear?
Indeed, Selina. If only the criminals of Gotham could see him now.
So I ask, very politely, for you to keep this author's faith.

Pretty please?

Millennium and Bricks?

2006-08-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

Greetings, Gentle Reader, from the Parents-Reads House!
How strange it is to post a blog from here. The memories just come flooding back, which is, in itself, Very Strange, as I grew up before the internet was "cool" (or very accessible--I remember the days of pay-by-the-hour AOL!). But as Mom and Dad Reads are sleeping, and Mr. and Miss-Pup Reads are watching television on the couch, I decided, once again, to grace you with my presence.
In keeping with the mood of One Girl's Foray Into Geekdom (tm) that this blog strives towards, I wanted to talk about two recent additions to my geekosphere: the television show Millennium, and indie-movie Brick.

Mr. Reads and I, as previously mentioned, have subscribed to Netflix recently, and are working through all nine seasons of The X-Files. But sometimes (just sometimes, Dear Reader!) the discs don't come fast enough for our liking. As mentioned in "Part IV: Collecting New Geeky Things" of my blogging introduction, I'm very, very good at obsessing over new, geeky things (hence the apropos title of that post). What we do, and do very well, is barge through several seasons of a television show in a few weeks. We did this with Buffy, with Angel, with Carnivale and Sopranos and Band of Brothers. Working in academia allows for few stretches of time to call our own; between writing dissertations and grading papers and visiting family and--very rarely--attempting to have A Life, Mr. Reads and I find that, say, Thanksgiving, or Arbor Day, lend themselves well to obsessive tv watching. That is, of course, dependent on having current obsessions in hand.
All of this to say that we can't get our Netflix fast enough in those rare pockets of time, and the other six and a half days of the week, we are forced to work, *work*, Gentle Reader, instead of sitting on the couch, eating microwave Kettle Corn, drinking coffee or tea, and watching The Show.
All of *this* to say that we've borrowed Millennium from Mr. Reads' father, and are supplementing our Netflix viewings with it.

First episode, first season:
Very intriguing, albeit a bit anachronistic for us, as the Y2K fervor has, in the passing six years, proved to be a bit hysterical. Frank Black, a near-psychic profiler, is an intriguing and sympathetic character, but I find myself longing for Mulder/Scully repartee, witty barbs slashed back and forth between two rather interesting people. The tension just isn't there for me. First episode, first season of X-Files, you are immediately on the defensive. There is conspiracy about, darnit, and you will find out what the black hats are up to! But here, I don't feel conspiracy as much as legacy, and that legacy has long since expired. But who loves on the first date? We have several more episodes to go, and really, all of that "spare time."

Brick, however, is The Smartest Movie I've Watched In Months, the last being, of course, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. If you've not seen Brick, Dear Reader, or Kiss2Bang2, then you must run, run, run to the video store (or open a new tab on Firefox and pull up that Netflix queue) and rent this movie (or these movies) forthwith. When Mr. Reads' Very Hip 20-Something Brother asked me to describe said movie, I replied, "It's The Big Sleep meets Miller's Crossing meets Clueless/Cruel Intentions. That is to say, if Marlowe and Tommy and Vivian were in high school, this is who they'd be."

This movie is *smart*, Gentle Reader, and while I've said it before (re: Buffy, re: Angel, re: Firefly, re: X-Files, etc.) and I'll say it again and again, it's just true. It's Chandler meets Hammett meets my teenaged journal meets the Coen Brothers meets Vanity Fair meets genius. But a word to the fairly wise: through the first viewing, leave the subtitles on. The characters speak so fast and with such style and vivacity that lovely trips of the tongue may get lost in the shuffle.

Stay tuned, Friends, for more installments of Ms. Reads' Geekosphere Index. When I am more awake than I am now, mere hours after a lovely meal at The Melting Pot for Momma Reads' birthday, I will return to the discussion of superheroines and their tangible vs. physical powers, of the Mulder/Scully dynamic in The X-Files, and, of course, Whedonesque musings. But until then, I bid you adieu as I return to my irregularly scheduled programming of Vacation.

It's a fairly alien concept to me, so please understand if I am a bit giddy.

