Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login
The John Byrne Forum
Byrne Robotics > The John Byrne Forum Page of 4 Next >>
Topic: Dead superheroines. Post ReplyPost New Topic
Author
Message
Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4410
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I've been looking back about what, at least partially, led me to go from following a lot of comics, to fewer and fewer until I followed none. Time lends perspective that maybe I was perceiving something differently from what actually was but I'll just say I got the feeling there were people in charge at the 'big two' publishers (and Pacific too to tell the truth) who had some kind of anger maybe towards women generally, cartoon variety specifically, readers even? I felt that things started to get explicit and ugly, so here's the list...

Phoenix Must Die: Great story, wow, can they do this? Ouch, they made me care, but sure she'll rise again. It made some sense, billions of distant asparagus people are still people, so okay. Young woman trips out on power (after being influenced negatively by a 'bad man', Jason Wynegarde).

Elektra: Ouch again. Retelling of an old myth, I can dig that. Daredevil hurt badly; a real life effect of such ugly violence. Respect!

Here is where things start to seem to go wrong... they start milking the Phoenix and Elektra thing rather than aiming at creating quality comics like them. Kitty Pryde pretends to be Phoenix in a way more like a '60s Legion Of Super-Heroes where these two-dimensional characters can suddenly pull stunts that would seem totally callous and even cruel to anything like a real person. Elektra's grave is dug up, her body paraded about. Various Elektra and Phoenix comics are treotted out (What Ifs, min-series, ending that wasn't used, future daughter and Madelyn Prior versus a recovered Mastermind) Well maybe you shouldn't have killed them like you wouldn't have killed Spider-man?

Ms. Marvel in Avengers pregnant/raped/abducted, yikes, this seems out of place. I hope The Wasp isn't next.

Now Spider-Woman 'must' die because the comic is being cancelled... I liked that San Francisco-based detective with the Hawaiian boyfriend (and white persian cat)... why does this keep happening to characters I can relate to?!

Now Wolverine just killed the daughter of Phoenix from the future?

Supergirl DEAD? What the... why? I read that when I was little, she saved cats from trees that Superman might not have noticed. Her dead body on more than one cover, yuck.

A golden-age heroine raped in Watchmen. I get that we're supposed to feel revulsion at least even though it happened decades ago, seems weird again in a superheroes in costumes comic though. This guy was drawing Dr. Who and Green Lantern before.

I only heard about Batgirl shot in the womb while pregnant? Hey... do 'these people' hate women or something? This stuff is like what might have been in an underground only these are mainstream comics attractive and available to all ages.

Okay I've quit, Moonshadow and Starstruck ended, Moore's Swamp Thing and Beanworld aren't enough to get me into the comic book store. Wonder Woman pulls the Cheetah's tail/spine off and beats her to death with it and I'm thinking I made the right move. Someone sends me an early issue of Bone, but I go back once to get a few more and some Elfquest I missed.

Q: Add in 1/3 of Triplicate Girl, and Gwen Stacy... Do/did super-ladies get treated worse by writers than super-men? Do/did they get paraded about more to sell maybe to readers with problems that they specifically want to see violence against women? Was I being overly sensitive and taking it personally when female characters I identified with would be destroyed or violated and the reader of a super-male character they liked would suffer equally with his tribulations? Did many super-males ever get killed before the big Death Of Superman stunt (Mr. Fairplay in Justice League wouldn't count as in any sense major)? Has any super-male gotten molested or raped? Would that be inappropriate when it wasn't apparently with super-females?

It sure seemed to me they were targeting super-ladies for awhile, I guess it sold, but that combined with comic shops that could seem unwelcoming with leering over-muscled Lobos and Punishers and Venoms (oh my)... can you see why some segments of the readership would feel alienated?


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 15 February 2018 at 4:59pm
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 22 July 2017
Posts: 1717
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Alan Moore regrets writing THE KILLING JOKE. I regret it too. Even though I liked Barbara as Oracle. I didn't know anything about her being shot while pregnant. 

Elektra should've remained dead. Permanently. As dead as Uncle Ben. No chance that would've happened, of course.

When Jean Grey came back (a year too early, I think), that should've been the last we ever heard of the word "Phoenix" in a Marvel comic. 

The rape scene in WATCHMEN didn't offend me as part of the plot and the first Silk Spectre did at least fight back. But Moore has rape as part of so many of his stories. I didn't notice it until much later. But it's in his SWAMP THING run (though it isn't immediately clear that it's rape...I won't go into details, I know that sounds bad), it's in MIRACLEMAN...

Anyone who hasn't read Gail Simone's essay "Women in Refrigerators," do it!
Back to Top profile | search
 
Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4410
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Yeah, Batgirl was in a wheelchair so I guess she was crippled at least for awhile. I didn't have every Swamp Thing but I did like it a lot what I did read. It maybe helped that the art suited an older readership in my opinion. Dave Gibbons drawing a rape scene was rather shocking somehow, which it should be I suppose.

