In Your Face Jam - Feb 6, 2013

[doordoor123]

LOL funniest article I almost read.

[klynn]

If the Brian Wood "X-Women" book (sorry, Brian) is successful I think that it is likely that we will also see a similar all-female Avengers book. There are certainly enough female Avengers that could support such a title.

Kelly Sue Deconnick could quietly turn Avengers Assemble into this. ;)

[Elric of Grans]

I only started reading American comics last year. I do not know why, but I seem to be strongly drawn to serials with female leads over male leads.

In current titles, I am reading a few, mostly New 52. Batwoman is absolutely fantastic, in art, story and characterisation. It is one of the titles I most look forward to each month. Batgirl is OK, but I felt Barbara was mentally stronger when she was Oracle. I enjoy Supergirl --- far more than the other current Super-family titles --- as she is presented in a thoroughly believable and interesting character. Birds of Prey started off with a lot of promise, but has been quite disappointing. Wonder Woman is very disappointing. The plot is excellent, and the artistic direction interesting, but my God Wonder Woman herself is terrible. She is so flat and poorly written that removing her would probably improve the comic! The current Catwoman is appalling: I cannot believe the editors have allowed that abomination to continue for so long! I am not surprised Sword of Sorcery was axed; I read it for a few months, but felt the writing was terrible and dropped it.

In Marvel, I have read this first issue of Fearless Defenders. My first impression is that the series is pulpy and immature. I will read a few more issues, but I suspect the writing will make this a failure to me. I dropped the previous X-Force, as I felt the writing was average. I am trying the new one, but am again not gripped by the first issue. I tried Captain Marvel, but it did not engage me, so I dropped it a while back. At the present, I feel Marvel's female characters are suffering at the hands of poor writing. Joss Whedon's Kitty Pryde was one of my favourite comic heroines, so there can be no faulting the base material, only the writer who works with it.

For independents, I am currently reading the Fathom series. Sure, not the best writing around, but I like the setting. I am a big fan of Gold Digger. Now, admittedly, every character probably belongs in Arkham, but still ;) Fables (I am only a few volumes in so far), in my opinion, has some great female characters. Snow White is, to me, the main character and I have absolutely loved every scene with her. Bionic Woman has been quite good, so far, with a great central character and an interesting setting. I am a little split on Red Sonja and Vampirella. Both feature protagonists who are drawn as eye-candy, but they are also strong and independent. Vampirella was probably at its best (in the current run) when she had a Doctor Who-esque companion, but they are both surprisingly engaging heroines. Mind the Gap has been an interesting series so far, with a fascinating plot and a well-written protagonist. Revival is much the same as Mind the Gap, with a fascinating plot and fantastic characters. I also find the art in Revival to be thoroughly refreshing. I tried Hack/Slash, but did not overly enjoy the first volume --- it just did not engage me.

In older titles I am working through, I have started reading Simone's Birds of Prey. This has, from the little I have read so far, been an excellent series, and far better than the current run. The loss of Oracle hurts the current series, and Black Canary was far stronger and more driven in the old series. I have also read a little of the old Catwoman, which makes the current one an utter embarrassment. How could something so good be made so bad? The old Power Girl series was fantastic, and it is a real shame to see that DC did not keep it going. Both as Power Girl and her `human' persona, she was strong, driven and thoroughly entertaining. I just recently read Perez' Wonder Woman run and could not believe how amazing that was. It really puts the current series to shame as it presents a believable figure. A fully three dimensional woman who we can relate to and be drawn into the story of. That is probably be best female lead comic I have read so far.

To me, this is one of the biggest issues with American comics. Characters/serials are regularly passed from one creative team to another (unlike other areas, where this is rare-to-unheard-of). As such, no matter how good a character can be, if the editors put that character into the wrong hands, it can be an abysmal failure. The big two focus on milking their 70-year-old a-list characters. Sometimes this works well --- I would say Grant Morrison has done a lot of good for Batman --- but it can also be a disaster (eg every second Wonder Woman run). The editorial teams need to use their creative talent better. If they have a team that would write an amazing female Green Lantern, let them do it. If they have a team that would be better set to a new, original title, let them do it. It would be far better to try something new for a few months and sink it than try something old and sink something you have invested decades into.

[Hehey]

I'm only reading Journey Into the Mystery, which has been great so far and the art is amazing. I was gonna pick up Captain Marvel but then i saw the preview for issue 1 and decided not to, i got the impression that this was going to be one of those books that was going to be preaching at you about sexism and girl power all the time and didn't want to subject myself to that kind of thing.

I'm not interested in Red she Hulk because it has "Hulk" on the title. I feel the same way about the Hulk franchise as i do the Green Lantern fraqnchise over at DC, aka indifference, im just not interested.

[renne]

Spider-Man won't get axed if a few folks trade wait and get Red She Hulk.

THIS.

your avengers and iron mans and spider-mans and thors and captain americas are always going to be there.

marvel pumps out a bunch of female or minority-lead books with middling creative on them saying "well this is what you wanted!" and then complain that clearly it's not what people want when the books don't sell. they get cancelled, marvel gets to say "i told you so" and instead we get to see another dozen spider-men, etc books instead. because people will always buy that shit, even if they don't care about it.

if we got these books with great creative teams, it would be a completely different story. but as it is, unless one of these books is a secret sleeper hit, they're being set up to fail by marvel not giving them the same kind of push as everything else.

as an aside, ii could be wrong, but apart from the new books (fearless defenders and x-men, and UXF i guess since it's majority female team) none of the existing women-lead titles were pushed with the marvel now(!) rebranding, were they? unlike most of the male-lead titles?