Ladies Night

2006-08-11T10:05:00.000-05:00

Good morning, Gentle Reader!
I found myself sleeping unbelievably long this morning, all the way to 9:30 a.m. I hear your questions now: Amy, are you sick? Are you perhaps unwell, Ms. Reads? Fret not, Friends. While I greatly appreciate your concern, I am not sick at all, but sleeping late in preparation for the 5 a.m. departure tomorrow morning. Road Trip, here we come.
But as I will be rather busy over the next week, and unable to grace your browsers with the prose that astounds the bourgeoisie and makes the angels weep with... wait, no. Those were the essay instructions from my Honors College profs back in the day. I mean, since I won't be able to shout out into the void about sugar and spice and everything super, I've decided to do leave you a nugget to chew on while I am carousing in the Big Easy.

Superheroines.

Already, I find that word problematic. Why aren't they all superHEROES? Why do we need male or female designators for our characters? Look at the history of comic books. We have a Superman, a Batman, a Spider-Man, a Power Man, a Mr. Terrific, and the female counterparts, Supergirl, Batgirl, Spider-Girl (Peter Parker's daughter). Of course, there is also a Spider-Woman, and a Batwoman (who, in her most recent incarnation, is the former romantic partner of Gotham PD's Renee Montoya), a Wonder Woman (and her apprentice Wonder Girl). There is a Huntress, and a Miss Marvel, a Marvel Girl, Black Canary and Gypsy, but very, very few female superheroes have non-gendered names.

Now some may argue that Black Canary, for example, is not necessarily a gendered name. Well, certainly, that argument may be made, but the original Black Canary had a magic purse of tricks, complete with a super-compact. No, Gentle Reader, I'm not lying to you. Why would I?

Let's take a look at the greatest heroine of them all, Wonder Woman. I have argued in the past (an argument that often brings surprisingly controversial results) that Wonder Woman is stronger than Superman. Where is the evidence, you ask? Well, she's super-strong. She's matched up to him again and again. But more importantly, she has no weaknesses, and Superman has three (kryptonite, telepathy, and magic, four if you count red suns). In issues past, Batman, our lovable neurotic paranoid, decided that if the metas ever got out of hand, it would be up to him to stop them, so he devised a failsafe to counter every major hero. This, of course, blew up in his face when the OMACs became cognizant and started indiscriminate killing in Infinite Crisis, but that's neither here nor there.
What is here and there is this simple fact: Batman carries kryptonite on his person at all times. It's the only way to defeat Superman if he gets out of control (and honestly, does a year go by in which Superman *doesn't* get out of control?). But his ultimate plan to defeat Wonder Woman?
Lock her in a room and let her defeat herself.

That's *smart*, boys and girls. That's just *smart*. In one little detail, the comics establish that Wonder Woman's worst enemy is herself. She's immortal, she flies, she has superstrength and magic weapons (a lasso of truth, bullet-deflecting bracelets, god-made armor), and the only way the smartest superhero of them all could determine how to defeat her is to lock her in a room and let her wear herself out.

And she proves that her worst enemy is herself when she kills Maxwell Lord to stop his mind control over Superman. This horrific event is televised over international channels, and the world turns upside-down. Not only did Wonder Woman kill a seemingly innocent and unarmed human, but she did it on international television. The OMACs go nuts, the world erupts into chaos, and everyone begins to fear, truly, those stronger than themselves.

Wonder Woman broke the cardinal rule for metas: she killed a human. Superheroes don't kill humans, even if it's the only way to stop Lord's mind control of Superman. Wonder Woman has a history of selfless and heroic acts, like, for example, when Medusa got loose and threatened to turn several million football (European, not American) fans into stone over live broadcast, and Wonder Woman blinded herself in order to defeat her. But in that one moment, she reminded everyone, hero and non-hero alike, that she is not human. She is an immortal warrior princess from an island of Amazons. She was forged from clay and given life by the gods. She has a pure sense of justice, but doesn't, perhaps, know the value of human life.

See what I mean? That's complicated, that's complex, and that's *way* smarter than comics used to be in the past. Wonder Woman's current image is still caught up in her inception, as the bondage fantasy of William Marston. We see the silliness of her, of her sidekick Etta Candy, of the immobility caused when she's tied up by a man. With Greg Rucka, we see the politician, the alien (always, always more alien than Kal El, who is truly, at heart, Clark Kent), the hero blinded by justice.
What's very interesting about Rucka's run on Wonder Woman is that she's never given a romantic interest. So many superheroines have romantic entanglements of some kind. Black Canary and Green Arrow, Oracle and Nightwing, Wonder Girl and Superboy, Catwoman and Batman, the list goes on and on. But no so with Wonder Woman. What is it about her recent incarnations that transcend sexuality? A crossover event with The Flash during the Medusa trials has Wally gripping the lasso of truth and pondering how coldly beautiful and *frightening* Wonder Woman is. No one jokes with Wonder Woman about her beauty, her sexuality, or sexually threatens her, as many criminals do with other heroines. At least, not in Rucka's run.

