Mary Marvel!

[Pink Bat Max]

I have a theory at at the end of Countdown, Mary will be graced by the mentors she had in the Golden Age.

I also have a new totally rad Mary Marvel awesome-figure (it's beyond action, into awesome) in the original RED!!!!!!

I love me some Mary.

Just sayin'.

[Cam63]

Yep. Go, the " SHAZAM ! " gell.

[Pink Bat Max]

Yep. Go, the " SHAZAM ! " gell.

A cute take:
http://cowshell.com/uploads/_sketches/marymarvel.jpg

And my fave from recent years (sorry, Mac):
http://www.boneville.com/wp-content/uploads/MaryMarvel2.jpg

And Mary dodging a barrage of phalluses:
http://www.swanshadow.com/images/MaryMarvel_Rude.jpg

It would really be intresting for her to have her Golden Age mentors, since Hippolyta was one of them.....

[Cam63]

I don't remember her being THAT young.

[Sabrinaset]

Kris, of all people, bought herself a Mary Marvel action figure too! But she got the white variant ...!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f336/sabrinaset/KrisMMarvel.jpg

[Pink Bat Max]

Kris, of all people, bought herself a Mary Marvel action figure too! But she got the white variant ...!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f336/sabrinaset/KrisMMarvel.jpg

Even though it's the white variant....

Kris, you're developing nicely, nerd-wise.

And thank you EVERYONE who didn't include her in a sexy adventure.

[Magneto_X]

I don't remember her being THAT young.

The younger Mary is from Jeff Smith's mini.

Sabrina:

Kris has great taste. But you already knew that.

[Cam63]

And Mary dodging a barrage of phalluses:
http://www.swanshadow.com/images/MaryMarvel_Rude.jpg

She's saving herself until she meets the right missile.

[Jack Zodiac]

I'm not too fond of the new Black Mary, or Marvel Vag, or whatever they're calling her. But my favorite scene in any Countdown comic is from last week or the week before where Eclipso apparently tries to convince Mary to become Darkseid's concubine, and she blurts out, "I'm not some whore!" with her vagina playing peekaboo from under her super short, super not whoreish black skirt. ;)

[Cam63]

I'm not too fond of the new Black Mary, or Marvel Vag, or whatever they're calling her. But my favorite scene in any Countdown comic is from last week or the week before where Eclipso apparently tries to convince Mary to become Darkseid's concubine, and she blurts out, "I'm not some whore!" with her vagina playing peekaboo from under her super short, super not whoreish black skirt. ;)

'Sounds like a bogan.

[Pink Bat Max]

I'm not too fond of the new Black Mary, or Marvel Vag, or whatever they're calling her. But my favorite scene in any Countdown comic is from last week or the week before where Eclipso apparently tries to convince Mary to become Darkseid's concubine, and she blurts out, "I'm not some whore!" with her vagina playing peekaboo from under her super short, super not whoreish black skirt. ;)

yeah, I do NOT like seeing her sexualized. She's a KID for goodness' sake. Dini should know better. He's written her before. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HnkficIc1Y&feature=related)

[Cayman]

Mary Marvel's current look reminds me of Sandy at the end of Grease.

[Magneto_X]

yeah, I do NOT like seeing her sexualized. She's a KID for goodness' sake. Dini should know better. He's written her before. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HnkficIc1Y&feature=related)

Is she?

I thought she was 18 by now.

If she isn't she's a teenager, not a preteen and has always been drawn like she's legal or close to it ala current Supergirl.

[Cayman]

yeah, I do NOT like seeing her sexualized. She's a KID for goodness' sake. Dini should know better. He's written her before. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HnkficIc1Y&feature=related)

I'm fairly certain the Paul Dini that's running Countdown is some kind of Skrull impostor.

[Magneto_X]

Mary Marvel's current look reminds me of Sandy at the end of Grease.

Sandy never looked as hot as Mary does now. :D

[Pink Bat Max]

I simply have to concur with Jerry Ordway (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/06/07/jerry-ordway-on-the-darkening-of-mary-marvel/) on the 'Dark Mary'.

[Pink Bat Max]

I don't remember her being THAT young.

It seems a new trend, started by Jeff Smith. But I like it: little girl superheroes=pure goodness.

http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/MagicofShazam/MoS_Mary.jpg

[DaeJi]

Ah, Jeff Smith... he got the Marvel family.

[MacQuarrie]

Ah, Jeff Smith... he got the Marvel family.

Wait till you see Kunkel. Boy does he get the Marvel family.

[Michael P]

I'm not too fond of the new Black Mary, or Marvel Vag, or whatever they're calling her. But my favorite scene in any Countdown comic is from last week or the week before where Eclipso apparently tries to convince Mary to become Darkseid's concubine, and she blurts out, "I'm not some whore!" with her vagina playing peekaboo from under her super short, super not whoreish black skirt. ;)

She's not a whore, she's just drawn that way.

[Corrina]

There is no better symbol for where DC comics is going than the new, darker Mary Marvel.

[PatrickG]

Y'Know what I find funny?

Not only is DC making its females darker while sexing them up but...

Well...

I don't understand why, when it seems like a comic company wants to sexualize a character, they go the "Bad Girl" route.

The whole thing is based in 40s pin-up art, right? I don't own a single piece of 40s pin-up art but I used to read Previews cover-to-cover and anything I could get my hands on regarding the history of comics and genre entertainment and my understanding is that, traditionally, "Bad Girl" super-heroines were the exception and quite short-lived whereas "Good Girl" was more the school that super-hero comics succeeded in with regards to sexualized women.

This veers into my "Not only do I disagree with what's being done but they're doing it wrong" school of thought.

I suppose it's easier to do "Bad Girl" characters and believe you're being feminist on some level...

But instantly, I think of Joss Whedon's female characters. They have dark sides. They have frustrations and make bad choices and are generally fairly 3D characters. But they're also attractive women who would fall more on the "Good Girl" side of the spectrum. In terms of Buffy, I think of the adorably geeky and pure (in spite of her frustrations and falls from grace) Willow. Or even Anya who did kill a bunch of people but is adorably naive in human culture, loves capitalism and wanted to be a housewife. Or Buffy, who in spite of her issues and authoritarianism, likes puns, likes figure skating and cheese and shopping. These women are not Wolverine types and manage to be attractive female characters with pronounced streaks of almost stereotypical femininity without sacrificing their empowerment.

I can get from a cynical marketing perspective why certain comic characters are heavily sexualized. Heck, I think Aquaman and Hawkman are supposed to be beefcake just as I think there is a 40s pin-up girl element to Wonder Woman and a 60s starlet quality intrinsic to Supergirl.

But banking on a character's sexuality doesn't require gratuitous blood, rage and violence. But there seems to be this hang-up in modern comics, leading me to suspect that over half the males in the industry are closeted subs who are hung up on BDSM fetishes. (Okay, so Claremont isn't closeted there.)

Y'Know... There's cheesecake (which is theoretically playful) and then there's XXX porn and it seems to me like a lot of people in comics can't distinguish between the two. And beyond that, there's the "Good Girl"/"Good Boy" school of "sex sells" and the "Bad Girl"/"Bad Boy" model that comics today seem fixated on.

Which is sad because I think it shrinks the market. I mean, I know women who ADORE stereotypically hunky boyscout characters. Guilt-ridden alpha males. Quick-witted adventurers who are quick to blush. Where are these male characters? Where are their female counterparts?

