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DC Universe Surgery

 
  

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This Sunday
00:51 / 24.04.08
That's it. I want Annie Leibovitz, that's available. On magazine stands around the world, or, really, on the bookcase across the room from me. It'd look better, from composition to deliberate artifice to tone.

That poster is a placatory pointless shot that reflects nothing I'm likely to find in any DC comic currently on the market. That's what annoys. It's an on the nose Vanity Fair homage and little more. It's got nothing to do with the stories any of those characters are likely to be appearing in, nothing to do with the personalities or contexts of those characters, from clothing choices body language/posing. It's a shot you're not going to see with male characters. It's a boring flat shot with no weight to it, no dynamism or real flow or composition. The dresses are all uniformly crap in my unhumble style opinion.

And, okeh, I overreacted to white, but give it two months until they all go evil (even the villains) and everybody's in black. With shorter skirts and more pleat action.
 
 
LDones
01:10 / 24.04.08
I can dig that.

I'm generally in favor of the weekly, direct market, convention-driven comics medium acknowledging that there is a world of culture outside itself, but I can dig the frustration of it being a... lame-duck drawing of a sadly imaginary world - where comics have sound design and a sense of humor/time/place not predicated on internet fandoms.

I do wonder at the potential blank stares and yawns that a male version of that would draw, with Waynes and Kents and Curries in well-tailored finery. And cucumbers in their slacks, to be sure.
 
 
Rachel Evil McCall
01:30 / 24.04.08
I'm just wondering why Batwoman's in pajamas...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:49 / 24.04.08
Because she's a lesbian. DC editorial know what lesbians do, and what they do is wear pantsuits. 100% fact.
 
 
Chew On Fat
12:15 / 24.04.08
Well, a few months ago everyone was complaining that Batwoman was getting no exposure in the DCU, after she was pushed as being at the forefront of 52s wave of non-WASP non-mainstream heroes.

Here she is all over the place, up there with Catwoman, both Superwomen and what have you.

Given that most of the viewers of this particular pic will be Fan Men-boys anyway, maybe she thought she'd give the figure-hugging gowns which she normally wears on civvy street a miss?

They had to have something that showed who she was too. If all these women had their heads shaved and were wearing identical polo-necks, no-one would know who was who. So far we know nothing about her except she has red hair and happens to be a lesbian. Hence the suit! *shrugs*
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:39 / 24.04.08
YES. THAT IS A RED-HEADED LESBIAN SUIT. YES! I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THE NEW ISSUE OF GRANT MORRISON'S WILDC.A.T.S.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:38 / 24.04.08
Having said which, how is that whole "non-WASP, non-mainstream" thing working out? There's a reform Jewish lesbian Batwoman and a Chinese-American Atom, right? And a Mexican-American Blue Beetle? There is no longer an African-American Steel, but there's Natacha Irons in the cold and lonely hinterland of Infinity Inc.

On a related topic, one might ask why the DC Universe has so many lesbians relative to its complement of gay men, but I don't think that's really a stumper.
 
 
grant
15:55 / 24.04.08
Who *are* all those women? There's one too many blonde for me to name.
 
 
Aertho
16:13 / 24.04.08
Selina Kyle, Zatanna Zatara, Barbara Gordon, Dinah Lance, Kara Zor-L, Diana Prince, Kara Zor-El, Mari Jiwe McCabe, Kate Kane, Pamela Isley, Holly Quinn.
 
 
Aertho
16:16 / 24.04.08
Odd choice to include Poison Ivy, even if her relationship with Harlequin sells books. Odd to not include Donna Troy, Wonder Girl, or Hawkwoman/girl.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
16:30 / 24.04.08
At the moment this poster gets a big round of applause as being the first time in quite a while that DC have put out something in which Vixen is brown-skinned. I understand it's been a bit of a problem in recent JLAs.
 
 
Triplets
16:32 / 24.04.08
Pardon? Don't tell me they've been putting her in whiteface?
 
 
This Sunday
16:33 / 24.04.08
Well, as samey as most of those women are (for being so unique in posture, bodytype, and definition... that is to say, some of them have different color hair), Donna would probably just come off as Wonder Woman being on there twice. As it is, my initial read of the poster was that WW was Donna. Because I am that geek.
 
 
Aertho
16:45 / 24.04.08
Arguments could be made that it's Donna taking the picture. Because I'm THAT geeky.
 
 
Chew On Fat
18:39 / 24.04.08
No need to shout Haus.

Sorry the American readership didn't drop their habitual conservatism overnight just because of Grant's well-meaning little suggestions.

Rome wasn't built in a day.
 
