Helping women with Wonder Woman

Some of you may not know this but October 25th is Wonder Woman Day. CBR has an impressive rundown of the event by one of the founders here. This is a day to celebrate Wonder Woman, duh, but it's also for a great cause. Even if you're not going to be anywhere near Portland or New Jersey to meet famous comic book writers & artists, you can bid on awesome pieces of art done for the day online. Every piece of art bought goes to a very important charity - helping Shelters for Victims of Domestic Violence. I'm not terribly rich but I'm happy to donate time and attention to this wonderful day and wonderful cause. If you want to just stop reading here and click on over to thumb through the amazing gallery of Wonder Woman sketches for sale, I completely understand. Please donate even a little something, if you can.

Still here? Okay, time to get personal.

I know some people don't really "get" Wonder Woman and that's fine. Some people like chocolate, some people like rum raisin. What this day is, however, is a pure celebration of the spirit of the character as she's come to be known - the premier superheroine of the modern age. The character who little girls pretend to be when they play superhero, embracing the idea of the strong woman for the first time. Paradise Island, the Invisible Jet and the Golden Lariat are as part of the cultural landscape as Kryptonite and Alfred the Butler.

I know she's got her detractors but I love her. Yes, she's a deliriously complex character with so many facets that even great writers get a little lost getting a handle on her and too few even try. Still, that's part of why she's so fascinating. Batman, Superman, they can be summed up in a simple phrase or two. Wonder Woman - Diana of Themyscria - is a warrior and an ambassador of peace. Both an outsider and also the most trustworthy person in the DC Universe (even Superman doesn't have a rope brushing against his hip that renders him incapable of lying all the time). Complexity in comic book characters should always be celebrated and I love Wonder Woman as a character even when I don't care for her book.

To be honest, the last time I really enjoyed reading Wonder Woman was under Greg Rucka's pen (no slight to the fantastic Gail Simone but all the continual doses of tragedy and seriousness in her run leave me a bit cold). Greg Rucka wrote Wonder Woman as the one person in the DCU to have the strength to do what Batman and Superman could never, ever do (possibly should never, ever do, given their characters) and the heart to know what exactly what it would cost her. I know it put some people off but that? That's a hero I can both admire and understand. That's a soldier saving lives. That's a cop making a hard decision. That's a woman who makes hard choices. That's somebody I'd want a daughter to look up to as an example. Hell, I could make a long post about Rucka's Wonder Woman of it's very own but I won't, as it's already getting late.

In the end, I'm just thrilled Wonder Woman finally has a day to call her own. The fantastic cause it's supporting makes it even better.

Haiku Reviews for 02/07/09

Two out of the four books I got this week had men bleeding on their covers. I am clearly into GRIM and GRITTY. On a side note, I remain disappointed that I cannot find the first issues of Incognito and Farscape anywhere. I may have to go back to having a freakin' pull list. Sheesh.

ARRRR! SPOILERS, AHOY!
LIKE PIRATES ON THE HIGH SEAS!
I PREFER NINJAS.

Wonder Woman #28 - A
Gail Simone, Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan

Not fond of Tresser
But that Winged Armor spread
Was KICK-ASS. Plus, apes!

Astonishing X-Men 28 - B-
Warren Ellis, Simone Bianchi, Andrea Silvestri

Story delights but
Art is like Heavy Metal
With contrast broken.

Secret Six #6 - A+
Gail Simone, Nicola Scott, Doug Hazelwood

Shocks abound in this
But Deadshot's actions astound.
Say it ain't so, Floyd!

Daredevil #115 - B
Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, Tonci Zonjic & Stefano Gaudiano, Matt Hollingsworth

Matt and Iron Fist!
Ninjas! Drunk Master Izo!
Still, pretty grim tale.

Lookin' Wonderful

So, if you're interested, you can see the trailer for the new animated Wonder Woman DVD here. I liked it but that last line caused a bit of a disconnect. WTF? I mean, on Paradise Island, I thought that "hitting a lady" - i.e. Amazonian combat training and friendly scrapping - would be #2 on the number things done daily.
With #1 being the daily worship of the Goddesses of the Greek Pantheon, of course. What were you thinking was #1? Perverts.

