Some Thoughts on Zealot

I've been thinking about a post Kali921 made at the end of the year about Zealot of the WildCATS and why she likes her. She's got a lot of interesting reasons especially with regards to feminist interpretation of the character.

I really can't argue with any of them. I definitely think Zealot in her own way is a character that is very pleasing on a feminist level, but at the same time, I don't care for her.

It's not the same abject hatred I feel toward Voodoo, I don't hate Zealot, but she does leave me cold.

I think that it's essentially because she's the series version of Wolverine. I mean, sure, Warblade's got the more similar powers and more obvious temper, but I've always thought Zealot really occupied the Wolverine role in the series. She was always the big name in every single crossover I'd seen, the object of love-triangles and romance plots while at the same time being the "savage yet civilized warrior" with her own, albeit homicidal, sense of honor. She and Grifter were also something of the renegades of the group and she was fairly clearly the best fighter...

She's very much the token-Wolverine-type character to me and as much as I appreciate that this time the token-Wolverine character is female, it doesn't mean I actually have to like her. The same traits I don't like on Wolverine aren't any more appealing to me when they're wearing boobs and a vagina.

For the record, I also thought Grifter was remarkably overrated as well. :-P To be fair though, I was totally just reading WildCATS for the multitude of entertaining ways that Spartan got destroyed. I swear it seemed like it happened every damn issue. Like Kenny from South Park up until they got tired of killing him. Also, he made a very interesting omnipowerful benign dictator, later on, I thought. Gosh, I do enjoy the goofy robot.

But yeah, on a feminist level I appreciate Zealot for all of the reasons that Kali921 celebrates. I just don't LIKE her. Oh well. I'm glad she exists, anyway. :)