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superman86to99 · 3 years ago

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Superman #85 (January 1994)

Cat Grant in... "DARK RETRIBUTION"! Which is like normal retribution, but somehow darker. On the receiving end of Cat's darktribution is Winslow Schott, the Toyman, who suddenly changed his MO from "pestering Superman with wacky robots" to "murdering children" back on Superman #84, with one of his victims being Cat's young son Adam. Now Cat has a gun and intends to sneak it into prison to use it on Toyman. She's also pretty pissed at Superman for taking so long to find Toyman after Adam’s death (to be fair, Superman did lose several days being frozen in time by an S&M demon, as seen in Man of Steel #29).

So how did Superman find Toyman anyway? Basically, by spying on like 25% of Metropolis. After finding out from Inspector Turpin that the kids were killed near the docks, Superman goes there and focuses all of his super-senses to get "a quick glimpse of every person" until he sees a bald, robed man sitting on a giant crib, and goes "hmmm, yeah, that looks like someone who murders children." At first, Superman doesn't understand why Toyman would do such a horrible thing, but then Schott starts talking to his mommy in his head and the answer becomes clear: he watched Psycho too many times (or Dan Jurgens did, anyway).

Immediately after wondering why no one buys his toys, Toyman makes some machine guns spring out of his giant crib. I don't know, man, maybe it's because they're all full of explosives and stuff? Anyway, Toyman throws a bunch of exploding toys at Superman, including a robot duplicate of himself, but of course they do nothing. Superman takes him to jail so he can get the help he needs -- which, according to Cat, is a bullet to the face. Or so it seems, until she gets in front of him, pulls the trigger, and...

PSYCHE! It was one of those classic joke guns I’ve only ever seen in comics! Cat says she DID plan to bring a real gun, but then she saw one of these at a toy store and just couldn't resist. Superman, who was watching the whole thing, tells Cat she could get in trouble for this stunt, but he won't tell anyone because she's already been through enough. Then he asks her if she needs help getting home and she says no, because she wants to be more self-sufficient.

I think that's supposed to be an inspiring ending, but I don't know... Adam's eerie face floating in the background there makes me think she's gonna shave her head and climb into a giant crib any day, too. THE END!

Character-Watch:

Cat did become more self-sufficient after this, though. Up to now, all of her storylines seemed to revolve around other people: her ex-husband, Morgan Edge, José Delgado, Vinnie Edge, and finally Toyman. After this, I feel like there was a clear effort to turn her into a character that works by herself. I actually like what they did with Cat in the coming years, though I still don’t think they had to kill her poor kid to do that -- they could have sent him off to boarding school, or maybe to live with his dad. Or with José Delgado, over at Power of Shazam! I bet Jerry Ordway would have taken good care of him.

Plotline-Watch:

Wait, so can Superman just find anyone in Metropolis any time he wants? Not really: this is part of the ongoing storyline about his powers getting boosted after he came back from the dead, which sounds pretty useful now but is about to get very inconvenient.

Don Sparrow points out: "It is interesting that as Superman tries to capture Schott, he at one point instead captures a robot decoy, particularly knowing what Geoff Johns will retroactively do to this storyline in years to come, in Action Comics #865, as we mentioned in our review of Superman #84." Johns also explained that the robot thought he was hearing his mother's voice due to the real Toyman trying to contact him via radio, which I prefer to the "psycho talks to his dead mom" cliche.

Superman says "I never thought he'd get to the point where he'd KILL anyone -- especially children!" Agreed about the children part but, uh, did Superman already forget that Toyman murdered a whole bunch people on his very first appearance, in Superman #13? Or does Superman not count greedy toy company owners as people? Understandable, I guess.

There's a sequence about Cat starting a fire in a paper basket at the prison to sneak past the metal detector, but why do that if she had a toy gun all long? Other than to prevent smartass readers like us from saying "How did she get the gun into the prison?!" before the plot twist, that is.

Patreon-Watch:

Shout out to our patient Patreon patrons, Aaron, Murray Qualie, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Dave Shevlin, and Kit! The latest Patreon-only article was about another episode of the 1988 Superman cartoon written by Marv Wolfman, this one co-starring Wonder Woman (to Lois' frustration).

Another Patreon perk is getting to read Don Sparrow's section early, because he usually finishes his side of these posts long before I do (he ALREADY finished the next one, for instance). But now this one can be posted in public! Take it away, Don:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We begin with the cover, and it’s a good one— an ultra tight close up for Cat Grant firing a .38 calibre gun, with the titular Superman soaring in, perhaps too late. An interesting thing to notice in this issue (and especially on the cover) is that the paper stock that DC used for their comics changed, so slightly more realistic shading was possible. While it’s nowhere near the sophistication or gloss of the Image Comics stock of the time, there is an attempt at more realistic, airbrushy type shading in the colour. It works well in places, like the muzzle flash, on on Cat Grant’s cheeks and knuckles, but less so in her hair, where the shadow looks a browny green on my copy.

The interior pages open with a pretty good bit of near-silent storytelling. We are deftly shown, and not told the story—there are condolence cards and headlines, and the looming presence of a liquor bottle, until we are shown on the next page splash the real heart of the story, a revolver held aloft by Catherine Grant, bereaved mother, with her targeting in her mind the grim visage of the Toyman.

