judgeanon

[judgeanon]

So, I've only read the first six issues of Jonah Hex Vol 2 and I wanted to ask something to someone who's more knowledge on the character than I do.

I know that, after he dies, he ends up stuffed and treated as a dummy by people in the future (aka the 20th and 21st centuries). While this is, well, absolutely dehumanizing, I kinda understand the thematic reasoning behind it. Hex was someone with great bloodlust who often had a low opinion of himself, with people of his own time echoing this sentiment. He sometimes killed his targets in brutal ways (if he thought they deserved it), ways in which some would say shouldn't be done to a human being, even to the worst of us. So it's thematic fitting for a character such as this to end the way he ends.

However, I wanted to ask what would you think if a story was ever told where someone in the present found out about Hex's corpse and decided to burry him, saying that no human being should be treated as a thing. Do you think it would diminish the thematic weight behind it, or could it be thematic fitting and impactfull on his own right, with the story stating that, even with all his problems and his bloodlust, Hex was a human and should be treated as such?

I think it would be a very nice story that you'd have to be very careful writing.

The thing about the JONAH HEX SPECTACULAR (which I extremely recommend checking out for yourself) is that Hex's fate is not really presented as cosmic comeuppance for his meanness. Instead, the theme of the story is about the exploitation of the Wild West as spectacle, with Hex being hounded by a money-grubbing circus entrepreneur who wants to make him a carnival attraction in life.

And when Hex does die, in a very small and pathetic way that's completely unrelated to the circus guy, we even see kids trying to quite literally pick his body for mementos:

And later comes the stealing, stuffing and mounting of his corpse, all in the name of the cheapest of showmanships. It's a commentary on the fate of the West itself during the first decades of the 20th Century: reduced to kitschy entertainment and vulture-like memorabilia, with even its greatest and most infamous figures turned into moneymakers by heartless bastards.

Now, there is absolutely a story to be told there about being a little more respectful of the past, about reclaiming it and re-presenting it in a more faithful light. And they kinda did tell that story in ALL-STAR WESTERN #27, where a time-travelling Hex got to visit a museum exhibit dedicated to him:

And it's fffine and has some nice bits, but in its own way, it still feels like fetishization, very much putting a man's life on display. And of course, it does have a scene of Hex coming face to face with his own stuffed corpse, a story beat so irresistible that it ain't even the first time it's happened.

(from HEX #18, the other time-travelling Jonah story)

Anyway, before I meander any further: I do think there's a story to be told about someone deciding that exploitation, whether it's for cheap cash or historical enrichment, is simply too inhumane for even a mass murderer like Hex (regardless of how many of them had it coming). But I don't think it should be told for the sole purpose of giving Hex a softer ending.

To me, a story like that should be written to continue the conversation about the fetishization and commercialization of the past that Fleisher started. It should wrestle with things like the glorification of violence, the politicization of history (after all, this theoretical story would be about giving proper burial to a famous Confederate soldier) and, yes, the humanity offered to those who willingly dehumanized themselves. It shouldn't be made just to show Hex some pity. If the goal is to say "Nobody deserves this", then it shouldn't be afraid of being asked "Why?"

[judgeanon]

what's the deal with judge planet? stumbled upon that story while reading old stuff, it feels like a fever dream

What you must understand is that Shaky Kane really, really, really likes Jack Kirby.

[judgeanon]

Same anon who did the "Fighting Game" ask:

D.R. & Quinch are absolutely the duo-as-one character, Ro-Jaws can be on his own like Roll from MvC

Mean Machine Angel as the second unga rushdown with the 4 & 1/2 dial setting install

Deadlock as the Ken to Nemesis' Ryu (actually the ABC Warriors can fill out a lot of slots on the roster like the X-Men in the MvC games)

Judge Fear designed like an NRS character with a Scorpion-esque projectile grab and traps

Jack Point (with his pet Raptaur) as the Dan/Shingo joke character

A Bad Company character should be included, but I can't decide between a Krool or a member of the titular Company (my vote goes to the mutated dog guy or Wallbanger the medic droid)

Big Dave or BLAIR-1 as the surprise character nobody wants or expects

Yes to all of this.

[judgeanon]

Ideal roster for a hypothetical 2000 AD fighting game?

Well, Dredd and Death have to be there, not much else to say about them. Anderson too, and if possible I'd try to keep the Dredd representation to just those three. Well... maybe those three and Hershey.

