tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225194722024-03-07T14:26:50.575-08:00The Comic Book Discrimination DossiersA blog whose purpose is meant to be similar in some ways to that of Women in Refridgerators, in focusing on comic book characters who've been misused and subject to discrimination by the companies that own them.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-8123550267921753932019-08-23T01:48:00.003-07:002019-08-23T01:48:36.628-07:00Another conclusionIt's been a few years since I decided to resume using this blog again, though on a less frequent basis than I had originally, and I think the time has come to call it a day again.<br />
<br />
I should note that, as of this writing, Dan DiDio has struck again over at DC (along with figurehead EIC Bob Harras), with another reprehensible miniseries called Heroes in Crisis, where the victim this time was Wally West, turned into an "accidental" murderer of a number of other characters, all for the sake of more drawn out storylines and publicity stunts. And even under current Marvel EIC C.B. Cebulski (and lest we forget, Joe Quesada's still in charge), similar stunts have continued, with the replacement of Valkyrie by Jane Foster one of the most recent examples. And judging from sales receipts, it looks like these PC stunts have finally taken their toll, with pamphlet and trade sales plunging, and stores even closing down.<br />
<br />
It's all the fault of these higher echelons who've gone out of their way to spite their fanbases, and for all we know, both of the Big Two may eventually be closing their publishing doors, unless they're licensed out to 3rd parties who could have a better idea how to write stories, and stand continuity erect again while jettisoning the worst stories of the past 20 years or so. Better yet would be if the Big Two were sold off to smaller businesses minus the merchandising rights for films, toys and games, which, IMO, can remain with Disney and Time Warner.<br />
<br />
For now, you could reasonably wonder if it's for the best if the Big Two close down. And maybe that'd be a good thing, since it would prevent further pointless abuse of their properties.<br />
<br />
Some of the sexism that was prevalent in the 2000s storytelling may have stopped, but there's still more going in other ways, including how uglified the artwork's become in mainstream superhero comics, especially at Marvel during Axel Alonso's tenure as EIC. Carol Danvers was a particularly notable victim of this when she was shoved into the role of Captain Marvel. With that kind of approach, flaccid storytelling and even Mary Sue-ish writing, it's no shock the several different volumes of that solo book would collapse so badly.<br />
<br />
And that's why, let me be clear, if the Big Two finally collapse, it'll probably be for the best. The way they're being run now is an utter disaster, and it would actually help if they ceased production of new stories. The people in charge not only refuse to take responsibility, resign and allow somebody not part of nepotism to take over their position, they even openly signal their contempt for core audiences. That's no way to run a business, period. So again, if the Big Two are on the way out, there's no need to feel too sorry about it.<br />
<br />
And with that, I once again conclude the use of this blog.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-66742314282033780542019-08-20T11:51:00.002-07:002019-08-20T11:51:48.489-07:00Profile: Mariko Yashida<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6DI1r_XUvgQfvlNdhhw1LxAw-aI5E-Z3oDoLEmn4tYGXiMWi7d3nVrYApBGIgzVsihLzt7CF0AWrnYgZHuGcYsFSf6oDkG7tPUU5NJI1v_fcxIHWc3Uhn9fSs73BzJRq7X1PD/s1600/marikoyashida.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="250" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6DI1r_XUvgQfvlNdhhw1LxAw-aI5E-Z3oDoLEmn4tYGXiMWi7d3nVrYApBGIgzVsihLzt7CF0AWrnYgZHuGcYsFSf6oDkG7tPUU5NJI1v_fcxIHWc3Uhn9fSs73BzJRq7X1PD/s200/marikoyashida.jpg" width="167" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Mariko Yashida</b></span><br />
<br />
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>Uncanny X-Men #118</i>, 1979<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: the first notable lover of Wolverine, she was the daughter of Shingen Yashida, the half-sister of the Silver Samurai, Kenuichio Harada, and the cousin of Sunfire. The two of them met when the X-Men traveled to Japan to stop the terrorist Moses Magnum from menacing the country. They were engaged to be married, but because of the usual complications seen in superhero adventures, it never went through.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: in the years following hers and Logan's failed plans for marriage, she was poisoned with a toxin-laced blowfish by a hitman named Reiko, who was working for mobster Matsuo Tsurayaba, a rival of her family's, in Wolverine #57, July 1992. She wanted to avoid a painful death, and convinced Wolverine to finish her off faster, which he did, while swearing to take revenge on Tsurayaba.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? Fortunately, very little. It was a tastefully and plausibly handled passing of a character, at a time when Marvel writing was still coherent enough. And one of the better stories of its kind set in the Asian/far-eastern world.<br />
<br />
It's still a pity though, that Wolverine couldn't be allowed the benefits of a better life, along with a lady like Mariko.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-23889846314069065802019-06-21T03:57:00.004-07:002019-06-21T04:05:36.242-07:00Profile: Valkyrie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFxX7YHImpDAGUpdSY230g2OQq7HKXy5iFZC6UGLAnpFgqOLY5rlJjk9HlzRM4D15GzsUQdJvnb0GtjkT1zl-ZydRjP-BJre-MhXSiWqG2h74C-5ZjPQFpjsjrI5UV-CoQeiKk/s1600/valkyriedefenders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="725" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFxX7YHImpDAGUpdSY230g2OQq7HKXy5iFZC6UGLAnpFgqOLY5rlJjk9HlzRM4D15GzsUQdJvnb0GtjkT1zl-ZydRjP-BJre-MhXSiWqG2h74C-5ZjPQFpjsjrI5UV-CoQeiKk/s200/valkyriedefenders.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Valkyrie</b></span><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>Real name:</b> Brunnhilde<br />
<br />
<b>First appearance:</b> <i>Avengers #83</i>, December 1970<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: initially, Valkyrie debuted as a disguise of the Enchantress, and later, made an appearance as the persona of a deity that was placed into the body of a mortal woman, Samantha Parrington, in the <i>Incredible Hulk #142</i> in 1971. Then, in the 4th issue of <i>The Defenders</i> in 1973, Valkyrie's essence was placed in another mortal woman, Barbara Norris, and the 3rd iteration of the character joined up with the group for much of the rest of the run.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination</b>: she was originally killed in the last issue of Defenders, just so some cast members like Beast could then be used in X-Factor, though later resurrected in a Dr. Strange story 2 years afterwards. More recently in 2019, she was slaughtered again in the War of the Realms crossover by the dark elf Malekith, just so that Jane Foster could take her role, after being forced into the role of Thor himself a few years prior when Axel Alonso was Marvel's EIC.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? It was cheap and superfluous to kill her off in the Defenders finale from 1986, though in fairness, they did wisely reverse this shortly after in Dr. Strange's solo book. It was much worse when Valkyrie was put to death in War of the Realms, where she was either stabbed to death with a sword in the back, or worse, decapitated.<br />
<br />
The worst thing is that this was coming some time after Marvel had taken up a social justice Orwellian anti-sex agenda, yet jarring violence was still left intact. That's what really makes their steps abominable, and it hasn't changed much under C.B. Cebulski either.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-32071684101837929122019-03-29T07:54:00.002-07:002019-03-29T07:54:30.112-07:00Profile: Jet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGPkBjH8QjY-mGRRhnJVSiTV8mHvJt3FDhAyxRNwvaRe28_uqGy0zgx2yyKSFEexR8P6hVKdK9ObhfqFNUHcHgW5T_-fyL2TJWNi2UynWK-WP9MP1kfFHrzEjrM47rFwxr3nHB/s1600/meetingwithcelia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="887" data-original-width="1600" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGPkBjH8QjY-mGRRhnJVSiTV8mHvJt3FDhAyxRNwvaRe28_uqGy0zgx2yyKSFEexR8P6hVKdK9ObhfqFNUHcHgW5T_-fyL2TJWNi2UynWK-WP9MP1kfFHrzEjrM47rFwxr3nHB/s200/meetingwithcelia.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Jet</b></span><br />
<b>Real name</b>: Celia Windward<br />
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>Millennium #2</i>, 1988<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: a black woman of Jamaican/British background, she was one of several people chosen to be part of the group of superhumans the Guardians of the GL Corps and Zamarons wanted to create (or, more specifically, Herupa Hando Hu and Nadia Safir), and was granted powers of electromagnetism, pulses and microwaves. She was a cast member of the brief New Guardians series in 1988-89, which was published under the short-lived "New Format" DC sub-label, and was co-created by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton.<br />
<br />
<b>Current status</b>: uncertain.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following acts of discrmination</b>: an attack by a villain called the Hemo-Goblin, sent by the villainous and racist African government bigwig named Janwillem Kroef resulted in her being infected with AIDS (this story element was seemingly meant to address the problems faced at the time), and she fought during the Invasion crossover of 1989 to stop the alien attackers before succumbing altogether to the disease.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? I think the writers/editors of NG wrote themselves into a corner and got nowhere fast. Why not a story where she not only survived Invasion, but also got cured of what the Hemo-Goblin (who died soon after fighting the NG) infected her with? All they did by knocking her off was make it look like they had no faith in what was already turning out to be a failed spinoff of the Green Lantern mythos (I'm sure it didn't help that a villain like Floronic Man was turned into a cast member). The use of a bizarrely thick accent may not have helped either.<br />
