Black Widow #1

When Iron Man 2 first introduced Black Widow to the Marvel Cinematic U, I wasn't blown away. Scarlett Johnasson is a good actress, but the one and only fight scene she gets involved in was too unrealistic for me to take it seriously, and her disguise as Nathalie Rushman felt like a charicature of her actual identity (a super smart, glamarous woman who is used to pretending to be other people.) While I was excited that Marvel seemed to have settled on a female superhero to add to their movies, I was nervous for her portrayal in the Avengers. (Would she just be the hot chick in the background who looks good but doesn't do anything useful? Would she get to prove her worth in a team full of powerful, more famous characters?)

For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised. Joss Whedon cut his teeth on directing female leads who have a lot of action sequences, and it showed. Black Widow had some of the strongest, most complex scenes in the movie and, misogyny/rape culture implications of that "mewling quim" conversation aside, I came away feeling like Natasha was a crucial member of the Avengers team, and not just a throwaway girlfriend character for Tony and the others to oggle over. She was smart, and complicated, and utterly unconcerned with her own nuerosis when it came time to save the world. She was more than just a hot actress in a catsuit. I liked her. I wanted more.

Since then, I've been waiting for Marvel to take this potential and reflect it back into their comic universe, the way they have with Hawkeye, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and so many others. With the exception of appearances as a guest star in other character's comics, she's largely remained out of the spotlight, which felt like a waste of her potential.

It seems like all that is over now, because BLACK WIDOW #1, while not at all what I expected, was definitely the book I've been waiting for.

Edmonson's Black Widow starts out traditionally enough: with Natasha in disguise, fooling a bad guy into thinking she might be on his side, lying about a piece of her history (or is she?) before she drops him off a building (with a bungee chord attached). That's more or less what you'd expect from a strong female character, right? If she's not beating someone up every second that she's on screen, if she's not focused on proving herself to be _better_ than somebody who underestimated her because of her gender, you won't know that the femme fetale hits as hard as the boys. That's the model for a sexy female super spy that we're so used to seeing that it's often confused for the only way to tell a story about female heroes. 

But then Natasha promptly strides off the battlefield, victorious, and has a meeting in broad daylight with Isaiah, her accountant. This sets up the arc for the series, and ties into the shades of a backstory that most people are familiar with from the Avengers- that once upon a time Natasha Romanoff was a very bad person who killed people for money, and now she wants to do enough good that she can cancel out the negative impact she once had upon the world. She donates her money to trusts, presumably to help the families of her victims, and only takes jobs when her would-be enemy fits a certain low-life profile. 

Noto was is an unexpectedly brilliant choice for this kind of story. His drawings are at once fluid and painstakingly meticulous, with effervescent, well chosen details. Natasha radiates with confidence, capability, and quiet introspection, basking in a palette of golds, blues, and reds that harken back to the 1960s and 1970s when Black Widow first turned into a legitimate superhero. The issue's two action sequences are sparsley choreographed, showcasing an emotional detail and painterly expression that would have been lost on mainstream comics audiences entirely before the anime boom of the late 90s. 

She shoots a sniper on an opposing rooftop. She drinks a glass of wine and washes it. She accidentally adopts a cat. She's at once an Avenger and a spy and a real person who has fears and doubts about herself, but can't afford to be consumed by them. 

"This is what I am now," she warns, staring straight ahead as a tiny black spider weaves a web on her window pane. "You'll never know who I was before." 

Challenge accepted, Natasha. See you next month.

INJUSTICE: Gods Among Us #6-11 Analysis

Here's my analysis of issues #1-5 in case you missed it.

Also: SPOILER ALERT BEYOND THIS POINT. If you haven't read this yet, go to Comixoloy or Amazon and get on it!! ;-) The issues are only 99 cents each!!

INJUSTICE: Gods Among Us #1-5 Analysis

Injustice is the best Justice League alternate universe story I've ever read. It's probably the best Justice League story I've ever read. To steal a turn of phrase from my best friend*, "It's so good that I'm almost mad about it." Yes, really. I have never played the game that it is supposedly a prequel for.

The issues are digital only (for now- the trade's not due out until December) and are 99 cents a piece on Comixology and on Kindle (and it is perfectly formatted for viewing on your tablet.) Join me, as I gleefully recap them and analyze them, a few issues at a time.