Johnny Alpha would be a good Trickster/Setups kinda character, while Rogue Trooper would be King Zoner.

Sláine could be perfect unga material.

Durham Red could be Juri with an Elena-like healing gimmick/super.

Nikolai Dante would basically be a Soul Calibur character.

Zenith could be a nice beginner-friendly kinda character.

I know Hammerstein and Ro-Jaws are the obvious ABC Warriors pick, either separate or as a duo character, but I'd also like to have Mek-Quake in there as an oversized midboss or something, just a huge bastard covering half the screen like Apocalypse or Onslaught in the Vs series.

Nemesis is another obvious pick, but I'm not sure how he'd actually play. Maybe like a really obnoxious screen polluter, lots of sigils and magic and filling the screen with loud nonsense before burning your shit.

Torquemada would make a good baddie. I'd like him to be a Striker-based character, like his own attacks are pretty weak but he can call upon a bunch of Termight-themed nonsense, up to and including Torque-armada. With the right design, I feel he could even be the final boss.

And for some freak picks, I think Stickleback could make for a really devious motherfucker of a character. And Shakara would be an immediate visual hook.

Who else would you bring in?

[judgeanon]

[judgeanon]

What is that mysterious woman's name anyway?

[judgeanon]

i've been reading Lady Shiva comics

[judgeanon]

Hi, best fighter anon again, another, sillier question:

What do you think of her big poofy 80s hair? Cause I'm a big fan, I like how they brought it back in the Question darkest night comic, too

I like it a lot, certainly enough to get a commission from Joshua Sway of it, but I think I prefer her with short hair in general. Still, I wouldn't mind to see her rocking the poofy mane every now and then.

[judgeanon]

Hi there big fan, big Shiva fan

I have a question about her!

Do you think she strives to be the best fighter in the world? I mean obviously she is but it's like, do you think that is a motivating factor for her to go off and fight all the greats, or do you think it's just cause... she likes to. If you get what I'm saying haha. I personally don't really think she does, but I could also need to re-read some of her stuff. But like, I really only saw her all like "I need to fight the greatest fighters so I can be the greatest in the world!" In Dixons Robin which...... is a comic book.

Sorry for the long ask! Thanks!

Nothing to be sorry about! And I totally get what you mean. I think Shiva, in the best version of her possible, is someone who has transcended the need to have a reason to fight.

Sure, she loves fighting, learning new styles, meeting new people, all that fun stuff. But I think that, beyond all that, Lady Shiva fights for the same reason the wind blows or water flows. Because it's her nature. And she doesn't deny or reject her nature. She doesn't fight because she wants to prove herself to be the best, or to learn some ultimate truth, or even to hae fun. She just fights.

Of course, this is a tricky idea to grasp, which is why I think Dixon introduced the whole thing about wanting to be the greatest fighter ever: because Dixon is a very "fundamentals first" kind of writer, who thinks that characters need to have a clear motivation. And he's not wrong, and he's not the only writer who has tried it with Shiva.

But at the risk of sounding like the massive fanboy that I am, I don't think any of that is the most interesting thing you can do with her. Because if you write her like any other character, then she's just gonna be like any other character. And the best versions of Shiva are the ones that are not like everyone else. The versions that challenge common sense. The versions that open your mind to new possibilities.

So, do I think Shiva is the best fighter in the universe? Definitely. Do I think she wants to be? Definitely not.

[judgeanon]

Do you think 2000AD is going to commit to the "America and the UK will nuke each other by 2150" event, implied by Big Finish's Pre-Emptive Revenge and Meg 283's The Americans? IIRC Wagner himself has stated he doesn't see Strontium Dog and Judge Dredd as being connected.

The more times passes, the more I think they won't. And if they do, it will be in a very limited quality. Like maybe there'll be some time-travelling AU thing where they establish that the nuclear war of 2150 only happened in one timeline, or where Dredd manages to stave off the war to split the timelines.

It would be cool as fuck if they went all out with it, but it's the kind of story I think only Wagner could do, and he doesn't seem terribly interested and he will probably be in no condition to write it when the time comes, so...

[judgeanon]

I can't speak for all Shiva/Dragon/Tiger fans, but I can tell you my story, if you're interested:

Back when I was in my teens, after reading THE QUESTION and BIRDS OF PREY, I went into wikipedia to see what else Lady Shiva had been into. And that's where I first heard about Cassandra Cain. And I thought she was the shittiest character ever.

