#within his 2020 comic run

[emichevy]

Noir having child bearing hips is so galaxy brained very cool op

I know. My brain is well beyond mankind’s comprehension

#spiderman noir #spider noir #my goals are beyond #mankind’s understanding #lmao #my wife #he’s my wife #‘CHILD BEARING’ #LMAOO #best classifications #no but I’m serious have you seen some of his comic covers?? #baby has those things showing OFF #don’t get me started on the amount of leg shots- #within his 2020 comic run #he is the thigh man of the spider verse #not sorry

[doctorofmagic]

Doctor Strange's disability: a (much needed) chronological review

In view of recent ableism and drama on the other social hellsite involving Doctor Strange's disability, here's my response, based on *CANON* material. (link to the thread on said hellsite here)

Stephen disability is established since 1963, back in Strange Tales #115. The story is focused on a flashback which portrays his journey from the decay of his medical career because of a car accident to his path towards the mystic arts.

Note that, in this very same issue, the Ancient One never says he would heal Stephen's *hands*, but perhaps Stephen would find the cure within. In other words, Stephen was supposed to heal his heart and soul from arrogance and egoism through magic, not a physical cure.

Also note that there are limitations within every aspect of comic books' universes. In this case, we're talking about magic. Magic is not a miracle thing. It demands training and, most recently as established by v4, a cost (Doctor Strange v4 #4).

Another clue that "magic can heal anything because it's fantasy" is not a valid argument within Marvel's magic world, as seen in The Oath. Stephen had access to the Otkid's Elixir, which could heal any disease, but the formula was lost in order to save Wong's life.

One last example comes from Spider-Man Family #5 (2007), featuring Morbius and Spidey. It establishes that healing demands the exact same price when it comes to magic.

Long story short, it's clear that the magic side of Marvel does not offer a solution to diseases through magical miracles. So this argument is totally invalid ~within~ this established universe.

Now back to Doctor Strange... No, he isn't using magic to heal his hands unlike some misleading accounts are claiming. In fact, there are several panels which show that he's actually in constant pain. Here's some examples:

- Doctor Strange - Sorcerer Supreme #48 (1992).

- Captain Marvel v10 #6 (2019)

- Doctor Strange v4 #1 (2015)

He also struggles to hold a pen and write, relying on magic to do so, as seen in the Book of the Vishanti.

Then comes the stupid argument I saw.

"Oh, but Google says his hands are healed!" is not a gotcha moment you think it is. We had FOUR MAIN BOOKS after that (Surgeon Supreme, DODS, Strange v3 and current v6). Allow me to clarify the details in chronological order.

Stephen indeed made a "magic" gamble and healed his hands. That much is correct. But it's not all (panels from Doctor Strange v5 #19 - 2019).

Waid continued this storyline in a new book called Dr. Strange (Surgeon Supreme), which would portray Stephen's duality as the Sorcerer Supreme and a brilliant surgeon. Except the book was cancelled at issue #6 (2020), leaving the character in a kind of limbo. Now enter MacKay.

MacKay kept a little bit of the former storyline as seen in Death of the Doctor Strange #1 (2021). On top of that, his hands appeared healed. However, that lasted only until Kaecilius murdered Stephen and stole his hands.

Stephen's temporal duplicate used a regenerative spell to bring original Stephen back through Kaecilius' body and the stolen hands. In here, we can see that his hands are scarred just like after the car accident (DODS #5 - 2022). OG Stephen died a second time with scars as well.

Stephen is indeed seen writing in v6 but it's not clear if he's using magic or not. Besides, he's not working as a surgeon anymore. Moreover, MacKay considers Stephen disabled as seen in this recent issue of v6 (#7 - 2023): "My own connection to the aether, the magic of the world, the power of the Vishanti, the power of the Sorcerer Supreme... Gone. Without all of that? I am just an old man with useless hands and a blade in his stomach."

In conclusion,

As of CURRENT DOCTOR STRANGE RUN by Jed MacKay and Pasqual Ferry, in the year of our lord Vishanti, 2024, Stephen Strange is a disabled character and no magic or ableism will erase that. Thank you very much.

#doctor strange #stephen strange #tw: ableism #marvel comics #character analysis #meta

[fantastic-nonsense]

i don't know if you've already made a post about this but what comic(s) do you think have the best characterisation of cassandra cain and dick grayson?

My instinctive response to this ask was to just answer "Prodigal and Batgirl (2000)" and be on my way. Instead, I took a little bit more time to think about what my answer should be and what information might be useful to people looking for comics featuring a well-characterized Dick and Cass. So, with that said:

Dick:

Robin: Year One (2000)

New Teen Titans/Tales of the Teen Titans (1980 & 1984)

Batman: Year Three (1989)

Batman: Prodigal (1997)

Titans Vol. 1 (1999)

Nightwing/Birds of Prey: The Hunt for Oracle (2000)

Gotham Knights (2000) #1-12

Peter Tomasi's run on Nightwing (1996)

Batman: The Black Mirror (2010)

Batman: Gates of Gotham (2011)

Listen. All of these comics have their flaws. Many of them feature dated and occasionally poor treatment of various characters/social issues. I'm still holding a grudge against Devin Grayson for her Nightwing run and will until the end of time, and thus the inclusion of Titans Vol. 1 and her first Gotham Knights arcs might seem a bit odd. But I also think this is a pretty solid list of comics that portray Dick in ways that feel consistent and faithful to his core characterization; they're also some of the comics that feature Dick at his best.

Cass:

Batgirl (2000): specifically the Puckett/Scott run (#1-37) and the Gabrych run (#38 & #58-73)

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?/Fugitive (2003)

Gates of Gotham (2011)

Tynion's run on Detective Comics (2016)

Batman and the Outsiders (2019)

Batgirl Vol. 1 was and continues to be the golden standard of how to portray Cass. She's never reached those heights again. Other comics featuring Cass wish they were Batgirl Vol. 1, but it was a true "lightning in a bottle" run that has yet to be replicated. That being said: Murderer/Fugitive (which takes place during Cass's Batgirl run) is great, and Gates of Gotham features the only solid pre-reboot Cass characterization post-Evil Cass arc.

Post-Flashpoint!Cass is a bit of a different animal, but within the context and limitations placed on her appearances until Dan Didio's departure from DC in 2020, she's best characterized and treated in Detective Comics Rebirth and Batman and the Outsiders.

Honorable mentions: these comics either weren't quite on the same level of "good characterization" to make the list or just didn't highlight the character as much as they could have, but I still really like what the creative team did with them in the space they were given:

Dick: Nightwing (1996) #6 (for being a fun depiction of Dick and Tim's early-days relationship), Teen Titans (2003) #6 (great characterization of Dick. So-so characterization of...several other characters), The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul (I love Dick's characterization here, and it's one of my favorite Bat books, but he's just not in it all that much), and Batman & Robin (2009), which...I'll get into my complicated feelings about Morrison's B&R run some other time, but generally: I like Dick's characterization in this comic a lot in isolation. It becomes much more difficult to square, however, when you take everything else going on during the Reborn era into account.

Cass: Mariko Tamaki's Shadows of the Bat: The Tower (2021) event and "Sounds" short from the DC Asian Superhero Celebration (2021) anthology. They're nice and have some great Cass moments, but they're either too short (Sounds) or too focused on other characters/the overall plot (The Tower) to truly do her justice.

