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.

Record: Dave Sim

Now 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.

• 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.
• In the mid-90s, he indicated that he saw nothing wrong with a Vietnamese family disowning their daughter for getting pregnant. He said in that insanity, "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." 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.
• He once wrote a crazy essay 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, "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." 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!

Here's also some video links discussing 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 The Comics Journal 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. I'd written about this some time ago 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.

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.

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.

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.

Special notes: letters I wrote to newspaper editors

I'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 already presented some of those propaganda pieces here), 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:

Dear editors,

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.

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.

Avi Green Jerusalem, Israel [July 24, 2013]

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.

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:

Dear editors,

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?

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.

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.

Avi Green Jerusalem, Israel [January 12, 2015]

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.

Profile: Lionheart

Lionheart

Real name: Kelsey Leigh
First appearance: Avengers #77 vol. 3, March 2004

History: 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.

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.

What's wrong with how this was done? 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.

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.

Was there anything good to come out of this? 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.

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.

Record: Devin Grayson

Grayson, 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.

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.

But, most remarkably enough, a decade after the story was published, Grayson, who originally defended the scene as "non-consensual sex", gave an interview to the Bat Universe in 2014 where she turned around and admitted her approach was poor. She said:

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Profile: Lucy Lane

Lucy Lane

First appearance: Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, April 1959

History: the younger sister of Lois Lane, she began as an airline stewardess and occasional girlfriend of Jimmy Olsen's. When the DCU was reworked in 1986, she was reintroduced as more of an air traffic controller.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the early 1970s, she was seemingly killed in issue 120 of Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane after a boating accident in Latin America.

What's wrong with how this was done? Depending on your viewpoint, the story from SGFLL was handled far better than a lot of the nastiest storylines DC put out in the post-Crisis era. It did serve as a motivation for Lois in the remaining years of her own series, who quit her job at the Daily Planet at the time and became a freelancer.

Was there anything good to come out of this? A short time later, Lucy was found alive in the series where she'd first debuted, SPJO, towards the end of its own run in the early 70s (both series ended in 1974 and were replaced by the semi-anthological Superman Family, which ran for at least 8 years). She continued into the post-Crisis era and had some pretty good stories built around her.

Profile: Aquaman

Aquaman

First appearance: More Fun Comics #73, 1941

History: coming 2 years after Sub-Mariner's debut in early Marvel books, Aquaman was easily the second most famous seabound superhero, although it was in the Silver Age when Arthur Curry really became significant with the first solo series that ran during 1962-71. It was in this series where Mera was introduced and they married for many years. His creators were Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the 2nd issue of the mid-90s series written by Peter David (from September 1994), Arthur lost his left hand after a verminous villain named Charybdis - who paralyzed his ability to communicate with sea life - forced it into a piranha-infested pool, where it was promptly turned into mincemeat. He later replaced it with a short harpoon-style blade, not unlike what Captain Hook's got in Peter Pan.

What's wrong with how this was done? Coming at a time when Kevin Dooley - who turned out to be one of DC's worst editors in the 90s - was at work, this was a pretty gratuitous attempt to make the Sea King more "badass". His personality was soon rendered more aggressive and unhinged, and it's apparent Dooley and company were going out of their way to make Aquaman not all that different from other superheroes at the time, who just had to have "drive" so people could supposedly identify with them.

Even today, with overrated writers like Geoff Johns in charge, this hasn't changed so much. Aquaman may have regained his left hand since, but the grisly tone Dooley started (and Johns amplified) still prevails.

Record: Dan Slott

Of all the unqualified writers Marvel/DC could hire as part of their closed-shop clique since the mid-2000s, Slott is one of the worst. He's been part of Joe Quesada's mandate to wipe out the Spider-Marriage, and there have been a few more lugubrious steps he's taken in the career he's had this century. I'll list at least 2 examples for now.

• He wrote a story in 2014 where Peter Parker's body was taken over by Doctor Octopus, leading to a tacky series called "The Superior Spider-Man", and a storyline where Otto Octavious, in the body of Peter, makes "love" to Mary Jane Watson. Which is basically rape in disguise, as a women's topics website put it.
• Almost a year later at the Florida Supercon, he went along and justified Joe Quesada/Axel Alonso's opposition to the marriage by saying that Mary Jane is "anti-Marvel", by claiming, "Everyone Peter falls in love with is so classically beautiful, and to me that is anti-Marvel." In other words, he was saying that everything Stan Lee ever thought of conceiving was wrong, while at the same time he implies beautifully structured characters/people are bad ideas. (Next thing you know, he'll be saying Edgar Rice Burroughs and Will Eisner were wrong to make Dejah Thoris and Sheena the Jungle Queen beauties!) And, he completely obscures all the characteristics ever applied to Mary Jane in better days. His defense is superficial at worst, and super-cheap.

Slott is bound to go down in history as one of the worst, most self-important and self-justifying writers, a true embarrassment if there ever was one.

Another try

How long has it been since I last posted anything on this particular blog of mine? About 6 years, I guess. Which is long enough.

Within that time, there have been things happening, and little or none of it was for the better. Like DC and Marvel alike rebooting their universes, pandering to advocates of "diversity" by changing the racial makeup of their cast members - and even their sexual orientation - instead of creating new characters. They've even been pandering to extreme left politics and advocates of censorship (know today as "social justice warriors", for example), all at the expense of everything that ever made the older material work well. And all under the protection of a press that's been backing them to the fullest, without any consideration whether the steps they're taking are making things worse.

As a result, I've been thinking lately that maybe I should try to add a few more entries to this blog, since there are a few more examples, probably even coming from smaller publishers, that will come in as vital information to get an idea what's going wrong with today's comics medium. I'd posted entries for various female characters, and also men, since both sexes have been victims of the political correctness in many ways, and I'll try to add some more. It'll probably take time, since I am busy with other matters and can't always find the time today to write about exactly what I'd want to.

For now, let this be a message that I'm still around to work on this little experiment of mine, and I'm going to keep trying to do more for it. Have a good February 2016.

Conclusion again

It's time again to give it a rest
Well, I guess in my second effort to prove more items that I think could come in helpful, I've done what I could.

It's a shame that, just when I thought there might be light at the end of the tunnel, I and others of my standing were proven wrong. Both DC and Marvel have just kept going with their deaths for the sake of both that and publicity stunts, among other actions that simply register as tasteless. No valid or convincing human drama, no nothing, just more violence, deaths, and other vulgar acts for the sake of desperate publicity is what they're doing.

Worst part is how Geoff Johns and Joe Quesada were promoted to "chief creative officers" for their companies, and neither are any good, as time has told.

Sooner or later, Marvel and DC are going to find that their incompetence and lack of communication with the wider audience will lead to the shutdown of their book publishing divisions, and a large trail of destruction will be left behind.

Is there a way to save these great works of serial fiction? IMO, the best way to do that would be for someone with the money and an interest in the book publishing world to buy the comic book publishing arms of DC and Marvel, meaning that they'd be seperate from the toy and movie divisions (if Atari could split into 2 companies, as they did for nearly a decade, it's possible the same could be done with DC and Marvel). They could also shift to a format other than pamphlets with longer lifespans like trade/prestige format, and that could be the way to go. They could also do away with a lot of the junk this past decade has seen coughed up. Then, maybe they could regain the energy they once had.

But for now, that's just a pipe dream. I do hope that maybe someone who cares, loves superhero comics and has the money it takes can do as I suggest one day. Until then, there's no way we can tell what the future will hold for us.

Now, it's time once again to retire this blog, and only hope that one day, luck will turn the good way again for DC and Marvel.

Profile: Sif

Sif
First appearance: Journey into Mystery #102, March 1964

History: the sister of Heimdall and childhood friend of Thor and Balder the Brave, she had been born with golden hair like many other Asgardians, but due to a nasty trick played by Loki, and an attempt he made to fix it, she developed black hair instead. Thor thought she looked even lovelier as a brunette, and thus, Loki's attempt to ruin their happiness failed.

Current status: on Earth with a few other Asgardians, Thor included, in Oklahoma.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: during 2007-2008, when J. Michael Stracynski was writing Thor, and the Asgardians were reborn on Earth in the bodies of humans, he had Sif reborn in the body of an old woman suffering from cancer, with only a special mirror to help show her real image.

What's wrong with how this was done? Knowing Stracynski's modus operandi since the turn of the century, it doesn't take much to figure for starters that anything he does will be like turning gold into straw instead of lovely brunette hair - and his subversion of Sif to the sidelines during that weak story was, for lack of a better word, insulting.

