#Saladin ahmed

[evilhorse]

Still worth it.

(Daredevil Volume 8 #7)

[samasmith23]

If death is but a revolving door for superheroes, then Kamala understands that better than a lot of others…

From Magnificent Ms. Marvel (2019) #14 by Saladin Ahmed & Minkyu Jung.

Wow.

[pageofqueens]

[foggynelsonarchive]

Do you know what Foggy is up to in modern comics? Is he okay? I'm scared to check

Hello, That's a good question, and I'm here to help you know what Foggy Nelson is up to. Here's a summary so you can catch up on recent stories and perhaps read recent issues.

Spoilers below

In Chip's run, we saw that Foggy supported Luke Cage's mayor campaign. This triggered the wrath of Firsk, who set up an ambush at Foggy's office. Foggy was attacked and consequently hospitalized.

Foggy had some enjoyable moments during a camping trip with Matt (just kidding, but I think you should check out that part). Matt's intention was to assemble an army to fight against The Hand. While he brought Foggy along to protect him, Foggy ended up having some fun as well.

A small but interesting detail is that Foggy gains powers from the magic generated by Matt and Elektra's marriage.

However, unfortunately, it doesn't last long as we discover that Foggy wasn't actually Foggy. And that Fisk's henchmen actually killed him.

We find out at this point that Foggy is trapped in hell and Matt sacrifices himself to save him and others.

When Matt returns as a priest—don't ask me how, as the story up to this point has not given a plausible explanation for it—he attempts to visit Foggy in his office several times. However, there seems to be an unseen force that stops him from getting close to his friend.

When Matt finally reunites with his friend and reveals that he is alive, Foggy gets angry with him. He yells at Matt and walks away. Foggy's reaction is unusual, even for someone who has been misled by his best friend, who has a peculiar tendency to disappear and pretend to be dead. In recent issues, we’ve learned that Foggy is possessed by Pride, one of the deadly sins that escaped from hell along with Matt. Unfortunately, Matt is no longer able to exorcise devils.

And that concludes our summary.

What will Matt do to save Foggy this time? I hope we find that out in the next issue.

(poor Foggy*sigh )

Thank you for the ask!

[wwprice1]

Daredevil by Juann Cabal and Jesus Aburtov.

[samasmith23]

Why do some people think that stories portraying darker subject matter is always an inherently bad thing?

I’ve recently encountered this weird mindset in regards to certain online fandom spaces, wherein people will argue that fictional characters experiencing intense trauma and pain is somehow inherently problematic and negatively reflects on the creator’s skills or ethics. This feels like such a narrow-minded and shallow understanding of a piece of media, since characters undergoing hardships is often a necessary element for them to grow and develop as the narrative progresses. Plus, while some stories can indeed be more intense and graphic in what types of trauma is depicted, it’s mere inclusion doesn’t automatically make the story or it’s author inherently bad. For instance, even though I personally haven’t read the manga series Berserk by the late Kentaro Miura (May he Rest In Peace…), based on what I’ve heard from others while the series does include graphic depictions of sexual assault which the main protagonist Guts suffered from in his past, said-assaults are NOT framed in a gross or exploitative way, but are instead utilized to analyze and discuss the character’s feelings of physical and psychological trauma derived from said-horrible events, and heavily factors into Guts' overall backstory and development as a character as he tries to heal from the violent trauma of his past and discover some sense of happiness in a bleak world.

And yet despite this I’ve encountered a few people accuse Berserk of being “pro-rape” or even outright stating that Miura “deserved to die” (which is an absolutely disrespectful and disgusting thing to say!) simply because he included these darker elements in his manga. Like... that's as stupid as someone claiming that Quentin Tarantino is automatically "pro-murder" simply because his movies include lots of scenes of characters killing each other.

I’ve also encountered far less overtly toxic examples of this kind bad faith media criticism in comic circles. Awhile I was incredibly confused when I saw some people on Twitter arguing that Saladin Ahmed was “ill-suited to writing teenage characters” simply because of two scenes in his Miles Morales: Spider-Man & Magnificent Ms. Marvel runs respectively, which involved Miles being tortured by the new supervillain, The Assessor (who would later make clones of Miles as a result), as well as the final battle between Ms. Marvel and her evil robot-duplicate Stormranger getting quite brutal at times (you could see blood from the impact Stormranger’s punch).