<br />
Interestingly enough, she was later seemingly revived in the mid-2000s for "One Year Later". But that was coming on the heels of such a repellent "event" as Identity Crisis, it ruined everything. Since then, she appears to have vanished yet again.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-35378073516893602762018-12-27T07:39:00.001-08:002018-12-27T07:46:15.379-08:00Profile: Saturn Girl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvxnPGWEEuJvUeex_By9mgudmJZZNpzravpa6mxVPnijhcZrox2wRG8p6rVnRa1ZWoAXGYmRr3FVWRC7sllxrVj4IkzQG7JDwe6nIEtmuWd1x-xVkhiVq8RHiBiUO9t4iZfxz/s1600/imraardeensatgirl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1015" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvxnPGWEEuJvUeex_By9mgudmJZZNpzravpa6mxVPnijhcZrox2wRG8p6rVnRa1ZWoAXGYmRr3FVWRC7sllxrVj4IkzQG7JDwe6nIEtmuWd1x-xVkhiVq8RHiBiUO9t4iZfxz/s200/imraardeensatgirl.jpg" width="99" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Saturn Girl</b></span><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>First appearance:</b> <i>Adventure Comics #247</i>, April 1958<br />
<b>Real name</b>: Imra Ardeen<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: the first lady to found the Legion of Super-Heroes in the Silver Age, her powers were mainly telepathy, and she hailed from the planet Titan, which was comprised of a race of telepaths. She traveled to Earth, and along the way, had to rescue their benefactor, billionaire R.J. Brande, from an assassination attempt, which led to their formation as a team.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: when the Legion was rebooted in 2005, at the time when DC was really going downhill, she had her vocal powers removed, and "spoke" through telepathy only. She became emotionally isolated, much colder in personality than before, and more introverted.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? IMO, it reflected some of the worst ideas from when Dan DiDio forced darkness on the DCU post-Identity Crisis, right down to lacking a sense of humor in what followed. That kind of approach does not have wide appeal. And it's unlikely to have improved at a time when Heroes in Crisis has once again brought back the worst of these notions.<br />
<br />
The cast of the modern day DCU suffered badly from DiDio's mandates, but so too did the future inhabitants, and Imra's one example.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-42474856009246997792018-09-26T01:19:00.001-07:002018-09-26T01:31:17.035-07:00Profile: Sabra<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdchaSRNZs8pT8KdTqkf5fyIXC-CV_oijMpKt4daVEBGC3tEdEy6lssr63f-Gh4nn19ig1Oz7qLf-sucE31vNhYMNHq9RYpJ5ADhOfeVBFld5VbQb64wJFfg_Afb0eipbTX9cI/s1600/sabrarbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="500" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdchaSRNZs8pT8KdTqkf5fyIXC-CV_oijMpKt4daVEBGC3tEdEy6lssr63f-Gh4nn19ig1Oz7qLf-sucE31vNhYMNHq9RYpJ5ADhOfeVBFld5VbQb64wJFfg_Afb0eipbTX9cI/s200/sabrarbs.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Sabra</b></span><br />
<b>Real name</b>: Ruth Bat-Seraph<br />
<br />
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>Incredible Hulk #250</i>, February 1981<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: Sabra was an Israeli police officer and Mossad agent born in the Jerusalem area whose son was murdered in an Islamic terrorist attack (this may have happened after she'd originally met the Hulk). She became a minor protagonist in the Marvel universe, and subsequently worked on occasion with the X-Men, since she herself apparently had mutant powers. Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema were her co-creators.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination</b>: in Contest of Champions from 1982, after the original Arabian Knight was made to look bad by initially refusing to work with a Jewess (his characterization was that troubling alright), she was made to look ridiculous herself by refusing a helping hand by Arabian Knight after she fell off his flying carpet during a battle with She-Hulk and Captain Britain as opponents. After 2000, she was subject to similar embarrassments in the Union Jack miniseries from 2006, where she sustained a shot at her eye, and the moral equivalence involving her dislike for the second Arabian Knight as much as the first made it worse.<br />
<br />
There was even a story published in New Warriors #58-59 where she was brainwashed into sabotaging peace talks between Israel and Syria, which included a nasty attack on a Syrian hero called Batal.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? The superficial depiction of her mistrusting, hostile feelings against Arabic/Islamic characters without establishing or explaining properly why is just what seriously undermines those stories (no willingness to acknowledge <a href="https://www.religiousfreedomcoalition.org/2013/01/31/hey-hannity-koran-560-refers-to-jews-as-apes-and-pigs/">the Koran's contents</a> is a serious flaw in development). The plotline from NW in particular was very sloppy, and was left dangling with nobody commenting on her mental condition.<br />
<br />
I don't think she was ever featured in the anthology stories from Marvel Comics Presents (1988-95), whereas Arabian Knight appeared in at least one, and this left me wondering if TPTB had no courage to use her, even in short stories? What good is that? Though in fairness, she did continue to make appearances in X-Men related material as the 90s came about.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, from what I've researched of Sabra in the past, it all but seems like they victimized her through cowardice combined with disinterested, ill-informed approach to politics surrounding Israel, the Islamic world by extension, and characterization. Such superficial approaches never do anyone any favors.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-90799542593705391902018-08-17T03:16:00.002-07:002018-09-26T01:28:26.821-07:00Profile: Lori Lemaris<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAHkGccd0v4dnLQNQDDq7df7l9h2s0VpJAwyPZBrrK1pGMknmdFGDZ0YPqVDgv7SCUTiN4ABxkXIbDTuCCAqOYciApcsfdbWtfCfoEf-VhSDXyS_SEuIxdZ66cPL8QjbKCSeRQ/s1600/loriwithsupes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="912" height="102" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAHkGccd0v4dnLQNQDDq7df7l9h2s0VpJAwyPZBrrK1pGMknmdFGDZ0YPqVDgv7SCUTiN4ABxkXIbDTuCCAqOYciApcsfdbWtfCfoEf-VhSDXyS_SEuIxdZ66cPL8QjbKCSeRQ/s200/loriwithsupes.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Lori Lemaris</b></span><br />
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>Superman #129</i>, May 1959<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: Lori was a mermaid from Atlantean-related kingdoms (in this case, Tritonis) whom Superman fell in love with during the Silver Age. She was created by Wayne Boring and Bill Finger.<br />
<br />
<b>Current status</b>: unknown<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: she was originally killed during Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, and later the Infinite Crisis crossover of 2005, she appeared to have been killed there too during the Spectre's insane outbursts, like quite a few other characters who were just slaughtered because the editors considered them worthless, selectively or otherwise.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? Totally disrespectful to a character who'd been a notable member of Superman's recurring cast of characters, and it makes no difference whether she's minor, that doesn't automatically justify such awful attitudes. Certainly not in the 2005 example, where it was even bloodier.<br />
<br />
Lori had the potential to work quite well as a recurring character. Instead, she's one of quite a few in a corporate-owned franchise who've been done a terrible disfavor.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-36919274801793098532018-07-13T01:10:00.002-07:002018-08-17T03:31:10.276-07:00Profile: Betty Brant<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-uJa6I9OCUHLRxwQnPcuE2a2B_PgG_LW6lj_Rb4uOXOsq3P2-6c1FRzBGo_RYmzd1ruoh6klscGxBR3WS9O2oOFvKn159A94IbjZpogAUjVR9KJidLQe5pZU3oQHZcUorVi0k/s1600/bettybrant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-uJa6I9OCUHLRxwQnPcuE2a2B_PgG_LW6lj_Rb4uOXOsq3P2-6c1FRzBGo_RYmzd1ruoh6klscGxBR3WS9O2oOFvKn159A94IbjZpogAUjVR9KJidLQe5pZU3oQHZcUorVi0k/s200/bettybrant.jpg" width="103" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Betty Brant</b></span><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>First appearance</b>: <i>Amazing Spider-Man #4</i>, September 1963<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she worked as J. Jonah Jameson's secretary at the Daily Bugle, later becoming a reporter herself, first dating Peter Parker and later marrying fellow journalist Ned Leeds for a time.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subject to the following acts of discrimination</b>: after Brand New Day came about in 2008, some of the best character developments were drastically erased, and she was belittled in a story from #583 in 2009 where Peter Parker makes it sound like she's having an affair with Marlon Brando, just to make her look more like a gossip writer. And when she holds a birthday party later, nobody even comes around, because they resent the job she gets at the Bugle. She's basically alienated.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? Writers like Mark Waid went out of their way to marginalize a once decently written character in almost the same way Mary Jane Watson was. It's but one of many grievous errors made for the sake of One More Day, long viewed as one of the worst stories in modern Marvel history.<br />
<br />