Her backstory sounded like edgelord nonsense, her beating Shiva felt like typical worfing, and it all just felt painfully obnoxious. It didn't help that, in the couple of comics forums I frequented back then, Shiva was only ever mentioned in threads about Cass. Nobody seemed capable of talking about her without bringing up Cass, which only cemented my dislike. I did not like that girl.

Anyway, years passed and I made a couple of friends who were and still are hardcore Cass fans. I learned about Cass getting shafted by editorial and that made me like her a bit more, because I have a soft spot for stories like that. And more importantly, I learned that Cass was written by Kelley Puckett, a guy I knew from helping with a few issues of THE QUESTION QUARTERLY. So knowing that Puckett was a bit of a protege of Denny O'Neil, I bit the bullet and started reading Cass' 2000s series.

And here's the thing: that series fucking rules. More importantly, it fucking rules in exactly the ways I like, with short mostly done in one stories over an underlying plotline. It's comics made just the way I love them. Cass was an impossibly good fighter, yes, but Puckett made stories that were about more than that, constantly delivering compelling, poignant character moments. And Shiva was pretty cool in it too! I still don't like the death wish stuff, but compared to how other writers had treated her, Puckett was definitely not that bad.

Which leads me to a more general point: you gotta understand that years before Cass existed, Shiva was already getting worfed, beaten or just used to hype other characters up, in ways that were significantly worse than anything Puckett did. For the entire 90s, Shiva pretty much only showed up to put a feather in someone else's cap, either because they beat her or they managed to survive her.

Hell, you mention Connor Hawke. Even if he didn't win, his fight with Shiva in Brotherhood of the Fist was 1000% about how strong and skilled and good he was, not her. It was using Shiva to prop Connor up.

But in BATGIRL, Shiva's appearances are so much more than that. Her fight with Cass is about more than how good Cass is or can be. Shiva's character is more than just a violent sadistic kung fu villainess. There's a level of actual thought and care put into the story that goes beyond anything anyone had ever written with Shiva since THE QUESTION.

So, tl;dr: yes, I used to think Cass was dumb and lame and shitty until I actually sat down and read her comics.

And if you want to see what Shiva being properly worfed for shitty reasons looks like, there's dozens of comics (And shows! And movies!) that are far worse examples.

You know I always wonder if the fans of Lady Shiva, Richard Dragon, Bronze Tiger & Green Arrow II, pretty much the OG best martial artists Pre-Cass ever view Cassandra Cain as a nepo baby industry plant who got their faves got worfed to prop her up result.

[judgeanon]

Shiva!! 💥🩷🔪

No text version :) 🫶🏼

[judgeanon]

"Lex... You used me... for AI DEVELOPMENT?!"

I think Shiva would kill someone for using AI

[judgeanon]

2000ad newbie here: is it me or does hammerstein have 2 designs?

It's absolutely not you. What happened was this: after 2000AD had picked up some steam, their publisher debuted a new sci-fi anthology called "STARLORD" (no, not that one). It was aimed at a sliiiightly older audience than 2000AD, teenagers and even young adults, and one of its comics was called RO-BUSTERS.

RO-BUSTERS was something like Gerry Anderson's THUNDERBIRDS but with robots instead of puppets: a squad of droids sent on jobs too dangerous for humans. The strip's main stars were sewer cleaning robot Ro-Jaws and former soldier android Hammer-Stein:

Now, STARLORD wasn't quite the hit that 2000AD was, and the custom at the time was that when a title failed, instead of just cancelling it, it would get "merged" into the more popular anthology. So for a while, 2000AD was called 2000AD & STARLORD, and the most popular STARLORD strips were continued in 2000AD, including STRONTIUM DOG and RO-BUSTERS:

And then, after a year or two, a new series called ABC WARRIORS started in 2000AD. This was a prequel to RO-BUSTERS, recounting Hammerstein's days as a soldier in Mars, back when he wore his "old head":

So long story short, yes: Hammerstein has two designs. His one-eyed head design is from RO-BUSTERS, while his humanoid face came from ABC WARRIORS. And also, in the late 80s/early 90s he got another redesign that was a bit more radical:

You may recognize this one from the 1995 JUDGE DREDD movie, but that's a story for another time...