Pop fiction like super-hero comics has exploitation as a central and sometimes subliminal motif that isn't going anywhere but I find it disturbingly telling that the "exploitation" we're seeing is directed disproportionately at young women and is so angry and violent.

It's like a bunch of snickering teenage guys getting off on the idea of the prom queen getting an STD on her sweet sixteen.

[Pink Bat Max]

I can get from a cynical marketing perspective why certain comic characters are heavily sexualized. Heck, I think Aquaman and Hawkman are supposed to be beefcake just as I think there is a 40s pin-up girl element to Wonder Woman and a 60s starlet quality intrinsic to Supergirl.

Hawkman as beefcake? Where would you get that?

http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/image/Hawkman_2.jpg
http://www.desertpride.com/catalog/images/KI611.gif
http://www.bearswear.com/leather/harness.jpg
(that last one is just for you, Dazz :P )

I see a lotta Hawkman fans on Castro street.

It's like a bunch of snickering teenage guys getting off on the idea of the prom queen getting an STD on her sweet sixteen.

QFT. I effin' HATE that our culture has become such that 'Good Girls' are no longer seen as viable heroines.

[Pink Bat Max]

Wait till you see Kunkel. Boy does he get the Marvel family.

Do you know what his take on Uncle Dudley will be?

[Jack Zodiac]

She's not a whore, she's just drawn that way.

Fair point! And Batman's not a sexist douchebag, he's just written that way.

[MacQuarrie]

Do you know what his take on Uncle Dudley will be?
Not yet. I do know his take on Talky Tawny. "He's a tiger. He talks. They live in a world where this elicits no surprise. He doesn't need an explanation or an origin. He's a tiger and he talks; what more do you need?"

[Pink Bat Max]

Not yet. I do know his take on Talky Tawny. "He's a tiger. He talks. They live in a world where this elicits no surprise. He doesn't need an explanation or an origin. He's a tiger and he talks; what more do you need?"

Absolutely the right take. Hooray!

[Corrina]

It's like a bunch of snickering teenage guys getting off on the idea of the prom queen getting an STD on her sweet sixteen.

Perfect.

What Patrick said.

[Magneto_X]

Not yet. I do know his take on Talky Tawny. "He's a tiger. He talks. They live in a world where this elicits no surprise. He doesn't need an explanation or an origin. He's a tiger and he talks; what more do you need?"

That works in it's own universe but in a shared universe, especially one which can get very specific about characters origins it just comes across as a cop-out.

It'd work in a movie, though.

[PatrickG]

That works in it's own universe but in a shared universe, especially one which can get very specific about characters origins it just comes across as a cop-out.

It'd work in a movie, though.

20 years of Batman, 25 issues of Superman/Batman and 42 issues of JLA sold gangbusters on the premise of occupying a shared universe without being beholden to it.

Creators should tell the stories they want to tell on the characters best suited to those stories.

Every individual title should set the pace and act as if the rest of the universe in contingent upon the reality of the individual book.

That may mean some characters' views of reality don't reconcile easily but you handle that in a crossover.

By all means, have O'Neil's Batman show up in Fawcett. The exchange would go something like this:

BATMAN: A talking tiger seems a bit absurd. What is he? A genespliced scientific experiment? An exoskeletal costume? Tribal animal spirit?

CAP: He's a tiger that talks. He has nice taste in suits.

BATMAN: There has to be more to the story than that.

CAP: You don't really look that much like a bat, you know.

BATMAN: This is one of those 'Wisdom of Solomon' things I have to accept, isn't it?

CAP: I assumed the World's Greatest Detective knew about Occam's razor. A talking tiger in a suit is most likely a talking tiger in a suit.

BATMAN: ... If I hit the bad man robbing the bank, that's still a good thing in your little Stepford world, yes?

CAP: That'd be swell. But you really should try being more polite if you want people to respect you. You attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

BATMAN: ... Point taken. My apologies.

[Pink Bat Max]

By all means, have O'Neil's Batman show up in Fawcett. The exchange would go something like this:

BATMAN: A talking tiger seems a bit absurd. What is he? A genespliced scientific experiment? An exoskeletal costume? Tribal animal spirit?

CAP: He's a tiger that talks. He has nice taste in suits.

BATMAN: There has to be more to the story than that.

CAP: You don't really look that much like a bat, you know.

BATMAN: This is one of those 'Wisdom of Solomon' things I have to accept, isn't it?

CAP: I assumed the World's Greatest Detective knew about Occam's razor. A talking tiger in a suit is most likely a talking tiger in a suit.

BATMAN: ... If I hit the bad man robbing the bank, that's still a good thing in your little Stepford world, yes?

CAP: That'd be swell. But you really should try being more polite if you want people to respect you. You attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

BATMAN: ... Point taken. My apologies.

I officially want you to go write comics now.

[stealthwise]

Sidebar: Why would anyone want to attract flies?

Shouldn't that be BEES?

[Magneto_X]

Does the DC Brass consider Dark Mary a success or failure yet? Or is it to early for that?

[MacQuarrie]

That works in it's own universe but in a shared universe, especially one which can get very specific about characters origins it just comes across as a cop-out.

It'd work in a movie, though.

And that's why comics needs to blow off the shared universe. It's a stupid idea whose time has passed.

Said it before and I'll say it again: If NBC suddenly decided that all their shows took place in the same universe, how long would you keep watching? Especially if it meant massive changes in tone and content for all the shows in order to make them fit together... Scrubs has to have the same feel as ER, and they both have to fit with Bionic Woman, Chuck, and 30 Rock. And every few weeks they do one big storyline that runs through all their programs, including the soaps and game shows. Oh, and not only that, but the shared universe also includes every show that ever ran on NBC: the characters from Cheers or the Flip Wilson Show or Milton Berle might show up on ER or Law & Order: SVU at any time, though they might be altered beyond recognition in order to make them "fit." And of course, as a viewer, you'll be expected to keep track of not only the full schedule of programing, but also the complete history of every show going all the way back to when NBC was a radio network. If you don't recognize Edgar Bergen or Amos 'n' Andy on sight, you won't understand what's happening on this week's episode of Saturday Night Live, which by the way now looks and sound exactly like ER.

See what I mean? It's stupid. The shared universe should be a fun little easter egg when it happens, like when the guys from Homicide met the Law & Order guys in a special two-part episode. Once that episode was done, nobody mentioned it again, and the writers of Homicide were under no obligation to make sure their scripts fit together with the L&O ones.

Ask yourself, which is more important: That all the books be the best they can be, or that all the books fit together with all the others?

Captain Marvel shouldn't be in the same world as Superman. Period.

[MacQuarrie]

20 years of Batman, 25 issues of Superman/Batman and 42 issues of JLA sold gangbusters on the premise of occupying a shared universe without being beholden to it.

Creators should tell the stories they want to tell on the characters best suited to those stories.

Every individual title should set the pace and act as if the rest of the universe in contingent upon the reality of the individual book.

That may mean some characters' views of reality don't reconcile easily but you handle that in a crossover.

By all means, have O'Neil's Batman show up in Fawcett. The exchange would go something like this:

BATMAN: A talking tiger seems a bit absurd. What is he? A genespliced scientific experiment? An exoskeletal costume? Tribal animal spirit?

CAP: He's a tiger that talks. He has nice taste in suits.

BATMAN: There has to be more to the story than that.

CAP: You don't really look that much like a bat, you know.

BATMAN: This is one of those 'Wisdom of Solomon' things I have to accept, isn't it?