While their first few issues together meshed pretty well, it’s around this issue that the pencil/inks team of Jurgens and Rubinstein starts to look a little rushed in places. A few inkers who worked with Jurgens that I’ve spoken to have hinted that his pencils can vary in their level of detail, from very finished to pretty loose, and in the latter case, it’s up to the inker to embellish where there’s a lack of detail. Some inkers, like Brett Breeding, really lay down a heavier hand, where there’s quite a bit of actual drawing work in addition to adding value and weight to the lines. I suspect some of the looseness in the figures, as well as empty backgrounds reveals that these pencils were less detailed than we often see from Jurgens.

There’s some weird body language in the tense exchange between Superman and Cat as she angrily confronts him about his lack of progress in capturing her son’s killer—Superman looks a little too dynamic and pleased with himself for someone ostensibly apologizing. Superman taking flight to hunt down Toyman is classic Jurgens, though.

Another example of art weirdness comes on page 7, where Superman gets filled in on the progress of the Adam Morgan investigation. Apparently Suicide Slum has some San Francisco-like hills, as that is one very steep sidewalk separating Superman and Turpin from some central-casting looking punks.

The sequence of Superman concentrating his sight and hearing on the waterfront area is well-drawn, and it’s always nice to see novel uses of his powers. Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman does a similar trick quite often on the excellent first season of Superman & Lois. The full-bleed splash of Superman breaking through the wall to capture Toyman is definitely panel-of-the-week material, as we really feel Superman’s rage and desperation to catch this child-killer.

Pretty much all the pages with Cat Grant confronting Winslow Schott are well-done and tensely paced. While sometimes I think the pupil-less flare of the eye-glasses is a cop-out, it does lend an opaqueness and mystery to what Toyman is thinking. Speaking of cop-outs, the gag gun twist ending really didn’t work for me. I was glad that Cat didn’t lower herself to Schott’s level and become a killer, even for revenge, but the prank gun just felt too silly of a tonal shift for a storyline with this much gravitas. The breakneck denouement that Cat is now depending only on herself didn’t get quite enough breathing room either.

While I appreciated that the ending of this issue avoided an overly simplistic, Death Wish style of justice, this issue extends this troubling but brief era of Superman comics. The casual chalk outlines of yet two more dead children continues the high body count of the previous handful of issues, and the tone remains jarring to me. The issue is also self-aware enough to point out, again, that Schott is generally an ally of children, and not someone who historically wishes them harm, but that doesn’t stop the story from going there, in the most violent of terms. In addition to being a radical change to the Toyman character, it’s handled in a fashion more glib than we’re used to seeing in these pages. The mental health cliché of a matriarchal obsession, a la Norman Bates doesn’t elevate it either. So, another rare misstep from Jurgens the writer, in my opinion. STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I had thought for sure that Romanove Vodka was a sly reference to a certain Russian Spy turned Marvel superhero, but it turns out there actually is a Russian Vodka called that, minus the “E”, produced not in Russia, as one might think from the Czarist name, but rather, India.

While it made for an awkward exchange, I was glad that Cat pointed out how her tragedy more or less sat on the shelf while Superman dealt with the "Spilled Blood" storyline. A lesser book might not have acknowledged any time had passed. Though I did find it odd for Superman to opine that he wanted to find her son’s murderer even more than she wanted him to. Huh? How so?

I love the detail that Toyman hears the noise of Superman soaring to capture him, likening it to a train coming.

I quibble, but there’s so much I don’t understand about the “new” Toyman. If he’s truly regressing mentally, to an infant-like state, why does he wear this phantom of the opera style long cloak while he sits in his baby crib? Why not go all the way, and wear footie pajamas, like the lost souls on TLC specials about “adult babies”?

I get that Cat Grant is in steely determination mode, but it seemed a little out of place that she had almost no reaction to the taunting she faced from her child’s killer. She doesn’t shed a single tear in the entire issue, and no matter how focused she is on vengeance, that doesn’t seem realistic to me. [Max: That's because this is not just retribution, Don. It's dark retribution. We’ve been over this!]

#superman #dan jurgens #joe rubinstein #cat grant #adam morgan #toyman #dan turpin #joke guns that only exist in comics #cat grant the dark retributor #coming soon to image comics

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dcarevu · 6 years ago

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DCAU #18: See No Evil

“Hey! Who locked the bathroom?!”

Watching this show in production-order as opposed to airing-order is drastically altering how I perceive it. This is an episode that I had no memory of. Like, none. And then when I watched it, yeah, I managed to sense some vague familiarity (at least enough to know I didn’t miss it the first time I went through the show), but it was basically like watching it for the first time. This time was different, though, and I actually think that this episode is not only worth remembering, but it’s kinda another key episode! I know, you probably have your doubts, but hear me out. Maybe by the end of today’s blog post, you’ll at least see where I’m coming from.

Episode: 17 Robin: No Writer: Martin Pasko Director: Dan Riba Animator: Dong Yang Airdate: February 24, 1993 Grade: A Where do I begin with See No Evil… Talking about an episode like this is weird, because knowing that I can praise an episode you don’t see praised as often as, say, Heart Of Ice puts more pressure on me to say what I feel I need to say. With Two-Face I didn’t really need to worry about getting my points about how great it is through. Everyone already knows. I was preaching to the choir. But this episode doesn’t have the flashy villain. It also doesn’t have the landmark status. Hell, its airing number was 56. By that point, this episode wasn’t special at all. The series was more than halfway over. The airing order wasn’t all bad, I mean, let’s bring up Heart Of Ice again. It’s a wonderful episode, but imagine if it aired more than halfway through the series. We’d probably be looking at it at least a little differently. I believe that See No Evil got swept into the cracks. No real harm done, don’t take this as me saying that losing this episode like that was a travesty. I still wouldn’t put it on a top 10 list or anything (at least, I don’t think I would). But I want to shine the spotlight on it, even if it’s just through this post. Give it a little bit of love, and hopefully at least get a few to acknowledge it as an achievement within Batman the Animated Series, despite it often being seen as a standard.

