Spoilers for the latest issue of Red Robin.

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-Gavin provides a quickie bio for who he is and how he came to be. But… who ate his Rice Krispie Treats?
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music
-Oh. It was Esther. This probably means war.
-Do you know what sounds interesting? Listening to David and Esther page through a full run of Who’s Who in the DC Universe!
-Thrill! to the sound of pages being turned!
-Listen! to the audible disbelief and scorn!
-Wonder! about the background music that wafted over from my neighbor’s apartment while we were recording!
-Discover! our misplaced disdain for the past as we make fun of Yellow Peri for being a crappy version of “yellow peril!” Turns out she’s based on peris, fallen angels from Persian mythology. Sorry, dudes from the past who created Yellow Peri! She’s still basically a crappy version of I Dream of Jeanie!
-Ponder! why we make sitcom/TGIF jokes on every show.
-Accept! our apologies for accidentally biting MGK’s gimmick!
-Click! these links for some visual aides:

-Peace! We’ll be more coherent next week.

Subscribe to the Fourcast! via:
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But I love this page with my whole heart.

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I remember when this poster first came out.  It was entitled “The Real Power of the DC Universe.” 

I hated it.  Absolutely hated it.  Oh, the women are the real power in the DCU, are they?  Sure they’re not headlining books or saving the day in stories.  Their emotional arcs don’t form the backbone of continuity, and there are no movies about them, and mostly they seem as decorative and unnecessary in the comics as they do in that poster, but they’re the real power in the DCU.

It reminded me of all the condescending crap that women have been tossed for a long time – that they have all the power because they can be sexy.  They have all the power because they can be feminine.  Just because all that power depends on pleasing other people, and all that power can be taken away in a heartbeat, that doesn’t mean that women aren’t the real power.

When David posted about Benes doing the art for Birds of Prey earlier this month, I felt some flickerings of that old irritation.  Rather than festering, though, as much of my irritation does; it passed away pretty quickly.

Here’s why:

I can go to the shelf and buy Detective Comics, which have a grittiness that, in my opinion, often clashes with the almost surreal artwork of JH Williams.  And there will be a Renee Montoya back-up, with an art style that matches up better, but a more conventional story.

Or I can buy that confection of a comic book, Power Girl, and laugh at the stories and try to find the cat in every issue.

Or I can buy Wonder Woman, although I can only read it when I’m not feeling depressed because, come on, can’t Wondy chalk up *one* in the win column?  She and everyone else in the comic have been kicked down and down and down since the third issue.

Or I can buy Batgirl, because it has two characters I love in a relatively by-the-numbers coming-of-age superhero story, and one character I despise making things interesting.

Or I can buy Supergirl, although its embroiled in a massive crossover continuity nightmare.  I liked the kids mini-series of it much better.

Pretty soon I’ll be able to buy Birds of Prey, the funny, soapy, wildly varied team book.

I could even buy that abomination, Gotham City Sirens, although I never will.  Ever.

And of course, if I have a few extra dollars I’m willing to throw away, I can buy the Streets of Gotham series, rip out the first 22 pages, and find Kate Spencer in a kind of Law & Order: Superheroes Unit comic.

I can find funny books starring women, and sexy books starring women, and dark books starring women, and kid’s books starring women.  I can like some of the books for the story, and some for the tone, and some for the characters, and some for the writer.

There are a bunch of books about women out there.  If I’m reading DC I can choose, out of that bunch of books, the ones the ones that suit my taste at the moment.  It was not always so.  I like, very much, that it has changed.

Which is not to say that there can’t be improvements.  There are a lot of books that are lead by female characters, but the percentage isn’t half.  Yet.  Almost all the characters are white, straight, young, and are drawn so that they are exceptionally easy on the eyes first, and characters second.  And if there is never again a story that mentions, contains, threatens, or even alludes to a rape, it will be too soon.  However, being able to pick and choose, not having to search the shelves for female characters, not feeling like I have to support that one book that has a female lead, having a selection presented to me and comparing, contrasting, and finally choosing what I like; I enjoy this feeling.   It feels like real power.

I was interested in Graeme McMillan’s review of Human Target.  He comes to the conclusion that pretty much everyone else I’ve talked to did; it’s an okay show, but it’s nothing even remotely like the comic book.  Although the commenters on io9 seemed to take it pretty well, I’m wondering how fans who are more invested in the comic would take it.

I wonder this for two reasons:

1.  It’s really not an okay show.  It’s a drinking game kind of show.  One drink for every time Chance pauses in the middle of an action sequence to make a big production of being the coolest guy on earth.  One drink for every time Chance’s boss is humiliated.  One drink for every time Guerrero looks at someone with his steely eyes and they back down for no reason because he is just.  That.  Dangerous.  It’s only a show you watch if nothing, nothing at all, else is on and you’re too tired to focus on anything else.