In summation, we're looking at possibly the strongest superheroine cross-universes. She has the beauty of Aphrodite, the wisdom of Athena, the grace and blessing of the gods. She stands at a little over six feet, all blue eyes and black hair and muscles. And she's *cold*. She's damn near asexual. What, then, does that say about society's views about strong women?
It's a good thing and a bad thing all rolled up into one.
The good thing: she's not reduced to the processes of her body. Or, rather, she is, but not in the way that so many women are. Wonder Woman is all body, inasmuch as she has a superbody. She is a superhero. There's no way around that. She has immense physical strength (and when I get back, we'll talk about the overwhelming amount of intangible vs. physical powers granted to female superheroes) and she is a warrior.
The bad thing: is this, then, suggesting that strong women are, or should be, asexual? Is Wonder Woman cut off from sexuality and romantic entanglements because she is strong, or because she is distant and cold? I'd like to believe it's the latter. At the end of Infinite Crisis, Wonder Woman decides to go off and learn what it means to be human. We'll see how that unfolds.

But until then, Gentle Reader, some reading.
Gail Simone, one of the strongest female voices in comic books today, once wrote an intriguing article about the role of women in comics, and how most were reduced to the very processes of their bodies. i.e. their dead bodies were used (and stuffed into refrigerators) in order to torment their superhero lovers.
Gail Simone's Women in Refrigerators.

Wednesdays (and sometimes Thursdays) are comic book days

2006-08-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

Today, Dear Reader, was a bit of a bust.
Oh, socially? A rampaging success. I got to snuggle with a wee bairn. I joined The Ladies Who Lunch. I went to Target. I spent 40 minutes on the phone with my mother.
Well, that wasn't a rampaging social success. But it was social-ish, all the same.
But today was my car's turn at the maintenance shop. No, no, Gentle Reader, don't worry! There's nothing wrong with it. It's just that we (the husband, the pup, and I) are off to visit the respective families this weekend, and it was time for the car to get an oil change and some new tires.
Now, a theoretical 400 million dollars later, I wait, and wait, for the phone call to come and pick up my car.
Then we go to the comic book store and pick up our subscriptions.

For those of you who have lives... I mean, who aren't rabid comic book fans, here's a bit of info.
Wednesday is Comic Book Day.
Yes, it deserves capitalization.

Comic Book Day is the day of the week on which comics are sent to the stores to be sold. A weekly street date, if you will. Most comic books are released monthly, with a few specials released weekly.

This year, for his birthday, my husband received the promise of $3 a week to subscribe to 52.

DC has exploded its universe, and universes, again and again over the decades. The most famous bust was Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 80s, and, most recently, Infinite Crisis of the past year. The lead-up to this was Brad Meltzer's brilliant superhero murder mystery Identity Crisis, a book I am considering teaching next year. At the end of Infinite Crisis, DC jumped all of its storylines ahead one year, with the slogan "One Year Later," and the weekly run of 52 is a "real-time" expose of the missing year. It's a unique concept my husband and I both felt worthy of weekly subscription.

We're not weekly subscribers because frankly, we don't have the money or the storage space. We prefer graphic novel collections, and 99% of our comic book archive is in graphic novel form. But there are some great writers on the 52 lineup, included our beloved Greg Rucka, and it's something we want to share with our future, hypothetical children lurking about in the ether.

So every Wednesday (or sometimes Thursday) we head over to our preferred comic book store in town and purchase 52, and once a month (well, once so far) the One Year Later run of Wonder Woman. We chat with the owner, we rub elbows with the other geeks in town, and we usually end up spending more money at the Indian buffet next door for an impromptu lunch.

