Girls Gone Geek

V. and I feel like proud parents with the posting of today’s guest essay from our fellow fangirl, Jenn. She’s the brains behind Dirty Blonde & Nerdy, where she writes about her adventures in geek. Jenn was also one of our earliest readers, and it warmed our jaded little hearts to learn that Girls Gone Geek had helped guide her as a newbie in the often overwhelming world of comic-book reading. Seriously; we had a moment. (Me to V: “Dude, she’s like our Padawan!”) Anyway, we enjoyed the heck out of her essay on DC’s throwback strategy, and we think you will, too. Take it away, Jenn!

WHYYYYYY!!???? Oh. Right. Darkseid.

There have been quite a few shake-ups in the DC comicverse in recent years. It’s been a pretty intimidating time for anyone to follow, especially for someone just diving into the fun. We had the Crisis siblings: Identity, Infinite, and Final; Bruce Wayne is now sleuthing up to his inevitable return after his supposed death, the Justice League has a new Big Three, if one at all, with a table full of new faces, and the big to-do with Blackest Night led directly to Brightest Day. And, of course, there is the new Wonder Woman run/temporary costume. DC has had its hands buried deep in the cradle of its characters and titles, and the editorial powers have been stirring things around for a while.

Let me make it clear that I have absolutely no problem with that. At all. I love nothing more than when someone takes the plunge and dares to do something different, outside the box, and makes people mad or excited about the idea. It garners plenty of attention, a necessity in any entertainment business. But an “A” for effort doesn’t really count. Success doesn’t ride on the back of good intentions and certainly not on the shoulders of half-assed executions.

Before anyone gets fired up about their own concern (or thinks I’m here to spit fire on everything) let me narrow the playing field to one development in particular that has me wondering what exactly is going through the heads of the officials: DC’s regression to older heroes, the step backwards from the supposed legacy appeal. I don’t get it. A legacy doesn’t work backwards; it’s a namesake passed down to the one who earned the title. For example: Wally West became The Flash after Barry Allen. Bart Allen became Kid Flash after he grew up a bit and left the name Impulse behind. The names became mantels. Now they don’t mean anything because they’ve been revoked, rearranged, removed, whatever.

This problem doesn’t touch just The Flash’s so-called legacy, and it doesn’t stop merely with old guys coming back and retaking their titles. For some, the bigger issue is that a bunch of old white guys are coming back to retake their titles.

Ryan Choi, we hardly knew ye.

The Atom. Ok, Ray Palmer is back, so they discard the replacement Ryan Choi by killing him off, which apparently is the quick and easy way to write off a character (which is also very lame). But, oh crap, that means they killed the guy with a different ethnicity to make room for a white guy.

Boom. Now you’ve got racial issues.

I think that’s ridiculous. If DC wants to revert back to the older heroes, then yeah, it’s gonna look like a whitewash because those characters were created in a long-ago age. Was it an intentional slam against the racially diverse characters added over the past few years? I don’t think so. I hope not. Maybe I’m being far too optimistic in my pessimism, but that result only sprang from the decision they made.

Adding to the confusion, we have Dick Grayson under the cowl when we know Bruce is due back in a few months. I know, I know. Someone needs to be Batman while Bruce was gone. Gotham still needs Batman. Bruce couldn’t ever really be dead because no one else is really Batman. Here the legacy doesn’t work. It can’t work, and it never will work no matter how many times someone else temporarily has their face behind that mask. Those boots — among others like Wonder Woman and Superman — are just too big to be properly filled permanently.

I suppose “half-assed executions” is a little harsh, but this is a nice hole that the folks at DC wrote themselves into. How can one character have a legacy when others who have interacted with that character never age? Retcon the Failsafe? (I think that could be a comic itself.) Change who worked with whom back in the good ol’ days to make sure the aging problem doesn’t interfere? That’s great. They’re probably going to do it sooner or later anyway.

You just can’t please everyone. This fact has proven itself tenfold since I’ve been in the DC fandom. Not everyone is going to approach a new direction with grace and a sensible sense of judgment rather than instantaneous maniacal fan-frothing. But it’s kind of strange that the new faces of DC Universe are taking us backwards instead of moving forwards.

I don’t roam into the Marvel Universe very often. I happen to really like X-Force, especially X-23. For a while now, I have been trying to think of someone who could hold their own against her. Then the mash-up came to me, Black Alice versus X-23!