In any case, I'm sure it's just one line taken out of context and therefore no reason to freak out and slam the film. Unlike some fans out there, I am actually capable of not overreacting hysterically to something like one line of dialogue in a minute long preview. Plus, I hear that Gail Simone herself wrote the script and in Gail we trust. Anybody else giddy about the new Secret Six series coming out? I'm gonna miss Knockout and Scandal's relationship - I just got used to and liked the "Klingon-y" version of Knockout, instead of the double-entendre spewing version from early Superboy issues, when they went and killed her off for a crap crossover - but I'm very hopeful that the "A-list BatVillain" in the upcoming series will be Catwoman. A Simone-Catwoman with Catman would be pretty damn interesting, no?

But hey! Back to the subject at hand. Check out this awesome as all hell featurette featuring Keri Russel, Nathan Fillion and Rosario Dawson (aw, Waitress reunion!):



If that doesn't pacify any worries, I don't know what will. I think this looks excessively kick-ass and I LOVE that explanation of the star-spangled bustier.

Your thoughts, gang?

I have strange thoughts

THE WORLD: "Okay, what exactly is the hold up here? Seriously! You knew this was coming! We made plans two weeks ago! Look, it's not hard. We told you the dinner reservation was for 7:30 and it's already 7:20. Do you even know how hard it is to get reservations for 6 billion people? This is just great. We're so gonna be late. Definitely going to be late now. Great going, Princess! Are ya happy? Happy now?"

WONDER WOMAN: "Well, maybe if one freakin' tenth of you just got up off your global asses and helped me find my Invisible Jet, we wouldn't be running late now would we?"

THE WORLD: "Hey! We're all ready! We've been ready! All six billion of us!"

WONDER WOMAN: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I GET IT ALREADY! I'm SORRY, okay? Maybe if any of your sorry, ungrateful little asses had to spend all day fighting for YOUR OWN GODDAMN RIGHTS, you'd understand that people with REAL JOBS run late now and aga- GORGON'S SPIT! Where the STINKING TARTARUS is MY FREAKIN' JET?!? SERIOUSLY! GREAT $*#%ING HERA! AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIGGH!"


*AWKWARD SILENCE*


THE WORLD: ". . . yeeaaaah, soooooooo . . . it's 7:25 now, so maybe we could just-"

WONDER WOMAN: "SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPIHATEYOUALLSOMUCHSHUTUP"

A Question of Empowerment

While taking a break from trying to hammer out a decent Scott and/or Emma post, I found David P. Morgan's thoughts on Vol. 3 of Empowered at this link, over at the Precocious Curmudgeon (via the always awesome When Fangirls Attack). I generally try to keep things light and breezy here at The LookOut but I did get into a discussion with David P. Morgan on his critique of a portion of the book that he felt took away from his overall enjoyment of the volume. My thoughts in response to his are here.

Here's the thing about Empowered - it's one of my favorite books on the stands. Adam Warren's always been one of my favorite writers (he once created a "Proust Bomb" that stuck people in an extended flashback for God's sake). I'm not alone in my love of this series, by any means. Empowered is hilarious, romantic and filled with wonderful character vignettes.

The problem is that the series itself can often be misinterpreted or flat-out problematic due to it's origins and recurring themes. Defending the series can get a person into tricky waters because not many people realize how smart, self-aware and thoughtful it is. The major trouble with Empowered stems from the fact that Adam Warren was paying the bills by doing commissions of the "Damsel in Distress" variety - a fact he flat-out admits in the 4th-wall breaking early chapter ilios of Empowered itself. Understandably, a great many people have a problem with enjoying any superheroine whose origin is so steeped in bondage tropes, despite the high quality of the story.