But I read other comics, too, Dear Reader, although I purchase them in graphic novel form rather than single issues. Today, I decided to figure out all of the series I'm currently reading, and here is the rather daunting list:
52 (DC)
Action Comics (Superman) (DC)
Angel (IDW)
Astonishing X-Men (Marvel)
Batman (and all of its spinoffs like Detective Comics) (DC)
Birds of Prey (DC)
Catwoman (DC)
Civil War, and its spinoffs, Frontline, X-Men, and Runaways versus Young Avengers (Marvel)
Daredevil (Marvel)
Fables (DC)
Fallen Angel (IDW, formerly DC)
The Flash (DC)
Justice League of America (DC)
Runaways (Marvel)
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (Marvel)
Spike and Spike vs. Dracula (IDW)
Squadron Supreme (Marvel)
Supergirl (DC)
Teen Titans (DC)
The Ultimates (Marvel)
Wonder Woman (DC)
Y the Last Man (DC)
Young Avengers (Marvel)

That's just *currently*, mind you. What I'm reading actively *now*.

So now that my introductory posts are finished, the next few steps will be to hash out the above lists of comics.
You were warned, remember? This is the blog of one girl's foray into geekdom.
Still reading?

In Which the Author Fights the Future

2006-08-09T22:03:00.000-05:00

I know, Gentle Reader. I said I wouldn't have time to post today. And I didn't. Not really. My day started around 6:30 this morning and hasn't stopped since. What is it about inanimate objects' complete and utter inability to make themselves understood that drives us to cursing and screaming? We attempted to fix my husband's car battery on our own. Five hours and 1200 degrees later, we had it towed to the mechanic's and let *them* scream and sweat and curse for a while. Our time, we felt, was served.
Now I find myself in possession of a stolen moment in time, and as there are no new comic books to read at the moment (mental note: head to comic store tomorrow for subscriptions), only 70 pages left to savor of the fluff book I'm reading, and a husband distracted from X-Files by Jon Stewart, I decided to blaze ahead with my final introductory post.

Part IV: Collecting New Geeky Things
I have a tendency, a very strange tendency, towards obsessive compulsion. This is sometimes A Good Thing (tm) when one dedicates one's life to the pursuit of truth and scholarship of a very specific time period. This is sometimes A Bad Thing (tm) when one latches on to a television series, or comic book, or novel sequence, and just can't let go.
The husband and I are recent subscribers to that radical internet phenomenon, Netflix. This was brought on by the sheer lack of decent rental stores in our area. That big one--you know, the really big franchise--did a bad, bad thing a few years back: it purged all of its stores of older movies to make way for more new releases. One may therefore find dozens of copies of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, but a classic like Flash Gordon is, I'm sorry to say, nowhere to be found. Although our local public library fights the good fight against this, bless its heart, and its stock is generous, we've exhausted it.
A few months back, we checked out X-Files, Season One, from said library. I've seen X-Files in bits and pieces over the years--who hasn't?--but have managed to catch the same one or two episodes over and over (the mushroom fungus camper one high on that list). I believe I've mentioned before that I refuse to watch a television show unless I see it from the start. The trend towards releasing series on DVD has helped this compulsion of mine; Buffy, Angel, Carnivale, and Sopranos were all watched via DVD. But X-Files was a show I had always wanted to watch, and never had the chance to catch all nine seasons, from the beginning, on television.
After the first few episodes, I was hooked.
We're elbow-deep in Season Four, and I find myself screaming, "Kiss her, Mulder!" at the screen on a regular basis.

I consider myself a collector. There was a time when I could name my collections on all fingers and toes. Paper journals, bottles of rain (oh, the angsty confessions of the nineteen-year-old incarnation of the adult!), books about Mary Shelley, I had several. Now, I've whittled it down to a few.
I collect Wonder Woman paraphernalia, mainly action figures, but other things, too. I have a soft spot for comic book character-inspired Barbies (Batgirl, Elektra, Harley Quinn), and original art (thank goodness the brother-in-law and the best friend are artists, otherwise I would be even poorer than I already am!). But I also collect new aspects of my geekiness.
That, currently, is X-Files.

I see What Came Before in What Has Come After. All of my shows, all of my pet loves, are influenced by X-Files. It paved the way for supernatural, conspiracy-driven, freak of the week and season- or series-long Big Bads. It blazed a path towards character-driven television. And come on. Mulder is the geek girl's dream come true the way Batman is the former angsty teenager's dream come true. And an inspirational platonic relationship between a man and woman on screen that actually *works*? It defies explanation.

