Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

Stupid Comics Questions

Page: 1(2)3

15:01 / 13.06.08

Favorite DC female super-scientist was Dr. Helga Jace, advisor to the 1980's Batman and the Outsiders. (I can still remember a young woman writing in to the letter column, telling Mike W. Barr he better watch out because when she grew up she was going to write the definitive Helga Jace mini series.)

Maybe more of a regular scientist, Dr. Jenet Klyburn from S.T.A.R. labs used to guest appear in various 80's DC books (Superman, Teen Titans).

The closest to costumed scientist I can come up with is Dr. Light II, who was an astronomer, but that seems a bit pedestrian when compared to the Reed Richards gold standard of super science.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

15:45 / 13.06.08

Kimiyo Hoshi, the second Doctor Light, was one of the super-heroic ones. You could maybe count Kitty Pryde, depending on definitions. At least one of Adam Archer's Godland co-stars, his sisters, is a super-doctor in her own, even if she doesn't actively engage in costume-wearing.

Kim Pine is, of course, a Doctor of Awesome, but that's not really on topic.

Sue Richards does not count, but Ultimate Sue Storm is a biotechnologist, or a technobiologist. She was tasked with analyzing the changes wrought about the FF's bodies.

As for villains, there was Sharn Nux, a Coluan agent back during the post-ZH days of The Legion. Wonder Woman's rogues were chockful of evil doctorates, including Doctor Doris Zeul, Giganta -- who's also one of the all-new Atom's rogues.

17:02 / 13.06.08

Interesting that people had to stretch over to Transformers and G.I. Joe for examples... even after I limited it to Marvel and DC characters. Here interesting is also synonymous with sad.

Thanks for digging up those anyway, guys. Though I suppose when Dr. Light II is the biggest example of a female, costumed super-scientist versus the man-lab of Tony Stark, Richards, Doom, Hank Pym etc. it's a bit iffy.

Sausages for super-science!

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:54 / 13.06.08

For all its faults, Ultimate Marvel made headway. Janet Pym was as much a scientist as her husband, even if they were cribbing from her mutation. Sue Storm was a biotechnologist.

22:45 / 13.06.08

That's true, actually, and I did mean to touch on this in my above post. It seems in Ultimate Marvel they've tried to level the playing field a bit, which is good. I suppose it might be quite difficult and awkward to, for lack of a better term, bootstrap and retcon existing costumed women into a having a background in the super-sciences. Is it easier to retcon Spidey's entire documented marriage perhaps? Perhaps.

20:39 / 16.06.08

Ultimate Fanstastic Four had a female Mad Thinker.

DC's Cheshire's a chemist. Marvel's Nightshade, too.

In traditional comics, women use science to KILL! and men use it to build flying bathtubs and Platinum. Apparently.

Old school Wonder Woman stories had Amazonian scientists and doctors in quaint fetish gear like they were engineered for Warren Ellis' subconscious.

And, thinking of Ellis, there's a few he's written for at least Marvel, including the villain (of sorts) from his Iron Man arc and the already-mentioned Ultimate Sue Storm. Moonstone qualifies. And if you accept Wildstorm's part of the DCU now, Melanctha, The Engineer, and Ivana Baiul among others.

20:42 / 16.06.08

See, I'm just picturing this Mike Allred female scientist, but it's kind of slipping out of my head (and isn't Marvel or DC).

Or is it just that Madman was sort of dating a lab assistant?

I have to reread that stuff....

Rachel Evil McCall

02:44 / 17.06.08

I forgot her name, but, yeah, there was a female scientist in Madman. She had bandages covering her whole head.

Rachel Evil McCall

02:45 / 17.06.08

Upon further reflection, I think her name may have been Dr. Gale.

I don't actually feel like going through my comics to check.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

02:53 / 17.06.08

I actually quite liked the Ultimate Mad Thinker. She was deliciously nasty and posed a real threat.

04:57 / 17.06.08

She reminded me of the villain from Sky High, Ultimate Mad Thinker.

And has anyone mentioned Moira McTaggert, yet? 'Cause I'm overfond of her and can't believe I didn't think to plug her in my earlier list. She's like many scientists in one, with firearms skills, unitards, and notoriously hideous coffee. Also, she's dead.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:01 / 17.06.08

We should definitely include Melanctha, I think. I quite liked her, because she eschewed a few cliches even if she was a bit Ellis-y.

09:02 / 17.06.08

Ooh, good examples all of you. We also have to include Nasthalthia from All-Star if we haven't yet. Knows 11 languages, wants to rule the world. I'm sure she's got some kind of science muscle too.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

23:32 / 17.06.08

While I love Nasthalthia like I might love my own, hypothetical daughter, I was more under the impression she was just up on her Luthor Science Bible rather than being a science whiz herself. Although, I concede she had big dreams and was very intelligent (geez, I wish I spoke 11 languages), so my estimation may change if they ever bother to give us more of her--she strikes me more as a genius crime philosopher with some inherited technology rather than a mad scientist. Actually, Nasthalthia totally transcends that mad scientist bull.

In traditional comics, women use science to KILL! and men use it to build flying bathtubs and Platinum. Apparently.

Unless you were Doom, of course. To quote the Susan: "What have we ever actually done to to you to deserve this stupid waste of everyone's time? Are you listening to me? Sitting here with your stupid machines and your childish jealousy, when you should be curing cancer or taking your people to the stars!"

Actually, maybe Doom would have benefited from building a Platinum, but when she started to display a soul he would have just sold her to the Devil anyway. Guy's such a schmuck--maybe the biggest schmuck in the Marvel U without actually being Spider-Man.