(more on Mr. William Moulton Marston can be found here)

Being a ferociously intelligent, creative writer/artist whose previous works have (with only two exceptions) all been focused on powerful female leads, Mr. Warren inevitably found himself transforming these commissions into a full-fledged character study. He began to explore and turn the unpleasant trope on it's head by flip-flopping the power dynamic. One assumes that people who are entertained by the distasteful notion of superheroines in distress (and Ami Angelwings discusses that unpleasant kink at considerable length here) are seeking out a negation of the most powerful woman they can find.



But instead of a stalwart, uber-powerful Amazon Princess being tied up by her own lariat, Empowered is a neurotic, unhappy C-list superheroine whose capture is often the result of her own lack of faith in herself. Empowered becomes a real, hurting human being and the reader is called not to revel in her failures but to feel for her defeats and enjoy her personal and all-too-rare professional triumphs. This is a character whose problems seem very real because she has her feet planted so firmly on the ground.



In another "real world" touch, Empowered is extremely self-conscious about her body and how it is shown in her supersuit - a suit which embarrasses her because it is mercilessly revealing and not at all the sort of thing she dreamed of wearing growing up. In one of the ilios, she flat out begs the reader not to stare at her butt, which is the part of her body she's most self-conscious about.



Empowered has an equally fleshed-out supporting cast, full of characters I love. There's her best friend, former superninja for hire Ninjette, The Caged Demonwolf, who is an amusingly verbose world-destroying demon trapped in a belt on her coffee table, and her loving boyfriend and former minion, Thugboy. As an interesting aside, the trope of a "bad girl gone good for the love of Superhero X" is prevalent - i. e., Catwoman - but I can't think of any other bad guys gone good besides Thugboy. I digress but it's an interesting note to make that Warren's turning yet another trope on it's head here. Not only is Thugboy redeemed by Empowered's genuineness and sweetness, her best friend and even a would-be world destroyer are all mellowed and intrigued by her honesty and openness. People closest to her love her for who she is and she loves them back in kind.



The dynamic between Empowered and Thugboy remains one of the most surprisingly sweet romances I've read in a long time. When Warren writes something as simple as how to comfort the person you're sleeping with when they have nightmares, I get a little gooey inside. This is a relationship I can believe in because it is a relationship of equals. Empowered is a real person with real problems, much like her boyfriend's own negative and unhappy past. He is amazed by her and her bravery - fighting in an unreliable supersuit with teammates that either hate or dismiss her, all because she feels compelled to do that which is right - and woos her on her own terms. He may have been a thug once but now he's her thug and trying to make amends, for both their sakes.



I know I'm taking some fairly cheap shots at Wonder Woman here, which is another title I actually adore (well, under Simone or Rucka's hand at least). It's not entirely a fair comparison but it is one I thought I'd bring to people's attention. The real failure, if we want to throw stones, is that I can't find Supergirl or Batgirl even remotely as interesting, real or emotionally affecting as I do Empowered. When Empowered puts on a costume, she's a scared young woman trying to do right. When Supergirl puts on a costume, she's a blow-up doll no real emotional center for the reader to latch onto. She's a walking torso nobody's bothered to give a personality yet.



The tragedy is that, as a wit on Scans_Daily (and yes, I know Scans_Daily can be more than a little abrasive sometimes) put it, "Define Irony:
A) When DC and Marvel try to create "deep," "meaningful," "realistic" stories, they produce sexist, fascist, retarded exploitation pseudo-porn.
B) When Adam Warren tries to create exploitation pesudo-porn, he produces adorable, relatable characters who manage to reveal hidden depths."

DC responds to criticisms of Batgirl's character assassination by offering a new mini-series to explain the changes . . . written by the very writer who mutilated her in the first place. Brian Michael Bendis responds to having Tigra be repeatedly beaten and threatened in her own bedroom with a snarky Fish Man allegory. Supergirl gets writer after writer and none of them succeed at making her interesting or creating a core to the character people can relate to. Adam Warren, on the other hand, has responded to criticism of the series on his Deviant Art page with apologies and a promise that future reprintings will ship with a clarified and redrawn page of a scene that troubled some people (and the person I link to here admitted in the same enraged thread that the ending was so touching, she cried). His series has several problematic aspects but, shock of shocks, he actually admits they exist and tries to address them.