We're almost finished with season four, and that leaves several more seasons to go. But this comes on the heels of Carnivale, and Battlestar Galactica, and I wonder, what will come next? How will my geek OCD manifest itself several months down the line?

Time, as we know, will tell.
Until then, we fight the future.
Why?
Because The Truth Is Out There, of course.

np: The Fire Theft

In Which the Author Becomes a Bit Snooty

2006-08-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow proves to be an even busier day than today, thanks to my husband's iffy car dying a slow and painful death (complete with a push home!). I'm on driving duty, that pesky dissertation is staring me in the face, and I need to clean the house, you know.

So, right, then. Off we go.

Part III: Books
My parents decided, long before I was born, that their child would be A Great Reader (tm). My father once told me, "if you know how to read, and read well, you can teach yourself anything." Sage advice, especially since so many people know how to read, but so few know how to read well. So I was introduced to books before I could walk. Before I could talk. And long, long before I could read.
My mother read to me while I was still an infant. She made me follow along with her when I could sit up and pay attention. And I was reading as soon as possible.
Books amazed me. Entire worlds existed on white paper, trapped in black ink. Books upon books upon books, waiting to be discovered. Millions of books in the world, hundreds of millions of books, and I could read them *all*, if I wanted.
According to parental lore, I used to fall asleep with a book on my face, and would wake up, and start reading again. I worked through most of my grammar school library, my public library, but that wasn't enough. My obsession demanded that I *own* books, because if I possessed them, they were, in part, mine. Right?
Bless my parents, they bought into this, hook, line, and sinker. Sure, I had Barbies, and GI Joes, and my Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, but when my mother punished me for what I'm sure was something trivial and inconsequential *ahem*, she took away all of my books and made me stay in my room. That's how important they were to me. Punishment means nothing if a child doesn't learn, right? And I learned. Boy, did I ever. If I sassed off, or did something incredibly stupid, my books were taken away.
At grammar school, there were other bookish kids like me. I was never chastised for being "a bookworm," although I was forbidden, by my parents, my grandmother, other family members, my teachers, from reading books at meals. It wasn't until I started living on my own that I was able to indulge in that delicious little piece of selfishness. Food *and* books? Could life be better than this?
When I started college, I was an International Relations major and a Russian minor. I wanted to go into international law, primarily dealing with the former Soviet Union. I had visited Russia at 15, mere months after the coup, and it had a lasting impression on me. And I had always thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
Then I took Russian.
Then I interned at a law firm.
And I switched my major to English.
I was what I call a "typical English major." Writing and reading came naturally to me, but I was a procrastinator. I always said "I do my best work at the last minute" which means, as I tell my students, "no, you *only* do your work at the last minute." But in the same way I breezed through English honors and AP in high school, I breezed through English in undergrad. I loved my classes, I loved to read, and I loved to write about books. What I lacked in sophistication I made up for in enthusiasm, and my professors, bless their hearts, rewarded me for it.
My master's was a completely different ballgame. I had to break my bad habits and learn new, better ones. My professors, the same ones I worked with as an undergrad, pushed me, and pushed me hard. What I lacked in sophistication, I made up for in potential, they said.
It was the first time in my life that I wasn't great at English. I suddenly "had potential."
Potential. What a rotten little word that is for someone who has snobbish ideas of her own intelligence. It knocked me down, several notches, and I began to experience what grad students refer to as "imposter syndrome." What if I wasn't smart? What if I had fooled everyone my entire life, and now, surrounded by truly smart people, they weeded me out? And who the hell were "they" anyways?
God, did I need that knock down. I fell off the literary pedestal I had placed myself on and sat in the mud, rubbing my eyes with my fists and crying out to the world that I *was* smart. That I had more than potential, dammit. And I set out to prove it to them.
I changed my work habits. I dusted off my work ethic, pounded into me by my work ethic-y parents, and considered what it really meant to be *good* at something. I revised, and revised, and reread and reread until I wrote a master's thesis that wasn't half bad.

When I started the Ph.D. program, I realized that I was being offered a very special, precious gift. Someone was going to pay me to read books and to write about them. I was going to spend the rest of my life with *books*. *I* got to pick the books I read. *I* got to decide what to teach, what not to teach. *I* got to reward myself with stolen moments of "fluff" books (i.e. non-academic, non-classic, purely fun), over a grilled cheese and some chocolate milk, and it felt really, really good.