#ugh....the hesitation to put Titans Vol. 1 on here but knowing it portrays his relationships with the rest of the Fab Five the best... #dick grayson #cassandra cain #bri's recs #dc comics #batman #batfam #nightwing #batgirl #replies #dick grayson meta #cassandra cain meta

[damianbugs]

hi saki hiii if it's not 2 much of a bother, do u have a link to a batman reading list w some of the older comics u often talk abt? despite The Disease I've only read maybe 4 actual Bruce Wayne centered runs

-Angel 🫶🏾

HI ANGEL !!! unfortunately i have not yet found a good reading list of older batman comics. most of them are just like "read every single thing published since 1940" and like, okay, fair enough, but also no one wants to do that.

fortunately this gave me an excuse to look through my own fav reads and compile a short list to get you started! the thing about older batman comics is that (personally) they are far more easier to follow compared to modern day comics, so once you get familiar with the older style and layouts, it's so easy to just find the kind of stories you want to read!

most of these are published after the 1970s but all of them are before the New 52 (2011) !!

for a more concise list (+content/trigger warnings) you can find this reading list on my comic geeks.

> Batman: Legends of The Dark Knight

now this collection features over 200 issues and a dozen writers BUT it's because it's full of 2-4 issue short stories. out of these, the ones i recommend most to begin with are; #16-20 (venom), #39-40 (mask), #100 (the choice).

if you like the tone of these, then i would recommend reading the other stories too. great thing is that they're not connected to each other at all, so if you don't like one then you can skip it no problem. i definitely jumped over a few writers and weird stories when reading.

> Batman 1940

now from the main run itself, the advice to just read everything published is not worth it. some of these stories really just drag or are super confusing.

some favourites of mine to start with are; #402-403 (One Batman Too Many), #423 (You Shoulda Seen Him...) and of course, #404-#408 (Batman Year One).

> Detective Comics

now i have always been of the opinion that tec is the better of the two main runs, and you can really see the quality of story telling shine in older comics !

a few of my favourite issues are: #408 (The House That Haunted Batman), #439 (The Night of the Stalker), #457 (There is No Hope in Crime Alley!), #573-574 (My Beginning... and my Probable End) and #598-#600 (Blind Justice).

> The Brave and The Bold

all runs of tbatb runs, whether that be the 1950, 1990, 2007 or even present 2023 run, are so good !!!

for an older story, #93 (published 1970) is my favourite !!

> Batman Black and White

okay so i know i have been giving singular issue recs up until now but i am so serious when i say you should just read every single issue of Batman Black and White. there are three runs, the 1996, 2014 and 2020 with only around 6 issues each. some of the best and truly life changing stories are within it.

in fact, my all time number one favourite batman comic EVER is published in #1 of the 1996 run (Perpetual Mourning). there will never be a batman story ever like it again.

> Other Stories

there was something in the air during the 1990s, because some of the best ever batman stories were published during that time. i fear there has truly never been such a stacked decade like that one.

a few essential must reads from 1980s-1990s; Batman The Cult, Batman: Night Cries, Batman: War on Crime, Batman: The Ultimate Evil, Batman: Son of the Demon.

happy reading!!!!

#bruce wayne #saki comic talks #batman comic recs

[lenasai]

Hey! I've tried getting into blaseball before but could not understand it. Could you explain? 🥺

ID: The "Sickos" comic meme. End ID.

i will never pass up an opportunity to talk about blaseball!

i typed a lot, so the rest is under the cut for the sake of people who have me on their dash

unfortunately, i have bad news about getting into it as an active participant - the developers decided to end blaseball as an ongoing project in june for a number of reasons, one being that running it at the level they wanted to (and really, at any point in the game's history) has been unsustainable for the team.

however, i encourage you to look further into the fan creations because there is so much more than just the game!

to summarize what blaseball was: blaseball was a fantasy horror baseball simulator with an ongoing plot and a very creative fanbase. i would describe the relationship between the fans and the devs as a large-scale version of a tabletop roleplaying game, with the devs (and the simulation running the game) as the game masters. a lot of iconic moments in the discipline era in particular were a mix of the devs taking a "yes, and" approach to fan input and the number of ways in which the site broke.

the experience of watching games was very minimal and mostly text-based, so it wasn't too unlike watching real baseball updates online, except weird things happened sometimes. different weather conditions introduced a small chance of something happening to teams and players, or even tweaked the rules of play for that game. my favorite weather was sun .1, which added 0.1 points to each run scored per inning. it was also just an adorable tiny sun, which is the reason it's my favorite.

the players were all just names and stats, which enabled the fans to fill in the blanks and craft their own narratives around them.

aside from the teams and players, there were also a number of entities that performed different functions within the league. some had extended reach beyond the main site - for example, if you wanted to keep up on twitter, you could follow the commissioner and receive updates about events and other things that happened during the season.

optionally, a lot of fans also discussed games as they were happening on the official discord. most of the teams still have active discord servers, so if you find yourself attached to one, i'm sure you could find someone who could give you a link

i don't blame you for having a hard time getting into it because for a period of time, things were getting more and more complicated by design! the expansion era (season 12-24) was all about telling a story about the harm of endless growth. the big bad was literally the god of capitalism. this was quite the effective storytelling mechanism, but it also meant getting into blaseball was very difficult for new fans. i had a friend who tried getting into it around the time shit really hit the fan and they gave up 😭

thanks to the efforts of a very dedicated group of fans - the society for internet blaseball research in particular - it is possible to experience blaseball in some form, albeit not as an active, ongoing thing. before is a wonderful archive of the blaseball.com website that is mostly functional. you can type in which season/day you want to see or view a list of major events here. for less complicated games, i recommend the discipline era. for more chaos, late expansion era is where that's at.

for both official history/season explanations and team/player lore, check out the blaseball wiki! there's lots of cool stuff to check out there if you want to learn more about something.

i also recommend the blaseball roundup - an official recap of everything through season 22, starring quinns from people make games as the anchor! (for plot reasons, seasons 23 and 24 are not covered. unfortunately, given the state of the game, i don't think this will happen.)

quinns made his own video for people make games back in 2020, which is also a nice watch.

for a comprehensive list of all of the official videos, analysis from the blaseball news network, and more, this is an excellent fan project that puts everything in one place with links out to the internet archive.

finally, there is a metric fuckton of fan art and fanfic to check out! there isn't really one central location for most of the art, but you can find a lot of writing in the blaseball tag on ao3 and itch (which is being really slow for me at the time of writing, but you can search "blaseball" on itch and get some results 👍)

blaseball might be "over," but its fanbase is not going anywhere, and i can guarantee you there is no bad time to get into it. we are all love blaseball here ❤️⚾️🩸

#blaseball

[wormsin]

Do you think DC is writing Bruce's character so into the ground that they're evntually going to separate the Dynamic Duo for good? It's no secret that Nightwing is basically surpassing Batman in popularity now, and most fans are fed up with Bruce's character, practically to the point of hating him and wanting him no where near the BatFam. Do you think DC will give in to these kinds of wishes, and have them keep their lives/stories apart for good? I doubt they'd want to risk Nightwing's high status. (If anything I think they're writing Batman so terribly so they can make an excuse to be rid of him - at least for a while?)

I haven't been caught up on Batman, Detective Comics, Nightwing or World's Finest since the end of 2022 so I don't know what you're referring to specifically. what are people mad at Bruce for now?

but no, DC is absolutely not going to ever break up Batman from Nightwing/Batclan/Batman Rogues and Villains stories in any kind of permanent way.

first of all, Batman is *enormously* popular. whatever subset of fans don't like him, they are a minority. Batman and Batman-related titles have basically been DC's #1 seller since the 90s. in 2021 and 2022, Batman-related titles accounted for 38% of all DC's new releases. and like, that's including Nightwing, Robins, Rogues, Villains, etc. but a lot of it is the big guy himself. I'm fairly sure it's its own big department in DC. and they are spending the most money and hiring the 'best' artists and writers for Bruce.

Nightwing is growing in popularity but is still outperformed by several Batman issues. there are plenty of pop crit articles in the last few years about how Nightwing might be better and more popular than Batman, which is laughable because Tom Taylor's writing is flat as a crepe.