(“Hey! Who locked the bathroom?!” Try knocking, asshole!)

What’s funny is that the first few minutes are more engaging and have better atmosphere than the entire climax of our last episode. And that had explosions and fires galore! This is essentially just a little kid talking to a seemingly supernatural being! Wait. A little kid? In a Batman TAS episode? I know you’re going, “I thought you said this episode was good.” As I said. Hear. Me. Out. Now there’s something that creeps me out about things such as dolls coming to life, whether they’re actually sentient, or some creepy invisible thing is manipulating them. Especially when intentions are clearly malicious to everyone except for the naive child. It’s that creepy manipulation aspect. You ever see a horror movie where the mom asks their kid who they’re talking to, and at that moment you know that it’s not just their imaginary friend? That something sinister is lurking around? Hell, when I was a little kid I used to partially wake up in the middle of the night and see things in the dark. Apparently one time I asked my mom over and over if she could see/hear the lady with the guitar wandering through the house. If I were my mom, I woulda packed my bags and moved out until I could get ahold of the god damn Ghostbusters (by the way, Ghostbusters 3, what the actual fu-).

(Char thought this scenery was really spooky. I’d have to agree!)

But anyway, getting back on topic… Now, we later of course find out that this “ghost” is just a regular dude, and is in fact the girl’s father. But, despite concerns, that doesn’t remove the tension from the episode at all. There’s a horror movie called Hush which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I was going to. But one minor nitpick is that, although it helps alleviate the cliché, when the killer removes his mask and we start to slowly see them as more human than blank, creepy slate, the scariness takes a hard hit. I hear a similar complaint with how some of the modern Halloween movies make Michael too human, and although it can often create a stronger character, that doesn’t exactly help improve the Halloween movies. Michael Myers is scary because of how mysterious and inhuman he is. My point is that relatability alone cannot always take the place of that haunting alien quality. And our villain, Lloyd Ventrix, goes through a similar transformation as we learn more about him. But here, it doesn’t hurt the episode, it only makes it more interesting. I’m usually all about sympathetic villains on this show, but it would have been so easy to turn this into a typical emotion-driven story about a dad who misses his daughter and uses his invisibility to see her sometimes. Granted, this story could have worked. It worked in Spider-Man 3 with the Sandman (I actually like that movie, despite having some major problems with it). But instead we go for a different route where somehow our character gets scarier when we find out who he is and what he wants. The best way I can put it is that we found out what he wants without finding out what he wants after he gets what he wants. Whatever it is, though, it’s likely not good. Something is so off about Ventrix. And it’s actually explained why. The chemicals in his invisibility suit are basically making him go crazy. He’s not going crazy in a cartoonish way, it’s a legitimate mentally ill way.

(Look at that fixated glare. <Shudders>)

He stalks. He steals. And despite the super villain element, there’s a realness to it all that puts the real accounts of child kidnapping and stalking at the back of your mind. Enough to get a slight case of the willies. We find out from the mother that Ventrix has basically no redeeming qualities at all, but she doesn’t know much more about his motivations than we do. Even his daughter. She has no idea who he is when he reveals his face to her. Add in the fact that he ignores his restraining order at one point in the episode to try and show his ex wife that he’s a changed man because he has money now, and it makes you real glad that Batman exists in this world to protect the more innocent.

(“Goth Mart”. Love it. This store would eventually become Hot Topic.)

I legitimately feel like his daughter would have been in danger if she would have gotten into that car. Ugh. Yeah. That’s another thing. Ventrix trying to get his daughter into his car (when she has no idea who he is, they likely haven’t communicated face to face since before she can even remember), and her saying that her mom told her to not talk to strangers. Ahhhhhh! Scary! And she sees his face and gets creeped out that he’s a grown-ass man she’s never seen before. Like, am I the only one so disturbed by this guy? In a world that unfortunately contains child-molestors and killers, can you blame me?

(I really love this little girl’s character model. Beautiful eyes!)

Now, if you’ve never seen this episode (go watch the series, dude!), you’re probably a little surprised about this being an episode of Batman the Animated Series. But they don’t play everything quite so scary. In fact, there was a decent amount of comic relief, and it was genuinely funny. There was one moment where Batman jumps onto our villain’s invisible car as it starts racing through the city. At first, this looked stupidly campy. I was thinking of the Invisible Boatmobile. And also, since we can’t see the car, we just see what appears to be Batman flying around in an incredibly static position at 90 mph. But the show was smart. Martin Pasko knew that this would look stupid. So they embrace it. We see a civilian who notices Batman speeding by, and he goes, “I didn’t know he could fly too!” in a pretty funny voice. Char and I both laughed out loud. It was very well played.