It's so rare these days that someone actually gets to do what she wants to do in her career. And I got that.

It's stressful, it's crazy, and sometimes? very expensive. But my love affair with books, one that began with The Pokey Little Puppy and traveled through Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown and Stephen King and Emily Bronte and Connie Willis to end up at Elizabeth Gaskell, William Thackeray, and George Eliot, has evolved into something quite lasting indeed.

Now about that pesky little dissertation....

In Which The Author Becomes A Rabid Fangirl

2006-08-08T08:12:00.000-05:00

I'm breaking cardinal rule #2 of internet posting: posting before coffee (rule #1 is, of course, no PUI-posting under the influence). But I have quite the busy day ahead of me, so I decided that sleepiness was the better part of valor. What is so busy about today, you ask? Well, in an hour or so, I'm helping a friend move. Then I'm meeting another friend for coffee. There is, of course, the much-anticipated Netflix arrival of discs 3 and 4 of X-Files season 4 (which will get its own post momentarily), and let's not forget that pesky little dissertation. Notice it's last on the list? Right.

But as no power in the 'verse can stop me from posting pre-caffeine, I'm going to do it.

Whew. Sorry about that, Gentle Reader. You don't know it, of course, but I was just called away from this post by 1) a phone call from the husband reminding me of something, 2) which reminded me of my coffee with Mommy, Ph.D., 3) which further reminded me that one of the purposes of our coffee date, besides the fact that we are Very Busy and Important People (tm) and the stars finally aligned for us to meet, is to bring her our fondue pot, 4) which reminded me to get said fondue pot, 5) and plates, 6) and since I was up, I decided to make coffee.

Now, caffeine is coursing through my system--God bless you, Community with Chicory--and we shall begin.

Part II: The Whedonverse

I have a confession.
I didn't trust Joss Whedon until 2002.
I know, I know. Those Whedonites among you scream heresy and call foul. I am Less Than A True Fan. But please, let me explain.

I saw my first Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode when I was a junior in college (and that, Dear Reader, was a long time ago indeed). I was working that sometimes-dreaded but never-avoidable college job, Retail, and I was staying at my parents' house for the weekend, getting ready for work. As these things happen, and as one cannot dress and read at the same time, I had the television on. On the screen was a fascinating little show, something I didn't recognize. But there was a wee blonde girl, and several of her friends, and some odd British man all fighting against this one, rather attractive... vampire?
Hmm. At this time in my life, I was inclined to wear some dark clothing and read Byron and M. Shelley, so I was rather intrigued. I sat down to watch. And watch. And I fell a little bit in love with the fairy tale of the boyfriend gone bad, the girl who had to kill him to save the world, and that last moment in which he turned good again, got his soul back, and she had to kill him anyways.
It was the last episode of season 2 of Buffy.
As I was running late for work, I made a mental note: watch Buffy in the fall.
Then I went back to college and didn't have a television.

Flash forward several more years. I had long since abandoned my mental note: watch Buffy. In fact, I sneered, actually *sneered* at the idea of a petite blonde Vampire Slayer. What an asinine concept, I said. What utter balderdash. My students, my freaking high school students, begged me to give Buffy one more chance. I wavered, until I found out there was a musical episode, and the sneering, I'm sorry to say, began again.

That summer, before I left teaching high school to start the Ph.D. program, my then fiance (and now husband) watched the entire run of Buffy. Smart man that he is, he showed me choice episodes: "Hush," "Gingerbread," "Once More With Feeling" (the dreaded musical episode!). I was intrigued, but as I refuse to watch any television show unless I can see it from the beginning, he went out, bought me a DVD player and the first season, and sent me home.
Three days later, season two came out, and I bought that.
A few days after that, I was A Fan.

How to explain Buffy to those who are like I was, refusing to watch a television show based on such a seemingly silly concept? She's a Vampire Slayer, for Christ's sake. That already suspends disbelief. And a petite blonde with super-strength and a mission to save the world? Never has society encountered such dichotomy. Well, but it has, over and over again. See, that's what makes Buffy *smart*.