DC *has* removed Bruce before! he was lost in time and Dick was Batman for 2+ publication years. Dick was out of commission as Nightwing for that, for Grayson (2014-2016) *and* as Ric (2018-2020). it's not unheard of to remove or fundamentally alter a main character for like two years—

before returning to the status quo.

anyway, I think the larger point is that there is not going to be character development or emotional continuity between any Batman-related titles, ever. whatever is going on with Damian's relationship to Bruce in the Batman title is going to have no bearing on Damian's relationship to Bruce in Batman and Robin. they can't even maintain continuity between Nightwing and Batman when Dick and Bruce are in the same room. they can't remotely keep a coherent timeline of events, and we often have multiple Bruce plots running at once in Gotham in ways that break space time!

this is due to DC's publication structure. and it makes it very hard for writers to do things to characters and the world that have actual impact in the long-term. so whatever conflicts or turmoil happen in a run, they have to be resolved within the run because the next three writers are not necessarily going to know or care about it. (this is why Bruce "gets away" with being a Huge Ass.)

even if we just take the Watsonian look at things, there is nothing Bruce could do that Dick would not forgive. Bruce has done plenty, and Dick is still there for him. it's a pretty core part of Dick's character.

but DC does like to blow up Bruce's relationships and fuck up his character growth. so it is possible they're gearing up for a temporary family conflict or Bruce-solo time. now I have to catch up on comics and see what the hell is going on.

#ask worm #batman #bruce wayne #meta #dick grayson #nightwing

[daresplaining]

my only """real""" complaint about daredevil black armor is that we had the perfect opportunity to have MORE MIKE AND IT WAS WASTED. the flashbacks should have included him.

YES! I was thinking about that too! (Probably not news, I'm always thinking about Mike.) It would have been really cool for Chichester to position the series as a retrospective within the new Mike continuity and include him. I'd give anything to see Chichester's take on our guy (he's one of my favorite DD writers and very good with character-building), and heck, even beyond just the baby Matt training flashbacks, I would love to know what Mike was up to in the 90s, following Matt's "death". He would've gotten a kick out of Jack Batlin.

I understand why they didn't go that route, though, or why it might not have even occurred to them. This series was very clearly set up as a chance for Chichester to finally return to his status quo-- the very specific Daredevil world and supporting cast he'd built in the 90s-- as if no time had passed and his run had not been messily cancelled. It's a continuation of a pre-existing thing, a comic meant to feel like it could have actually come out in 1994. Because of this, including something modern like Mike, regardless of his new always-been-real status, would have felt out-of-place.

That said...all other flashback series from 2020 forward should not be exempt. Put Mike in all of the things.

#Daredevil: Black Armor #Daredevil #Mike Murdock #Asks #Mike Murdockalypse

[lpsgirl109]

The Official Pegasus Fanfic Masterlist

Decided to put a huge list of all my fanfics together. This will be updates over time. Note that almost everything off my Wattpad account is excluded from the list, that's because most of the stuff on there is really old and I'd rather let it fade into obscurity

Marvel Future Avengers

Twisted Shadows

Publishing date: 01/20/2023

Status: WIP

Info: My FA OC fic that has been in the works since like. 2020. Bruno faces his inner demon (and a literal demon) while Loki has to help a group of run away lab experiments. This one is Very OC heavy so I understand if its not your vibe, but this fic is my baby and I would really love for it to get more attention. I will say this fic has a fair amount of violence, and the main villain can get very freakish in terms of body horror, so be warned there

One in the Same

Publishing date: 10/18/2021

Status: Complete

Info: My first fic on Ao3!! A sweet little oneshot between Bruno and Bucky. I sort of really hate it now, but it kicked off my Ao3 account so in a way it is special. Plus my one friend really loves it so. Slay

Together

Publishing date: 05/27/22

Status: Complete

Info: A oneshot between Adi and Bruno. Mission goes wrong and it leads to Bruno getting injured and both of them getting lost in a forest

Keep Me On Fire, I'll Be Alright

Publishing date: 03/02/2023

Status: Complete

Info: A short oneshot exploring my headcanon in which Bruno cannot be in the hot sun for very long, because his body absorbs the heat and will make him sick. Very simple, but sweet

Locked Memories

Publishing date: 08/11/2023

Status: WIP

Info: this one is the one I fear is gonna get me shot down eventually for writing such a heavy fic about a kids show but oh well. Someone on Instagram has a whole Bluey comic that explores dark themes I should be fine /lh. Anyway, Bruno gets incredibly sick and has a bunch of dreams about a couple of kids who were once part of Hydra's Emerald Rain Project, but died sometime before the show. Should be obvious, but this fic features several deaths of children, and there may be one or two pretty graphic scenes, so if that bugs you, this fic is not for you!!

Raimiverse

Four Times Olivia Came In Clutch For The Besties, One Time They Came In Clutch For Her

Publishing date: 09/02/2023

Status: WIP

Info: OC fic about my girl Olivia Rosemary Octavius, featuring the many times she's helped out MJ, Peter, and Harry, and one time they all came together to help her. Still in the works, but should be done within the next couple months

And I'll Be Just Fine, If Only For One Night

Publishing date: 08/02/2024

Status: Complete

Info: Silly little Harlivia fic in which Harry and Olivia go for a drive late at night. Features hot chocolate and talking about feelings

Wings of Fire

The Arctic Skies

Publishing date: 08/05/2022

Status: WIP

Info: The first book in my DoD AU!! Basically, the entire AU is my take on how I'd write the Dragonets of Destiny, in a new war, and new challenges to face. Features ten dragonets of Pyrrhian and Pantalan tribes. This book is about the IceWing, Shiver. I haven't worked on it in. Over a year. But I do plan to get back to it soon

dividers made by saradika!!

#the pegasus fanfic masterlist #peg speaks #fanfiction #fanfic #marvel future avengers #spiderman #raimi trilogy #raimi spider man #raimiverse #wings of fire #wof

[blind-rats]

The Quiet Misogyny of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

When accusations that Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, abused his power on multiple sets, few fans of his work seemed surprised. According to actor Charisma Carpenter, who had a recurring lead role as Cordelia Chase on Buffy and starred in its spinoff series Angel, Whedon created a toxic work environment and repeatedly harassed her on set. In a statement posted across the actress’s social media accounts, Carpenter revealed that the traumatizing experience of working with Whedon caused her anxiety and a chronic physical condition that she still struggles with today.

Carpenter’s statement comes directly on the heels of WarnerMedia’s investigation into workplace misconduct allegations levied against Whedon after he was hired as a replacement director on Justice League (2017) following Zack Snyder’s departure. In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg and worked with Whedon during post production on the film and its subsequent reshoots, wrote on Twitter, “[Whedon’s] on set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.” As a show of support for Fisher, Carpenter revealed that she had participated in WarnerMedia’s investigation, stating, “Despite my fear about its impact on my future, I can no longer remain silent. This is overdue and necessary. It is time.” 

In December 2020, WarnerMedia shared that they had concluded the investigation and claimed they had taken “remedial action.” Prior to the investigation’s conclusion, Whedon voluntarily stepped down from his role as showrunner for the upcoming WarnerMedia-owned HBO series, The Nevers, due to the pandemic, so it remains unclear what so-called remedial action was actually taken against him.

The allegations against the director and former Hollywood sweetheart—or whatever the male nerd equivalent of that is—span nearly the entirety of his onscreen career. While some fans of Whedon may struggle to understand how a man whose work has been lauded for its depiction of Strong Female CharactersTM and themes of empowerment could perpetuate the abuse he outwardly condemned, other fans were less shocked. 