 
Aertho
19:29 / 24.04.08
Sorry the American readership didn't drop their habitual conservatism overnight just because of Grant's well-meaning little suggestions.

Rome wasn't built in a day.


¿Que?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
20:18 / 24.04.08
Actually what is the status of Donna Troy's photographic career in this new, OYL world? Excepting for her sojourns to other Earths and all...
 
 
FinderWolf
20:20 / 24.04.08
>> Holly Quinn.

Enter nitpicky comics fan mode, in voice of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons:

"Ahh, I do believe that's Harley Quinn, otherwise known as Harleen Quin-ZEL."
 
 
FinderWolf
20:20 / 24.04.08
and I only say that because you were so precise (and accurate) with all the other exact names, Aertho
 
 
Triplets
20:55 / 24.04.08
Natacha Irons

Natacha?

Would that make her... a Black Russian?

"Oh no he didn't!"

Oh yes, Barbelith, I did.
 
 
Aertho
20:58 / 24.04.08
I got my nerd synapses crossed.

Holly Robinson/Countdown/Harley/Women of DCU
 
 
grant
21:00 / 24.04.08
Should I even ask who the two Karas are? I think that's explained somewhere upthread, but I can't find.
 
 
FinderWolf
21:11 / 24.04.08
One is Power Girl (the leftmost) and the other is the current Supergirl (I only say 'current' because there have been several versions in the last 10 years, although this newest one is the definitive and has been for about 3-4 years now, I believe).

Both share very similar names (versions of "Kara Zor-El"). You can easily think: Power Girl, short blonde hair, Supergirl, long blonde hair. Supergirl: drawn to look like a teenager, Power Girl, drawn to look more like an adult in her 20/early 30s.
 
 
Jack Fear
02:28 / 25.04.08
Or, more to the point—Power Girl: absurdly huge breasts with cleavage-displaying peekaboo keyhole motif.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
07:31 / 27.04.08
I am a bat. I am a man. Pardon? Don't tell me they've been putting [Vixen] in whiteface?

Yep. I can't find the links at the mo because it was a month or two ago on 'When Fangirls Attack' but there was apparently a spate of, how should I put it, unfortunate colouring errors on interiors and covers of JLA.
 
 
Lama glama
12:14 / 27.04.08
Here's one such interior colouring error.
 
 
grant
18:22 / 28.04.08
I think I only know Vixen from that short-lived show with the three DC heroine tough-girls in it the name of which escapes me. (Huntresses? Gah.)

Merciful forgetfulness.
 
 
Aertho
18:47 / 28.04.08
This, grant.
 
 
grant
18:54 / 28.04.08
No Vixen in it. Blast.


So, who the heck is "Vixen"?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
19:08 / 28.04.08
Vixen was from the Detroit Era Justice League. She was basically an unrelated female Animal Man, a supermodel (who, at the time, was mulleted) with a magical totem pendant that allowed her to emulate the powers of any animal. On the Unlimited cartoon, she and John Stewart had a bit of a thing for a while.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
20:58 / 28.04.08
There aren't any collections specifically of Len Wein's Batman material, are there? Or do I have to find traces where I can?
 
 
Spyder Todd 2008
19:20 / 03.05.08
Over in the Final Crisis thread, Papers mentioned all the casual death that occurred in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. And it just reminded me... has anyone brought back Kid Psycho since then? Because he's probably the member of the LOSH with the best name.

Just curious.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
19:35 / 03.05.08
From what I remember, there was an almost sort-of Kid Psycho who showed up briefly during the SW6 Legionnaires comic, just before Zero Hour. He was a kid with mental powers who had a psychic seizure following being struck by lightning. But nothing ever came of it and he was never officially referred to that way.

But I love that one page of Crisis with Kid Psycho, for no apparent reason.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:43 / 05.05.08
Speaking of the Legion of Super Heroes - the Persuader. The Persuader has an atomic axe that can cut through anything. In what sense, exactly, is it appropriate to call him (or her) the Persuader? I freely admit that a man or woman who is waving about an atomic axe - or indeed a non-atomic axe - is likely to be more able to persuade me to do something than most people without an atomic axe, but the same could apply to many other sharp or pointed tools and a number of reactions to the waving of them. Does s/he actually have any powers of persuasion, or could s/he be as readily called Captain Shit Yourself?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
22:40 / 05.05.08
Persuader has no hypnotic powers, no. I get the impression "Persuader" was meant to suggest he was a bit of an enforcer for space-mafias before he came to ally himself with the rest of the Fatal Five. He was hired muscle with a super-blade who could *persuade* you to pay up.
 
  

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