So my major problem here isn't that Empowered, vol. 3 has taken a misstep because an intelligent, thoughtful writer tried to deepen the series - taking the comedy out of the equation in two of the chapters to provide contrast between how she is treated and the true potential she wields. No, my real problem is that so many more well-known superheroines aren't being given the same basic consideration as Empowered.

How many of them are treated like human beings with hearts, minds and feelings? Batgirl and Supergirl are unrelatable girls who either turn evil or fly around aimlessly from alternate reality adventure to future adventure. When Wonder Woman seeks out a romance, fans decry her for trying to step off a pedestal and act like a human being. Diana's swung away so hard from her unsavory beginnings as a bondage trope, Simone's facing scathing criticism for daring to suggest she's lonely and willing to date somebody (incredibly) less than perfect. And poor Tigra's probably never going to be seen again. If Bendis actually makes her a New Avenger like he should (considering she sacrificed the safety of her own family to help them), I'll be flat-out stunned.

With all that said, here is where Empowered's story is going in the next volume:



I think that speaks for itself, really. Now the question becomes "Where are any of the more famous Superheroines' stories going?"

Okay, so I have to add one last thing - the guy in the French Maid costume in the back? That's going to be the Empverse version of Batman. I told you all it was hilarious.

This Just In

-Wonder Woman/Nerds OTP!!1!



-And over at the Invincible Super-Blog, the always excellent Chris Sims has introduced the world to Helen Killer. The comments section of Chris' thread on this topic has become an instaclassic. But what is Helen Killer about, I hear you ask?



“In 1901, twenty-one year old college student Helen Keller, with the aid of a fantastical device invented by her friend and mentor Alexander Graham Bell, regains her sight and hearing as well as near super-human strength and agility. Helen is enlisted by the Secret Service to protect Presdident William McKinley, who has been targeted for assassination by anarchists.”

The only logical thing to do with this book is to buy it. Possibly two copies.

Haiku Reviews for 1/23/08

Since they seemed quite popular last time 'round, please enjoy another set of my patented Haiku Reviews!*
*patent pending


Look, there are SPOILERS -
So if you haven't read these
You should do that now.

She-Hulk #25 - Peter David & Shawn Moll plus backup story artists - C+

Jen whines, sulks and snarks
Living in a trailer park
"My Name Is She-Hulk?"

BONUS HAIKU for the Back-Up Stories:

Juggy sex? 4th wall?
Taunting the fandom's tacky
Funny! But tacky.

Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of Blood #4 - Greg Rucka & Diego Olmos - B

If I ever hit
On a woman with no face
Send me to Arkham

Young Avengers Presents - Patriot #1 - Ed Brubaker & Paco Medina - B+

Patriot and Kate?
Warlock and some Bucky too?
Past due, but good start.

Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash #4 - James Kuhoric & Jason Craig - C


. . . I never once thought
I'd see Freddy Krueger steal
A line from Watchmen.

Marvel Zombies 2 #4 - Robert Kirkman & Sean Phillips - C-

I'm also quite shocked
That zombie superheroes
Could become boring.

The Order #7 - Matt Fraction & Barry Kitson - B

Hellrung and Namor
Face off David Mamet-style.
. . . No, it's good! Really!

Astonishing X-Men #24 - Joss Whedon & John Cassady - A-

Some of this felt off
But a planet-sized bullet?
TOO AWESOME FOR WORDS

The Ultimates 3 #2 - Jeph Loeb & Joe Madureira - C+

Jeph Loeb's Ultimates,
Bob Saget's Aristocrats
"Whoa . . . THAT GUY did THIS?"

(note: above Haiku link INCREDIBLY NSFW due to language)

Wonder Woman #16 - Gail Simone & Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson - A

Pegasus! Nazis!
Talking Albino Teen Apes!
Miss Simone? You WIN.

World War Hulk: Aftersmash! Damage Control #1 - Dwayne McDuffie & Salva Espin - A+

I can't believe it!
Funny Damage Control's back!
Just three issues? Nertz.