In addition to accusations by Whedon’s ex-wife Kai Cole, who wrote a scathing essay for the Wrap in 2017 about her ex-husband’s faux feminism and predatory affairs, rumors have swirled for years about Carpenter’s untimely departure from Angel. However, feminists who are familiar with Whedon’s shows, including Buffy, Firefly, and Dollhouse, as well as his first two Avengers films, have long-since recognized the quiet (and not-so-quiet) misogyny directly embedded within his filmography. 

To understand Whedon’s nerdy repackaging of entitlement toward women and their bodies, one must look no further than the subtext of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series that initially launched him to success.

During Buffy’s seven-season run from 1997 to 2003, and even still today, comedic sidekick Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) became a frequent target of feminist ire. There are countless think pieces, forums, blog posts, and Reddit threads dedicated to fans’ burning hatred of the character, and the show’s insistence on framing him as morally correct when he’s quite clearly in the wrong. From the very first episode, Xander is positioned as the “nice guy” of the friend group—the wisecracking, lovable nerd who reads X-Men comics and doesn’t get a second glance from most women. 

As the everyman, Xander caters to an audience of men and boys who might relate to his average looks, inability to entice women, and his literal powerlessness up against the superpowered women he fights alongside. His friends and allies have varying degrees of usefulness in the fight to protect Sunnydale, which sits on a demon hellmouth: Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Xander’s best friend and unrequited love interest, is imbued with vampire slaying abilities, and Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), his other best friend and briefly-requited love interest, has ’90s-esque computer hacking skills and eventually becomes a powerful witch. Additionally, at any given time, he is surrounded by allies that range from friendly vampires and ex-demons to superstrong government soldiers and werewolves.

In any room he’s in, Xander is never the strongest, smartest, bravest, best looking, or even the most charming—he is utterly average in every way. In an early Season 1 episode, Xander sums up his character archetype perfectly when he says, “I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away.” Despite Xander’s mediocrity and inherent powerlessness in comparison to the women he surrounds himself with, one of his key character traits is his sexual entitlement. He regularly makes references to his perpetual horniness and sexualizes almost every beautiful woman he encounters. 

When he first meets Buffy, he immediately develops a crush on her, and despite her repeated rejections over the course of several seasons, he continues to wait for an opportunity to be with her. Xander pining over his best friend might not necessarily make him bad, but it’s concerning that he also harbors resentment toward every guy Buffy dates or shows interest in, occasionally even lashing out at her for daring to choose other men over him.

Worse, he views himself as a “nice guy” who is entitled to sexual and romantic relationships with the beautiful women he fawns over. Except Xander isn’t really a nice guy at all—his entire self-identification as a nice guy isn’t actually supported by his interpersonal relationships or behavior, and in fact, is often directly contradicted by them. 

Interestingly, Xander doesn’t simply act as a stand-in for sexually frustrated nerd boys in the audience who want to fuck women like Buffy; he is also, quite literally, Whedon’s self-insert character. Fans of the show had initially speculated about this, and Whedon confirmed it when he was interviewed by NPR in 2000, stating, “Xander is obviously based on me.” This was also reconfirmed during a panel at the 2011 Emerald City Comic Con when actor James Marsters, who played the vampire Spike, said, “[Xander] is Joss. That’s the way he sees himself.” As Buffy fans gain a clearer picture of Whedon’s behavior behind the scenes, it’s ironic that a man with a track record of abusing his power over women and people of color on set would align himself with a character whose primary character trait is powerlessness. 

Why does a director and showrunner who weaponizes his power over his cast members to control them—and in the case of Charisma Carpenter, attempt to literally control her body and reproductive choices by pressuring her to get an abortion—get to hide behind a fictional facade of helplessness? Because he likes comics and wasn’t popular with girls in high school? Perhaps the most unlikely indictment of Whedon comes from the series itself, in a Season 6 arc that flips the concept of the harmless nerdy misogynist on its head. In the sixth season of Buffy—which notably featured the least involvement from Whedon, as he stepped down to an executive producing role to focus on other projects—a new group of villains called the Trio is introduced. The Trio features three socially inept, Star Wars-loving and comic book-obsessed boys who attempt to neutralize Buffy and take over Sunnydale. The group of seemingly harmless nerds evolves into a major threat over the course of the season.

After creating a mindless sex robot and being dumped by his girlfriend Katrina (Amelinda Embry), Warren Mears (Adam Busch), the leader and most malicious member of the group, creates a device to render his ex-girlfriend into a state of submission so he can force her to be his sex slave. However, before he is able to rape her, the device malfunctions, and when she tries to escape, Warren hits her over the head with a champagne bottle and kills her. Later in the season, Warren also fatally shoots Tara, a fan favorite and one of the few queer women characters in the series. 

Despite their inability to adhere to a traditionally idealized version of smooth-talking and muscled masculinity, the Trio’s proximity to nerd culture does not exempt them from causing harm. In fact, their self-identification as geeky underdogs is what provides them cover and their desire to acquire social power is what fuels their violence.

In an oft-cited acceptance speech for the “Men on the Front Lines” award presented by Equality Now, Whedon recalled a common question he received from reporters: “So, why do you write these strong female characters?” In response, he said, “Because you’re still asking me that question.” 

Though the response offers an empowering sentiment and makes for a highly quotable soundbite, he betrays his real motivations for writing fictional women within the same speech. He says, “When I created Buffy, I wanted to create a female icon, but I also wanted to be very careful to surround her with men who not only had no problem with the idea of a female leader, but, were in fact, engaged and even attracted to the idea.” He then went on to “jokingly” say that he writes characters like Buffy “‘cause they’re hot.” 

Whedon’s acceptance speech unwittingly reveals the contradictions, and similarities, within both his work and interpersonal relationships. Though he may have spent decades fooling Hollywood and his fanbase with his performative brand of feminist allyship, Whedon’s public persona was always a ruse to disguise the fact that he never actually respected strong women. He simply wanted to fuck them.

#Buffy The Vampire Slayer #Joss Whedon #Buffy Summers #Xander Harris #Willow Rosenberg #BTVS #Misogny #Sexism #Sexist

[emmym1]

My thoughts on... Black Widow 2020 afterword

This was an absolute incredible run, despite it being so short it delivers on so much. Amazing story, emotional and gutwrenching moments, incredible art, interesting characters. This run really has it all! I did not expect to love it as much as I ended up doing! I had quite high expectations on this run because I had heard so much praise about it and it still manages to beat all of them.