CAP: I assumed the World's Greatest Detective knew about Occam's razor. A talking tiger in a suit is most likely a talking tiger in a suit.

BATMAN: ... If I hit the bad man robbing the bank, that's still a good thing in your little Stepford world, yes?

CAP: That'd be swell. But you really should try being more polite if you want people to respect you. You attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

BATMAN: ... Point taken. My apologies.

I have such a deep love for you now.

[Magneto_X]

And that's why comics needs to blow off the shared universe. It's a stupid idea whose time has passed.

Said it before and I'll say it again: If NBC suddenly decided that all their shows took place in the same universe, how long would you keep watching? Especially if it meant massive changes in tone and content for all the shows in order to make them fit together... Scrubs has to have the same feel as ER, and they both have to fit with Bionic Woman, Chuck, and 30 Rock. And every few weeks they do one big storyline that runs through all their programs, including the soaps and game shows. Oh, and not only that, but the shared universe also includes every show that ever ran on NBC: the characters from Cheers or the Flip Wilson Show or Milton Berle might show up on ER or Law & Order: SVU at any time, though they might be altered beyond recognition in order to make them "fit." And of course, as a viewer, you'll be expected to keep track of not only the full schedule of programing, but also the complete history of every show going all the way back to when NBC was a radio network. If you don't recognize Edgar Bergen or Amos 'n' Andy on sight, you won't understand what's happening on this week's episode of Saturday Night Live, which by the way now looks and sound exactly like ER.

See what I mean? It's stupid. The shared universe should be a fun little easter egg when it happens, like when the guys from Homicide met the Law & Order guys in a special two-part episode. Once that episode was done, nobody mentioned it again, and the writers of Homicide were under no obligation to make sure their scripts fit together with the L&O ones.

Ask yourself, which is more important: That all the books be the best they can be, or that all the books fit together with all the others?

Captain Marvel shouldn't be in the same world as Superman. Period.

I agree.

I can understand a shared universe working on a small scale like 2 to 10 titles, but all that are similar themed --- not different totally genres.

Cap's always going to second best with Supes around. Best to ship him off permanently to his own universe. Then everybody's happy.

[DaeJi]

And that's why comics needs to blow off the shared universe. It's a stupid idea whose time has passed.

Said it before and I'll say it again: If NBC suddenly decided that all their shows took place in the same universe, how long would you keep watching? Especially if it meant massive changes in tone and content for all the shows in order to make them fit together... Scrubs has to have the same feel as ER, and they both have to fit with Bionic Woman, Chuck, and 30 Rock. And every few weeks they do one big storyline that runs through all their programs, including the soaps and game shows. Oh, and not only that, but the shared universe also includes every show that ever ran on NBC: the characters from Cheers or the Flip Wilson Show or Milton Berle might show up on ER or Law & Order: SVU at any time, though they might be altered beyond recognition in order to make them "fit." And of course, as a viewer, you'll be expected to keep track of not only the full schedule of programing, but also the complete history of every show going all the way back to when NBC was a radio network. If you don't recognize Edgar Bergen or Amos 'n' Andy on sight, you won't understand what's happening on this week's episode of Saturday Night Live, which by the way now looks and sound exactly like ER.

See what I mean? It's stupid. The shared universe should be a fun little easter egg when it happens, like when the guys from Homicide met the Law & Order guys in a special two-part episode. Once that episode was done, nobody mentioned it again, and the writers of Homicide were under no obligation to make sure their scripts fit together with the L&O ones.

Ask yourself, which is more important: That all the books be the best they can be, or that all the books fit together with all the others?

Captain Marvel shouldn't be in the same world as Superman. Period.

Except that those T.V. shows weren't created with the thought that they would inhabit a shared universe, where-as the current DC (and Marvel) was. And you know, there's plenty of other comics you can read that don't take place in a huge shared universe.

[MacQuarrie]

Except that those T.V. shows weren't created with the thought that they would inhabit a shared universe, where-as the current DC (and Marvel) was. And you know, there's plenty of other comics you can read that don't take place in a huge shared universe.

No it was not. The current DC is the result of numerous mergers and acquisitions. Detective Comics and All-American Comics merged to form National Comics. The Marvel Family came from Fawcett, Plastic Man, Blackhawk, the Freedom Fighters, and Manhunter from Quality Comics; Blue Beetle, The Question and Captain Atom from Charlton. The current DC was hashed together from these varied elements, and in the process virtually all of them have been homogenized and made to conform to the current fashion.

Marvel books also were created and written as free-standing solo books for decades, albeit with more passing acknowledgment of the other characters in their shared world. It used to be possible to be a faithful follower of Captain America while ignoring the entire rest of the Marvel line; not so anymore.

And, yes it is true that "there's plenty of other comics you can read that don't take place in a huge shared universe", but that's only if you don't want to read DC or Marvel superheroes. I want to read Captain Marvel. But I want to read a Captain Marvel who is Captain Marvel, not some watered-down imitation of Superman entangled in a massive company-wide "event", and I want to read a Captain Marvel who grins his way through battles against a worm in horn-rimmed glasses and hangs out with a talking tiger. The only way I can read that is to turn to the Archives.

Meanwhile, comics sales have dropped to below 1/10th of what they used to be.

[AllisterH]

Captain Marvel shouldn't be in the same world as Superman. Period.

The reason why I think this is a cop=out is because it tends to ignore Captain Marvel Jr.

I mean, I read the original Fawcett origin AND a good chunk of the CM Jr. comic and it definitely seems darker than what people her seem to think that CM should exist in.

Yet CM Jr. was so popular that he nearly matched CM himself in sales back in their heyday.

[DaeJi]

No it was not. The current DC is the result of numerous mergers and acquisitions. Detective Comics and All-American Comics merged to form National Comics. The Marvel Family came from Fawcett, Plastic Man, Blackhawk, the Freedom Fighters, and Manhunter from Quality Comics; Blue Beetle, The Question and Captain Atom from Charlton. The current DC was hashed together from these varied elements, and in the process virtually all of them have been homogenized and made to conform to the current fashion.

Which is why I said "current." As in, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Marvel books also were created and written as free-standing solo books for decades, albeit with more passing acknowledgment of the other characters in their shared world. It used to be possible to be a faithful follower of Captain America while ignoring the entire rest of the Marvel line; not so anymore.

But they still happened in the same universe, on the same Earth.

And, yes it is true that "there's plenty of other comics you can read that don't take place in a huge shared universe", but that's only if you don't want to read DC or Marvel superheroes. I want to read Captain Marvel. But I want to read a Captain Marvel who is Captain Marvel, not some watered-down imitation of Superman entangled in a massive company-wide "event", and I want to read a Captain Marvel who grins his way through battles against a worm in horn-rimmed glasses and hangs out with a talking tiger. The only way I can read that is to turn to the Archives.

There is supposed to be a new Captain Marvel coming out that should fit that bill. As for the "main" version, that's how it is. You don't get into stuff like this without knowing how things work. I love that shared universe concept, and thing it can be used to tell some great stories. Of course, it can also be used to tell some crappy stories, as Countdown is proving, but it's the same with the multiple universe concept.

Meanwhile, comics sales have dropped to below 1/10th of what they used to be.

"Used to be" from when? If you are talking 90's sales, those sales were the result of people buying a ton of variant issues with the thought of re-selling them for a profit. When that didn't work out at all, the market crashed. Hence, lower sales. Giving each hero their own separate universe is not going to fix that.

[Magneto_X]

The reason why I think this is a cop=out is because it tends to ignore Captain Marvel Jr.