[judgeanon]

So funny story about that: Lady Shiva has fought the Armless and the Legless Master.

Beat both of then, but it means she can honestly say "I have fought people with half the limbs you have who gave me twice the trouble you did."

Ok so I've established the idea of disability being something Shiva recognizes and cares about. I also have mentioned that she thinks Tim is a stupid loser who needs to use a crutch to help him fight.

I'm picturing reverse ablist Shiva who specifically picks on abled bodied people because

Funny

Hey you don't have anything holding you back why the FUCK aren't you taking advantage of that.

Especially when she knows Dinah "Doesn't let her crutch of having superpowers stop her from being one of the best fighters" Lance, Babs (a good fighter in a wheelchair) and Cass.

[judgeanon]

Obviously I think about ShivaBabs a lot and... Sometimes I think about like... Idk, how Shiva must feel that Cassandra's first word was No. Not mama. Not mom, like it should have been. That Barbara taught No first. A word that did Sandra no good.

Edit: misremembered, the word was stop. But STILL.

[judgeanon]

Beyond Secret Origins - Batgirl #8 Review

So last week Brombal and guest artist Isaac Goodhart completed their definitive take on Lady Shiva's origin in BATGIRL #8. But did they really?

Here's some late night thoughts on it, reposted from a different site. The short of it is that, although this is a very enjoyable issue on the surface, the more I think about it, the more I think it just hurts Shiva in the long run. And the ending in particular really pissed me off. Why? Well...

For starters, this issue moves at a briskier pace than the last one, showing Ming and Mei travelling the world, honing their skills in preparation for their bloody revenge on their shithead uncle. Shiva's monologue grows a little too flowery, but I appreciate the way the panels visualize Mei's drifting thoughts. While Ming is focused purely on past tragedies and training for vengeance, Mei can be seen more concerned with looking to the future, to the flow of water, and of course, to her own sister.

And just in case they were being too subtle about it, the next page has Shiva straight-up point out that she was training for revenge, while her sister trained for her salvation. Mei, not without reason, worries that her sister will become something terrible, but we haven't seen her act on it yet.

The setting changes to (sigh) Detroit, where things further pick up with the appearances of MY BOYS, Richard and Ben, looking straight out of Streets of Rage as they sign up for an exhibition match with "The Deadly Woosan Sisters". See, in one of the other small goals of this origin, Brombal establishes that the last name Woosan is "nonsense", a fake name just like Sandra and Carolyn, chose to reinvent themselves in the US. There's even a fun little nod at how the name Woosan shifted to Wu-San over the years, with the ring announcer immediately messing it up:

(Also, I admit, it did give me some slight PTSD to see Shiva in a fighting ring again, but mercifully things go a lot better here)

The four kung-fu fighters have a duel, where it's revealed that they all trained under the O-Sensei, and after the sisters make short work of the fellas, they all strike a quick friendship. Mostly thanks to Carolyn, who takes a shine to Ben Turner because, I mean, who wouldn't? They next head to a restaurant, where Sandra's intensity gets the better of her and she basically trauma dumps on the guys the way only a deadly martial artist can. And in private, Carolyn outright suggests that they abandon their vengeance and become something more heroic.

Sandra reluctantly agrees, and we get to the most delightful part of the issue, as Brombal and Goodhart insert Carolyn into a handful of moments taking straight out of the original RICHARD DRAGON, KUNG-FU FIGHTER, including an appearance by the PREYING MANTIS from #9, the ski assassins from #16, and a bit more. It is an absolute blast of a montage, beautifully rendered by Goodhart and Spicer, and I never would've expected them to go this hard on homaging Shiva's early years.

But once the initial blast has passed, a nasty problem emerges: in this new version of her story, this is no longer Lady Shiva's early years. This is now Sandra and Carolyn Woosan's adventure years. This retcon puts everything that happened in that original run before Shiva was even Shiva. And while giving Carolyn more characterization and a bigger role in Sandra's life beyond just being the object of her revenge is a very laudable goal, it unfortunately sacrifices Sandra's own characterization in the process.

Because the whole reason why Sandra joins the Kung Fu Fighters in this version of the origin is because Carolyn is actively trying to prevent her from becoming Shiva. And that, in a way, turns Sandra into a passenger in her own origin story. It turns a character who, in the original KFF run, was fiercely independent and on her own journey of self-discovery into her sister's sidekick following her lead at all times while snarling and yelling about how much she wants a revenge that she seems reluctant to act upon.

