One for Sorrow

There's been a lot of discussion about Jason Todd showing up in the latest B&R with red hair. Which means that Judd Winick has decided to go with Grant Morrison's retcon about Jason's hair color. I didn't feel passionately about it either way, but having now read the issue I will say ( It makes me feel like I'm not reading about Jason. )

I saw a comment on tumblr about Starfire, the character. Now, I love Kory. I think she's awesome. If I was listing great DC females, she'd definitely be on it. Where I differed from the one comment I read was about...that outfit. Yes, Starfire's outfit. It was described on tumblr as "fairly fan service-y" but the commenter liked the way George Perez drew her to look strong and didn't overdo the sexy poses. They said "She’s muscular and bold, and she looks so natural and comfortable in it, as if, yeah, this is what she’s chosen to wear and she’s happy wearing it...Like, as a young and confused teenaged lady reading the Wolfman/Pérez run of Teen Titans, Koriand’r and her obvious happiness in her own skin, how boldly she showed her skin (like, think about it: she’s a warrior and she dresses like that? Conclusion: GIRL CAN WRECK YOUR ASS AND YOU WON’T EVEN SCRATCH HER) and how comfortable she was in her sexuality—gosh, that was freeing. I hate that when I read a comic starring Koriand’r these days, it’s obvious she isn’t dressed or posing for herself, but to pander to the presumed audience of teenage dudes."

And while I'm happy other people can feel that way, I can't even in her better portrayals. And I feel wrong in even trying. Because I think the outfit's just terrible. ( Warning: some nudity (non-sexual) within... )

I was reading a discussion on Scans_Daily today that circled around one of my pet peeves: the importance of a "normal" life. I don't know why this bugs me--I can remember getting into a big fight about it once regarding a kids' book years ago.

Let me define normal in this context. Sometimes fandom etc. uses "normal" to describe people not in fandom, often associating the word with things that are boring and mundane. That's not what I mean here. I don't think there's anything wrong with living a "normal" life that you enjoy. I don't think that Jim and Pam on The Office have betrayed themselves or us by admitting that they are satisfied working at a small paper company while they enjoy each other and their baby probably soon to be babies.

This is not about putting down the "normal" life--it's more about the opposite, the sometimes unthinking judgment that "normal" is healthy and therefore "abnormal" is unhealthy. ( That always confused me. )

So I keep throwing myself into hopeless conversations on tumblr--it's not a platform that's made for conversations anyway--and this one was about Batman the rich fascist who beats up poor people. It got me thinking about two things, one Batman related and one more general, and I’ll talk about the Batman part here first. It’s not that I don't think there's a lot of gross things you get when you seriously examine the whole premise of Batman? But I just think it's sloppy and inaccurate to dismiss the character that way, especially if you're going to take any corrections about social programs etc. as rabid defense of the character.

But I think it's also just that I don't look at Batman as some sort of world savior or a symbol of what the world really needs? He's not a political character for me at all. He doesn't represent vigilantism being good or being tough on crime being good. He's not a symbol for anyone of "what we should be" in terms of how he spends his money or how he chooses to "do good" in the world. To me the Way of the Bat, for lack of a better name, isn't a political thing or a hero thing...it's a religion. No, not a religion for me, not something I believe in or follow in my life, but a fictional religion about whose small collection of followers I read. I haven't really said this ever because it sounds really weird, but for me this analogy makes the most sense of the story. ( So what is the Way of the Bat? )

So I keep thinking about the whole discussion on tumblr about the female audience of comic books in response to an interview with Paul Levitz, former DC president, saying among other things "I’m not sure that young women are as interested in reading about superheroes. The fundamental dynamic of the superhero story has historically been more appealing to boys than to girls. There are any number of very successful superhero comics over the years that have had a better gender balance than others, but the genre as a whole has been a more male genre." Not because I think there's nothing in superhero comics for girls, but because I felt like the discussion had people talking about completely different things. ( My rambling within. )

Okay, so Damian Wayne. Robin. There was a discussion of the preview for the next Teen Titans up, where Damian gets into it with Ravager, and that led to talk about his sexist jokes in the comments. I find them really creepy. I find it especially creepy that they have become the go-to joke with Damian. ( And while I have certainly blamed Grant Morrison for a lot of things that bother me about the Damian character, I don't think this is one of them. )

I've been having a lot of trouble logging into LJ. Like, it didn't let me all day at work. Hopefully it will get fixed soon!

Anyway, this post...In which I make sad face about Bat comics. :-(

I was reading Red Robin #12 today and it was great. I’ve loved this comic from the beginning and this arc did everything it set out to do. But even though this story ended in the perfect way, with stuff that I should have absolutely loved, I wound up just feeling sad. The reason? ( I’m jealous. Spoilers for Red Robin within. )

I responded to something today by pretty much going off on a tangent, but an interesting tangent to me, at least. I objected to the idea that Batman the character is, at heart, a revenge fantasy. ( I disagree. )

I said something today about how the current Bat-titles are for me like having to read fanfic by the kind of authors I usually try to avoid. So even if there's good things in it it still upsets me. lucky_sometimes asked, understandably, what kind of fanfic authors I avoided. It's hard to be clear in 140 characters!

It's not a certain type of author really, except that it's "the type of author who doesn't agree with me" ( or something like that. )

I threw out a little theory on Fandom!Secrets that had to do with something I've been thinking about lately...I hesitate to say it because it’s a simple answer for a complicated thing done by many different people, but I still wonder if there's not a strain of this in fandom. ( So I'll toss it out. )