Speaking of funny voices, by the way, holy hell, the voice work in this episode was incredible. Every character’s voice had so much…well…character! My favorite voice performance in the episode was actually that one scientist (Sam Giddell was his name) that Batman talked to about the invisibility plastic. He was kinda funny sounding, but not in a cartoony way. He sounded exactly how he should, a nerdy, dedicated, hard-working researcher. He was no Seymour the scientist (anyone who gets that reference gets a bat-cookie. Or maybe a lava cookie…), that’s for sure. Y’know who another surprisingly great voice came from? Batman. You’re probably thinking, “This is Kevin Conroy, Collin. His Batman voice is always great.” You’d be right…kinda. Watch The Cat and the Claw, and then go watch the Superman TAS episode World’s Finest. One is really good. One is great, and the Batman voice we’ve come to know and love from Conroy. I think that See No Evil is our first episode with the definitive Kevin Conroy Batman voice. Especially when compared to The Cat and the Claw where everyone was barely talking above a whisper (I still don’t know what that was about, honestly). Really, The Cat and the Claw coming right before this episode just highlights why this episode is a key episode even more. The Red Claw ended up being a little bit more gimmicky and stock than I would have liked. And she was a little bit too…exaggerated? Think back to that attack on the train. See No Evil indeed has a villain with a gimmick, don’t get me wrong. But this gimmick is one that provides a lot of plot-points that don't feel empty. It’s how he manages to frequently talk to his daughter. It’s how he managed to kidnap her. It’s how he committed so many of his crimes. It’s how he gave Batman so much damn trouble. Compare this to the level of meat that Red Claw provided for that story. Miles apart.

Underneath this gimmick, which essentially is a way of giving someone in this show a super power, we have a regular guy (well…kinda) without even a supervillian name. Bruce Timm and co from the beginning wanted the show to focus on good stories rather than freaks of the day. They made it clear that sometimes this would involve regular mobsters or, maybe people like Ventrix. We’ve already done similar with It’s Never Too Late, but I think that this episode is even better in some aspects.

It isn’t perfect, though. The scene with Batman on top of the car, yeah, the joke was funny, but it goes on a little too long for me. Also, the bit where Ventrix pulled that robbery of the jewelry at the beginning I had mixed thoughts on. Like, dude. You’re invisible. You manage to quietly sneak an item into your pocket, but then decide to throw the idea of stealth completely out the window by ripping jewelry out of people’s hands, shoving people around, and dumping out displays right in front of people? Oh, good job, now you alerted Batman, you moron.

(An in-costume Ventrix, visible.)

At the same time, though, we do establish later on that this guy isn’t mentally there, so maybe that’s a decent enough reason. Either way, these are nitpicks through and through, and calling them anything but would be doing an injustice. This episode is awesome. I haven’t even talked about the step up in action scenes yet. This is probably the best the series has been so far with action. Except for when Mr. Freeze rode that fire hydrant into a building. That was amazing. Batman gets the shit beat out of him in this episode. I think that maybe they could get away with more because the villain was invisible for most of the hits or something, but the way that they were animated still makes them look just as painful as any hits from a completely visible person would have.

(Caption this?)

(Or this.)

(Or even this.)

Yeah, the animation here was done by Dong Yang. Y’know. The same ones who did Nothing to Fear and I’ve Got Batman In My Basement. Before I checked on who the animation studio was, I totally would have guessed TMS or Spectrum. It looks that great. A major step up from those two mentioned episodes. The only weird bit was that Batman’s face looked a tiny bit off occasionally, but it's barely noticeable. It’s mostly in his nose, and how it tends to hang down. Anyway, yeah. Lots of great action scenes. Probably one of the coolest was when water is raining down on the battlefield, and Batman uses that to keep an eye on Ventrix and take him out. Here, he is totally visible, but they don’t cut back on the damage being done by Batman’s fists and feet. But y’know what the main thing I noticed with this bit was? The live action Daredevil movie totally got the final fight scene from this episode. Coincidentally Ben Affleck is a common denominator.

There are lots of other little things I could say. There were a few more funny bits, a particular scene where Batman is rummaging through some files and tension skyrockets, and even the technical mumbo jumbo that surprisingly made a lot of sense and didn't seem to jump the shark much… It’s mostly all great. This is why production order is so important for this episode in particular. By the time episode 56 arrived, much of See No Evil’s achievements had already been seen! But watching it this way, we see a huge boost in good comic relief, a huge boost in action, a huge boost in tension/borderline horror elements, a huge boost in animation (at least for this particular studio), a huge boost in voice work, and a solid, entertaining story to go with all of it. I really liked this episode, as did Char, and this is why it gets a proud, sturdy A from me. Char mentioned to me that this villain felt like a one-shot, and I’m guessing she’s right (I can’t quite recall). I bet they could have done another interesting story with Ventrix, and maybe he found his way into some of the DCAU comics? Speaking of that…

I made a post earlier, but I wanted to reiterate! There are DCAU comics. There are actually a lot of them. Now, I have no idea which ones are technically still considered canon (or which ones ever were). But what I’d like to do is put in a little research and start including them in this blog! Unfortunately, these likely won’t align together as nicely as the episodes do. Because I’m watching Batman in production order, it’s kinda hard to then look at the comic dates and place them appropriately throughout. So I’m going to treat them more as a separate thing and check them out at my own pace. I don’t even own any right now, so it’s likely gonna be a while before I even get to them. I still don’t know if I want to do all of them, or just the confirmed canon ones? Any input? Lemme know! With that, I’ll see y’all next week, most likely, as we…um…head west…

Char’s grade: A

Next time: Beware Of the Grey Ghost Full episode list here!

#dcau #dc animated universe #batman tas #see no evil #batman the animated series #batman

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tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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Superman: Year One: Book One

I can't wait to find out why Superman shoved Jim Gordon's head up his ass!

Jonathan Kent isn't a kind and generous man who wanted to take care of a baby. I mean, maybe he was but what does it even matter if something else is manipulating his actions?