2.  Most of the time I am the one who gets angry when this kind of thing happens, and now someone else will be angry instead.  Once such a large amount of you gets invested in comics, it’s nice to sit on the sidelines with popcorn and watch the drama unfold.

Marvel recently released the Deadpool variant cover to Siege #3, the one that’s tied to their promotion involving Blackest Night covers. Here it is:

Never change, Marvel.

Does anyone remember a certain Bat story that came out a while ago?

Batman is out at a strangely casual event with the Justice League.  It’s something between a company party and a training retreat.  They make their way through various scenarios in an out-of-the-way place, and everythings going fine at first.

Then things start getting strange.  Even though an event should have ended, it keeps going on and on, the conclusion retreating farther and farther the closer he gets.  A town that should be in one place is in another, and is completely deserted.  One moment it’s day, the next it’s night.

At first Batman thinks that it’s the work of a supervillain.  The rest of the Justice League doesn’t agree, however, and insists that everything is normal.  Batman begins to suspect his friends are either deliberately testing him, or under some sinister, greater power.

Then it all becomes clear.  None of it is real.  He’s dreaming, trapped in his own paranoid mind, and he has to wake up.

Then I wake up.  (Bam!  Did you see that twist ending?  I sure didn’t.)  Yes, I twisted it all up on you (though the above story probably was published sometime back in the sixties), meta-style.  I know, there isn’t anything interesting about listening to someone else’s dreams.

There is, however, something interesting about listening to someone’s inadequacies.  The reason the setting kept changing randomly was my brain being unable to hold onto the narrative.  Everything that happened was obviously a dream.  It’s just that I didn’t know it was a dream.  Batman did.

Apparently, there is a Batman inside my brain.  And he’s smarter than I am. 

My only hope now is to eat, drink, and laze myself flabby so that he decides I’m inadequate and doesn’t try to take over my mind and force me to fight crime in my sleep.

Gail Simone being back on Birds of Prey is kinda like a big deal. I’m pretty sure that Esther is still going “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” even today. She’s gotta be hypersonic by this point.

Anyway, I liked the old BoP. Those first 12-18 issues or so are some of Simone’s best work, and I didn’t even really mind Ed Benes’s art back then. But, the new announcement bugs me because of DC’s history with announcing fan-pleasing things and then doing half the job on them, at best.

-Spoiler dies in a sexualized and degraded way. Fans form Project Girl-Wonder in protest of the way her murder devalued her character. A couple years later, DC Comics brings her back, completely sidestepping the issues behind people were mad at her death. She’s just… back.

-DC makes a big deal about the return of Milestone, a well-loved company that featured a truly multi-cultural cast. Rather than bringing DC Comics up to the modern day with regards to portrayal of race, the Milestone books are effectively quarantined. They were shuffled off into a series as filler between big-name runs (Mark Waid and JMS) and their reintroduction took place in Dwayne McDuffie’s already-hamstrung run on JLA. And then, in the end, they drop every Milestone character except for Static. They wanted a new toy and jerked everyone around to get it.

-DC announces the return of fan-favorite Gail Simone’s fondly remembered Birds of Prey, with art accompanied by Ed Benes. Simone on Benes: “[H]e also does lovely, subtle acting, and tremendous facial expressions and body language. I think he brings a very fiery European influence that is a wonderful remedy to some of the tired vaguely manga and video game-esque influences we’ve seen lately.”

And, well, I realize that Simone can’t trash her artist (that would be unprofessional), but that doesn’t actually reflect reality. Benes’s men have one face, his women another, and they all have the same flat, empty expression. The body language tends to be of the “crotch or butt thrust directly at the reader” variety, and the “subtle acting” is so subtle as to be nonexistent. The “fiery European influence” would be better termed “draws kinda like Jim Lee used to, only with bigger boobs,” and the “vaguely manga and video game-esque influences” is the kind of annoying strawman people pull all the time without actually naming names. Is she talking about UDON? Humberto Ramos? Paul Pope? Joe Madureira? Ed McGuinness?

Benes is a bad artist for comics, is my point. His storytelling skills are subpar, his love for T&A gets in the way constantly, and his people all look the same. There are numerous other artists DC could have paired Simone with to make a book that would be the girl power monthly it should be- Nicola Scott, for example, or the Lopez brothers from Catwoman. They’ve proven that they can draw realistic, funny, and attractive women, and, most importantly, they have strong storytelling skills. The Lopezes in particular do great work, even with a varied cast, in a style that would fit the tone of Simone’s BoP.

But hey- Ed Benes. DC says he’s nice? I say he’s polite.

Y’all can have him, though.

Spoilers for Adventure Comics #6

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Cutty-cut!

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