Also- forewarning: if you haven't read Injustice, I am going to spoiler you as I sell you on it. Don't worry, though, because this is actually good enough to sustain both my review/analysis AND a full and thorough read through. I promise.

Review: Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong

*blows off dust*

Hi guys! It's a been too long since my last update (sorry about that.)

I just read a fantastic independent graphic novel today, and it seemed like a great time to get back into the swing of blogging!

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is a stand-alone graphic novel collaboration between Prudence Shen (as her first published work) and Faith Erin Hicks (whose art some of you may recognize from her popular online webcomics.) I couldn't find a good image of the cover online, so I snapped a photo for you at my desk of the paperback edition (complete with it's spot UV coating on the title!)

Nail polish color = China Glaze in Flying Dragon Neon, for anyone who wants to know.

Summary from the official website:

You wouldn’t expect Nate and Charlie to be friends. Charlie’s the laid-back captain of the basketball team, and Nate is the neurotic, scheming president of the robotics club. But they are friends, however unlikely — until Nate declares war on the cheerleaders, and the cheerleaders retaliate by making Charlie their figure-head in the ugliest class election campaign the school as ever seen. At stake? Student group funding that will either cover a robotics competition or new cheerleading uniforms — but not both.
Bad sportsmanship? Sure. Chainsaws? Why not! Nothing can possibly go wrong.

And guess what? The first part of the story is available here to read for free as a webcomic. So you really have no excuse not to check it out if my review intrigues you.

LIVE NERDS! GEEKS! GEEKS! GEEKS!

This is the new poster for Comikaze Expo that the unveiled on their facebook page on Friday.

A close friend of mine, who happens to be an avid cosplayer and con-goer, saw it and posted it on her facebook page, asking for her friends opinions about it.

I thought about it, and it makes me uncomfortable.

I grew up geeky (and I'm aware that fact doesn't make me unique, which I'll get to in a minute.) I'm an only child, and I was raised to be pretty individualistic, and I never felt like hiding my outside-the-mainstream interests was an option. This often made me a target for social stigmatization, mostly in high school, until I went off to college and met lots of other nerdy people who like the same things that I like.

I'm not going to say that this kind of thing doesn't happen anymore, because obviously it does. Like most social causes worth caring about, things aren't perfect, but they're getting better. It's been an important few years for nerd culture as a whole. The Avengers is officially the third highest grossing movie of all time. There's a new superhero movie for every season, and at least two or three new sci-fi movies every summer. Star Trek is popular with non-nerds again. Anime and Manga are available wherever DVDs and digital/printed entertainment media are sold. The graphic novel section at my local big chain bookstore has never been larger in the ten plus years that I've lived here. Video games garner enough attention and sales to warrant promotional billboards over Times Square. Venture Brothers exists.

Nerd culture is as ubiquitous and mainstream as it's ever been. People who don't self-identify that way might not be signing up for Yuletide or making podcasts about their comic book collections, but they're definitely showing up to patronize the new Star Trek movie, buying Adventure Time merchandise at Hot Topic, and going, in droves, to Comic Con.

The tone of that poster bothers me: LIVE NERDS! GEEKS GEEKS GEEKS!

As though comic con attendees are some sort of spectacle. Why is it still okay to point at people with nerdy interests as if they're freaks? Why are we, as nerds and geeks and whatever you want to call us, people who like to go to comic book conventions, comfortable with comic conventions marketing to us that way?

My friend who asked for comments on the original post also brought up an incredibly good separate point (for which she was LOUDLY shouted down in the comments on that above facebook post.)

The cosplay community is causing an uproar (as well they should) because too many convention goers are treating cosplayers the same way that many patrons (usually male) at a strip club treat (usually female) strippers. Which is to say: in an objectified manner that does not respect their autonomy as people. I would elaborate, but you probably already know what  I'm talking about. The COSPLAY DOES NOT EQUAL CONSENT movement is trying to change that, and I fully applaud and support their efforts*.