I mean, I read the original Fawcett origin AND a good chunk of the CM Jr. comic and it definitely seems darker than what people her seem to think that CM should exist in.

Yet CM Jr. was so popular that he nearly matched CM himself in sales back in their heyday.

Articles I've read of CMJ have him as the polar opposite of CM story-wise. Even the art was realistic looking.

Junior was doing shit like breaking Captain Nazi's limbs in fights and generally not messing around.

[MacQuarrie]

There is supposed to be a new Captain Marvel coming out that should fit that bill. As for the "main" version, that's how it is. You don't get into stuff like this without knowing how things work. I love that shared universe concept, and thing it can be used to tell some great stories. Of course, it can also be used to tell some crappy stories, as Countdown is proving, but it's the same with the multiple universe concept.
I was here first. I've been reading comics since 1966, and as such, the "you don't get into stuff like this" comment is null. I'm watching a medium I've loved for 40 years screw itself into extinction and I don't like it one bit.

I'll ask again, which is more important; that the comics be good, or that they all fit together? They can't do both.

"Used to be" from when? If you are talking 90's sales, those sales were the result of people buying a ton of variant issues with the thought of re-selling them for a profit. When that didn't work out at all, the market crashed. Hence, lower sales. Giving each hero their own separate universe is not going to fix that.
I'm talking about the majority of comics history, when a comic that sold fewer than 200,000 copies got canceled. In the '40s and '50s, Superman regularly sold a million copies a month each of three different titles.

[MacQuarrie]

The reason why I think this is a cop=out is because it tends to ignore Captain Marvel Jr.

I mean, I read the original Fawcett origin AND a good chunk of the CM Jr. comic and it definitely seems darker than what people her seem to think that CM should exist in.

Yet CM Jr. was so popular that he nearly matched CM himself in sales back in their heyday.

Captain Marvel Jr. is not Superman.

[MacQuarrie]

But they still happened in the same universe, on the same Earth.
Barely.

Iron Man comics followed Iron Man's adventures, with occasional passing mentions of Spider-Man or Captain America or the Fantastic Four. Once in a while, Daredevil might be seen swinging past the Baxter Building, and that was about it.

The shared universe was a handy back-story that went unmentioned 99% of the time. And comics were better for it.

[DaeJi]

I was here first. I've been reading comics since 1966, and as such, the "you don't get into stuff like this" comment is null. I'm watching a medium I've loved for 40 years screw itself into extinction and I don't like it one bit.

Then adapt.

I'll ask again, which is more important; that the comics be good, or that they all fit together? They can't do both.

And they have for decades now.

I'm talking about the majority of comics history, when a comic that sold fewer than 200,000 copies got canceled. In the '40s and '50s, Superman regularly sold a million copies a month each of three different titles.

Well, look at the history of the medium. Raising cover prices, Seduction of the Innocent, the "geek" culture, crappy movies, the overall decrease in recreational reading, etc. It's not story quality that is leading to the lower sales of comics today.

Barely.


No barely about it. They happened in the same universe. Just because there was less interaction back then doesn't change that fact.

[AllisterH]

Captain Marvel Jr. is not Superman.

True, in fact I'd argue that CM Jr. was darker than even Superman. Yet somehow CM existed in the same universe as such a character and it didn't seem to affect him.

Then there's the other Marvel family members like Sivana and Black Adam. Sivana and Black Adam especially seem to have propspered in the shared DCU as has Captain Nazi.

Should they go back with Billy to Earth-S?

[Magneto_X]

Newsarama had an article recently explaining the 52 universes where Captain Marvel did have his own universe. maybe this is where Kunkle's mini-series is taking place?

[Magneto_X]

Newsarama had an article recently explaining the 52 universes where Captain Marvel did have his own universe. maybe this is where Kunkle's mini-series is taking place?

[MacQuarrie]

True, in fact I'd argue that CM Jr. was darker than even Superman. Yet somehow CM existed in the same universe as such a character and it didn't seem to affect him.

Then there's the other Marvel family members like Sivana and Black Adam. Sivana and Black Adam especially seem to have propspered in the shared DCU as has Captain Nazi.

Should they go back with Billy to Earth-S?

You're missing the point. The "darkness" isn't the issue. The convoluted retroactive continuity required to explain how all these characters with overlapping and contradictory background can fit together, that's the problem. Why is the Hercules that Captain Marvel knows different from the one Wonder Woman knows? Because there's an absurdly contrived story to explain it.

Having Captain Marvel exist int eh same world as Superman requires that Talky Tawny be a magical animal spirit or a figment of someone's imagination or a pooka or some other contrivance that's every bit as unrealistic as a talking tiger, bu tis somehow considered more believable. A talking tiger is no more unrealistic than a flying man, in my opinion, and if it's the shared universe that demands the tiger be altered into something that fits, I say screw the shared world and leave the tiger alone.

[MacQuarrie]

Newsarama had an article recently explaining the 52 universes where Captain Marvel did have his own universe. maybe this is where Kunkle's mini-series is taking place?

Who cares? Why does it need to be explained?

[MacQuarrie]

Then adapt.
Screw that. If they want my money, they have to adapt to me. The customer is always right.

And they have for decades now.
And for decades it didn't matter in the slightest. It wasn't until fanboys became pros and started worrying more about noodling continuity and making everything fit with everything else that it began affecting the stories.

Well, look at the history of the medium. Raising cover prices, Seduction of the Innocent, the "geek" culture, crappy movies, the overall decrease in recreational reading, etc. It's not story quality that is leading to the lower sales of comics today.
Not story quality. Story convolutedness. That, combined with dropping page counts and restricted distribution, is the cause of the fall. When Marv Wolfman wrote "Crisis on Infinite Earths" his goal was nothing less than the abolition of continuity. He wanted to throw it all out. Too bad the rest of DC didn't get on board with him.

No barely about it. They happened in the same universe. Just because there was less interaction back then doesn't change that fact.

Barely, in that the stories were independent of each other, and inter-book continuity didn't matter worth a damn. Captain America could be off in Russia in his own book while on Titan with the Avengers the same month. The Hulk could be battling the Abomination in the arctic circle in his comic while at the same time hanging around Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum in Defenders and nobody gave a shit as long as the comics were good.

I'll ask a third time: Which is more important, that the comics be good or that the continuity all fit together?

[MacQuarrie]

Newsarama had an article recently explaining the 52 universes where Captain Marvel did have his own universe. maybe this is where Kunkle's mini-series is taking place?
Kunkel's series (ongoing, not mini) is part of the Johnny DC line (in my opinion the only part of DC comics that still knows how to make comics except for Gail), and as such it doesn't take place in a "universe." It takes place outside your window, inside your imagination.

[Ian Boothby]

Screw that. If they want my money, they have to adapt to me. The customer is always right.


The businessman who came up with that policy died broke.

[thehod]

I'm not too fond of the new Black Mary, or Marvel Vag, or whatever they're calling her. But my favorite scene in any Countdown comic is from last week or the week before where Eclipso apparently tries to convince Mary to become Darkseid's concubine, and she blurts out, "I'm not some whore!" with her vagina playing peekaboo from under her super short, super not whoreish black skirt.

Just picking up on this comment, and in general the critisim I hear levelled at characters like Mary Marvel and Supergirl recently, which is basically that their new incarnations are much more sexualised than they previously were, compaired to their original and more "traditional" incarnations.