As cute as it is to revisit all those old KFF moments, this version of Shiva's origin taints them by implying that all her adventuring was less about trying to find what to do with herself after attaining her revenge, and more about just making her doomed sister happy.

Furthermore, there's a one-page scene where Sandra gets a very striking vision of Mahakala that seems to frame her eventual transformation into Lady Shiva as both inevitable and abominable, a tragic fate that only Carolyn's kindness is keeping at bay.

And I think that may be one of the purest forms of one of the things I've most hated about any and all attempts at retconning Shiva's origin: the idea that her turning into Shiva was her destiny rather than her own choice.

If you assume that both Sandra and Carolyn were completely normal girls in the original KFF run, and there's nothing in there to really suggest otherwise, then there's a thousand different ways Sandra could've chosen to enact her revenge on Richard Dragon for Carolyn's death. But she made two very important choices. The first was to become a better fighter than Richard to get her revenge. The second was to remain Lady Shiva once the score was settled.

Now, you could very effectively argue that becoming Lady Shiva was a terrible coping mechanism, since she herself admitted that without danger, her life was empty. But it was still her choice, and we know that eventually, it led to her being able to find peace. I'm not going to say that becoming an invincible amoral kung fu mercenary was the best way to deal with her sister's death, but that was how Sandra chose to deal with it, and to turn that into a creeping horror that she's destined to become feels like robbing her of that choice.

It's one thing to have Carolyn express that fear, but the vision in this issue is purely from Sandra's perspective, and that takes away almost any ambiguity. It presents her transformation as a purely tragic event, but to me, the tragedy of Shiva was never Sandra becoming Shiva. The real tragedy in Sandra's life is Carolyn's death. Becoming Lady Shiva and then staying Lady Shiva is how Sandra chose to deal with that death.

And speaking of which, the last portion of the issue is dedicated to Sandra's first encounter with David Cain, and it goes about as well as you would expect. David, who here has been stalking them for years, makes his pitch: to help Sandra reach the perfection and vengeance she craves. The only price being bearing his kid. Sandra rejects him, only for David to reveal that he's already killed Carolyn in her sleep, and then the issue just... ends.

It just ends.

That, to me, is the other glaring problem with this issue. To sell this mini arc as the definitive absolute complete origin of Lady Shiva and then end it *literally on the exact moment where Sandra becomes Shiva* feels like getting violently short-changed. Sure, there's some teasing at the end that Shiva intends Cass to carry on her mission of revenge somehow, so obviously there'll be more to this, but if that's really where they're going, that's just further stealing agency from Shiva's own origin.

If we take this tease at pure face value, it means in the last fifty years we'll have gone from "Shiva gets her revenge and has to decide what to do with herself afterwards" to "Actually Shiva never got her revenge at all, on either Cain or her uncle, and she's going to get her daughter to do it for her". Which sucks for a myriad of reasons. If the whole point of this origin is going to be Shiva passing on the buck of a revenge she had years to fulfill over to her daughter, it just makes Shiva a lazy asshole. Not to mention that it's a quest destined to fail because, c'mon, really? Cass is gonna take revenge? Cass?

Look, it's already a hard sell for me to put this much effort into an origin that I don't think Shiva actually ever needed in order to have good stories. But to spend this long meandering around it while also chipping away at all the most unique things about Shiva's journey without really adding anything better to it, and then to have the absolute gall to not even reach a conclusion in the same arc, it's some insult to injury shit. We'll need to see where it goes but it really doesn't sound like it's gonna go anywhere nearly as interesting as Shiva's original journey.

What's strange is that, in a lot of ways, #8 is the most purely entertaining issue of the whole run so far. It's visually gorgeous, packed with cool action, brimming with fanservice and at its peak, it's a breath of fresh air after the constant dread and grimness of the previous arc.

But at the end of the day, with each re-read of this issue, all I can see is a bunch of really good intentions taking Shiva down some very bland, lame paths without even having the courtesy to take it all the way to the end of the line. As much as this new origin tries to correct a lot of mistakes with Shiva's backstory and development, it ends up falling into a lot of the same potholes that Gabrych fell into regarding Shiva's agency.

There's more revelations coming, for sure, but so far, I just don't think this all-new, all-encompassing origin does nearly as much good to Shiva as it seems like at first sight.