My thoughts on recent controversies.

Heh, I feel like I've kind of been remiss in not talking about any of the big controversies yet. I'm not sure why I haven't, so I will. :-)

Okay, as to the Tigra thing, I'm going to preface this by saying that I didn't read the issue in question and that all I'm going off of scans that Cheryl Lynn has up.

Honestly, looking at them, I think what we have is more Bendis giving a character he reputedly doesn't like the shaft in terms of badassery to make another character look better, but I don't necessarily think there's conscious sexism involved. I tend to think Bendis chose her more out of the reputed dislike than because she was a woman. And portrayed her weak, for much the same reason.

That said, I do think the "this is sexist" folks have quite a bit of substance to their accusations. Especially as I don't think it was terribly necessary to accentuate cleavage so much in a collossal beatdown.

Someone did bring up Sharon Carter in a comparison to Tigra, asking where the outrage was there, which was an interesting point. Personally, I'm not terribly outraged by Tigra, so I'm not the best person to answer, but I do think a big difference is that 1) Sharon's ongoing struggle and emotional aftermath is a major plot to the series, 2) Sharon really hasn't lost any of her competency in the process, it's not like she's known for awesome anti-telepathy/brainwashing skillz and got brainwashed in a second. He was disguised as her doctor and had a fair bit of time to plant the suggestion, 3) her mind control isn't done by a half-assed recently created villain that I've never heard of, presumably to make him look cool, she's a victim of the Red fucking Skull, 4) she managed to be mind controlled and kill Steve all without convenient cleavage baring rips in the clothing, and 5) Brubaker's earned a lot more benefit of the doubt than Bendis with regard to treatment of female characters.

And that particular interview that I'm too chickenshit to call out by name seeing as I sorta work for them certainly did not make Bendis OR the interviewer look particularly good. No one's asking for agreement or sympathy here, but some objectivity would be nice.

I also haven't said anything about JLA #14. Which probably is a bit hypocritical because I did comment on the H4H cover. It admittedly might be some of my DC bias coming through, but I think a big part of it is simply that the center of my H4H complaint was that this was the cover. The cover is supposed to entice you to buy the issue.

I'm not saying the JLA #14 image is particularly tasteful, and hell, if I were a parent, I'd be decidedly annoyed to find that in one of my kid's books, but it's not exactly the same situation for me. That said, I really wish they'd get a different artist.

Oh, and there's no dripping tentacles that look like they're creeping toward breasts and orifices (orifi?), and that does rather make a big difference to me.

Finally...Death of the New Gods...

I'm in denial really. But also, I never trust any death that occurs in "issue 1".

The kitchen bit was a bit much.

Though it does make for interesting story possibilities involving deaths being faked in kitchens. Could resurrect both that character and Katma Tui that way. :-P

Huh, guess I did have some things to say after all.