The strip-club-inspired design of that poster is pretty difficult to separate from the message of the poster itself. If I were responsible for explaining that poster to a six year old, I wouldn't be able to in a way that is age appropriate. Comikaze is supposed to be a family friendly convention. There are lots of conventions that aren't, of course, but in general, most large conventions encourage parents to bring their kids. Shouldn't we be encouraging the fostering of a new nerdy generation? Is there anything more magical than the look on a kid's face the first time they see adults in really excellent cosplay?

I'm glad that Comikaze Expo understands the value of good graphic design when it comes to promoting their event. As someone who works in the print/graphics industry, I have to say,the execution of this design is exceptional. The colors are pretty, it's eye catching, and it successfully evokes the thing it's referencing while simultaneously promoting the present-day event that it's meant to be advertising.

I just wish the concept weren't in such bad taste.


*   I  hopefully don't need to explain to you that our society as a whole doesn't treat strippers with respect (and, in many ways, legally punishes sex workers by not affording them the same rights that we do for other professions.) In case you somehow didn't know this, here's some reading. Trigger warning for sexual abuse.

Angel & Faith #20 Reactions

I have a lot feelings about the latest issue of Angel & Faith. This post discusses the issue in depth, but I’m not going to post any of the interior pages, because it’s a really amazing book and you should buy it. I'm sorry it's taken me four days to get this written and posted.

(To the left is the fantastic variant cover by Rebekah Isaacs, poking fun at Archie.)

(Some of those feelings are about the Buffy series as a whole and are brought up by, though not necessarily directly related to, the issue itself. Trigger warning: part of this post references, in very general terms, the scene in which Spike attempted to rape Buffy during the TV show.)

Faith has always been my favorite Buffy character, and AaF as my local comic book store likes to call it, is easily the most enjoyable for me out of all the canon Buffy books. 

There’s a conflict for me, and I don’t think it will come as a surprise to those of you who know me in real life that I’m not sure if I’m supposed to like Spike anymore.

You should really be reading MARA if you're not already.

I love Brian Wood and Ming Doyle, so the idea of the two of them working on a book together was a total SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY scenario for me.

In case you have somehow missed the ads and upfronts: Mara is about an internationally famous top athlete who mysteriously develops superpowers, which will possibly ruin her career, given that she is immediately accused of cheating.

MARA takes place in the future, and we don't know specifically where or when, and those things don't really matter. There are space launches and futuristic looking cars and international border disputes, and while all of this is on the periphery of Mara Prince's story, it all helps add rich, atmospheric layer to the universe she inhabits. Brian Wood uses a deft, minimalist hand, showing rather than telling. It's like a David Bowie song- on some level, you're aware that cultural context was used as fuel for something deep and personal, but the final product is so well executed that you don't need context in order to know that there's a living, beating heart in there and it wants to share things with you.

Too common in comics (particularly comics about superheroes and superpowers) is the classic origin story with recognizable archetypes, and Brian Wood dodges these tropes effortlessly by establishing Mara in her universe beforehand, off-screen. There's no narrative hand-holding.  While Mara's fame is an integral part of the movement of the story, MARA never feels like a literal running commentary. Rather, fame is simply a part of the underpinnings that make Mara tick because it's her job. As of writing this, we're three issues in. I don't necessarily feel like I know Mara very well, but I like her. Her characterization is either very natural or extremely well thought out, and it's so well done that I don't really care which. She's not somebody who lets many people get to know her, but I want to stick around for the next three issues so that I'll get the chance.

And let's not forget the art.

Oh, the art.

 There's some stiffness in the first few pages of the first issue, but please don't let that fool you: Ming Doyle's retro-futurist style is lush and humanizing. The character designs are well considered, the layouts are engaging, and while there's a fair amount of stillness, it's always evocative, and never boring. Jordie Bellaire's color palletes are simple and well chosen, and it always feels like the textures and gradations he uses are enhancing, rather than distracting from, Ming's fabulous lineart.

I don't want to post too much of the astoundingly gorgeous art here because it's really meant to be read as it's originally presented. "wishyouweremegan" on tumblr did a really nice presentation if my hopeless gushing wasn't enough to convince you.

MARA stands out on the landscape of independent titles. As a reader, I don't totally know where I'm being lead, but I don't mind in the slightest. As the above post by Megan says, you should buy it, and then we'll all take the scenic journey together.