In regards to the Miles’ torture scene, I've seen a small number of people argue that the scene's existence was inherently inappropriate due to Miles' status as a Black minor, going as far as to label it as "dehumanizing" and "really insensitive to the real trauma of black boys." I'm not sure how I feel about this as those labels feel a tad extreme due to the fantastical nature of Miles' stories. Like, as brutal as the scene with the Assessor is, it’s at least given a more ficitional sci-fi vibe due to the high-tech laboratory, the Frankenstein operating table, and the fact that this whole ordeal leads directly into Miles' own version of Spider-Man: Clone Saga after The Assessor acquires Miles’ DNA in the process. So it feels less grounded and not as reflective of those real-life traumatic experiences Black men and boys unfortunately go through in the U.S. like I saw a few critics of Ahmed’s run claiming. Plus, Ahmed had Miles be rescued by both his father Jefferson Morales and Uncle Aaron Davis teaming-up together. So the narrative frames the Assessor’s torture of Miles as a bad thing whilst depicting two older Black men actively putting aside their personal differences in order to save their son/nephew as a major narrative focus as well. How exactly is it "dehumanizing" or "inappropriate" then?

And it seems like this bizarre criticism isn’t just limited to Twitter comic fandoms, since a certain Lily Orchard recently made an AWFUL video which outright accused animation fandoms and creators of “fetishizing the torture and abuse of POC women” in cartoons like The Legend of Korra, The Owl House, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. As soon as I saw the thumbnail for that video I knew it was going to be an absolute dumpster fire.

In it, not only does Lily engage in those similar types of arguments like the ones I mentioned earlier about Saladin Ahmed’s portrayal of Miles & Kamala, but Lily went multiple steps further by outright accusing various scenes from The Legend of Korra, The Owl House & She-Ra of being “literal torture p*rn” and “fetishized abuse against POC women.” With Korra, Lily accused the scenes of Korra brutally poisoned with the Red Lotus’ liquid metalic venom, Korra still being significantly weakened by the poison during her final battle with Zaheer (causing her to fall and tumble down cliff-sides) and Zaheer trying to use his air-bending to suck the oxygen right out of Korra’s lungs (the same technique he previously used to assassinate the Earth Queen), plus the Unalaq fight from the Season 2 finale where extracts the Avatar spirit from Korra and kills all her past lives one by one with a water-whip as “white centrist writers being turned on by the trauma and torture of a woman of color.”

And in regards to She-Ra, Lily accused Catradora shippers of being an example of fandom going “full mask-off” simply because she found 2 or 3 random comments defending Catra’s abusive behavior prior to her gradual redemption arc in the final season simply because they found the Adora & Catra fights “hot” (which I know for a fact does NOT represent the entirety or even majority of the She-Ra fandom & Catradora shippers).

It’s just… I honestly don’t understand why Lily is describing these scenes as “torture p*rn” or “abuse fetishizing.” Like, it’s not unexpected for characters to undergo traumatic crap during their story arcs, and most often it’s for the purposes of raising the dramatic stakes of the conflict or to have said-characters eventually undergo some sort of positive change arc (which is what happens in both Korra and She-Ra btw). While the abuse Korra suffers at Zander’s hands is indeed violent, it’s intentionally disturbing and off-putting in order to increase the viewer’s suspense and fear over whether or not the main character will get out of this alive. Personally, when I first watched the Season finale of “Book 3,” I was on the edge of my seat and constantly worried for Korra’s survival, and while she is left physically and psychologically scarred by the whole ordeal I’ve heard that the entirety of “Book 4” (which I still haven’t seen BTW) focuses on Korra healing from her trauma and becoming more spiritually enlightened in the process. YouTuber and MarySue author, Princess Weekes, though had some interesting analyses about Korra’s portrayal of overcoming trauma and how its heavily rooted  in East Asian philosophy, despite Weekes' overall mixed feelings about the series in general:

And while I can’t comment on The Owl House (again, haven’t watched any of it), I can say that Lily’s characterization of Catradora as “torture p*rn/abuse fetishization” is 100% wrong since the show frames Catra’s behavior towards Adora and others throughout Seasons 1-4 as toxic and unhealthy, and Season 5 is all about her fixing herself on her own volition after realizing the harm she’s caused, and it’s only AFTER all of that when Adora & Catra become lovers. But the way Lily describes the scenes in Korra & She-Ra (which are honestly pretty PG in their levels of brutality despite being fairly dark for family-friendly animation) you’d think she was talking about some over-the-top violently explicit tentacle hentai or something, as she even goes as far as to compare the Korra & Zaheer fight to FREAKING The Passion of the Christ (seriously… Lily actually compared Korra to Mel Gibson's antisemitic guilt-tripping exploitation film which unnecessarily stretches out Jesus' torture and crucifixion; which in the Bible occurred in just a few brief passages instead of 2-and-a-half hours like in the movie).