I watched Angel, too, and can honestly say that the second half of Angel Season Five is better than anything on television, ever. And Firefly? I watched it every Friday night of its short reign on television. I even delayed going out with friends, or going out at all, in the hopes that someone, somewhere, would know that I Was Watching, and wouldn't cancel the show.
(It was cancelled anyways, after a very short run, and I will never forgive Fox for it). I saw Serenity, opening day. I read Whedon's run of Astonishing X-Men. I wait with baited breath for Whedon's Wonder Woman movie because really, what man can write conflicted superpowered heroines better than he?

Absolutely no one.

I even went to the Buffy Academic Conference, boys and girls, and presented a critical paper to an audience of eager, academic fans. That, I think, demonstrates a level of geekiness even I didn't know I possessed.

But why, why, why? Everyone asks me why. Why Buffy? Why Whedon? Why a western space opera? Why a souled vampire private investigator? Why, why, why?
And why, why, why can I only answer with "it's the smartest stuff on television"? I've reached a point in my fandom that defies explanation. I find myself tongue-tied, blushing, and toeing the ground as I try to explain my brainy crush on three very odd television shows.

Why, you ask?

Because Buffy stretches the limits. It refuses a wheel of morality (turn, turn, turn--tell us the lesson we shall learn). It uses monsters to talk about school violence, or premature intimacy, or responsibility. It shows us, again and again, that the humans, not the monsters, are the scariest Big Bads. It takes a bizarre and insane idea, a musical episode, and instead of letting it be filler, uses it to reveal three HUGE storylines. And it does this through the figure of a diminutive blonde. That's just *smart*.
And because Angel redefines the idea of the tragic hero, constantly struggling against the scariest demon of them all: the demon inside. Whether through the figure of Angel, or Spike, or the once-loathed now-loved Cordelia, Whedon pens complex characters who try so very hard to Do The Right Thing (tm), regardless of personal cost. But they fall. As all tragic heroes do, they fall, again and again. And God, do we love them for it.
And because Firefly gives us a vision of the future that is not so different from our vision or now, or our vision of then. Because there are no aliens to fight out in the black; just men turned mad at the edge of space. Because that is scarier than any abduction, any probe. And also, because he takes the figure of the prostitute with the heart of gold--standard in any good Western--and makes her an elite member of society, with a position and caste respected and revered throughout the 'verse.

But the rabid fangirl in me is panting to be let free. She wants to tell you something.
Because it's *good*.

Trust me, yeah? I mean, come on. I'm smart. I've got fancypants degrees that attest to that. Give it a try, would you? I've got everything on DVD. You can borrow them, you know. All you need to do is ask.

In Which The Author Becomes Reminiscent

2006-08-07T22:41:00.000-05:00

I'm a geek. It's just true, and I fully admit it.
There are many levels to my geekdom, but it usually falls into four areas:
comic books
the Whedonverse (Buffy, Angel, Firefly)
books
collecting new geeky things.

Today, let's begin with...
Part I: Comic Books

I'm a DC girl, through and through. I collect Wonder Woman paraphernalia. I swoon over Batman and The Flash (Wally West, not so much Bart or Barry or Jay). I want to join the Birds of Prey. Now don't get me wrong. I occasionally foray over into Marvel, for my Astonishing X-Men fix, for The Ultimates, The Runaways, The Young Avengers, and, most recently, Marvel's Civil War. But there's just something inherently iconic about DC that appeals to me. And you know, I never did recover from wearing Wonder Woman underroos underneath my grade school uniform. It was like I had my own secret identity. Sure, on the surface I was the chubby kid with a retainer and glasses, thick curly (read frizzy) hair, who was more comfortable living in books than outside of them. But underneath? Underneath I was Wonder Girl, Wonder Woman in training, ready to save the world. I mean, I had a costume underneath that scratchy wool school skirt. And no one knew but me.

And my mother. But that's a whole other issue.

I fell away from comic books for a while, until my husband reintroduced me to them. I had forgotten, you see, how wonderful the world can be when superheroes save the day. And comic books had *changed*. There were moral quandaries, emotional problems, social issues to be worked out--or not--in an issue, or in a run.

I envision this blog (how I hesitate to use the term blog!) to be a geek journal of sorts. A place to work out my reading and viewing issues and pleasures. A place to discuss comic books, or book books, or movies or television shows or other aspects of my nerdiness that rarely get to come out and play.

Some come out and play.
I double dog dare you.

ground control to Major Tom.

2006-08-07T13:43:00.000-05:00

commencing countdown.
Engines on?