Seeing Nat's constant battle with grief and trauma was super interesting and it felt so real. The thoughts she was feeling, they were overwhelming, confusing, didn't always agree with each other. It was so intriguing to see her navigate all of that. Desperately trying to give what happened to her a place, but in the end being unable to do that and just accepting that it'll be a part of her forever. Nat is such a tragic and bittersweet character. She's been through so much, had so many terrible things happen to her and yet she remains strong and good at heart no matter what absolute gutwrenching thing happens to her. And to me that is what makes her really interesting, seeing her navigate all that and still being able to be a hero, even if she does carry a lot of guilt, sadness and trauma within her. She still fights and never gives up even though those thoughts will always be with her. There is a kind of sad, melachonical and bittersweet feeling withing it. This girl who has been through so much and carries so much things with her that she'll never get rid of while still trying her best to be stronger and better, and still the worst still happens to her and even then she just pushes through. Is able to be this amazing hero who's just extremely cool and badass. No matter how painful or terrible it is, no matter if she can put it behind her or has to accept she'll be carrying those feelings forever. It's incredible how strong she is not only physically but also mentally. It's also these aspects that really made me look up to and love the character in the mcu so much. And I will say this run really reminded me of the reasons why I like her as a character so much. It was great to reconnect with that. The first arc of this run really left me speechless. I did not expect it to hit me so hard. It was such a gutwrenching story that was executed so well with some of the best art i've seen. Seeing Nat breakdown in front of Bucky will be a moment I'll always remember from this run because of how much impact it had. That entire first arc was perfect really, some of the best comics i've ever read! The other two arcs were also really strong although they do kind of suffer in the end as it really feels as if this run ended before they could properly explore those storylines. Although I do feel they were able to close off the Apogee arc pretty well for the given timeframe. The Living Blade sadly wasn't able to get a solid conclusion. I really hope they'll explore it somewhere in the future as there is a lot of interesting ways they could explore what his deal is. Same goes for Lucy, she was a pretty interesting addition but It felt like they never were really able to scratch what lies beyond the surface when it comes to her. I hope they're able to do that at some point because there is so much directions you could take her character in to. I absolutely loved the team Nat assembled in this run. I really didn't expect Spider-Girl to fit in so well within this team but they made it work so well. I absolutely love that she was in this, as she's a hero i've been dying to know and read more about ever since reading Web-Warriors (2015). Her dynamic with Lucy was also really fun. I wished Kate Bishop was a permanent addition to the team though. She was a lot of fun for the short period she showed up. Nat and Yelena's dynamic was also a highlight for me. Seeing them work together as a team and adjusting to that was so cool and they're just so badass together. Seeing them work as one in every battle was incredibly cool, especially with how the art visualized it. Speaking of the art, every page was just breathtaking! All the action panels had so much to them that you could find new things even after staring at them for 5 minutes! It's defintely some of the best if not the best art i've seen in a comicbook so far!

I also have to mention that I just absolutely love her new suit, like i was so obsessed with it. It's just her best look i've seen in the comics and it just fits the character so well. It's absolutely perfect! This run was absolutely phenominal and probably one of my favorite comics I've read so far. I had an absolute blast reading it start to finish. This run is pretty much an amazing all in package for everything you'd want out of a comicbook I feel (at least for me!). It made me feel a lot of emotions and just left me in awe multiple times, whether it'd be for the emotional moments or the amazing art. I loved the team Nat put together in this and the threats she was up against. I also love that I was able to learn so much about the comics side of Black Widow as a character. She's always been one of my all time favs in the mcu so I am so glad i got to read this run. It made me appreciate the character so much and really reminded my of why I loved the character so much in the mcu. I really hope they're able to revisit/continue this run at some point. It has so much untapped potential, especially with how strong the creative team for it is. And there are so many characters that are just waiting to be explored further, such as Lucy. But I am satisfied with what I got in these 15 issues. It was a short but sweet run that I'll always remember!

#comics #marvel #earth 616 #black widow #natasha romanov #natasha romanoff

[mitchipedia]

"You've got me? Who's got you!" Rewatching the 1978 "Superman" movie starring Christopher Reeve

The 1978 “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve, launched the superhero film genre as it exists today. We rewatched it recently, enjoyed it, and I recommend it.

However, the movie takes a painfully long time to get going.  

”Superman” starts with pages turning on the 1938 Action Comics issue that launched the Superman character, narrated by a child’s voice-over. We did not remember this from seeing the movie previously. We wondered whether we had accidentally rented the wrong version of “Superman.” We had not. Onward. 

Then we go to Krypton, where the movie creeps forward. We see Marlon Brando as Superman’s father, Jor-El, wearing white stunt hair and a turtleneck with the Superman logo in it.

I wish the phrase “phoning it in” was not a cliche so I could use to to describe Brando’s performance. He drones on and on, making one speech after another. 

He’s concluding the prosecutor’s statement in the trial of three insurrectionists (ripped from the 2020s headlines!), who end up being sentenced to the Phantom Zone. I’m sure we won’t see these insurrectionists again—they won’t be any trouble and will not turn up in “Superman II.”

General Zod, played by Terence Stamp, is the leader of the trio, and his scenery-chewing is the only good part of this scene.

I saw “Superman” with friends in the theater during its first run in 1978, and I was very excited to tell them after the movie all about the Phantom Zone. I even guessed that the three villains would feature in the movie sequel. I was very proud of myself for this. Possibly related: It took me a long time to lose my virginity.  

Jor-El warns the leadership council of Krypton that the whole planet is about to explode within a month. The leaders say this is fake news because they did their own research on YouTube. The council nopes out on evacuating the planet and tells Jor-El he can’t tell anybody about his beliefs or else he’ll be an insurrectionist (that word again). A sensible person would have told the council to fuck right off because the council was not going to have any clout after the ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET EXPLODES. But Jor-El just goes along with it.

Brando goes back home, where he and his wife (if her name is spoken, I didn’t hear it) put on matching glowy silver lamé jumpsuits. They put their baby in a spaceship. Before sending the baby off to Earth, Marlon Brando makes a very long speech, while his wife looks at him with an expression like she wants him to shut up because she needs to pee. 

Then we’re off to Earth, to whip through young Clark Kent’s childhood. The costumes and cars and brilliant. The scenery from the Kent farm is beautiful, but there is way too much of it. Can we get this movie moving already?

Clark challenges his father to run from the end of their driveway to the barn. Pa Kent has a heart attack and dies. Clark never mentions his own role in Pa’s death. That seems odd.

Next stop: the North Pole, where young Clark spends 12 years being lectured by the holographic Marlon Brando, and we, in the audience watching the movie, get to experience every painful second of those 12 years. 

All this time, Clark is played by an actor who is not Christopher Reeve and doesn’t even look much like Christopher Reeve. This guy:

But after 12 years at the North Pole, demonstrating powers of super-boredom-resistance, Clark becomes Christopher Reeve and emerges in his spiffy super-suit, which makes all the girls swoon. He is a hunka hunka burnin love. The suit is very flattering, but he really should be wearing something modest below the waist and above the knee to better cover his prominent super-johnson. Maybe bermuda shorts with a festive luau pattern? 

And we’re off to Metropolis and the movie takes off and keeps going. Finally! Lois Lane is fast-talking and smart; Christopher Reeve transforms from a nebbishy Clark into a charismatic Supe through the power of acting. Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, and Valerie Perrine are the villains, and they chew the scenery delightfully. The sets are gorgeous, particularly Lex Luthor’s lair in the underground lobby of Grand Central Station. Why is Grand Central Station abandoned and apparently nearly forgotten in this movie? Does it even matter? No, it does not. 

Lois’s costumes are the height of 70s couture. The first thing we see her in is a nice skirt and blouse. And the skirt has pockets. And they look like BIG pockets. In some ways, technology has gone backward since 1978.

The Daily Planet newspaper takes up an entire skyscraper and has a helicopter to shuttle reporters around. I started work at a daily newspaper not long after “Superman” came out—we didn’t even have a budget to buy coffee for the staff. Employees had to pay for their own.  

Lois arranges an interview with Superman, which turns into a date. He flies her around the skies above Metropolis. She recites a love poem in her mind. The poem is painfully bad. It is like watching someone you like embarrass themselves in a talent competition.  

We see a very neatly dressed and well-groomed mugger. Nice blazer, turtleneck sweater. He needs a closer shave, but we’re otherwise good.

It’s part of a whole sequence of Superman’s day’s work, as he stops a cat burglar heist, rescues Air Force One after it loses an engine, and rescues a little girl’s cat from a tree. 

The ending of the movie, where Lois Lane dies (spoiler for a 45-year-old super-popular movie—don’t DM me!) is surprisingly dark. She’s smothered after being buried in an earthquake and we see all of it happening. But Superman quickly brings her back from the dead with his superpowers. 