Geez… given how Lily so inaccurately mischaracterizes these scenes from Korra and She-Ra, I’d honestly hate to see she’d react to Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is heavily centered around the characters suffering from intense depressive episodes and experiencing emotional breakdowns, whilst also including lots of psychoanalytical and disturbing imagery. Knowing Lily, she’d probably ignore the fact that NGE’s director Hideaki Anno was suffering from severe depression while creating the series (which heavily influenced the show’s overall production and themes), and instead accuse all the depictions of depression and trauma in EVA of being “unrealistic” and “inaccurate” since according to her all fictional depictions of trauma are inherently inaccurate since there’s no one universal depiction of trauma (Lily actually said that in her terrible video), and accuse all of the series’ violent and sexual imagery of being “torture p*rn” whilst calling Anno a “perverted abuse-fetishizing creep who is turned on by torture” (which feels incredibly SWERFy on Lily’s part, as well as needlessly hostile towards people who are into BDSM or sado-masachism and practice it safely and consensually) just like she did to the creators of Korra, Owl House, and She-Ra (even though NGE and especially the movie The End of Evangelion is highly critical of exactly that kind of gross and toxic behavior within Japanese Otaku subcultures).

So my overall question is this: why do Lily and some other people think that including intense trauma or brutal torture scenes in comics or animation, even when said-scenes they're framed in the story as bad things are inherently “problematic,” “dehumanizing,” “fetishistic,” or “torture/trauma p*rn”? It's like... I can understand not wanting to stomach intensely violent or depressing scenes if they can't handle them, or being critical if they feel unnecessarily mean-spirited or exploitative, but often times having darker elements is an unavoidable aspect of giving a story a sense of conflict. Conflict is necessary in order to have a plot or to develop characters, except it feels like a lot of people on social media believe that the mere inclusion of any type of darker conflict or subject matter is inherently ethically dubious regardless of how its framed within the overall narrative.

I just don't get this kind of mentality and why it's become so prevalent online these days... I really don't...

[why-i-love-comics]

X-Men: From the Ashes Sampler #1 (2024)

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[milkywayrollercoaster]

Saladin Alabaster Mosque

Cairo/ Egypt

photo cjmn

[theblogwithoutfear]

I'm loving Peralta's art in this most recent DD issue.

It's really grungy, and unpleasant in a good way--the ickiness of it really adds to the storytelling. All the characters look so tired and dingy, and at times the artwork in this issue looked like it came out of a horror comic--which fits perfectly from a thematic standpoint

I hope we see more of him on this run

Also, his version of Matt's radar sense? Absolute nightmare fuel. I am very uncomfy. Keep it up 👍

[evilhorse]

Oh my god. This shrimp.

(Daredevil Volume 8 #5)

[dirtyriver]

Abbott 1979 #1-5, written by Saladin Ahmed, interior art by Sami Kivelä, covers by Taj Francis

[specificpollsaboutbooks]

Indie Comics Ships

Round 2

Round 2

You can find a preview of Invisible Kingdom (G. Willow Wilson, Christian Ward) here

You can find a preview of Abbott (Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä) here

You can read Check, Please ! (Ngozi Uzaku) here

More under the cut :

Vess and Grix :

Invisible Kingdom, a creation of two big comic names published by Dark Horse, is so good it got an Eisner Award.

In a galaxy far, far away, it tells the story of Grix, a daring spaceship captain who uncovers a vast conspiracy involving the megacorporation she works with and the religious power in place. As she does so, she crosses path with Vess, a religious apprentice who's unveilled the conspiracy from her side of it and is on the run with her delusions. Together with Grix's crew, they try to do what is right. The evolution of Grix and Vess' relationship is really well done.

Elena and Amelia :

Elena's a divorced Black reporter trying to make a name for herself in the journalistic sphere who starts investigating horrific murders pinned on the Black community. Amelia's a Chinese woman working into a gang. They have an on/off relationship along the series.

[foggynelsonarchive]

This isn't the first time Matt has said this, yet it's always a delight when he does.

From the last Daredevil Issue 18

[wwprice1]

Gorgeous art from Daredevil #2 by Aaron Kuder and Jesus Aburtov.

[samasmith23]

My complete graphic novel set of Kamala Khan’s Ms. Marvel:

Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson — Deluxe Edition (Volumes 1 - 5)

Ms. Marvel by Saladin Ahmed

Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit

Ms. Marvel: Fists of Justice

Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin

Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant (Volumes 1 & 2)