That particular story may have been quietly dropped, but the damage has remained for a long time after, and does nothing to salvage Spider-Man. Certainly not so long as Joe Quesada remains in charge.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-32133316371836216692018-07-11T09:23:00.001-07:002018-08-17T03:24:26.197-07:00Profile: Ned Leeds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUWvCqirmo3S_J-YhidA59Bnxrz5lKJJBmncy3yipexuXwMG6Z7ovLQtsQ1CXrSCGpYXoeurqCgo0VEHBQsPTl3si7X9xQfJhfAvwvSjIV75_VyHxzcxABu-qTZ4SFxdeqoZO8/s1600/nedleeds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="229" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUWvCqirmo3S_J-YhidA59Bnxrz5lKJJBmncy3yipexuXwMG6Z7ovLQtsQ1CXrSCGpYXoeurqCgo0VEHBQsPTl3si7X9xQfJhfAvwvSjIV75_VyHxzcxABu-qTZ4SFxdeqoZO8/s200/nedleeds.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Ned Leeds</b></span><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>First appearance</b>: <i>Amazing Spider-Man #18</i>, November 1964<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: a young reporter for the Daily Bugle, he dated and later married secretary/reporter Betty Brant. He was co-created by none other than Stan Lee and the late Steve Ditko.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: in the mid-80s, at the time of the Hobgoblin tale, Ned, while trying to bring down the Kingpin, fell victim to brainwashing by the Hobgoblin (which damaged his relations with Betty), Rod Kingsley, and was framed as being the Hobgoblin (much like Flash Thompson was around that time). Ned was murdered by the Foreigner at the behest of Jason Macendale in the 1986 Spider-Man vs Wolverine special, and for a time afterwards, it was thought Ned was the Hobgoblin.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? This story turn was the result of machinations by Jim Owsley (Christopher Priest), whose work as both writer and editor have been very hit-or-miss. It was controversial at the time, with Peter David, Tom deFalco and Ron Frenz taking offense, mainly because Owsley kept it secret until the last minute. It wasn't considered very plausible either; just a cheap excuse to kill off an established co-star.<br />
<br />
<b>Was there any good to come out of this</b>? A decade later, in the 1997 <i>Hobgoblin Lives</i> miniseries, an effort was made to exonerate Ned by retconning in-story that Rod Kingsley/Hobgoblin was the culprit all along, and had brainwashed Ned.<br />
<br />
This year, in ASM Annual #42, Ned was revealed to be alive (it seems he was resurrected by the Jackal in Clone Conspiracy), or a clone of him turned up. I'd like to think that's good news, but coming at a time when Mary Jane Watson was still thrown out by Joe Quesada's editorial mandates, it decidedly wasn't. (With terrible scribes like Dan Slott taking charge, how could it be?) The takeaway from this is that Ned was sadly a victim of frivolous obsessions with garnering attention at all costs, no matter how poor the artistic merit could've been to start with.<br />
<br />
To date, there's only been a few male characters I've added to this database, but I think Ned Leeds certainly qualifies, and I realize there can be advantages in keeping track of some of the men in comics too. Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-45706125304216463432018-07-02T08:02:00.003-07:002018-07-02T08:02:54.497-07:00Profile: Heather Glenn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX9kYIaSncmcq-7xmXIeGG9HryVeA9qS6tSXD6h8vdzalTUgsC-B1RD5vMorrB4BO3woaqE06D85MQAhqJ3lr38kjTXqzGA3J0ZrATz4YzeBEo6CndG8MbU1qZvVNzxuQmYYIw/s1600/daredevil126debutofheatherglenn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="400" height="102" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX9kYIaSncmcq-7xmXIeGG9HryVeA9qS6tSXD6h8vdzalTUgsC-B1RD5vMorrB4BO3woaqE06D85MQAhqJ3lr38kjTXqzGA3J0ZrATz4YzeBEo6CndG8MbU1qZvVNzxuQmYYIw/s200/daredevil126debutofheatherglenn.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Heather Glenn</b></span><br />
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>Daredevil #126 Vol 1</i>, 1975<br />
<b>Death</b>: <i>Daredevil #220 Vol 1</i>, 1985<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: She was the daughter of a rich industrialist factory manager. She helped Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson open up a new law firm called Storefront Clinic, and subsequently learned Matt's secret identity as Daredevil. She was co-created by Marv Wolfman and Bob Brown. She even guest-starred at least once in Iron Man, and similar to Tony Stark, suffered from alcoholism.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: she committed suicide after believing her relationship with Matt had fallen apart by hanging herself in her apartment.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? Fortunately, very little, maybe because her death was by suicide, rather than coming to a more grisly end via murder, as happened with Karen Page during Kevin Smith's run in 1998 on the 2nd volume.<br />
<br />
I'll have to admit though, that it's a shame Marvel's staff at the time thought the only good way to give Glenn a sendoff was by sending her into the afterlife. If that's the only way they can think of dropping a character they no longer want to use, how can they call themselves creative?Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-35026701509911733442018-05-03T23:02:00.004-07:002018-05-03T23:02:30.755-07:00Profile: Gloss<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4gDu9MblkCth7kEC5saN4GelFZDGbrxzDQBjZ-11zPRRyn4L0VC8orEytWYc2zQNaa8ze-7ztbfh-RVknGRMJMN3ttlG3Jurg5kvFHwEkRbAUyJdrmz6TPpQqH42aZR6bU5J/s1600/glossxiangpo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="662" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4gDu9MblkCth7kEC5saN4GelFZDGbrxzDQBjZ-11zPRRyn4L0VC8orEytWYc2zQNaa8ze-7ztbfh-RVknGRMJMN3ttlG3Jurg5kvFHwEkRbAUyJdrmz6TPpQqH42aZR6bU5J/s200/glossxiangpo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Gloss</b></span><br />
<br />
<b>Real name</b>: Xiang Po<br />
<b>First appearance</b>: Millenium #2, January 1988<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>:<br />
The Guardians who created the Green Lantern Corps invested in a Millenium Project to form a group of successors on Earth, which saw 10 people gathered together to learn about the cosmos and be granted special powers. One of them was the young Chinese girl Xiang Po, whom the Guardians bestowed the power to draw energy from the Earth's "dragon lines". She'd go on to form the New Guardians group, which had a brief series in 1988-89 running 12 issues and whose cast was partly comprised of characters from the GL series, whose 2nd volume had ended in 1988.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrmination</b>: during the Justice League: Cry for Justice miniseries written by James Robinson in 2009, she was one several characters killed off by Prometheus.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? The miniseries was notorious for serving as a cheap excuse to kill off almost any minor character the DC editors considered expendable, including Lian Harper. All for no good reason, and just to serve as justification for Green Arrow to kill off Prometheus later...and then get into a pointless clash with the Justice League, made to look as though they have zero understanding of the terrible incident Prometheus caused. One can only wonder if it was all intended as an anti-war metaphor, since this was in the years after the war in Iraq to bring down Saddam.<br />
<br />
And it all gave the Justice League a very bad name, while doing nothing more than throwing Steve Englehart and Joe Staton's creation Gloss, who could've had potential on her own under the right kind of writers, into oblivion as though her being fictional makes her automatically worthless. I think the New Guardians series was mediocre, but that's mainly the fault of Englehart and Cary Bates (the latter who wrote the majority of the book), not the characters, some of whom were given very unfair treatment.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-72648561858474729642018-05-02T12:05:00.002-07:002018-05-02T12:05:39.185-07:00Profile: Harbinger<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKtb47PzXm__pQb9-00KGjC2AyNjuJqE_H9Qi_0IHQLI7om5RkTeY7ysA7HiMyKd0ehqkEh06yUGuqt9Js3cTvzzH0QjaIBrFvSWUYDLOIQKq63BEwYRQR8WPX6TByFWXa9YUW/s1600/harbingerlylamichaels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="448" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKtb47PzXm__pQb9-00KGjC2AyNjuJqE_H9Qi_0IHQLI7om5RkTeY7ysA7HiMyKd0ehqkEh06yUGuqt9Js3cTvzzH0QjaIBrFvSWUYDLOIQKq63BEwYRQR8WPX6TByFWXa9YUW/s200/harbingerlylamichaels.jpg" width="93" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Harbinger</b></span><br />
<b>Real name</b>: Lyla Michaels<br />
<br />
<b>First appearance</b>: New Teen Titans Annual #2, 1983<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: an orphan who survived a shipwreck, she was rescued by the Monitor (the being stuck in an eternal fight with the anti-Monitor), and became an assistant to him during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, where she would help arrange for henchmen and weapons to test the superheroes in the impending war. After her appearance in the Millenium crossover of 1988, she joined the New Guardians, who were partially connected with the Green Lantern Corps.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: in the 12-issue New Guardians series, she, along with almost all the other team members, was subjected to the AIDS virus; one of the first stories in comics to address the subject that was big in the 80s. In 2004, when DC was reintroducing the original Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, to the DCU, she turned up in a guest appearance on Wonder Woman's Themyscira island, and was killed while defending Kara from the forces of Darkseid that would kidnap her for his own uses. Her corpse was later reanimated during the Blackest Night crossover.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? This had to be one of the cheapest paths they could go in to pointlessly kill off a character who could've still had her uses. But turning her into a living dead zombie only added insult to injury, and Blackest Night was by far one of the most disgusting, troll-the-audience publicity stunts DC could have ever conceived. And any friendship she was forming with the reintroduced Kara Zor-El was thrown out the window.<br />
<br />
Most of the characters who were killed off at that time have thankfully been revived/exonerated since (though Harbinger's status is still unclear as of this writing). But the editors wasted tons of time pulling those stunts in the first place, and cost a lot of readership who shouldn't have been alienated in the first place.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-4226203149123514542018-03-28T10:57:00.002-07:002018-03-28T10:57:40.782-07:00Record: Scott LobdellOne of the most pretentious writers Marvel employed in the 1990s to script the X-Men, Scott Lobdell most unfortunately has some bad moments in his record that served to sully what was once an effective series. I'll try to list here some of his bad efforts here.<br />