Black Alice is wildly powerful with magic. She can gank the powers of any magical being that she’s laid eyes on including the likes of the Spectre and Wonder Woman. She has also proven to be naive and immature, often succumbing to emotionally-driven bad decisions.

X-23 is an expert martial artist who will kill you. I think she could own Lady Shiva. X-23′s heightened senses, healing factor, and pure skill might just give Black Alice one hell of a fight.

What say you?

I read a lot — so much that all my books are subject to the 100-page rule: If I don’t care what’s happening by the 100th page, then I’m done. Life is short, and I’d like to get to the good shit before my vision goes. Obviously, comic books make up a massive portion of my literary diet. To deepen my knowledge and beef up my continuity chops, I often read trade volumes of classic stories that my fellow geeks recommend.

Enter Crisis on Infinite Earths. I am on page 102, and I’m bored. I don’t give a damn what happens next, and I am certain I could find a WAY more amusing summation on somebody’s blog. But the Geek Posse has spoken. They say that I should plow through my apathy and finish the friggin’ book. Some think it’s a great story, but I don’t share their affinity for retro-fitted fan whoring.

Perhaps I just have general Crisis Fatigue, or maybe the story is so convoluted and shallow that my brain is insulted. The obsessive part of me wants to read it because I feel I should. As a fangirl who primarily reads DC comics and now writes about them, it’s like my duty or something. Maybe it would help me make sense of Grant Morrison’s reference rodeos. Frankly, that’s my only motivation to finish.

So here’s the question: Do I spend precious moments of my life on the next 250 pages of this classic book, or do I move on to one of the many other trades waiting for me?

Dinah is a wicked hand-to-hand combatant, but Cheshire is a poisonousness, merciless biotch. What say you?

Shortly after unveiling new Wonder Woman writer J. Michael Straczynski, DC has announced a new creative team for its buzzworthy Power Girl title — and it’s a teeny bit controversial. With issue #13, writer Judd Winick and artist Sami Basri will take over for current writers Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and artist Amanda Conner. I’m not even gonna front: It’s very likely that issue #12 will be my last. Nothing is static in comics, but the trio of Palmiotti, Gray and Conner made Power Girl both fun to read and gorgeous to look at. I’d probably read Wonder Woman even if it were written and illustrated by 7-year-olds. However, my attachment to Power Girl has nothing to do with the character and everything to do with the quality of her book.

With all due respect to Green Lantern and Batman, the live-action superhero movie DC/Warner Brothers ought to be making isn’t really about heroes at all. Two words: Secret. Six.

Aside from being one of the most consistently good mainstream comics around, the current incarnation of Secret Six is a carnival ride of moral ambiguity; wildly amusing yet sickening. While darkness seems to plague this colorful cast wherever they go (Junior, Devil’s Island, *shudder*), there’s also plenty of humor and the perfect Hollywood cliché of stuff just … blowing up. That’s a filmmaker and casting director’s dream (or at least the dream of the alternate universe versions of V and I that make movies).

Let’s face it; a smaller, off-kilter movie about a group of rogues stands a better chance of being good — or at least interesting — than any live-action Justice League movie a studio would whip up. (I’m not saying I don’t want to see a live-action JL movie, but I just don’t see how it could possibly be done well.)

We’ve got our own ideas about casting Secret Six: The Movie, but first we want to hear yours.  Who’s your big-screen dream team to portray Bane, Jeanette, Catman, Deadshot, Ragdoll and Scandal Savage — or Knockout or Black Alice?



DC announced on Friday that Gail Simone will be leaving Wonder Woman. As much as we’d like her to stay on the book, she is not Wonder Woman. With the return of the Birds, I suppose she can’t do it all. I was disappointed, but not surprised. Gail’s replacement, announced this morning, will be J. Michael Straczynski. This guy has got some serious writing cred behind him, but in his interview he seemed more stoked about writing Supes than Wondy. Through hell or high water, Wonder Woman will stay on my pull list, but I’m a little worried.

We’ve seen these two duke it out a time or two before, and it looks like they’re at it again in this month’s issue of Wonder Woman. So, we’re curious. Do you think the Wonder Warrior would be triumphant, or would PG’s Kryptonian strength bitchiness manage to “pit bull” a win?

Cover art by Aaron Lopresti

Current continuity of both, but Slade doesn’t have any bullshit chocolate handy. Not that Shiva would fall for that again (or EVER!).

Current continuity versions of both (not Ultimate X-Men or Blackest Night).