Lets look at Mary's first appearance and costume from Captain Marvel Adventures #18
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/Captainmarveladventures18.JPG

and this is her current look...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Black_Mary_in_DC_Countdown.jpg

Ok, so the skirt has got a touch shorter, but only by a few inches. And she's dressed in black, which clearly means she's far more sexualised than previously.

Supergirl?

First app
http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/97/400/97_4_000000252.jpg

Current version
http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/14121/400/14121_4_000.jpg

Ok, again the skirt is shorter, but again, not by much more than a few inches, and the midrift is bared, but DC is only reflecting a societal change. Walk down the street in the middle of a hot day, and (bar the cape) you'll see sixteen year olds wearing clothes that have just as much, if not a good sight less material. Would I be keen on my sixteen year old daughter wearing that style of clothing? Probably not. At sixteen would she really give me a fat lot of choice. Probably not either. If I was marketing a comic that (image wise) might appeal to a sixteen year old girl, however unlikley that is, would I design my character to dress in the same manner. Damn right. The showing of the midrift and the short skirt is based on a change in the way young women are dressing and is no different to the adding of the headband to Supergirl's costume in the 1980s.

Why is a character a whore because she wears a short skirt?

Wearing a skirt leotard combination (because, they're not gonna wear standard underwear in these costumes, especially not when they fly) is no more sexualised than what you'd see women wearing at the gym or in some dance productions and much more than what you'd see them wearing at the beach, but because they do it in comics, suddenly they are fair game to be classified as little better than whores?

Now, I'm not daft and I can see that in a lot of cases its not the costume that's the issue, but the artist manner of pose and (for want of a better phrase) angle of shot that the artist chooses to employ, but thats an artist issue, not a character issue. Lets make sure we seperate one from the other.

[AllisterH]

The thing about Mary Marvel that's interesting is that she's based on the Judy Garland "Next door girl" appeal.

The thing is "The Next door girl" image has changed, has it not? Basically, who is this generation's Judy Garland (the woman/girl all mommas hoped their son would bring home)?

[thehod]

The thing about Mary Marvel that's interesting is that she's based on the Judy Garland "Next door girl" appeal.

The thing is "The Next door girl" image has changed, has it not? Basically, who is this generation's Judy Garland (the woman/girl all mommas hoped their son would bring home)?

Did "The Girl Next Door" thing actually exist in reality, or was it always just an acronistic image of women that was presented at the time?

The problem of "The Girl Next Door" is that, for the most part, part of her appeal to a male audience is (taken from wikipedia) Due to her innocent manner, many fantasies portray the "girl next door" image as a pretense behind which a real woman is secretly very sexual.

[Michael P]

Kunkel's series (ongoing, not mini) is part of the Johnny DC line (in my opinion the only part of DC comics that still knows how to make comics except for Gail), and as such it doesn't take place in a "universe." It takes place outside your window, inside your imagination.

That's a nice way of looking at it, but according to DC's map of the new multiverse, it takes place on Earth-5.

[AllisterH]

Did "The Girl Next Door" thing actually exist in reality, or was it always just an acronistic image of women that was presented at the time?

The problem of "The Girl Next Door" is that, for the most part, part of her appeal to a male audience is (taken from wikipedia)

Well, it was how Judy Garland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Garland)was presented to the publich by the studios for a good amount of time.

That said, that was also what makes the contrast between Black Mary and regular Mary so wide and probably exactly what DC is going for.

Supergirl though is different. Sure, there's the Long skirt she was wearing in her first appearance, but honestly?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/6.5Supergirls.jpg

The pre-Crisis Supergirl definitely was presented more along the lines of current day Supergirl. The real difference isn't the length of the skirt (pre-Crisis Supergirl's skirt was just as short), but the fact that it rides so low.

[thehod]

The pre-Crisis Supergirl definitely was presented more along the lines of current day Supergirl. The real difference isn't the length of the skirt (pre-Crisis Supergirl's skirt was just as short), but the fact that it rides so low.

True, and with the midrift exposed, the low riding hipster skirt makes that band of flesh all the more pronounced. Which is exactly how millions of teenage girls around the globe are wearing their clothes, so why should Supergirl be any different?

[KevinTBrown]

Why is it no one ever complained about how "Peter David's Supergirl" looked...? She, too, had the bare midriff.... Yet that version of Supergirl appears to be universally loved, while the one re-created by Loeb and Turner is hated.

That's something I could never understand.

[Pink Bat Max]

Why is it no one ever complained about how "Peter David's Supergirl" looked...? She, too, had the bare midriff.... Yet that version of Supergirl appears to be universally loved, while the one re-created by Loeb and Turner is hated.

That's something I could never understand.

Personally, it's not the bared midriff, it's just that the current costume looks ugly...... long flared sleeves? What?

[AllisterH]

Why is it no one ever complained about how "Peter David's Supergirl" looked...? She, too, had the bare midriff.... Yet that version of Supergirl appears to be universally loved, while the one re-created by Loeb and Turner is hated.

That's something I could never understand.

You're not serious are you?

Do you know how many people absolutely HATED matrix-Supergirl? When Didio recently stated that Linda never existed and was excising Martix-Supergirl from canon, you would've thought the DC Supergirl board had just won the lottery.

Personally, I still think PAD's Supergirl is the only good Supergirl series that worked.

It is interesting that the three greatest Supergirl tales all depend on her dying/not existing.

1) The Pre-Crisis Supergirl's Death in the original Crisis
2) The classic "Supergirl/Deadman" Xmas teamup
3) Many Happy Returns

Its weird but unlike Supergirl, Mary Marvel doesn't seem superfluous and can exist outside of Captain Marvel (same goes for CM Jr. though). In short, she, as Mary Bromfield, seemed to not exist as a hero who simply copied her idol a la Batgirl or even Supergirl. The fact that she was Billy's twin and that originally, her powers and suit didn't depend on CM seemed to make her more independent in my mind.

[Cayman]

Personally, it's not the bared midriff, it's just that the current costume looks ugly...... long flared sleeves? What?

They look good on me though...right?

[KevinTBrown]

They look good on me though...right?

You look mah-velous!

[MacQuarrie]

The businessman who came up with that policy died broke.

Depends on how you interpret it.

If "the customer is always right" means "give the customer anything he demands no matter how unreasonable" then, yes, the businessman will go broke if he does.

If it means "you can't make the customer accept something he does not want simply because you like it better", then failing to heed it will also make you go broke.

I currently buy two Marvel comics a month; Spider-Girl and Power Pack. I don't want anything remotely similar to Civil War or House of M or the Ultimate line. They can't make me like it.

I'm dropping more DC books every month. Currently I'm down to Justice League Unlimited, the current run of Action comics featuring the Legion, Justice Society (only because my kid likes it), and anything Gail writes.

I'm the customer. If DC wants my money, they have to offer me a comic I want. They can't shove crap at me and tell me to take it or leave it because it's all I'm going to get, and that is very much the attitude I currently see from both DiDio and Quesada.

The reason I'm right and they are wrong, apart from the fact that it's my money, is that I want the kind of comics that made Superman a household name, not the ones that made it a niche market comprised of stereotypical fanboys, to which both companies are currently pandering. The fact is, if they produced the comics I want, many of the people who quit reading comics would come back, because that's what they want too. I want comics that I can let my kids read. That would also bring them more customers.

It's my money. I will not "adapt." They have to.

[LewisH]

to a dogpile and say that I happen to like dark Mary. I don't want her to stay that way permanently but I always like stories where heroes are tempted to the dark side in some way, as long as in the end they reject it, regret whatever bad things they did while tempted, and grow from the experience.