<ul>
<li>As one of the writers in charge of stories spotlighting Rogue and Gambit, he did a poor, tiresome job depicting their ostensible relationship with the lady's siphoning power posing such an obstacle, it only led under his unimpressive writing to a lot of agonizing and frustration. Not to mention that in at least a few scenes where the "Ragin' Cajun" would try to come on to Rogue with physical contact, she'd jump away in fear of causing injury. The irritating long term effect of such scenes would be that it'd look like he was a sex predator, however unintentional. And at the same time, it made Rogue look absurdly scared.</li>
<li>In Uncanny X-Men #328, he scripted a tale where Sabretooth gutted Psylocke after she tried warding off his threats to Boomer/Tabitha Smith (not shown in graphic detail, thankfully). All for the sake of conceiving a tale where the formula to heal her injury would result in a dagger-shaped tattoo across her left eye.</li>
<li>In his last story for X-Men prior to Grant Morrison taking over for 3 years in the early 2000s, Lobdell's "Eve of Destruction" made Jean Grey look like a mindless robot, who wouldn't even demand Northstar stop assaulting a cardboard panel of a character named Paulie Provenzano over a pointless quarrel for the sake of filling panels. It was utterly awful.</li>
<li>When Lobdell was writing Red Hood and the Outlaws during DC's New 52 era in the early 2010s, there was trivial criticism vented over Starfire's skimpy costume. This almost obscured a much more valid complaint - she was made to sound like a brainless vagrant who was willing to have sex for the sake of almost any man she came upon, and told Roy Harper <i>"love has nothing to do with it."</i> This had the effect of making her come off as a subservient tool for men instead of working as her own agency and thinking for herself. It also made Tamaranians (the alien race she came from) look bad, if that matters.</li>
</ul>
In addition to the above, <a href="http://fourcolormedmon.blogspot.com/2013/12/scott-lobdell-admits-he-sexually.html">Lobdell even admitted</a> he once sexually harassed a lady cartoonist at a convention, which makes it look like his mindless positions got the better of him. None of this reflects well on his resume, though he may have learned his lesson about his misdeed at the convention since. I certainly hope he did, because he still shows signs here and there he probably didn't.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-9691712641023966472017-12-08T05:36:00.004-08:002020-04-16T01:13:30.441-07:00Record: Gerard JonesYou may have heard, since the beginning of 2017, that onetime comics writer <a href="https://lawandcrime.com/crazy/former-justice-league-writer-allegedly-uploaded-child-porn-to-youtube/">Gerard Jones was arrested on charges of storing child pornography in his computer equipment</a>, and is suspected of committing <a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/sfpd-arrest-man-suspected-of-possessing-over-600-files-of-child-pornography">an even worse offense over in Britain</a>. Besides those revolting discoveries, I do believe his record as a comics writer has some items in it worth pondering. What he may have done wrong with any and all of the superhero books he'd written, not the least being the books he wrote for Malibu Comics, and that could be both before and after Marvel bought them out in 1994. So here, I may be able to list at least a few moments in his writing career worthy of attention.<br />
<ul><li>In the premiere of Green Lantern volume 3, John Stewart's watching a TV news report that includes word of a child kidnapping. In light of the discoveries of Jones' crimes in real life, that's obviously not going to age well.</li>
<li>In the second issue of the series, Guy Gardner goes to a porn shop (where he finds the Tattooed Man and picks a fight with him all for the sake of making Guy look like a parody of "jingoists"). I think we can all figure out why time won't be kind to that story segment. </li>
<li>The Guardian named Appa Ali Apsa, first introduced by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams in the early 1970s as an observer for GL and Green Arrow at the time they were "hard travelin' heroes" was turned insane, deadly and villainous in the beginning story (when it was first reprinted in 2003, the given title was "The Road Back"), becoming the adversary they had to combat, and was finally killed at its end. In retrospect, I don't think this was getting off to a good start, taking a decent character and turning him crazy and murderous (he killed another character, seen in the 2nd issue). Mainly because Hal Jordan didn't seem particularly miserable they had to wipe him out. If anything, it was hardly focusing on the real villains in GL's rogues' gallery, who could've made for just as good a premise. Jones did all this just to set up a story where several colonies of races from across the galaxy would learn to live together, as though that couldn't be done.</li>
<li>In the <a href="http://childrenofthepostcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/11/green-lantern-corps-quarterly-1.html">1st Green Lantern Quarterly from 1992</a>, he wrote a story featuring Arisia, where the alien girl who'd boosted herself artificially to a theoretically mature age in 1986 had now reverted mentally to the age of a 13 year old. In light of the charges filed against Jones in 2017, this is why his early 90s story doesn't age well now.</li>
<li>In the 5th issue of Guy Gardner's 1992-96 solo book, while he's searching for Goldface, he goes to a ranch that had at one point housed a brothel, and a most disgusting joke is made about child sex slavery. This almost singlehandedly destroys the series, and whatever potential Guy once had as a solo star.</li>
<li>In the 1992-93 GL: Mosaic spinoff, he wrote Ch'p, the chipmunk-like alien, getting killed by a truck on the planet Oa (a whole colony of humans was moved there by Appa ali Apsa). And I'm wondering what was so wrong with the poor little guy that they had to turn him into a sacrifice on the alter of slaying minor characters just because of how supposedly easy that was?</li>
<li>Although Jones did resurrect Katma Tui in GL: Mosaic, it was otherwise as an energy construct, and I'm not sure it was even in the same way Wonder Man/Simon Williams was. As a result, I'm not sure if Jones ever exonerated Carol Ferris properly. After all, that storyline from Action Comics Weekly in 1988 where Carol slew Katma when she was under the Star Sapphire influence was a very bad step in storytelling, and not reversing it entirely, IMO, did little to help mend a serious mistake.</li>
<li>In the Martian Manhunter: American Secrets 3-part miniseries from 1992, there's an obscene moment in the 2nd part where a "child pimp" named Skeeter sexually molests a young child actress named Patty Marie, in a scene that stinks of creepy, repellent self-indulgence, and was minimized soon after, as it was never mentioned again. Making it truly awful was that the girl was killed in the 3rd part, and whatever point Jones was supposedly making about communist infiltrators during the 50s collapsed like a mountain of bricks.</li>
<li>In the first storyline or two from Wonder Man's 1991-94 series, there were some subtle attacks on capitalism, with an inventor who'd become a criminal now wanting to do business with corrupt governments overseas, all because he thought he'd been taken advantage of earlier by domestic corporations.</li>
<li>The 1st of two annuals in the Wonder Man series features disturbing moments like the actress Ginger Beach's teen brother Spider whacking some other actresses on the rears while wading through the water at an island where Simon and the bunch have gone to do some filming, and later, when Ginger is kidnapped by a Hydra computer system on the island and strapped to a stretcher cart, she says it was groping her as it whisked her off to a chamber on a rocket system where she was kept until Wondy could free her. That scene was really atrocious, right down to Spider calling to get the "pervert machine" off his sister, after what he did several pages before to the actresses, strongly hinting that the character was intended as a Mary Sue by the writer. </li>
<li>In light of the allegations against Jones, his jokes in Justice League Europe focusing on Power Girl's boobs and cleavage aren't bound to age well. (Nor for that matter is an idiotic joke he made about women sipping diet soda and becoming aggressive as a result.) </li>
<li>I'd mentioned before that Jones wrote a story starring Shanna the She-Devil in Marvel Comics Presents #70-73 during 1991? There's something else he's left in a broken heap for at least a while, but then, what good is <a href="http://imthegun.blogspot.com/2015/12/shanna-showcase-13-marvel-comics.html">a story that relies on horror elements</a> when somebody like him is doing the scripting?</li>
<li>Though he never scripted the mainstay MCU's Hulk, he did write Hulk 2099, part of Marvel's mid-90s 2099: World of Tomorrow line, which wasn't very successful, and if he was doing it for the sake of exploring his whole notion of violent entertainment being "good for kids" he sure blew it, because of some hypocritical arguments he made on violence right over there.</li>
<li>One of the most notable titles in the Malibu line of superhero knockoffs he wrote was Prime, a Captain Marvel clone about a young teen boy gaining powers to turn into an adult superhero, who went after child rapists, including a school instructor. It goes without saying Jones' own arrest for sex felonies will ensure this Malibu product falls flat on its face.</li>
<li>Towards the end of his official career in superhero comics, he wrote Batman: Fortunate Son in 1999 (the title appears to be inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song), an early-days OGN tale where the Masked Manhunter and Dick Grayson, in his early days as Robin, were investigating the case of a rock star accused of blowing up a studio. The message of the yarn was apparently that rock music makes people insane. Oh, isn't that classic. I don't know what Jones was smoking when he came up with that one, but it's very ridiculous, especially now that he's been arrested for his sexual misconduct felony.</li>