Mysterious Transfer Student

14:35 / 02.10.08

Has there ever been a superhero whose civilian identity was a hairdresser?

No reason, just curious.

15:24 / 02.10.08

Shamrock, over in Marvel, became a hairdresser after she retired. Does that count?

05:55 / 17.10.08

I can't get drunk! Well, maybe I can.

What comics characters have flipflopped between being immune to the drunky effects of alcohol, and actually being able to get drunk?

Wolverine's a big one, and the levels change depending on who's writing.

Captain America quit drinking in the late eighties because he got a bit skunked and wasn't able to throw a trash can lid at somebody. Then, he couldn't actually get drunk. Now he's dead.

And it always reads, after enough changes, like with Logan, that it's actually a whole lot of in-character BS.

Is there anybody else?

08:03 / 17.10.08

The original Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew was immune to all drugs, and therefore could not get drunk.

She lost some (in the end all) of her powers, so from time to time, alcohol should have had the usual effects on her.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

17:39 / 17.10.08

I have vague recollections of the Flash having problems, what with his body just metabolizing everything too fast for him to really bother, but they're vague and I can't think of an example off hand.

13:01 / 18.10.08

I know when Impulse got kneecapped by Deathstroke in Teen Titans they stated they couldn't anaesthetise him because he metabolised it too quickly. Presumably the same would count for booze.

15:59 / 19.10.08

Has Grant Morrison ever written the Hulk?

Essential Dazzler

16:42 / 19.10.08

Don't think so.

I recall the UN/Shield super soldier things having Hulk Powers, among others, in Marvel Boy. Or something like that. It's been a while.

20:58 / 19.10.08

Ah yes, the Bannermen. Not technically the Hulk, but close.

22:25 / 19.10.08

Wouldn't the Flash just get shitfaced REALLY quickly? Lightweight.

01:07 / 20.10.08

What comics characters have flipflopped between being immune to the drunky effects of alcohol, and actually being able to get drunk?

I'm guessing the POV character in 'Alias' was supposed to have tied a couple on before that scene with Power Man. And that she sobered up quite quickly, but also, too late.

Well, perhaps she liked it. What else are we supposed to learn from this altercation? And they got a baby out of it, I guess. A skrull baby.

People say that I have issues ...

20:56 / 21.10.08

Flash would get drunk, and then sober very quickly - as would Quicksilver. But that was mainly during the post Legends revamp.

The hulk is another one.

01:41 / 25.11.08

When did the comic book staple of overly "emphasized" women become the norm? Most of my golden age collections seem to have women in button down suits and normally proportioned, so when did the breasts grow to stupid sizes?

08:12 / 25.11.08

It was early to mid 90's that the trend really got rolling AFAIK. I wasn't reading DC at the time but Marvel was churning out the improbably stacked super-types.

14:42 / 25.11.08

There were always "good girl" comics featuring sizable breasts--see, for instance, Phantom Lady. But I don't recall it really taking over the industry until the late 80's or 90's. Maybe because the 80's were an era of breast fetishism in general...implants really took off, and everyone in Playboy started to have two watermelon halves stuck to their chest.

15:56 / 25.11.08

There were always some busty heroines like Red Sonja, Vampirella or Emma Frost. But the first time it became extremely obvious for me was when Image started getting successful. Those covers were ridiculous [Witchblade, Gen¹³, etc.]

20:16 / 25.11.08

No, I'm pretty sure there were Power Girl boob jokes in Crisis on Infinite Earths, mid-1980s.

The Image thing exaggerated *everyone's* anatomy.

I'd pick ground zero as the 1970s, end of the Silver Age, when all the heroes seemed to look like underwear models.

Oh, good version of the Wally Wood/Power Girl/bigger every issue legend. That was mid-1970s.

There are images here.

07:13 / 11.03.09

In the late eighties, there were a couple (at least) paperback anthologies of Batman stories, by names familiar to me and some never heard from before or ever again. One of the stories dealt with Penguin getting revenge on a childhood bully, another on the Joker trying to find a new, funny, way to kill lots of people and getting killer's block. These could have all been commissioned specifically for those collections, but it seems odd that they would be.

My inclination (and this is going on twenty year old memory of the stories), is that these were written for a comics' audience and run somewhere (holiday specials, anthology books, Showcase maybe) before a prose imprint far from DC got ahold of them.

Anyone (a) have a clue what I'm talking about, and (b) know if they were, indeed, simply commissioned for the collections or preexistent?

22:59 / 12.03.09

I remember them. My fave was when Bruce Wayne tried to learn standup.

00:19 / 24.06.09

I don't know if this is really the thread for this, but I don't suppose it can hurt. I want to buy some comics for a friend's birthday. She doesn't read comics but has expressed interest in them, and likes superhero movies. I figure I want to buy about three books - one superhero one, and a couple of good non-spandex titles. They can't all be written/drawn by men, but other than that, the field is pretty open. So I was wondering what people thought would be good - things that are entertaining in their own right, don't need a comics background to enjoy, and point to some of the cool things about comics.

I was thinking maybe the first Morrison New X-Men trade, Bechdel's Fun Home, and either Burns's Black Hole or maybe Safe Area Gorazde (although maybe not two nonfiction books if I get Fun Home).

21:35 / 24.06.09

I would recommend All Star Superman over New X-Men. Fun Home is probably a good choice; that or Persepolis, if you're going for the graphic memoir.

Page: 1(2)3