Do audiences enjoy stories where characters are manipulated by Gods or destiny to become the thing they're meant to become to do the thing they're meant to do or is this just writers being too lazy to let a story tell itself along the way? My view of audiences would be severely diminished if it could get any lower and also if I were to believe they preferred stories about Chosen Ones rather than regular people who rise to the occasion to do something heroic. What makes a story better if we learn that the hero was always meant to be the hero? Isn't it more rewarding to have heroes like Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee who struggled to do what was right with no guarantee that they were cosmically destined to succeed? The only thing this whole idea that there has to be some thing (or Thing) manipulating events from behind the curtain is remove free will from the hero's actions, thus making the hero nothing more than an automaton programmed to succeed. Jonathan brings the baby home and Martha is all, "Whelp! I guess we have a kid now! Praise Jesus!" And Jon is all, "Praise Jesus and his might rocket ship from Heaven!" And both of them feel slightly guilty because of all the times they cursed God for giving them faulty reproductive organs. Jon and Martha are still young so at least they can pretend that they kept faith that God would provide them a child. But I bet if they had been creeping up on the age of Abraham when he finally boinked the help, they would have fucked up God's plan too! Jon and Martha quickly begin calling each other Ma and Pa because why not? It's not like anybody is going to somehow come along and take their new space baby away from them! They found it and so it's as good as theirs. It's not like Kansas has any laws on the books that say you can't keep a baby you found in a field that fell out of the sky in an alien rocket ship. Are there? Probably not, right? And even if there are, nobody in town seems to question where the fuck Jon and Martha got a kid.

Oh yeah. I'm supposed to believe Clark can feel hot oatmeal. What flavor is it? Kryptonite? I mean, it is green.

Stupid penis! Every time I turn the page, it keeps thinking we're going to see thick chicks on space motorcycles with their tits flopping out and huge bushes streaming out from between their thighs! This isn't Heavy Metal, you stupid organ! I blame my brain for constantly thinking while reading this, "This comic book magazine sure would be better with more tits." Between being a toddler and the first day of high school, nothing important happens. I mean, some important things probably happen. Like Clark's first wet dream. But Frank Miller doesn't think that's important enough to make the story. I don't know why. I want to see Ma asking Kent why he hid his sheets out in the field and also why he was re=plastering the ceiling of his bedroom. In high school, all the kids start talking about how amazing Clark Kent is. But he hangs out with the fat kid and the goth kid and the other kids that are probably losers in ways that I can't tell by John Romita Jr's art. They all just kind of look like John Romita Jr people. I think they others are misfits because one wears glasses and the other one is black and the other one is Latino. That just means they don't fit in with the white rural farm kids, I guess? I don't know how high school works in rural America. I grew up in Silicon Valley. Our nerds were the white kids who played Dungeons and Dragons. Our popular kids were the Filipinos who were style conscious when most of us still weren't wearing deodorant or washing our hair regularly enough. I would see them hanging out at lunch and think, "How do they get their hair to stay so high and look so good?!" If only I had known that part of that answer was simply, "They wash it regularly," maybe I wouldn't have been a big misfit loser jerk! Clark sees the bullies picking on little Pete Ross (you have to say that in a high-pitched sneering voice. Unless you don't want to be a bully. Do you not want to be a bully?) and decides, "Enough is enough!" Even though he's not supposed to stand out or else the government will take him away to do experiments on him, he has to end the rash of bullying at Smallville High School! This looks like a job for Clark Kent! I don't think he's decided to call himself Superboy yet. Apparently nobody in town knows how to stop a bunch of asshole kids from bullying other kids. It's just one of those Earth problems that can't be solved by Earthlings! It must be Clark Kent's destiny to stop bullying once and for all! And that's what Clark does. He takes the novel approach that nobody thought of and asks the bullies, "Hey? Could you stop picking on my friends?" Sure, that doesn't work. They just see it as Clark starting a fight. So they oblige him and throw a few punches. Clark blocks one and the bully's wrist breaks. So now the bullies realize they can't win and stop bullying! Yay! Except they don't. They just bully even harder because why not? They're shitting on other people because their life is shit. Why would they not increase the shitting if something happened in their life to make their life even shittier?! Something like Clark "Break a Boy's Bones" Kent!

Why do they seem so happy about Carlos being called a spic and getting his tooth knocked out?! Fucking asshole weirdos!

Lana tells Clark she has a plan to stop the bullies. Her plan involves journalism! She has pictures of the bullies assaulting the weirdos and she thinks they can get the police to listen to them. But the goth weirdo overhears their plans and he's a big weirdo traitor! I guess if he snitches on the weirdos, he doesn't get beat up. I bet he's going to become a supervillain some day. When Lana leaves her house at night thinking she's going to meet Clark, she's set upon by the bullies! They steal her pictures and threaten to rape her. These aren't just bullies! They're criminal psychopaths and I'm sorry I tried to understand their bully behavior earlier! I was thinking, "Maybe this story will be about the ambiguities of youth and how hard it is to navigate the world between childhood and adulthood, especially when you have serious issues with your parents and home life and self-esteem!" Instead I should have been thinking, "Clark and the weirdos are Good with a capital "G" and the bullies are Evil with a capital "E"! Hopefully the story will make this explicit so that I can truly just hate the bullies and not mind when Clark drowns them in the reservoir! And the best way for a narrative to help me understand how evil they are is if they commit attempted rape!" Whew! I sure am glad to know that whatever Clark does to them now, they totally deserve it! I'd hate for Clark to have to come up with a real life solution that stops the bullying and teaches the bullies how to cope with their own problems without resorting to small violences against other kids! After saving Lana from being raped, Clark seems to insinuate that maybe Lana should fuck him as thanks. He's all, "Let me court you!" And she's all, "Whatever." And he's all, "Sleep tight!" And she's all, "Yeah. Sure. I'll sleep. Tight." I think that means she's going to masturbate? I'm not good at sexual innuendo but I figured it must be because the very next panel begins like this:

That's definitely sexual innuendo!

