"There's progress in imperfection."
October 17, 2014 7:25 AM   Subscribe

 
I have an idea for a (satirical) superheroine: Twisty. Her only superpower is being able to twist her torso so that you can see her boobs and behind at the same time. But ... this is enough to stop dick-brained supervillains in their tracks.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:37 AM on October 17, 2014 [3 favorites]


Greg Nog, the sexy lamp test is Kelly Sue DeConnick, not Gail Simone.
posted by bettafish at 7:43 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Gail Simone is one of my favorite people to follow on Tumblr. She's overwhelmingly positive in terms of preferring to promote things that she likes over tearing down things that she doesn't (a fair amount of her posts are in praise of cosplayers), but she's also honest about things such as a great deal of her run on Batgirl being the result of editorial mandate, not necessarily what she wanted to do with the character; she was replaced on the book at about the same time that her editor on it left. Someone else might be bitter about that, but she's been unfailingly supportive of the new creative team. (See also.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:49 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


I have an idea for a (satirical) superheroine: Twisty. Her only superpower is being able to twist her torso so that you can see her boobs and behind at the same time. But ... this is enough to stop dick-brained supervillains in their tracks.

That's called Green's Disease.
posted by delfin at 7:54 AM on October 17, 2014


I was a reader of Warren Ellis's personal web forum back when she put out the 'women in refrigerators' thing, and the comics writers there (and some that actually become comics writers later like Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen) actually were paying a lot of attention to what she was saying and internalized it. There was quite a lot of discussion about it, actually.
posted by empath at 8:00 AM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


I was out of comics for a really long time and then came back over the last 3 years or so - the New 52 kinda caught my attention and I thought it might be a good way to get back in touch with a bunch of the books I read when I was a kid.

One of the books that really caught my attention was Gail Simone's short lived The Movement. I really loved it and was sad when it disappeared.

It did introduce me to more of her writing, though, including her pretty fantastic twitter account. She's since become one of my all-time favorite writers and comic culture critics.
posted by elmer benson at 8:04 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'd go back and find the archive where they talked about it, but delphi's search is dreadful. (I'm actually surprised they're still in business)
posted by empath at 8:05 AM on October 17, 2014


From the end of the article given as an example of how bad DC is portraying women in other areas:

Earlier this month, DC licensed t-shirts that portrayed Wonder Woman as one of Superman's sexual conquests and a t-shirt sold to girls and young women that said "training to be Batman's wife."

Oh GOD.
posted by JHarris at 8:23 AM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


Oh GOD.

For reference: Bad t-shirts, DC's answer. At the same time as the t-shirts we also got these pajamas for a double whammy of why can't you check your licensees, DC.
posted by sukeban at 8:44 AM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


It does a disservice to that character, their themes, and their representation to make them so perfect that they're no longer believable and relatable

I thinks this distills a major reason why Wonder Woman failed again and again as a title prior to her tenure. She was without flaws. She wasn't very relatable, she was an icon, a saint. The best re-intrepretation prior to Simone's excellent work was Kurt Busiek's Winged Victory WW-analogue from Astro City, one of the first times that sort of character had ever seemed to have an internal dialogue or daily struggles.

It's a major step forward to see women and girl superheros as real characters, who are allowed to be wrong and allowed to have problems, to not just be reflections fo the male characters they interact with.
posted by bonehead at 9:03 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've adored Simone's work since Women In Refrigerators, about which I spent way too much time arguing with comics dudes in the 90s. I don't follow either her tumblr or her twitter, but I regularly see her stuff appearing in my social media networks (along with Kelly Sue DeConnick) and they are both awesome.
posted by immlass at 9:13 AM on October 17, 2014


Gail Simone is great. I don't regularly read her twitter feed but when I do check in I'm often amused. I need to update my comics reading list, though, to include her upcoming stuff.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:45 AM on October 17, 2014


I thinks this distills a major reason why Wonder Woman failed again and again as a title prior to her tenure. She was without flaws. She wasn't very relatable, she was an icon, a saint. The best re-intrepretation prior to Simone's excellent work was Kurt Busiek's Winged Victory WW-analogue from Astro City, one of the first times that sort of character had ever seemed to have an internal dialogue or daily struggles.

I dunno, I'd give credit to both George Perez, who wrote Diana as naive, and Greg Rucka, who managed to make WW's tendency to assume everyone saw things with her own clarity and wisdom into a weak spot.

But Simone was certainly the first writer to successfully humanize Wonder Woman without sacrificing her aspirational background elements and distinctive qualities. (I'm looking at you, Brian Azzarello.) Much as I like the Perez and Rucka runs, they escape the "reflection of male characters" trap only by writing Diana as a kind of male projection of a "strong" feminine ideal onto the old Superman/Marvel-Thor template.
posted by kewb at 9:49 AM on October 17, 2014


I agree kewb. The Perez run, in particular shared that same problem with Moore's Promethea. WW gets/got a double barrel: the woman superhero who has to be perfect, flawless, and the Superman/god who has no problems they don't have a superpower for.

Thinking about it though, the evolution of her was in the air: in 2005 Rucka wrote the death of Maxwell Lord, one of the first real meaningful events in the DCU that showed that WW wasn't just a female Superman. This was probably influenced by Cooke's portrayal in 2004's The New Frontier ("There's the door Spaceman" is one of her best lines in any medium). So, by the time Simone took the reins in 2007, change was coming and she had some good work to build on.
posted by bonehead at 10:22 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Simone is one of the greats and her Wonder Woman run is one of my all time favorites.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:04 PM on October 17, 2014


one of the first times that sort of character had ever seemed to have an internal dialogue or daily struggles.

I haven't read my Uncanny X-Men comics in years, but the stories I recall best are the ones Claremont wrote about the female characters.

Simone's Welcome to Tranquility is a really great read, and I enjoyed the way she portrayed Catman as a guy who has really ambivalent feelings about doing bad things.
posted by P.o.B. at 5:10 AM on October 19, 2014


« Older ohhno ima barfed onna shoes   |   Taking the '70s more seriously Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments