Review: Superman/Wonder Woman #1

This post was adapted and expanded from some tweets I tweeted earlier. It is also getting cross-posted to Tumblr.

There was a guy at the comic book shop this evening when I went to pick up my comics. He's often there. He's kinda cool. I like him. We talked. He convinced me to buy a comic book that I would never in a million years have picked up otherwise. Superman/Wonder Woman #1. 

Disclaimer #1: This is the first DC book I've bought in forever. I can't even remember the last time I bought a DC book. 

Disclaimer #2: I have zero interest in Superman and Wonder Woman as a couple. The idea does nothing for me. In fact, when it was first announced, I found it kind of revolting and it left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Disclaimer #3: I hate Tony Daniel's art. 

Disclaimer #4: I expected to hate this in every way imaginable. But the dude was so enthusiastic about it. He said it was his favourite single issue of the year and he's a huge Wonder Woman fan and he was skeptical about the whole super-couple thing, too, and as far as I can tell, he's a discerning comic reader with a fine taste. So I thought, sure, why not?

Anyway, I read it. And it was... kinda meh? The art is exactly as bad as I expected it to be, but I kind of enjoyed the characters voices. Both of them. I think Charles Soule is a good writer and he has a pretty good grasp of these characters. As much as I can tell from a first issue anyway. He makes the super-couple idea work better than thought possible. I could almost buy the idea if I tried to forget that it's so completely unnecessary.

But where it fell apart for me was the panels where Superman and Wonder Woman kinda almost but not really have sex in silhouette with the red background, superimposed on the fight with Doomsday. There are at least three things wrong with just those two pages:

1. The silhouette thing is just cheesy and awful, not to mention that Tony Daniel apparently doesn't understand how silhouettes work. Like, he doesn't get the concept of characters being lit from behind? It would have been easy enough to set the scene in front of a window or by candle light or something, but no, they're actually lying on the bed and they're wearing clothes and the clothes are lit normally but their skin is pitch black for some reason? I don't even know if I'm explaining this properly but it makes NO SENSE.

2. It's just unnecessary. Like, yeah, we get it. They're a couple. They're dating. That implies that they're probably being intimate with each other in one way or another. If they had given us some gratuitous money shot, that would've been something. It would have been an awful thing, but still at thing. But this tacky softcore mildly suggestive interrupted coitus scene just adds nothing.

3. The whole cutting back and forth between violence and a (non-)sex scene... I've seen it before and I'm tired of it.

Aside from that, it was an okay issue with some decent writing and some mediocre-to-bad art. Also, Dooomsday, who is the most boring villain ever. 

Something I had forgotten about DC Comics that I really dislike: Those colour-coded captions for the interior monologues with the character logos. Like, yeah, I get it, it's Superman's thoughts. You didn't have to make it that obvious, I could've figured it out on my own. 

Also, I guess people still hate the Justice League in the New 52. Like civilians, I mean. Normal people inside the fictional universe. They hate super-heroes. Probably because super-heroes in the New 52 are jerks. That was something I really hated about the reboot but I figured it would have changed by now. Apparently not.

The more I think about this, the more I regret buying this comic. I also realize now that some part of me was genuinely (and almost secretly) hoping that this comic would surprise me and win me over. I really miss these characters. I haven't touched DC's books for ages but I wanted to read this and find out that I'd been missing something. I wanted DC to prove me wrong. But no, not reading DC comics was absolutely the right decision to make.

In a way, the fact that this comic book didn't turn out that bad in spite of everything is almost worst. If it had been a truly horrible comic with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, I'd just be like, whatever, DC sucks. But this was almost halfway decent. I could at least see that there was some potential there, but that just ends up being a total bummer because it's dragged down by the sheer DC-ness of it, by which I mean everything that I've come to associate with DC Comics since the New 52, like what a grim and depressing world it is and how awful and unhappy all the characters seem to be and the shitty Jim Lee clone art that's so dreary it makes you want to never look at a comic book again.

Ugh. Don't read the New 52, kids. It's depressing.