The whole point of the original Star Wars trilogy was Luke's temptation towards the dark side and the redemption of his father from evil. The point of most of the best Batman stories is that, as dark as Batman is, there is a line he will not cross.

So here we have a story along a similar vein. A young woman who is used to having powers and being a hero suddenly finds herself stripped of those powers and seemingly abandoned by her friends and family. Given dark powers
and having her natural desire to do justice in the world twisted by forces without and within it isn't unreasonable to see her go down the wrong path for a while. If her brother wasn't trapped in the Rock of Eternity; if Freddie
wasn't enduring trials of his own; if her former teammates from the JLI weren't all busy with world shaking crises of their own then things might have turned out differently. Instead Eclipso saw a weakness and is trying to exploit it. It's just the kind of thing Eclipso has pulled again and again throughout its history. Check out the Princes of Darkness arc as just one
example of how Eclipso was able to manipulate someone wanting to be a hero.

As far as the short skirt goes, such things just have never bothered me that much. In some ways the skin tight costumes that cover many female characters head to toe are a lot more revealing than the short skirts we see
on Supergirl and Mary at the moment. I don't think the argument that the characters are supposed to be underage holds much weighht when we have jumped ahead thanks to OYL and certainly had enough stories in addition to that to suggest at least one more year has passed in addition to that. Comic book characters no longer have the rule of not aging at all so Kara and Mary should both be 18 by now or at least approaching it pretty closely.

[Jack Zodiac]

Why is a character a whore because she wears a short skirt?

They aren't, and you know that, so why fucking bother with this question? The concern isn't the characters themselves or how they look, it's their representation by writers and artists out to make them either look or act more sexual. With Mary, it's not even that she's being "seduced by darkness," which anyone could've told was going to be semi-sexualized by the promo posters concerning that story; it's more that in every panel she's in Countdown, not only is her skirt very short, but she's always at an angle where, if there wasn't heavy inking, you're be staring right up her fucking vagina.

She may have worn a skirt skirt in the Golden Age, but Beck wasn't drawing her with upskirt shots and no one was writing her like she was a naughty girl. She was pure innocence in a cute little outfit, and nothing more. I think Patrick nailed it earlier with his pin-up metaphor. Nowadays, people are writing and drawing superheroines like Maxim centerfolds, showing just enough not to be porn.

[PatrickG]

You're not serious are you?

Do you know how many people absolutely HATED matrix-Supergirl? When Didio recently stated that Linda never existed and was excising Martix-Supergirl from canon, you would've thought the DC Supergirl board had just won the lottery.

Personally, I still think PAD's Supergirl is the only good Supergirl series that worked.

It is interesting that the three greatest Supergirl tales all depend on her dying/not existing.

1) The Pre-Crisis Supergirl's Death in the original Crisis
2) The classic "Supergirl/Deadman" Xmas teamup
3) Many Happy Returns

Its weird but unlike Supergirl, Mary Marvel doesn't seem superfluous and can exist outside of Captain Marvel (same goes for CM Jr. though). In short, she, as Mary Bromfield, seemed to not exist as a hero who simply copied her idol a la Batgirl or even Supergirl. The fact that she was Billy's twin and that originally, her powers and suit didn't depend on CM seemed to make her more independent in my mind.

Honestly, I'd say the same is true about Flash. All the best stories are about Wally West dying.

All the best GL stories are about Hal losing his ring, etc.

Supergirl "going away" is only a good story because some people care about her as a character. Those stories work because of a sense of investment. The stories were done internally because an editorial feeling that they couldn't do anything interesting and accessible with the character but they work because fans didn't feel that way and writers succeeded in making the fans feel that way.

Supergirl should be the best title on the market. I maintain that brainstorming five years worth of plots should be easy, that the character is worthwhile. I do NOT understand how so many of my favorite creators have managed to miss capturing the zeitgeist.

Puckett is starting slow. My optimism is waning but still present.

I think one complaint that is overdone is that she's "Superman in a skirt". Which presupposes that Superman is not one of the most interesting characters in comics, a shortcoming resulting from familiarity breeding in contempt. And she's not Superman but a good Supergirl writer should make Superman an interesting character in the process and we should see how she's different without resorting to theatrics like having her kill somebody.

I have a friend who's into the Golden Age sidekicks. She takes severe umbrage at the idea that Bucky, Sandy the Golden Boy, Dan the Dynamite, Thorndike, Robin, etc. are interchangeable in any way. She would proceed to lecture you on how radically different these characters are.

I have the same issue with Kryptonian-types and comic book super-geniuses. I do not believe that any two are identical or interchangeable.

Really, the "perceived similarity" is pretty much the literary equivilent of racial profiling. "They all look alike to me" means "I am a bigot who felt gypped by a character once and so I lump all similar looking characters into a pile; One of that character type is too many and the rest are all the same." It's essentially meta-bigotry and I'd like to see it stop.

[Jack Zodiac]

Why is it no one ever complained about how "Peter David's Supergirl" looked...? She, too, had the bare midriff.... Yet that version of Supergirl appears to be universally loved, while the one re-created by Loeb and Turner is hated.

That's something I could never understand.

Less how she looked, more how she acted. Linda was loved because she a was well-written, well-rounded character. And most of PAD's artists didn't over sexualize her, and PAD himself rarely ever put her in scenes that would pander to that kind of sexualization-fetish.

[PatrickG]

Depends on how you interpret it.

If "the customer is always right" means "give the customer anything he demands no matter how unreasonable" then, yes, the businessman will go broke if he does.

If it means "you can't make the customer accept something he does not want simply because you like it better", then failing to heed it will also make you go broke.


Guys...

I think the real idea is that "The customer is always right" has nothing to do with caving in or force feeding the customer something.

It has to do with a plan set in motion before the first complaint to convince the customer that they're valued and that you aren't trying to change their opinions even when you disagree with them.

Best example I can think of from my work history:

Go to Red Lobster. Complain about something. You will be offered a free desert. This isn't caving. Their deserts are insanely cheap. The food cost on them is something like 5%-10% (standard restaurant food cost is 20%-30% of menu price with a heavy chunk of the other 70%-80% going into labor/utilities/etc. leaving a tight margin), partly due to the company's purchasing power. They count on you not knowing that.

They're ready (but not EAGER, naturally) to give every customer who walks in a free desert. If there's something wrong with a customer's meal, they can fix it. But the managers will go for the free desert first. And the idea seems to be that the free deserts go out when the customer finds something wrong that the manager doesn't think is wrong, doesn't want to fix or is unable to fix. It's a way of saying, "You're entitled to your opinion. I don't agree but, look, here's something you'd like as a token of me conceding without conceding!"

There are at least a dozen ways this approach could be adapted to a comics company. But there really could be a comic for everybody.

In the end, IMO, it doesn't mean caving. It doesn't mean shoehorning. It means finding a place to send people who disagree with you. It may not satisfy them but it shows that you get the value of their opinion.

In Mac's case, I think they'd send him to Johnny DC. (However, really, I think there could stand to be a mid-range DC-line aimed at bright 12-16 year-olds and that's what we're missing.)

[Gilda Dent]

That works in it's own universe but in a shared universe, especially one which can get very specific about characters origins it just comes across as a cop-out.

It'd work in a movie, though.