Jean Grey eventually not being dead (and that making sense) was a major saving grace for me, if not enough to keep me around as a regular reader. I kind of understand she does actually merge with Phoenix later, but that seems fairly desperate to sell more comics by recycling something that worked once well (so lets do it over and over and over). Of course they 'killed' Professor X in the '60s, and later Wolverine, and those things seemed to be meant as permanent at the time, but they were both undone by having them both have been imposters before too long. And Banshee lost his power, he might've been someone's favorite I suppose.
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Brian O'Neill
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 13 November 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 1964
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

There was nothing (in the original printing, at least) that said Barbara was pregnant. I don't know if anything was changed for later printings, retcons, etc.   Even without that, there as no need to destroy what Barbara had been. Why was it necessary for her to be Oracle?
'The Killing Joke' works as an 'out of continuity' story(and, in fact, the animated adaptation of it gives her a much bigger role, pre-and post-shooting), but once 'A Death in the Family' had Batman referencing the shooting while talking to Commissioner Gordon, it was too late to go that route.
I'll admit that I didn't read much of Spider-Woman's old comic, and mostly knew her from the TV cartoon. I picked up the final issue at a LCS years ago, and found the whole thing rather weird. That ending was eventually 'undone' when Jssica Drew was resurrected in THE AVENGERS about a year later, but it only led to about a dozen more reboots after that.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 14 November 2006
Posts: 8515
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Without question, super-hero comics are largely a medium for adolescent male power fantasies, with female characters serving in peripheral roles at best in almost all cases. As such, they are often seen as disposable, especially those characters who mirror the roles of male heroes. 

If Batgirl was pregnant at the time that she was shot, that was embroidery added to the story later. Originally, she was shot in the spine, stripped naked, and photographed by the Joker in an attempt to drive her father insane. The Elongated Man's wife Sue Dibny was pregnant at the time of her murder at the hands of her friend, Jean Loring. Jean's motivation was to get her husband and the men of the JLA to protect their wives and girlfriends the way they used to, back in the good old days.  

In Batgirl's case, there was already blood in the water from the death of Supergirl, a story done at a time when fan and pro resentment of peripheral characters in similar costumes to the big heroes was at an all-time high. Later, Mary Marvel, perhaps the youngest and most innocent-seeming of the female counterpart characters, was possessed by Darkseid's sadistic minion Desaad. She was then possessed again and corrupted by Black Adam. Because that never gets old, apparently.

Gail Simone's "Women In Refrigerators" blog sparked an awareness of mainstream comics' tendencies in these areas and Marvel has responded with a number of female characters and books aimed at drawing a female audience. DC has done so as well, if on a smaller scale, with tries at Batgirl, Starfire*, and Birds of Prey titles.

The problem hasn't gone away and likely won't, however, since female characters are still largely cast in the role of the heroes' wives, girlfriends, or wickedly flirtatious foes. Their presence in any given story is dependent upon men and their attitudes towards the women. If the writer wants to drum up some drama, an easy way to do that without permanently altering the corporate persona or marketability of the hero is to do something awful to the girlfriend, wife, or daughter, like, say for instance, hacking her into pieces in the kitchen... Which yes, to those defenders of the Alexandra DeWitt storyline, did NOT happen in the comic that gave "Women In Refrigerators" its name. Alex was merely killed and stuffed into the fridge. I was thinking of Katma Tui, the OTHER girlfriend of a Green Lantern who was hacked apart while fixing dinner for her boyfriend by a foe who really wanted to hurt the hero's feelings  a lot.

The only answer is to change the marketplace so that the books do appeal to large numbers of women, and there are titles out there currently that are designed to do that such as Thor, Iron Man, America, Faith, Squirrel Girl, and others. Marvel sales execs have reportedly been disappointed however in the returns on their company investments in attempting to balance these scales unfortunately.

* The happy-go-lucky cartoon network-inspired take on Starfire in her own series was especially odd since the character debuted in the New52 universe as possibly the most sexist, degraded male fantasy character ever put forward in a mainstream comic; a vacuous, amnesiac sexpot who did not care that her memory had been tampered with, wore as little as the artist could get away with, and constantly pestered the men for sex, preferably with no emotional attachment involved. Trying to spin that back around into a positive approach toward female characters has to be one of the weirdest PR stunts DC's ever attempted... 

Back to Top profile | search e-mail
 
Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 14 November 2006
Posts: 8515
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

A lot of male characters were similarly injured, stripped of their powers, or outright killed over the years prior to The Death of Superman. I recently did a list of such events in another thread and am loathe to repeat the exercise here, but I did want to put in a word for Mr. Terrific (not "Fairplay") who was a participant in early JLA-JSA team-ups and a player in a Wonder Woman/ JSA story I read as a kid. His death did not seem inconsequential to me as a reader at the time.

Alan Moore did include rape in a number of stories, including an issue in which Swamp Thing himself was raped by an alien consciousness during his sojourn through space. Moore also had Edward Hyde rape the Invisible Man to death following the latter's assault upon Mina Murray.