Is It Wednesday Yet? // Huntress, Batgirl, the New 52

If you've been paying attention to the comics blogs and news sites (and since you are reading this, I'm going to assume that you have), then you probably know that DC has announced a second wave of "New 52" titles along with other changes to their line, including some cancellations. As you might expect, some of the announcements were rather baffling. It was no big surprise that Hawk & Dove was cancelled, since it was undoubtedly one of DC's worst books and the sales were very low, but how could this possibly lead to artist Rob Liefeld being given not one but THREE books in exchange? It's really hard to understand how DC arrives at those types of decisions. I'm not going to waste any time speculating about it. The good news here is that the books Liefeld will be drawing are not books I would ever in a million years be tempted to read, so it's not like this has any effect on me at all.

Another bit of news had to do with the character of Huntress, who is currently starring in an eponymous mini-series written by Paul Levitz, and who will soon co-star with Power Girl in a new title by the same writer called World's Finest. What we learned about her is that she's not Helena Bertinelli, the character most fans are familiar with since she's been appearing in DC comics for the past 20 years, but Helena Wayne, her somewhat more obscure pre-Crisis equivalent. (Just read this post from DC Women Kicking Ass if you're confused.)

Why does this matter? As some people have pointed out, in the reboot, all characters have been changed, so this was never going to be the pre-New 52 Huntress, regardless of her name. That may be true, but clearly some characters are changing more than others. Bruce Wayne may technically be a few years younger than he was, and a few details from his early years as Batman may have changed, but if you're reading Scott Snyder's Batman, you know that he's pretty much writing him exactly the same way he would have written him in pre-52 continuity.

The point is, while there are a few New 52 books that I think are really good, almost all of them would have worked just as well in pre-New 52 continuity: Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Batwoman, Batman, Batman and Robin. The books and characters that have been changed the most - Teen Titans, Birds of Prey, Batgirl, Superman, Justice League - are of no interest to me, because they all feel like inferior versions of their predecessors. (The only exception is Wonder Woman.)

So now we have Huntress in her own mini-series, wearing essentially the same costume as in her pre-New 52 appearances, drawn gorgeously by Marcus To, going on an international mission to Italy where we find out that she's fluent in Italian. I hope you'll forgive me for assuming that this was Helena Bertinelli. And I was reading it in spite of the fact that the story is a freaking bore and some of it is vaguely racist, simply because this is one of the only female characters I liked from pre-New 52 DCU who survived unchanged and got her own book, so damn right I'm going to support it.

But, hey! What an idiot! I can't believe I fell for it. Of course she's not who I thought she was. She's Helena Wayne. A character I've never read before and don't really care about.

Why the change? Is it because she's more interesting if she's linked to Bruce Wayne? Is it because DC is more concerned with appealing to old men who used to read comics and maybe might be interested in reading them again if they feature characters they recognize?

I don't know. But I lost interest. I'm not even going to finish the mini-series. I'm done with that one.

*

Incidentally, I'm also done with Batgirl. I read this interview with Gail Simone and it annoyed me for a few different reasons I don't even really want to get into. But the short version is that I have no desire to read this book anymore. I was very much against the idea of Barbara Gordon not being Oracle anymore and the only reason I decided to read the new series was to give Gail Simone a chance to prove me wrong. I think five issues is more than a fair chance, and at this point I have read absolutely nothing that in any way justifies what they've done to the character. The story they are telling is not terrible. But it's just not worth what was lost. Not even close. I miss Oracle. I miss Stephanie Brown. And I miss Bryan Q. Miller.

The worst part is that Gail Simone keeps mentioning that Batgirl is the top-selling female solo book on the market, which I suppose is one way to measure it's success, and I feel like a goddamn tool for having contributed to that success. I bought the first five issues was so that I could judge it for myself and nobody could tell me I was bashing a book I hadn’t even read. Well, I read it, and I hereby judge it to be bad. If I could go back in time and un-buy those five issues, I would.

