The New 52 general discussion

Ultimate Houde said:
I hated Starfire's characterization in Red Hood and the Outlaws.
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I haven't read yet, what'd they do with her?

I'm planning on reading it, just because I love the idea of Roy and Jason working together.
 
Ultimate Houde said:
Basically they made her a slut. But under the veil of her being an Alien who thinks all humans are the same.

She has no heart in this version.
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One, I take a minor offense at the word "slut" as it screams the rampant hypocrisy where characters/people like Bond, Stark, Wayne, Greyson, Wolverine, etc are all considered "the man"/pimp/etc with their sexual conquests. Then when you have a sexually liberated woman with a string of sex partners, like She-Hulk, Emma, Renee Montoya and apparently now Starfire, she's "a slut".

Tho, with that said, the other two points you bring up actually bother me more. I don't want the simpering, brain dead Star that's permanently attached to Nightwing, but her heart is what made the Perez-era Starfire so awesome. She loved humanity and her family in the Titans. Turning her into Dick kinda kills my love for Khory.
 
Batman - Fantastic. I love the emphasis on Gotham over Batman, I love that it actually uses the supporting cast. I LOVE the art. The only thing I didn't like was the dud of a cliffhanger. I'll be sticking with this for the time being.

Legion of Superheroes - I enjoyed the students in their arc of Adventure so seeing them graduate into the Legion works fine for me. I mean Comet Queen has been waiting for 25 some years! I like Gym going to Starfeet too. The guys been nothing but a punching bag since the reboot started, and now his wife is "dead" in the past.

Blue Beetle - ...eh. I read this arc after Infinite Crisis. This character is new enough they should have hit the ground running instead of retelling an origin.

Green Lantern Corps - Well, it was more Green Lantern Corp. I think I might be burnt out on this franchise, I just didn't care.
 
Getting on the whole sexism bandwagon: Catwoman. Sexually liberated women are one thing, but who the hell thought it was a good idea to have Batman and Catwoman have relatively graphic sex?

(Incidentally, I don't think I'll be getting anything this week except Batman. I hear good things about Wonder Woman, but said things suggest to me it might read better in trade.)

Ultimate Houde said:
Basically they made her a slut. But under the veil of her being an Alien who thinks all humans are the same.

She has no heart in this version.
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Jaggyd said:
One, I take a minor offense at the word "slut" as it screams the rampant hypocrisy where characters/people like Bond, Stark, Wayne, Greyson, Wolverine, etc are all considered "the man"/pimp/etc with their sexual conquests. Then when you have a sexually liberated woman with a string of sex partners, like She-Hulk, Emma, Renee Montoya and apparently now Starfire, she's "a slut".

Tho, with that said, the other two points you bring up actually bother me more. I don't want the simpering, brain dead Star that's permanently attached to Nightwing, but her heart is what made the Perez-era Starfire so awesome. She loved humanity and her family in the Titans. Turning her into Dick kinda kills my love for Khory.
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Agreed with Jaggyd's hypocrisy point. But the strange thing is, Dick and Kory's relationship is supposed to have still happened in continuity. And since I don't consider Dick to be a complete man-whore and that he actually likes people for who they are, it's baffling to imagine him actually being in a relationship with this Starfire.

Though since you just described them as Dick and female Dick, I think I can understand how that worked.

(I really need to read the Perez run on Teen Titans. And the Ostrander run on Suicide Squad, for that matter.)
 
Jaggyd said:
So her being fat is where she had to fight her battle of power, not the being a black woman in a old white man's world (You can't tell me that the military industrial complex is even remotely diversified). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the old Waller better, her size gave her a certain physical gravitas as it were. I'm just saying it amuses me that of all the changes it's **** like Harley's costume, Waller's weight and Diana's pants were what everyone raged over.
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Honestly, I like Waller fat because shes one of the few overweight characters in comics that wasn't treated as a joke. In a medium dominated by people with physiques greek sculpters would envy she looked real, and still held her own. And wasn't slimmed for what, 20 some years?

And what should we be raging over?
 
Friday said:
Honestly, I like Waller fat because shes one of the few overweight characters in comics that wasn't treated as a joke. In a medium dominated by people with physiques greek sculpters would envy she looked real, and still held her own. And wasn't slimmed for what, 20 some years?

And what should we be raging over?
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It's the DCnU reboot. Legitimate problem or not, you'll find something.
 
Friday said:
blaurgh! Batman had sex! Blaurgh!
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See? There you go.

EDIT: Though if you would allow me to rephrase that, the problem isn't that they had sex. The problem is that it's a very lovingly rendered sequence of Batman and Catwoman having sex on a roof with their costumes still on, with the final page being a genitals-free splash page of Batman penetrating her. After a comic filled with gratuitous fanservice from Catwoman, it just feels really skeevy.

