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alexandraerinJust as a side note, it occurred to me last night that I've been praising Demon Knights to people for having a "woman-heavy" cast. On the team, there are approximately 4 women and 4 men, again depending on how exactly you count certain characters. The villains are a male and female couple.
This isn't woman-heavy, this is... normal. Or it should be. That's just plain representational of the actual demographics of the human race. It's also pretty revolutionary for a book that's not positioned as being for and about girls.
That said, here's quick takes on three more DC comics I have been able to read. These aren't going to be as detailed as some of the others, because with the exception of Batwing I can't refer directly back to them to check on details.
Superboy
Anybody who enjoyed the journey of the "Reign of the Supermen" Superboy into Kon-El/Connor Kent has reason to regret the reboot's complete erasure of him from the timeline. Anybody who cringes remembering the beginning of that journey can relax; this is the hybrid/clone Superboy, but he has not been returned to his "like, totally bodacious to the extreme max" roots. Rather, it's an entirely new take on the character.
What's interesting to me here is that DC Comics has allowed three radically different takes on the same character in such close proximity. There's the recently-returned-to-life Connor within the pre-Boot continuity, the angry tabula rasa clone with scaled back powers in Young Justice, and this version who seems rather in keeping with the idea of Superman as more of an alien and outsider.
If anything, it seems like with Superboy they are setting the stage for a more mature and deeper investigation of what it is to be a "superman" than usually happens in mainstream comic books. Superboy's power gimmick of "tactile telekinesis" has been expanded here into a sort of expanded consciousness/awareness that makes the character's entire point of view alien. It makes his creators/caretakers underestimate him twice; first in assuming the project failed because they can detect no brain activity while he's listening and learning from them with every molecule in his body, and then again when they generate a virtual reality world that fails to engage his mind on the level at which it actually operates.
When he ignores a staged disaster and cries for help (while having a discussion about morality, no less) while within this virtual world, we're not quite sure if it's because he's aware that the danger and the people threatened by it are illusions or if he really just doesn't care.
I do have something of a fondness for the Conner Kent character of the more recent Titans eras and his friendship with Tim Drake, but unlike the changes to Amanda Waller or Barbara Gordon his erasure does little to change the balance of representation within the DC Universe. Given that he'd just been brought back from the dead before the reboot, I want to believe that this change is the result of someone having a story to tell and the first issue bears that out.
Batwing
Dear DC Comics:
I want to see more of the Batman Inc. concept, I want to see more diversity among superheroes, I want to see the parts of the world that comics normally ignore. But this is not how to do any of those things. I hope you stick with it and get it right. You're not there yet. The first thing you need to do is make sure the person responsible for the solicitations about "The Batman of Africa" never gets a job involving words again, the second thing you need to do is clarify Batwing's beat, which may involve establishing other heroes in the continent.
I haven't read much of the Batman Inc. stuff from before the re-boot, so I missed Batwing's origin. I'm hoping that he was already fighting the good fight on his own before he got the franchise offer from Gotham City. This issue is just full of "Batman said this" and "Batman designed that" in a way that just drives home the colonial/imperial implications of exporting costumed vigilanteeism.
Who was this character before Batman? Who is he without Batman? If Bruce Wayne suddenly pulled his support, would that hamstring him entirely? I understand the principle of having the better known and established and popular character show up in the first episode of a spin-off to boost ratings, but I really hope that the writers of this book are mindful of how problematic Batman's usual "You do things my way. There is no highway." approach to people would be in this situation. Ideally, he should be supporting Batwing but he shouldn't be standing over his shoulder, much less giving him orders.
I fear he will be treated as a bat-flunky, though. There's a lot of focus on what a violent and corrupt and dangerous and myth-fearing place Africa (as embodied entirely within a single made-up city/country) is and no examination at all of how this came to be, and that's where this issue really fails for me. "How do you use Batman's resources to solve problems in Mogadishu or Darfur?" would be a better story than "using Batman's resources to punch crime in the face in Mogadarfur."
(Also, the country that invented superhero comics in general and the company that invented The Goddamn Batman in particular shouldn't be making statements about how powerful myths are in other "lands". Remember "criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot"? Remember "Legends of the Dark Knight"? Don't act like this "mythic" stuff is some special African thing. We will believe a man can fly, DC. It's embarrassing when you pretend otherwise.)
Justice League International
Okay, I invoked the JLI in passing in a blog post long before the reboot, in talking about how little a pointedly "International" team did to threaten the white hegemony within teams called "Justice League".