Superman’s flying SFX are every bit as good and dazzling now as they were in 1978. Oh, some of the matte shots with the New York City skyline in the background are a little fake, but Superman’s movements are brilliant. A one-second bit where Superman changes from his Clark street clothes into his superhero costume while in flight is just wonderful—nothing much today but brilliant in the pre-CGI era that this movie was made in. Some of the other special effects, like Hoover Dam disintegrating and a downstream town flooding, are a little obviously done with miniatures but they still look fine.  

(Why do the sfx look fake now but not in 1978? I have a theory. In 1978, we saw these sfx on the big screen, where they looked great. They might still look great today on a big screen. Soon after, we saw the movie on smaller TVs, with lower quality screens than today, and the sfx still looked great. But today’s high-quality TVs make the sfx look fake—the screens aren’t big enough to compensate for the flaws revealed by the high definition.)

The movie can’t decide if it’s a camp superhero parody, or a serious superhero movie. It would have been better if it toned down the broad comedy and made Lex Luthor more scary.

Reeve’s acting carries the movie. There’s a scene that’s famous among fans where Lois Lane and Clark Kent are in the living room of her apartment. She leaves the room, and he decides to tell her he’s Superman. Until that moment, he’s a shlub, round-shouldered and with a goofy expression on his face. He stands up straight, squares his shoulders and jaw and takes off his glasses—and now he’s Superman. He starts to tell her. His voice as Clark is querulous and shaky, but Superman has a firm baritone. And he changes his mind, slumps his shoulders, puts on his glasses and now he’s Clark the shlemiel again. It all goes by in a few seconds, but it’s striking. 

Even the special effects are carried by Reeve’s acting. “You will believe a man can fly,” was the marketing slogan for the movie when it was released. You believe it in large part because Reeve was hanging from wires, moving like a person flying. Acting. )

I don’t have anything to say about John Williams’ musical score for the movie, except that it’s brilliant. I’m going to carry a Bluetooth speaker with me and play that score every time I enter a room. 

Overall, well worth a watch. Maybe skip the first 48 minutes though. You don’t need to see it. You already know Superman’s original story.  

Superman is my favorite superhero. He is optimistic and hopeful. He knows there is great evil in the world, but he knows that there is also great good, and he serves that good—“truth, justice and the American way." He knows some of what he says is corny and he says it anyway because he believes it. He is nearly all-powerful and invulnerable, but he is in awe of human beings because we are neither of those things, and yet we are capable of great kindness, nobility, and courage.

Sloppy Internet research

Four-year-old Clark Kent is played by an actor named Aaron Smolinski, who went on to a bit role in the 2013 Superman movie “Man of Steel” and also as Lex Luthor in a movie called “Superman: Solar,” which seems to be either an indy or fan-made Superman movie that got terrible reviews.

Larry Hagman has a cameo as an Army Major, making a joke that doesn’t age well. 

John Ratzenberger plays an air traffic controller. He went on to play Cliff from “Cheers,” and do a lot of voice-overs for Pixar movies.  

Kirk Allyn, who played Superman in 1940s Superman movies, has a cameo as Lois Lane’s father. When Clark is a boy in Smallville, little girl Lois sees Clark while passing through on a train, and Allyn appears in that scene. via

Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane in 1940s movies and the 1950s Superman TV series, also has a cameo. She’s Lois Lane’s mother in the same scene. via

“According to Sir Roger Moore’s autobiography, he witnessed Christopher Reeve walking through the canteen at Pinewood Studios in full Superman costume, oblivious to the swooning female admirers he left in his wake. When he did the same thing dressed as Clark Kent, no one paid any attention.” via

The Incomparable Mothership podcast did an episode about their “Superman” rewatch. They hated it. I don’t disagree with their criticisms, but for me, the virtues of the movie made up for its flaws. I enjoyed listening to the episode.

What happened to the actors

Marlon Brando continued working until his death in 2004. “Apocalypse Now” came out soon after “Superman.” His work in later life included two movies I quite enjoyed: “The Freshman” and “Don Juan DeMarco,” both of which are about charismatic rogues (though he only played the rogue in one of those movies). Brando also features in a delightful 2009 novel, “Chronic City,” by Jonathan Lethem, which explores the theme of whether we can believe anything or truly perceive reality. Brando isn’t a character in the novel. The characters can’t agree whether Brando is alive or dead, and the Internet is no help.  

Margot Kidder struggled with mental health in later life. Her 2018 death was ruled a suicide. via

As of April 2023, Valerie Perrine, age 79, was suffering from advanced Parkinson’s and needed a hydraulic lift to get into and out of bed. The Hollywood Reporter did an excellent profile—recommended reading: Ailing ‘Superman’ Star Valerie Perrine Finally Finds Her Hero: “The Guy Should Be Sainted”:

Perrine insists she wants no pity and regrets nothing about her Technicolor life: not one affair (she’s been romantically linked to everyone from Jeff Bridges to Elliott Gould to Dodi Fayed); not one hit of acid (she’s taken LSD more than 400 times, by her estimation); not one career move (well, she probably should have said yes to 1981’s Body Heat and no to 1980’s Can’t Stop the Music, the Village People-starring megaflop she says killed her career, but you can’t win them all).

She sounds fantastic. 

Gene Hackman has been retired for about 20 years. As of March, he was fit and healthy at age 93, spotted doing yardwork, buying and eating fast food, and pumping his own gas. 

Christopher Reeve died in 2004, after being paralyzed in 1995 in a horse-riding accident. 

Terence “General Zod” Stamp was one of the stars of “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.” He played a drag queen named Bernadette. 

Sarah Douglas, who played Ursa, one of General Zod’s cronies, appeared in a lot of B science fiction movies and TV shows, including one called “Strippers vs. Werewolves.” 

Which Superman II?

We want to watch Superman II, which I remember as being even better than the first Superman, which was itself great. But which version?

Richard Donner directed the original movie and started directing on Superman II, but was fired, and Richard Lester was hired as a replacement. Donner had already done a lot of work, and Lester reshot many scenes and shot more. The Lester version was the original theatrical release, which I saw in theaters. We saw a fan cut of the Donner version in the early 2000s and did not care for it. It was unfinished. Some of the scenes were audition scenes; I remember some other scenes had cheap SFX that looked like they’d been done on 1990s home PCs.

Soon after we saw the fan cut of the Donner version, an official—and presumably more polished—version was released. We haven’t seen that.  

I think when we do a rewatch, we’ll go with the original, theatrical version, directed by Lester. According to Internet discussion—for example, here—the official Donner version, while more polished than the fan cut we watched, is still unpolished and unfinished. And the theatrical version is lighter than the Donner version, while still having some serious moments. Generally, I like my superhero movies light; when they get dramatic and heavy I start having difficulty suspending disbelief.

[fallensnowfan]

It's time for my 2000th post celebration!

It has been a lot of fun getting to this point! Thanks to those who have stuck around over the years and to newer followers as well.

Rather than making this purely focused on One Piece, I thought it may be fun to look back at the beginning of this blog, and give a bit of spotlight to the transitions it has been though up to this point.

I began this blog back in April of 2020, mainly out of an interest in keeping up with artists who were creating AU fan comics of Steven Universe, a show I began while it was in the middle of airing its fourth season, and caught up to soon after. Three fan comics I especially enjoyed reading were a White Diamond Steven AU by Chekhov, a comic where Steven has a sister(Twiniverse,) and a special shoutout to makingfriendos/court and snidy for being a great source of joy and whimsy with their SU art back then, being the creators of one of the first fan comics I really delved into.

The comic they worked on, Steven Universe B-Sides, focused on the trio of Lapis, Peridot, and Bismuth being Steven's guardians and is a joy to read. Captured the essence and humor of season one very well.

In fact, one of their drawings is the origin of the original name of this blog "showergelfan." Sourcing to a lovely doodle they drew of Peridot not understanding human cuisine and thinking that a shower gel recipe was acceptable for human consumption.