Kent forgets that he's supposed to be stopping the bullies because he starts dating Lana. They sneak off and Clark closes his eyes and pulls out his penis and is all, "Just touch it Lana!" And she's all, "Mmmph mmph mmmph!" And he's all, "Please! Just touch it!" And she's all, "Mmph mmmph mmph!" And he opens his eyes and realizes his penis is in Lana's mouth and he blows her brains all over the field with his load. Later, after my fantasy is concluded, I return to the actual story where they only kiss. Lame. After high school ends, Clark joins the navy. But not after banging Lana Lang all night! And that's not something I made up! It's right there in the comic book! Superman: Year One: Book One Rating: It was a bit treacly but not super bad. Ha ha!. But I still don't know if the bullies ever got their comeuppance! Was I supposed to be satisfied with Clark bloodying a few noses and then saying to Lana, "We'll use reporting to get them good!"? How disappointing!

#Superman #Year One #Frank Miller #DC Comics #DC #John Romita Jr

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helenawaynehuntress · 7 years ago

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Women's Bodies Are Not Tools For Male Agency - An Open Letter To Peter Tomasi And Patrick Gleason

Dear Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason,

Last Wednesday, Superman #23 hit stores. For the most part, Superman and Action Comics have been among the bright spots of DC's Rebirth initiative. Lois and Clark are back together again, the super couple have a new addition to their small family, and their personalities are back to where they need to be.

Superman is once again embodying the hope and optimism that have been staple to his character for all of his publication history. Lois Lane is once again his co-star, and she is once again the "top-of-her game", pulitzer-winning, badass journalist that's she's always been. The first woman of comics is once again the superhero we all need her to be: the ordinary human who uses all of her resources to dig up the truth and expose crime and corruption through her own super power: journalism.

Lois is very much an action girl. She just doesn't come with weapons, a costume, and special gadgets to get the job done. Even when situations get dangerous, she doesn't stand by and wait to be rescued. She gets creative. She uses everything that is available to her to make her escape before Superman even arrives at the scene. She embodies everything most people love about Bruce Wayne, minus the toxic masculinity and his need to dress up like a giant bat (complete with bat-themed gadgets, vehicles, and an actual bat cave) to intimidate criminals every night.

All that I've described above is what I've loved about Lois Lane ever since I saw her portrayed by Teri Hatcher in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman when I was 07 years old. When I started reading the character in various DC books (not just the Superman books) at the age of 20, I was very happy to see that comic book Lois was every bit as awesome as the versions of her I saw on the telly as a kid. I am 30 now.

I think we can all agree at this point that the idea behind the New 52 was a good one in the sense that it came from a place of DC wanting to expand its readership by giving everyone a new starting point. It was especially done invite new readers to these characters, which was one of the high points of the initiative. Where it misfired was in its execution. Too much of what people loved about these characters for decades got jettisoned and replaced with wholly unrecognisable versions of these characters.

The wholesale jettisoning of character growth in favour of establishing "darker characters" is a big part of what I feel drove away many longtime readers, resulting in lower sales for DC in the span of five years. Rebirth has been a tremendous blessing in carefully reinstating what's been missing from these characters without another reboot, and sales are back up. You and Dan Jurgens have played an important role in bringing Lois and Clark back to their core, for which I am most grateful. But this now brings us back to Superman #23 and the unnecessary dismemberment of Lois Lane in a story arc that frankly did not require it.

Aside from this being another standard fridging for shock value and manpain, what was most infuriating about your decision to dismember Lois is that it continued a long standing problem in mainstream superhero comics to use women's bodies as tools for male agency. Even if this gets retconned before the story arc concludes (and I'm sure it will), the fact is it's still a dehumanising plot device that reduces a woman's importance to how she is valued by the men in her life.

Lois' dismemberment was not about Lois making a heroic sacrifice for what she believes in or protecting the people she loves. Her mutilation was ALL about shocking and traumatising the most important men in her life: her husband and son. It was both gratuitous and traumatising for me to see. It actually made me physically nauseous and caused my heart to palpitate when I read it on Wednesday. Literally. That is not what I expected to get from a Superman comic last Wednesday--a comic that I feel should be accessible to everyone.

When DC launched Rebirth last year, Geoff Johns did so with the promise of confronting the legacy of Watchmen, and with the promise of restoring hope and optimism to the DC Universe. I was very grateful to hear those words, because while I feel Watchmen is being scapegoated here, DC--with some exceptions-- has collectively not embodied that idea in the last 30 years. It's as if Crisis on Infinite Earths did more than just jettison the last 50 years of DC continuity in favour of a completely new direction. It also did away with the idea of heroes being good people who did what they did out of a strong desire to make their world a better place, and not because of a tragic event in their lives that set them on that path. It especially fared worse for the women characters who thrived during the Bronze Age as characters with agency and meaningful storylines.

The tragic origin story became the norm in superhero narratives and the "darkening" of superheroes became the recurring trend. That tragic event in the lives of many iconic male superheroes almost always centred on the death or violent fridging of a woman in their lives, whether that'd be their mother, daughter, sister, friend, or romantic partner. If it was a female superhero, her origin story would almost always be tied to a violent past involving abuse from men--including sexual abuse--or an actual fridging like in the case of Barbara Gordon. If it wasn't a dark origin story, eventually a story arc would come along where a male villain would brutalise a woman as a way of raising the stakes for the affected male hero.