This is one of the problems with modern superhero comics, getting too caught up in things like the specific mechanisms of origins and how powers work. I don't see why a talking tiger in a suit or a super intelligent worm wouldn't work just fine without an explanation of how they came to be this way. Would it really be too much of a stretch in the DCU to say that sometimes Tigers are born that can walk upright and have human level intelligence?

I can't comment on "Dark Mary", as I'm not reading whatever book she's appearing in, having dropped all current DC books. I really dislike having to follow an entire shared universe as the price of following a specific character. I sample things once in a while to see if it's worth coming back. I tried World War 3, for example. What a terrible book, what a waste of money. I don't think I'm missing much.

[thehod]

They aren't, and you know that, so why fucking bother with this question? The concern isn't the characters themselves or how they look, it's their representation by writers and artists out to make them either look or act more sexual. With Mary, it's not even that she's being "seduced by darkness," which anyone could've told was going to be semi-sexualized by the promo posters concerning that story; it's more that in every panel she's in Countdown, not only is her skirt very short, but she's always at an angle where, if there wasn't heavy inking, you're be staring right up her fucking vagina.

Well, her and every other female superhero being committed to paper at the moment, and on that point we are in agreement, the manner and the style of art needs to be seriously reconsidered for a what is meant to be an all ages comic book. George Perez doesn't do it in Brave and Bold, so I can't see why jobbing artist who gets his one chance on Countdown needs to.

I just get irritated why characters such as Mary and Supergirl get tagged with labels like 'whore' because other adults think its the done thing to draw every panel with them in as an upskirt shot.

What did Jessica Rabbit say? "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

[Jack Zodiac]

Well, her and every other female superhero being committed to paper at the moment, and on that point we are in agreement, the manner and the style of art needs to be seriously reconsidered for a what is meant to be an all ages comic book. George Perez doesn't do it in Brave and Bold, so I can't see why jobbing artist who gets his one chance on Countdown needs to.

I just get irritated why characters such as Mary and Supergirl get tagged with labels like 'whore' because other adults think its the done thing to draw every panel with them in as an upskirt shot.

What did Jessica Rabbit say? "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

Right, like I said, it's silly to get annoyed with a character for the way they're portrayed by the writers and artists controlling them. When I say "so and so looks/acts like a whore," it isn't me attacking a fictional character, it's me complaining about the way certain artists and writers portray her, a distinction I try to make every time.

And yeah, I think Michael threw that joke out there. "I'm not a whore, I'm just drawn that way." :p

[thehod]

Right, like I said, it's silly to get annoyed with a character for the way they're portrayed by the writers and artists controlling them. When I say "so and so looks/acts like a whore," it isn't me attacking a fictional character, it's me complaining about the way certain artists and writers portray her, a distinction I try to make every time.

And yeah, I think Michael threw that joke out there. "I'm not a whore, I'm just drawn that way." :p

Yep, I wasn't having a go at you specifically Jack, rather the attitude that seems to have sprung up around these characters over the last few years, not necessarily here, but certainly in other places.

One other thing to point out regarding these characters. I'm not sure how old Mary Marvel is meant to be, not only now but when she was first introduced, but (and for arguements sake lets say she's 16) there is a distinct different between how a 16 year old girl would have behaved in 1942, 1959 and 2007. Teenaged girls are more sexualised in this day and age, so, to a certain extent, writing Mary like a naughty girl probably makes her more relatable to her age group than portraying her as the embodiment of pure innocence that she was in the 40s.

So as far as I'm concerned I have no issue with the way Mary Marvel and Supergirl look, or how they act, my issue is with the multitude of "bad angle shots" current artists feel they need to use for female character is comics at the moment, and this isn't an issue thats the preserve of Mary Marvel.

[Magneto_X]

Ok, so the skirt has got a touch shorter, but only by a few inches. And she's dressed in black, which clearly means she's far more sexualised than previously.


Wearing black = sexualised? :confused:

No wonder Batman always has chicks following him around. lol

[Magneto_X]

The thing is "The Next door girl" image has changed, has it not? Basically, who is this generation's Judy Garland (the woman/girl all mommas hoped their son would bring home)?

Anne Hathaway? Jennifer Love Hewitt?

[thehod]

Wearing black = sexualised? :confused:

I was being sarky.

Mary seems to be showing more flesh in her original outfit (check out the arms, and the neck) than in her current outfit. But she's wearing black, and as we all know black is so obviously the colour of the evil and depraved. :rolleyes:

[Michael P]

Why is it no one ever complained about how "Peter David's Supergirl" looked...? She, too, had the bare midriff.... Yet that version of Supergirl appears to be universally loved, while the one re-created by Loeb and Turner is hated.

That's something I could never understand.

Well, she was only in that outfit for the last third or so of the book. Less, maybe. Before that, she was in the outfit she'd always had (upper left in that group shot above). And she was never drawn as sexualized as Turner drew Kara, not even when Benes was on the book.

[Sabrinaset]

Wearing black = sexualised? :confused:


Maybe so ...

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f336/sabrinaset/af001.jpg

Maybe no!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f336/sabrinaset/af002.jpg

[bert]

http://www.chicagospankingreview.org/comicspage/mary_marvel_spank.jpg

[Jack Zodiac]

I knew it! Seriously, if you could fly, would you ever wear underwear? Fuck no! How awesome out that feel. I still think Superman whips it out whenever he passes a passenger plane, too.

[CutterMike]

)...)Lets look at Mary's first appearance and costume from Captain Marvel Adventures #18 ...and this is her current look...
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u224/CutterMike/Marvels.jpg
(Edit: Images here and immediately below were combined due to the CBR limit on the number of images allowed in a post. -M-)

Ok, so the skirt has got a touch shorter, but only by a few inches. And she's dressed in black, which clearly means she's far more sexualised than previously.

Supergirl?

First app ...Current version
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u224/CutterMike/Karas.jpg

Ok, again the skirt is shorter, but again, not by much more than a few inches, and the midrift is bared, but DC is only reflecting a societal change. (...)
Now, I'm not daft and I can see that in a lot of cases its not the costume that's the issue, but the artist manner of pose and (for want of a better phrase) angle of shot that the artist chooses to employ, but thats an artist issue, not a character issue. Lets make sure we seperate one from the other.

I think that part of it is the prominence of the breasts and the 18" waists - which accentuate the breasts and hips - in the current incarnations that jars some people, myself included. Now, part of the accentuation of the breasts is due to computer coloring, as opposed to the old mechanical method - it's easier to put highlights on them - and part is down to the characters aging (although current Kara has looked that way pretty much since day one), but part is down to the illustrators' conscious decision to present them in more physically mature and - sometimes - borderline fetishistic manners.

I would also point out that Supergirl's skirt, in the example shown, is not just "bare midriff" but is off of her pelvis and starts somewhere around her hip joints and just barely above her where her pubic hair should be. It actually reminds me of the work of William Theiss, who was the costume designer for the original Star Trek series. He was quoted in one of the "making of..." paperbacks about the female costumes and said something to the effect that NAKED is not sexy - looking like it's ABOUT TO BECOME naked is sexy. He would design "Sexy Female" costumes so that everything was covered, but looked like they might become uncovered with one wrong move. In the Supergirl picture, the skirt is drawn in a manner that makes it look like it might slip off at any moment. You may not CONSCIOUSLY note it, but UNCONSCIOUSLY that precariousness is there.

(...)Supergirl though is different. Sure, there's the Long skirt she was wearing in her first appearance, but honestly?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/6.5Supergirls.jpg

The pre-Crisis Supergirl definitely was presented more along the lines of current day Supergirl. The real difference isn't the length of the skirt (pre-Crisis Supergirl's skirt was just as short), but the fact that it rides so low.