</ul>Over the past year since Jones' offenses made headlines, I've had to reevaluate some of the stories I read that he'd scripted, and concluded they weren't so entertaining at all, let alone respectable of past works that came before, and the Ultraverse books will surely wind up under an entirely different perspective now. Recalling that he won an Eisner in 2005 for his history books like Men of Tomorrow, it remains to be seen if the board of directors thought to revoke his prize, which he didn't deserve to win. He belongs in the category of overrated scribes whose personalities can easily ensure their stories wind up becoming more dated that others.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-66403038514772629552017-09-02T10:44:00.002-07:002017-09-11T21:03:56.290-07:00Profile: Marla Bloom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiV4MpMe35i2tWdI5QtrdZNS_JHcE464cMClhQA2eJ1if0lIUQGsWc31ckIStZtCBXTRhC6fOSEAEP30EFFCR1sVKwLMlbUkneq9tFpAV0MPC95jb9TkKloGgaqYCgJMZ4ifc4/s1600/marlabloommeetspotatoheads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiV4MpMe35i2tWdI5QtrdZNS_JHcE464cMClhQA2eJ1if0lIUQGsWc31ckIStZtCBXTRhC6fOSEAEP30EFFCR1sVKwLMlbUkneq9tFpAV0MPC95jb9TkKloGgaqYCgJMZ4ifc4/s200/marlabloommeetspotatoheads.jpg" width="165" height="200" data-original-width="1226" data-original-height="1486" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Marla Bloom</b></span><br />
<br />
<b>First appearance</b>: in a backup story published in <i>The Fury of Firestorm #24</i>, June 1984, as part of the subsequent cast of Blue Devil's solo book that ran during 1984-86. Her co-creators were Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn.<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: the president of a film production outfit, Marla Bloom Associates, she was in charge of stuntman Dan Cassidy's movie, where a magical demon caused the effects that would turn him into the blue-skinned humanoid who'd take up a career in crimefighting. She'd provide assistance whenever possible.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: during the Underworld Unleashed crossover in 1996, Blue Devil made a deal with Neron for achieving more fame, and was given the assignment to take down a power substation. But during the day he was supposed to do so, Marla decided to go out on a scouting assignment in a helicopter for filming locations, and died in a helicopter crash, mostly because of Blue Devil's utterly foolish quest for more fortune.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? It was nothing more than a pathetic decision to kill off characters whose creators worked so hard to get them on paper in the first place, and following this, did Dan Cassidy do anything to get her resurrected? Apparently not, because next thing you know, he's getting Neron to make him a real devil after he's been put to death briefly during a fight. If the idea was to show him punishing himself for his grave errors, I'm not impressed. This was a story that did not have to be, yet DC's editors went out of their way to make bad use out of Blue Devil and co-stars anyway.<br />
<br />
Since then, as far as I know, the death of Marla was never reversed. If it was, then certainly that would be an improvement. But so far, it doesn't look like that's happened, and what's resulted is a pure embarrassment.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-48241306004702366462017-09-01T05:33:00.000-07:002017-09-11T21:02:51.505-07:00Profile: Blue Devil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZg5VfEUCXlMaj41mgpdBoas2ct1swwMfQVtKH10qPvqVbiumysltrLWYxDnvs3nez3oDvCczS2cHiYzH3-mI3jF_8km89yutJu6P8wzu1ARuvcJLawN_srFvafjuixWCwA0cB/s1600/bluedevilpremiere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZg5VfEUCXlMaj41mgpdBoas2ct1swwMfQVtKH10qPvqVbiumysltrLWYxDnvs3nez3oDvCczS2cHiYzH3-mI3jF_8km89yutJu6P8wzu1ARuvcJLawN_srFvafjuixWCwA0cB/s200/bluedevilpremiere.jpg" width="200" height="192" data-original-width="1236" data-original-height="1188" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Blue Devil</b></span><br />
<br />
<b>Real name</b>: Dan Cassidy<br />
<br />
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>Fury of Firestorm #24</i>, June 1984, in a special backup story. His solo book followed the same month. He was co-created by Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn.<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: a stuntman on a movie set that bore the very name he'd take up as a superdoer, Cassidy was affected by a magic attack from a demon who thought he was a real one, and led to his costume becoming grafted to his body so he couldn't get it off, as it theoretically merged with him. But, he managed to overcome any depressed feelings and took up the usual career in crimefighting.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: in 1996, during the Underworld Unleashed crossover, BD became one a victim of a pure embarrassment. He makes a deal with the demonic Neron to destroy an unmanned power substation in California, all because he wants more fame and fortune, and unintentionally leads to the death of his producer buddy, Marla Bloom, who was traveling in a helicopter later in the day, when the copter collides with some power lines. Then, as if things couldn't get any worse, he's killed while seeking revenge on Neron and decides he wants to become a real blue-skinned devil, which Neron promptly fulfills. That's right, Cassidy doesn't act altruistically and actually try to get Marla's fate reversed. He just makes a mockery of his whole predicament by getting it shifted from bad to worse.<br />
<br />
He later wound up in one of the worst stories written at the time Identity Crisis was published, a series called Shadowpact. Which didn't last long, thankfully. Later still, he appeared in the 13th issue of DC Universe Presents circa 2012, where he and Black Lightning get into a pointless clash as they're allegedly depicted trying to defeat a new take on the gangster Tobias Whale.<br />
<br />
The catastrophe with Blue Devil is a leading example of how DC's modern managers have no faith or confidence in any of the creations they were in charge of.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-91408502891442528472017-05-25T09:10:00.001-07:002017-05-25T09:10:41.099-07:00Profile: Jane Foster<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim7KdpevH9cqcUwjYArT-qbmDIIo-CMzZsxlKIKf6B3E_rc3OROPzaDru2-DexL1ENkP_DF1oDnw4b7nM3zvOP0qnkHYNfeDyE3XQLwG_QcvCfUeENaRIjIwYDvnLrLr7MyM7v/s1600/thor247pg6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="581" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim7KdpevH9cqcUwjYArT-qbmDIIo-CMzZsxlKIKf6B3E_rc3OROPzaDru2-DexL1ENkP_DF1oDnw4b7nM3zvOP0qnkHYNfeDyE3XQLwG_QcvCfUeENaRIjIwYDvnLrLr7MyM7v/s200/thor247pg6.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Jane Foster</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>Journey Into Mystery #84</i>, September 1962<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: Foster, a nurse when she first debuted, was assistant to and the first mortal love of Marvel's take on the Norse God of Thunder, Thor, in his mortal guise of Dr. Donald Blake at the time he'd originally had a secret identity. An interesting bit of trivia: at least twice she was referred to as Jane Nelson rather than Foster, as per a handful of early Stan Lee works where some accidental typos remained in place, but the family name Foster ultimately came to be the one solidified for naming her character. She may not have begun as the toughest lady cast member (admittedly, not many of the female co-stars in Stan Lee's first 2 Silver Age years did), but as time went by, she became a much more braver, determined character who wasn't afraid to put up a fight when facing danger.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination</b>: when she first found out Thor and Blake were one and the same, she tried to persuade Odin to make her a deity to live alongside Thor. But she failed the needed tests and Odin returned her to Midgard (Earth) with her brief powers and memories of Thor erased, though the latter returned some time later. In <i>Thor #231</i> from 1975, an entity called Fear tried to manipulate her into committing suicide, and while Sif aided her by merging their life forces temporarily, she later wound up stuck in a pocket dimension the following year in issue #249. Fortunately, Thor and Sif rescued her, and in 1983, in issue #336, she married Dr. Keith Kincaid, the medic whom Thor's Blake identity was meant to resemble.<br />
<br />
When the Civil War crossover was published, Jane was shoved into the mess as well. In the third Thor volume, after learning Donald Blake was around again, she divorced Kincaid and lost custody of the child she had at that time. In 2015, she was depicted contracting cancer and was turned into a female Thor, complete with same name as the male protagonist who bears that very name.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? The stories from early times were done plausibly and respectably (including a What If? anthology tale from the late 70s), without trying to turn Foster into a tool. But forcing her into the Civil War crossover was bad, and it was disrespectful how J. Michael Straczynski and company had her divorce her husband, as though nothing mattered anymore, ditto the child custody loss.<br />
<br />
And then, there's that little matter of turning Jane into "Thor" for the sake of publicity stunts and catering to SJWs and "diversity" advocates in 2015, as though such steps alone equal talented writing. Not so at all. Jason Aaron's notions of how to go about were laughable in the extreme, and despite the attempts by leftist apologists to claim otherwise, sales did not hold up, and certainly didn't sell over 100,000 copies (and don't be surprised if plenty of those copies are gathering dust on the shelves and in bargain bins now). It was a decidedly terrible misuse of a character who deserved far better, just like the equally abused Mary Jane Watson.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-3503250035947041282017-05-24T09:01:00.001-07:002017-05-24T09:01:19.522-07:00Record: Eddie BerganzaBerganza is one of DC's longtime editors whose career stretches back as far as the early 1990s. Of recent, <a href="http://www.cbr.com/sexual-harassment-allegations-against-dc-editor-eddie-berganza-become-public/">he was outed as a sexual harasser</a>. Some of the books he's worked on may even have some bizarre irony to go with his newly discovered behavior behind the scenes. I'll try to list at least a few of his serious errors here, some of which relate to his job as the editor in charge of the Superman titles.<br />