Notice how much of this darkening of the DC Universe in the last 30 years has involved normalising violence against women? This disturbing trend became so prominent within the first decade of the post-Crisis universe alone, a whole website got made around that same time frame to document all the instances in which female characters have been "depowered, raped, and cut up" in a mainstream superhero comic.

This wasn't the sort of thing that just happened in elseworlds stories anymore. It literally became mainstream DC continuity, ironically, often inspired by elseworlds stories. This is what the last 30 years of DC storylines consisted of, I would almost argue the New 52 was actually the culmination of this style of storytelling for so long. Is it really surprising that women don't stay quiet anymore whenever we see violent misogyny used casually in the stories we're invested in, especially against the female characters we identify with for shock value and manpain? Is it really surprising we respond with anger when fridging is used over and over and over again against the same heroine as a plot device? Can you understand how dismembering Lois this past Wednesday cheapens her character and continues this disturbing trend of the last 30 years, especially given the promise of Rebirth?

When it comes to the representation of women in superhero comics, our anger towards the use of violent misogyny in stories to give them a gritty texture goes way beyond our investment in the characters themselves. It is also very personal to us because it helps to normalise real life misogyny. Normalisation of misogyny in comics is what invites men with toxic attitudes towards women to these characters, and helps to foster a comics community that is actively hostile to women. It especially fosters a community where male harassment of women in comic spaces is very common place, even for being invested these stories and characters. Some of these men even become future writers and editors for comics publishers to the point where it limits women's opportunities to work for these publishers.

When given the privilege to write iconic DC characters in particular, women are rarely afforded the opportunity to develop their stories as creators and editors except in small doses. When men are given the privilege to write and edit these characters, they rarely write and edit them with women and other diverse fans in mind as part of the larger DC reading audience. We're rarely seen as an audience worth connecting with at best (even though we've always been here), and we are seen as "bad for business" at worst. That last one is especially true in the case of female fans and creators who are vocal about these ongoing problems and would like for them to change so that they are no longer a problem.

I realise that as a customer it is not my place to tell you what types of stories to write, and I am more than aware that I don't have to invest money in anything I don't want to support. All of that is true. But here's the thing: I'm not a casual customer. I am a DC Comics fan who wants to invest in these characters and books just like every other fan. They have been my heroes since I was a kid and they still mean a lot to me as an adult.

This may sound like a naive thing to say, but I believe strongly in DC's potential to be a publisher that is inclusive of everyone, given the diversity of intellectual properties and the fans they invite. I strongly believe that Rebirth is worth supporting because it's seeking to make DC less divisive and more inviting of various groups of people, older fans and newer fans alike. I strongly believe that if the quality of the stories Rebirth is pumping out continues to inspire and invite diverse audiences and creative talents to the fold, we could get to a point where we don’t need to keep having this conversation about representation in comics. It would be a thing of the past. For real!

In the same way that you wouldn't make creative choices that would offend and alienate male fans of any DC property you work on, I ask that you afford women and other marginalised communities that same respect by being more thoughtful of the way you use women and marginalised communities in your stories. To be more aware of the ongoing problems with diverse representation so that you are not unwittingly repeating these same problems in the otherwise good stories you're writing. If Rebirth is about restoring hope and optimism to the DC Universe, please honour that promise by representing women's heroes better. Specifically by writing them as characters with agency and their own storylines, and not as tools for male character development. That is all I want to see happen.

Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful rest of your week.

Sincerely,

Diane Darcy

#Lois Lane #Superman #Rebirth #Women In Refrigerators

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zipgrowth · 7 years ago

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From Advocating to Letting Your Nerd Flag Fly, Educators Are Grateful For Lessons From Students

When all the stuffing, sauces, hams, turkeys, and pies are out of the oven, there is often a moment of peace during the holiday season where families sit around the dinner table and remember what they are grateful for. This year, we gathered with a community of educators during EdSurge’s Tech Leader Circle at the MakerDepot in Totowa, New Jersey to pause and have a similar moment of reflection.

For this EdSurge OnAir holiday special, we cut through the noise of the 3D printers to ask educators, “What is the one lesson their students taught them, that they are most grateful for?” From advocating for those in need to letting your nerd flag fly, it is no surprise that the lessons shared from these tech leaders will stay with them for many years to come.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Listen to a complete version of the interviews below, or on your favorite podcast app (like iTunes or Stitcher).

To start off our special on the lessons teachers are thankful for, I tell a story of my own.

I was in the middle of teaching a class when I saw it. A relatively thick English book on the corner of this young Turkish girl’s desk. But I waited until the end of the lesson to ask her about it.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

“The Diary of Anne Frank” she replied.

I will never forget the goosebumps that came all over me when she said it. I looked at her intensely.

“Why did you pick up this book?” I hesitated.

“Because of your lesson,” she replied casually. “I wanted to learn more about her.”

I still get a bit flustered and emotional when I think about it. I taught English for three years overseas, in Istanbul, Turkey. That place, for a history nerd like myself, is truly one of the most mindblowing cities in the world. But when I first started teaching there, it was hard. I will never forget the fear and terror in some of the students’ eyes when they first saw me, pointing and running because I was the first black person many of them had ever seen in person or interacted with. Yes, it stung a little.

When I realized many of my students knew a lot about Ataturk but nothing about other famous figures like Nelson Mandela or Anne Frank, something inside me would not settle for just teaching these kids a language. I began to slip little anecdotes about these figures into my lessons. Who says the passage we read about in a grammar lesson can’t be from Martin Luther King, Jr.?

But the problem was, I never knew if any of it mattered to them, until I saw Elif reading The Diary of Anne Frank.

