Alex goes to the comic shop, pt 2

[terra]

So sometimes I post on those giant comics messageboards. It can be cool, I've had discussions with creators/had Ed Brubaker tell me to stop being so continuity-obsessive, but oftentimes it reminds me what a cesspit of racism and misogyny the comics fandom can be. Like, yesterday, when I stumbled upon this gem of a post:

Marvel is loaded with strong and aggressive SuperHeroines. The negative quality of the Sue Storm's leadership is that portraying her as aggressive and extremely powerful makes her just another Marvel SuperHeroine. Some of us old timer guys still think that Sue is most effective when she emphasizes her traditional feminine qualities that she excelled at during the Silver Age (or should I say "Golden Age" of Stan and Jack), such as crying, screaming, acting afraid, being a wonderful mother, looking gorgeous, having to be saved by the men a lot, etc.

Yeah, this guy is confirmed not a troll, and several people either flat-out agreed with him, or parrotted his general thesis in slightly less blatantly offensive terms. (It's not that Sue can't lead because of her gender, it's because she's too much like a overemotional adulterous single mom!!) A fair number of sane people pointed out...you know, that this stuff is crazy sexist. But it just reminded me that one of the (many) reasons women are underrepresented in comics is because quite a few comics fans are misogynist toolbags. And one thing I can personally do to help counter this phenomenon is to buy a ton of comics featuring the ladies.

tl;dr rec me some comics involving womenfolk

Comments

[onlyoneflaw.livejournal.com]

I was talking to someone while reading it and they ended up getting like 30 minutes of me rambling about how angry I was with it. So, you're spared that here. But, for someone that's a long time fan of a few of those characters, it was just hideous in terms of characterization. Not to mention it's insulting that they couldn't do a comic with an all female cast without making everything sexual.

[rockpet.livejournal.com]

I knew it was either going to be holy ungodly terrible or weirdly good. Because it's Milo Manera and everything about his art is sexual the end. With the right writer, it works out. He did a Sandman story with Neil Gaiman that's pretty much the antithesis of this. There was sex in it, but the woman... behaved more like you would expect all of the ladies in the X-woman comic would have and should have behaved.

I did get a little pissed with what they did with Storm, even going in and knowing it was going to be terrible, so I completely understand how you feel.