Thankfully, as the storyline ended, her whereabouts were figured out, and she was taken out of the old woman's body and restored to normal. And we can only hope Stracynski never gets his mitts on Thor and the other Asgardians ever again, nor Spider-Man, for that matter.

Record: J. Michael Stracynski

A long overrated writer who first got his start mainly film producing and scripting, most notably with Babylon 5, a Star Trek ripoff, his track record with female characters isn't particularly impressive. Here are at least 2 examples of his own mistakes:

• He may have said he was against it, but he went along with whatever rewrites Joe Quesada did to Sins Past, and tarnished the image of Gwen Stacy, making her look more like a mindless slut than a flawed but otherwise decent girl, by implying that she had sex with Norman Osborn and had 2 kids as a result. Even if the resulting atrocity wasn't entirely his fault, the story he had in mind was pretty lame and needless to begin with, so I'm not excusing him so easily.
• He claimed he was against it, to the point of wanting his name removed from the writer's credits, but he went along with One More Day anyway, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's sellout to Mephisto, and the erasure of the Spider-Marriage following one of the worst crossover tie-ins to date, Civil War. Given his prominent stature as a Hollywood producer, I've got a hard time believing it was that hard for him to refuse, and save himself a lot of embarrassment.
• When he was writing Thor for at least a year, he had Sif reborn within the body of an elderly woman named Mrs. Chambers who was suffering from cancer, courtesy of Loki's meddling.
  
• His plans for Wonder Woman, changing her timeline and all but reducing the Greek mythology in her background, for 2010's storyline, leave me with even less reason to buy that he's sincere.

As far as I'm concerned, Stracynski is nothing but a big charlatan with little true devotion to what makes Marvel and DC heroes tick, and little interest in real character development or interaction (he didn't use the supporting cast in Spidey much, if at all, nor did he try to come up with any new ones who could be used long-term. If he did though, I fear they would've been more along the lines of political correctness; he is a boilerplate Hollywood liberal, after all). He should not be working in comics, and it's high time already for him to go back to Tinseltown where he belongs.

Profile: Alanna Strange

Alanna Strange
First appearance: Showcase #17, November 1958

History: the daughter of a humanoid scientist named Sardath on the planet Rann, she later became the wife of Adam Strange, the archaeologist who was transported across the galaxy courtesy of a Zeta ray, an invention of her father's, where Adam became a hero of the peoples of Rann (as the story went for many years, it had the annoying effect of wearing off and teleporting him back to Earth when he wasn't hoping for it). She joined him on many adventures in their galaxy sector, including some team-ups with the Hawks of Thanagar.

Current status: still adventuring, and mother to a young daughter as well.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the miniseries Adam Strange: Man of Two Worlds from 1990, it was revealed that Rann's population had a negative opinion of him, and he'd just been teleported there to serve as a breeding stud (there had already been allusions to this premise first featured in an issue of Swamp Thing in 1987 written by Alan Moore). Alanna died while giving birth to their daughter Aleea. Adam was left feeling disgusted and disillusioned with Rann and went back to Earth where he dated another girl for awhile.

What's wrong with how this was done? Adam and Alanna Strange were more victims of political correctness, and possibly even that DC's writers were ashamed of their own stable of amazing works as supposedly too silly for words.

Was there anything good to come out of this? Thankfully, almost 8 years later, in JLA #20, Alanna's fate was reversed (written at a time when Grant Morrison was relatively better in handling superhero comics), and she and her daughter were reunited with Adam.

Even so, her initial fate was an early example of the kind of political correctness that ruined a lot of 1990s comics.

Profile: Tana Moon

Tana Moon
First appearance: Adventures of Superman #501, June 1993.

History: the first love of Superboy, when Kon-El was debuting, she was a reporter for the fictional Galaxy Network Broadcasting company who gained some of her fame as a result of the Boy of Steel's provision of an exclusive interview for her. They maintained an on-off relationship for several years.

Current status: dead

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: died at the hands of Amanda Spence in 2000, via electrocution.

What's wrong with how this was done? I've got a sad feeling it was done less as a motivation for Superboy and more as a wish by the editors to just discard cast members as they were coming to the point of cancellation for the Superboy series.

Worst, she may have bitten the big weenie because she's not literally Lois Lane.

Profile: Mirage

Danielle Moonstar, Mirage
First appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4: The New Mutants, 1982

History: an American Indian girl from Colorado, she has the ability to create illusions that could be based on her opponents' fears or wishes. She even acquired magical powers after an adventure in Asgard. She is of Cheyenne background, and was a leading member of the New Mutants and X-Force for many years.