This team? Not much better. They have Vixen, who was a JLAer in recent memory. Her presence on the team is called a "courtesy" to her fictional African country. Okay, if the team doesn't end up with a Green Lantern on it full-time, she's the most flexible (and arguably the most powerful) character they have, and the way her powers work require an agile and tactical mind. If she joins your team, it's a courtesy to you.
This line can be taken as a sign of the cluelessness and condescension of the U.N. "global security group" member who approves her candidacy, but I kind of doubt there was that much thought into it. Also, it's impossible to tell which person in the telepresence conference is saying that line.
I know that JLI has had something of a traditional of being a "humor" oriented book, but in this case a lot of the humor includes the main character (who is white and for our purposes American) delivering lines that would work better in an animated show and the "comical" accents of the Soviet and Chinese representatives on the team. Again I'd like to believe they were trying to say something about actual politics by having Soviet and Chinese presence on a UN-sponsored team. The fact that there are a Chinese and Russian representative vetoing and approving team members is suggestive there. But then they seem to be there for the low comedy.
Hell, they have (Brazilian hero) Fire on the team for no particular reason except she was on the classic JLI roster... with a Brazilian, Russian, and Chinese member on the team it would have been a perfect opportunity to remark on the importance of the Big Four "BRIC" countries and their growing importance in the global market. But, no. The only statement on Fire's inclusion is some drunken nonsense about "finest cognac" from the Russian UN rep, who speaks exactly like the Russian superhero and somehow I don't think we're heading for a dramatic reveal where a member of some special UN security council offshoot by day is an atomic age superhero by night.
The actual story is... well, it's a story. It's the kind of story you'd get when you have meet the team/saddle-up episode of a TV show and then you have to get them in the field. Another reviewer mentioned that a subplot showing a couple of disgruntled U.S. citizens firebombing the League's headquarters should have been the main story. I agree. But I doubt they'd do it justice... the malcontents seem more concerned about superheroes "selling out to the government" than the things that actual U.S. domestic terrorists bombing a U.N. superhero team headquarters would be concerned about, which is the idea of the government selling out to the U.N.
So, to sum up: bad comedy, "hilarious" stereotypes, and missed opportunities. It could get better but I'm not holding my breath. This is another one I'll wait for the trades to come out on, and read them before forwarding any money DC's way.
(Also, this is another team that's basically split down the middle on men and women. But it's so much the Booster Gold show, and with Russian wackiness carrying so much of the weight the women don't ever really stand out.)
This isn't woman-heavy, this is... normal. Or it should be. That's just plain representational of the actual demographics of the human race. It's also pretty revolutionary for a book that's not positioned as being for and about girls.
That said, here's quick takes on three more DC comics I have been able to read. These aren't going to be as detailed as some of the others, because with the exception of Batwing I can't refer directly back to them to check on details.
Superboy
Anybody who enjoyed the journey of the "Reign of the Supermen" Superboy into Kon-El/Connor Kent has reason to regret the reboot's complete erasure of him from the timeline. Anybody who cringes remembering the beginning of that journey can relax; this is the hybrid/clone Superboy, but he has not been returned to his "like, totally bodacious to the extreme max" roots. Rather, it's an entirely new take on the character.
What's interesting to me here is that DC Comics has allowed three radically different takes on the same character in such close proximity. There's the recently-returned-to-life Connor within the pre-Boot continuity, the angry tabula rasa clone with scaled back powers in Young Justice, and this version who seems rather in keeping with the idea of Superman as more of an alien and outsider.
If anything, it seems like with Superboy they are setting the stage for a more mature and deeper investigation of what it is to be a "superman" than usually happens in mainstream comic books. Superboy's power gimmick of "tactile telekinesis" has been expanded here into a sort of expanded consciousness/awareness that makes the character's entire point of view alien. It makes his creators/caretakers underestimate him twice; first in assuming the project failed because they can detect no brain activity while he's listening and learning from them with every molecule in his body, and then again when they generate a virtual reality world that fails to engage his mind on the level at which it actually operates.
When he ignores a staged disaster and cries for help (while having a discussion about morality, no less) while within this virtual world, we're not quite sure if it's because he's aware that the danger and the people threatened by it are illusions or if he really just doesn't care.
I do have something of a fondness for the Conner Kent character of the more recent Titans eras and his friendship with Tim Drake, but unlike the changes to Amanda Waller or Barbara Gordon his erasure does little to change the balance of representation within the DC Universe. Given that he'd just been brought back from the dead before the reboot, I want to believe that this change is the result of someone having a story to tell and the first issue bears that out.