EDIT EDIT: Also, Catwoman's inner monologue kind of reads like she's raping Batman and has done so multiple times in the past. Which, while part of a whole other problem, doesn't help.
 
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Indeed. It's a well-written article that explains rather well why the portrayal is sexist and undermining of women. However, I would argue that playing the victim and citing sexism and taking offense is self-defeating because it turns the issue into a feminist one, and at the same time, requires women to be victims in order to be argued. It also rather misses the point because it's extremely likely that no one will listen due to the unfortunate truth that the people involved are not sexist, misogynistic, and honestly think that this is cool and empowering to women.

The problem is that it's just bad writing.

I'm sure any type of person portrayed in these comics could be seen as an offensive stereotype. I would argue that the men in these stories are as stereotypically and offensively written as the women. The only difference is that there are more stereotypes of men because more comic writers are men. All the stereotypes are offensive, there's just twice as many and so it appears like depth. But it's not. The writers can't write men, women, children, criminals, pensioners, lawyers - take your pick. Any one who wanted to play the victim card could do so and support it with analysis.

Not because that group is victimised by a writing elite that hates them, but because the people involved do not know how to tell story.
 
Friday said:
Honestly, I like Waller fat because shes one of the few overweight characters in comics that wasn't treated as a joke. In a medium dominated by people with physiques greek sculpters would envy she looked real, and still held her own. And wasn't slimmed for what, 20 some years?

And what should we be raging over?
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Personally, I'm raging over how generally ****ty some of these books are. So nitpicking things like Waller's weight or Harley's costume is just that nitpicking.



Ultimate Houde said:
Agreed with this 100%
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ANd surprise surprise. She completely glosses over that in the same scenes where Khory's running around in a perfectly acceptable bikini. The boys are in chest bearing swim wear.

That she focuses on the handful of panels where Selina's half dressed. Guess what honey, when I'm running around in my apartment, I'm generally less dressed than Selina. The article has decent points, but her indignant rage comes from one of the worst assumptions. Should only women write female characters, should like JK Rowling be barred from writing wizards because she isn't one. Hell, Gail's written some over the top sexy stuff in her career. As a grown up woman, I have sex. I'm not ashamed of it. Nor should I be, EVER.

After reading the Outsiders, the bigger problem isn't that Khory sleeps around, she did that back in the Perez era, granted they were more wink nudge because of the Code. My biggest complaint is she's been turned from the giant (and why did they shrink her? she used to be about 6'4") orange heart of Titans, now she's not even bothered to remember anyone.
 
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Exactly. The sexism is equal to both genders, and the lack of quality is present in all the characters, regardless of creed. Playing the victim is self-defeating as it turns the issue into "women-as-victims and shouldn't be", a POV that states women are victims and works from there, rather than equals who are maligned, when the issue is little to do with sexuality and more to do with just bad writing and insensitive, tasteless, creators.
 
It's sensationalism, pure and simple. There's no substance to the story so they use tricks. Like sex. It's pathetic.
 
Even though I had no idea what was going on and have never heard of the character (if he even existed before this), I thought The Grifter was really good! And not knowing exactly what was happening actually worked really well. I'll keep with this one.

Nightwing was interesting. I'll keep with it for now.

Superboy was decent...kind of a weird take (isn't Superboy the same one that was introduced during Reign of Superman?). Can't decide if I'm into it or not.

Mr. Terrific didn't really hold my interest. Same for Deathstroke, although the ending was pretty cool.
 
My thoughts on all 12 issues from the third week.

My ratings so far:

5/5 - Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Batwoman, Batman
4/5 - Action Comics, Men of War, Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Green Lantern, Resurrection Man, Birds of Prey, Green Lantern Corps, Wonder Woman
3/5 - Batwing, Justice League, Stormwatch, Batman and Robin, Demon Knights, Superboy, DC Universe Presents, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Supergirl
2/5 - Batgirl, Justice League International, O.M.A.C, Static Shock, Deathstroke, Grifter, Red Lanterns, Suicide Squad, Blue Beetle, Catwoman
1/5 - Detective Comics, Green Arrow, Hawk and Dove, Legion Lost, Mister Terrific, Captain Atom, Legion of Super-Heroes

Next week: All-Star Western, Aquaman, Batman: The Dark Knight, Blackhawks, The Flash, The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men, Green Lantern: New Guardians, I Vampire, Justice League Dark, The Savage Hawkman, Superman, Teen Titans and Voodoo. What are you looking forward to?

Aquaman, The Flash and Justice League Dark for me.
 
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