Record: Gail Simone

Did I really just say Gail Simone?

Yup, I'm afraid so.

Even the very woman who was one of the architects for the site (Women in Refridgerators) that led me, among other things, to think up this blog, has pulled quite a few very reprehensible stunts that are actually demeaning to women and men alike, whether it's her politics in real life or her own fictional writing, that made me decide finally I'd have to chalk up a special entry with at least a few citations of her grievous errors. So, here's what I can think of:

• When she was writing the "All-New Atom" an early example of "diversity" run amok, long before Marvel went out of their way to do the same, there was one story where Ryan Choi's climbing a ladder in miniaturized form, and accidentally slips and bangs his crotch. I couldn't help think that this bore traces of male-bashing, even as she and the company were going out of their way to pander to a PC crowd.
• She went right along with Dan DiDio's jumbled vision for what should be done with the DCU from the very moment Identity Crisis was published, and had no complaints about what harm this could do to Birds of Prey.
• Why, even when she was writing BoP, there were already signs it would turn out to be as idiotic as Geoff Johns' own writing that was flooded with too much nostalgia, done very tastelessly at that.
• She was the scripter of Villains United, a miniseries connecting with Infinite Crisis, one of many superfluous crossovers in 2006. In this story, the Fiddler, a villain who first appeared in the late 1940s in the Flash, was murdered by Deadshot. You may not think it's as big a deal as it certainly can be when heroes and their co-stars meet similar fates, but even killings of villains can end up being superfluous, and this one was just another pointless shock tactic at a time when DC really went overboard. Making matters worse, Deathstroke was a cast member, as if it weren't bad enough that Identity Crisis made him look like he hadn't reformed at all.
• And then, there's Simone's own politics, which are counterproductive to women: she gave her backing to LGBT advocates demanding that transgenders be allowed to use bathrooms, public or otherwise, of the opposite sex, no matter how much risk it could pose for women, and already has. It was stunning how ignorant and heartless her positions were. At no point in any of the Twitter posts and other notes she wrote backing the position did she show any understanding why denying a woman the right to privacy is morally reprehensible. There was no sign she had any second thoughts or understood why being transgender is no defense for making things unpleasant and dangerous for a lady. All she did was present a picture of somebody who lost her moral compass.
• She further wrote an agenda by emphasizing transgenderism in the Batgirl title she wrote circa 2014, and presenting homosexuality as normal in the process, as if we don't already have plenty of that. Yet no Romanians, Armenians, Chileans or Portuguese anywhere.

This is not something I'm happy to have to bring up. Indeed, it's depressing and I'm writing it with a heavy heart. But the sad reality is that somebody here succumbed to leftism in one of the worst ways possible, and it's made a mockery of what she supposedly complained about early in her career. I think it's fortunate she's not literally the creator of Women in Refridgerators - a lot of the material that got put into its making came from what other people offered as examples, and a few other webmasters were instrumental in writing up the pages, not her.

She hasn't written many comics lately. In retrospect, it's not like she was stratospherically popular either; Birds of Prey only sold 30,000 to 40,000 copies when she was writing it, which is tedious compared to what movies usually sell in tickets. I think DC (and Marvel) wanted to part ways with her no matter how left-wing she was, and the irony is, she was asking for it. I'm sure she'll still be writing comics to some extent down the road, but so long as she sticks with all these bad political leanings and lets it affect her work (and any editors approve of it no matter how alienating), whatever comics she turns out at this point won't be worth the effort. For now, what matters is that she sullied what could've been a respectable reputation, and made an unfunny joke out of her career.

Profile: Sapphire Stagg-Mason

Sapphire Stagg-Mason

First appearance: The Brave and the Bold #57, Dec/Jan 1964

History: the daughter of crooked scientist/industrialist Simon Stagg, she became Rex Mason/Metamorpho's girlfriend (and later wife) and loved him even after he was turned into a man of the elements by the Orb of Ra, which he'd been seeking in Egypt for Simon.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: when a miniseries for Metamorpho was written in 1993, Sapphire had decided by the end that her crooked father Simon Stagg was not worth supporting anymore, and had left him. But several years later, when JLA #52 was written up, this worthy development was ignored, and she was back in Simon's company again as though nothing ever happened. This was certainly also the case by the time Birds of Prey 51-52 Volume 1 was published in 2003.

What's wrong with how this was done? It has the effect of making Sapph-baby into a bimbo, but if anything, it certainly makes a mockery out of everything prior. Of course, it's the writers who have to shoulder the blame. What's surprising is that Mark Waid, who wrote the 1993 miniseries for Rex, inexplicably reversed this turn himself circa the time his JLA run went to press, and if he did, that's downright peculiar.

It's a pretty good demonstration of how plausible story development went out the window at DC as the 1990s came about.