Which brings me to the lesson my students taught me that I am most grateful for. The power of education and exposure. Seeing her read that book changed me. I was thrust into teaching overseas after other professions I desired didn’t quite pan out, and was lost in the work. Seeing Elif reading that book to learn more about Anne Frank in a society where people made anti-semitic comments in public on a regular basis meant my work mattered.

Educators from the New Jersey EdSurge Tech Leader Circle. Photo Credit: Marisa Kaplan

This week I talked with other educators who shared their powerful stories: Elaine Mendez (an instructional coach from Belleville Public Schools) and AJ Bianco (a 7th and 8th grade Social Studies teacher from Harrington Park School)—who learned to make mistakes and show off their nerdy sides.

Elaine Mendez: My first year teaching, I spelled a word wrong. A kid pointed it out. That's the day that I learned it's okay to make mistakes in front of the children and use it as teachable moments.

AJ Bianco: The one thing a student taught me was to be myself. Don't put up a front. Don't try to be somebody else. One of the things that the student appreciated about me was the fact that I let my nerd flag fly. I let out my comic book personality and my love of superheroes. It doesn't look like that's the kind of person I am, but when this student found out how much I love Superman and the Justice League, we connected. We bonded. For the three years, he was in school with me, he came to me for everything and helped me create a whole bunch of different clubs and classes. So I'm grateful for him for allowing me to be myself.

It was not only educators who shared what they learned from students at the Maker Depot in New Jersey. Both principals and one member of our EdSurge research team also had stories at the event. Marisa Kaplan (a research project manager from EdSurge and former special education teacher), Jennifer Wirt (a principal from Glen Rock Middle School), Erica Ripston (a 3rd grade teacher from Memorial Elementary School), and Daniel Borghoff (a middle school MakerSpace and STEM Design Teacher from Hackensack Middle School, learned how to get out of the way, and not judge themselves so harshly.

Marisa Kaplan: I spent 11 years in classrooms in New York City as a special-education teacher, an ELA teacher and an instructional coach. One of my early teaching jobs was as a special-education teacher in a first-grade inclusion class, and some of our students had motor impairments, used wheelchairs and walkers. Our classroom was designed well to support the needs of all of our students, and so was the rest of our school, but the outside world wasn't. That made things like play dates and field trips really tricky for some of our students. I remember one of my first graders was having a birthday party at a bowling alley, and he was inviting everybody in the class. His mom came in one morning a little bit teary-eyed and said that her son had asked her to make sure that the bowling alley was wheelchair accessible so that his best friend could come and bowl with him.

She told him that she was sure that it was, but that she'd call anyway to double-check. When she did, she found out that it actually wasn't accessible. Her son was devastated. They spent a lot of time talking about it, and they worked together to make a bunch of calls and eventually found a bowling alley that was accessible to all of his friends. They changed the location of the party. I remember her thanking me, like somehow I had taught her child to care about his best friend, but I told her that he was the real teacher in that moment. He was a real role model and we should all aim to be a little bit more like him when we grow up.

It might seem like a small action, but in that moment, a six-year-old taught us all a lot of lessons. He made a bunch of adults realize the need for universal design. He prompted his family to consider a set of needs they hadn't before, and he demanded equity for his friend. For me, the lesson I'm most grateful for is that he taught me that age doesn't matter when it comes to making a change, that young people can make a big change that really matters, too. I tried to keep that as a mantra every year moving forward in my classrooms, and it's a lesson that I'll always be grateful for.

Jen Wart: When I was an administrator, I had a student who had gotten in trouble for something. He had been in trouble a lot of times for a lot of different things. So I told him I would make a deal with him. He was a very good artist, and I told him if he brought me a picture he drew, that we would waive some of his detentions. Kind of an art-for-time situation. He's not the type of kid that'd follow through on anything, but the next day, he brought me a picture that he had drawn and said, "Here, I want to follow up." The fact that he was willing to do that was impressive and showed me that you can work with kids in different ways.

Erica Ripstin: When I was first teaching, I met a little boy who was a little insecure. When we were at a presentation, and he told me that he wanted to change himself and be better so that he could be more physically active. I could tell that he felt bad about himself, but I loved him exactly for who he was. He was kind to the other kids. He let them go first in line. He would share his snack. It didn't really matter to me or to the other kids what he looked like. That's when I knew that I wanted to teach my students how to treat each other and how important it is to be kind and caring and to see somebody else's perspective. He taught me that, and I think it was really amazing.

Dan Borgoff: I'm most grateful for my students telling me to get out of the way. When I first started out teaching technology, I would teach them the standard way of teaching, in steps. My students would get really bored really fast and not be into it.

Then, one day, I said, "All right, you know what? I don't know if you're really getting this." Then they told me, "We are. We just are getting it faster than you're giving it to us." So I told them, "All right, you teach me now. You tell me what you know."

They knew 10 times more than what I was teaching them, so I just sat back and said, "All right. I'm going to give you an end goal. You reach it." Then they replied, "Yeah, no problem. We already did that. How about we give you an end goal?"

Then they gave me an end goal, saying, "All right, we want to learn this really cool stuff. We want to learn how to do this. If you could just help us get there, that would be great."

Lead, follow, or get out of the way is really what it turned out to be. They were in charge. Now, when I teach, I've learned this from them. On the first day of school, I tell them straight out, "I'm not here to teach you. I'm here to facilitate your learning and making sure that you don't cut anything off. That's it. I'm giving you an end goal and the tools to get there, and it's your responsibility to get there on your own. If you need help, I'm here, but other than that, you're on your own.”

From Advocating to Letting Your Nerd Flag Fly, Educators Are Grateful For Lessons From Students published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

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