*

Oh, well. Here are some comics I will buy this week:

• Batman #5
• Wonder Woman #5
• Amazing Spider-Man #678
• Daredevil #8
• Superior #7

On Barbara Gordon's recovery (preliminary thoughts)

(This was originally posted on Tumblr, but it seemed substantial enough to repost here as well.)

I was going to wait until issue #4 comes out tomorrow - or possibly even until issue #7 in March, as based on the solicitation text it sounds like it’s going to be a big one - before writing anything about Barbara Gordon’s recovery from her spine injury, but since a lot of people are already reacting to the feature and preview in USA Today (and Gail Simone has reacted to some of the reactions), I want to share a few thoughts.

First, let me just say that this is an ongoing discussion about an ongoing story. While I understand where the kneejerk reactions from fans are coming from, I think it’s important to acknowledge that we only have small pieces of the puzzle. Until the full story of Barbara’s recovery has been told, we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions based on the little bits and pieces we’re getting. Gail Simone has stated many times that Barbara’s recovery is going to be explored in depth over a long story arc. Let’s just all keep that in mind, because otherwise it really undermines some of the very valid points that people are trying to make when the discussion gets derailed into an argument about whether or not we know the full story.
So here’s what we do know:

• In the New 52, Barbara was shot by the Joker, spent three years in a wheelchair, then went to a clinic in South Africa to get some kind of procedure done to repair her spine, regained the use of her legs and is now adapting to being Batgirl again and dealing with a little bit of post-traumatic stress disorder in the process.
• “Miracles” have been mentioned a lot in Batgirl, hinting that there is more to it than “just” a clinic in South Africa. It remains to be seen how that factors in, though.

So it’s a scientific/medical explanation, but the door is still open for a little bit of comic book fantasy “miracle” to play a part in it.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the discussion and controversy around the issue of Barbara’s recovery has focused on HOW she recovers. This is what Gail Simone herself has often emphasized in interviews, stating that treating that story of recovery with respect and a certain amount of realism was important to her as well as to her readers. (I’m paraphrasing from memory, so please forgive me if those are not her exact words.)

Now I don’t doubt that this aspect of the story is important for some people, and I’m glad that Gail Simone takes it seriously. But personally I don’t understand how this has become the central issue in the discussion. Granted, if we were given some really lazy or awful explanation for how Barbara recovered, it would probably make things even worse. But I don’t see how having a realistic and respectful portrayal of her recovery really makes things “better” for anyone who was hurt and upset by this change. At best, we can be thankful that insult is not added to injury.

As I’ve said in a comment on Barbara’s Not Broken, what it comes down to for me is very simple: There used to be Oracle; now there isn’t.

The important question which has so far been left unanswered (and is not even being asked, for the most part) is this one: What was Barbara Gordon up to during the three years she spent in the wheelchair? So far, there has been absolutely no mention of there having ever been an Oracle in the New 52 continuity. There is not evidence that Barbara was involved in crime-fighting in any capacity during those three years. Now, I’m sure we’re going to eventually find out more about what happened during that time, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Oracle will not be part of that story.
And for me, that is what’s upsetting. That is the real loss that I feel when I think about the fact that Barbara Gordon is back in the Batgirl costume. There used to be a character in DC Comics who was both disabled and a hero. Simultaneously! Now we have a character who was once a hero, then was disabled, and now is a hero again.

When we first found out that Barbara would be Batgirl in the New 52, one of the fears people had was that her whole history of having been disabled would be wiped out of continuity. (And that the almighty Alan Moore’s Killing Joke would be wiped out of continuity in the process.) But this, DC assured us, would not be the case. We were told this would be a story of recovery and survival and that everybody felt it was important to keep the disability in continuity.

But what DC seems to have missed is that it wasn’t just the fact that Barbara was in a wheelchair that made her such an important and inspiring hero for a lot of people - it was the fact that she was also a hero. Keeping the disability but removing the heroic part of it seems even more problematic to me than simply wiping it out of continuity.

And that’s what I’m worried about and what I’m waiting to find out about as I continue to read Gail Simone’s Batgirl series. Sure, the story of how Barbara recovered is interesting. But there are other (in my opinion more important) questions that I hope will be answered in the story.