Moving forward a bit to September of 2020, Steven Universe had finished airing a few months ago and I shifted into mainly focusing on Amphibia and Owl House around the time, both shows having very active fan bases during their runs(shoutout to the-lone-witch-and-secret-room for being a cool and friendly presence within the Owl House fandom during the show's air.) Amphibia especially resonated with me for its humor, characters, and fun to explore world. Frogs being one of my favorite animals gave it a boost too.

A few other cartoons found their way into the mix as well, namely Hilda and Infinity Train. Both also good shows which I still recommend. I didn't explore fan works for these shows as much I did with Steven Universe, though enjoyed them all none the less.

Then finally, around August/September of 2021, I began the most recent and current focus towards One Piece from then on, with the name switch to fallensnowfan and greater attention to Kiku and friends happening in July of 2022. Being in part due to discovering the blog of cool friend basedkikuenjoyer around that time. Hi!

Going to conclude this celebration post with a small section dedicated to the much anticipated episode 1084, directed by Kenichi Takeshita, and the episodes he has worked on previously:

935 - Komurasaki's true identity is… 949 - Udon Prison liberated 965 - Whitebeard versus Roger 980 - Jinbei arrives 998 - Shinobu and Sanji rescue Momonosuke 1018 - Zoro scars Kaido with Enma 1039 - Tama flips the Beast Pirates to our side, and Who's Who backstory 1067 - Big Mom's fall

Tomorrow's episode, 1084 will be about an "untold story from before the Straw Hats' departure," and I am very excited to watch!

#2000th post celebration! #milestones

[wasted-women]

ROUND 1D, MATCH 6 OUT OF 8!

Causes of Death & Propaganda Under the Cut:

Karen Page

Cause of Death: Murdered by the main villain

Propaganda:

She has a lot of potential that had been just thrown away. Honestly most DD love interests have been done dirty, which sucks since it's my favourite comic. At least the show didn't kill her

Holly Granger / Hawk

Cause of Death: Murdered by the zombie of her predecessor

Propaganda:

Her existence is a retcon, her powers are a retcon- the comics can't even agree if she's the older or younger Granger sister. She largely existed to hit on muscley comic men and take sexy shower scenes. Her death is even implied to be given the cosmic "Okay!" as her attempt to rise from the dead (for real this time) is thwarted by an angelic manifestation of another character laying her back to rest. All of this to say that she's a fantastic idea that was mishandled over and over again until they decided to fridge her in favor of just bringing the first Hawk back, but they still want all of the drama and sadness of killing her off in the end.

Antalya / Mary-Jo Altman

Cause of Death: Burned to death in front of her son

Propaganda:

Mary-Jo Altman didn't initially have a name. She was just Mrs Altman, the mom of Young Avenger Hulkling (human name: Theodore "Teddy" Altman. Given name: Prince Dorrek). In the original comic run she dies without a name, within the same issue she's introduced, after something like nine speaking lines (one time I counted). She's barely mourned: Teddy cries at the end of the initial Young Avengers run, but that lasts about a page before our heroes run off to pursue further adventures. In further comics, such as Young Avengers Presents, Teddy's focus is on his biological father he never knew (the Kree Mar-Vell, the original Captain Marvel). Mrs Altman didn't get a name until 2020, a decade and a half after her first appearance.

But without her, Teddy Altman wouldn't be the character he is. Teddy Altman is kind, and gentle, and compassionate, and while he's willing to resort to violence (he is a superhero) he does try diplomacy first. The Kree and the Skrull are two alien races known in Marvel canon as being predisposed to war, and it would have been very easy to make Teddy, who is both, personify that - but he's doesn't. He loves. He loves his husband. He loves his friends. He loves Earth. And he wouldn't be this way without Mary-Jo Altman, who also chose love. Writer Anthony Oliveira spotlighted her character repeatedly in his work for Marvel and under his pen she is exactly the kind of person who would raise someone as remarkable as Teddy. Antalya was an elite Skrull warrior tasked with guarding a secret royal Skrull baby that was never meant to be, and she loved him. She loved Earth. She chose to become a real estate agent. She adored all the silly little mundanities of Earth - and she taught that love to her son. "Be brave enough to be kind," she told him. And he is.

Mary-Jo Altman deserved better. I'm glad later writers made sure she got it.

#wasted women poll #round 1 #round 1d #karen page #daredevil #holly granger #hawk #mary-jo altman #antalya #poll bracket #poll tournament #character polls #polls

[creetchure]

I am so sorry but please what is jpv? I see this as japanse voice actor and that's not right I'm sure.

it's jean-paul valley!! if you want the lore keep reading, otherwise just know he's a. medium relevance batman based character from the 90s. i'll do a quick summary of who he is and why people know who he is and he hasn't fallen into irrelevance fully like a lot of characters have. catholic cult survivor blorbo who's not alone in his head.

in 1992, the comic batman: sword of azrael was published, introducing jean-paul valley. he sees his father die on his doorstep in a costume, in his dying breath he says "go to switzerland azrael" and so jp does and gets his mind reset by a catholic cult that unlocks the angel azrael that lives within the System put in him (yes, it's canonically called the System) (somehow the DID isn't canon) he meets and helps batman, yada yada yada.

skip ahead a bit, jpv/azrael are in gotham and being taught by batman to control the system. then knightfall happens, and bruce can't be batman, so he asks JP to fill in.

i'll skip over knightfall, but it's a really important arc imo, and i highly recommend reading it. it's just. really good. and also i don't trust takes on jpv from ppl who haven't read knightfall and, most importantly, knightquest: the crusade.

but yeah, he also had a 100 issues long solo, that is for the most part pretty good, but he was very much a product of the time, and so after the run he disappeared until rebirth.

what tinyion did and the modification to his lore in rebirth detective comics is. debatable. but i'm not getting into it because it's not even really canon anymore?? kinda??

what i'd take as canon for the rebirth universe kind of limits itself to Watter's dark knight of the soul, arkham city: order of the world, and sword of azrael (all of which from between 2020 and 2022 iirc), which brings the fact that Jpv was batman into current canon, and also settles where both jpv and azrael are at. it's honestly pretty good, good enough for me to own a bunch of issues and the tpb lmao.

#jean paul valley #dc comics #azrael #asks :D

[ufonaut]

you mentioned it a few days ago but i'm still very curious about ur thoughts on alan's class traitor dynamics within the gay community in the 40s-60s era, the progression of it, and how that might compare to his current stance in the 21st century.

i don't think alan is a class traitor to the gay community per-se as much as he's a class traitor in general, and one of the most fascinating things about him (at least to me, personally) is the fact that nearly every part of him is a facade in some capacity -- from the big obvious things like his secret identity as a superhero to his eighty-something years in the closet to the fact that he's spent his whole life trying to distance himself from his social class.

(the green lantern 60th anniversary panel at the all-time classic new york comic book convention 2000, from alter ego 1999 #148)

like mart nodell himself said, alan was a working man. the few mentions of his childhood that exist (in the sleepers book two and jsa: ragnarok novels) have him growing up as an orphan in abject poverty; his work on the railroad -- which originally had him employed as an apprentice to a mr john hall in all-american comics 1939 #17, rather than any later stories claiming he'd ever owned or started a company -- paints him in the clear contours of the working class, as does his time on the radio where he works his way up from a jack-of-all-trades handyman position to radio announcer and beyond. to drive the point home, it's also important to note that alan spent most of his youth living in a rented one-bedroom flat with a taxi driver (and we know there's no question whatsoever about doiby dickles' working class background):

(examples from all-american comics 1939 #60, green lantern 1941 #26, the big-all american comic book 1944 #1 respectively)

there's also rare moments when alan's accent slips into a phonetically spelled new york accent like doiby's, or what we might call gotham in this particular case. this is one of the reasons i was so overjoyed by the whole "pal, start yakkin'" and the rest of his dialogue in jl vs losh 2022 #4.

this is all to build up to the fact that the few ways alan has expressed his sexuality are also steeped in working class dynamics:

(dc pride 2021 #1)

gay bar culture as we know it, particularly that of the 40s and 50s like alan would've experienced and as is pictured here, is a staple of the working class -- these are fellow working men we see milling around in a shuttered basement, people who might've already been made to feel like criminals and who had none of the comforts afforded by upper class social capital, this is a place for cruising as much as it is for solidarity.

that being said, alan has worked long and hard to rise above his station, so to speak.