A few years after Immortus's son, Marcus, used his "machines" to prompt Carol Danvers into falling in love with him in the oft-cited Avengers #200, Moondragon used her mental powers to turn Thor into her royal consort, taking him to bed with her. Thor is not pleased to learn of this later. Nightwing was raped by a villainess called the Tarantula as he was slipping into shock and had once been tricked into having sex with a fan of his called Mirage while she was disguised as Starfire. Kyle Rayner has been roofied. Batman was raped by Talia to create Damian Wayne. Vril Dox, Mr. Majestic, Starman, Green Arrow...

Examples of male rape are few and far between in most genres, but they are out there, even in super-hero comics.

Back to Top profile | search e-mail
 
Jean-Francois Joutel
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 06 November 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 315
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

This conversation is reminding me of:


By David Willis at Shortpacked.com
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Jim Petersman
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 26 June 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 624
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Comics were a huge part of my childhood, read to me long before I could read for myself, and still a part of my life well into my thirties. I grew up completely enamored and inspired by their fun, exciting little tales.

Somewhere in my teens I started wanting heroes to die or become permanently injured, costumes to become more "realistic," and characters to be flawed.

And I got it all. 

Then it wouldn't stop and I was repulsed by what they were doing to these characters. I finally got to the point that buying comics, let alone actually reading them, was more depressing and draining than what it was worth. I never looked back.

Comics should have told me to frack off (I mean, they wouldn't actually cuss) in my teens, stayed true to the genre and the characters, and never looked back at me.

So many generations robbed because, essentially, dumbasses wondering what would happen if Minnie Mouse got raped. Truly heartbreaking.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4410
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I did read one Squirrel Girl and it was a lot of fun. It had Kraven The Hunter in it. Like Nova in the old E-Man (or Infectious Lass in The Legion Of Substitute Heroes) it was lightweight in a good way and very needed. I'm sorry to hear it hasn't gotten more support.

In remembering things I read thirty or even forty years ago I guess my memory can be well out of whack, though lately I've kind of been impressed with some things I do remember correctly. I can only say there was a fellow with parted curtains and the words fair play on his chest that I thought I remembered was killed in a Justice League comic before Phoenix flared up and flamed out the first time. It does help to balance things to show how there were male characters who suffered and died. Now whether some of these things should be in something established in 1938 or 1962 as aimed at children mainly, I remember some underground cartoonists objecting quite strongly to things on that basis. Maybe they saw their territory infringed upon.

Googling Mr. terrific I see the old version and the new black edition which i did see in some animated tv episodes. I guess it's true that everyone gets brought back (when does the Zippo The Compressed Air Man mini-series ship)?

I do remember a Robin (No. 2?) dying now that I think further, that would be pretty major, and also that three characters in the old Doom Patrol died (presumably in their final '60s issue), only one of whom was Elastigirl.

Wow, I thought Moondragon was a strange lady even without knowing about what she pulled on Thor. I never was sure if she was a villain or even good from Avengers and Defenders comics.

I tried to catch up on Supergirl. The June Brigham series was well done (and one even had a nice John Byrne pin-up) but it and the next one confused me as it's really a 'Proty' type blob that looks like Supergirl. But the one after that started by Jeph Loeb I think I've followed, even the one year later jump, and liked it.

Someone gave me a Ms. Marvel (featuring the Cockrum costumed edition) of not too long ago where she is mowing down super-Skrulls like grass. I liked the artwork by a woman artist on it, but really couldn't tell much about the story really. I know she has since been promoted to Captain and there is now a new Ms. Marvel with elasti (even Shade-like) properties. And speaking of which, how could I forget that Jim Starlin book where the previous Captain Marvel dies of cancer (unless they brought him back too).

I did support Go Girl too in the Dark Horse collected editions, it reminded me of those Schaffenberger Supergirls that started me off! I hope a lot of  real kids got/get to see them (as well as Misty, California Girls, Trina's Wonder Woman etc.). Maybe DC's 'Superhero Girls' will stick around awhile!


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 15 February 2018 at 8:14pm
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Brian O'Neill
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 13 November 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 1964
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Have you tried any of the '80s INFINITY INC.? Plenty of 'Second generation' heroes there, including the daughters of the original Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4410
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

"daughters of the original Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman."

No, I had no idea they were ever even dating, Brian. I think I saw Dick Giordano hire Todd McFarlane to do that comic at a big event held in my hometown though.

Stargirl in the Justice Society (as shown on tv and in the Supergirl series before the current one) I don't know whose daughter she might be... Starman maybe?


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 15 February 2018 at 8:42pm
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
Posted: 15 February 2018 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I think for decades the comics industry have been disrespectful to virtually all their superheroes, not just females. Retconning Captain America into a Nazi (which they recently did, believe it or not) is probably not on the same level as molestation or rape. But it all ends up in the same place : no readers.   

Edited by Joe Zhang on 15 February 2018 at 8:46pm
Back to Top profile | search e-mail
 

Page of 4 Next >>
  Post ReplyPost New Topic
Printable version Printable version

Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot create polls in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

 Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login