<ul>
<li>In Wonder Woman: Earth One, written by Grant Morrison last year, there's a scene where the book's take on Steve Trevor, changed to African-American, is grabbed in a very inappropriate manner by Diana, while she asks if he's a man. No, it's not shown directly, but it's still very revolting they had to strongly imply it, nevertheless. Not only that, there's apparently a cameo illustration of Berganza himself in the miniseries, which came out around the time the accusations against Berganza resurfaced. Talk about bad timing. </li>
<li>In May of this year, in the 23rd issue of the sans-adjective Superman volume they've been publishing (let's remember there were at least two other volumes sans-adjective in better days), Lois Lane got her leg sliced off by a laser shot. Worst, it was shown right out in the open, and not even silhouetted, as previous generations of editors would've thought to do.</li>
</ul>
So there's at least two examples involving books with both a hero and heroine that he served as editor for, and neither of which have particularly tasteful storytelling to offer. And after what Berganza did, it may not be surprising he was willing to associate himself with such lowbrow elements.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-49051200804612592522017-03-15T10:22:00.001-07:002017-05-24T09:54:39.526-07:00Profile: Shanna the She-Devil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7cfRtTG8LEAEyBnACtochA8ScR4bdYirC2oTq5jBrZtDSP4BMtmYcYgAOB1HfWJSz4w1jFr3vse6_uyroYmMlT0uXo2XIcSLCvO0bvfpeg12RPLDv5hCLuV4fzfSEQGtxNEa0/s1600/shannararegunuse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1600" height="107" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7cfRtTG8LEAEyBnACtochA8ScR4bdYirC2oTq5jBrZtDSP4BMtmYcYgAOB1HfWJSz4w1jFr3vse6_uyroYmMlT0uXo2XIcSLCvO0bvfpeg12RPLDv5hCLuV4fzfSEQGtxNEa0/s200/shannararegunuse.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Shanna the She-Devil</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Real name:</b> Shanna O'Hara<br />
<b>First appearance:</b> <i>Shanna the She-Devil #1</i>, December 1972<br />
<br />
<b>History:</b> a variation on Will Eisner and Jerry Eiger's earlier <i>Sheena, Queen of the Jungle</i> tales from the Golden Age, adventuress Shanna was an early example of a heroine co-created by a woman, writer Carole Seuling, with artist George Tuska, and Steve Gerber provided some extra backup assistance on the scripting. The heroine, also known as Lady Plunder, was the daughter of Gerald and Patricia O'Hara, the former a diamond miner who accidentally shot his wife dead while searching for a rogue leopard that belonged to the mother, and this led the outraged Shanna to take a negative stance on firearms with few exceptions. (As seen in the panel I posted, which is from the 2nd issue, only for tasks like blasting heavy doors open did she see fit to use guns.)<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination:</b> both she and paramour Ka-Zar were dragged into the mess known as Secret Invasion, and she killed a Skrull named Pit'o Nilli. I don't think she was ever depicted killing before. Yet that's probably nothing compared to the idiocy of the Marvel NOW event of the early 2010s, where she was killed by a neanderthal on a mysterious island within the vicinity of Savage Land, and though she was resurrected, she was now filled with supernatural powers, all for the sake of it.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done?</b> The biggest problem is that it wasn't organic. Another is the sensationalized approach to storytelling by awful writers like Brian Bendis. And the supernatural powers were unnecessary. This wouldn't have worked with the Black Canary or Lady Shiva over at DC either.<br />
<br />
But maybe the worst thing that could happen to Shanna from a real life perspective is that one of the later scriptwriters penning a story where she made an appearance turned out to be a scumbag: Gerard Jones, who wrote a 10-part story for Shanna in <i>Marvel Comics Presents 68-77</i> in 1991, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Comic-book-author-suspected-of-putting-child-porn-10841108.php">was arrested at the end of 2016 for child porn trafficking</a>. Now, what might've been one of the better stories starring such a fine creation is going to be tainted for quite a while with the stench of Jones' actions behind the scenes. It's absolutely terrible when something awful like that happens.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-88710521117319930782017-01-27T01:26:00.001-08:002017-01-27T01:47:58.652-08:00Record: Gail SimoneDid I really just say Gail Simone?<br />
<br />
Yup, I'm afraid so.<br />
<br />
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:<br />
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>And then, there's <a href="http://fourcolormedmon.blogspot.com/2016/03/waid-and-simone-are-giving-bad.html">Simone's own politics</a>, 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 <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/23/a-rape-survivor-speaks-out-about-transgender-bathrooms/">risk it could pose for women</a>, and <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/23/twenty-stories-proving-targets-pro-transgender-bathroom-policy-danger-women-children/">already has</a>. 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 <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/5190/5-times-transgender-men-abused-women-and-children-amanda-prestigiacomo">unpleasant and dangerous for a lady</a>. All she did was present a picture of somebody who lost her moral compass.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
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.<br />
<br />
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.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-49144349611351068722017-01-12T09:43:00.003-08:002017-01-14T10:31:07.754-08:00Profile: Sapphire Stagg-Mason<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikcxwNPcm3PzcQguXo7b2DaFZkTWiuyhnhdw6QLU2jkGtVoGQWoo5LVVlc8v5XEhzQzRwmRAFfTBOMw2hTeuUtUj6lPQfeekBYs7XqhuHLFiV99Yeod739uOSiRWnQccpUlAHB/s1600/sapphirestagg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikcxwNPcm3PzcQguXo7b2DaFZkTWiuyhnhdw6QLU2jkGtVoGQWoo5LVVlc8v5XEhzQzRwmRAFfTBOMw2hTeuUtUj6lPQfeekBYs7XqhuHLFiV99Yeod739uOSiRWnQccpUlAHB/s200/sapphirestagg.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Sapphire Stagg-Mason</b></span><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>First appearance</b>: <i>The Brave and the Bold #57</i>, Dec/Jan 1964<br />
<br />
<b>History</b>: 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.<br />
<br />
<b>Was subjected to the following act of discrimination</b>: 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 <i>JLA #52</i> 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 <i>Birds of Prey 51-52 Volume 1</i> was published in 2003.<br />
<br />
<b>What's wrong with how this was done</b>? 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.<br />
<br />
It's a pretty good demonstration of how plausible story development went out the window at DC as the 1990s came about.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-88840887948347748332016-10-13T09:35:00.003-07:002016-10-21T01:00:16.445-07:00Record: Dave SimNow here's an interesting idea for a comics writer whose work we could scrutinize. It doesn't have to be just writers working for mainstream superhero books we could focus on, and the Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim, author of Cerebus, the would-be humor comic about an anthropomorphic aardvark swordfighter that ran during 1977-2004, is somebody whose work was discussed in the past, and having done a little research, I too realized that he's got some viewpoints that are pretty disturbing. So let's see if I can write up the best possible entry here.<br />
<ul>
<li>Early in the Cerebus run, Sim came up with a character called Red Sophia, allegedly a parody of Red Sonja, whom Roy Thomas introduced in the Conan series he'd launched/written in the early 70s that drew on a minor guest character from Robert E. Howard's old stories. And the character Sim featured was depicted as easy to defeat and ditzy. Of all the characters from Howard's own stable he could've riffed on, I wonder why it had to be one based on Red Sonja and not Conan himself, or even Kull the Conqueror? Though the spinoffs from Conan at the time had engaging stories in hindsight, the first Red Sonja title didn't last much more than 3-4 years at best, and was cancelled by the end of the 1970s (Kull's didn't fare much better either), so I'm not sure why Sim considered Sonja a perfect target for whatever vision he set out to employ. In any case, what matters is that he was insulting an impressive idea Thomas had for a sword-and-sorcery heroine, and it's bewildering he'd want to make a girl that incompetent.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/sim.html">In the mid-90s</a>, he indicated that he saw nothing wrong with a Vietnamese family disowning their daughter for getting pregnant. He said in that insanity, <i>"I watched an interview the other night on CBC Prime Time with a nineteen-year-old girl from an old-fashioned (which is to say "principled") Vietnamese family. She had gotten pregnant during her last year of high school. She knew that she had brought "shame" to her father, to her family. "But this is a free country, isn't it?" she asks the camera. "That means you can do whatever you want, doesn't it?" The camera was indulgently mute on the subject. The girl moved on. She felt scared that she was going to be a mother. She felt unhappy that she had been disowned by her father, but she also, you know, felt happy when her mother called to tell her that she would answer any questions that she had about pregnancy. She felt most enthusiastically about her school guidance counsellor because he had, you know, just listened to her "spill her guts" and hadn't tried to, you know, make her feel bad."</i> In other words, he wasn't disappointed that the girl's family was rejecting her when, here, she could be bearing them a grandchild, somebody to love and hopefully raise to do good in the world? How somebody can basically dismiss the positivity of life so cynically is galling.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/tangents.html">He once wrote a crazy essay</a> where he put in a disgusting paragraph that basically implied that it's okay in all instances to use "physical discipline" against women and children. He said, <i>"To me, taking it as a given that reason cannot prevail in any argument with emotion, there must come a point – with women and children – where verbal discipline has to be asserted, and if verbal discipline proves insufficient, that physical discipline be introduced. Women and children have soft, cushy buttocks which are, nonetheless, shot through with reasonably sensitive nerve endings. I believe that those buttocks are there for a very specific purpose intended by their Creator."</i> It's not often I see smut as sick as that happens to be. I can't even begin to describe how his justifications for thrashing make my skin crawl. UGH!</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-s_bkGv60io?rel=0&autoplay=1">Here's also some</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6JE3-9odHBI?rel=0&autoplay=1">video links discussing</a> Sim's justifications of domestic violence. To think that the medium once embraced this man is horrific.