Batwing
Dear DC Comics:
I want to see more of the Batman Inc. concept, I want to see more diversity among superheroes, I want to see the parts of the world that comics normally ignore. But this is not how to do any of those things. I hope you stick with it and get it right. You're not there yet. The first thing you need to do is make sure the person responsible for the solicitations about "The Batman of Africa" never gets a job involving words again, the second thing you need to do is clarify Batwing's beat, which may involve establishing other heroes in the continent.
I haven't read much of the Batman Inc. stuff from before the re-boot, so I missed Batwing's origin. I'm hoping that he was already fighting the good fight on his own before he got the franchise offer from Gotham City. This issue is just full of "Batman said this" and "Batman designed that" in a way that just drives home the colonial/imperial implications of exporting costumed vigilanteeism.
Who was this character before Batman? Who is he without Batman? If Bruce Wayne suddenly pulled his support, would that hamstring him entirely? I understand the principle of having the better known and established and popular character show up in the first episode of a spin-off to boost ratings, but I really hope that the writers of this book are mindful of how problematic Batman's usual "You do things my way. There is no highway." approach to people would be in this situation. Ideally, he should be supporting Batwing but he shouldn't be standing over his shoulder, much less giving him orders.
I fear he will be treated as a bat-flunky, though. There's a lot of focus on what a violent and corrupt and dangerous and myth-fearing place Africa (as embodied entirely within a single made-up city/country) is and no examination at all of how this came to be, and that's where this issue really fails for me. "How do you use Batman's resources to solve problems in Mogadishu or Darfur?" would be a better story than "using Batman's resources to punch crime in the face in Mogadarfur."
(Also, the country that invented superhero comics in general and the company that invented The Goddamn Batman in particular shouldn't be making statements about how powerful myths are in other "lands". Remember "criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot"? Remember "Legends of the Dark Knight"? Don't act like this "mythic" stuff is some special African thing. We will believe a man can fly, DC. It's embarrassing when you pretend otherwise.)
Justice League International
Okay, I invoked the JLI in passing in a blog post long before the reboot, in talking about how little a pointedly "International" team did to threaten the white hegemony within teams called "Justice League".
This team? Not much better. They have Vixen, who was a JLAer in recent memory. Her presence on the team is called a "courtesy" to her fictional African country. Okay, if the team doesn't end up with a Green Lantern on it full-time, she's the most flexible (and arguably the most powerful) character they have, and the way her powers work require an agile and tactical mind. If she joins your team, it's a courtesy to you.
This line can be taken as a sign of the cluelessness and condescension of the U.N. "global security group" member who approves her candidacy, but I kind of doubt there was that much thought into it. Also, it's impossible to tell which person in the telepresence conference is saying that line.
I know that JLI has had something of a traditional of being a "humor" oriented book, but in this case a lot of the humor includes the main character (who is white and for our purposes American) delivering lines that would work better in an animated show and the "comical" accents of the Soviet and Chinese representatives on the team. Again I'd like to believe they were trying to say something about actual politics by having Soviet and Chinese presence on a UN-sponsored team. The fact that there are a Chinese and Russian representative vetoing and approving team members is suggestive there. But then they seem to be there for the low comedy.
Hell, they have (Brazilian hero) Fire on the team for no particular reason except she was on the classic JLI roster... with a Brazilian, Russian, and Chinese member on the team it would have been a perfect opportunity to remark on the importance of the Big Four "BRIC" countries and their growing importance in the global market. But, no. The only statement on Fire's inclusion is some drunken nonsense about "finest cognac" from the Russian UN rep, who speaks exactly like the Russian superhero and somehow I don't think we're heading for a dramatic reveal where a member of some special UN security council offshoot by day is an atomic age superhero by night.
The actual story is... well, it's a story. It's the kind of story you'd get when you have meet the team/saddle-up episode of a TV show and then you have to get them in the field. Another reviewer mentioned that a subplot showing a couple of disgruntled U.S. citizens firebombing the League's headquarters should have been the main story. I agree. But I doubt they'd do it justice... the malcontents seem more concerned about superheroes "selling out to the government" than the things that actual U.S. domestic terrorists bombing a U.N. superhero team headquarters would be concerned about, which is the idea of the government selling out to the U.N.
So, to sum up: bad comedy, "hilarious" stereotypes, and missed opportunities. It could get better but I'm not holding my breath. This is another one I'll wait for the trades to come out on, and read them before forwarding any money DC's way.
(Also, this is another team that's basically split down the middle on men and women. But it's so much the Booster Gold show, and with Russian wackiness carrying so much of the weight the women don't ever really stand out.)