I don't have a lot of my older magazines readily to hand, but I might buy that argument better if the examples were taken from books of the appropriate periods, drawn by the artists who drew those iterations of Supergirl. I can't guarantee it, but I would wager that the non-current versions all had less definition of the breasts and had folds and creases that made their costumes look more like clothing and less like body paint. Examples where the fabric should show folds would be "headband's" bent elbows and stretching of the material across the armpits and breasts of the back-left "leaning forward" Supergirl. The fact that ALL OF THESE are drawn by an illustrator who has the current aesthetic does nothing to prove your case that "it's always been like that".

I knew it! Seriously, if you could fly, would you ever wear underwear? Fuck no! How awesome out that feel. I still think Superman whips it out whenever he passes a passenger plane, too.

Actually, that would be a funny scene where some young meta- (think Power Boy, but less mature) moons an airliner at 30,000 feet.

[stealthwise]

Mac is 200% correct. Despite any of the good stories you can get out of shared universe and continuity, it's a much better situation to have books free to tell their own tells and only occasionally cross over, if at all.

Hell, I'm not even a big fan of long-term continuity.

[bert]

Mac is 200% correct. Despite any of the good stories you can get out of shared universe and continuity, it's a much better situation to have books free to tell their own tells and only occasionally cross over, if at all.

Hell, I'm not even a big fan of long-term continuity.

why not?

DC has done some beautiful stuff w/ Continuity (they've also fucked it up, but CoIE was amazing!)

[Jack Zodiac]

It really isn't that hard to use continuity and write good stories at the same time, and it shouldn't be impossible to ignore continuity for the sake of a good story. But for some reason, the past couple decades has been just fucking ridiculous with continuity-glue and, as my good man Mr. Rice says, "nerd-puzzles." A lot of the time, it just ruins whatever story is trying to make use of it.

[stealthwise]

why not?

DC has done some beautiful stuff w/ Continuity (they've also fucked it up, but CoIE was amazing!)

I like the concept of Hypertime or whatever the hell it was called, which basically just said that you can use whatever the hell you want and make whatever the hell story you need to tell without worrying about making everything fit together.

And if your best example of using continuity is more than 20 years old... well, there's a problem.

[Solaris]

...
QFT. I effin' HATE that our culture has become such that 'Good Girls' are no longer seen as viable heroines.


Nowadays, a "Good Girl" is one who is in control of her sexuality. These creators' "Bad Girls" are bad, because their sexuality controls *them*.

Which is a bass-ackwards form of DIS-empowerment of females... and a terrible role model for young teens, IMO, boys OR girls.

I spent 8-10 years trying to teach my girls (once they were old enough to discuss it), that THEY should be in the driver's seat, and know what the hell they're doing with the wheel, when they consider having sex.

THESE bozos are putting out a standard that "young hottie needs to BE young hottie... and devil take the hindmost."

Can I kick their teeth in yet?

[Solaris]

I think that part of it is the prominence of the breasts and the 18" waists - which accentuate the breasts and hips - in the current incarnations that jars some people, myself included. Now, part of the accentuation of the breasts is due to computer coloring, as opposed to the old mechanical method - it's easier to put highlights on them - and part is down to the characters aging (although current Kara has looked that way pretty much since day one), but part is down to the illustrators' conscious decision to present them in more physically mature and - sometimes - borderline fetishistic manners.

I would also point out that Supergirl's skirt, in the example shown, is not just "bare midriff" but is off of her pelvis and starts somewhere around her hip joints and just barely above her where her pubic hair should be. It actually reminds me of the work of William Theiss, who was the costume designer for the original Star Trek series. He was quoted in one of the "making of..." paperbacks about the female costumes and said something to the effect that NAKED is not sexy - looking like it's ABOUT TO BECOME naked is sexy. He would design "Sexy Female" costumes so that everything was covered, but looked like they might become uncovered with one wrong move. In the Supergirl picture, the skirt is drawn in a manner that makes it look like it might slip off at any moment. You may not CONSCIOUSLY note it, but UNCONSCIOUSLY that precariousness is there.



I don't have a lot of my older magazines readily to hand, but I might buy that argument better if the examples were taken from books of the appropriate periods, drawn by the artists who drew those iterations of Supergirl. I can't guarantee it, but I would wager that the non-current versions all had less definition of the breasts and had folds and creases that made their costumes look more like clothing and less like body paint. Examples where the fabric should show folds would be "headband's" bent elbows and stretching of the material across the armpits and breasts of the back-left "leaning forward" Supergirl. The fact that ALL OF THESE are drawn by an illustrator who has the current aesthetic does nothing to prove your case that "it's always been like that".

...


I remember Supergirl looking like this:


http://supergirl.astraldream.net/panels/superman%20family%20200-48.jpg

and even this:
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0817/20.jpg

Both are beautiful renditions/pics; neither has that "I'm wearing latex body paint for a costume" look.

[hellokittykat]

Can I kick their teeth in yet?

Sure ya can!:)
Just tell 'em 'Smile you son of a bitch!'

[Solaris]

Sure ya can!:)
Just tell 'em 'Smile you son of a bitch!'


Good. What kind of boots do you suggest for the teeth-kickin'---army boots, or steel-toed construction boots? I kinda lean to the latter... because I think they deserve shattered teeth, rather than having the tooth kicked clean out of their heads. It hurts more when you shatter them.


EDIT: And yeah guys, I know that sounds a bit harsh... until you realize just how "het up" I am over the idea that a bunch of guys are tearing down the idea of young women of strength, and replacing it with their own teen-girl bdsm fetishes wrapped around a whole lot of anger.

I think we've moved from refrigerators, to fetish dungeons... and not the nice kind. :mad:

[Magneto_X]

I like the concept of Hypertime or whatever the hell it was called, which basically just said that you can use whatever the hell you want and make whatever the hell story you need to tell without worrying about making everything fit together.

And if your best example of using continuity is more than 20 years old... well, there's a problem.

Maybe the Final Crisis will make it officially happen?

IIRC Morrison intended it to begin during his JLA run, and even Superboy (Connor Kent) had a storyline about it in his title, but for some reason DC just nixed it altogether and it was never heard from again.

[Magneto_X]

I remember Supergirl looking like this:


http://supergirl.astraldream.net/panels/superman%20family%20200-48.jpg

and even this:
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0817/20.jpg

All are beautiful renditions/pics; none have that "I'm wearing latex body paint for a costume" look.

Does anybody else think she looks like Alicia Silverstone? :D

[Cayman]

Does anybody else think she looks like Alicia Silverstone? :D

She looked like my dreams.

[Cayman]

I knew it! Seriously, if you could fly, would you ever wear underwear? Fuck no! How awesome out that feel. I still think Superman whips it out whenever he passes a passenger plane, too.

He also uses it to torment the poor Bottle City of Kandor.

[OzBat!]

Actually, that would be a funny scene where some young meta- (think Power Boy, but less mature) moons an airliner at 30,000 feet.It's been done: The Ray, in his ongoing series, at about 20,000 feet in front of a light-construct mirror no less, checking himself out in the buff and not realising he had an audience until the airliner flies by...

[Pink Bat Max]

http://www.chicagospankingreview.org/comicspage/mary_marvel_spank.jpg

So Mary Marvel is trying to transform back to Mary Batson, presumably 'cause she likes to FEEL it when she's gettin' spanked?

That's kinky.