Current status: unclear.

Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination: during House of M, she was among many mutants who lost their powers. And Emma Frost threw her out of the Xavier school because she thought that without powers, she didn't belong.

What's wrong with how this was done? It's pretty obvious by now that House of M was not worth the paper it was printed on. But the story in New X-Men #22 in 2006 where Frost gave her an eviction notice only adds insult to injury. When Storm lost her powers for almost 2 years back in the 1980s, Prof. Xavier didn't tell her to scram, and recognized that even without superpowers, she could still be quite effective. What was done 4 years ago with Moonstar and Frost is just one more stupid example of writing that makes the latter look like a cad, which is not a good idea even for an anti-heroine.

And what's really sad is that one of the best characters who graduated from the New Mutants years ago has now been reduced to a state of mediocrity.

Record: James Robinson

There isn't much I can think of to say about this once-lauded writer who penned the adventures of the original Starman's son in the 1990s, since it was only recently that he screwed up, big time. But what I have to offer for now is related to the miniseries where he threw all his credibility as a scriptwriter out the window - "Cry for Justice".

• Some people have criticized Kara Zor-El's depiction since 2004 as over-sexualized. In Cry for Justice, such arguments were certainly valid - one of the advertisements for this junk featured her depicted "headless", that is, almost all her body but not the head, which is ridiculous, and the inner story pretty much featured this absurdity at least once more too. Robinson and company even insulted people's intellects with a coverscan that showed Supergirl and Capt. Marvel Jr. kissing, but not only does this not take place in the story, it turns out to be Prometheus in disguise.
• At the end of this abomination, which saw a few characters killed for starters, Star City is destroyed along with close to 100,000 other people, and among the dead is Lian Harper, Roy Harper's daughter with Cheshire. All this in order to send Roy and mentor Ollie Queen down the road to darkness. To make matters worse, when Green Arrow shoots Prometheus to death at the end, in a followup miniseries the Justice League is depicted turning against him, including Barry Allen, sadly enough, because dealing out punishment against a supervillain for a violent crime is apparently illegal. Simply stupefying.

Robinson may have once been well regarded as a writer. But to do a hack job that was superfluous and only furthering the flood of contrived shock tactics and publicity stunts DC has become notorious for this past decade - destroys any notion he's sincere. Some of the worst storytelling effects in the DCU came as a result of their publicity stunts over the years. Robinson is not making things any better by collaborating in all these efforts.

Profile: Sarah Essen Gordon

Sarah Essen Gordon
First appearance: Batman #405, March 1987

History: first introduced in the Batman: Year One story told in 1987, she was a detective partnered with Commisioner James Gordon who'd had an affair with him that led to the breakup of his first marriage. She later returned and revived her relationship with James Gordon, becoming his second wife.

Current status: dead since Detective Comics #741.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the No Man's Land story of the late 90s, while trying to rescue a group of infants from the Joker, who was holding them hostage in the GCPD basement, the Clown Prince of Crime forced her to have to catch one of the infants, and following that, gunned her to death in the head. James Gordon, who'd caught up with them, could only react by shooting the Joker in the leg.

What's wrong with how this was done? A grave result of overusing the Joker because he signals sales spikes, this was particularly atrocious, not just because of how only so many minor characters or even unnamed civilians were being turned into sacrifices, but also because of how neither Jim nor anyone else was written as having what it took to deal the Joker the death blow he was asking for. How many more people have to be slaughtered in cold blood by the Clown Prince of Crime before this particular supervillain is finally put to death for his obscenities and abominations?

In the time since this terrible story was written, the Joker's use has been downplayed, but if you're familiar with how things are going under the reign of Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns in the past decade, you'll know they haven't improved, thus, no credit can be given.

Profile: White Queen

Emma Frost, White Queen

First appearance: Uncanny X-Men #129, January 1980

History: she began as a member of the Hellfire Club, a gathering of mutants, and later became the leader of the Hellions, a kind of rival group to the New Mutants. After the Hellions were later slain by another gang of enemies, she talked the X-Men into accepting her as a member, became one of their closest allies, becoming one of the leaders of Generation X alongside Banshee. Her power is usually telepathy.

Current status: may still be hooked up with Cyclops.

Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination: her personality depiction has been rather scattershot. She's been depicted as a vixen, a nutcase (and it was told at one time in GenX that she'd been in a mental institution), and even manipulative/exploitive. The writers/artists have sometimes even gone into the theater of the absurd with how she's depicted wearing almost slutty outfits.

What's wrong with how this is done? It seems like Marvel's powers are hell-bent on "normalizing" her very exploitive personality that she's been depicted with since the turn of the century. It's certainly not very appealing. She's even been made into Cyclops' paramour at Jean Grey's expense (and as of this writing, Jean may still be dead). Big problem is that she seems to be manipulating him, implying it's not a very authentic relationship.

In 2004, there was a miniseries telling (or rewriting) her background, and one of the problems with that was the covers, which were not only drawn by Greg Horn, a photo-realist artist with very stagnant talents, but also depicted her several times in that very questionable costume, making it a very discouraging and embarrassing product.

On top of all that, I'm not very impressed with how they've "developed" Frost in this decade gone by, and think it could use a very serious improvement.

Special notes: cities and unnamed civilians

In some, if not all, of these nasty cases that have taken place since the early 1990s with established characters being killed off and villified, some of those who've suffered the worst next to them include whole cities and even tons of nameless civilians. DC is a serious offender in this, and Marvel has a few cases of their own too. This will be a special list of all cases I can think of where innocent nameless bystanders were also turned into horrific sacrifices.

Bloodlines
Here is one of the first crossovers where quite a few people ended up in a pool of blood. The idea of this reprehensible story was to introduce at least a few new superhero characters (including Anima, Argus, Gunfire and Hitman), most of whom vanished after barely 2 years. A race of aliens who can do things like what Aliens, The Terminator and Predator already featured, comes to earth to suck the spinal fluid out of humans at random, or even devour them altogether, and shed quite a bit of blood in the process. Challenging question: did they truly need to make this a bloodsoaked story in order to introduce these newcomers to the superhero community? Or couldn't they have done so in their own stand-alone stories, even within a miniseries of their own?

When the editors who mandated this can only resort to crossovers as a means of introducing new characters, or even serving as a lead-in to the same, that's what shows a severe lack of creativity, and an inability to create stories that can stand and be marketed on their own. It all culminated in a finale titled Bloodbath, which caps it with a manhole cover.

Coast City
This was certainly one of the most notable, when Mongul destroyed Hal Jordan's hometown, and later on, Hal went insane in despair. So many people may have gone down courtesy of this, and what was the point? Apparently, to destroy almost everything that made the GL Corp's amazing background, which signals that, despite initial work on nostalgic storytelling in the 90s, they were certainly not going in that direction with GL, if they were going to otherwise make Kyle Rayner the only Green Lantern for at least a few years.

Keystone City
When Geoff Johns took over the Flash, there was alarming violence and destruction on a level probably never seen before in the Scarlet Speedster's title, and the aforementioned Blood Will Run atrocity certainly saw quite a few bodies piled up in the morgue. And, even if the rest of his initial run didn't have as many bodies, it still featured more than enough wanton destruction and violence to sink a ship. (Did I mention issue 195, where the Top used a ludicrous eyesight bending power to cause Wally West quite a vomit-inducing headache? And if Wally could get his head knocked up that bad, we can only wonder if everyone else on the dock...)

Slorenia
This was the name of a fictionalized European country featured in the Ultron Unlimited storyline in the Avengers in 1998 that got wiped out by Ultron and an army of other robots he built. I have more respect for Kurt Busiek than I do for Geoff Johns, but this, to be honest, has me feeling depressed and wondering today if it was a good idea to take Ultron that far as a supervillain. After all, it would be one thing if Ultron had slaughtered a small number of people, but a whole country? Unless we look at this as a section of the former USSR, this can be troubling, and even bothersome as to whether it works or not.

Star City
Happened just recently, and was definitely one of the most disgusting and poorly written storylines, with not just Lian Harper biting the bullet, but also close to 100,000 other unnamed souls in Green Arrow's main home burg. James Robinson and company at DC fell back on the same mistake made with Green Lantern in 1994, coughing out a pointless story nobody asked for, and Robinson threw away his credibility as a writer.

This is what the list will comprise for now. In time, I'll see if there's any more input I can add. For now, I will say that DC is definitely the worse offender in terms of over-the-top violence on a global scale, and has been since as early as 1993. Also the most pointless when it comes to their awful violence-laden stunts.