May 30th, 2013
So the new X-Men book features an all-female X team. Hooray! Two of the five most interesting X-characters are women and lots of other female mutants are really interesting. Sign me up!
Unless . . . oh, ummm . . . hold up a sec . . .
Here’s series mastermind Brian Wood describing his process:
This is an action book. This is the straight-up action comic. Everyone is dropped into fight scenes and it never lets up. If there’s any one mandate, it’s “bigger and more.”
In a way, we this may be a milestone for gender equality–we finally have an all-female superhero team whose guiding creative purpose isn’t feminism *or* exploitation. It’s aimed exactly at the center of the low-brow mean.
Hurray?
I’m sure Slate’s XX will know what to think about this.
-
Honest criticism of far too many female comic book characters: All of these so-called “liberal progressives” like Conway, Lee, and O’Neil who wrote and created these icons years ago never came up with a female science / technology wiz.
Think about it, the biggest brains in Marvel are all men (Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Reed Richards, Black Panther, and Dr. Doom), same with DC (Bruce Wayne, Ray Palmer, Lex Luthor). The closest thing you get to a “Female Big-Brain” at Marvel is Valeria Richards, but at the age of 2, she’s more likely to be signed up for the girl scouts before handed an Avengers card. At DC, it was Barbara Gordon, but her return as “Batgirl” took much of that away.
When I’m building my ultimate superteam in my head, there’s a formula. There’s a natural leader. There’s the heavy-hitter. There’s a wildcard who hates authority. There’s a rookie who’s just glad to be there. There’s also a Big-Brain, who is master of tech and science.
If I’m making an all-female Avengers team, an all-female JLA, or an all-female X-Men, I wouldn’t know who would fill in that “Big-Brain” role because no one currently in any comic book universe fits it. Which honestly, is sort sad.
But hey, I’m not one of the many uber-liberals like Mark Waid, Brian Michael Bendis, Erik Larsen, and Kurt Busiek who write these books, so what do I know about advancements in feminism?
MF June 2, 2013 at 11:43 am
“We’re not gonna bring in dudes to bring up sales. It’s gonna be a powerhouse seller.”
Famous last words.