mariness

A group of mothers protesting all those gay superheroes in Marvel and DC Comics.

A couple of reactions:

1. So, yes, I stopped being a regular Marvel reader years ago, but, seriously, am I actually expected to think that Northstar's marriage is going to influence anyone that much? Northstar's? I am willing to bet that about half the people reading this post, if not more, have no idea who Northstar is - and I have a relatively comics-aware readership.

I don't mean to be cynical. Ok, yes, I do mean to be cynical, but the entire Northstar marriage strikes me less as an attempt to influence society, and more as a desperate attempt to restore some sort of relevance or interest to the X-Men comic and drive up sales. Now, putting Cyclops and Wolverine together -- that's indoctrinating young minds. (And don't tell me Cyclops wouldn't be not so secretly into it.) Actually, let's go for that.

2. On a related note, unless Diamond (the major U.S. distributor of comic books) is lying to all of us, and let's face it, they might be, sales of Astonishing X-Men have been steadily dropping for some time now, although 2012 comic sales have increased relative to 2011 comic sales. I'm assuming the improvement is more thanks to a slightly improved economy, the recent DC reboot, and possibly some spillover from interest in the films.

But let us just say that if you are looking for actual influential images of superheroes in current media, you should be looking at films (hi, Avengers!) and not comic book media.

3. I gotta tell you: I can see Batman as bisexual. Absolutely. Let us, as comic readers and viewers, face it: his relationships with Nightwing, Joker and the various Robins? Oh, yeah. (Or, Hoo-yay!) But totally and only gay? Not so much. Oh, sure, I gotta say that the various strings of Bruce Wayne/Batman girlfriends are mostly there as camouflage, and I for one was convinced that in the last movie Rachel went for Harvey, instead of Bruce, because she knew Harvey was a) better in bed, b) more interested in her than Bat-toys, but, still. You can't tell me nothing is going on between Batman and Catwoman. Or Batman and Poison Ivy. Or Batman and any number of other masked criminals. Actually that's probably more what we should be focusing on, and not so much the gender of said masked criminals.

Aquaman gay though? This I TOTALLY SEE. Go for it, DC. Green Lantern, or I guess, more specifically, one of the Green Lanterns, gay? Sure. And if Wonder Woman turns out to be a lesbian deeply into various kinks -- come on, is anyone really surprised? I didn't think so.

4. Yes, this entire post, with its link to an article quoting Dan Slott, is in part meant as box_in_the_box baiting. What can I say?

Been a bit silent over here thanks to the need to focus on one of those irritating to frustrating to auugh I don't want to do this anymore I FEEL SICK Real Life Things, a project that has left me in the sort of mood where I could start a flame war about pretty much anything anywhere, which might be fun, but, probably unhelpful. (I sense that this will be a cue to many of you to start defending the squirrels or Milli Vanilli.)

To keep myself sane through this, I've finally gotten around to reading through all of the archives for Questionable Content. Long term readers will not be at all surprised to learn that this was the strip that won my hardened little cynical heart, but apart from the display of an Appropriate Squirrel Attitude, I have to say that Questionable Content reads much better when you do read it like this – through the entire archive, rather than in daily snippets; it's not just addictive, but surprisingly absorbing. (I found that when I was just catching strips here and there, it was amusing, but I had problems following what was going on, especially since some of the characters, especially in early strips, are easy to confuse visually if you aren't paying regular attention.)

(Plus, I kinda like to think I'm a bit like Dora. Admittedly I'm probably more like Faye, only less focused and with less interesting musical tastes, but, let's all spare me my illusions, shall we?)

In other bits, I note with amusement that BP is upset about a parody Twitter feed. Dudes, far be it for me to, you know, give you public relations advice, but I have to say that someone making fun of you on Twitter is probably the least of your problems right now.

Ah. Superman. Not only an illegal immigrant with a penchant for destroying valuable commercial property in his quest to arrest potentially innocent people on no more say-so than his unproven "X-Ray" vision, but also, as it turns out, a flaming liberal.

(I'm always fascinated when comic book heroes are dragged into political arguments in whatever era.)