On a somewhat related note, some people may know that a certain artist/cartoonist with the initials "C.D" once accused the late DC editor Julius Schwartz of supposedly attacking her sexually in a limousine in article published in <i>The Comics Journal</i> in April 2004. But her associations in the past with Sim are but one reason why I couldn't believe what she alleged, and certainly couldn't take it at face value. <a href="http://fourcolormedmon.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-unclear-accusations-against-julius.html">I'd written about this some time ago</a> on my main comics blog, and I guess I'll have to add at least one more commentary here as well. How is it possible that all those years before when she was chummy with Sim, she never noticed any of the crap he was spewing out? Why, in fact, how is it possible nobody else in the medium did either? It just simply beggars belief. Are we really supposed to think nobody could've spotted anything of the creepy stuff he'd said from the late 70s to now? I can't buy that. And it goes without saying that the limousine part is just one more contrived-sounding part in this whole bizarre mess. But what really made C.D's allegations come unglued was the failure to present the letter of apology she claimed Schwartz sent to an agent of hers (something else that's ambiguous: unlike movie stars, do cartoonists usually have talent agents? Not that I know of). Ironically, it was Sim and a colleague of his who provided some of the hints just how flaccid her accusations against Schwartz were, even as they acted hypocritically simultaneously.<br />
<br />
Another puzzler: when I took a look at an excerpt of the story C.D drew in Cerebus in 1986 that supposedly alluded to her allegation, the way it was set up made it look like it was little more than a case of an ugly quarrel she had with a guy who talked sleazy, but little else. What kind of person who supposedly went through a terrible experience waters it down into a joke? As if that weren't problematic enough, I vaguely recall finding and reading a message she wrote on the old Comicon site in 2001, where, although she admitted Sim once insulted a buddy of hers by bragging about how he thought women looked funny when they're mad, she did anything but condemn him, and as a result, I remain unconvinced she understood the really bad impact of his past commentaries (also, I think I once spotted her conversing with Dan Slott, if that's telling anything). Needless to say, if she really did make a false accusation against Schwartz, that was wrong, mainly because of the harm it can do to actual victims. It's regrettable she'd do that, because I honestly never considered her the worst the medium's got to offer. But, that's life; full of people who just aren't what they could be.<br />
<br />
So in the end, it's not that I don't want to believe a man like Schwartz was capable of pulling an offensive act. It's that I can't. Because C.D provided nothing concrete to go by. I don't think Schwartz was a saint, and I'm sure there were still infuriarating things he could've done regardless. But without solid proof, even Sim has no business trying to besmirch the guy's name, and his own writings, in and out of Cerebus, weigh against him very heavily.<br />
<br />
Sim's antics started gaining the notoriety they should've had by the late 1990s, and since then, he's been mostly shunned by a lot of other writers and artists. But it's still hard to swallow that nobody within the industry ever spotted any of his atrocious politics years before, and didn't think to distance themselves from him well before.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-27028673210549461862016-07-25T07:31:00.001-07:002016-07-25T07:31:32.796-07:00Special notes: letters I wrote to newspaper editorsI've only done it a few times to date (and I've certainly only got a handful available so far), but I've written some letters to editors of a few papers and a magazine or two to complain about articles I found offensive and misleading (and I'd <a href="http://cbddossiers.blogspot.com/2006/11/record-msm-hall-of-shame.html">already presented some of those propaganda pieces here</a>), and I decided this could be the perfect time to post them here for everyone to see and ponder. I don't know if any of these letters were published, and that's one of the reasons I thought this could be the best time to offer a look. I'm going to start with a letter I wrote to a conservative magazine, the Weekly Standard, complaining about one of Jonathan V. Last's stealth promotions of Identity Crisis, this one published in 2013:
<br />
<blockquote>
Dear editors,<br />
<br />
Almost every time Jonathan Last brings up a subject like the history of Batman, or any other DC Comics stories for that matter, he seems to have a bizarre obsession with bringing up a very repellent miniseries called Identity Crisis, as seen in his July 24 article ("How to make nerds Rejoice"). And whenever he does, it destroys whatever point he's trying to make. Not everyone may be aware of this, but back in 2004, Identity Crisis was notorious in comics-related circles for bearing a misogynist slant that trivialized rape and had an almost resolutely male chauvinist viewpoint. The most disturbing thing besides the dehumanizing take on women in the book, however, was that the story structure concealed a metaphor for blame-America propaganda of the kind seen following 9-11.<br />
<br />
Given how crudely structured Identity Crisis was, almost like a bad fanfiction tale, it's hard to understand why Last has long chosen to embrace the miniseries, even as he's claimed he detests anti-American conspiracy theories (additionally puzzling: I've never seen him actually describing the story in-depth either), and why he's sided with some of the same left-wing journalists who also supported the comic. Speaking as a right-wing "nerd", I've found Last an embarrassment to my belief system. He might want to consider that sooner or later, there are leftists out there who'll exploit his support of the miniseries for claiming there's a right-wing "war on women" the same way Obama waged propaganda on Mitt Romney in the last election.<br />
<br />
Avi Green
Jerusalem, Israel
[July 24, 2013]</blockquote>
Let this serve as an example of how I am capable of taking on a faux-conservative who did his fellow brethren a disfavor. I have no idea if the editors ever published this letter, which I emailed them the very day the original article was posted on their website, but here's what's interesting: after this, Last did not seem to have anything to say in mainstream papers and magazines for at least a year. I only found one article he'd written about comic books - in late 2014 - and it was pretty generic, about his time collecting pamphlets. He certainly didn't seem to mention Identity Crisis again to date. It's my assumption the letter had some effect, and could've embarrassed him with the senior editorial staff at the Weekly Standard, so after several articles where he blatantly tried to recommend the miniseries in stealth format, he finally wised up and quit the dishonesty. So, who knows? Maybe my letter did have some effect.<br />
<br />
Now, here's a few more written a least a year and a half later, to a handful of papers syndicating the columns of Andrew A. Smith (Nashua Telegraph, Sacramento Bee, Indiana Gazette, in example), where I brought up some of his own propaganda tactics:
<br />
<blockquote>
Dear editors,<br />
<br />
In the "Captain Comics" column published on December 28, 2014, Andrew Smith uncritically quotes Mike Madrid, author of Vixen, Vamps & Vipers: Lost Villainesses of the Golden Age of Comics, talking about how women in the 1940s could only find autonomy by "becoming evil". I see this as an insulting and downright exaggerated claim, since, while there was still sexism in society at the time, Madrid and Smith's claim does not hold up well in real life logic: if they turned to crime, it'd only figure that sooner or later, they'd be arrested, tried and jailed for criminal activity. What’s so “compelling” about that?<br />
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It’s also worth nothing that, while women’s status at the time still wasn’t all that great, there was some progress being made for what roles they could find, including jobs as aviators during WW2, and jobs as actresses, singers and fashion store owners were also pretty prominent.<br />
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I also find Mr. Smith's claim "at some level, you have to admire them" (the villainesses) insulting. I do not consider it admirable at all that a woman would turn to crime any more than a man; definitely not if it's a violent form of it. And I don’t like the near whimsical tone Mr. Smith is writing in either.<br />
<br />
Avi Green
Jerusalem, Israel [January 12, 2015]</blockquote>
Violent crime, whether committed by a man or a woman, is not an admirable act, and to suggest nothing is wrong with women committing crimes to gain "freedom" overlooks logic by galaxies. When crimes are committed, it only figures the culprits could end up in jail and become fugitives.