(green lantern 80th anniversary special 2020)

he's visibly out of place among people like jimmy henton's mother because he's made himself out of place. over the course of his run in all-american comics 1939 and green lantern 1941, alan wears a grand total of two suits (and we even see him mending one at one point) but he still never dares for anything more casual. on one memorable occasion, he lies to irene miller about his education. whenever the radio gives him the opportunity to go to something relatively prestigious like the theatre or opera, both he & doiby are consistently surprised by it.

throughout his entire career, he's shown a good ol' 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' mentality as he's relentlessly worked his way up to the point that his work -- once the radio, later gbc -- would become the single most important thing in his life (the amazing world of dc comics #16 has a wonderful little analysis of this regarding his many mental breakdowns related to gbc's bankruptcy but even books like the golden age 1993 and starman 1994 #11 show a threat to the company as alan's sole fear). it's also often implied that jennie's gotten no help in her failing career as an actress, despite her dad running a broadcasting company & presumably having any number of industry contacts, for this exact reason. that is all to say that, by the 60s and up to the present day, alan has categorically made himself a rich ceo and acts like it too.

(all-star comics 1976 #64)

but in the process of distancing himself from his social class, he's also lost any hint of solidarity with young men he'd been exactly alike once upon a time. this is obvious enough in his treatment of jared stevens in both fate 1994 and the book of fate 1997

(fate 1994 #11 -- cultured people? style and taste? could alan be parroting what he'd been told was the measure of a hero back in the day?)

and following that same line of thinking, another layer is gained with the canon confirmation of his sexuality and the fact that he's evidently kept silent throughout every single movement of gay liberation in the 20th century. it's not that alan should've come out earlier but rather little things like him having led jay to believe he's a republican (aquaman 1994 #44) point pretty clearly to what opinions and stances he has expressed, if that makes sense.

even so, with all of alan's attempts to make himself virtually indistinguishable from the upper class crowd, the fact of the matter remains that he'll never be accepted as one of their own

('scenes from the class struggle at jsa mansion', from golden age secret files 2001 #1)

and that stays, i believe, the clearest indictment of alan as a class traitor (and how utterly fascinating that makes him!).

thank you for giving me the chance to get into it!!!

#alan scott #green lantern #jsa #justice society of america #asks #anon #god i missed this kinda ask sooooooo much thank youuuuu sincerely #ONCE AGAIN. ALAN SCOTT IS THE SINGLE MOST INTERESTING CHARACTER IN COMIC BOOK HISTORY #alan being told to lower his voice during the class discussion always gets me literallllllllly insane

[thehollowprince]

Let's talk about Wrongslide...

I've EXPRESSED before my disappointment (and anger) at Rockslide's death back during the X OF SWORDS event in 2020. And to add insult to injury, ever since his death at the hands of Summoner, we barely saw him... or, whoever was resurrected in his place.

In the most recent issue of X-Men: RED, we finally got to see this character, Wrongslide, as the kids call him, and he was no longer the barely-coherent, child-like character that was brought back. He spoke, and not only spoke, but spoke eloquently and showed that there was an actual character under the recognizable outer image.

Not to mention a self-awarness that we sometimes don't get from long established characters.

We have what is basically a new character (for all intents and purposes) openly acknowledging that his very presence causes emotional harm to those who knew Santo, not because of anything he did purposefully, but because or his resemblance to their friend.

The only other time I can recall something similar happening within the X-Books was when it came to Madelyne Pryor and the fact that she's a clone of Jean Grey. Most recently, in the early pages of Zeb Wells' HELLIONS run, where while not openly acknowledged, it was heavily implied that the reason the Quiet Council decided to not resurrect Maddie had to do with her appearance and how it made Jean and Scott feel. Nothing at all like what we've seen with Wrongslide, where we do get the former, but we also get acknowledgement from Wrongslide himself, as well as his thoughts on the matter.

And it makes me glad that we're finally talking about Death in an age of mutant immortality, recent events during the Hellfire Gala and the Eve of Judgment Day notwithstanding.

I was just as excited about the prospect of resurrection for mutants when Hickman took over the X-Office, if for no other reason than to see characters that were killed off for the shock value of it, characters that had so much potential and were now suddenly back on the board and ready to go. But along with that, we now had the moral quandary of "what next?"

What happens when death is meaningless?

We saw glimpses of it Si Spurrier's WAY OF X, with Kurt worried about what immortality was doing to mutants, particularly the children, with them treating it like a joke or a thrill. I'm glad for the conversation started in that book and I'm glad for the continuation of that conversation here. Not just with Wrongslide, but with Magneto on the Great Ring and Storm and the Galactic Council. While I was all for Storm telling off Orbis Stellaris, he did have a political point to counterweight the philosophical point.

What happens if your leaders can't die?

And as Magneto pointed out, he didn't want to end up like Moira, cracking under the weight of all those years and becoming an immortal despot.

Wrongslide answered those questions, the conversation flowing between all three parts (Magneto and the Great Ring, Storm and the Galactic Council ans Wrongslide and Sunspot) before the natural conclusion to the question of Death was said out loud.

It is life.

What is the purpose of life if it doesn't end? Do they all become like Sinister or Moira, obsessed with whatever they set their minds toward? I hope not. Personally, I love this whole issue (i love this whole run), because it acknowledges that life ends and starts again. And I love that Wrongslide openly says it.

I also love Berto's panicked expression

Overall, I love Wrongslide's take on the whole situation, particularly his specific circumstances where his progenitor died in Otherworld, thus paving the way for this lovely person we've now received. It offers a new perspective on death and life in a time where a lot of Marvel characters have "conquered" death.

And it brings me to my point (a point finally emerges), which is that the entire commentary of this issue reflects Marvel comics (really all comics) as a whole. We often mourn a character, not only when they die, but when they transfer from one writer to another, from one artist to another. We mourn the version of them that we've come to love, but they're just transitioning to the next stage of their "life", which will happen again, sooner or later.

There have been a number of characters that have changed hands where I've been either happy or sad at the new person controlling their strings. Quentin Quire, Akihiro, Betsy Braddock, Sabertooth, hell, even Sinister, have all gone from characters that I never particularly liked to characters I look forward to seeing. And that wouldn't have happened if they hadn't "died" and switched to a new creator.

It's like Tarot said during the X OF SWORDS event when Storm drew the Desth Card:

"Do not be afraid. This is not the card of failure and decay, but of the natural harvest. The season before can never come again. Metamorphosis."

So if there's a character you don't particularly like lately, whether it's how they're written or how they're drawn, just be patient and wait until their next Metamorphosis.

When all is said and done, even though I am still devastated by Rockslide's death and their (Marvel) general lack of dealing with it on an emotional level, I do enjoy this new incarnation and look forward to seeing him on Arakko in future issues of X-Men: RED as hinted at by Berto.

#sorry if that was rambly #my grandfather died on monday and i've been in my feels #thinking about death and rebirth and all that #wrongslide #santo vaccarro #(sorta) #x-men: red (2022) #x-tag