These are but examples of the letters I've tried writing to date. To be sure, they may not be perfect, but what really counts is how sincere and dedicated I can be. I'll try to add more as times goes by, and write still more whenever I'm reading a mainstream paper.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-47232209908909506592016-07-12T10:34:00.002-07:002017-01-14T10:24:20.944-08:00Profile: Lionheart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9geFYnysckAp5XiQrO81pVvy8fZ87J2pD0bi_Acy97ddzXM3NqK7zZQVMtetBaqdy8uK0K5ji55zUHhDGbe1wWVGXws6wBofskVAL4ipxTxYcp4eUP_R0wO6O-OlD4fkfvnh-/s1600/lionheart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9geFYnysckAp5XiQrO81pVvy8fZ87J2pD0bi_Acy97ddzXM3NqK7zZQVMtetBaqdy8uK0K5ji55zUHhDGbe1wWVGXws6wBofskVAL4ipxTxYcp4eUP_R0wO6O-OlD4fkfvnh-/s200/lionheart.jpg" width="89" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Lionheart</b></span><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Real name:</b> Kelsey Leigh<br />
<b>First appearance:</b> Avengers #77 vol. 3, March 2004<br />
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<b>History:</b> this character, created by Chuck Austen, a onetime hack writer for Marvel, and artist Oliver Copiel, debuted as a third Captain Britain. She was a divorced mother with 2 children from southern England whose house had been invaded by thieving gang rapists who left her scarred across the face with broken glass when she tried to fight back against them. Her husband Richard was too terrified to help, and this led to their divorce.<br />
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Later, she found herself stuck in the middle of a battle between the Avengers and the Wrecking Crew. After Captain America and the Wasp were downed, Kelsey came to their help by holding up Cap's shield to guard them from a blast, but suffered injuries that led to her temporary death. She was resurrected by Brian Braddock, the original Captain Britain, and given a choice between the Sword of Might or the Amulet of Right to become a replacement for Brian in the CB role. She chose the former artifact, and discovered that if she were ever to reveal to her children who she really was, it would lead to their deaths.<br />
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<b>What's wrong with how this was done?</b> Not only was Brian depicted failing to warn Leigh of the consequences coming from the wrong choice of artifacts/weapons, the story setup was unbearably cruel, separating a mother from her children, as though the gang-rape and cowardly husband premise weren't bad enough. Adding insult to injury was how all this practically made it seem as though Leigh was paying for resisting her rapists by getting slashed; as though it were wrong for her to fight back. It's practically an example of writers who hate their own creations.<br />
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And they added insult to injury by depicting Leigh joining forces with a villain called Albion because she was angry at Braddock for what happened to her.<br />
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<b>Was there anything good to come out of this?</b> Fortunately, I think Chris Claremont, still working for Marvel at the time, fixed everything in a short series he wrote called New Excalibur; sort of a sequel to the old 1988-98 series. After Albion tried to assault the UK with his own dark forces and Excalibur fights back, she finally recognizes the mistakes she made, turns back to good and helps Excalibur defeat Albion. Brian then decides to set things right by reuniting her with her children and mother, thus putting an end to a very misguided storyline.<br />
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So in a modern era where you have Marvel's modern staff turning out some of the worst ever tales you could find, there was a silver lining with this case.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22519472.post-36801537463719655682016-06-14T13:51:00.003-07:002016-07-21T21:51:41.079-07:00Record: Devin GraysonGrayson, who'd been a writer on several DC/Marvel titles from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, is an interesting case, based on her writing for Nightwing and its 93rd issue circa 2004. It was noted at the time that the story involved Nightwing becoming a male victim of a rape by ways of a villainess called Tarantula (the character she featured may not even be the first character to bear that codename). The run was already notorious for getting rid of a few adversaries Chuck Dixon developed as regulars, but the whole Tarantula affair is where it really went overboard.<br />
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What made it dreadful and insulting was that the whole scene otherwise made light of a serious issue, much like Brad Meltzer did when he wrote Identity Crisis. And this time, it was a female-vs-male form of sexual assault, taking place on a rooftop where Dick Grayson was sitting in shock at the sight of Tarantula gunning down Blockbuster in issue 93, and then, she basically raped him. It may not have been as visually obnoxious and offensive as the anal rape of Sue Dibny seen in Identity Crisis, but it was still quite disgustingly terrible. It's a prime example of the bad influences of badly written fanfiction encroaching upon superhero comics.<br />
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But, most remarkably enough, a decade after the story was published, Grayson, who originally defended the scene as "non-consensual sex", gave <a href="http://thebatmanuniverse.net/tbu-exclusive-3/">an interview to the Bat Universe in 2014</a> where she turned around and admitted her approach was poor. She said:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>I was wrong. I messed that one up and I apologize. My interview comments were uninformed and ignorant and I’m grateful for the chance to revisit the issue.</i><br />
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<i>Rape culture and the mindboggling stupid and insensitive comments some comic creators have recently made about it have been in the news a lot lately and I reject the assertion—put forth in some of those interviews—that as creators we passively reflect society and have no actual influence over it. But I do admit that it can be difficult to filter through cultural currents with the sensitivity and thoughtfulness they deserve. Our work should never be inattentively influenced by our social prejudices, but we, as humans and creators, often are.</i><br />
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<i>I used a literal rape as a metaphorical nadir, and I know better. Or, at least, I should have known better and certainly do now. I was concentrating so hard on other elements of that scene which felt so much more narratively significant to me (Blockbuster’s murder, primarily) that I totally lost sight of the power and non-symbolic consequence of the gesture I was using. By the time I realized the severity of the mistake and how harmful it might have been to actual survivors of sexual abuse and assault (myself included), I had run out of time to make it right. I’m not sure I could have made it right, mind you, but I did at least have the intention of bringing the story back around to it so that the act didn’t exist completely devoid of consequence or analysis. But it does, and I regret that more deeply than I can say. So many factors went into that debacle—including an avalanche of increasingly arbitrary and bizarre crossover demands from upper editorial and the company’s failure to honor previously approved story outlines—but the responsibility for the ineffectiveness and potential harmfulness of that scene lies solely with me.</i><br />
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<i>I would not shy away from tackling the subject of rape again but I would work with it only if I could approach it head on. It’s too charged of an issue to be used to reflect something else. If I could do it over again, I would make very different choices.</i></blockquote>
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While this was written years after she'd stopped working for DC, it's amazing to learn that there's a writer out there who made a mistake but was willing to own up for it. That's a very admirable show of courage to take responsibility for making light of serious issues.<br />
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It's also saying a lot more than can be said for Meltzer, who, unlike Grayson, has never admitted his approach in Identity Crisis was distasteful and belittling to victims of sexual abuse. It's had me wondering why a woman can admit to failure, but a man will not.<br />
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For now, it's certainly amazing that somebody in comicdom, mainstream or otherwise, is willing to show the courage to admit to error in storytelling development. Grayson's show of guts is something to appreciate.Avi Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18279593764770556442noreply@blogger.com0